Relentless Ranting...

Web 2.0, 3.0 ....N.0 (AKA How I learnt to love Google and say No to versioning of Web at the same time)!

2006-11-19T02:06:00.002-05:00

Some one forwarded me this NYT article on Web 3.0. The man who created this Buzz word called Web 2.0 and defined it in his blog, Tim O'Reilly, promptly responded to this article. As some one who thinks he works in semantic web and web 2.0 and Web services based on SOAP, I got a few thoughts too. Thanks to Web 2.0 and collective intelligence, I have blog to rant out.
There is now this huge debate on Web 2.0 and Semantic Web. On one hand, it is so surprising to see the research community pay so much attention either towards aligning to Web 2.0 or towards demonstrating the separation their work has from this "Marketing Buzz word". It doesnt happen often. This proves the validation of the things that make Web 2.0 towards scientific research in a way.

Tim's blog captured a popular perception and belief that Web 2.0, as defined by Tim in his blog, is indeed a big first realistic step towards realizing the semantic web. I agree and disagree with the note that Steve wrote. Web2.0 as it stands today is not semantic web in entirety. However, it is a first and important step. The technology concepts like Ajax should not be seen as the only defining points of Web 2.0. A lot of web applications, use fancy UI and rebrand themselves as web 2.0, conveniently ignoring the important aspect called "Harnessing Collective Intelligence.". Again Semantic Web is not just in OWL or RDF but rather in modeling that collective intelligence in a manner that is usable and understandable and extensible by everyone else.
Its a bit surprising that some one like Steve would project the impact of SOAP as far as Web 4.0. It is not hard to see SOAP being used as the choice XML format in communicating for REST. Its just a matter of time before some one came up with a js implementation of SOAP. That would give us to use the message level features of SOAP more on demand on the client side as and when needed. Create SOAP payload when needed and just pump the POX other times.
This post will continue...

Scoop

2006-08-16T05:29:00.000-04:00

If I were in california i will watch soohp at Century Riverside 12
2:00 6:55

Bush says "Shit". So what!!

2006-07-17T16:07:00.001-04:00

Bush caught off-guard in chat with Blair.This was a headline in CNN and the video is on the CNN site. There is a frikkin war building up and CNN flashes this!!!! My Goat posting makes so much more sense now. The post below is new as well!

Travails of a lonely traveller

2006-07-17T15:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks to too many other things going on, I havent had the time to write anything in this space. But the things that happened as I travelled from Grand Central to White Plains on Sunday compel me to rant.
I was coming back from the city and got into MTA North fast train to white plains. There was a slow train about 20 minutes earlier, but my decision to wait was for best and the worst. I always look for an empty pair, 2 seats opposite of each other or an empty row, so that I can strech and travel. I chose one such seat and being a fast train, with first stop at WP I figured out I will be in luxury till I reach home.
Not so lucky!
A dude comes, smiles at me and asks any one coming here? I told him, "No". Honesty sucks as I realized in a very short while. He sits next to me. I was reading and my iPOd was plugged on. He taps me gently (very very weird!!!) and I remove my phones.
Him: Were you working at UN?
Me: No. I volunteer sometimes.
Him: Were you there yesterday, afternoon around 2?
Me: Yes I was.
Him: I remember you! You were talking about the middle-east. Are you jewish?
Me: (Wondering how on earth he came up with that question) No. I am not.
Him: Ok! So where are you from?
Me : India.
Him: Oh! (Talks about bombay blasts) Is your family safe?
Me: Yes. They live on the southern coast, in Chennai.
Him: Nice. Would you mind if I asked you what music are you listening to?
Me: (Thinking why did I wait for this train? Why was I honest about the seat) Indian music.
Him: I love indian music, Bhangra (pronounced in a manner that bears no resemblance to the way it is pronounced). Is it Bhangra?
Me: No. Its Indian filmi music
Him: Bollywood?
Me: No south Indian.
At this point it was white plains. I get up and run out as the train crossed hartsdale, and escaped the moment the doors opened.
As I ran, I was thinking, about the weird notions of socializing and interactions that we have come up with. and also about the common belief that Americans are not snoopy!!
And what if I had taken the slow train and this kinda guy had come there as well? I would have to endure that for an hour.
Plus why is my luck so lame that I get guy strangers snooping? There was a real good looking (Hot!!!!) girl (chick) who was on the other side? Why did the "I wont allow privacy" devil that entered this morons head, chose not to enter that girl's head?
SOme questions are harder to answer :(.

As if the goat even cares

2006-06-24T04:21:00.000-04:00

This is very funny. In line with the Royal British tradition and reported by American media in its pursuit for meaningless stories...
Read about the Goat

Expert rank by Ask!!!

2006-06-22T02:24:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been reading a lot about the expert search by Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves.. the poor butler was fired in february.) The word expert rank and clustering have been making a lot of noise. Personally I still wonder if people really used anything else other than google for search. May be to try out, but when there is money in the line, its google. In fact even says how many people from Redmond use google. (Click here for more info on this) Close my eyes and I can see Steve Ballmer fuming!
Anyways coming back to expert rank, I decided to ego surf and see the relevance... after all I know which pages are relevant to me and which are not. There cannot be a better expert. Feel free to click on the images to view the results in a readable size. All I can say is the experts that rank Ask are way way way off.. The first page of results, nothing even is remotely relevant. The first link is an outdated page that doesnt event exist anymore. The second is a class report of some project... yikeees it pulls pages of other people that are related to me but not my home page !!!!!! On the other hand, google does a neat job... 10 out of 10 results are relevant. My home shows first, my DBLP next and my blogger...
The lesson: "Dont Ask when you can google!!!"

Movie review: United 93

2006-05-03T05:50:00.000-04:00

After the move to New York, starting at IBM Research and the usual yada yada, I got sometime to catch United 93. The emotions, the chaos, the fear of terror and the courage in the middle of it all...the movie captures each and everything. The dialogs , cameras panning very unusual angles, the movie itself jumping from one location to another all getting the desired effect. The inefficiency of this administration in response to the terror act, subtly captured unlike the over the top "Fahrenheit 911", couple of years ago. The movie opens with Koranic verses, intersperses Koranic verses to create an excellent dramatization of Islamic terror. Also surprising was that CNN got to the WTC before any ATC or NSA could realize what was happening. Media is indeed very powerful in this age and this movie depicts it with all subtlety. The last 20 minutes or so really nailed it.The ending very poignant. The only bad part was the background score. I felt the power of silence was never used and especially when you want people to see, feel and ponder what is going on, it is best to leave things quiet. But still a movie worth the watch.

