Photos from Ananya's Second Birthday Party

I know its a bit late, but I finally am getting around to posting some photos from Ananya's second birthday party. Its simply amazing how fast they grow. She's now very chatty and putting together great "Punjenglish" sentence like: "Sco Dhoro Papa" - translation: "Let's go run Papa."

UK's Soft Diplomacy with Iran Succeeds

Interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor called Lesson's Learned: Iran's release of British Prisoners regarding Britain's success securing the release of its prisoners from Iran. Here's a snippet:

"This is vindication for the British diplomats, who came under a lot of criticism," says Ali Ansari, an Iran expert at London's Chatham house think tank. "Diplomacy worked. People should reflect on this: There are diplomatic options when we deal with Iran. It's a very salutary lesson."

And here's a great quote on the counter strategy by Israel:

"What is to be gained from following the Israeli example of last summer [when it invaded Lebanon after its soldier was captured]?" asks Rosemary Hollis, a Middle East expert also at Chatham House, "You can't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They still haven't got their service personnel back, and they smashed up half of Lebanon."

How to beat Google

Interesting post and comments at skrenta.com on how to beat Google. Here are some snippets:

Our entire industry is scared witless by Google's dominance in search and advertising. Microsoft and Yahoo have been unsuccessful at staunching the bleeding of their search market share. VCs parrot the Google PR FUD machine that you need giant datacenters next to hydroelectric dams to compete. They spout nonsense about how startups should just use Alexa's crawl and put some ajax on top of it. Ye gods.

Grow a spine people! You have a giant growing market with just one dominant competitor, not even any real #2. You're going to do clean-tech energy saving software to shut off lightbulbs in high-rises instead? Pfft. Get a stick and try to knock G's crown off.

...

A conventional attack against Google's search product will fail. They are unassailable in their core domain. If you merely duplicate Google's search engine, you will have nothing. A copy of their product with your brand has no pull against the original product with their brand.

Duplicating Google's engine is uninteresting anyway. The design and approach were begun a decade ago. You can do better now.
...

Forget interface innovation. The editorial value of search is in the index, not the interface. That's why google's minimalist interface is so appealing. Interface features only get in the way.

Forget about asking users to do anything besides typing two words into a box.

Screen Projected Translations of Kirtan

Our Gurdwara, or place of worship, recently started a wonderful pilot project where translations of the ceremony are projected onto a screen in roman script, English, and Punjabi. As someone who was born and raised in the states, I can attest to the struggle a western native born goes through to try to understand our services.

Our Giani's, or priests, rarely if ever offer any translation into English, the primary and often only language of the young generation of Sikhs. In addition, most of our prayers and shabads, or hymns, are in Gurmukhi, which is a much older form of Punjabi. After years of struggling to become more fluent in Punjabi, I was frustrated to realize I still had far to go in understanding our holy texts in Gurmukhi. In my estimation, differences between Gurmukhi and Punjabi are something akin to the differences between the early modern English of Shakespear's era, perhaps even the Old English of Beowolf, and modern day English.

In any event, the projection idea is a fantastic new development. The way it works is a volunteer runs a laptop which projects onto a screen during the services. The volunteer listens to the service, and figures out which shabad or prayer is being recited. This person then pulls up a corresponding power point containing the translations and clicks through the slides as appropriate. If a prayer or shabad is not available in a prepared power point, the person goes to www.sikhitothemax.com and performs a search to get to the appropriate text. The system works amazingly well without being disruptive to the hymns and ragas; the serenity of the prayers in their native Gurmukhi is preserved, the Giani's can remain spontaneous in their service, and the Sangat can gain more insight into the texts. The one drawback is that the volunteer needs to be trained and spend some effort, but my guess is this will become easier over time as the kinks in the system are worked out. We're currently raising funds to purchase the full projection system, and it looks likely to happen.

My guess is other immigrant communities of different faiths have similar problems where the ceremonies are performed in a mother language often foreign to the western native generation. I really hope this idea catches on as it would be unfortunate if another generation feels alienated from its faith due to a basic communication disconnect.

Spoofs: Dil Luteya and Bulla Ki Jana

Here's a hilarious spoof on Dil Luteya and Rabbi's Bulla Ki Jana. If you don't speak Punjabi, my appologies; unfortunately there is no translation and this sort of thing doesn't translate well anyway.

