Day 67: Interstellar

Interstellar.

So, I watched Interstellar yesterday. And I think I need to watch it twice more to wrap my mind around it. I remember the awe I felt after watching 'Inception', and the awe I felt after watching Interstellar was thrice that. The visuals are magnificent. The premise is fantastic, specially fascinating for a science fiction nut like me who has a morbid interest in dystopian settings.

I came away with multiple calculations and theories after the movie.
I came away with questions.
A lot of questions.

The one thing that was gnawing at my mind after the movie, other than questions about blackholes and quantum mechanics and relativity of time and the Einstein-Rosen bridge was inexplicably farming.

People on Earth were dying, not because of aliens taking over.

People on Earth were dying, not because of the robots overthrowing us.

People on Earth were dying, not because someone was trying to build an intergalactic bridge and Earth happened to be in the way.

People were dying because of starvation.

Life on Earth as we know it was coming to an end and the only thing that people could do was farm. The one vocation that was being encouraged was agriculture. People were dying and the immediate response was to grow food. People were dying and the apparent cause was hunger and starvation.

After all that we've done, after all the places that we've been to, after all the advance in science and technology that we've made, after all the beautiful things we've designed, we would fail because we wouldn't be able to meet one of the three basic requirements for living.

Interstellar is going to make me think a lot. About a lot of things.
It is, justifiably, exactly how it has been written about.
It is a gargantuan, beautiful, confusing, amazing, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking intergalactic mess.

Day 66: Momentum

Momentum. The tendency of a moving object to keep moving.

I had forgotten this word and its implications for the longest time. I had lost momentum in life, being content with what I had, with what was happening and living on reruns on Netflix.

I think I have to regain my momentum, and shed my limitations. I need to regain my hunger and my ambition. I feel like it is lost somewhere in the humdrum of everyday life.

Nothing like a Women in Leadership conference to inspire you and give you that much needed momentum.

Day 65: 2048 - Overly familiar or overly grinding?

2048 (http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/) is a wildly popular single-player puzzle game available on smartphones as well as the web, consisting of a 4*4 tile board, which is initially partially filled with low numbers such as 2. The objective is to slide numbered tiles on the grid to combine them and create a tile with the number 2048. The game is a variation of the sliding block puzzle where equal numbers merge to form a single tile with their sum. 

Figure 1: Initial setting of the tile grid, partially filled with low numbers.

The filling up of blank tiles on the board reflects building time pressure eliminating the need for a separate timer. There is no alternate end state since the game is over if the board fills up without achieving 2048. Thus, as the player progresses in the game, there is an increase in the dramatic tension of the gameplay.

Figure 2: As the board fills up, the player has to strategize and there is increase in dramatic tension.

The elusive 2048 tile ensures repetitive play of the game, helping interactors gain insights about which strategies can be employed to achieve the goal. 2048 includes a scoreboard and a leaderboard to ensure competition. However, the score mechanics are unclear making the score a distraction. 2048 tries to reach the sweet spot between being overly familiar and over grinding.

Figure 3: The end state achieved when 2048 is reached. The player can ‘keep playing’ after winning.

Day 64: Gadgets

Yo yo yo!

It is gadget season again. So many new devices just clouding the horizon and making us sing out about how it is raining gadgets. 

Fun times.

Our news feeds flooded with reviews about the latest tablets and smartphones, the features of the latest Operating Systems, their usability and then the ensuing price battles.

Time to stay awake, make a few decisions and prebook these gadgets away!

Day 63: Concerts

Why do we go to concerts?
We spend buckets of money to go listen to some songs that you have on your playlist anyway.

But the energy, the atmosphere, the feeling that nothing can go wrong, the crowd around you and you being a part of the crowd.
The sense of belonging.
The sense of adventure.
The hypnotic trance you fall in.
The elation when your favorite song starts playing.

It is magnificent.