Apple gets on offensive and Google goes 3D

2006-05-03T00:13:00.000-04:00

Why need a Mac? Apple gets on the offensive against PC's. Just when people were wondering about windows on macs and MS domination in the years to come, this is a nice PR offensive. It has most of things we know. One big reason is missing though, for not getting a Mac.. Frikkin cost. I get a Dell XPS M140, neat and slick for under a grand. Will apple start an price war as well?
And after dominating search and speading their wings to email, chat and the sundries, google is getting to the design game with Google Sketch. Pretty neat. Fly to 100 Stone Mill Run Apt 69, Athens, GA 30605 to see my sketchup.

Anything can happen in The Playoffs

2006-05-01T15:13:00.000-04:00

Surprises.. more and more.

Lakers ahead of Suns 3-1. Not quite unexpected with a someone called Kobe wearing the gold and blue..The unexpected part is the Kobe that shows up for each of these games. Not the your 81 point, give me the ball all the time Kobe that played all 82 games. Its a different Kobe. A Kobe that passes the ball around, has Nash-like assist numbers... The Kobe that is going to be very dangerous given his almost at will shooting prowess..and the Suns are seeing it for real!!! and If this aint make him the best, then what else will !!!!.

And the Spurs. The zing that makes them what they are, the perimeter shooting, the Parker-Ginobli drives all missing. Add to Ron Artest being Ron Artest on court, the series is tied at 2-2. So much for a 4-0 annihilation... Me is not very happy.

Nets and Pacers are battling it out in mediocrity. Not one game on national TV should tell a lot about what people expect. Me predicts neither is beyond round 2.

With Lebron getting over some blushes, the Cavs can now nail the turn-over addicted wizards finally.

East:

Pistons kill Bucks (4-0 or 4-1) Leading 2-1 at the cost of Rip

Cavs Beat Washington (4-3 or 4-2)Tied 2-2

Nets beat Pacers (4-3)Tied 2-2

Heat beat Bulls (4-2 or 4-1) Leading 2-2

West:

Spurs kill Kings (4-0 or 4-1)Tied 2-2

Mavs beat Memphis (4-2)Leading 3-0

Clippers beat Nuggets (4-3 or 4-2) Leading 3-1

Suns beat Lakers (4-1 or 4-2) Trailing 1-3

Let them games roll on...

Playoffs are here (Updated after Monday)

2006-04-23T05:01:00.001-04:00

NBA playoff's are here. In my view, this how its going to play out (I have fairly good prediction record... I predicted Steelers to win, although I thought they would nail Carolina than Seattle...I shouted out loud "The Eagle cant fly" last year and that Vinatieri would nail the Carolina Panthers two years back.. Then I missed the fact that Justin Timberlake would un-nail Janets top)... Back to the current topic

Before anything Check this TNT promo. Class act!!!

East:

Pistons kill Bucks (4-0 or 4-1) Leading 1-0 at the cost of Rip

Cavs Beat Washington (4-3 or 4-2) Leading 1-0

Nets beat Pacers (4-3) Trailing 0-1

Heat beat Bulls (4-2 or 4-1) Leading 2-0

West:

Spurs kill Kings (4-0 or 4-1) Annhilation begins

Mavs beat Memphis (4-2) Leading 1-0

Clippers beat Nuggets (4-3 or 4-2) Leading 2-0

Suns beat Lakers (4-1 or 4-2) Leading 1-0..Kobe doesnt show up

This week shall tell ...

Confidence with Conscience

2006-04-23T03:55:00.000-04:00

When you know your capabilities and achievements, you are clear as pure crystal about what you are saying and know that you can back it up with your actions, you can claim 'I am proud to say that I am a matchwinner'. Awesome V.V.S. There is more to your subtle class on the crease, we love now... Your brutal honesty.

Musician vs. Sound engineer

2006-04-17T15:48:00.000-04:00

This is a classical problem. A musician is never happy with the sound and a sound engineer is never happy the way the musician is singing into the microphone or playing ! This saturday I had to preform in a well set auditorium and since the sound guys also were from the same place, we went about an hour early. The state of the art was pretty pathetic to say the least (Gosh!! they had like 4 leads all on one side and after a synth, rPad, tabla and violin the rest of the guys had to play on mic...) So in all curiosity, I ask the sound guy about the number of channels he has on this state of the art mixer. The guy with all pride says 16..(Even cheap keyboards come with more lines .. Cool edit has 64!!). I add up the number of lines and come up with other 11. I ask him so we get 11, who gets the other 5? (When you are 15 minutes from start and your instrument is not getting monitored and your skills are not so great and you need a monitor... all these and's make you think out of the box). The dude replies, "Brother, I aint got nothing more..."... Then the flare up.. The composer gets ticked off at this and walks off, the pacification.. man i cannot but remember Smrithi, another show.. where we got a Roland for ourselves ... on the flop side cannot forget Bombay grill where a decent Sony box was abused... or this years India Nite, where despite an acoustically handicapped audi, the sound was way better than it ever has been....

What is with sound guys? All they got to do is get the numbers and get them straight. Especially, when the musician is as talented as Sandeep, the guy we were perfroming with, all you gotta do is stop thinking and start listening.. Well when jerks can screw A.R.Rahman, whaat me? Whaaaat violin....

Now or never

2006-04-11T15:33:00.000-04:00

If this news is really true, its now or never for the world to react. Nuclear arsenal in the hands of Iranians (also synonym with terror, terrorists and any this else equal.. For more evidence read this , this or this and many more) is a disaster for the world!! Where are we headed towards?

I am no hate spreader. I am more the paranoid kind and paranoia tells me that wrong weapons in wrong hands is not a happy sign. May be India was correct in regard to IAEA dumping ( Faux News version of the story) and as always the commies back home, wrong !!!

