I try to say a lot while saying very little. Get used to it.
Posts tagged thoughts
notes: buzzing around
Feb 17th
Posted by SEV in staying.interested
Google’s latest experiment – Buzz – has been launched to the world recently, with varying degrees of appreciation, hate, irritation and all the reactions that every new social idea is greeted with. Personally, it is a social media outlet/inlet that I can get on board with – seeing as how it integrates nicely into my existing Gmail/Google experience. It has its caveats though.. features/glitches/annoyances that I wish they had ironed out before getting it out the door:
- Google Reader posts can be easily imported to Buzz – and comments on Buzz are back-ported to Reader. However, liking and reading of Reader imports in Buzz are not back-ported into Reader. Irritating in some cases, when there’s nothing much to see. Good in other cases, as I may miss something/want to re-buzz something.
- Privacy settings from Reader are correctly applied for such posts (unsurprising, as the dashboard for Reader privacy is still through Reader) – so if I can’t comment on your shared item in Reader, I can’t in Buzz either. However, the status of those settings is not correctly shown in Buzz. Everything imported from Reader appears as ‘Public’, when in reality, only the item is public – the discussion ability is anything but for the ‘Public’.
- Google seems confused as to what they want to make Buzz. A single life-stream source that you check for all your social updates? Or just another interface to their social services – to popularize them more? I would have thought the former.
- Setting privacy settings in a particular way is not easy. Needs a lot of thought, as each Google service still makes use of its own privacy settings. For example, I didn’t want to see a particular person’s Reader shared items in Buzz. Unfollowing them has a global effect – I unfollow them on Reader too in the process. I ended up unfollowing them and adding the RSS feed of their shared items in Reader separately. Crude, but effective. Similar ideas have been suggested for re-buzzing.
- A cool idea is posting via email to Buzz, but the functionality is more of a status update than a post — more like short updates posted to Twitter. The power of length offered by Buzz is not exploited as the body text is ignored for such a Buzz update. Sad really, as would have been such a simple yet refreshing re-buzz idea.
- ‘@’ replies are nigh-impossible when you do not know the person’s Gmail ID that is associated with the Google profile.
- Muting is golden.
Feature requests I have galore: lists/groups support, ordering/collapsing messages, re-buzzing, additional import options into Buzz, selective streaming for my Buzz feed etc etc.
I’ve discovered whole hosts of new people (who have also discovered me) and have already had some interesting conversations using it. Most privacy complaints and issues I’ve read with are minor or non-existent: I firmly see BIG things in Buzz’s future.
If only it would get here faster.
(to be added to if I think of more)
Update (26 Feb 2010): Via Reader found a series of comments I had missed on a Reader-Buzz export. Searching through my Buzzes in Gmail showed me I muted this post. However, opening it up there does not show me any comments on it at ALL. According to this post muting a Buzz apparently mutes me from ALL future comments on that post in Buzz, to the extent that the related Buzz in my Gmail does not show the new comments after I muted it i.e. muting completely silences the Buzz conversation for me from that point on. Even if I’m ‘@’ mentioned in it. Need to use it more sparingly.
clubbing together a month’s worth of everything into one big gigantic post
Dec 22nd
Posted by SEV in staying.general
This is the 4th attempt I’m making at trying for a halfway decent beginning to a post. Have I really been reduced to saying such banalities? I can’t quite believe it. When I look at my front page, most of my recent posts are about movies. Reviews, basically. Most of my recent posts have also ended with a sign-off saying that I will have a proper update soon. This post, by virtue of being an “update”, doesn’t count as a proper post either. I have notes here, there and everywhere galore… none of which I have really expanded on. Hell, when I was going through my drafts I realized that I had a started a post last winter which I never got round to finishing.
I’m not happy with that start either, but its a start.
After a while of working on research topics with no apparent end in sight, I had the one-two punch of back-to-back deadlines. My first reminded me of the good old days of last year when I spent every waking moment on work. A lot of my moments were spent awake… to the extent I had a major first-year-PhD flashback when I pulled an all-nighter so as to somehow, anyhow get the paper in shape (it didn’t quite succeed, but anyway). The result of my next deadline was here for all to see… meaning I’m on track with what I expected to finish by now. The missus might say otherwise, but she doesn’t really count. She’s supposed to keep the pressure on, I’m supposed to fool around and ensure she has something to do 
It is a gratifying feeling to receive recognition for what you have done. It is gratifying to realize that hell, you really have learnt some things during the course of your degree so far. It is beyond awesome to live well up to the expectations that you had set for yourself for a particular goal. Enough back-patting, all of this just means I have so much more expected of me in the time to come. There are caveats to everything you do. After all this back-to-back work, it is hard to fall back into a normal groove. Sleep doesn’t come easy, your body craves being completely spent when it hits the bed. Sleeping the sleep of the “mentally dead” is a pleasure that you shouldn’t get used to.
