It’s my turn to write about Big Data :)

If you are from the IT arena, you would have definitely heard people or seen articles referring to a new buzzword called ‘Big Data’, in the last few months. It is as if the IT domain is void of larger-than-life terms that this new jargon has been thrown around by analysts and consultants as if their life depended on its popularity. I think it was last year (2011) when the battle cry became louder, following up from the surmise in the last two or three years. I am not going to talk about what Big Data refers to or what’s its proper definition is, I am just going to write down my over-simplistic thoughts in this post. Having said that, it would make some sense that I borrow the popular definition of Big Data. This Fujitsu whitepaper mentions “Big data – in commonly-used term to describe data that exceeds the processing capacity of conventional database systems”.

Buildup to Big Data

The main players in IT know that the inception of Big Data is not something which was unexpected. There has been this steady desire from the executive management of top corporations to have these “holistic dashboards” that allow them to see a snapshot of all possible data related to their company whenever they want, in a rapid manner, using any device of their choice. This requirement has been the Achilles Heel of BI/Datawarehousing consultants who proudly proclaimed that they can transform the company by bringing all the data together. Then, we have some governments who wish to record everything about their citizens so as to protect them!  In my view, I see these two reasons as the main push to Big Data.

Technology Overdrive

History has seen many thinkers who wanted to see and control everything but the mechanisms just weren’t there. With the aid of computer technology that has evolved in a grand manner in the last three decades, many of the old visions are/will be seeing light finally. So, what are these technologies that matter the most for Big Data? Cloud computing and Distributed storage would be the obvious answer as they come to the mind right away. But, it is the declining costs of computer paraphernalia and  the increasing speeds of broadband internet that are the major breakthroughs as they operate at the infrastructural level for Big Data. Then, we had the Data Mining movement of scanning data to find all sorts of patterns so as to increase sales, which has seen the development of complex algorithms that are self-learning too. So, there came the data handling mechanisms to compliment the data collection and storage mechanisms.  To put it simply, now you can store anything about anything in multiple synchronized places across the globe and access anything and predict something from anywhere using any device.

Real “Agenda” of Big Data

The online activities of tech analysts and consultants show that they are trying to make Big Data as popular as Beatles by mentioning about it in every 2nd tweet/FB post/article/talk/webinar Candidly speaking, the IT industry players have always created clamours of this type to ensure they are in business. The western business model which fosters innovation by pushing for growth year on year, makes sure companies try everything possible to meet the two pseudo-lofty  ideals of continuous growth and global expansion. Therefore, Big Data will also be accepted as a part of the IT family even though it may not be required by some companies. On a funny vein,  there must be some old CFOs and senior management folks who would be thinking on the lines of “Oh no! now, I have to train for another IT jargon. The old days were much better with simple books, notes and logs” I see Big Data as the brainchild of capitalism. Corporations want to mine customers data in all possible ways. Ultra personalization refines our taste even if we don’t want to. Its leads to over-indulgence and that means more money in the coffers of the companies. I can go on and crib about this phenomenon but I guess that you can see it as a key capitalistic agenda by now. The other real benefactor of Big Data would be our national governments. Due to the rise of terrorism in the last few years, government bodies are trying to read, see and hear anything out there. This means maintaining records of telephone conversations and using mobile data to track our movements (see this TED video for reference) , video-recording our living areas, monitoring our online presence, checking our transactions and finally using all these different types of data to predict any civilian unrest or spot some anomaly. Just visualizing the breadth and depth of the data involved here, one would immediately point to Big Data. In fact, Big Data gained some mainstream traction after white house published an article on Big Data. Big Brother lends its adjective to Data for its own benefits The Panoptican vision also comes to the fore here. More data might lead to better governance but at the cost of our privacy. Lets see if world peace is achieved at least with Big Data.