Final nail in the Apple coffin

2006-04-05T16:36:00.000-04:00

Celebrating 30 years of the Mac? Something to spoil your day can be found here. More on this later...

crash

2006-03-29T13:29:00.000-05:00

I finally finally go to see Crash, the best movie at the Oscars. Will it be known as the movie that Crashed Brokeback's party or will it be remembered as a a classic tale of racism in the new world? I saw the movie more than once, and I think its going to be a bit of both. By story and by performances, the movie is terrific. The paranoia about immigrants, be is asians, mexians whatever, the movie captures it all. Add to it the classic portrayal of the african-american cop by Don Cheadle the movie seems to have it all. But just as many movies that seek to portray realism, even Paul Haggins seem to have been bitten by the same bug, multiple times. The place when Terrence Howard is pulled over and the cop runs his hands all over her, seems to have been over-dramatized. The narrative style of seemingly different stories with common points of intersection lacks off at places one too many... Not straightforward....

Is it better than brokeback mountain? I dont think so. Simply because Brokeback was much better directed, despite the snail pace never slacked off.. Crash is good but not quite there.

Here is to SK

2006-02-21T04:15:00.000-05:00

This is my 50th post... This one is for that genius getting wet in Seattle...Now I do expect a comment ..here is the humble beginning of yet another blogger . It has been fun till now...with all the picture blogging and yada yada yada.. the never released open source tool, blogging from heathrow after another missed flight...
bad post but yea whaaat blogging and whaatt blogger?

Whaaaaat Secularism?

2006-02-21T03:48:00.000-05:00

Some danish cartoonist, some prophet mohammed, some cartoon and boy o' boy some murderous muslims all over the world...some ganesha, some toilet paper, some ram, some sandal, some godhra, some murder, boy o boy some uptight hindus..
My initial reaction was on the lines of how hindus should react the next time something happens.. Some thought, some more thought and I am proud to say I am a hindu now even more than ever. But for some blips in Godhra and Ayodhya, which till date the "secular" leaders keep harping about, my religion has been successful in teaching us the virtues of tolerance. The virtue that moguls could never kill, virtue that cheap marketing men cannot kill and virtues the likes of commies and congress can never kill.
Coming back to the cartoonist, here is a news item I read that made me turn in my stomach...

Lucknow, Feb. 17: Haji Yakub, a Samajwadi Party minister in Uttar Pradesh for minority welfare and the Haj, has announced a cash reward of Rs 51 crores for the head of the cartoonist who had made the offensive cartoon of Prophet Muhammed.

The insulting cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper, and then republished in other European newspapers, sparking off Muslim indignation and anger across the world. Haji Yakub added that the person who brought him the head of the cartoonist would be given gold equivalent to his weight.

“The person who has insulted the Prophet does not deserve to live and anyone — irrespective of his nationality — who eliminates the cartoonist will be rewarded with a cash prize of Rs 51 crores and gold equivalent to his weight,” the minister said while addressing a gathering of Muslims who were demonstrating in Meerut on Friday to protest against the offensive cartoons.

Although the minister said he had made the announcement not as a minister, but as an “honest Muslim”, he later said that he had made the statement after consulting the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav

Firstly we have an elected leader declaring a fatwa. Something I dont think the Indian Constitution agrees with. He has done in capacity as a "honest muslim". The key point to note here is the fact that Mr. "Muslim Ass Tastes So Sweet" Yadav has agreed to it.
Here is an outright murder call that some how the secularists dont seem to care about. Saraswati who in fact is respected as divine, (For all we care, Prophet Mohammed is just a prophet, not divinity), was portrayed by a pervert 90 odd year old artist, and when there were protests, again no killing, just protests, the secularists got awakened.
2. When it was said "It aint godhra then it aint Gujarat", some "Must have been a momma in some country Italian backyard", retorted strongly about motives and yada yada yada. Now the same "Italian momma's" Pizzeria boys in power call for rational thought, again no action, just call for a thought, when this cartoon contro came up.

I just have one last question here: Mr. President, is there anything you do apart from asking young boys to glitter and young girls to shimmer, signing off on turbaned old hags dismissal petition and taking about vision 2020?

Whaaaaat secularism? Whaaaaat economy? When your nation's army is subjected to secular profiling, because some one's brother could not get into the airforce in 1965,that says a lot about secularism. In this context whaaatttt MIT?

Finally the new middleware is upon us

2006-02-20T18:33:00.000-05:00

After some initial playing around with the Axis 2.0 engine, the new architecture for the METEOR-S Dynamic Configuration Middleware is something that is truly cool. Extending an open source app like Axis gives us lot of credibility in terms of realizing Dynamic Process Configuration. We got some neat testing numbers too. To sum it up, it was worth some sleepless nights, taco-bell dinners, and the worst of all De-Caf's. Check out the demo soon .

More about other things like AJAX, Mashups later..

Hiatus over

2006-02-15T06:13:00.000-05:00

It has been quite long. Things seem to happen and time seems to be short. Back home UPA seems to have gotten into the "while (1){commit blunder;}" mode. Buta Singh, Saudi king and Raj Ghat, now Muslim census in the armed forces, airport privatization and on and on ...
Ok the last one, commies take the blame. Commies.. "A group of people who thrive on the ignorance of the masses and wants that to continue; A group of people who have mastered the art of hypocrisy; A group of people with an objective to realize collective social moronity and who hate any intelligent arguments; A bunch of famed losers who still hold on to Karl Marx and Lenin;". Alrite, now before I get an "Facts before you speak from my commie buddies", hypocrisy is justfied amply by the single surving commy power in the world and one eastern state that believes red is the only color. China has mastered the art of capitalism. Only that it exploits capitalism. The whole notion of buying power, consumer based economy which the Commies hate, is what this country thrives on. Not that I have anything against the chinese (the chair I set, the keyboard I use to type this... dang everything around me has a bit of China in it).. But their whole concept of living off something they preach to hate is what irks me. In India, the CM of West Bengal goes all out sycophancing the Wipros and "American Bosses", at the center they seem to have a single motive of stalling everything. With expected boom in air travel to India, decent airports are the need. 40 plus years of "Non-Aligned" Russian friendship has left combined with the "Corruption shall prevail" approach has left us in a state of abjectly poor infrastructure and now when there is a consious effort the commies come in...Thought for Conspiracy theory folks: May be commies are colluding with the chinese. China sees India as a threat and is using our commie morons to stall whatever they can. you cannot rule it out... watch this space for more.

