A quick note to non-(South) Indian readers: The first part of this blog is a little topical and you may not relate to it. I have tried to provide an analogy to relate better, but I hope you can relate to the second part regardless of where you are from.
On my recent trip to India, there was one song that was played repeatedly in all the TV channels. It's a pretty nice, melodious number from one of the recent Tamil movies named Pasanga (Boys). It's been ages since I've seen any of the new movies, but the song stuck in my head. I think the song is about two young folks falling in love. Unlike many of the Indian film songs, thankfully the actors don't tend to sing and dance the number here and it is rendered more as a background number.
I forgot about it after I left.
Bad Pronunciation
Few months later, I was sampling through all the songs that I had gotten from India on my way to the office. Two songs stood out. One was a song called Maalai Neram (Evening Time) from a film called Ayirathil Oruvan (One in a thousand) and the other one, the song "Oru Vetkam Varudhe" (I am getting shy) - the one I mentioned earlier.
Maalai Neram (Evening Time) by Andrea Jeremiah in Ayirathil Oruvan
Oru Vetkam Varudhe (I feel shy) by Shreya Ghoshal in Pasanga
The songs stood out to me because they had a pleasing melody and because they both had unique voices (compared to others in the genre). As I started listening a bit more closely, I was all the more captivated by the second one and slowly started disliking the first. The reason - the singer of the first song, while having an excellent voice, butchered the diction. Her pronunciation was way off and it constantly distracted me from trying to enjoy the song itself, especially since I knew how it was supposed to be pronounced. On the other hand, the second singer rendered the song perfectly - with barely any noticeable variation in diction.
I know this sounds nitpicky. After all, music is supposed to be beyond language, right? Why not just forget about diction and enjoy the music itself? While agree to this philosophy and endorse it, I feel it is fine as long as you do not know the language. Knowing the language and understanding the meaning, I feel adds a few more layers of depth that you do not get with just the music.
For example, if you are a non-English speaker "Hotel California" by Eagles may be pleasing to you at first because of the guitar riffs at the beginning and the end as well as how the song progresses. For an English speaker, the song adds an extra depth not just because of the lyrics, but also because of the diction. Imagine the same song sung in a Karaoke fashion by Apu from Simpsons! The song goes on to add even more depth if you were a child of the mid '70s.
The irony in this case is that Andrea Jeremiah is a native Tamil speaker, while Shreya Ghoshal is not!
The trend of bringing non-native singers to sing in film songs especially because of their unique voice in Tamil is a new trend started a few years ago by A R Rahman (the 'Jai Ho' guy). While this is great and it added a new depth to the songs, not many have taken this task to heart. Many of the famous singers (Udit Narayan and Adnan Sami being the biggest of the culprits) have sung the song pretty much however they want with scant regard to the intricacies of the language in which it is sung, which I feel is a shame, as it robs the listener off a perception level. This cannot be just brushed aside as something that they do not know or are familiar with. There are others (notably Shreya Ghoshal and S P Balasubramaniyam) who have made a sincere effort to sing the song with as much accuracy as possible, trying to preserve the language of the song in the process. This, to me, makes them stand apart from others.
Good presentation
So far, whatever I've said may border along a rant. While it may be true, there are a number of other places where the same issue can have a more tangible impact. I will expand on two.
The first obvious one is when you travel to another country. While people may be curious about a tourist and may try to be helpful, it only goes so far. The curiosity will go away very quickly if the tourist does not respect the local culture. While some allowance may be given for a short while, it is not sustainable. On the other hand, if you attempt to understand and respect the others' culture even to a small degree and try to speak their language, it can go a long way in building trust (Avatar movie has this theme). I have experienced this in practice when I have worked with my China colleagues. While I don't understand the culture or speak the language, they become quite enthusiastic even if I say a "Hello" or a "Thank you" in their language. It has also helped 'break the ice' at times during conversations.
The second one is a little bit more subtle and one I can bet many of us do not do. It's about presenting our work better. As an IT professional, I end up creating a lot of documentation, typically in PowerPoint, Excel, or Word. For a long time, my focus has been on getting the documentation done (since it's done at the end of a project typically and I can't wait to get a break!) and not necessarily in making it pretty. However, over the last few years, I have come to realize that the style of presentation can have a subtle but significant impact on both your audience as well as on you.
Especially for Microsoft Office documents, there are some simple steps that you can take to make the documentation go from average to impressive. It takes probably a few hours at first to get this, but as time goes on, it becomes second nature. I have tried to explain this in a presentation that I put in Slideshare sometime back.
To me the content of the presentation is like the unique voice a singer brings to a song. It's what she was paid for. No one is going to complain as long as the singer does not screw up badly and sing the song with her special take on it.
The style of presentation (layout, typography, and use of visuals) is the pronunciation of the singer. It reflects how well the singer understands the target language (how relevant the graphics and typography are to the content) and how much effort she has put in trying to know the language better. When this caring shows up on your presentation, the presentation on the whole becomes well-crafted. There are fewer distractions in the document that takes the reader's mind away from the content and the reader will have the intangible feeling that it is appealing - and that could make a big difference in how well your idea is accepted, and is well worth the effort.
Can you think of a few other scenarios where such additional 'style' on top of 'substance' makes a noticeable intangible impact? If so, feel free to post a comment.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
What (Indian) Vegetarian are you?
This is a question I have been asked quite often. My colleagues often get confused about the vegetarianism of Indians, as there does not seem to be a common pattern or even a strict definition. This is a reasonable confusion, as there indeed, is no single answer.
Typically, food preferences are associated with religion. For example, Muslims do not eat pork (pig) as it is forbidden by the religion and also eat only halal foods. Many Christians do not eat meat during the season of Lent. Similar restrictions apply for Jews in terms of kosher foods.
For people who follow Hinduism, the predominant religion in India, the generally accepted rule is that they do not eat beef (cow meat), as cows are considered sacred. This is also reflected in airline food preferences, where "Hindu" food means "no beef" (can include other meats). However, this is not exactly true either.
As a practicing Hindu as well as having been born and raised in India, hopefully I can provide a better answer to this vexing question to many Westerners, particularly those involved in the IT profession, as they end up brushing shoulders with Indians mostly and also have to put up with their meal preferences during lunch and dinner!
Hindu Vegetarianism
Unlike many religions, to my knowledge, in Hinduism, codes of conduct are not strictly enforced. The religion, as I perceive it, is more democratic, and lets the follower decide how to follow the religion. The codes tend to be more of 'best practices' than commandments. As a result, enforcement of the religious codes are often done by means of social and economic pressure rather than the religion itself. Due to this, the dietary composition of a Hindu is more driven by where he lives rather than what the religion says. Thus, you can find that Hindus in coastal regions such as West Bengal and on the east and west coasts of Southern India consider seafood as a staple food while also being devout Hindus. In the more interior regions, chicken and at times lamb is also eaten as a staple food by Hindus.
Theory of Emotional Detachment
When asked what type of food he eats, one of my colleagues used to say "anything that does not have eyes". This is a close enough approximation for an Indian Vegetarian. I have a slightly more elaborate theory about vegetarianism, which I feel provides a better model for vegetarianism in general and Indian vegetarianism in particular. The theory essentially is that a person's level of vegetarianism depends on the level of emotional attachment one has with what he eats. In simpler terms, the more something looks or feels like you or emotionally attached to you, the less you are likely to eat it.
So, let's put this theory to test. Based on the theory, I propose the following scale of vegetarianism.
