The Centennial Man

Some milestones invite celebration, usually so if they can be represented in nice, round figures of 10, 25, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and so on. Such an event, inconsequential yet observable, occurred a couple of days ago in my Orkut scrapbook. It reached a post count of 1000.

I turned back to the old posts to see how things had shaped up. The first post is on the date 10th October, 2004. Presumably, this should have been the time around which I would have signed up for the Orkut account. Not strangely, my first post on this blog is dated 24th July, 2004. Thus, it was around third quarter of 2004 that I had started warming up to the idea of "Web community" and becoming familiar with its now ubiquitous tools of blogging and social networking. Not bad, since Blogger underwent a major redesign in May 2004 after it was bought by Google in Feb 2003 and Orkut was launched in Jan 2004. I was well on my way in keeping pace with the technology curve.

It struck me that the posts should hold more information than just giving a kick by adding to a big number of 1000. Immediately the spreadsheet application, Excel, was invoked to get a sense of what constituted this number. By the way, that's an essential trait one picks up while undergoing Management education.

Here is a picture of what I pulled out of the 1000 odd posts. Its a month-wise distribution of the post counts. As I reflect back upon the events that took place over the last two years or so since the Orkut account has been active, the graph starts appearing to make sense to me. It is quite a remarkably accurate representation of my social networking and how it was affected by the events in my life.

1. The initial surge in the activity is as expected due to beginner's curiosity.
   
2. The first peak in Dec 2004 is a result of point 1 combined with a flurry of exchange of New Year wishes with even those whom I have known for long (aka "acquaintances") but never wished before. Seems that in a way, social networking site does make one more "sociable".
3. The dips of Jan 2005, Aug 2005 and Nov 2005 are spot on! These were the periods when I was preparing either for a transition between employers or for a "certain feline obsession" (as Morpheus once quoted and to which I responded).
4. Activity during 2005, otherwise, is pretty stable and consistent. Not much was changing in my social circle and no new additions were happening.
5. The Jan 2006 surge is the result of a wave of congratulations emanating from my success in belling the "feline creature" mentioned in point 3.
   
6. Surprisingly, the Dec 2006 posts are lesser than Dec 2005. I had expected them to be higher as a result of combination of New Year wishes and congratulation messages. While the "All the Best"s made a satisfactory mark, the New Year wishes went down considerably. This modifies the observation made in point 2. Social networking sites can give an initial boost to the social skills but cant guarantee a sustained improvement; people can slump back to their usual self even in online space.
7. Feb and Mar 2006 have the similar stable levels as seen throughout 2005.
8. The "feline creature", belled in point 5, is finally conquered in mid of Apr 2006. The surge in the second round of congratulation messages is even more highly pronounced than in point 5. The spillover continues to May 2005 at the same rate (almost a straight line). It could have dipped towards later part of May. But now I was a prominent blip on the radar of many observers and they deemed fit to send Birthday wishes even when they had never done before. I can't call it a comeuppance of my similar behavior in point 2.
9. Jun 2006 dip resulted from another transition - from employment to unemployment (or better termed as "higher studies"). However, the base level has now increased. Its a function of new people added in my network through the "feline" conquest and probably the resulting better recognition among the people I already knew.
10. New levels of "scrapbook interaction" are attained in Jul 2006 with the added nodes in my social network. However, as noted in point 6, the initial boost started fizzling out at a continuous stable pace. The pattern was reliving itself and gives a peek into how things shape up for me in a new social circle.
11. The new nodes added in point 9 were not due to my efforts. I was invited by my new peers to join their social circle. Jan 2007 surge saw my proactive action of adding more people from new peer group based on better knowledge about them. Needless to say, some of the newer nodes formed in point 9 have all but become defunct as and when I evaluated my comfort level with them. The newer nodes are a better representation of my currently sought social circle.
12. Jan 2007 surge is a combined effect of point 11 and exchange of New Year wishes in my extended social circle. It seems that New Year is the most celebrated occasion in my scrapbook; much more than all other Indian festivals.
13. The slow dissipation in activity, which had started becoming noticeable in late 2006, appears to continue into 2007. The older acquaintances who were quite excited about my new educational institute seemed to have moved on with other celebrations and eye-grabbers. I have had my shot at one-day fame! Till the next big event.........
    

String Theory (from PBS Network - NOVA)

Here is the 3 hour "Elegant Universe" series aired on PBS Network - NOVA series which
explains String Theory in an interesting manner. The commentary is from Brain Greene, author of "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory". Each sub-part is a 10-12 min. video for easing the bandwidth load.

