The year 2009 - for me

As it had been my convention, let me start this year's blogging by writing about some notable events for me in 2009.

• A long-awaited project in the domain of Web Intelligence materialized in December. More about it later.
• Did spend a good amount of time on research, the result being my research papers accepted for publication in reputed and popular conferences. (Ofcourse faced rejection too, from a most conference)
• Technically feeling and creating the AJAX magic, in web development and mainly involved in improving the Usability of systems.
• Significant progress made towards my PhD; Also decided on the final title of my work;
• A project that I worked passionately for the last few years, got extended for another 3 years, but with riders and change of direction (towards product mode targeting different kind of users).
• Had to put my head into ISO processes, as one of the internal auditors and as a process owner for some time.
• Involved with the process of coordinating a mega module (topic wise), covering Databases and Web in 6 weeks and allocating work to 20+ members! who wanted to participate in the training activity.
• Setting up of VASP (a software for Molecular Simulations) in clusters, for the second time.
• Moved to an apartment with better amenities; started understanding the apartment culture, and was getting the feel and importance of amenities.
• The birth of my second angel/queen
• Took the 'active' decision of giving up the official transport and using the Public transport for commuting to office
• Observing Financial markets from a distance, and wondering whether I could ever understand and explain its behavior.
• Travelled to Tirupathi, Kalahasti, Erode, Kodaikanal, Chennai, Mahabhilipuram, Vellore (Golden Temple), Mangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pondicherry.
• Overall, the year was satisfying.

Socks - Is there a Left and Right foot socks?

After posting three consecutive 'heavy' articles, let me take a break, and discuss about a lighter issue - Given a pair of socks, which one would you wear on your left/right foot?

Initially, I thought there were no such left and right foot socks, until a friend of mine, asked me how to identify it, couple of years ago!. From that time onwards, I became conscious while wearing the socks, thinking of which one to wear for the right and left foot :) So, one fine day, I consulted our modern-age gurus - Google and Yahoo for answers :)

I started with searches in Google whose results pointed to companies that were manufacturing socks and marketing as "Anatomically designed for left and right foot". I got a few hints, that some companies were making specialized socks for left and right foot, especially for athletes, but otherwise, there is no such concept!. But, when I checked for the same query in Yahoo answers, to my surprise , I found the same question being asked by 2 or 3 users in the past one year!. However, when I went through the answers, to those queries, I was thoroughly confused, as each user had their own opinion, and often contradictory with the previous user, or post!.

So, again I returned to google, rephrased my queries (my first query was left-socks and right-socks; and my final query was "Is there a left-foot sock and right-foot sock") and the initial scanning of the results proved that there were some companies that were making such specially designed socks for athletes, and its there I discovered the phrase "anatomically designed for right and left-foot", and were charging around 9 UK Pounds for a pair of socks!.

The lesson to take-away from this exercise, is that when there are no obvious answers, everyone tries to provide their own answer and adds to your confusion. This could be a factor to the detractors of online social networking. The problem occurs when things are always fuzzy and not obvious, and the chances of even obvious things turning fuzzy may increase, over time, when more people enter the online world and give different and often contradictory suggestions! A simple way to illustrate this is when you try to discover a person, whom you might be knowing already - and you use their name to discover that person say in Facebook or Orkut, you may be staring at a huge list of similar looking names. This might not have been the case, when these sites were in their infancy stages.

Emotions and Passion - Part III

This is in continuation of Emotions and Intelligence - Part I and Emotions and Communications - Part II.

Though Passion is treated as a kind of emotion, it is better to understand them in greater detail. Passion can lead to strong positive or negative emotions. I have seen people with passion both succeed and fail in their lives. Of course it all depends on what you are passionate about. However, here I would like to take a generalized and abstract view of passion, to understand them better.

Dictionaries define both emotion and passion as a strong feeling, but one needs to differentiate between instantaneous emotions and passion. A passion is basically an interest on a subject that develops over time and is consciously fed and processed by the higher layers of our mind. A passion usually is a positive thought or action, while instantaneous emotions can be a response to a perceived negative thought or action on those emotions.

To understand this important concept, we need to know about the human cognitive model. The human cognitive model consists of layers that processes the inputs (obtained through perceptions) to produce outputs. The lower layers react emotionally without processing much of the information; in other words they are the instantaneous responses to the events received by the perceptual organs. The higher layers however processes a given input with more information/knowledge and hence give a measured/matured response. The model also implies that the responses elicited from the higher layers take time to give an output.