It's simple at the start - we don't eat humans (cannibalism) because they look like us the most and also are of the same genre. Up next, we have the exotic animals (koalas, panda bears, insects), weird body parts (brain, reproductive organs, eyes, nose), and animals that we are fond of or feel relative empathy towards (dogs, cats, chimpanzees).
Things start getting a little interesting from there on. The next level is consuming most kinds of red meat, typically pigs, cows, lamb, and versions thereof. This is probably the most prevalent diet throughout the world. As we saw before there are certain restrictions here based on religion, but in general red meat is the common theme. Such animals are considered eatable, as they have been used for generations for consumption, and hence we are emotionally detached with them. The restrictions at this level reflects the level of emotional attachment as well. Pigs are considered bad as their 'filthy' habitat is considered as reflective of those who would eat them as well. Similar theory is also reflected in parts within Hinduism, where scriptures say "you are what you eat" and hence you attain the qualities of the animals that you end up eating. In addition, cows are considered taboo, as in ancient India, they were used for multitude of purposes (farming, dairy, and general labor) and so the emotional attachment was high.
In the next stage are the "white meat" eaters, who do not eat red meat, but are fine with white meat - which includes many birds - chicken, ostrich, and quail to name a few. The emotional detachment with birds tend to be a lot higher as well, since they are not typically tamed or befriended (raising chickens for eggs does not count!). They also look a lot less like us and the lack of red meat is also visually less emotional to the eaters.
The next stage of meat eating is with seafood. Once again, the emotional detachment is extremely low, as sea creatures look a lot less like us. Moreover, for generations, sea creatures have been considered as staple food along coastal regions and hence have not been considered as 'true meat'. In India, however, nowadays the aversion is more due to the sight and smell than by religious preference.
After this point, we get into the more vegetable-based space. The two stages here - "Vegetarian Lacto-Ovo" and "Vegetarian Lacto", covers what I would call as the "Indian Vegetarian", a space where I fall under. In these stages, all forms of meat (aka "those that have eyes") are not eaten, while dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt, etc.) are considered acceptable and in some cases, even eggs (technically they don't have eyes!). There are two interesting twists here - the "cake lover" - which most of my more "strict vegetarian" friends are. They do not prefer to eat eggs - scrambled, poached, or even egg strands in a Chinese Fried Rice. However, they are fine with eating cake, even though the cakes contain eggs. I believe the emotional detachment again comes into play - as long as they do not 'see' the egg in its close-to-raw form, they are fine, such as in the case of a cake. This could also be attributed to the social aspect. Most Indians are more Westernized and birthdays are celebrated with cakes. So, we are raised with a tolerance towards cakes and hence, it's not considered as 'meat'. Same goes even for fish oil that most moms give to kids when they are young for the essential Omega-3 fatty acids that are found lacking in a typical vegetarian meal.
Another twist is the "Vegetarian Jain". Jainism is a distinct religion primarily practiced in the western parts of India (most of Gujarat and areas around Mumbai) that has its origins around the time of Buddhism. Jains believe in non-violence and hence do not eat anything that is considered as harmful to other creatures. As a result, they avoid root vegetables (can potentially kill animals under the ground while plucking the vegetables), honey, and similar products. Some people who are more strict also do not eat stale food and hence avoid any fermented product more than a day old. Interestingly however, milk is considered acceptable. My guess is that taking the milk from a cow technically does not harm the cow and hence it is fine, as long as the calf is given its due share. This is probably why even in the more general Indian vegetarianism, milk is considered as vegetarian.
Inclusion of milk and at times eggs are probably the most importance differences between a vegan as it is defined in the Western world, and vegetarian, as it is defined in India. That's also why it irks me to no end whenever I end up getting tasteless vegan stuff in Continental Airlines when I request a "Vegetarian" meal (sometimes the "Asian Vegetarian" meal, which is essentially "Vegetarian Lacto", is not given as an option).
So, hopefully this gives you an idea of the nuances in vegetarianism, and helps better understand the plight of your fellow colleagues!
Typically, food preferences are associated with religion. For example, Muslims do not eat pork (pig) as it is forbidden by the religion and also eat only halal foods. Many Christians do not eat meat during the season of Lent. Similar restrictions apply for Jews in terms of kosher foods.
For people who follow Hinduism, the predominant religion in India, the generally accepted rule is that they do not eat beef (cow meat), as cows are considered sacred. This is also reflected in airline food preferences, where "Hindu" food means "no beef" (can include other meats). However, this is not exactly true either.
As a practicing Hindu as well as having been born and raised in India, hopefully I can provide a better answer to this vexing question to many Westerners, particularly those involved in the IT profession, as they end up brushing shoulders with Indians mostly and also have to put up with their meal preferences during lunch and dinner!
Hindu Vegetarianism
Unlike many religions, to my knowledge, in Hinduism, codes of conduct are not strictly enforced. The religion, as I perceive it, is more democratic, and lets the follower decide how to follow the religion. The codes tend to be more of 'best practices' than commandments. As a result, enforcement of the religious codes are often done by means of social and economic pressure rather than the religion itself. Due to this, the dietary composition of a Hindu is more driven by where he lives rather than what the religion says. Thus, you can find that Hindus in coastal regions such as West Bengal and on the east and west coasts of Southern India consider seafood as a staple food while also being devout Hindus. In the more interior regions, chicken and at times lamb is also eaten as a staple food by Hindus.
Theory of Emotional Detachment
When asked what type of food he eats, one of my colleagues used to say "anything that does not have eyes". This is a close enough approximation for an Indian Vegetarian. I have a slightly more elaborate theory about vegetarianism, which I feel provides a better model for vegetarianism in general and Indian vegetarianism in particular. The theory essentially is that a person's level of vegetarianism depends on the level of emotional attachment one has with what he eats. In simpler terms, the more something looks or feels like you or emotionally attached to you, the less you are likely to eat it.
So, let's put this theory to test. Based on the theory, I propose the following scale of vegetarianism.
It's simple at the start - we don't eat humans (cannibalism) because they look like us the most and also are of the same genre. Up next, we have the exotic animals (koalas, panda bears, insects), weird body parts (brain, reproductive organs, eyes, nose), and animals that we are fond of or feel relative empathy towards (dogs, cats, chimpanzees).
Things start getting a little interesting from there on. The next level is consuming most kinds of red meat, typically pigs, cows, lamb, and versions thereof. This is probably the most prevalent diet throughout the world. As we saw before there are certain restrictions here based on religion, but in general red meat is the common theme. Such animals are considered eatable, as they have been used for generations for consumption, and hence we are emotionally detached with them. The restrictions at this level reflects the level of emotional attachment as well. Pigs are considered bad as their 'filthy' habitat is considered as reflective of those who would eat them as well. Similar theory is also reflected in parts within Hinduism, where scriptures say "you are what you eat" and hence you attain the qualities of the animals that you end up eating. In addition, cows are considered taboo, as in ancient India, they were used for multitude of purposes (farming, dairy, and general labor) and so the emotional attachment was high.
In the next stage are the "white meat" eaters, who do not eat red meat, but are fine with white meat - which includes many birds - chicken, ostrich, and quail to name a few. The emotional detachment with birds tend to be a lot higher as well, since they are not typically tamed or befriended (raising chickens for eggs does not count!). They also look a lot less like us and the lack of red meat is also visually less emotional to the eaters.
The next stage of meat eating is with seafood. Once again, the emotional detachment is extremely low, as sea creatures look a lot less like us. Moreover, for generations, sea creatures have been considered as staple food along coastal regions and hence have not been considered as 'true meat'. In India, however, nowadays the aversion is more due to the sight and smell than by religious preference.
