digital curry

I just finished reading an article on leadership that talked about six different leadership styles and in what situations to apply each. The article didn't resonate with me at all. While trying to deconstruct something into its elements and trying to analyze those pieces to understand a style can be a useful problem solving technique it doesn't always work well; especially when dealing with more abstract concepts like emotions or motivation. Such technique can be very limiting at its best and way off the mark at the worst. Also a lot of journals and management articles make leadership to be some some abstract, out there concept that frankly sounds boring and burdensome. I think leadership is fun. I think you need to have been around a leader , and reflect on your times around him to truly understand leadership. A leader does more than getting work done - he affects you profoundly and leaves you wanting to be like him. A good way to think about it is to take a walk down memory ...

I intend to try the forced choice paradigm in one of my upcoming usability studies along with a payoff scheme. Looks like it would be more useful in a formative study but I definitely think we can use this to test some features of the interface even at a later level.

This weekend is Salmon days in Issaquah and despite the horribly rainy day I enjoyed visiting the local hatchery and talking to a few people from F.I.S.H. (Friends of Issaquah Salmon Hatchery). Going for salmon days was quite a no-brainer, since the moment I stepped out of my cute house, I'm in downtown Issaquah right where the Salmon days celebrations are going on. The story of Salmon's is fascinating as I learnt today! Salmon's are in fresh water and then migrate to the Ocean for a period of 4-5 years where they mature and then return home (homecoming!) travelling miles and miles of Oceans,seas and lakes, typically to the streams where they were spawned to reproduce. This is the last stage of their life and after laying the eggs they soon die. It's fascinating that they travel all that distance to be back they were born. Even more intriguing is the way they get there. There is apparently no conlusive answer, but I was told today the friendly and knowledge docent at ...

So I'm back on my blog after a really long time. There are quite a few reasons, some legitimate and some that I make up to feel better about my not posting quite often enough. Either way: here are a few random things to get started again. Probably inspired by the thought of "quantity over quality". Not that I approve of the thought (or disapprove of it) or to suggest that this post is sub-quality. 1. I spent the weekend in the lab! Why ? Hardware woes! I installed Vista x64 on my swanky quad core 8 GB machine and spent a couple of days customizing the machine only to find that the the eye tracking analysis tool that I needed to install for my most recent eye tracking study wouldn't install on a 64 bit machine. The labs were all occupied during the week so I had to go to the lab on the weekend to analyze the data. The software was horrible! I'm inclined to believe that software is probably the only industry where a product as buggy as that can be sold. I can't ...

Just came back from the closing plenary address by Bill Buxton at the CHI 2008 conference here in Florence, Italy. It's been quite a hectic week - with 20 hours of student volunteering, lunches, dinner parties and a smattering of completing assignments in bits and pieces thrown in. Florence is charming. It's got a charm about it, the streets, the air, the life in the city - almost purposeful and poetic at the same time. It was also fun to meet again with people form the Office Design Group at Microsoft including my manager during the internship! I also met with lots of people whose papers I'd read not knowing woh they really are. Oh, Natasha and I also ran into Jonathon Grudin late last night looking for directions while we were getting some icecream! We didn't make it to the final four teams at the Student Design Competition ( I must say I hated the part where the time for judging was not allocated uniformly and we got the short end of the stick on that one). One of t...

Not bad, I'm posting the second day in a row like I promised myself yesterday - surprising myself! Things that happened Today: 1 surprising thing: I actually made good on my resolution to write this entry today. New Things I learnt: 1. one deviation principle for finite and infinite repeated prisoner dilemma games and their implication in reputation systems 2. Vulnerabilities in the $_FILES variable in php 3. Walrasian equilirbium and how we can use leverage competitive analysis in the design of agents. 4. Some surprising heuristics that can be useful in a game where strategic agents act as stabilizing factors. 5. Some dutch words :) 1 Adventurous thing I did today: Nothing ....darn! Something inspirational I read today: A good story starts with something simple, takes you somewhere you don't expect to go and leaves you with something you cannot forget.......profound :) I should go to bed.....its almost 2:00 am and I have class in the morning

Reading diaries you write years later is an illuminating experience. Not only does it take you down the memory lane - but seeing yourself from an outsider's perspective tells you a lot about yourself. It's also a learning experience because you realize that things that seemed so important then don't matter so much now, and things that seemed trivial then are the things you treasure so much today. So to gift myself those moments later in life I've decided to write something each night. Of course, I've bravely and foolishly resolved to do this earlier too each time failing but inspired by the adage that "If you fail once, try something different" i'm going to post each night with a specific goal. Even on the busy nights i'll write a short note on something new I learnt in the day, or something else that moved me. Tonight I have two things to jot down: 1. One I read a couple of fascinating articles on the injection method in Ruby and the different th...