Day 62: Notebook

I have a really tough time filling in notebooks.
Not because I don't like to write.
No because I lose them.
But mostly, because I lack regularity.

My best friend gave me a notebook at the end of the year 2011. 160 pages, 6 inches by 5 inches.

For the longest time , I didn't write in it. I didn't want to ruin the pristine beauty of the book with my less-then-perfect words.

Finally, in the August of 2013, I started writing in it. Nothing significant, just class notes and to-do lists. I carried it around with me everywhere for about a month, then moved on to digital note-taking methods and the book lay forgotten in my room.

10 months later, I picked up the book again and started writing in it. Really writing in it. Making quick observations and taking longer notes.

It has been two months since I started doing that, and I have finally filled more than three quarters of the notebook. There is still hope for me. Maybe this will be the book which will be written in till the last page. Maybe.

Day 61: Gone Girl

I read a very disturbing book. And I loved it. It has been a long time since I have been hooked on to any narrative so much that I couldn't put the book down, sneakily reading bits and pieces everywhere I went because I couldn't keep away. 

With the release of 'Gone Girl' starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike and the uber talented Neil Patrick Harris, directed by none other than David Fincher of 'The Social Network' fame, it was small wonder that the book on which the movie is based would make a resurgence.

Unfortunately for me, I had heard about Gone Girl before and about how good it was and how I must read it, and I just didn't have time for it. My loss, entirely.

The book is disturbing, to say the least. It looks at the characters through a microscopic lens. It subtly observes the difference in lifestyle of American people and how much it depends on the place of residence. It dissects relationships and people and circumstances and how people deal with dire situations.

What makes the book disturbing is how uncomfortable closely is looks at these things. It strips away all facades and pretenses and masks. It makes us think about our actions: how much of these actions is 'us', and how much of these actions is what is 'expected'. 

I was amused by the constance references to various television series and movies that one of the characters keeps revisiting.  He is very frank and insightful when he says that he uses words borrowed from a million scripts, because that is what other people expected from him and he himself had no idea how to react in that situation. He wonders whether we are all trying to be 'characters' inspired by the million movies and books and television series that we watch, so much so that we're losing our true self, making the end of the book ironical.

The structure of the book is quite complex, moving back and forth in time. Written from three different perspectives from the point of view of two characters. It is rich in detail, painting vivid pictures of the feeling rather than the environment.

And it is disturbing.

And amazing. 

Day 60: India is innovating

There is a video, about to go viral on this page.

Is this the new wave of young Indians finally believing in themselves and in their capabilities?
Is this the new era of rebels who take matters into their own hands and not wait for things to be handed to them?
Is this the time when we, as Indians, finally stop talking about India's contribution to mathematics and science by quoting multiple-century-old facts about the '0' and Aryabhatta and talk about the innovation taking place right now?
Is this the time we pledge ourselves and our dedication, talent, sheer hard work, creativity, will to the Indian cause and take pride in doing so?
Is this the time that we finally Make In India?

Day 59: DIY

There's something wonderful about making things on your own!

Dip a sieve in a vat of paper mulch, drain it, vacuum it, iron it and you have your own paper.

Take a scoop of shea butter, add some peppermint essence and some beeswax, stir till you think the consistency is even and you have your own lip balm.

Get a wine glass and some acrylic paint, create your own designs on the wine glass, put the painted glass in the oven for twenty minutes and you have your own customized glassware.

Upend a trashcan and you have your very own taiko.

So, I attended the Maker Faire in Atlanta and did all this and more. There were so many different projects there and so many fascinating people! It was refreshing to see people making things on their own, people actively educating others on how to prevent yourself from being too reliant on others. The Do-It-Yourself culture is amazing and it genuinely encourages creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Day 58: Lazy

I usually abhor the idea of waking up at noon. I don't wake up at noon. I cannot wake up at noon.
I don't like the idea of waking up with the knowledge that half the day is over.