In a not-so-shocking update, my laptop actually failed on me 12 hours before my big day. I’m not even kidding. It says a lot that the failure didn’t make the slightest difference to my prep, but I had my revenge. I ripped it apart within the hour of finishing the proposal 
I then spent a week modding it with copper and putting it back together. Happy realizations struck: (1) HP laptop architecture could not be worse, (2) I need to blog a long post about how to do what I did, (3) I should have done this ripping-apart 6 months ago. As it is, the damage appears to be too extensive despite my best efforts. I have to bake the motherboard next. You read it right. Bake. The. Motherboard.
For the first time in 4 years, I have no machine to call my own. And it sucks. Sucks. I have a machine which I could borrow so that I’m not completely bereft, but it feels like something is missing nonetheless. I’m looking forward to building a new machine from scratch, if nothing else the HP rip-apart showed me that I really miss that side of engineering. Plugging, modding, figuring out how things go together – the whole shebang. How much I rely on the cloud can be seen in how little I needed to set up on this borrowed machine. On the flip side there are some things I distinctly feel unable to do, and I’m really getting into the mood to do them (photography updating, for example). The heart wants what it can’t quite have, I guess. But then maybe I’ll end up doing it all online, and really move into the cloud. Sounds like a pipe-dream to me.
I have way too many feeds in my Reader. It took me concentrated effort to catch up with a lot of it after the weeks of work, and that was despite at least checking the basic news feeds once a day. Man! I did not see this happening when I started with RSS a long long long time ago. As the missus asked, why not just mark a bunch of them as read? Or better yet, remove ones that I’m not really “reading”. I’ve done this. I honestly believe that I need to keep up 227 subscriptions on a constant basis. I need help.
This post doesn’t even begin to start on some interesting techie things I have thought about. Will I ever concretize that stuff?
And this theme fuckin’ rocks. That is all.
what do i really believe in?
Aug 25th
Posted by SEV in staying.in.my.head
When it comes to religion, a lack of knowledge about the unknown has meant that I have come to classify myself as a sort of agnostic (as opposed to atheistic), but if you were to argue with me about God and rituals you’ll find I’m mostly just apathetic. I have been known to do rituals simply because they need to be done: it matters little to me that they are done at all; I can do them because they matter to others. My ‘religious beliefs’ are thus dynamic enough to be classified by more than one person as mere hypocrisy.
How and why I lost the absolute faith that characterized most of my childhood – I don’t know. Sometimes these things happen. A loss of faith (or a lack of understanding) in what rituals signify eventually means that religion itself starts to seem very arbitrary. Merely performing the rituals did not prove much to me, and not performing them made it that much harder to hold onto what faith I had left. Eventually, normal absolutes such as a religious basis for God became superficial.
Recently, however, events have happened to make me question my own agnosticism. There was this year’s avani avittam (related post still in progress), and the associated realization that the real depths of religion can only be understood by accepting everything about it completely. Hoping that faith is rejuvenated based on doing one set of rituals a year (no matter how sincerely) is not really doing much at all – indeed, it can seem hypocritical (as I’ve pointed out). Giving a way of life a real chance is the only way it can have a real effect. On the flip-side, my current apathy is based on the fact that blind faith does not hold up in my own scrutiny. Doing something just once a year for the sake of faith and assuming that the reason to do it will be found – and then finding none – has killed a lot of my faith. As cliched as it may sound, I need a reason better than ‘blind faith’ to accept religion completely again.
A second event, more recent, brought home to me the fact that all events are generally explained in one of a few ways: (1) a game of chance, (2) a series of pre-ordained events, (3) logical steps which led to a logical conclusion. However, the results of such events (whether fortunate or unfortunate) can defy any such explanation.
We can blame a mysterious ‘luck factor’ for the result – this effectively means we can only control so much of our own actions (for e.g. “Life is 99% effort, 1% luck” and so on). Alternatively we can explain it as the demonstration of a Higher Power, which also in a way curtails the limits of our own actions.
I tend to side with the former explanation. My logic runs thus: if my best efforts are put in,there is a high chance that luck favors me. Now, how is this different from believing in God? All too often, not getting what we want means we automatically deem ourselves undeserving. Or we conclude we didn’t ‘do enough for God’. And at this point I get pissed off, as I see this as escapism – you don’t want to take responsibility for your actions (or inactions). Conversely, getting what we want is attributed to God, and not enough credit is given to what we have personally done – a different kind of escapism. Not having an entity to blame it on seems to prevent this sort of escapism.