I've been away from my blog for so long I almost started to miss it. The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. I've been working from 6:00 pm to 3:00 am almost every night in the past week. The night-outs were mainly to get our poster for the CHI 2008 student design competition submitted. Now, that we've submitted it - things should get just a little bit better - or maybe i'm speaking too soon! Back to work and maybe today i'll get to sleep by 1:00 am :)

The class brought together the concepts learnt in class throughout the semester. Seeing them applied in various contexts in the projects which were presented in class before was useful in building confidence and more proficiency in learning how to apply the framework in different situations. I had seen the IDEO video before in an earlier class on design methods. There it was mostly about how to gather user needs and requirements and synthesize them to design products. Therefore, it was all the more interesting to look at it now from a experience centric perspective. It's interesting to note here that most technology companies (amongst others I'm sure) now have some sorts of groups focussing on user experience. More often than not user experience is thought to automatically follow if you design a good product. The IDEO video, and it's discussion in the light of looking at it by 'putting on the co-creator's hat' brings this point nicely into perspective. While a g...

So my bicycle journey's weren't always dreaming about difficult things. For those of you who have never been to Lucknow, it has a really nice area called Hazratganj which is a popular hangout for everyone in Lucknow. Luckily, I lived at a 5 minute walking distance from there. I was living in a room in an apartment, a couple of other students preparing for a medical exam were sharing the apartment with me- and one of them introduced me to "ganjing" or something like that - which basically meant when you're exhausted with studying you go and stroll around the place and grab a bite at one of the popular restaurants there. The other attraction was in the evening you got to see a lot of girls :) ! I read the Godfather quite a while back but I remember there is a mention of a "thunderbolt". It's when you see a girl and at first glance you're totally mesmerized, speechless, hypnotized........ I was returning from a Maths class when the "thunderbolt...

I was riding my bicycle back from college today, with the cool Michigan wind sending a gentle shiver through my body, and I was reminded of the days I was in Lucknow, cycling my way back after the tutorial classes for the joint entrance exam late at night. I have so many fond memories of my bicycle :). I had scheduled my classes in such a way that my Maths and Chemistry classes fell on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and Tuesday and Thursday I got most of the day to myself with only physics classes. However, my tutorial class for chemistry was around 8 kilometres away from my Maths class and I would hang around with friends solving some maths problems for an hour or so after the maths class and head off for the Chemistry class. The class ran from 7pm to 10pm. The teacher was excellent and taught at his home and I had to cycle back to the apartment I was staying at after 10:00 pm through Aminabad which was super crowded in the evenings but relatively less crowded at night - although it sti...

So I just read about the announcement of the awaited OpenSocial from Google.There has been so much of talk and hype around Social Networks that people have started throwing around the name and all sorts of sites have come up with their own "flavour" of social networks, pretty much disregarding for most of the time what's really happening. A way for people to connect with others in different spheres of life, extending the interactions that are limited distance and availability. I'll have to still read more about the service to form some concrete opinions about the service itself but its approach seems bang on! Here's why: What's really happening are Three things we've known for ages. 1. Sharing of information makes it more valuable (as long as its not scandalous love letters or something similar - which btw is an important consideration here since i've personally been asked to take a couple of survey where HR people seriously considered the merits of us...

Around two years ago I started a community on Orkut, the Google social network, "Vedas the science and beyond" because I wanted to learn more about the Vedas from others far more knowledgeable than me and have a platform for discussion of issues. My vision of that of a community where people could discuss, question and learn from an objective look at the Vedas. This was based on two observations: 1. Having talked to quite a few people I'd met and who could have known about the Vedas I didn't find satisfactory answers to most questions I had. Perhaps it was my ignorance or their blind belief without an understanding of the Vedas that left me utterly confused. Either way it called for a different solution to try to learn - hence a platform where different people could discuss. 2. The second was giving people a chance to talk about it so that more people are aware of such a valuable heritage left to us by our ancestors. I remember logging into the community every day and...