After this point, we get into the more vegetable-based space. The two stages here - "Vegetarian Lacto-Ovo" and "Vegetarian Lacto", covers what I would call as the "Indian Vegetarian", a space where I fall under. In these stages, all forms of meat (aka "those that have eyes") are not eaten, while dairy products (cheese, milk, yogurt, etc.) are considered acceptable and in some cases, even eggs (technically they don't have eyes!). There are two interesting twists here - the "cake lover" - which most of my more "strict vegetarian" friends are. They do not prefer to eat eggs - scrambled, poached, or even egg strands in a Chinese Fried Rice. However, they are fine with eating cake, even though the cakes contain eggs. I believe the emotional detachment again comes into play - as long as they do not 'see' the egg in its close-to-raw form, they are fine, such as in the case of a cake. This could also be attributed to the social aspect. Most Indians are more Westernized and birthdays are celebrated with cakes. So, we are raised with a tolerance towards cakes and hence, it's not considered as 'meat'. Same goes even for fish oil that most moms give to kids when they are young for the essential Omega-3 fatty acids that are found lacking in a typical vegetarian meal.
Another twist is the "Vegetarian Jain". Jainism is a distinct religion primarily practiced in the western parts of India (most of Gujarat and areas around Mumbai) that has its origins around the time of Buddhism. Jains believe in non-violence and hence do not eat anything that is considered as harmful to other creatures. As a result, they avoid root vegetables (can potentially kill animals under the ground while plucking the vegetables), honey, and similar products. Some people who are more strict also do not eat stale food and hence avoid any fermented product more than a day old. Interestingly however, milk is considered acceptable. My guess is that taking the milk from a cow technically does not harm the cow and hence it is fine, as long as the calf is given its due share. This is probably why even in the more general Indian vegetarianism, milk is considered as vegetarian.
Inclusion of milk and at times eggs are probably the most importance differences between a vegan as it is defined in the Western world, and vegetarian, as it is defined in India. That's also why it irks me to no end whenever I end up getting tasteless vegan stuff in Continental Airlines when I request a "Vegetarian" meal (sometimes the "Asian Vegetarian" meal, which is essentially "Vegetarian Lacto", is not given as an option).
So, hopefully this gives you an idea of the nuances in vegetarianism, and helps better understand the plight of your fellow colleagues!
Monday, March 22, 2010
Decoding a Dream
I had a dream yesterday. Normally I am not the one to remember by dreams but for some odd reason, this stuck. It was not a wacky one too.
I was in a computer lab (possibly in my old college) wondering why the job was so boring but was still happy to get paid $8 an hour. There were only two other people in the room. One was possibly my supervisor when I worked in a computer lab during my college days (didn't see his face, but 'heard' his voice) and the other, my ex-colleague from around eight years back. I say something like "It's boring. I don't have anything to do." My supervisor responds - "In that case, why don't you go and run an anti-virus on all the machines to make sure nothing's wrong?"
Cursing myself for opening my stupid mouth instead of sitting on a console and surfing the Internet, I started with the one at the far end. It's a Windows machine (possibly '95) and I run McAfee (the software that's currently on my office laptop - not the one I used when in college, which was Norton). An old-time, text-based screen (like WordPerfect) opens up and it churns through files. One file gets marked - It's called Lexis Nexis Law. I woke up.
So, what's the big deal? It was a crazy, very geeky dream with potentially no meaning. Normally I wouldn't have bothered about it either, much like I do for most of my other dreams. However, what caught my attention was essentially the last part of my dream. You see, I have been working with some e-discovery stuff of late which involved Lexis Nexis Law, a software product that specializes in this area. I have been involved with the product giving it more attention fairly recently, while other parts of the dream happened way back. So, it was interesting to me how that got involved in the dream at all.
This has led me to a postulate that I feel nicely pull together a few disjointed thoughts I have been toying with the last few years.
Brain Connections
Many of you are vaguely aware and some of you have read a bit more about how our brain functions. In a simplistic model, the brain contains billions of cells called as neurons.
Source: http://learnyourletters.blogspot.com/
Each neuron (or node) is like a LEGO puzzle piece. It has a number of connections going out (actually one connection called axon going out which branches out to multiple segments) and has a number of receivers (called dendrites) for connections coming in. Our memory, thoughts, and experiences are defined by how the neurons are connected to each other. Along with the branches, together there are around a trillion or more possible connections - something that is roughly a million times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer - and this is in EVERY brain, even the one we consider the dumbest.
Source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio365r/Images/neuron.JPG
Our memories are formed when certain set of connections are made between certain sets of nodes via electrical pulses. In order to make a connection, a strong electrical pulse must pass through the two nodes. Since the pulses have a way of fading over time, it is also essential to reinforce the pulse again and again, potentially with the same thought. This is probably what leads to the 'Where is my key?' situation - not enough emphasis is given to remember the key that it gets pushed to the back of the mind or in essence, the pulse becomes weak.
Finally, there are different regions of the brain that specialize in different activities.
Studies have shown that our memories are created when connections are made between the cells. The strength of the pulse, which in turn depends on how strong the feeling or experience leading to the memory is, decides how strongly we remember something. Such memories do not just stay there forever. In order to stay strong, they constantly need to be reinforced, probably till a tipping point when it kind of becomes permanent. This is probably why some of our older memories of childhood fade away and resurface only when triggered by certain actions or experiences.
Dreams
So, in general, we see that memories are created when an electrical signal passes through a bunch of neurons and as a result, connections are made. This is conscious thought. What about dreams?
Based on this theory, I would surmise that dreams are essentially nothing but random connections that happen within the brain. In essence, the brain goes 'berserk', exploring all sorts of pathways between the connections fairly randomly - regardless of the time when a connection was made or an emotion associated with it. I kind of equate this to sending a 'refresh' signal that freshens up the cells and keeps them healthy or active. When such a 'refresh' happens it is possible that a number of connections related to memories of the past, present, and future, are all affected randomly. This, to me, leads to the images or constructs in our dreams.
However, there is another part of the brain which does not really know that we are dreaming and tries to make rational sense out of the pathways (which typically occur due to normal behavior). Such behavior of the brain has been proved by a number of neuroscientists (such as by Oliver Sacks and V S Ramachandran). Thus what we see as a dream is essentially a combination of these two activities. The first goes about creating random pathways and the second goes about constructing a story that will make sense of the random pathway. Hence you get my dream that combined my 'lab supervisor' days at college with the software that I was working on a week ago interspersed with people randomly picked from my memory.
Since ideas are also related to thoughts and memories, which in turn, are connections made between the neurons, it might be possible that some of these random connections can actually lead to a completely revolutionary concept, something that we otherwise might not come across by pure rational thought. May be this is what leads to "Eureka!" moments by many eminent thinkers. Unlike the probability of a hundred monkeys typing out Shakespeare by means of random typing, I think this is more plausible, as our thoughts do have some fundamental meaning and our brain has the capacity to rationalize such disconnected thoughts to something more coherent.
For example, in my dream, all aspects of the dream happened since I came to USA and not before. So, in essence, they were a well-defined subset of my memories that was used to construct the dream and not just everything under the sun.
Meditation and Revelation
As a result, it may be possible to channelize these random thoughts and make it more focused. My cousin told me a few days back that Newton and Einstein were heavy contemplators. Contemplation is in effect trying out various pathways focused around a particular topic. great Indian mathematician Ramanujam used to say that numbers and theorems used to come in his dream. He attributed that to his Goddess giving him the insight. While it might very well be true that he had a gift to begin with, it might also be that his connections were skewed towards math that helped him make his random connections a lot more meaningful than others.