Offshoots of Big Data

Interestingly, Big Data could help in realizing other revolutionary constructs that have been in a pipeline for a long time. ‘Internet of Things’ and ‘Semantic Web’ are the ones that I could immediately think of. Big Data would serve as the solid basement for these two constructs. In fact, Linked Data (condensed version of Semantic Web) and Big Data need each other to evolve as effective metadata management and semantics are very much necessary for Big Data. A parasitic relationship can be seen here.  Seeing from a societal perspective, the large-scale logging of user data may lead to a massive opt-out campaign by consumers who are unwilling to allow companies to analyse their personal data. This is already seen but what I foresee is a massive awakening kind of movement(see this related TED video on being beware of online filter bubble)

Well, Big Data can be seen as an all-encompassing Knowledge Management solution or as a killer combination of Business Intelligence and Predictive Analytics set on steroids or as the fictional light saber of capitalistic economies and governments, but it is there to stay and swamp my Social Media timelines

Of Culture and Love Songs…

It came to me yesterday that there is some unique characteristic of a country where most commercial films are known for their love songs. Well, the country here is India. Indians are used to love songs right from their childhood. It is the melodious music and outlandish exotic lyrics that sway them and while songs in films are considered digressing from the movie narrative by the educated modern Indians, still they are happy to hear a love song or two. The lyrics  of these songs comprise of metaphors comparing the lover to moon, flower, nature and so on…the list just goes on, we can just generalize the compared entities as something which is beautiful to the senses.

Image credits: http://nowplayingfilm.blogspot.sg/2010/11/top-10-romantic-songs-hindi-bollywood.html

Ok, what is the unique characteristic that differentiates India from other countries? Lets do the comparison with western countries where hollywood movies are played and its a fact that English movies don’t have songs even though some movies release a separate soundtrack which mostly comprise of BGMs. Occasionally, movies called as musicals are released and by their name,  they alert the movie-goers that the movie will have lot of songs and music will be the central theme. Coming back to the unique characteristic, it is the prevailing CULTURE of the country. We can call it the hindu culture or more correctly, the indian culture so that folks from other religions don’t feel anxious Well, its easy to say that culture is the reason and close this topic but lets look further. If you are comparing cultures, the main variable that yields  the most telling differences is WOMEN. Cultures can be compared by the role women play in different macro aspects such as family and society and most importantly, the freedom they enjoy in the country. In India, we continue to have a male dominated society with the role of women underplayed and unrecognized in quite a few areas. Some detractors will jump and challenge me, but if you the ask the women in India, most will agree with the traditional women giving a meek affirmation and new-gen women giving their thumbs-up in a big way!

From a traditional viewpoint, women were always supposed to be viewed as the goddess and care-giver who deserves respect to the fullest degree. This is very much agreeable but the scriptures and epics indirectly indicate one rule, women have to remain chaste to deserve this unrestrained  respect. By chaste, I leave it to the reader to understand its meaning in the pre-marriage and post-marriage context So, now we come to the most interesting part. In this viewpoint, women have to make sure they keep the(ir) men in control. To put it in simple worlds, men can see, hear, talk but never touch! This is in contrast to the western ways where men see, hear, talk, touch and do much more than that to completely feel satisfied to their fullest extent ;) even though, how much ever you have, you never feel satisfied and its a fact. You can disagree with me but nature has its way Women in these countries don’t feel bad about this, in fact the whole society is very much aware and it is seen as a norm. In a way, guys get what they want in the shortest period of time ( in most cases). I won’t say that there is not much romance involved but its role is slightly different, men have to be romantic and show they are rich, sophisticated and worthy, all in one shot. In theory, this might look tough but I know that there are man tips available in the internet that might be useful All this happens in a  date and they go places from there , if she feels that he is good enough;) Therefore, as per Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, all of man’s physiological needs are satisfied with this final act. Some people call it love, some may see it as lust, whatever it is, the main event is the same!
Image Credits: http://www.beirutnightlife.com/lifestyle/dine-out/top-10-restaurants-where-to-dine-this-valentine/

