Pandora

Pandora is a music exploration software. I also think it is a brilliant idea. And though my friends tell me it isn't the first, I was completely blown away by it! However, I felt like most things it could be improved. (Remember, now inspired by TED, I am now dreaming!!) So I sent them a mail. Feedback? Here it is :

Hi

I just came to know about Pandora in the past few weeks, and I think this is a great product! I have discovered more songs I liked in the last few weeks that I did in a couple of months before using Pandora.

However, I had a suggestion, though it could prove to be hard to implement. Rather than just make a selection based on a song, why not make the selection based on a part of the song? The algorithm seems to focus on attributes of the song like male vocal voice and electric guitar, so you may have a lot of the information needed to implement this.

Take for example, Metallica : Master of Puppets. Maybe the listener does not like the whole song, but he/she "really" likes the electric guitar solo piece. He/she should be able to modify the search algorithm to include only the information about the electric guitar and not the vocals. Then, say it would make more sense to play Ecstasy of Gold rather than November Rain. They would give very different search results and the latter would be a more effective search.

Another thing that could be done is to give the user an option (turned off be default except for the first time he registers) to choose which of the options he liked in the song. For example, if we had the vocals and the guitar at the same time, he/she may choose only one of them, whichever one he likes, or both. There could be an option in the menu which enables him to choose whichever component of whichever part he likes.

I believe both of these features will enable a better search. What we have right now is not the DNA, but the whole cauldron of DNA. Making the search even better would really let us choose the DNA we like without getting a baggage every time we choose to like something.

As I said earlier, you guys are doing a great job!! Please do let me know what you think of these ideas.

Also, is there any reason we can only say whether we like the song or not but not rate how much we like the song? Is that related to copyright? Would such a rating not make the search many times better? And you must already have all the information related to this. Just that you would have to input the ratings as weights and implement these in the search algorithms as weights. Of course I could be wrong, but this should not be terribly difficult, should it?

Thank you for taking the patience to read the email.

TED

If you do not know about these, the please take 15 minutes of your time and go through any one TED talk that interests you. Chances are, it will change the way you think, it will teach you how to dream.
Having just spent a whole Sunday going through these (and I normally feel guilty after these sessions) the only regret I had was that they had limited episodes. As I put it to a person who was watching it with me, the brilliance and innovative thoughts here make you wonder what you are doing with your life.
With topics ranging from Brain Science to AIDS in Africa, these speakers have left me in awe with the innovation, the rationale and the pure genius behind some of their work. And it has really made me wonder whether I want to do a PhD or not. Whether or not I do a PhD, I am now wondering how totally I am wasting my time in normal thought. If there was one thing these people had in common, they all thought outside the paradigm handed down to them through their ancestry.
What they did was to say 'Why?' and then follow it up with 'It isn't so'. Both are equally important really, and without either, neither would have meaning. There is a difference between a dream and an ambition. But to have an ambition, you first need to dream. Neither can be left out.
Of the many startling facts I was faced with today, this one struck me the most : In an agricultural society, the ratio of the productive to the not-producitve (agriculturally literate vs illiterate) was 5:1. In the knowledge based economy, it is 427:1!! This, to me is an alarming figure. Among other things, it means that the inequality in the society will continue to rise and this will definitely have social consequences that will continue to raise its ugly head in the form of crimes.
But it also means that our species will progress fater as a whole As Bill Gates said in an interview : 'Forty years ago, if I was givena choice between being a normal man in Poughkeepsie and a genius in China and India, I would have chosen Poughkeepsie, but today I wold rather be a genius in China or India.' Maybe H G Wells Time Machine will come true, maybe our species will divide. Ot maybe not, maybe the economics, if not social concerns will force us to take care of all humans across the world. After all, they are customers for large corporations too. But I also think social causes will triumph. Some people do seem to care about the por, though human thought is predominantly dictated by selfishness.
Anyway, coming back to TED, I think it was really wonderful! I think it now makes me question everything. I mean, why do I have such an operating system? And why is a MAC my best choice? Why should I have to watch low quality telivision? Would the experience be better if it were customized? Interactive? I just came across Pandora (one of the few good things I learnt from this internship) and though people tell me this technology has been there for long, I think it is truly amazing. Though I think it can be improved. I have written to them about it (mail included in a later post).
I think TED has taught me a very vital aspect of life.....to dream, and never to lose your dreams, never to sacrifice your vision for the future in your struggle with the present.
But there is another important part. Saying 'It isn't so'. Only, now that you have said it, you have to do something about it. It means that if you see your bathroom leaking, it isn't enough to complain about it, you also have to get your hands dirty and make the problem alright. Face it, people do not like problems, we have enough of them already. But they are interested in solving problems if you can find solutions. Finding, and more importantly "implementing" them is going to be a far bigger challenge than just dreaming. I do hope I am able to execute the difference, not just talk about it.