BTW When you are really that old and depend on the pace maker, the last thing is hunting that too without getting the needful permissions. If you do that, then Cheney should be spelt as "HEAD".

Desert Blue: Simple yet powerful

2005-11-24T09:20:00.000-05:00

Stuck to only 2 channels at home, I got a chance to see Desert Blue on RTE TWO. It was very simple yet powerful. Story about an unknown town called Baxter, where Peter Sarsgaard in his endeavor to put the town on map creates the worlds largest ice cream cone. He aspires to create a ocean park but a big cola conglomerate spoils his plans. Coming to town are a professor and his daughter. The professor is interested in America's road side attractions and his daughter, Kate Hudson as Skye Davidson is a hollywood bred. She meets Brandon Saxton III as Blue Baxter. The story is beautifully set in classic rural America. The place has no cable, no cell phones. Revolves around the people in this town, max cast would be say 15 people. It captures the simplicity in their lives and their needs. I would recommend this movie to some one that wants a simple movie, yet powerful in dialogs and message. Time to revisit Maniratnam's classics.

Classifying Music: Workarounds but a starting point

2005-11-23T16:42:00.000-05:00

First off get ID3 Editing API for Java. Download songs in groups, like say I downloaded by movie. Use File manips to rename all downloaded file name to mean what the song is ie song name. Now use the ID3 api to modify the ID3 tag details like artist, composer, genre and yada yada yada. Since you are editing a logical grouping, the annotations wont change. For example, a folder with all ARR songs, will have genre Rahamanisque, composer ARR and so on. What I proposed earlier is more about adding more meta-data. Genre will not be Rahmanisque but a URI to Rahmanisque. ARR wont be there instead an URI will be there and so on. In fact ID3 evolution is quite interesting. If only there is some way computer science can extend a day by a few hours...

Classifying music : Why Tim Berners Lee made so much sense in ISWC.?

2005-11-23T15:33:00.000-05:00

I try to abstain from blogging about stuff I do in my research and today I wanted to do something and I realized how semantics can change the way we do things...
The task is simple: Classify all the MP3's I have from time so long ago into artists and genres. I began to use WinAmp to do the job manually for each file and surprisingly the stupid thing doesnt save the genre information. I wanted a genre called Rahmanisque. Come on one cannot box the genius of ARR into a blues r rap r jazz r classical r folk r anything... Same with the songs of the God (read as Ilayaraja). I had to type for each and every song. I downloaded some API to annotate using Java... Small piece of code and still I had to enter, although I found a way around. Now if we all had an ontology of genres, define what each genre means, then all one has to do is to search for the most appropriate genre from this and add it to mp3. Now think about extending this over some P2P sharing like Kaaza or even a point share system like cooltoad or even something thing like blinx or singing fish. Voila we can no longer worry about how Agni Natchatiram is spelt (AgniNatchatram, Agni Nakshatram and so on), but still get what we want. It is not all that difficult. Now each person can build his own ontology and then shares with a community. In the case of music, the community is possibly the fans. Best place to start would be the recording companies, who along with the numerous DRM crap that they want to dish out, can add this information. MP3's have already enough places to capture metadata using ID3. Now extend ID3 to hold more information. Information sharing now needs motivation more than technology. One issue is, once something like this is initiated, we will soon have people writing papers about automatically annotating content and the skeptics will rule over. Scalability, linguistics yada yada yada.... But certainly a manual meta-data addition is not hard. I added meta-data for 10 songs in 2 mins. Now 10 people for 2 mins a day and we have 3000 songs. If we can get 2000 man minutes, that is about 10000 songs a day. Semantic content sharing may not be that hard afterall...
Tim Berners Lee's talk about how ontology creation, perceived more as a social exercise can lead to creation of such a comprehensive shared resource got me thinking..Something for music would be so cool ...

Media: Dishing out more BS than ever

2005-11-17T11:22:00.000-05:00

I happened to read this article about coaching geniuses. Had names like Bill Belichick, Phil Jackson and et al. Comes to a grand conclusion, "There is no such thing as coaching genius".
I definitely dont agree with passing this verdict on Bill Belichick, the venerable man under the headset on the New England sidelines. 3 super bowls in 4 years, the first one with a QB by name Tom Brady, the second one with offensive line banged up and no running game, the third one with the defense banged up. All three times a defensive back by the name of Vrabel had touchdowns. You cannot talk about his genius after one 5-4 season. For god's sake the season is not over yet. So what if the Colts beat them Monday Night? Remember Brady has never lost in the dome and road to SuperBowl passes through the dome !!! Remember as the season goes on the Pats going to get more and more healthier..Remember Mike Shanahon does not have a John Elway... Talking about coaching genius even before the season ends shows the lack of sensible content for these never ending journos to talk about.. Just another example of creating news when there none and as Reverend Eric Cartman puts in "When you create news that did not happen, all you get is crap worse than the one you get out of you back!!!"