In Hinduism, yoga and dhyana (meditation) are heavily emphasized. Both of them are ways of channeling your thoughts in a more streamlined manner so that the mind becomes more focused. Maybe they realized that such streamlined thought helps creates more streamlined pathways in the brain which can eventually lead to us figuring out the right pathway that answers the question - Why are we here? And may be that's what they term as revelation or enlightenment.
Making of a genius
These postulates can also help put a framework around how a genius is made. Essentially genius becomes a combination of a) how many connections you are born with b) the distribution of the neurons, either by birth such as by makeup of your genes or by means of a congenital defect that may rob you off neurons in a specific portion of the brain c) the environment you grow up in and the interactions you have with the world, which in turn impact the connections made and d) the level of reinforcement you provide to the connections that are already made.
Thus, while it is true that in some cases genius is born, you can also see that you can cultivate genius. The latter can be made by exposing a child (since that's when connections happen at the fastest rate) to a selective environment, exposing the child to a wide range of environments that can lead to different possible connections, and selective reinforcement of some connections as a seed while also inculcating in the child the habit of selective reinforcement.
I was in a computer lab (possibly in my old college) wondering why the job was so boring but was still happy to get paid $8 an hour. There were only two other people in the room. One was possibly my supervisor when I worked in a computer lab during my college days (didn't see his face, but 'heard' his voice) and the other, my ex-colleague from around eight years back. I say something like "It's boring. I don't have anything to do." My supervisor responds - "In that case, why don't you go and run an anti-virus on all the machines to make sure nothing's wrong?"
Cursing myself for opening my stupid mouth instead of sitting on a console and surfing the Internet, I started with the one at the far end. It's a Windows machine (possibly '95) and I run McAfee (the software that's currently on my office laptop - not the one I used when in college, which was Norton). An old-time, text-based screen (like WordPerfect) opens up and it churns through files. One file gets marked - It's called Lexis Nexis Law. I woke up.
So, what's the big deal? It was a crazy, very geeky dream with potentially no meaning. Normally I wouldn't have bothered about it either, much like I do for most of my other dreams. However, what caught my attention was essentially the last part of my dream. You see, I have been working with some e-discovery stuff of late which involved Lexis Nexis Law, a software product that specializes in this area. I have been involved with the product giving it more attention fairly recently, while other parts of the dream happened way back. So, it was interesting to me how that got involved in the dream at all.
This has led me to a postulate that I feel nicely pull together a few disjointed thoughts I have been toying with the last few years.
Brain Connections
Many of you are vaguely aware and some of you have read a bit more about how our brain functions. In a simplistic model, the brain contains billions of cells called as neurons.
Source: http://learnyourletters.blogspot.com/Each neuron (or node) is like a LEGO puzzle piece. It has a number of connections going out (actually one connection called axon going out which branches out to multiple segments) and has a number of receivers (called dendrites) for connections coming in. Our memory, thoughts, and experiences are defined by how the neurons are connected to each other. Along with the branches, together there are around a trillion or more possible connections - something that is roughly a million times more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer - and this is in EVERY brain, even the one we consider the dumbest.
Source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio365r/Images/neuron.JPGOur memories are formed when certain set of connections are made between certain sets of nodes via electrical pulses. In order to make a connection, a strong electrical pulse must pass through the two nodes. Since the pulses have a way of fading over time, it is also essential to reinforce the pulse again and again, potentially with the same thought. This is probably what leads to the 'Where is my key?' situation - not enough emphasis is given to remember the key that it gets pushed to the back of the mind or in essence, the pulse becomes weak.
Finally, there are different regions of the brain that specialize in different activities.
Studies have shown that our memories are created when connections are made between the cells. The strength of the pulse, which in turn depends on how strong the feeling or experience leading to the memory is, decides how strongly we remember something. Such memories do not just stay there forever. In order to stay strong, they constantly need to be reinforced, probably till a tipping point when it kind of becomes permanent. This is probably why some of our older memories of childhood fade away and resurface only when triggered by certain actions or experiences.
Dreams
So, in general, we see that memories are created when an electrical signal passes through a bunch of neurons and as a result, connections are made. This is conscious thought. What about dreams?
Based on this theory, I would surmise that dreams are essentially nothing but random connections that happen within the brain. In essence, the brain goes 'berserk', exploring all sorts of pathways between the connections fairly randomly - regardless of the time when a connection was made or an emotion associated with it. I kind of equate this to sending a 'refresh' signal that freshens up the cells and keeps them healthy or active. When such a 'refresh' happens it is possible that a number of connections related to memories of the past, present, and future, are all affected randomly. This, to me, leads to the images or constructs in our dreams.
However, there is another part of the brain which does not really know that we are dreaming and tries to make rational sense out of the pathways (which typically occur due to normal behavior). Such behavior of the brain has been proved by a number of neuroscientists (such as by Oliver Sacks and V S Ramachandran). Thus what we see as a dream is essentially a combination of these two activities. The first goes about creating random pathways and the second goes about constructing a story that will make sense of the random pathway. Hence you get my dream that combined my 'lab supervisor' days at college with the software that I was working on a week ago interspersed with people randomly picked from my memory.
Since ideas are also related to thoughts and memories, which in turn, are connections made between the neurons, it might be possible that some of these random connections can actually lead to a completely revolutionary concept, something that we otherwise might not come across by pure rational thought. May be this is what leads to "Eureka!" moments by many eminent thinkers. Unlike the probability of a hundred monkeys typing out Shakespeare by means of random typing, I think this is more plausible, as our thoughts do have some fundamental meaning and our brain has the capacity to rationalize such disconnected thoughts to something more coherent.
For example, in my dream, all aspects of the dream happened since I came to USA and not before. So, in essence, they were a well-defined subset of my memories that was used to construct the dream and not just everything under the sun.
Meditation and Revelation
As a result, it may be possible to channelize these random thoughts and make it more focused. My cousin told me a few days back that Newton and Einstein were heavy contemplators. Contemplation is in effect trying out various pathways focused around a particular topic. great Indian mathematician Ramanujam used to say that numbers and theorems used to come in his dream. He attributed that to his Goddess giving him the insight. While it might very well be true that he had a gift to begin with, it might also be that his connections were skewed towards math that helped him make his random connections a lot more meaningful than others.
In Hinduism, yoga and dhyana (meditation) are heavily emphasized. Both of them are ways of channeling your thoughts in a more streamlined manner so that the mind becomes more focused. Maybe they realized that such streamlined thought helps creates more streamlined pathways in the brain which can eventually lead to us figuring out the right pathway that answers the question - Why are we here? And may be that's what they term as revelation or enlightenment.
Making of a genius
These postulates can also help put a framework around how a genius is made. Essentially genius becomes a combination of a) how many connections you are born with b) the distribution of the neurons, either by birth such as by makeup of your genes or by means of a congenital defect that may rob you off neurons in a specific portion of the brain c) the environment you grow up in and the interactions you have with the world, which in turn impact the connections made and d) the level of reinforcement you provide to the connections that are already made.