However, have you ever given yourself a chance to be lazy?
Have you ever had a lazy day?

A day when you wake up at noon without feeling like shit?

No guilt.
No frantic scrambling around to get ready and out.
No panic stricken phone calls and emails to answer to.
No reason to check your todo lists.
No place to get to.
No worries.

What a blessing such a day is!
It comes once in a while and takes you by surprise.
It allows you to do all the things you wanted to.
It allows you to not do all the things you wanted to.

Day 57: Connection

Connections are so random.

You may know a person for a long time. Rather, you know of them. You know they exist but you don't know what they're about. You may have met them multiple times, been to their apartment to meet their roommates, been on the same bus and sat next to them everyday without exchanging any words more than pleasantries.

And all it takes is one conversation about one single song from one single movie.
And you've made a connection.

One connection and you know what that person is about.
One connection and you can have multiple conversations with that person for hours on an end about the silliest of things.
One connection and you can talk about the things that trouble the deepest recesses of your heart.
One connection is all you need to become friends.

Day 56: A design note on the Information Visualization of the 2012 London Olympics results

The New York Times visualization for results of the 2012 London Olympics (http://london2012.nytimes.com/results) provides an overview of the medals won by each country through a bubble graph. The size of the bubbles indicate number of medals, their color and position indicate the geographic location of the country.  

Figure 1: The overview bubble graph showing of the number of medals won by each country in the year 2012 

This visualization allows interactors to filter the timeline to look at the results for each Olympics from 1896. However, considering Shneiderman’s OZFD model, it does not provide any affordance to zoom on details for countries.

Figure 2: The interactive timeline allowing the interactor to filter through every Olympic games

The relational database for the visualization consists of two tables: medals per country and medals for each event. The visualization allows the interactor to navigate to events of 2012 through hyperlinks and access details on demand, creating associative trails. However, these hyperlinks are unavailable for any other years, creating inconsistency.  

Figure 3: The database with two related tables

Each event is in the form of a structured document which includes photographs, articles, breakdown of matches. The interactor can access another level of granularity: specific individual or team events for both men and women, also in the form of structured documents. However, the lack of a navigation bar makes it difficult for the interactor to trace his path back to the overview.

Figure 4: The structured document for each event in the Olympics

Day 55: Gamble

How do you gamble with your heart?
How do you decide which person you want to spend your life with or what thing you want to spend your life doing or what path you want to follow?
How do you give that person or thing that much power over you?

Maybe I've just never felt that strongly for anyone or anything ever.
Maybe that is the reason why I am plagued with these questions.
Maybe I am too naive.
Maybe I just don't get it.
Maybe it is really a gamble.

Day 54: "I want it that way"

One of the most iconic bands that I remember from childhood is Backstreet Boys. 

Yeah, you read that right!

No shame!

I bet everyone from my generation knows at least one song by that boy band. Just play a song by them, and everyone will start singing along. They were the height of cool once upon a time, gaining such world wide fame. They were so 'larger than life'.

I remember being on a trip with my parents and their friends when I was ten years old. Since there weren't any kids my age on that trip, I was allowed to carry my walkman along. I have spent four entire days listening to 'Black and Blue' and till date, I know all the songs by heart.

They made memorable songs, however lame and corny they appear now. They made songs that you can play on a loop on a lazy boring day and all your roommates will start dancing. They made songs that you can play in a karaoke and people from six different countries will know the lyrics too. They made songs that make you revisit your childhood and contemplate just how far reaching popular culture is.

Day 53: Productive

The feeling you get after having a super productive day is just unparalleled.
It feels wonderful to have a productive day after a month of sheer procrastination, spent doing all the things you set out to do.
Your muscles are sore from running and stretching and your mind is sore from working and thinking.
You know you can sleep in peace and not fret about what you could have done.

Day 52: What have I become?

Do you sometimes feel like you are not devoting enough time to the things that really matter?