Losing perspectives

2005-11-17T10:13:00.001-05:00

The recent Kushboo contoversy about pre-marital sex being ok as long it is safe, is being talked all over in the context of culture. Honestly, I am proud of the conservative culture of Tamil Nadu with Chennai lately falling prey to "Development". However the joy of walking the mornings in Triplicane with those suprabhatams echoing from each household, the morning coffee, the hindu paper, the prayers, hmm simple things have defined our identity. Things like pre-marital sex have never been and should never be discussed in public. What is Kushboo trying to say?
As much I disagree with the whole discussion on abortion by the federal government, I disagree with Kushboo's remarks as well.
That it is offensive to tamilians has been overstated by the those people claiming to safeguard the tamil culture. That they are morons and politicians waiting to exploit the emotions need not be stated. and that they will never be successful by crying foul at english names for tamil films, and these kind of remarks as long as tamilians remain the sensible voters they are, (Come on we are so much better than the rest of the country. How often have we had a Laloo or a Mayawati or a Mulayam or a Dharam Singh???), these people can never get to be the policy makers.
It is also offensive that she had to say this in public for economic and social reasons. The key word in her remark " Pre-marital sex is ok, as long as they are SAFE". Now, SAFE is a big question... What percentage of people know what Safe sex is? In a country where going and buying a condom is still considered under the blanket, how many of them will really be riding the risk factor?
Now given the immaturity of the modern Indian economy, can we afford teen pregnancy?
A society that still views divorced women with an attitude, can it accept single mothers? Will schools be courages enough to break taboos and give places to children of poor single moms? Poor is important for the rich can buy their way through.
There are lot of aspects to oppose to what she said than just culture. For once, can we let our heart keep quiet and let the brains talk?

Funny yet thoughtful

2005-11-11T17:15:00.000-05:00

At a time when religions are getting more and more into marketing themselves, you cant help but laugh at this funny one.

Curious case of Sachin Tendular Part 1

2005-11-11T16:22:00.001-05:00

I worship SRT. I lived my days in the last decade of last century yearning for his blade to compose a symphony that he also is capable of. I still worship him in the days of Dhoni's and Kaif's. As they say, pretenders can be many but the Emperor one. Sachin will always be the Emperor and a stupid tennis elbow and a bunch of idiosyncratic morons pretending to be expert columnists cannot change that. Fed up with all the talk about Sachin not being a matchwinner I did some research and found this link, that says a story to the contrary. (There is no Ganguly in here.. I dont understand why people cant have meaningful anchors !£$%) Sachin's average in winning games is second only to the "I bat late and not outs boost my average" Michael Bevan. Among genuine batters, he is right there. 28 of his 100's and 42 of his 50's have come in a winning cause that, accounted over a period of time, when there was one batter called Sachin Tendulkar is an accomplishment, that should make the "fake cricketers who now write columns in poor english" to just shut up. Add to it the 86 wickets and 57 catches the picture is all round complete. 56 times he has been the Man of the Match when India has won and in world cup 2003 he had MoM's along with the batter of the tournament.
On the contrary when Sachin has failed so has the team, however despite him having a decent 32 average in lost games the team could not play around him. Now if the rest 10 refuse to play who is to blame? He has 9 hundereds and 28 50's and 10 MOM awards in lost causes as well.

Sachin : The stats talk (Curious Case ... part 2)

2005-11-11T16:12:00.000-05:00

How often do we see cricketers win 150 matches for their country? Of his 37 ODI hundereds 28 have ended up on a winning cause. Out of the 37687 runs scored by India in the 90's in winning games Sachin had scored 7985. The rest of the batters (averaging 6 a match there were 5 others) had managed between themselves 28934 runs at an average of about 5780 a difference of about 2000 runs. Considering India played in 122 winning games this factors to about 20 average points in a loose approximation.
To be a part of a lost cause and still not to lose faith in yourselves talks volumes about a person's character. Imagine how disterssing it would have been on that day in Chennai where 5 players could not manage 13 runs? To keep playing shows the passion this man had for the game. Money is not in the equation when Sachin is being talked about. Long after he walks off the field he is going to be making his millions. In books, endorsements, tv commentaries and what not..
Now if you are wondering why I took the pains to write a scipt to scrape of stats of cricinfo and make some sense into the numbers, I had an interesting conversaion on my way to Ireland at Heathrow. I saw a copy of Being Freddie by Andy Flinttof and passed a casual remark about how even Sachin hasnt written a book called Being Tendulkar.. The lady remarked "May be he hasnt done enough". If it is one man all of us want to be and not want to, it is Sachin. Flinttof is a star amongst the Beckhams and Pietersons and Camilla Joneses....

Sachin for us is a lone ranger, then now and forever.

Galway time

2005-11-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

Finally after leaving Altanta on Saturday, I made it to Galway on Monday. Bad Chicago weather and London weather made me live of flights and airport food for longer than I planned. However this gave me a nice chance to get a quick tour of London and Chicago. My blog is going to be all tour diaries beginning now until I am in the good old anything but Greek Athens in USA....

7-0 and the Gators are in town

2005-10-28T16:58:00.000-04:00

This is the red lettered weekend in UGA Football calendar. The Gators and the Dawgs at Jacksonville.
Coming of a rather tame win against the likes of Arkansas, UGA has a lot to prove. Without DJ the offensive weapon that can run, throw and run and throw, Tereshinski will have to prove he is more than the average Joe.
The key to beat the Gators is do what you did against Tennesse. Control the line of scrimmage, establish the run superiority with Lumpkin, Brown and Ware. The only problem here would be the question, "Can Tereshinski convert 3 and longs?". The key to any football game is getting the third downs. and given UGA's QB situation the best bet would be to avoid them.
But also keep in mind the Florida secondary. They got burned against Bama with Brody Croyle connecting to Pyrone Prothro for two amazing 50+ yard scores and the Gators never got into the rhythm.
On the defense, let Chris Leak be. Let him make those mistakes, force the running game option out and make Urban Myer's option offense one diemensional: 3-0 series.

For all analysis, the Dawgs are on a roll and even if its a 3-2 win we will take it with all smiles.

Texas quite did not have the meltdown and Texas Tech was ranked way too higher. USC is still on a roll and the Hokies have to end the season with big games. So it looks more and more like UGA playing the Auburn this year, given the lunatic approach to computing the standings.

Mohali Marauding

2005-10-28T13:01:00.000-04:00

122 all out in a ground where not so long ago second string teams and an unknown youngster called Robin Uttappa killed the opposition attack??
The famed Lankan Lion batting line up against the likes of rookie Indian bowlers was a feast to the detractors of the Chappell regime and on two occasions till now they have been made to wait in wilderness. Two wins is too soon but Chappell seems to be having a quiet laugh. The combination of metronomic drive towards efficiency that Rahul Dravid possesses, Australian cold blooded professionalism that Chappell presents along with "Look at me, I am 20 again" Sachin Tendulkar and "I am here to play" Irfan Pathan seems to be working wonders for this team.
The lackadaisical attitude once the opposition is on the mat is missing as is the uncanny ability to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory. The way the target was cowed down reflects the intent to get the kill and not just labor to a win.
One thing I cannot help but noticing is the advantage Chappell has over Wright. SACHIN TENDULKAR in his agressive best. Any comments?