Back to India, I have mentioned earlier that women have a certain code of conduct to maintain. This means that men can love and just keep  loving atleast until the marriage if they feel they can maintain the level until that time! There are many theories on how love arises. But in my understanding, the alluring quality of beauty is the source of love along with the growing insecurity of man when we loses his friends as he gets older. It starts with the appearance of a beautiful woman who satisfies man’s requirement (people have different tastes with respect to skin color, body shapes, personality and so on….). Sparks fly, man gets engrossed, he tries to get close and talk to her, to check if his primal hunch is correct. The rest of the story can be summed up in three words fascination, fascination and more fascination. This condition is where a man becomes a poet, this is where philosophical thoughts, physiological needs and a self-induced psychological gap meet! What is the product of this fusion? Feelings of unrequited love expressed in the form of metaphors comparing love to something ethereal and the lady-love to some meta-being who lives everywhere, in his conscious state and in his dreams. In my opinion, this is the only state where man finds that he is really connected to NATURE. He loves its beauty in all its forms. The mental diarrhea continues until the woman satisfies his need of love. Indian woman can’t satisfy man’s needs until marriage but they do entertain them momentarily with those fleeting glances and touches, thereby keeping his hope alive. I always felt that woman have great control of passion and my intuition is proved right by this article. Woman can be more passionate and at the same time, control passion at 8 times more than that of man. Talk about some control! No wonder, they look so composed when in love, in contrast to man who is drooling and unrestrained Love need not look cheap by my views so far because we have only looked at the primal love between a man and a woman. But, love is far more subtle. I consider Love to be the gross form of consciousness.  It operates at all levels and dimensions of human life. There can be no life without love. TO LIVE IS TO LOVE. If love diminishes one day, humanity would have reached its end, that is the power and reach of love. Coming to our topic, unrequited love is something that can be very liberating and at the same time, very arresting. Emotions and sentiments run amok in the human mind. Arts is a field that rises from human emotions. Think of the painters, singers, actors and poets, all these roles require deep emotions to express a mental state or a reality or an experience in the form of metaphorical representations. Call it excess activity in the right brain! No wonder, many say that man becomes a poet when he is in love. All this sentence needs is the adjective ‘unrequited’ because if his love is satisfied, there is no need to be a poet. He will want to become a poet once lust/desire strikes again and it does strike too often This is indeed a unique situation where a primal instinct brings about amazing level of creativity from humans.

The Indian culture and love songs from Indian films go hand in hand. One cannot purely exist without the other. Love songs provide the necessary distraction and comfort for lovers.  Song lyric writers have been keep kept busy for more than 5 decades because of this phenomenon. If the Indian culture loses its identity due to globalization and inculturation,  the situation might change.  This is a scenario  where the liberation of women can cause a change in their attitude towards the concept of chastity. Will chastity be maintained in the growing so-called liberation or will its definition and applicability loosened to accommodate the urban lifestyle, is to be seen. But, one will not be surprised if India goes the western way and I am just giving a live commentary of a change which is already there to be seen in the metropolitan cities. The market for love songs will always be there because it has established itself in the hearts of Indians. The sway will be there but the importance will diminish slowly and we may slowly come to see a time where films without love songs could become a norm as the gifted generation of lyricists fail to find worthy replacements and also movie audience could just expect a animalistic exposition of love as seen in English movies.

I hope you found my correlation between culture and love songs to be of some relevance. If you don’t , plz share your opinion. I close this post with this wonderful love song from Barry Manilow

How about building a Family Tree?

What it is about families that interests us?

First of all, who are RELATIVES? I can give many answers from different perspectives. From a very cynical viewpoint, I can say they are the people who are supposed to watch your back, knowing that they may not get anything in return Or more kindly speaking, they are the set of people who progress in life helping each other Or they are just groups of people related by blood, colour, culture and in summation, by patriarchy. All of us know about our father and grandfather but do we know their fathers and so on? Very few of us! The common reason is that we are plainly not interested or we see no benefit from that information.