Instantaneous Emotions such as anger are therefore from the lower layer of the cognition, while passions are from the higher layers. That's why a negative emotion such as anger or sorrow when not exhibited immediately, would get through the higher layers, and if consciously or sub-consciously fed, will lead to destruction or depression.

A well-developed passion can easily cause strong emotions. Often people end up with strong negative emotions or turn violent when actions or messages of others affect their passions. People, particularly politicians use this as a tool to stoke other's passions in order to make them commit for a cause or for their own benefit.

This does not mean that one should not have any passion - if that is the case, then life will not only be boring, but also achieving some thing of value would be extremely difficult. Without passion, you just cannot have 100% commitment, and without which you cannot achieve any thing significant enough. Hence one need to be careful and choosy about what they are being passionate about. But that is easily said, as passions are a reflection of one's personality, environment and influences that he might have undergone in his life.

Emotions and Communications - Part II

This is in continuation of Emotions and Intelligence - Part I. But in this, I would like to focus on the relation of emotions with the important component of our lives - Communication.

The main intent behind a communication is not only to pass on a message, but also to pass on emotions. I believe this applies not only to the human beings, but to all the species in this world. One can pass on almost any sort of emotion to the listener or the other party through a communication. According to me, the coupling of the emotion with communication is effectively utilized by many great political leaders.

Typically, many politicians or political leaders use this initially to stir up one's emotions, in their communication. Basically, they do this, by whipping up one's passions - a kind of emotion (more about this later) and most of the time it would be aimed to make your mind feel heavy - meaning - negative emotions, so that they can gear you up to obtain an objective (which may be of their interest!).

One should not assume that communication happens only through speech. There are a variety of ways through which humans can communicate - movies, books, and other subtle means such as painting, sculptures, gestures and so on. In fact, I believe that the number of ways in which a human being can communicate with his fellow beings is what that differentiates him from other species on this earth.

Most of us like stories and would like to watch movies or read books. What makes us interested in them is their ability to put us through various emotions, easily and effortlessly, though the other things such as the lessons from the story are just a take away. And, of course there is a lot of variety in movies and books - to cater to the various emotional needs of an individual, such as humour, horror, drama etc...

However there is a difference in hearing stories and watching movies, as in the former, our mind has to do the visualizations and hence needs to be creative, at the same time possess the knowledge for doing so, thereby imposing some cognitive load and simulating our thought processes (A bad thing for effective emotional communication!), while in the latter case of watching movies, the visualization with the emotions are spoon-fed to us and we directly immerse in those emotions. Hence, movies are more powerful, in the sense, that they can ignite even a lazy mind, and/or a mind that might not possess the required knowledge to create the visualization on its own!.

People often speak of gender, when it comes to emotions and communications. The difference I feel that lies in the emotions between a man and woman, is that women may get entangled in emotions and act and react with those emotions in many number of instances than men - I feel the count is what makes the difference. However, this may not be applicable to every man and woman on this earth!.

Update: Emotions and Passion - Part III 

Emotions and Intelligence - Part I

I believe that Intelligence is a skill that can be acquired through consistent practice. I also feel that the major factor that would differentiate a machine and a man is 'Emotions' and not Intelligence, in the future. Emotions are the only answer to questions why people behave in a certain way, while the logic dictate something drastically different. Emotions are more complex and are difficult to simulate or built-in.

I knew that people have been working for long to build Emotion into robots and other Intelligent systems to make it more humane!. But, I am afraid as it could not be that easy!. When we look around the nature, we can see that animals have emotions!. However, animals may have lesser emotions than humans!. I also feel that even trees will have emotions, but they are either not able to express them to us, or we do not possess the capability to understand their emotions!. I have also heard of the view that emotions are considered as an outcome of intelligence.

Looking at evolution, we can see that the living beings have evolved with more and more emotions, in this earth, (if Darwinian theory is believed to be right) and the ability to express those emotions explicitly have also become tremendously increased. So, as we can see, we use different methods, such as talking, writing, typing etc.. to communicate our emotions, and one can understand the other by understanding the emotions, and not by just looking at the actions - a person had performed!.