Saurav Ganguly: The hype, the stats and a nation's Fixation : Part 1

2005-10-28T06:22:00.000-04:00

I have been wanting to write this post for long...During the India-Zimbabwe tour, infact even before when the Indian team was announced. I resisted in jumping the gun. When Ganguly labored his way to a century against the likes of Assam and Tripura and bragged about it, I resisted. I wanted to see how things pan out. Then came the Chappell controversy. and then the email leak and then the faux pas called BCCI hearing, and the new team selection and the first one dayer and the massive win and Sachin comeback and so on and on . So much happened with so much fuss. Here is a 2 part rant...

Firstly what the heck was Sourav Ganguly thiking? A century against Zimbabwe where he was given those 100 odd runs and never scored even one of them, in the process ran out VVS Laxman who was looking very special, stayed there like the oddities of the Robert Mugabe regime and bragging about it. Ganguly at best was an average captain who had an excellent support cast.
Take for instance the Australian tour of 2001 which every Saurav Ganguly supporter brings. It was won by Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman and the Aussie agression to finish India off by asking them to follow-on. Am sure as any one else is that Ganguly neither strategized the great come back innings nor the Aussie decision. The third test was won by Harbhajan Singh.
Here is comparison of Saurav and Laxman and Sachin in that series. Sachin scored 304 runs at 50.66 with a century and 2 50's. Laxman had a very special series with 503 runs at 83.8 with that special 281. Even Ramesh, long forgotten in the scheme of opening musical chairs, had 162 runs while Ganguly had 106 meagre runs across 6 innings.
Walking late to the toss and talking trash can cause excitement but do not create wins as the meagre 106 runs does not.

Saurav Ganguly: The hype, the stats and a nation's Fixation : Part 2

2005-10-28T04:04:00.000-04:00

Part 2...Get Part 1 here.

The 2003 World cup again was a Sachin Tendulkar show and when he failed, we came down. Ganguly was not even there full time during the Pakistan series. Laxman again played the big role in the Aussie series.
Now Ganguly after 182 runs in 17 one dayers, wants to be in the side and as a captain. Easily competing for the worst fielder, biggest offender when it comes to fitness, a brashy haughty attitude and his desire in excess to be a captain despite not having enough stats over a long period to command a place as a player, and the way Harbhajan Singh, who is another poor performer offlate, came out in lashing against Chappel in support of Ganguly, indicating a clear fissures in the side, do we still need this moderate captain at best in the side?
Waugh and Taylor, the men that made the Aussies the powerhouse they are today led by example, showing grit with the bat and an attitude to boot. Inzi leads from the front, Attapattu is easily there in any top batsman rankings, Greame Smith led the All Star Test side and has amazing statistics and Ricky Ponting despite the Ashes debacle, is a punter you can put your money on... Where are you Ganguly as a player in this list of celebrated batsman, to command a place in the side?
The usual Form is temporary Class is permanent crap does not even hold true in Ganguly's case. 3 years of lack of runs in every meaningful match means something larger than form is at fault. Class without an attitude and temperment may be?
Remember Vinod Kambli , classy leftie with 2 double centuries and that sledge hammering of Shane Warne in Sharjah... When he was cold shouldered why shouldn't Ganguly be? Kambli still has a test average of 54.
The farce called BCCI Hearing let Ganguly off. Followers of NFL in USA can look at the story of Antonio Gates, whom the Chargers never played in the first two games,suspending him for indiscipline and promptly lost without the big tight end.
Sport is a difficult career to succeed in. Team sport even more difficult, for one's actions can impact the team.
Think about the zillions of youngsters dying to earn the Indian cap, struggling, the last thing we need is some one bent on getting his way. All I can say is, "Sorry Prince, Cricket is no longer a princley sport. It needs discipline more than talent. Ask the Sri Lankan Team of 1996, Australian team of 1999, 2003 and you will know why."

Next on the blog: Ganguly: A square peg in a round hole...

Me is Clairvoyant

2005-10-17T12:28:00.000-04:00

Check out my posting on August 27 and you will know why!!!

6-0 and still counting and Who meets USC?

2005-10-17T11:25:00.000-04:00

"The play action can mean defense swarms the RB, but doubts if the QB can run and is caught in 2 minds. Now add to it an excellent pass on the run skills and accuracy, you got your defense man...." -- Words I rambled two weeks back
Circa to the last weekend (10-17-05) : Vandy defense "almost" get DJ, DJ scrambles to right for a moment and the free safety follows him..DJ shifts quickly to the left runs some distance and finds MClendon and the end zone

DJ runs almost 5 yards back and Vandy defense swarms in to get him and get some negative yardage as well, DJ scrambles in and out and finds Massaqoa on the run and the end zone...

Tennesse D get DJ but he escapes to convert a 5 yard loss to 3 yard gain...2 and 7 instead of 2 and 15...

After 6 weeks the Dawgs are rolling 6 and 0. With Arkansas coming in the sure thing is 7-0 before we meet the Gators. With Florida's offense having not really clicked and the GA Defense firing on all cylinders good chance of 8-0 and SEC East clinched.
With Auburn coming home, a very good chance of being 10-0 in November and Ga Tech is not a deal. Will the BCS computers and humans and everyone else give us a chance?

On the other hand the other possibility is Texas getting blown out by Texas Tech.. Cody Hodges completed 44 of 65 passes for 643 yards . Who can believe it? Now with a Texan meltdown post OU not happening this week, there is a good chance it will happen next week (WIshful thinking)..

I am consiously avoiding VA Tech in this equation since I believe we are very close to the Hokies in the polls and a win over FL and AU should push us ahead. Also not forgetting the fact that the Hokies still have to play the Canes of Miami and the FSU Noles.

So add the meltdown and the Dawg wins we should be heading to Pasedena.