I am scared.
This maze of Facebook and Twitter and Huffington Post and Buzzfeed has taken over my life.
The need for constant information, the persistent compulsion to be available online feels claustrophobic.
I stared reading a new book today, a book I know I am going to love. Three minutes into the book, I switched the tab to check Facebook.
I am scared.
I feel like my mind cannot handle chunks of information longer than a Buzzfeed post, like my mind cannot spare more than three minuted to meaning.
I feel like my mind is being conditioned to reduce my attention span.

What have I become?
What has our generation become?

Day 51: Aamti

Isn't it always about the simplest things?

When you think about what food you crave, it is usually something your mother prepared. The first things about the food you miss are the elaborate dishes she prepared for some special occasion, or the crab curry which would prepared only on Sundays.

And then there are the simplest of preparations, like the aamti (daal), prepared in your house every single day as an accompaniment to the rice. The same recipe, every single day. Certainly not the tastiest dish, nothing fancy about it. Just the normal staple fare.

Next thing you know, you've bought all the necessary ingredients to make aamti. You're excited, second guessing every ingredient you add, whether the jaggery will be enough or whether you put too much red chili powder, all the while wondering how your mom did this every single day. Surely it didn't take her this much time!

When you finally taste what you've made, you know it isn't as amazing as the aamti you ate every day of your life. Perhaps it never will match up to those standards. However, underneath all the clumsiness of your inexperienced culinary skills, you can taste a hint of the food that was a constant companion during your formative years, the one thing that would be present in your plate no matter what, full of ghee and tasting of home, comfort and love.

Day 50: What? Who? When? Why? How?

While designing anything, these are the questions that I ask myself every single time.

Asking these questions right at the onset of the design process makes it easier to keep certain aspects of the problem in focus.

Currently I am working in a lab which explores the idea of using modern technology to follow television series in a more cohesive manner. We were discussing the target audience for a project and then someone succinctly asked the following questions.

Who am I looking at?

Why should I care?

What is going on?

Why is it happening?

I think I am going to ask these questions from now!

Day 49: Chicken for my soul?

I didn’t eat chicken for six entire weeks. That is the longest I’ve gone without touching chicken.

In Maharashtra (India) where I come from, we follow the lunar calendar. And in the month of Shraavan (around August), we do not eat meat. There are some religious reasons, some superstitious and some scientific reasons. Fish breed during this time so people don’t want to fish. The monsoon season takes place around this time, so people don’t want to fall prey to water-borne diseases.

A lot of the people around me asked me why I was doing this, why I was not eating chicken, why I was going on this apparent starvation mission. I was actually doing this, quite simply, because I felt like it. I wanted to test my limits and see how far I could go. I chose the month of Shraavan because I just wanted some external reason to follow this too.

The first two days of my chicken-refrainment were quite bad. The only thing I wanted to eat was chicken, mainly because I couldn’t eat it. After that, things got much better.

I am proud to say that I never felt the need to eat chicken during the entire time. I am living in the US and I was worried I wouldn’t find vegetarian fare in most places. I’m very happy to say that I survived, never starved and ate quite delicious food in a lot of places. 

After six weeks, I ate one of my favorite chicken dishes. Unsurprisingly, it was fast food: a deep fried spicy chicken burger. I expected fireworks in that first bite, feeling some amount of satisfaction. Weirdly, I felt nothing at all. Eating chicken did not make any difference to my life. I rather think I’m better off without it.

Day 48: Pain

It always happens when you are in the midst of something happy. That is when something terrible transpires.

Something which you had expected, something everybody had expected, but it hits you in the gut with a stupendous amount of blunt force and you’re left with a massive pain .

It hits you and you don't know what to do, you can't know what to do.

It hits you and you're left trying to breathe.

It hits you and you're gasping

It hits you and you're left crying

It hits you and all you can do is try to clutch at some shred of meaning

It hits you and you hope that time is what will help.