Thus, while it is true that in some cases genius is born, you can also see that you can cultivate genius. The latter can be made by exposing a child (since that's when connections happen at the fastest rate) to a selective environment, exposing the child to a wide range of environments that can lead to different possible connections, and selective reinforcement of some connections as a seed while also inculcating in the child the habit of selective reinforcement.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
'Recycling' ideas from developed to developing nations
Over the last few years, the 'green' movement has picked up a lot of momentum. If you haven't heard of it already, which is almost impossible, 'going green' is essentially means being environmentally friendly. While it initially used to be confined to recycling your Coke cans, it has now expanded to almost all walks of life. And being a capitalist nation, USA (and pretty much most other developed nations) are cashing in on the new-found concept. Companies are competing with each other in trying to be 'greener' than the other, proclaiming support to green movements, funding challenges to come up with the 'greenest' idea and so on.
But this is not a new idea. In fact, it is literally going back to the past. Pretty much all countries started being green, became non-green due to the industrial revolution, which demanded mass production of pretty much everything with little regard to the impact it could have on the natural resources, and then are now trying to be green again, although with a higher price tag.
Having born and brought up in India, a 'developing' nation, it is kind of ironic to see the new green competition. I lived through the times when things were in fact as green as they could be, witnessed the systematic destruction of the same due to 'modernization', and having come to a 'modern' world, seeing the good ol' ways being promoted as the next 'modern' thing to do at a much higher price point!
To prove my point, let me give you some examples.
Cleaning Supplies
Probably the most obvious and the most immediate idea that is being recycled from the 'developing' world to the 'developed' world is that of cleaning supplies.
When I was young, my mom used cleaning products that were pretty much based on Grandma's recipes - ones that used all sorts of natural ingredients like lemon, coconut fibers, etc. As time progressed, the more chemical based solutions such as bleach and phenyl became the norm and those who did not conform to the new standards were shunned, ostracized, and termed as 'ancient'. Ironically, now I see Chlorox and 3M coming up with a whole bunch of 'green' products that use - guess what - the bloody same ingredients that the 'ancients' used to use in the past.
Source: http://www.ecosherpa.com/green-home/chlorox-green-cleaning-products/
Source: http://www.3m.com/us/home_leisure/scotchbrite/greenerclean/
Sadly, in the process, the chemical products have become the norm in the developing world causing harm, which is further complicated by the fact that the population of the developing world is much more than the developed one. I am sure the concept will recycle back to them, but I wonder if it will be a little too late.
Bagging
The next obvious section is that of bagging.
When I was a kid, my mom used to give me a cloth sling bag, which was primarily used for groceries. Optionally, we had a variety of other cloth bags or worst, plastic baskets. There were no department stores as we see today, but rather, a local grocer. The grocer would pretty much have everything in bulk and would measure the ones we need, wrap it up in newspaper, and tie it with a jute string (natural fiber, made of coconut tree, I think). Once I come back, my mom would unwrap everything and put them in respective jars.
Source: http://trak.in/Tags/Business/mall-culture/
As times changed, department stores started emerging. The biggest advantage they had against the grocers (which as a much more personalized service as we would shop with one grocer for decades) was that it was reliable (no skimping on weight or suspicion of adulteration) and it came individually wrapped in plastic, which was more convenient for storage. Eventually, even the grocers started adopting the plastic wrapping concept except for a few products, combined with an extravagant use of plastic bags (thankfully constrained by the general stinginess of the grocers to give too many plastic bags).
Source: http://www.indiansamuraimovie.com/visual.html
In pretty much all supermarket stores (Wegman's, Kroger, Path Mark, HEB, you name it), there is an option to 'buy' a cloth bag that's sold at a premium (say, $3 or $4) compared to the free plastic bags. The products are still being sold in individually wrapped packets, but then again, in some areas, more 'mass' versions are being suggested compared to individual wraps.
Source: http://www.thisnext.com/item/058EAD5A/Wegmans-Easy-Shopping-Reusable
Once again, we see the idea of recycling being recycled from developing nation to developed nation and back, hopefully, again to the developing nation.
Such recycling does not necessarily stop just with household products. It seems to be prevalent across all facets of life.
Teaching
Ancient India had a fairly robust and comprehensive educational system known as 'Gurukulam' - a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to 'teacher's community'. Per the system, a student would literally be under the tutelage of a chosen teacher along with his fellow students, live in his quarters (kind of like a boarding school) and learn the skills necessary for life. In the process, the student was expected to perform household chores while getting education.
Studies were not limited to rote learning. It was comprehensive in that it included both textbook learning as well as practical learning and focused on leading a balanced life, while excelling in one's area of expertise. The philosophy was centered on learning that involved teaching, group studies, self study, and experience over time.
Of course the system was transformed during the British Raj into changing the educational system so that it reflected the British system. The intent of this change was less of bringing good education than in 'civilizing' the natives so that they can be assimilated better in their world if required. This transformation led to the Gurukula system transformed into a more structured, albeit rote-based learning that we have today. This process also led to the shift in importance from being all-rounded to being memory-prioritized.
Recently, Sir Ken Robinson, a British educator, gave an excellent lecture in TED on how schools should allow students to be creative and be able to pick their passion instead of being forced to memorize stuff and pass exams that value memory more than skill. The same debate is being made in the USA as part of the educational reform - to get rid of the 'standard tests' and replace them with better ways to judge students.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
I cannot help but see the idea making a full circle.
My intention is not to sound like a 'Western World' basher. There are numerous other aspects that current developing nations can learn from the developed ones. Rather, my rant is more about opportunities that are missed both by developed and developing countries just because we perceive something to be 'old school' or what our parents did and hence, 'uncool'.
I wonder how many more such 'inventions' are made before someone realizes the pattern, steps back, and says, "Gosh! Why don't we take a look at what people used to do before we invented all the toxic junk and improve on those practices to suit our improved needs and stop messing up the world in the process."
But this is not a new idea. In fact, it is literally going back to the past. Pretty much all countries started being green, became non-green due to the industrial revolution, which demanded mass production of pretty much everything with little regard to the impact it could have on the natural resources, and then are now trying to be green again, although with a higher price tag.
Having born and brought up in India, a 'developing' nation, it is kind of ironic to see the new green competition. I lived through the times when things were in fact as green as they could be, witnessed the systematic destruction of the same due to 'modernization', and having come to a 'modern' world, seeing the good ol' ways being promoted as the next 'modern' thing to do at a much higher price point!
To prove my point, let me give you some examples.
Cleaning Supplies
Probably the most obvious and the most immediate idea that is being recycled from the 'developing' world to the 'developed' world is that of cleaning supplies.
When I was young, my mom used cleaning products that were pretty much based on Grandma's recipes - ones that used all sorts of natural ingredients like lemon, coconut fibers, etc. As time progressed, the more chemical based solutions such as bleach and phenyl became the norm and those who did not conform to the new standards were shunned, ostracized, and termed as 'ancient'. Ironically, now I see Chlorox and 3M coming up with a whole bunch of 'green' products that use - guess what - the bloody same ingredients that the 'ancients' used to use in the past.
Source: http://www.ecosherpa.com/green-home/chlorox-green-cleaning-products/
Source: http://www.3m.com/us/home_leisure/scotchbrite/greenerclean/
Sadly, in the process, the chemical products have become the norm in the developing world causing harm, which is further complicated by the fact that the population of the developing world is much more than the developed one. I am sure the concept will recycle back to them, but I wonder if it will be a little too late.
Bagging
The next obvious section is that of bagging.
When I was a kid, my mom used to give me a cloth sling bag, which was primarily used for groceries. Optionally, we had a variety of other cloth bags or worst, plastic baskets. There were no department stores as we see today, but rather, a local grocer. The grocer would pretty much have everything in bulk and would measure the ones we need, wrap it up in newspaper, and tie it with a jute string (natural fiber, made of coconut tree, I think). Once I come back, my mom would unwrap everything and put them in respective jars.