USC still has to play to Cal and UCLA. Even if they are pushed out, am sure they will find a way to shove themselves into the contetion.

Georgia is (for ?) real

2005-10-11T17:38:00.000-04:00

3 games in 13 days, Clausen has an Achilles heel and yada yada yada ... The Volunteers lost even before the kick off and Georgia ensured pretty much they did. SEC showdown came down to stupid mistakes on both sides and if some one were to be watching USC, you cant help but wonder are these teams in the same division. With the Volunteers taken care of, Leak's Florida with a not-so--outstanding-yet offense and defense should not be a problem. 100000 fans at Sanford will make sure the Auburn tigers dont even get to meeowww let alone roar. In the 3 years I have been following GA football this looks like the best season to get to Pasedena, but are we for real? How will we fare against the Youngs and the Leinharts? However this game was much better than the OU-Texas game.
Did OU even show up?
Chris Leak is still being talked about in the same line as the word Heisman. Way off people as Bama made the world realize.
DJ Shockley has 1200 passing yards and 200 rushing yards with 8 passing and 3 rushing touchdowns. His numbers while not great against Tennesse, were really good. The interception was a rank bad call. The fumble, oh dear that was a good defensive play.
Last 3 weeks in a row USC trailed their opponents in the first half only to nail them in the second. Are they thinking, it is enough if we show up just for one half?

So much football and so little time.. More NCAA and NFL in the next blog

Will the Dog bite?

2005-10-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

Georgia bulldogs: 4-0 overall and 3-0 SEC.
Starting QB: DJ Shockley
Watching him is like watching: Mike Vick
Similarity: Much talked about passing never compliments the awe-stopping run

Will he lead the Dogs to a SEC title and himself to a top round draft? After all teams do need Vikesque QB's if ONLY they can show more pocket presence in passing.

Think about it: The play action can mean defense swarms the RB, but doubts if the QB can run and is caught in 2 minds. Now add to it an excellent pass on the run skills and accuracy, you got your defense man....

Shockley can do it and saturday will tell if he will..

Me and 100000 Dog fans pray he does.

Wiki Wiki Wiki

2005-09-04T01:11:00.000-04:00

Started with what is an Podcast.. went on to portmanteau and then from there on to backronym and on and on it went till some one grabbed me out of my little pursuit..
No wonder Britannica loves the WIKI too... Britannica Takes over WIKI

Curse reversal on the way...

2005-08-27T12:13:00.000-04:00

Bo Sox did it last year...
White Sox look like they might be doing it this year
and voila it could be England getting Ashes back, although in the last case it was more self inflicted than anything else...
Will a day come when India wins against someone other than West Indies and Zimbabwe??

Faux news

2005-08-24T03:21:00.000-04:00

Ever seen In the year 2000 on Conan?
Here is my cheap imagination working over time.. really its 3 in the morning and my caffeine is running out and here is my version of In the year 2000
"Fox News will call Florida for George Bush and the White house will be available for lease all round the year, gas will compete with the Yankee payroll, social "in"-security shall begin to prevail, marijuana will be the cheapest drug an oldie can grab off the shelf, Trey Parker, Jay Leno, Conan and the likes will rejoice supreme stupidity for 4 years after which thanks to John Kerry's hardwork, they will get 4 more years of fun and finally Fox news will now be known as Faux news: Geraldo's moustache and Bill O Riely's phone calls being the only real things with the network."

Did any one see Greta Van Susteren on Jay Leno? She was all over the Natalee Halloway story. She went on and on about the Aruban police, the yada yada yada which we have to bear Nancy Grace squeal... Then she said something very significant. While she was at Aruba, she had told Natalee's mom Beth Twitty about the news coverage rule: Coverage until something more significant happens. Then in Leno, Greta told about the london bombings and how she had to leave. Just as I thought about Faux's concern, she bolted the next statement: Thankfully it was small and I could come back to Aruba.

Am I missing something here??? A 18 something rich, blonde girl celebrates HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION with a Aruba trip (If I ever get my Ph.D all I can think is getting to a watering hole to drink my life off), goes at 2 in the morning with 3 unknown people and is missing... On the other hand, bunch of terrorists hit the center of London, a trusted partner in US's war on terror and War in Iraq (They both are not the same. Even CNN has started to distinguish) and that is small?

Any wonder why people remember american idol judges more than Supreme court judges in the country? If your news coverage prioritizes a missing girl over a terror attack then it is 24 hrs of Never Ending Worthless S*** is what we get on TV. and Fuax news can give Cavuto, Geraldo and others a break and hire people from E!. Atleast then I wont tune in even by mistake for news...

How to create fundamentalism?

2005-08-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

Iraq: Middle eastern country surrounded by radical Islamists on all sides and never was a part of the Islamic Law Constitution. Progressive and healthy economy despite sanctions. One islamic nation that refused to budge to the moronic jihad call.
Enter Team America World Police.
Iraq: Yet another Islamic nation with Islamic law. Up and coming training ground for islamic terrorism. No civil law. Economy in shambles.

What is gotten with the policy makers in Capitol?

Read more here.