After this last event (yes, this so-called ‘event’ was not a good thing – and no, I don’t want to go into details right now), things have gotten murky. Luck favored me in one way, but not to the extent that the event did not happen at all. To my knowledge, I did everything I was supposed to do. It is not the first time that such an event has happened. In the earlier event, I could see a clear link between my own actions and the result. I can’t now. All I can see is that my so-called ‘luck factor’ has favored me in similar ways in both situations. Which somehow goes against the spirit of my rationalization.
It would be amazing to say that this last event has changed my life, more so when I take it in conjunction with what I realized during avani avittam this year. But I hate doing things the easy way. I really want start believing in God completely, forget all the ‘Higher-Power-is-only-possible’ crap, and somehow rediscover my latent faith. I can’t rationalize this course of action easily though. It seems as though I am trying to believe something just because I got lucky twice. Like I’m condoning every cliche in the book by letting one event change my life.
Starting from blind faith, I explored to the best of my ability what it really meant to me. It meant I rationally chose the path of agnosticism – I want to now rationally find a way to theism.
p.s. It is possible that all my arguments are not perfect, and I know they can seem hypocritical to a fault. It is possible I have not analyzed/presented this as best possible. Indulgence and understanding is appreciated, and debate is encouraged.
what is my super-power?
Aug 11th
Posted by SEV in staying.thoughts
I’ve spoken more than once about my games while growing up. The cape on my shoulders: the flight, the jumping of buildings in a single bound. The vines: the jungles, the swinging and leaping through dense trees galore. The battle(s) with evil foes: the multiple times each one had to be beaten into submission. To the extent, the next time they returned I even had to show how the villains had came back. Detail was important. Swords, guns, bows/arrows, super-strength, death-defying stunts – they were enacted elaborately in my head.
Until someone entered the room.
Today I read comics. I follow multiple adventures at once: I resent the alien invasion of Earth, I remain on tenterhooks as Spidey figures out the dire plans of the next super-villain, I applaud the triumph of Batman over Darkseid (after a fashion anyway). I can live out my childhood fantasies in this world; I can hold onto ever-fading memories of a childhood game that always seem golden.
Until I close the book.
The struggle of a man to believe he matters, to believe he has super-powers and is therefore Special seems almost too real to be a movie. How many times must I have wished for one power? Forget the 40 that Superman has, or even the multitude of talent in Batman. I wanted one ability to mark me as Special. Super-speed, agility, brilliance, super-strength.. something. Funnily enough, that dream still remains. Deep, deep down inside. I want to believe I am amazingly different, amazingly gifted, unique in a way never seen before. We all probably do.
The truth is, with so many billions and billions of people on the planet, most of us can’t be unique or important in any meaningful way...We don’t have any magical powers, we don’t have any great battles to fight…We just have reality. – Les, Special (2006)
I still dream that I will do a crap-load of things that will make me really Special. They have less to do with super-strength and more to do with possibly achievable things – learn languages galore, learn martial arts, magic tricks, mastering esoteric subjects and so on. Some of these are mere approximations to what I have seen my “heroes” do in my own head, others motivated by more practical reasons, or even just because they are ‘cool’. Is that really what I should be aiming for?
Or should I ground myself in hard reality?
Maybe the ability to face reality is the only super-power we need.
It certainly seems to be the most difficult to acquire.
Based on watching ‘Special‘
senescence
Jan 30th
Posted by SEV in staying.in.my.head
I never really realized how the people around me have aged until very recently. Somehow the people I knew when I left India were not people who could grow old. They had dark hair, glowing faces and were always larger than life. And yet, since the day I’ve left.. every time I go back, I see something that reminds me that they are older. It strikes deep that these people are changing even now, a time warp that I cannot stop. And it includes people like my parents. People you believe should never get old. Ever. My mother tells me of recent developments in the family, it is all I can do to assure her that such things happen.. to assure her that everything is OK.
I remember the last time I could spend with my thatha a few months before he passed, and there is a sorrow that I still cannot be there for those who remain. That I cannot do more. That I am currently unable to take care of them the way I want to, the way they should be taken care of. I remember the way their eyes shine on the rare occasions when I get to see them.. the happiness apparent when they see any of us, we talk to them, we sit with them, we are with them. I cherish the 20 minutes I spent walking with my other grandfather down to the general store, helping him over the shoddy footpath, and helping him back home. His smile at the end of it all made me wish I could do it everyday. I remember the hug my grandma gave me after a year and half. Holding my hand, never wanting to let go. The smile when I told her she was looking good that night.