Part 1
1.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poINyvCN3tc
1.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVeW-AbDo1U
1.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYA2XuwL_00
1.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAK-q6giRmE
1.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPWTEa4e_k

Part 2
2.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YpRyKbeIz8
2.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nfBKE2u6bo
2.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cmO7TW78o
2.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WFD7BagKwk
2.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syNJs6PSpZQ

Part 3
3.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf7YkwW4zRI
3.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnRBJgP_dwA
3.3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ikbRzIxeg
3.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGnhsudTaRI
3.5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPdcWrlvshk

Trying out Orkut videos

I may be quite late on catching up on this side of technology curve and adoption. The thing with uploading videos is that, well, one should have a video worth uploading. Not adding to the woes of YouTube by deciding not to upload Copyright content doesn't leave much choices. However, that doesn't stop me from relishing some videos which are related to my taste of entertainment.

So, today I decided to compile all the various videos I have watched over a period of time into one place - my Orkut profile page's video section. It took my around 2 and a half hours to search out the relevant videos on YouTube and Google Videos, edit their description and sit back to beam happily at the result.

During the process, I realized couple of things:

1. Its an instantaneous connection others can make to you on a social networking site by looking at the kind of videos uploaded by you.
2. Orkut is allowing only Google owned videos to be linked here. The flexibility and power of the feature could have been greatly enhanced if other online video content could also be linked. (But, cant blame them after the Viacom lawsuit fiasco).
3. I guess MySpace has a similar feature. I am not a MySpace subscriber so can't say how the features measure up against each other. My social network is currently being well served by Orkut and I am happy for now.
4. The video content is uploaded on YouTube servers. This allows Orkut to virtually accept unlimited number of video links. However, the Orkut albums section has photographs uploaded on Orkut servers. So they put a limit of 12 photographs to save space. It wouldn't be surprising if they extend the videos concept here by linking album to Picasa. Maybe it will help in further integration of the Google services, not to mention about possibilities for AdSense.
5. My two and a half hours of effort would need to be replicated if I want to post all my video links (along with the descriptions) to my blog. Its high time the social networking sites exposed framework for data export. When IMs can link up together and Google Chat is already being hosted inside both GMail and Orkut, this should be around the corner.
6. Like blog services (or better, like Twitter), Orkut should provide facility to add comments on the album photographs and video collection. It will be more pertinent at that point than having a comment added in the scrapbook.

I will let Orkut worry about these. For the time being, I am hoping that others will enjoy the show at my profile page.

Update #1: 22/03/07

Adding new video links pushes the older links to later display pages (like the scraps). However, the idea of videos is not akin to the scraps, where it makes sense to keep the latest scrap at the top. I want to arrange my video list to give a sense of priority to the videos I consider best. Orkut doesn't support manual sorting of the video list.

Update #2: 24/10/07

This is a bit late but still. Orkut has been introducing new services over the past few months. Some are addition of Blogger and Picasa feeds, removing the limit on album size, allowing to scrap directly next to video and Picasa feeds and "Friends Update" feature (which alerts when your friends edit their profile). Removing the limit of album size and integrating feeds had to come in as part of the bigger picture of integrating all Google services. However, still, Orkut has to do a lot to catch up with Facebook. Facebook has slowly and steadily started gaining the critical mass in the college/university networks. I was forced to open a Facebook account when the number of Facebook invites from my existing friend circle became a regular feature. I haven't yet filled in my profile details there. In fact, that is the more tedious part. I can still live with a rich Orkut profile and sparsely filled Facebook profile as long as my friend network does not stop using Orkut altogether. A similar migration experience example is that I now use GTalk primarily for instant messaging. Though I log on to Yahoo, I don't receive any pings. However, I am still tempted to keep using Yahoo because of one very important feature which GTalk still doesn't have - "Stealth Settings". Its a faux-pas when I log on in the middle of the night to chat with a particular person, receive pings from others in the list whom I don't want to enter into conversation at that time and then have to either give excuses or ignore them.

The day the Earth (and my campus) stood still

Time. Always slipping away. A moment here, next there, and then gone.

The academic rigors here comprise more of time pressure than peer pressure, in my opinion. The crescendo is built up in the first term and continues unabated into the second term. But, come third term, things have started to slacken a bit. Maybe we got used to "the system" or "the system" had used enough of us. :D

This weekend (March 16th to 18th) was a true 60 hours stretch of passivity. Thats a rare treat coming the way of first year-ites. I had virtually forgotten that I have ever lived through such weekends. After catching "300" in theater on Friday, the following two days were dedicated to snuggling into my bed. To keep my metabolism running, I would take brief breaks of 30 to 60 min., gulp some food supplies down my throat, take a leak, and sprawl back under the covers.

