Escaping Flatland

The Internet Sexuality Information Services (ISIS) has created inSPOT-LA [Link], a website for people (mostly homosexual) who have a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) to inform their recent sexual partners anonymously, by sending ecards. This would alert them to risks of possible infection, and allow them to get checked sooner.

A brilliant idea, I think - circumventing the social ignominy of direct contact while ensuring that the crucial message is sent. Good intentions, meet anonymity. And the ecards express a range of emotions - from the stick-to-the-facts to the colorful to the tongue-in-cheek. Only in California.

Now, if we combine the need for anonymity with impure intentions, there might be a larger market awaiting us. I'm sure Sherron Watkins (who wrote a memo on Enron's dizzying accounting schemes to the CEO), Jeffrey Wigand (the tobacco industry's ultimate insider), and FBI Special agent John Roberts (who spoke of discipline problems within the FBI) would appreciate a Whistleblower's ecard.

These ladies (Desperate Housewives) might like a snitch-on-friends-and-neighbors ecard. And these folks (Coulter, Moore) would be partial to a slander-your-political-opponent ecard.

Blogging, like Death, is a great leveler. You don't have to be a member of the MSM [definition] to share your views with the masses anymore. Any armchair philosopher, stubble-faced student or ambidextrous dog can blog. Surprisingly, many jouralists also moonlight as bloggers, expressing their creativity on non-editor sanctioned stories.

Jai Arjun Singh, a journo for Outlook India, went shopping for Porn in Palika Bazar, Delhi. Palika Bazar is an "airconditioned", underground market teeming with shops carrying imported, grey-market, pirated goods or cheap local imitations (for those who can't tell the difference). During my college days, this was my source for the latest non-Bollywood Music CDs. He shares his experiences on his blog.

I descend into the labyrinthine underworld that is Palika Bazaar wearing my shabbiest sweatshirt and jeans, face covered by a three-day stubble. "Look the part" was the counsel from experienced friends when they learnt I was going porn-hunting in the interests of journalism. "Seedies?" he enquires politely, this being how both VCDs and DVDs are referred to here. "Double aur triple hai?" I retort (the "X" is unnecessary in this setting) in what is intended to be a smooth, throwaway tone.

This starts to feel awkward, like buying condoms from the friendly neighborhood chemist you've known since you were a childPosturing and clothing are a big part of dealing with the shopkeepers in Delhi. Printed price tags are a rarity - you are quoted a price for goods (whether an embroidered handkerchief or an Aiwa hi-fi double-deck cassette player) based upon your appearance. Many goods (the appropriately named 'seedies' included) are not even on display - you have to ask for them explicitly. They will be shown to you only if you look 'right'.

The owner is unsuitably avuncular, he wears thick glasses, has a warm, open smile and this starts to feel awkward, like buying condoms from the friendly neighborhood chemist you've known since you were a child. But then he opens his mouth to speak. "You want combination, single, Asian, schoolgirl, kitty aunties, frontside, backside, oral, multiple? All varieties available. Full one-and-a-half hour. Rs 150 only." (Kitty aunties?)

And therein lies the reason I had to rely on cousins for my porn quota - I could never muster up the courage to ask the friendly neighborhood video library guy for a double or triple (or, as Delhites say: a 'number'). And yeah - Kitty Aunties?

And the more you frequent a shop, the more latitude you get, starting with a DVD-case for each disc you purchase.

This is because porn is illegal in India, and the guy doesn't want to be raided by quota-hungry policemen. If you're a genuine customer, a repeat buyer at that, you will receive the true Indian customer service - cushion on your seat, 'thanda' (cold drink), a wide variety of CDs, time to choose in leisure, cool air (in the sweltering Delhi heat) etc. and a level of personalization that will put Amazon's collaborative filtering mass customization to shame: "you will like this one, sir, fresh maal. Item number" sounds is so much more personal than "Customers who brought the seedie in your basket also brought ..."