I hate it more because I know it means that soon my parents will be like this. People who I only remember as being young and bigger and stronger than me are slowly showing the signs of age, gray hairs and all. It is a bitter feeling, a sad one, that I cannot shake off. One of my grandmothers is suffering today in a way I did not think possible for her, it is all I can do to hear about what is happening with her. She is being taken care of, true, but such is life that you wish that more could be done.. that she never had to be this way. She has always been a strong loving person, to see her like today is something I could never have imagined. I have vague memories of playing with her before I came back to India in ‘94.. I wish I could remember more. There is my dad’s complete archival of all our photos ever.. someday I must sit and see them. They may soon be all that remains of memories that slip away before I can think about them. I want to show them to someone, to describe how wonderful it used to be with these people.
Age is cruel, very cruel.
On the flipside, age is cruel on many things you discover as a child – the concept of ‘dudes’ and ‘awesome’ and ‘bogus’ – some things you watch when you’re 10 years old, and enjoy to the fullest. I remember watching ‘Teen Wolf’ and the sequel and enjoying them completely. The ‘awesome’ dialogues, the great attitude of M.J.Fox.. it was rocking at a different level! I spent weeks replaying the final sequences of the boy (and not the werewolf) reaching for victory. Similarly, ‘Saved by the Bell‘ and ‘Bill and Ted‘ and ‘Boy Meets World‘ or any of the other 80’s shows and movies. To my rosy memory each of these had special places among the few ‘neat’ things that I watched when little.
I rediscovered them recently.. and somehow the magic has jaded ever so slightly. ‘Teen Wolf’ stands revealed as M.J.Fox riding the wave of ‘Back To the Future’. I was jumping, awaiting the DVD from Netflix.. willing myself to enjoy something I had seen nearly 20 years ago.. but some things cannot just be. One part was bearable, I could will myself back to the child who watched them.. but the second (which is a tad badly made anyway) stood stripped of the memory. The TV serials, somehow, those amazing lines and great timing breaks down more a little. This is not true of everything I’ve watched back then – some, such as ‘Back to the Future’, ‘The Wonder Years’, ‘Tom and Jerry’ are ageless. I watched ‘Bill and Teds Bogus Adventure’ only to realize that ‘dude’ and ‘awesome’ and ‘bogus’ were not mere words.. they represent a time and place when things were simpler. It does not seem like such things can exist today.. the world is a lot more complicated, and people expect so much more. Being able to live through hell, beat the Grim Reaper at ‘Battleship’, watch Hammerman save the day, even the gentle humor of a ‘Lisa Card’ seemed so brilliant back then, with snappy dialogue and neat stories.. every aspect of it seems tacky at best now, but somehow watching them reminds me of the time when ‘awesome’ really meant something.
And that just makes age even crueler.
speeding past
Dec 31st
Posted by SEV in staying.thoughts
another new year: one set of words to sum-up time past, another set of words to try and forecast what might happen in the year to come.
past years have each had unique revelations (try as i might i cannot get that word right). i have felt alone, i have felt excited, i have felt sadness, i have felt the even rocking of a boat sailing on. i can’t say that this year was the even rocking that i realized last year, this was the year that i hit 25. it was the year that i have had 4 publications. meaning that when i search for myself on google, i don’t just find this page and some other random hits. a more professional recognition exists, something i felt most when i made an oral presentation in front of peers and superiors in my field of work. i got to “attend” and experience conferences in all their glory. i realized just how much a phd excites me. how much research can mean; spending long hours in the lab trying to figure out something other people don’t know about. yes, i am starting to realize what a professional career is.
personally speaking, i found time is passing me by at speeds well over the limit. friends got married: so many of them that i’ve stopped counting. people grew older, yes, even those people who are not supposed to. i tripped around the US, and realized some significant things about myself and some very significant people in my life. every year heralds important developments in one’s life – uninteresting considering that there are 365 days for things to happen. that said, i foresee some very interesting developments in 2009. for example, we may see the introduction of capital letters (gasp!) on regular posts that happen on this blog. i have come up with some ideas that i want to try out, such as writing more intelligibly, more creatively and more often.
i sit now to think about everything that happened in the last year, expectedly, some incidents are embellished almost indelibly in my memory: giving a presentation, meeting people who are gods in my field, watching my mom eat cotton candy in disneyworld the way i did 14 years ago, living the new york work-life (albeit only for a week), watching independence day fireworks, falling in love with a car all over again, hanging out with some of my oldest friends. the rest of the year is a blur, it sped past while i tried to enjoy the moments that make it up.
which eventually speed by as i try to realize the next set of moments.
have an awesome new year. because there is no charge for awesomeness. or attractiveness.