Rabbi Shergill's Bulla Ki Jana Video

For those of you have never heard Rabbi, a lovely Sikh singer from Punjab, I highly recommend his debut album Rabbi. I had never seen a video of his; I really like this video for Bulla Ji Jana. Some nice street and life scenes from all over India.

Rabbi's lyrics remind me of the Sufi poet Rumi for their blend of mysticism and love. Here's the roman characters and english translation for Tere Bin courtesy of Wikipedia:

tere bin / besides you

sanu sohnia / my love

koi hor nahio labhna / i shan't find another

jo dave / who'll give

ruh nu sakun / peace to my soul

chukke jo nakhra mera / and indulge me

ve main sare ghumm ke vekhia / i have gone and seen it all

amrika , roos, malaysia / america, russia, malaysiana

kittey vi koi fark si / there wasn't any difference

har kise di koi shart si / they all had some condition

koi mangda mera si sama / some asked for my time

koi hunda surat te fida / some were fascinated with my face

koi mangda meri si vafa / some demanded my fidelity

na koi mangda merian bala / none wanted my demons

tere bin / besides you

hor na kise / no one else

mangni merian bala / wanted my demons

tere bin / besides you

hor na kise / no one else

karni dhup vich chhan / shall shade me in the sun

jiven rukia / (the) way you paused

si tun zara / slightly

nahion bhulna / i shan't forget

main sari umar / all my life

jiven akhia si akhan chura / you said, looking away

"rovenga sanu yad kar" / "you shall weep in my memory"

hasia si main hasa ajeeb / i laughed a strange laugh

(par) tu nahi si hasia / but you didn't

dil vich tera jo raaz si / you had a secret in your heart

mainu tu kyon ni dasia / why didn't you tell me

tere bin / besides you

sanu eh raz / none shall tell this

kise hor nahion dasna / secret to me

tere bin / besides you

peerh da ilaaj / what druid

kis vaid kolon labhna / has the cure to my ills

milia si ajj mainu / i found today

tera ik patra / a note of yours

likhia si jis 'te / on which you had scribbeled

tun shayr varey shah da / a varis shah couplet

park ke si osnu / upon reading which

hanjnu ik duliya / a teardrop fell

akhan 'ch band si / what was locked in the eye

seh raaz ajj khulia / was revealed today

ki tere bin / that other than you

eh mere hanjnu / these tears of mine

kise hor / won't be kissed by

nahio chumna / none else

ki tere bin / that other than you

eh mere hanjhu / these tears of mine

mitti vich rulnha / will wither in the dust

Children's Video on Guru Nanak Dev Ji

I ran across this lovely claymation video on the life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder and first prophet of the Sikh faith. It is in English, and well suited for children. Click on the links below to view the video:

Life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji - Part 1
Life of Guru Nanak Dev Ji - Part 2

12 Days of Christmas for the Brown Folk

And here's another little ditty that's a little late for Christmas, but entertaining nonetheless.

Indian Thriller Video

This video is hilarious. It's an unintended spoof of Michael Jackson's thriller. If you're looking to waste a little time, check it out.

Nature's Prozac: A Day On the Arm at Mount Baker

What an epic day of snowboarding I had yesterday. It has been dumping up at Baker, and I decided to take a vacation day from work and head up. I spent the previous night up in Bellingham at Camp Cody soaking in the hot tub staring into the forested hillside. It was only 2 inches of fresh, so we weren't all that excited to jump out of bed at 6.30AM. It turned out to be a great decision; the snow was uncharacteristically light - normal in Colorado or Utah, but not here in the chunky Cascades. Anyway, we hiked out the arm, and got some epic turns on virtually uncut powder. Ahh, this was a reminder of why I used to spend so many days of my life at the mountain. Since my main exercise lately has been toddler lifting, my body is soar and heavy, but of course, in a good way.

Book Review: The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

I just finished Ghosh's amazing book: The Glass Palace. I spent all day and night Saturday until I could finally finish the last few hundred pages. It is a saga fit for the big screen, and perhaps one day, it will wind up there. I had little idea what World War II looked like from Burma, and Malaysia's standpoint.