Personally, I have hated meeting some relatives who are not that close to my family but still are relatives in some direction(horizontally or vertically) because you very rarely know/recognize them.This is what they say after the initial Hi – “Man, You have grown up a lot” or “This is XYZ, do you remember me? I used to buy you chocolates when you were a kid” or “When are you going to treat us with Wedding Dinner??”. I hate that last question! and then you are supposed to have a lively talk with them, entertain them, share jokes etc etc…Its not that I despise meeting new people but I see the inherent similarity in views, thoughts, opinions with them to the extent that it becomes boring when overly like-minded people meet. Its very rare that you meet someone who is eccentric at least by his/her way of thinking and doing. But, it is an unreal expectation simply because we are all similar by genes(biologically) – unless someone did the unthinkable(not my view)  by marrying a person from another caste or religion! But still, we meet on some social occasions, share a joke or two, take their hand-phone numbers and pretend that we will call them and then move on..End of story till it starts again!

Of late, I have been reading a lot about taxonomies, hierarchies or things that talk about relationships in top-down or left-right directions. The idea of building a family tree or family map came up from these readings. This family tree that I have envisioned basically will trace one’s roots to the maximum extent possible. It will have basic details such as name, birth place, DOB, status, living or dead, spouse, siblings, children, place of death, education, employment area and countries visited….Now, what is the benefit of building such a map as it would take a lot of time in collecting data from different people? I could foresee lot of benefits. I will list them down..

1.) First and foremost, you get to know your ancestors

2.) You get to know the level of evolution(or devolution!) achieved

3.) You get to know your legacy

4.) You get to know the places where your relatives/forefathers have been and lived ~ Something to brag about

5.) Using the employment/occupation details, you could see if there are any opportunities for any fruitful joint ventures within the BIG family ~ This has huge potential

6.) If you have relatives in exotic locations, you can use them for a trip to those places

7.) Using the data about the folks of your same age, you could set up lateral relationships and build short term/long term business plans ~ Similar to point 5 but this is about the folks of the same age group

8.) Do Social Network Analysis ~ a bit nerdy but can be very useful

9.) Invite relatives to create a common family fund which can be used for constructive purposes

10.) Last but not at least, for HELPING FOLKS WHO ARE IN NEED OF IT

Courtesy: make-family-tree.com

So, I am going to take this exercise as one of my secondary hobbies for this year. I am going to talk to my friends and relatives about it and will create a simple mini family tree in a month or so. I will start with a literature review and will try to merge the Indian “subjective” thinking and western “scientific” thinking in all the planning and implementation activities. Will update this post regularly

By the way, here is my new soon-to-be customary exit line – Do add your comments so that we can evolve together

Acceptance dictates our well-being

Acceptance plays a huge role in our lives. This is not an overstatement by any means. In my opinion, it is the single most important factor that affects our psychic hygiene. I will try to list down my clarifying thoughts in this blog post.

We want to live happily. All through our lives, we discover, observe and adapt to situations that aid in sustaining happiness. We try to escape to happiness during gloomy and morose moments. There is no denying these facts. Westernized philosophy of life propagates “Pursuit of Happiness” as the primal aim of life. Happiness, in totality arises out of personal/family/group/communal contentment.

so, Contentment->Happiness

Contentment arises due to these factors to 1.) Statutory Achievements, 2.) Healthy Physical/Mental Hygiene 3.) Pleasing Surroundings 4.) Meeting the Needs of the Five Senses 5.) Vicarious Enjoyment 6.) Fulfilment of Material Desires. One could go on an create a big list of factors that lead to contentment. But most factors are variations and instances of the  six mentioned factors. We, as humans are “Social Animals”. Social because as we belong to a community or a society or in simple terms – a group and we are quite dependant on each other – “We basically do things for others so that they can give something back to us”. Animals because we are all embodiments of the alternative definition of an Animal(adjective) - Marked by the appetites and passions of the body. There are few folks who are exceptions to this Social Animals observation. A discussion on their characteristics is a separate topic altogether.

