Two Years

 It's been two years since I got the news, and my brother and I rushed to India in the height of the COVID outbreak - dad had suddenly passed away. I will be ever-grateful to all those who stepped up and helped out as our mother and us brothers went through the aftermath.

Today, as we perform the puja for dad's passing's second anniversary, I am thinking of him, and the values he instilled in us - not just through word but also deed. I am also thinking of the thousands of other Indians who lost loved ones during the same outbreak - including friends who lost parents, and hope that they are doing well.

Om Shanti. 

Life, the Universe, and Everything (and my plan for the next year)

I turn 42 today (for those who got the H2G2 reference), and it's impressive to see that my previous blog post was 7.5 years ago!

To catch you up, a lot has changed in that time, since we moved to Southern California: Anjali is now leading her team at ASSC, and myKaarma (the company that my friends started and I joined) has grown by leaps and bounds, and I continue to have fun as the head of the R&D+Engg.

On the personal front, I recently started surfing, and can even catch small waves and stand up (pop-up, in surfer-speak) now! It has taught me a lot about the value of persistence and tenacity, and of being with nature - even on bad days, watching the pelicans fly in formation overhead, and the occasional dolpin is worth waking up early :-).

Perhaps the biggest struggle for me has been a scatterbrained mind and failure to follow through in projects I started (and the subsequent guilt). FWIW, this blog post was originally planned for Jan 1, 2023!

So here's the plan: my mantra for this coming year will be simple and straightforward: 

                        make mistakes. 

I've been blessed with enough cushion (material and social) in my life that small to medium-sized mistakes won't matter, and hopefully while trying things (the first step making said mistakes), sometimes I'll succeed, thus starting some virtuous cycles.

That's it for this post; hopefully I'll be able to write more often. Or maybe this was a bad idea, but isn't that the point? ;-)

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish

As we celebrate our second wedding anniversary, the bittersweet time has come to begin a new chapter. In a few weeks, our Paris adventure will come to an end, and a new one will begin in LA! 

We are excited about what the relocation will bring: an exciting opportunity for Animesh's career, the opportunity to re-jump Anjali's, the next step in building our future, and the chance to spend more time with family. Plus, living in a place with constant sunshine and warm temps will definitely be a welcome change after Paris' frequent wet, cold weather and gray skies!

At the same time, we will sorely miss fresh baguettes, the beauty of the city, traveling across France and Europe, the continuous stream of visitors, and dozens of subtle things about daily life. 

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AP - BACK TO THE FUTURE

Above all, I will miss the supportive and warm friends I made in Paris, and my brilliant colleagues at Inria, some of whom have been with me for all of the past 7 years! Since my future role will involve travel to India, I hope to plan layovers in Paris and catch up with you all :).

I am thrilled with my new role as head of Kaarma Labs, the (no longer secret) R&D division of Kaarma, and look forward to continuing as an academic, albeit with a more industrial focus. Collaboration will be a key component of my position, and so I am glad that there is scope to continue working with many of you!

Of course, the presence of friends and family in LA where I spent 5 years of my life is a major bonus. :) Not to mention the beach!

This is but an announcement; a longer post should follow shortly on my (soon-to-be revived) blog. :)

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AS - FROM THE CITY OF LIGHT TO THE CITY OF ANGELS

Having spent most of my adult life on the East Coast, Southern California seems as much like a foreign country as France! [Albeit an English-speaking one, which will certainly make life easier! ]

Yet, I am certain that adjusting to a place with a gym and kale juice on every corner won't be difficult for me, and I imagine being surrounded by beaches (and new friends) will ease the transition. :)

Finally, a huge thanks to all those who have extended their friendship to me these past two years in Paris; hope to see you soon, whether in the city of light or angels! 

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P.S. We enjoyed this comparison of the two cities: http://cassavafilms.com/list-of-9/nine-comparisons-between-paris-and-los-angeles

P.P.S. We hope to see everyone at our farewell party!! https://www.facebook.com/events/870497959703004/

The action is at G+

Hi all,

Thanks to all of you who have been tracking this blog, and/or have followed a link to this blog from elsewhere on the web. The regular posting from me are now at my Google Plus page at https://plus.google.com/+AnimeshPathak/posts . This includes my regular #standingdesk bollywood mixes, photos, and more.

Someday, I will come back to this blog, when the tools at G+ end up being too limited from what I want to express.

Until then, au revoir from le blog!

So, what are the names of your circles?

So I've had google plus for about a week now, and am loving most things about it - from its unidirectional relationship model (which in my opinion models real human relationships very well, as we had in our papers on the yarta mobile social middleware), to its very useful mobile app. Looking forward to the upcoming features.

However, with the coming of circles comes the question: what do you call them? Do single word common nouns really suffice in representing the multiple groups in which we categorize those we know?

Personally, I don't think so. I mean, I have friends from work, friends from Paris, friends from LA, .... then colleagues from several working groups... the list is endless! And then there is the question of coming up with names to determine "closeness" to a person.

Therefore, I think I might settle on a content based naming scheme, especially for the second challenge above; after all, isn't the whole use of circles to (restrict) share(ing) of content?