A lot of animals are intelligent and behave in Intelligent ways, such as ants foraging for their food. However, the emotions that goes through them is extremely difficult for us to decipher. So, more research should go on to understand the emotions of the others, including all living beings of the nature, rather than just deciphering their intelligent behaviors. I feel man has evolved this far, when compared to other animals, because of his more number of emotions and not just merely because of intelligence. We also just cannot predict that we possess all the emotions that exists in this earth.

Emotions are of different types, and one can atleast make two classifications as: Positive Emotions and Negative emotions. Emotions such as goodwill, happiness etc.. can be considered as positive, as it makes our mind feel more lighter and comfortable, while other emotions such as greed, fear, can be considered negative, as it makes our mind more heavier!. I also feel each species in this earth, has different set of emotions, than others.

Meditation can be defined as the art and state of keeping your mind light, without any emotions - either positive or negative.

Oh! ... let me stop these philosophical thoughts for now!.

Updates:

• Emotions and Communications - Part II
• Emotions and Passion - Part III

Feature Vs Function

What is the difference between a feature and a function of a system ?

Surprisingly, I encountered this question couple of times, from my friends, and students. So, here's my answer.

Feature is an outcome of implementation of a function. Ex: Forwarding and Pausing are the features of a CD Player, while the functions are behind the system that provides these features; i.e., the function implementing the pause feature would take certain inputs, process them, and give the output - in this case, internally, it will be taking the current frame or track and has to invoke the stop function.

Normally, we use the word feature to refer to the capability of a product or system, while function is used to mean the implementation of that feature in a system. A feature may invoke many functions. A feature is more from a usability point of view or from the external view of the system, while function is from the design and implementation view point.

Science, Engineering and Polytechnic Education

Note: This post is India-specific

One day, as I was interacting with a lecturer of an Engineering College, the lecturer was complaining about the bias and step-motherly treatment meted out to the faculties of the Engineering courses who had a science background, not only by the management, but also by the governing bodies. The lecturer was critical about a particular policy, which states that a faculty with M.Sc/MCA degree, and who goes on to obtain M.E/M.Tech degree is eligible only for handling B.E/B.Tech and not M.E/M.Tech classes; while a lecturer with the B.E/B.Tech background and with M.E/M.Tech can handle B.E/B.Tech as well as M.E/M.Tech classes. The reason given by the management was that the M.Sc/MCA faculty typically would be having a Science degree (B.Sc) as their base, and therefore cannot teach M.E/M.Tech, even after they complete their own M.E/M.Tech degrees!

I was able to understand the furious sentiments of the lecturer, as to obtain M.Sc or MCA degree, one has to study for five or six years, while for B.E/B.Tech degree, one has to spend only four years; and then after M.Sc/MCA, one has to spend another 2 years for their M.E/M.Tech. I then tried to pacify that lecturer, by stating to him, that beyond a certain point, degrees do not matter, and only the work and capabilities of the individual matter. That said, I have my own strong views on this subject. But before expressing my views, let me confess that I too have done my Master degree in Science and not in Engineering. Now to the views ...

This reflects the pathetic conditioning of the Indian mindset that Engineering is superior, while Science, Polytechnic, and Arts are all inferior courses, and down the ladder. I had read somewhere that this mindset was deliberately forced or thrusted upon us, because of certain reasons - that India needed more Engineers than Scientists, and India needed to apply the technologies on the field, developed by the scientists or researchers of the western countries. I don't know how far this is true; but India surely lags behind in Science and Scientific research, in many fields, though the importance is being felt now.

In the west, there is no distinction between Science and Engineering, and in fact the degrees are awarded as Science degrees and not as Engineering degrees. In India, despite the numerous number of Engineering institutions coming up in the recent years, the craze on Engineering and Medicine, does not seem to slow down. The irony in India is that while many people look down a person pursuing a science subject, they look at scientists with great respect!.

According to me, Engineering is more towards implementing technologies - some times at the Design level and some times at the field-level, while Science is aimed at developing and validating those technologies at the architectural level, and the core aim of polytechnical education is to have people carry out the implementations at the field level according to the given specifications.

My intention of this post, is neither to say that Science is superior to others, nor to say that Engineering is not required for us, but to say that science should be given paramount importance and should not be considered as inferior to Engineering.