An analysis of the six mentioned factors that lead to Contentment is portrayed through the diagram below

Acceptance operates at the ground level. Changes to its intensity propagates to the higher levels of contentment and happiness.  Lowering our acceptance threshold lowers our expectations from ourselves and others. This can mean simpler living and less tribulations but this can also mean no real inspiration for continuous progress so one has to be careful in dealing with it.

therefore can we say Acceptance->Contentment->Happiness ?

Please do write down your personal thoughts on this topic….

 

Its my way on the highway – really?

“Its my way on the highway” I remember this line from the theme song of Summerslam with Austin and Taker main-eventing the wrestling fest back in the 90s….So, What about it? This line resonates the philosophy of modern day Indian youth, well supposedly….Accept it or not, today we live in the world of narcissism, epicureanism and hedonsim. Add cynicism to the list as well…Little do we understand the long term repercussions of anything we are affiliated to and obsessed with!

What is it in life that one needs to strive for? One can ask this question casually and the answers given are even more casual and not concrete!  Gender makes a big difference…Men come up with some common replies while Women are not so sure of what they want(particularly Indians)…Wealth, Fame and Property are the 3 main entities that everyone want. Add Affection aka Love to the scheme of things even though it is just a secondary requirement which in many occasions, overtakes the other 3 and becomes the prime focus for an individual! Humans want to love and to be loved. This is the subconscious trait in any personality. It can be subjugated with extreme dose of other emotions or simply through sublimation. The latter is almost invisible these days. Add Knowledge to this list of items to be striven for. So , it makes a five-way battle between Wealth, Fame, Property, Love and Knowledge. Our lives are spent in the pursuit of these entities. If the interest over one dulls, the other lures. These entities form the circle of our lives and there is no escape route, well almost!

Society plays a huge role in a person’s life. In a way, the rules of the society are to be followed compulsorily. Senior citizens make sure we structure our lives in the so-called tried and tested pattern. Sons and daughters are expected to carry on with the legacy of establishing a family’s name in the society and future generations are supposed to uphold the same ideology. Why? The mundane reply is that each family should have its collective head high up in the society and should never be a laughing stock! Is this worth striving for?  Varna Ashrama Dharma(VAD) was found in India with the intention of establishing sustainable harmony. VAD in my view is the best structured theme for any society but it has decayed in to a caste segmentation system, majorly used by sick politicians for vote bank politics.

Consumerism has been the curse of humanity after the inception of industrial age. Living with surplus amenities is sacred these days! The human tendency of self-indulgence is the main target area of merchants. They create uncalled-for needs and we reactively sway to them. To say that our life is a mess of unwanted desires would not be too critical at all. Most of us are gluttons serving to our senses even though there is nothing like a permanent sensual pleasure. It is always temporary and transient.  Can this be called as Stricken Happiness?

We are what we read, what we see, what we hear, what we are subjected to. Past experiences dictate our present and future. We react vicariously to others’ experiences. One can claim to be a master of his/her consciousness but can the same be said for sub-consciousness? There is always this conflict between emotion and reason within us. Does anyone know why? Can we differentiate between intuition and insight? Insight comes from experience and knowledge. Where does intuition come from? Think about it. These are some questions to be answered if we think we are masters of our own lives. Now, tell me whether Its your way on the highway?

The Return

Finally…back to blogosphere after a 2 year hiatus.The reasons for my prolonged absence are plenty but it doesn’t matter isn’t it?? The big question is What am i going to blog about? Technology, Films, Personal Opinions et al would be my innocuous reply.

I have chosen wordpress as blogspot is boring Lets see what changes I could do to my blog

Ok..so, I have returned and things will fall into place from now on…