If you have read my blog till here, then take my advice, go watch a few TED talks. Believe me, the experience is life changing.

Trying a picture post........of me :)

That's me in the center
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion.....

India's first woman president

When I first saw the news in Wikipedia, I was elated, and a little surprised. surprised because I had never heard of her. This had never happened before. I guess this shows how far I am moving away from my country. I do not keep track of news from my country anymore :( information is really too much, and I am not being able to filter it effectively.
Anyways, the moment I overcame my surprise, I was shrouded by disbelief. And yes, for an instant there, I did waver in my religious support to Wikipedia and its authenticity. Again, maybe because compared to the elections in the US where the woman candidate continues to play the woman card to garner her votes, this did not happen in India. In all fairness to Hillary Clinton, the 2 posts can not be compared, one is titular while the other, to quote a columnist has the power to destroy the world at the push of a button.
Overcoming my disbelief and feeling guilty at the ephemeral sacrilegious thought on Wikipedia, I clicked on the link, to read about a person I had never heard of before (and I can be blamed for that given the posts she has held previously as the governor of Rajasthan). And then I was sorely disappointed.
In this hour of triumph for feminism in India, a country still fighting with equality and reservations, I was appalled to see the number of controversies surrounding the new President. It was a moment of triumph for feminism, but a grave one for the nation. In my opinion, Presidents in the past have had relatively less controversy. We have never had 'mudslingable' presidents. And now we do! Knowing India, I believe this will now go down the usual path of degradation before we start swearing in crooks as President. It is funny, I was actually hoping for a scholar, along the lines of K R Narayanan, but the person I found seemed not to be. Of course, it could be that I am jumping to conclusions. After all, I have known this person for only all of 20 mintes. And also a case can be made that she may have been pressured by her family. It is not that this has not happened in the past in India. Some theories claim that Indira Gandhi's (India's first woman Prime Minister) ascendancy to the highest political office was because people viewed her as pliable. And then we have our very own Rabri Devi (Chief minister of Bihar) who was 'put in the post' by her husband since he was being charged (and did a mighty good job of staying there and coming out of his shadow, though ultimately losing the elections). But coming back to Pratibha Patil (the inspiration for this post) I think she has help way too many high offices to not take the blame for any of the scandals surrounding her. I think every person in high office deserves a part of the blame surrounding him/her. And so does our President.
Having said that, I hope she does a good job as President. There have been people in the past who have had scandals all around them, including a respected Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. And yet they have shown a love for the nation above one's own family. Whatever her past, I hope for the nation that she is able to conduct herself as an ambassador for women in India as well as a head for the state.
If she is able to conduct her office with dignity, it will be a giant leap for the nation. We would have shown the world that despite our poverty, despite our shortcomings, despite a democracy(which can be and has been made to conform to various party interests) we are making progress. And though this is not the same as Clinton saying a small boy in America a chance to dream, a woman in Rajasthan, a Dalit and a Muslim have all been the head of the state of India. I doubt many nations have so many minority people in such a powerful position.
And maybe we can dream of a day where India will be based on meritocracy alone, and not on caste, religion or sex (exactly the principles we claim not to be biased by). Though eons in the future, we can dream......

