digital curry

Today I learnt about this beautiful Japanese concept of "Mono No Aware". My understanding of it is derived just from English interpretation of it but it's such a beautiful concept that regardless of words or their essence to capture it I think I know quite well the feeling those words are trying to capture. Literally, it can be translated as "the 'ahh-ness' of things", life, and love. The feeling it tries to convey is the feeling of wistfulness, the deep joy touched by that hint of sadness at the awareness of impermanence of things. The awareness that the joy and beauty in the current moment is transient - and in a way that makes that moment even more special, but also knowing that the moment is going to pass and the best you can do is live that moment and cherish it to the most. There are moments where you come across something - a term, an explanation, a description - and your first reaction is "Yes, that's happened to me before!" And t...

Do posts that start or end with smart quotes feel smarter? I'll leave you to answer that but start with a quote from Einstein anyway: "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity." One of the fun parts of working as a Design Researcher is thinking deeply about how people perceive things. Time is one of those things. With interactivity and flow being such an integral part of today's applications this becomes even more important. So this week I'm spending some time trying to understand perceptions of time and what an experiment design to measure some of the questions I am interested in might be. One interesting thing I learnt about were the two classic theories of time perception: 1. The Internal Clock Model 2. The Attentional Gate Model The internal Clock model roughly underlines the fact that humans/animals are capable of learning the temporal structure ...

While researching something about blogs I came across this bit of research on why people blog. 1. Blogs as documents to “journal my life” 2. Blogs as commentary: A point of view, not just chatter 3. Blogs as Catharsis: “Me working out my own issues” 4. Blog as muse – Thinking by writing 5. Blogs to build community: “Getting in conversation with each other electronically" I guess my primary motivation (if you can call such sporadic posts motivation ;) ) would lie around 1 and 2. Yours?

Writing this from Incheon airport and am a little tired after last night in Seoul so this is going to be a little garbled or if you'd like to give me a lot of credit - my experiment with 'stream of consciousness' writing. Loved the vibrant energy and buzz of the Myeong-Dong district yesterday. In a strange way it reminded me of the places like the mall road, or tibetian market in Nainital - not in the way they visually or physically resemble each other but in some way the experiences they evoke seems based around the same concept and the flow of people is similar - shops on both sides with people in a fused browsing-shopping mode and shops ranging widely from one to the next. This stop over at Seoul was kind of unexpected. It's a long story but somehow me - and another girl just as confused as me ;) - somehow didn't realize the flight was the next evening and not that evening. So we found ourselves with a day and a half in Seoul! The first thing that struck me was h...

I'm a strong believer that who we are shapes a lot of our decisions. So assuming that hypothesis is true, let's try to look at two roles from two major bollywood actors: Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan. The purpose to try to see how how they perceive themselves - or project themselves if you will - based on what appeals to them in a role. The two roles we'll look at are - Shahrukh as Kabir Khan in Chak De India and Aamir Khan as Ranchoddas (Rancho) in 3 idiots. Take Racho's character, A genius , who believes the right way is to chase excellence and not success (box office?) which will chase after you if you excel at what you do. The traditional system doesn't understand him and resists his ways at first but ultimately he proves his mettle. Interesting to note that Aamir's characters doesn't do badly in the courses but tops it - despite doing things against the system, and eventually is very 'successful'. If you remove the context of the movie from the a...

It was around 11 pm in Rome. It was summer so there was still a blush of light but it was that time where the night life was vibrant and living and throngs of people partying made the entire place so lively and wonderful. I was with a group of friends and we'd drunk a couple of bottles of wine - umm or maybe three :) The wine had just started to get to my head 0 It was the kind of buzz where you start to get a nice warm feeling inside and the conversation around you gets livelier without actually meaning too much to you. We ate dinner at the restaurant and stepped out into the lively streets or Rome. We were walking to get some dessert - I think- and then it happened. Just when we were about to cross the street. It's hard to say how long it lasted - it still does in memory but probably not too long. I think I first smelt her fragrance before I actually saw her. And then I heard something to my side and realized my friends had a big "REALLY!" smile. I turned and looke...