Source: http://trak.in/Tags/Business/mall-culture/
As times changed, department stores started emerging. The biggest advantage they had against the grocers (which as a much more personalized service as we would shop with one grocer for decades) was that it was reliable (no skimping on weight or suspicion of adulteration) and it came individually wrapped in plastic, which was more convenient for storage. Eventually, even the grocers started adopting the plastic wrapping concept except for a few products, combined with an extravagant use of plastic bags (thankfully constrained by the general stinginess of the grocers to give too many plastic bags).
Source: http://www.indiansamuraimovie.com/visual.html
In pretty much all supermarket stores (Wegman's, Kroger, Path Mark, HEB, you name it), there is an option to 'buy' a cloth bag that's sold at a premium (say, $3 or $4) compared to the free plastic bags. The products are still being sold in individually wrapped packets, but then again, in some areas, more 'mass' versions are being suggested compared to individual wraps.
Source: http://www.thisnext.com/item/058EAD5A/Wegmans-Easy-Shopping-Reusable
Once again, we see the idea of recycling being recycled from developing nation to developed nation and back, hopefully, again to the developing nation.
Such recycling does not necessarily stop just with household products. It seems to be prevalent across all facets of life.
Teaching
Ancient India had a fairly robust and comprehensive educational system known as 'Gurukulam' - a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to 'teacher's community'. Per the system, a student would literally be under the tutelage of a chosen teacher along with his fellow students, live in his quarters (kind of like a boarding school) and learn the skills necessary for life. In the process, the student was expected to perform household chores while getting education.
Studies were not limited to rote learning. It was comprehensive in that it included both textbook learning as well as practical learning and focused on leading a balanced life, while excelling in one's area of expertise. The philosophy was centered on learning that involved teaching, group studies, self study, and experience over time.
Of course the system was transformed during the British Raj into changing the educational system so that it reflected the British system. The intent of this change was less of bringing good education than in 'civilizing' the natives so that they can be assimilated better in their world if required. This transformation led to the Gurukula system transformed into a more structured, albeit rote-based learning that we have today. This process also led to the shift in importance from being all-rounded to being memory-prioritized.
Recently, Sir Ken Robinson, a British educator, gave an excellent lecture in TED on how schools should allow students to be creative and be able to pick their passion instead of being forced to memorize stuff and pass exams that value memory more than skill. The same debate is being made in the USA as part of the educational reform - to get rid of the 'standard tests' and replace them with better ways to judge students.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
I cannot help but see the idea making a full circle.
My intention is not to sound like a 'Western World' basher. There are numerous other aspects that current developing nations can learn from the developed ones. Rather, my rant is more about opportunities that are missed both by developed and developing countries just because we perceive something to be 'old school' or what our parents did and hence, 'uncool'.
I wonder how many more such 'inventions' are made before someone realizes the pattern, steps back, and says, "Gosh! Why don't we take a look at what people used to do before we invented all the toxic junk and improve on those practices to suit our improved needs and stop messing up the world in the process."
Monday, March 08, 2010
Orange Glazed Asparagus
Couple of my non-technical interests are cooking and photography. The ever-increasing popularity of Food Network has only added to my interests. When I finished my high-school and was getting ready to go apply for colleges, I had a good mind to apply for a culinary institute. With no background in my family in professional cooking (although my spiritual/religious background has a strong foundation in cooking - more on that in another blog), that thought did not take much shape and eventually led me to follow the herd and become and Engineer, although I have been quite happy with that decision as well. The fact that I am a vegetarian probably didn't help build a case for a culinary institute as well!
Switch to present, I enjoy watching Alton Brown and Ted Allen shows in Food Network. Harold McGee's book "On Food and Cooking" gave me a peek into the science behind cooking, only increasing my curiosity. It's amazing to look at how different flavors come together and how our mind converts the sensations into beautiful emotions.
With that background, I thought I'll share a recent recipe I tried out.
Asparagus is a healthy, fiber-rich vegetable. The best thing about asparagus is that it can be cooked very quickly with very minimal effort and makes for a great healthy snack.
I wanted to check out if there are some good variations one can create with asparagus and came across an interesting recipe for Orange Glazed Asparagus in All Recipes, a favorite recipe website of mine. Intrigued I prepared it today and it turned out to be quite delicious. I added a few variations of my own to make it a little more interesting than the default recipe, which is what you see here.
Serving Size: 2 | Time to Cook: 10 minutes
Ingredients
1 bunch asparagus (broken near the tender region)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Orange juice (fresh squeezed may give better flavor. I used the store-bought one)
2 tsp orange zest
1-2 tsp paprika or mild chili flakes
1 tsp cumin powder (dry-roasted, powdered cumin seeds may give better flavor)
2 tsp olive oil
Method
Switch to present, I enjoy watching Alton Brown and Ted Allen shows in Food Network. Harold McGee's book "On Food and Cooking" gave me a peek into the science behind cooking, only increasing my curiosity. It's amazing to look at how different flavors come together and how our mind converts the sensations into beautiful emotions.
With that background, I thought I'll share a recent recipe I tried out.
Asparagus is a healthy, fiber-rich vegetable. The best thing about asparagus is that it can be cooked very quickly with very minimal effort and makes for a great healthy snack.
I wanted to check out if there are some good variations one can create with asparagus and came across an interesting recipe for Orange Glazed Asparagus in All Recipes, a favorite recipe website of mine. Intrigued I prepared it today and it turned out to be quite delicious. I added a few variations of my own to make it a little more interesting than the default recipe, which is what you see here.
Serving Size: 2 | Time to Cook: 10 minutes
Ingredients
1 bunch asparagus (broken near the tender region)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Orange juice (fresh squeezed may give better flavor. I used the store-bought one)
2 tsp orange zest
1-2 tsp paprika or mild chili flakes
1 tsp cumin powder (dry-roasted, powdered cumin seeds may give better flavor)
2 tsp olive oil
Method
- In a 12" skillet, add olive oil, asparagus, and salt and saute for a minute
- Add orange juice to the asparagus and toss lightly. Close the skillet and let the asparagus steam for 5 to 10 minutes in medium-high heat
- Once the asparagus is tender, remove them from the pan. Keep the liquid in the pan.
- Add orange zest to the liquid and heat till the juice gets into a saucy consistency
- Pour the glaze on top of the asparagus in a plate
- Sprinkle paprika and cumin powder on top and serve hot
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Searching for a way to Web 3.0
For the last few years, I have been involved professionally in the "Information Management" space. Much has been written, blogged, and tweeted about managing information, ironically just resulting in more information to manage (job security!). Having been involved with computers since the late 80s, I have witnessed the explosive growth of computing power, the Internet, and the information that goes with the Internet. It makes sense since as social beings, we seem to have the fundamental tendency to share, regardless of whether someone is willing to receive or not.
One of the most significant changes that has happened during the last couple of decades is the widespread adoption of the Internet. While we haven't found a parallel physical universe, it looks like we have been able to create a parallel Earth in a sense with the Internet. I had blogged earlier about how the one key feature that seems to distinguish human behavior against God-like behavior is our limits of perception. To me, the Internet is our attempt to break the sensory limitations that we have and go beyond. Because of the Internet, our overall memory has increased and our inherent limitations on what we can understand and comprehend have started diminishing. Ironically the same break in the perception barrier has also imposed new challenges. We now have too much information to deal with and it's becoming harder to distinguish meaningful information (such as this blog) and meaningless drivel (such as this blog). Maybe it's God's way of punishing us for trying to break the barrier!