So, here is a suggested list of circles, in increasing order of closeness :) :

1. knows-my-name (basically, public)
2. knows-my-profession
3. knows-name-of-my-wife
4. knows-name-of-my-girlfriend
5. knows-name-of-my-crush
6. knows-name-of-my-boyfriend (!!)

So, what are your ideas for circle names?

[mobilePic] at the Rath yatra in Paris : they are actually puling the chariot!

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[mobilePic] My first knitting project: a case for my android tablet :-).

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Nine Years, and Still Going Strong

Yup, it has been nine years now since that crazy car accident [details here] in the south of France, and all is well :).

In fact, Chandra is going to be in Paris in a week, and I will be the UK a week after that :).

Here's to close shaves and second chances.

Happy re-birthday (Ashish) Chandra, Akshay (Sharma), (Rahul) Kapoor, and yours truly :)!

Dhinka Chika, the Evolution

I'm sure a lot of you have seen/heard the dhinka chika song from "Ready" by now. I too like the peppy beats, and especially the innovative lyrics -

ek tujhse chatting karne ki khatir main.. internet lagwaaonga rey!* --- waah waah! :)

[*'just for chatting with you, I will get internet']

Here is the promo video, in all its over-saturated color glory :).


And then Varun told me that there is an "original Telugu version", which he likes more; this set me searching.

Here's the original, Ringa Ringa, in its original Telugu, the native language of the peppiest dance numbers coming out of India ;-). I do not speak the language, but am pretty sure that the lyrics are also pretty innovative, since I hear a lot of English terms, especially the "landline" mention at the end :)


And as a bonus, here is the missing link of this transformation from Hyderabad to Mumbai -- Telugu song but dubbed in Hindi :).


Quite a transformation, no? The question now it, which of these will be first used as background music in a Hollywood movie? :)

[mobilePic] Drink of the day: elephant house orange barley sri lankan soda :-)

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[mobilePic] Seen during my 8mile hike today :-)

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[mobilePic] So, it begins! #knitting :-)

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[mobilePic] The conference banquet last night included wonderful food, and live music by uni students :-) #gpc2011

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[mobilePic] Enjoying free wifi, public smart screens, and Finnish Mexican food in Oulu :-)

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Gajar (Halwa), Second attempt.

And here is the second attempt in 2 weeks at making carrot halwa :).

Based on the recipe by my mom at this video.

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Gajar (Carrot) Halwa: mom's recipe :-)

Based on the recipe by my mom at this video.

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A [small] idea to [further] improve Google Docs for Collaboration

Re-posting from this crazy idea added today.

Birthday post coming soon...

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I love Google Docs. I use it for a lot of things --- to store recipes my mom sent to me when I was in grad school, taking instantly-ready meeting minutes collaboratively, as well as discuss paper-writing plans with my colleagues, among others.

When Google released Wave, I loved it; but sadly people like me were in a minority and the project was killed. However, I am very happy to note that Google has kept on pulling the much-liked features of Wave into Docs, including instantaneous collaborative editing (April 2010) and, most recently, advanced discussion/commenting features (March 2011).

However, there is still one extra feature which I wish they could add, and this one would not even take much coding -- just some basic JavaScript. Here is the idea:

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I often use Google docs in a conference call. It is a great way to conduct meetings, with attendees posting their questions directly in the doc, and updating it with answers as they are agreed upon in the meeting. The same thing goes for action items. And this way, the minutes are ready at the end of the call, thus saving a TON of time.

However, what I miss is the "follow $user's cursor" feature, using which I can make my screen auto-scroll to the portion of the document that my colleague is currently seeing on his browser. This would help immensely when people on a conference call are trying to read/discuss a document together, and thus need to be on the same page, literally :). [ To those who have played Quake III or other multiplayer FPS games, this concept should not be new :). ]

Implementing this should not be a problem either. The Docs page already sends cursor positions periodically to its servers, we just need to add screen boundaries to this information in some manner. On the receiver's side, it will simply involve some JavaScript to scroll the screen to the appropriate position.

So, what say?

Google's Surprise for my #30

So unless you are living under a rock, you know that I turned 30 today. Thanks to all of you who have sent in their wishes through various forms of communication. Will take me a day or two to get back and acknowledge them all personally :).

I will write a detailed post later [busy with preparation for my LA trip which starts tomorrow], but here is something I saw today which was a pleasant surprise [click the images below for large sizes].

Clicking the image got me to this page.

Very cool Google, very cool!

[mobilePic] Yup, it's here :-) #nexus-s

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Time to Disco

Just got news on another paper acceptance, which takes this week's up to three -- Two papers in GPC 2011, and one in Policy 2011. I figured it's time for some music :).

Speaking of that, here is a playlist (following the success of my item-song playlist earlier) of Bollywood Disco Songs.

For inclusion, the conditions are:

• The song should be in a Bollywood-produced movie [no Hollywood, Kollywood, or any other]
• The song should not be a remix
• The word "disco" should be in the title [on in the main chorus] of the song.

So here is the playlist [also at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=DE29FABDE56E1EDE ]



As always, suggestions from you will be most appreciated :).

cheers,
-A