By Sunday evening, I was feeling terribly groggy. There were indistinguishable white streaks in front of my eyes and a buzzing sound playing in my head. I decided to take a stroll around the campus to feel my muscles. The scene was of a spooky silence. The campus, which is usually thumping and rocking at the late evening hours, had a dull and dark fortitude about it. Perhaps, it was an insignia of the sentiments displayed by second year-ites as they left the campus after two gritty years of life spent inside these huge concrete slabbed walls. The usual lovers of hard rock were all gone and no blaring sounds were coming from their balconies. The first-years, too, had decided to hibernate on this particular weekend. Some had afforded to visit Bangalore for attending Iron Maiden concert while others had taken up bike trips to places around Ahmedabad.

I lied down on one of the circles. The circle is an integral part of the architectural geometry here. In the New Campus, dorms have circles made into the walls next to the entrance. These circles must be 4 feet in diameter and provide a concrete hammock of sorts at their base. I stretched myself like a chord on this circle. The fast paced last 9 months soon started flashing in my mind. The greatest change which I realized had occurred in me was to get into a habit of being busy.

For the majority part of undergrad life and non-working hours of work life, there had never been an overbearing feeling of time getting wasted. In fact, wasting time in glib talks probably is the strongest element in the collective memory of all undergrad students. There was always enough time for extended walks down the lanes, gyan sessions on the stadium benches and even religious discourse of sorts at the temple inside the institute boundaries. Even for the three years in job, just lying around the house on a weekend was the accepted practice (save for catching a movie at the nearby multiplex).

All this has changed. The continuous pressure of deadlines and forthcoming schedules maintains an urgency at the sub-conscious level. The sudden void which occurred this weekend was thus strange. I had an uneasy feeling of a need to "do something". Except for the perennial long term plans which never get executed, there was no short-term objective at that moment. It was a sickening feeling. Also, it was surprising that I was missing the tight schedule which otherwise gets its fair share of curses and expletives. Perhaps in a way, the relentless schedule prevents the queries regarding "higher purpose of life" popping in the mind.

The working week has commenced. Yet, things haven't yet started ticking. Two of three classes scheduled for tomorrow have been canceled. Couldn't have asked for more in the first term but it never came at that time. However, at present it makes me think how can I put this "free time" to best use.

For one, "sleeping" as an option is definitely out of the window.

Holi 2007

Holi, the festival of colors, was back with a bang for me after a gap of 3 years. The Cultural Committee of IIMA (popularly known as CultComm) organized the celebrations. Just the essentials – colors, water, a 1500 liter tank (to dump the guys and gals) and a mud pot hole, an overhead water sprinkler and cheesy numbers playing from a balcony – but they made a vibrant atmosphere. Add to it the enthusiasm of a band of 75-100 revelers, and the results were literally colorful.

I was rolled and splattered in mud. My T-Shirt, a new white one which I had outsized, was torn to shreds by at least 3 and a half pair of hands. The raiders let out a victory cry when my torso was exposed to the elements. The remains of the ill-fated T-shirt were then swung and tossed to hang on overhead tree branches. There they joined similar trophies, which had come off the bodies of other warriors, on display. Finally, muddy and half-naked, I was tossed into the 1500 liter tank filled with colored water. For a moment I had a vague thought of feeling like taking a blood bath, what with the red colored liquid and salty taste which it left in mouth.

Some of the dorm fachchas and most of the tuchchas had been lazily staying away from all this. I applied the Domino Effect strategy on them. An unsuspecting guy was called out of his room and two others ‘dunked’ (slang for pouring water) him. Splash! After he was dunked, he wanted fair play and other dry guys to also get wet. The chain thus grew and finally the holy duty of making all wet and shivering was accomplished.

It was at this time that I realized that my room key went missing. Remember, “muddy and half-naked”. That was my state and I could not enter my room to get a fresh pair of clothes. So, I went back to the “war arena” to search for my key, which I thought should have fallen while I was having mud / blood bath.

The last of the warriors had left the battle zone. Like all battlefields, the place told the story of the rampage which had happened for the past 4 hours - torn clothes, splattered colors, still running overhead sprinkler, and the “blood cauldron”, which had become darker red than when I first entered it.