The comments on his blog are also interesting - a IIT guy boasting of their superior 'blue film' collection and a Mumbaikar praising their mobile-phone ordered pr0n home delivery service (sure beats a lunch dabba, wot?).

Dubya admitted to wiretapping US phones in the name of fighting terrorism last week. The NSA has been allegedly "tapping" into Internet traffic for years now, using Echelon. Meanwhile, India has its share of wiretapping allegations, with entirely different motives: political gain.

Sandip Roy on NPR has a funny take on Bushie's eavesdropping plans. He plays a conversation with his Bengali mother, peppering it with comments in English for the Bong-challenged NSA spook

Which set me thinking are the conversations between parents and their emigrated children. My own weekly tete-a-tete usually covers the following points:

• The Weather - In Delhi and Altanta; throw in comments about central heating/AC, snow, smog and monsoons
  
• My Love Life - specifically, whether I have found someone worth getting married to. This is discussed every week
  
• My Health - am I eating right, am I exercising enough, have I meditated this week
  
• My Investments - the Indian stock market, real estate prices, my loans
  
• How busy my sister is nowadays
  
• I should call more often

As Sandip says, if they are looking for patterns, they are sure to find quite a few. And talk of money. And suicide (this usually accompanies the Love Life discussion).

How does your conversation compare?

Update: Comedy Central conducted some serious investigative journalism to give us their viewpoint on the wiretapping situation [Link].

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued their Annual List of Top 10 Organizations Receiving Most U.S. Patents this week, with the byline "American Innovation Continues to Top the Field" [Link].

1 IBM Corporation
2 Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
3 HP
4 Matsushita Electric
5 Samsung Electronics
6 Micron Technology
7 Intel Corporation
8 Hitachi
9 Toshiba Corporation
10 Fujitsu Limited

I counted 4 American companies here - hardly "Topping the field". This list has not changed much from the last few years [2004, 2003, 2002] either. That statement is as disingenuous as the Big 3 Auto Manufacturers calling themselves American [Link].

BURLINGTON, Iowa - Terris Cooper ... sells baked goods from behind his white Toyota Avalon. The farmers, he says, feel compelled to buy American cars out of a misplaced solidarity with blue-collar autoworkers. "They think you're hurting the working man by driving a foreign car." But his car was made in Kentucky, he argues. "Who am I hurting?" [Link]

The USPTO director, Jon Dudas (who looks like a slimmer, younger version of Kahlifornia's Gubernator), declares that "America's technological and economic strength is the result of its tremendous ingenuity"(!)

Looking at the USPTO's Annual Report [Link], we find that the "World's Best Patent Office" has a Patent Allowance Error Rate Target of 4%. They granted 165,485 patents last year - that's 6620 patents planned to be incorrect. And their actual performance was even lower, at 4.6%! Given their annual budget of $1.5 Billion and a staff of 4,258 full-time patent examiners, this seems a tad high. Not exactly Six Sigma. The last 4 years haven't been much better, with performances of 5.4%, 4.2%, 4.4% and 5.3% [Link]. On average, they take 29 months to issue a patent, 21 months of which are spend waiting to begin processing the application.

I could get on a tirade about the US losing its IP superiority, creating restrictive immigration policies, the declining number of foreign students entering the US, American students shying away from research and computer science etc. But let me save that for another day.

[Original story from Kottke].

... is a metaphysical allegory from Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist. The book was simple, preditable and repetitive, but had a few quotable sections. Here is one:

"What was that song you were singing yesterday?" I asked.

"Balada para un loco", he said. "Why do you ask about it now?"

"I don't know"

But I had a reason: I knew he'd sung the song as a kind of snare. He'd made me memorize the words, just as I would memorize course work for an examination. He could have sung a song I was familiar with - but he'd chosen one I'd never heard before.

It was a trap. Later, if I heard the song played on the radio or at a club, I'd think of him, of Bilbao, and of a time in my life when autumn turned to spring. I'd recall the excitement, the adventure, and the child who was reborn out of God knows where.