This book provides an intimate portrait of life during this historic time, weaving the lives of many families spanning multiple generations; Ghosh provides lush descriptions of the palaces of the Burmese monarchy, the jungles of Burma and Malaysia, and many urban locales in India, Burma, Malaysia, and other places. I had only a foggy idea so many Indians were involved in the conquering of Burma by the Brits, and the subsequent occupation and economic construction to follow. My own grandfather went to Burma to strike it rich back in the 40s. After reading this book I'm intrigued to find out more about my grandfather's experiences there. I was also fascinated by Ghosh's portrait of the confused state of mind of the Indian soldiers forced to fight on behalf of their own colonizers; they were often sympathetic to the Japanese conquests; one group jumps sides to fight against the British alongside the Japanese. I had read about this in Kushwant Singh's Sikh History series, but Ghosh's portrayal really brought it to life for me. In any event, here's a summary of the book from Publisher's Weekly:

Ghosh's epic novel of Burma and Malaya over a span of 115 years is the kind of "sweep of history" that readers can appreciate and even love despite its demands. There is almost too much here for one book, as over the years the lives and deaths of principal characters go flying by. Yet Ghosh (The Calcutta Chromosome; Shadow Lines) is a beguiling and endlessly resourceful storyteller, and he boasts one of the most arresting openings in recent fiction: in the marketplace of Mandalay, only the 11-year-old Indian boy Rajkumar recognizes the booming sounds beyond the curve of the river as English cannon fire. The year is 1885, and the British have used a trade dispute to justify the invasion and seizure of Burma's capital. As a crowd of looters pours into the fabled Glass Palace, the dazzling throne room of the nine-roofed golden spire that was the great hti of Burma's kings, Rajkumar catches sight of Dolly, then only 10, nursemaid to the Second Princess. Rajkumar carries the memory of their brief meeting through the years to come, while he rises to fame and riches in the teak trade and Dolly travels into exile to India with King Thebaw, Burma's last king; Queen Supayalat; and their three daughters. The story of the exiled king and his family in Ratnagiri, a sleepy port town south of Bombay, is worth a novel in itself, and the first two of the story's seven parts, which relate that history and Rajkumar's rise to wealth in Burma's teak forests, are marvelously told. Inspired by tales handed down to him by his father and uncle, Ghosh vividly brings to life the history of Burma and Malaya over a century of momentous change in this teeming, multigenerational saga.

All in all, I give this book 4 out of 4 stars. If you are interested, you can purchase the book at Amazon by clicking HERE

Images from Iran

Unlike most folks, I'm not convinced we are about to invade Iran, but if we are, this is what we will be destroying: http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html

Some Art and Poetry Posts

I just posted a bunch of stuff on my art blog for anyone interested. The site is: deep-art.blogspot.com

Goodness Gracious Me: Bhangra Man Comes to America

Courtesy of Youtube, Goodness Gracious Me episodes have made it to the web. My wife and I have been searching for these ever since we saw a bunch of episodes on an Asiana flight on route to Delhi. Basically, GGM is like an Indian In Living Color put on by the BBC. Hopefully I'm wrong, but my guess is Google has yet to find out these are copyrighted material, so enjoy them while you can. While much of the humor requires a desi vantage, much still makes it through, at least I think. Here are some fun episodes if you are web video enabled:

Bharat Homes
Chunky Lafunga
Indian wedding

and my personal favorite: Bhangra Man

Ms. Dewey: Heir to Clippie

I've never thought of search as entertainment, but this site is hilarious. If you've ever had any doubt what the future of search was all about, surely Ms. Dewey will enlighten you. Some fun searches to try: art, namibia, and my personal favorite, gangster. Check it out: www.msdewey.com. Flash is required.

After being thoroughly entertained for half an hour, I realized this was a bit too polished for a Saturday Night Live skit, which is what I thought the site in essence was. After reading a bit more on the web, bizarrely, I found out this site is not a joke. I learn this was a serious attempt at search UI. Here's a quote from a Microsoft spokesperson courtesy of David Utter:

"This is not an advertising campaign. This [was] really just an experiment for exploring different ways to introduce people to search and Live Search specifically. We are not promoting the site but simply putting it out on the Web for discovery."

This is too much. How on earth could someone take this project seriously as a potential search interface? I think Microsoft should back peddle quickly and claim it was a brilliant online advertising tactic. More fuel for the Live.com branding fiasco fire.

A Day of Snow Play at Alpental

Here are some photos from the other day when we were all playing up at the mountain. It was Ananya's first day in the snow. She was initially very nervous about the white stuff, but eventually was jumping on the sled and screaming "more" repeatedly in Punjabi.