So, for sake of better understanding this universe, it may be worth understanding how it came into being in the first place.
Web 1.0
Around the beginning of Internet time, most content processed through the computers was structured data, such as tables of numbers. We were primarily using the computers as number crunching machines and it served our purpose just fine. Then someone had the bright idea to also share the documentation that goes with it (something that never happens in the real world - have you ever written good documentation for your code so that others can understand your mess?!) and thus started the great Internet revolution. The intent was mainly to push the information one-way, more like shouting from a soap box or giving a lecture, probably because the initial intent was to share scientific work.
This suited many people just fine and hence we had a proliferation of websites or soap boxes and everyone was voicing their opinion happily. This is probably the highest form of democracy - you can voice your opinion as much as you want without fear of censorship (except in some places) or getting reprimanded. However, as we have seen in many democracies (especially in India), democratic behavior can also lead to chaos if not controlled properly. You might end up having too many people voicing too many opinions resulting in more noise than music. For a country, this manifests in lack of decisive action (such as Obama not being able to pass a health care bill or India not being able to focus on long-term goals). For the Internet, this manifests in lack of focus from the user's perspective, such as not being able to find the right piece of information on time.
Web 2.0
As the information being shared grew larger and larger, so did the difficulty in finding the right information quickly.
Search engines came along to help alleviate this problem. They can probably be equated to a coordinating committee that tries to pass a bill. The purpose was to get the information and present the findings in some sort of an order so as to make the job of finding information easier. Most search engines were focused primarily on getting to the information based on the search being performed. It is kind of like finding a book in the library if you know the title (or at best, the category).
Due to the increasing reliance and relative ease of use of finding the information that was needed on the Internet rather than making a personal visit or a phone call, we seem to have started spending more and more time in this parallel universe than the real one. Maybe this increased presence led to the need for personalization, kind of like how your doctor or grocer starts greets you personally if you go to him more often. This increased presence also potentially led the "soap box" shouters to realize that there actually is an audience to hear their rant. This new audience also indicated potential opportunities, which in turn, led to increased advertisements and increased need to personalize the message to attract more audience towards one soap box as opposed to another.
Then Google came along to create a shift in the search. Instead of providing results based on just what the users entered, the search engine giant pulled parameters related to the information that could help contextualize the result. This shift in thinking converted Internet from being an information source to being a knowledge source, as knowledge is primarily information that is put in context. We are currently here.
Knowledge can be obtained in one of three ways - analyzing and understanding the content itself and putting it in perspective, prioritizing the information based on the users who read it, and comparing the information with other related information in order to create a context. Google has succeeded in the second and third areas primarily - it prioritizes the result not just by what the user is looking for but also by how others perceive that information (by way of inbound and outbound likes and supposedly 200 other parameters). However, I think we are still a bit off on the other aspect - understanding the information itself.
The parallel progress of increased communication in the Internet space as opposed to the physical space seems to have helped Google as well. Thanks to Social Networking such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like, we are actively providing more feedback to Google by means of linking content. In essence, we are the minions of Google!
Web 3.0
The next evolution potentially lies in the first aspect of getting knowledge - understanding and analyzing the information to find meaning. This issue has been complicated primarily due to the inherent unstructured nature of the primary language of the Internet itself - English. English by nature is more unstructured than structured, potentially due to its organic evolution. In a sense, it is kind of like the Internet in that it has grown in all directions with a simple core grammar. The grammar itself has a lot of rules and exceptions. To compound the problem, the words are heavily dependent on context, with a single word having multiple meanings depending on the context. Such ambiguity is bad for a structured lookup, which is why finding results by just keywords in a search engine is difficult.
Restructuring the web
Since this is a hard nut to crack, we have to look for alternatives. There are two. First is to convert the way information is stored into something more structured. The most concerted effort being made in this space is that of Semantic web, or web of meaning. In principle, semantic web attempts to redo how information is stored and shared. Current document formats, be it HTML that powers the Internet or Word, PDF, etc. use a convention that is more focused on presentation rather than information.
Semantic web attempts to change this by means of new standards such as RDF (Resource Description Framework) and OWL (Ontology Web Language) aim to get users to provide structure around otherwise unstructured information. This is great, except that it is difficult to get existing content providers to convert to this format quickly. The push can potentially happen if major content providers conform to these standards and eventually others are forced to follow suit for fear of being left out.
The second option is to obtain this contextual information from the attempts made to get to the information itself, by understanding the intent of the user's request. I feel this area is probably more immediately solvable than the previous one and hence can potentially provide a more short-term solution and augment the long-term solution later. For this to work, we need to go one step beyond looking at converting information into knowledge and start focusing on converting knowledge into wisdom. Wisdom, to me, is knowledge distilled over time. Thus instead of the current search behavior of returning results based on a single request, what is required is to understand user's behavior over time.
Knowledge by filter
This can happen in one of two ways - first is to store all the searches the user performs, and essentially glean information off that information provide relevant results. This sort of a brute force method is probably underway in Google already, since it pretty much keeps track of all the searches stored. This method has decent benefits. For example, if I search for the word "ball" and my last 100 website visits or searches were around football, the system can make an assumption that "ball" means "football" (or "soccer" - this is where semantic nets come in as well). Given the current scenario, this is probably the next step in search.
This concept was even attempted by a few systems. Yahoo! for example, introduced a beta version of its website for a short period where one could provide some clues to the search engine on whether they are shopping for an item or doing research. Unfortunately, it looks like it never made it to the main search engine and the site is currently inactive (as far as I know).
Google seems to have incorporated the same concept in its website as well, although it is not readily apparent (you have to click on the "More Options" link in the search results window to see the option.
Wisdom by conversation
Another way to understand user's intent is to have a conversation with the user. In real life, understanding occurs in this fashion. We have a conversation with the other person and by asking questions in different ways, we eventually figure out the underlying intention. It's kind of like the "blind men and the elephant" story but with a twist that there is a 7th person who pulls in the input from the six blind men to come to the realization that they are talking about an elephant. Similarly, it would be interesting if a search engine has a conversation rather than ask a single keyword and then analyze the information to get to the right result.
A few years back, there used to be a website called Active Buyer's Guide. Using the Wayback machine, I found that it became inactive around 2006 or so. Before Google and Amazon became mainstream, I used to use this site (probably around 2000 - 2002) to drill down to a specific product.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.ppt
The site was different from other typical product sites (like Newegg, which by the way, has a much better filtering mechanism than Amazon). Instead of just giving a bunch of options that I may or may not know anything about, it used to strike a conversation with me in plain English.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.ppt
On top of that, it also used to ask me how important one feature was compared to another, which was cool because not all features are given the same priority.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.ppt
Thus, the results would be a combination of what I want in a product and how important I consider different features to be with respect to one another. This resulted in an amazingly close approximation to what I wanted.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.ppt
The searches we perform our searches are similar to this behavior. We first do a search, look at the results, and if we are not happy with the results, perform another search potentially with some keywords found in the first search, till we get to what we desire. It should not be that difficult for the search engine to emulate this behavior. I believe this is where the next revolution in search engine lies and it will be interesting to see if this becomes a reality soon.
One of the most significant changes that has happened during the last couple of decades is the widespread adoption of the Internet. While we haven't found a parallel physical universe, it looks like we have been able to create a parallel Earth in a sense with the Internet. I had blogged earlier about how the one key feature that seems to distinguish human behavior against God-like behavior is our limits of perception. To me, the Internet is our attempt to break the sensory limitations that we have and go beyond. Because of the Internet, our overall memory has increased and our inherent limitations on what we can understand and comprehend have started diminishing. Ironically the same break in the perception barrier has also imposed new challenges. We now have too much information to deal with and it's becoming harder to distinguish meaningful information (such as this blog) and meaningless drivel (such as this blog). Maybe it's God's way of punishing us for trying to break the barrier!