Efficiently seeking inefficiency

2005-08-18T14:42:00.000-04:00

As I was reading this article on Rediff about the perceived inefficiency in government organizations, and how the thought process changed, I not-so fondly remembered my own experience at Athens DMVS. I went in for an address change, (which I later found out could be done online) and it took me lesser time to move to my new apartment than get this frikkin address change done. A friend of mine had gone for a road test earlier in Augusta and he did not have his passport. Thanks to newer and ever changing alien laws in this land, though he passed the test he did not get his license. He was told to fax his passport front page and visa and that the license would be given to him by Athens DMVS. He too chugged along last Friday with me. We were given our tokens and were called to the front desk. I was asked to fill out my change of address form, which read bold on top, MOVING !! CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS AT DMVS WEB SITE . All pretensions of a wanna be geek vanished and the computer scientist in me told the moron in me to realize the power of internet. I did fill out the form and was told I would be called in few minutes. I looked at the pile of papers next to the clerk and mine was the lone ranger. Feeling petty happy I went and took my chair. I did not realize the DMVS followed a stack approach (Last in First out) when it came to paper processing. I waited and waited. On the other side my friend's passport got faxed. He was told to wait for a few minutes till they got a reply. The fax apparently is a pigeon flying around, or so it appeared. After 1 hour we went and checked on the status. My lone ranger now had company and there were few more papers sitting on top and moving pretty. Another hour of my giving company to the chair and my paper giving company to the table he was placed in, I asked them again. In between was the (Yet Another Tri-Series Final)YATS Final in, where else but Sri Lanka.. I was tabbing on the scores and Indian wickets were going down faster than my paper work. My friend asked them about the fax and the lady says oh! let me check it... As if we were english ignorant, she says we just got the fax whilst the time on it read about 40 minutes earlier. I realized if 40 minutes is just now,then on the same scale 2 minutes should be about 2 hrs. After about 2 and half hours of extreme patience, (Never lose your patience in a govt. office. It hurts you bad.)I was called in. I went and was asked 20 bucks. 20 bucks for an address change!!! I got my license and told my self never to move again till I am out of Athens. My friend got his too and we left... Bottomline: Government offices are government offices. Anywhere in the world. They efficiently seek inefficiency. The lady that had her Wendy's burger as we were starving and waiting is just a small representative sample. The stack way to move things is just another example that shows the lack of utter common sense in doing their work. and the 20 bucks, well that deserves another post totally....As far as the Rediff article mentioned on top goes, all I say is one efficient module in the midst of a buggy error prone monsterous system called government is not going to change anything.

Seeking answers...

2005-07-20T21:12:00.000-04:00

How much should IDE's and dev tools do things for us? Is it not enough they tell us methods when u have an object and keep a dot? Is it not enough that they hog a whole load of resources, making 1 GB a mandatory to use IDE's, by doing real time compiling and validation? As a part of the WSDL-S annotation tool, we had an interesting discussion where people were asking for an already user helping tool, to do more. The purpose is to allow a user to annotate a WSDL with concepts from ontology. The interface is slick with nice drag n drop. Eclipse technology was used extensively and really well. But still there are people talking about making it idiot proof. What happens when a XML tag is missing? Should you not highlight it and yada yada yada? Highlighting is acceptable but then anything more would overkill. Like asking the user, should I add a matching tag or should I remove the tag. C'mon people, we are talking about people developing things here not clicking and joining.

Yes, to enhance productivity we need to make tools more robust in errorhandling. But idiot proof? Thank you, but idiots should not code.It is enough we have enough systems that break down on install and take down whole of pricey stuff with them. By making good coders create systems to support the morons, we are asking for crap to be created. Guys that use objects like limitless credit cards and talk with authority about how java is slow. Guys that leave loose pointers and cry foul MS sucks. Not that I advocate either Windows or Java, but these are common cribs heard often around. All this in the garb of productivity enhancement. Do we seek to make creating better apps faster or more and more of crappy apps? I am seeking answers and I need help.

What can a geek guru do to make your life better?

2005-07-05T00:13:00.000-04:00

It is no news that the Tsunami left a good part of South Asia in high waves of terror. Srilanka was worst hit and well, what does a software geek guru do to help in this crisis? Read about the Sahana project. You can read about it at Sanjiva Weerawarana's blog page. His geekness can be seen in Apache Axis, SOAP and on and on and on... but his initiative to use his skill when there was a need, makes us wonder about our own responsibilities apart of writing lines code and dreamin ' ol' big stuff in life. There is always some difference we can make towards problems back home, rather than just read off a few web sites and keep commenting about them. Something to think about and act on ... More info on Sahana at Sourceforge.

Grow on with Google

2005-07-04T23:59:00.000-04:00

It is as if Google responded to my post... Just as I was thinking about the whole maps fracas, I read this http://www.google.com/apis/maps/.
Here they go. Google is more the PARC as I had always believed until I, in a spell of attack by Satan, swayed. I am now playing around with this API and it is so far so good with nothing spectacular yet... Javascript is so awe-fully cool....

It as nice July 4th weekend and we did burst some crackers and watched South Park endlessly. It was fun...

I am now excited with the METEOR-S project I am a part of... I will start blogging on that and some more of WS and SOA stuff I come across as interesting...

Google : Thou' art a new Don?

2005-06-09T12:46:00.000-04:00

Lately I have been having lots of arguments over the role of Google. Slew of slick products, innovations raising the bar to competitors, neat UI n so on. Some go gaga over all these, including me and we are justified. Long after the venerable PARC, here is a company committed to create technology to help people. Some say Google is amazing yet more than PARC they are more the Microsoft. I read this today in slashdot and may be those guys have a point...

"The Google Maps team recently noticed your Google Maps tile
"stitcher" wallpaper maker at http://gmerge.2ni.net/.
Google is always happy to see developers interested in our
 products and we commend you on the service.  That said, we
would appreciate it if you voluntarily remove your service
and stop using Google Maps on your web site. The service
violates the Maps Terms of Service available at
http://www.google.com/help/terms_local.html, and jeopardizes our
ability to make Google Maps available to the public because it
encourages non-personal use of Google Maps.

If you have any questions or concerns, or if we have contacted the
wrong people, please feel free to contact me directly.  Otherwise,
please let us know as soon as possible when the service has been
removed.

Thanks,

Bret Taylor
Product Manager, Google Maps"

So what exactly is Google trying to do? How on the earth would a
 nice sticher can annoy a $300+ I trade everyday company
like google? Is google circumspect of people using hacks to come
 up with innovative solutions? Should not Google be happy that people
are using leads to take forth what they brought forth? Am looking
 for answers...

All said and done, I still cant help being in awe of their Google Print.
Try it, you will like it...

Alrite another attempt

2005-06-08T16:22:00.000-04:00

One thing I have learnt being a researcher is never give up...
So what if my previous attempt to rant relentlessly ended up sans a small whimp?
So what if even those lazy geeks and bums that form my network of friends, also gave up?
So what if SK got his bucks back, when he betted on me not crossing 50 posts!! Sad poor SK, guess he was being safe when he said 50.. 5 was way away ...
Yet I try ... I try to rant relentlessly and this time, I will take it up a notch ....
Any bets this time around?