Vertical Searchers Unite

I ran across a post by Greg Linden discussing a couple research papers on search. Especially interesting is the Bender paper on peer to peer search. Basically the paper discusses a strategy on how to create "specialized" peers with topic based crawls of the web. While I think this is problematic in a true peer to peer system, due to the unpredictable quality of peers (or predictably bad depending on your level of cynicism) and their limited bandwidth among other things, it did make me think of a related idea. What if some of the myriad "vertical search" providers proliferating on the web could follow a standard for communicating the contents of their verticals along the lines of thinking in the Bender paper. Its not peer to peer, but to some extent it addresses the monopolistic concerns of the big 4, and it does address the dependability of a search node problem. In other words, create a meta search infrastructure, with built in economic accommodations of some sort, that vertical search providers could plug into; unlike the meta crawlers of yore that focus on meta crawling general search engines (e.g. metacrawler, dogpile, ...), they metacrawl niche vertical engines constrained by topic. If done right, this might lower the barrier of entry for small players to make an impact in broader search.

Saturday Snow Play

Here are some photos from this Saturday. These are all taken on a walk down to the beach. Ananya made it all the way down to the beach, and most of the way back. Nayan, for the first time ever, went all the way down and back with out whining.

Sun and Sun and Fun

Well its only been a month since we returned from the land of the sun, but I can hardly remember what its like to be outside and warm. We've had a chilling spell the past few days, so I thought I'd post some photos from a month ago to remind me that warm days will be back again.

Mass Disposal: From Forks to Friends

It seems to me, modern life can be so solitary and transient. It seems societally we pay such a high price for our fancy dish washers, fiscal freedom and uber mobility. Many of our societal psychopaths wake up, go to work, stare at a computer, maybe send a few emails, or chat on the phone, go home, open up a bag of fast food, stare at the tv for a few hours, sleep, and repeat; with the exception of an occasional murder or mutilation, they have virtually no human contact.

I'll rant a bit, and maybe some logic will emerge. I've been thinking, basically, in America, we've got plastic spoons, and paper plates that we whip out when guests come to visit since washing them is too much effort. We design our homes with a maximum shelf life determined up front. The building I lived in at college was specifically designed to last only 30 years. It was, of course 50 years since the buildings birth when I lived in it, but that's besides the point. In the modern era, divorce is nearly the norm.

In part since we move a lot, and are no longer connected for lifetimes to our villages or communities; people come and go in our lives, isolating us further. I keep in contact with no one from my elementary school years in Indiana, 1 person from my junior high school years, 2 from high school, 1 from college in Chicago, and 3 from my years in Boston. Of the nearly thousands of people I have encountered in my life and had atleast a few dozens of hours of communication with, I keep in contact with perhaps 70 or so, and maybe 15 on a regular basis. Of those, perhaps a handful are "good" friends and not mere aquaintances. I'm not terribly abnormal either. I read a statistic the other day saying the average male American over the age of 60 has 1 friend. 1! I read another statistic, I can't remember it exactly, but it was something like 200 years ago, the average person met, physically met, less than 50 people in their entire lives.

I was chatting with a guy from New York City a few years back. He was distraught since he and his girl friend had broken up. It turns out she lived in San Francisco, and he in New York. He said he hated San Fransisco. I asked why. He said, "Its very easy to meet someone in SF. In fact, some random person I met 5 minutes ago is my new best friend. I was there for a couple years, I thought I had some real friends. Then I'd show up at the airport, and call up a friend for a ride home, and they'd say they'd love to, but they're at a party, or out, or just can't. They'd say, just take the bus." He said something like, "maybe I can't make a new best friend in New York in 5 minutes, but atleast I know they'll pick me up at the @$@%##@'n airport!

We're all guilty. Sunday I was up at the mountain snowboarding. It was a terrible day with avalanche danger so high, that all interesting lifts were closed, and I was, needless to say, unable to go into the backcountry. In addition, the road home was closed due to avalanche blasting, so I did what any easily bored snowboarder does on such a day, I made my way up to the pub. I sat down and was enjoying a nice black and tan, when a guy asked if he could sit with me. I said sure. We started chatting and I was having a good time. Soon, his friends showed up, and I was sucked into their group, and we were chatting away. Eventually I said goodbye and made my way home. I was thinking that I will likely never run into these folks again, even though they only live a few minutes away from me.