I first tried the mud pit. Entered it and tried to feel the soil around with feet; I could feel rubbery things beneath. Those things turned out to be rubber slippers left behind by the victims of the pit. It was later reported on the Lost and Found notice board – “Found some 7.5 pairs of footwear near the mud pit. They are still lying there”. But, I could not find my room key. Another guy also came to the mud pit searching his spectacles, which he was claiming were worth 1000/-. I bemused, “wealth going to dirt”, literally (again!)

My treasure hunt continued over to the water tank. A jump inside greeted me with a shock. The floor of the tank had become muddy with all the “muddy warriors” being dumped inside. Talk of siltation! Realizing that I don’t have enough dredging capabilities, it became important to empty the tank. The water level receded on opening the outlet orifice. It revealed 3-4 inch mud settling along the edges of the tank. I was still counting on my key being somewhere in there (wishful thinking!). So, I proceeded to use combined forces of water flow from hose and a stick to rummage through the muck.

And then it shined! Like a silver plate unearthed from an excavation. My room key, it was found, and I let out a sigh of relief. I could finally dream of wearing clothes again. To celebrate, I turned to the Mess and took glassfuls of “thandai”. Satiated and refurbished but tired and dirty, the dorm bathroom was next stop. A warm shower did well in flushing out the now hardened mud settled inside my ears and nose.

I had searched out and bought “gujhiyas” and “samosas” for the dorm mates. We had a get-together in the evening in the dorm common room. The gathering invited another round of water splashing. Thus, the festivities ended for the day on a sweet and salty note.

Nothing great about the celebrations I had. But, they were special to me because Holi is a festival I have not got a chance to celebrate regularly. I can remember only 5-6 proper “color play-offs” over 25 years of my life. Lack of quorum in neighborhood, or the final exams which have an irritating history of clashing with Holi, or an unusually cold weather have at various times resulted in me not playing color on Holi.

It was fun to be back at creating the rainbow.

Now I Catch People (Catch Me If You Can - Part 3)

The two posts (part1 and part2) on Internet Privacy did not generate any valuable comments. Either the site Webstats counter has been bluffing me or the posts were unable to convey the gravity of situation and elicit reaction/response.

I did demo runs on two friends to bring the point home. They were shocked, to say the least, at the content I could extract about them.

Guy #1 has much more online activities. His Yahoo id lead to some posts on forums and to his blog. He writes the blog with another pseudonym. The second pseudonym lead to even more tracks into his web activities. The amazing part is that the second pseudonym lead to the discovery of a third pseudonym! The fun was getting better but by this time the guy was too shocked to take in any more info discovered on him.

Guy #2 challenged that I do not have an entry point to make searches on him. I don’t have his Yahoo id and he was “not willing” to tell me the same after reading my posts. (Maybe I can take some credit that he actually felt some credence in the threat. :D ) The problem was solved in jiffy. When guy#2 joined the course with me, the Dean had sent out a common mail to the new entrants welcoming them to the institute. All of us were resgistered in the database through our personal email ids. Guy#2 was registered with his yahoo id. And the rest they say is history :) . I shocked him first by revealing his ‘guarded’ yahoo id and then went ahead to dump on him his online activities.

The two instances were also an eye-opener for me. I had earlier thought that my friend (mentioned in part1 post) was able to discover information about his old flame as he was adamant to do it and spent too much time on this. However, my demos were carried out in just 10-15 min and they were quite successful. They key points in success were:

1. Knowing the right keyword (unique identity) to search for.
2. Availability of excellent search functionalities (I used Google for web and mail search)
3. Sifting through the search results and focusing on the ones which help in further exploration. E.g. blog entries, yahoo group messages
4. Identifying alternate identities of the same person
5. Intuition
6. Luck

Another person questioned that what it is that is making so paranoid? What harm can anyone do by knowing all this? Moreover, it is we who chose to give out this info on public domain.

My arguments are:

1. This phenomenon deprives you from the control on what information you keep online.
2. As the search engine caches the pages in many cases, you can’t delete the information even if you want.
3. You may want to keep some info online for some people but not want others to see it. Unless you have a password access mechanism, your best bet is to protect the URL. If a person you don’t want accessing this info gets hold of the relevant URL against your wishes, the purpose of your discretion is lost.

If you are still skeptic about this, allow me a personal demo.

Update #1: 03/03/2007

Abhyuadaya points out:

"Personally, I run search on my own names and usernames every now and then and if I find something that I wont like, I submit to Google to remove those pages from its index."

I am not sure of how effective this is but its worth a try. However, we can't request ALL the search engines out there to do the same. Neither will they have resources to comply with our request.