Driving License and Boredom

Only a blog could link these 2 topics together.....or this day in my life! I got up early today (and it had to be that comfortable cold exactly today!) and took the light rail to the DMV which could well have been in the other part of the world! And since there was a Grand Prix going on, the train did not go completely and I had to take a shuttle bus, which cost huge amounts of time! Luckily it was not in vain since I got my license passing in flying colors. I made only 2 mistakes! though only a driving test, I have not scored this high in a long time! And given how other things are at this time, I think I really needed this.
I am bored right now. Have not got the program to work. Have tried everything in my power, do not know what to do as the next step. No one seems to be helping me out, do not even know if it is fair to expect help. After all, I am getting paid to solve the problem. The usual disillusionment that accompanies failure looms at large :( And now I am bored. After working hard for the last 2 hours on what I thought was a nice way of attacking the problem, I surfed the net for the last 45 mins out of frustration when it did not work. I wonder how people get their codes to work? All I hear are people telling their code does not work one day, and the next they they have a smile on their face with it working! Why does that not happen to me :|
The usual dilemma of MBA vs PhD remains, more on that later.......both options seem great right now, and I know they will continue to look so until I decide to take either of them up, when the other will look better.
Heard this talk by Dan Gilbert (link later : google dan + gilbert + ted + talks) and it is a life changing talk.....and a hilarious talk yet awe inspiring in the depth of research. Have a meeting in 20 mins to justify my stay here for the last week, and this is what I do? Blog?
I wonder why I have lost enthu? Maybe if a small thing starts working, I will be able to get a lot done!! I am only scared of not achieving anything much in this internship. I mean, as Dad said, getting the project to a closure is very important. Will I manage to do that? I do not know. Will I manage to get anything accomplished in these 4 months? I do not know.
Will talk more on this after I get out of the meeting......

The Pitch

Today I was a part of what was essentially a pitch. I would not like to take names of Companies as I feel it is only ethical to protect their privacy. Company A was having trouble with its development process. For this, they were looking into a solution involving Company B.

PhD vs MBA

I lie awake. There is no respite, you can thrash about as much as you please, but it is relentless, an unforgiving pull into the abyss of dilemma, torn between two decisions, but blind to the future. It grips you, you try to rationalize, try to blink, in the hope that the vision clears. But there is no redemption. And suddenly rationale is a curse, the sole cause of your torture. Well, not completely the sole cause, another can be ascribed to your completely blindness to the future.

And the battle is lost. This is worse than gym........not only a I irregular, but I also have no enthusiasm to finish a post!!

Setting expectations..............

First of all let me set the expectations....I plan to write what I want, when I want, how I want, without any regard to political correctness or other people's feelings. Readers should not have any expectations whatsoever, though I will try at times not to bore people. This will be both a general musing as well as a collage of ideas that keep floating through my head. From past blogs, I have seen that looking back there are some comments you feel you should not have written. Reading them you laugh at yourself. Well, that is a part of life. It means you learn, you evolve. Which is also the reason keeping a journal is important. So why public blogging? Well, many a times you are better off using other people as sounding boards to your ideas. I was not impressed by comments I saw on my friend's blogs, but some of them seem to make it worth while. Plus, there is this whole new thought on sharing your life and thoughts with other people which I find fascinating tonight. Again, I do not know if I will find it the same tomorrow night, or the night day after, and hence the title........... I do not know if blogger allows tags or an easy upload of photographs, if not I do not think Google is doing a good job on tertiary products (though it is doing a mighty fine job in primary and secondary!).
Anyway, coming back to the point, at the onset, I do not know how this is going to turn out to be, or whether it will turn out at all. All I say is that I will make an attempt, and hope I will be more successful than with the gym!!