It's 1:00 am in the morning here and I have this nagging cough and cold. The American health system is absolutely retarded - but that's another story in itself and has already been told my michael moore so I won't mention it. I'm not sure why but I suddenly had the urge to make some tea for myself, probably because of the cold. I also remembered how my Mom makes the most awesome tea with organic black pepper and cardamom in to help with the cold! I hunted around in my bag and found a box of the mix my mom had packed for me :) ! Ma you're the best !! Who else could you count on in the world to pack something so seemingly insignificant but something that she knew I'd miss sooner or later. So here I am cuddling before my screen with the warm, comforting tea in my hand, the subtle aroma of bringing back fond memories and almost transporting me back in time. The number of nights I sat up with tea at night struggling to keep myself awake studying Physics, Chemistry or...

You never really know, what's going to be special each day. So I got up in the morning realizing that it's high time I get a hair cut. I got up late and headed off on foot to look around San Jose and find a hair saloon. I asked a couple of people, but each of them seemed even more lost than I was. Tired, and famished, I started looking for a restaurant instead. Usually I end up eating not so good food, when I eat randomly like that - ok maybe that's not totally true but.....So anyways I get into this nice empty restaurant seeing falafel written outsid. Long story short- because this is one about a haircut- I had the most fabulous tandoori chicken "sandwich" i've had in the US yet :) - I'm going back for dinner there! So I stroll outside aimlessly after that lovely meal and to my surprise as I'm passing by I see a hair saloon. So I walk in and there are three guys waiting. I have some time to kill, so I sit down and start reading some mind numbing rubbi...

You hear so often that the joy of life lies in small things but how often do we get to experience the joy of small things ? I don't know about you, I don't get to do it very often. Try to think back the last time you enjoyed something really small, when you smiled spontaneously, when the sun seemed to shine just that little bit brighter, when you felt the world was smiling with you, when you felt joy in being a small part of the life of this planet ? didn't even realize I would remember them so much, so fondly. When I try to think back, a few priceless moments that immediately come to mind are: 1. Place: Sherwood College: Time: Afternoon The time just before founders and after the hectic house PT competition. Just lying in my cubicle - the dorm 4,5 cubicle - perhaps one of my best places in sherwood :) - feeling the may sun shine down on my face as I lay on the counterpane, my eyes closing dreamily, looking down at the front quad, thinking about my 10 years in school, s...

What a week! And I have an ever more hectic one coming up! I spent the entire day sitting at one placing trying to finish up all my deadline material for this coming week. I have an assignment due on Monday. A final presentation and a big assignment due on tuesday. Wednesday I have two interviews - for practice really - since I'm pretty sure where I'm going to be going. Thursday I'm traveling to Redmond, i'm a little excited and a little overwhelmed by the burden. I'm going to be presenting my project to a group of hotshot designers, and they quite casually agreed that they love asking questions :). That's quite a relief - just something I needed after a week of looming deadlines. I found the quote "I love deadlines, especially the whoosh sound they make as they fly past" funny once. Not any more.... :). Either i've lost my sense of humour or the quote has changed! Either way its not too funny anymore. Also there was a time at IIT where I would wai...

आज मैंने गूगल कि नयी रूपांतरण सुविधा के बारे में पड़ा और इसलिये आज अपनी मातृभाषा में पहली पोस्ट लिख रहा हूँ। Google's new translation service to hindi rocks! This was the first time I was using it and I was typing as fast as I type in english (ironic eh :D ) but that's a thumbs up for google usability. Maybe by writing a new post in hindi everyday I will manage to improve my hindi, ummm I mean revise my hindi. I got 92 on my class 10 boards in hindi. And my essays were religiously read by the masses - ok at least by a few people including my professor :) ! yaaaaaaaay for the new translation feature!

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Hidden Action: Will Ferguson (F) consult for an outside client after the funding. Will Ferguson leave the company after the funding. What will prevent VCs from taking the information of the Entrepreneur and give/sell it away to another company they already have a stake in. 1. Reputation 2. More tacit and implict and actual technical knowledge required than just the basic idea for the startup. Participation Constraint and Initial Valuation Initial Valuation directly sets the expected utility from the company and the company share of the financier. So initial valuation is directly related to participation constraint whether or not the agent will accept the contract offered by the principal. To determine participation constraint it is important to consider the opportunity cost. For example the previous employees were treated better since they had more technical knowhow and the impact of their leaving was higher on the company. Position on the board is both a monitoring as well as an incen...