So, for sake of better understanding this universe, it may be worth understanding how it came into being in the first place.
Web 1.0
Around the beginning of Internet time, most content processed through the computers was structured data, such as tables of numbers. We were primarily using the computers as number crunching machines and it served our purpose just fine. Then someone had the bright idea to also share the documentation that goes with it (something that never happens in the real world - have you ever written good documentation for your code so that others can understand your mess?!) and thus started the great Internet revolution. The intent was mainly to push the information one-way, more like shouting from a soap box or giving a lecture, probably because the initial intent was to share scientific work.
This suited many people just fine and hence we had a proliferation of websites or soap boxes and everyone was voicing their opinion happily. This is probably the highest form of democracy - you can voice your opinion as much as you want without fear of censorship (except in some places) or getting reprimanded. However, as we have seen in many democracies (especially in India), democratic behavior can also lead to chaos if not controlled properly. You might end up having too many people voicing too many opinions resulting in more noise than music. For a country, this manifests in lack of decisive action (such as Obama not being able to pass a health care bill or India not being able to focus on long-term goals). For the Internet, this manifests in lack of focus from the user's perspective, such as not being able to find the right piece of information on time.
Web 2.0
As the information being shared grew larger and larger, so did the difficulty in finding the right information quickly.
Search engines came along to help alleviate this problem. They can probably be equated to a coordinating committee that tries to pass a bill. The purpose was to get the information and present the findings in some sort of an order so as to make the job of finding information easier. Most search engines were focused primarily on getting to the information based on the search being performed. It is kind of like finding a book in the library if you know the title (or at best, the category).
Due to the increasing reliance and relative ease of use of finding the information that was needed on the Internet rather than making a personal visit or a phone call, we seem to have started spending more and more time in this parallel universe than the real one. Maybe this increased presence led to the need for personalization, kind of like how your doctor or grocer starts greets you personally if you go to him more often. This increased presence also potentially led the "soap box" shouters to realize that there actually is an audience to hear their rant. This new audience also indicated potential opportunities, which in turn, led to increased advertisements and increased need to personalize the message to attract more audience towards one soap box as opposed to another.
Then Google came along to create a shift in the search. Instead of providing results based on just what the users entered, the search engine giant pulled parameters related to the information that could help contextualize the result. This shift in thinking converted Internet from being an information source to being a knowledge source, as knowledge is primarily information that is put in context. We are currently here.
Knowledge can be obtained in one of three ways - analyzing and understanding the content itself and putting it in perspective, prioritizing the information based on the users who read it, and comparing the information with other related information in order to create a context. Google has succeeded in the second and third areas primarily - it prioritizes the result not just by what the user is looking for but also by how others perceive that information (by way of inbound and outbound likes and supposedly 200 other parameters). However, I think we are still a bit off on the other aspect - understanding the information itself.
The parallel progress of increased communication in the Internet space as opposed to the physical space seems to have helped Google as well. Thanks to Social Networking such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like, we are actively providing more feedback to Google by means of linking content. In essence, we are the minions of Google!
Web 3.0
The next evolution potentially lies in the first aspect of getting knowledge - understanding and analyzing the information to find meaning. This issue has been complicated primarily due to the inherent unstructured nature of the primary language of the Internet itself - English. English by nature is more unstructured than structured, potentially due to its organic evolution. In a sense, it is kind of like the Internet in that it has grown in all directions with a simple core grammar. The grammar itself has a lot of rules and exceptions. To compound the problem, the words are heavily dependent on context, with a single word having multiple meanings depending on the context. Such ambiguity is bad for a structured lookup, which is why finding results by just keywords in a search engine is difficult.
Restructuring the web
Since this is a hard nut to crack, we have to look for alternatives. There are two. First is to convert the way information is stored into something more structured. The most concerted effort being made in this space is that of Semantic web, or web of meaning. In principle, semantic web attempts to redo how information is stored and shared. Current document formats, be it HTML that powers the Internet or Word, PDF, etc. use a convention that is more focused on presentation rather than information.
Semantic web attempts to change this by means of new standards such as RDF (Resource Description Framework) and OWL (Ontology Web Language) aim to get users to provide structure around otherwise unstructured information. This is great, except that it is difficult to get existing content providers to convert to this format quickly. The push can potentially happen if major content providers conform to these standards and eventually others are forced to follow suit for fear of being left out.
The second option is to obtain this contextual information from the attempts made to get to the information itself, by understanding the intent of the user's request. I feel this area is probably more immediately solvable than the previous one and hence can potentially provide a more short-term solution and augment the long-term solution later. For this to work, we need to go one step beyond looking at converting information into knowledge and start focusing on converting knowledge into wisdom. Wisdom, to me, is knowledge distilled over time. Thus instead of the current search behavior of returning results based on a single request, what is required is to understand user's behavior over time.
Knowledge by filter
This can happen in one of two ways - first is to store all the searches the user performs, and essentially glean information off that information provide relevant results. This sort of a brute force method is probably underway in Google already, since it pretty much keeps track of all the searches stored. This method has decent benefits. For example, if I search for the word "ball" and my last 100 website visits or searches were around football, the system can make an assumption that "ball" means "football" (or "soccer" - this is where semantic nets come in as well). Given the current scenario, this is probably the next step in search.
This concept was even attempted by a few systems. Yahoo! for example, introduced a beta version of its website for a short period where one could provide some clues to the search engine on whether they are shopping for an item or doing research. Unfortunately, it looks like it never made it to the main search engine and the site is currently inactive (as far as I know).
Google seems to have incorporated the same concept in its website as well, although it is not readily apparent (you have to click on the "More Options" link in the search results window to see the option.
Wisdom by conversation
Another way to understand user's intent is to have a conversation with the user. In real life, understanding occurs in this fashion. We have a conversation with the other person and by asking questions in different ways, we eventually figure out the underlying intention. It's kind of like the "blind men and the elephant" story but with a twist that there is a 7th person who pulls in the input from the six blind men to come to the realization that they are talking about an elephant. Similarly, it would be interesting if a search engine has a conversation rather than ask a single keyword and then analyze the information to get to the right result.
A few years back, there used to be a website called Active Buyer's Guide. Using the Wayback machine, I found that it became inactive around 2006 or so. Before Google and Amazon became mainstream, I used to use this site (probably around 2000 - 2002) to drill down to a specific product.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.pptThe site was different from other typical product sites (like Newegg, which by the way, has a much better filtering mechanism than Amazon). Instead of just giving a bunch of options that I may or may not know anything about, it used to strike a conversation with me in plain English.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.pptOn top of that, it also used to ask me how important one feature was compared to another, which was cool because not all features are given the same priority.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.pptThus, the results would be a combination of what I want in a product and how important I consider different features to be with respect to one another. This resulted in an amazingly close approximation to what I wanted.
Source: http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/2921/Lectures%202/Uses%20of%20Digital%20Camera.pptThe searches we perform our searches are similar to this behavior. We first do a search, look at the results, and if we are not happy with the results, perform another search potentially with some keywords found in the first search, till we get to what we desire. It should not be that difficult for the search engine to emulate this behavior. I believe this is where the next revolution in search engine lies and it will be interesting to see if this becomes a reality soon.
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