This dude was clearly a playa. Perhaps, I too should give up this hedonistic lifestyle in Midtown Atlanta, and become a charismatic spiritual leader practicing in the French Pyrennes. Then ensnare women with my lilting voice and loco songs [Link]. Or maybe a change of scene - that French Pyreenes thing is sooo 80's. A post-renaissance mendicant singing Daler Mehandi to the Naipaul-afflicted ladies in Trinidad: "Saade Naal Raho Ge?" while begging for alms, shelter and sex, like this guy.

Believe it or not, this image is entirely generated on a computer, using 3D Studio Max, Zbrush and Photoshop, three powerful CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) software packages, and the amazing talent of Jonas Thornqvist [Link] (original story from Digg). The entire face - wispy eyebrows, pouty lips, rough complexion, deliberately squinted eyes, unsymmetric facial features - all add to a sense of realism atypical of CGI images. Curiously, he avoided showing her hair - which is usually the hardest facial element to render realistically. The end result looks eerily like Natalie Portman (real life photo here)!

Equally breathtaking images can be seen on the CG Society website. A few of my favorite photo-realistic images are: Pu Yi [Link], Batman [Link] and Morpheus [Link]. Not real, but close: Angel [Link], Knight of the Temple [Link], Octopus [Link] and Monica Belluci [Link].

This ever-increasing realism of computer generated images is clearly visible in recent Hollywood movies - from The Incredibles to Final Fantasy to Simone (or, rather S1m0ne). In parallel, robot development has also been evolving, from the Biped Rabbit Robot [Link] to consumer-oriented playmates like Sony's Aibo [Link].

Social roboticists have been theorizing about the emotional response of humans to near-human entities for a long time. Masahiro Mori, a Japanese roboticist, proposed the Uncanny Valley Principle in 1970 [Link].

"The Uncanny Valley is a principle of robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. The principle states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached at which the response suddenly becomes strongly repulsive; as the appearance and motion are made to be indistinguishable to that of human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-human empathy levels. This gap of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely-human" and "fully human" entity is called the Uncanny Valley.

The phenomenon can be explained by the notion that if an entity is sufficiently non-humanlike, then the humanlike characteristics will tend to stand out and be noticed easily, generating empathy. On the other hand, if the entity is "almost human", then the non-human characteristics will be the ones that stand out, leading to a feeling of "strangeness" in the human viewer."

In other words, the "Uncanny Valley" theory states (roughly) that when an artificial object is very similar in appearance to a human we will fixate on the parts that make it look "not human" and this will generate a negative response in us. Reminds me of my performance reviews at work, since I'm so perfect, the reviewers have to focus on traits that make me non-human, and this generates negative responses on my assessment. That explains my low raise last year!

If the Uncanny Valley concept seems abstract, here is an example:

Some prosthetic hands attempt to simulate veins, muscles, tendons, finger nails, and finger prints, and their color resembles human pigmentation. So maybe the prosthetic arm has achieved a degree of human verisimilitude on par with false teeth. But this kind of prosthetic hand is too real and when we notice it is prosthetic, we have a sense of strangeness. So if we shake the hand, we are surprised by the lack of soft tissue and cold temperature. In this case, there is no longer a sense of familiarity. It is uncanny.

Sara Kiesler [Bio], a human-robot interaction researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, first suggested that conflicting evidence for human likeness from a humanlike entity may elicit the same terror management defences that reminders of death do. In other words, humans may be subconsciously reminded of their mortal nature when they see near-human characteristics. So they fixate on distancing these near-human objects from themselves through a negative emotional response. See Karl MacDorman's research paper (presented at the Andriod Science 2005 workshop) for more details [PDF]. This is a plausible theory, and MacDorman has done some perceptual research to test this claim, but I feel that the link is tenuous, certainly not provably causal.

As an aside, I took an HCI class with Sara at CMU - a fun course on interface design. She was involved in the HCI institute project that designed early versions of the Palm V (the T-Rex that ruled the consumer electronics earth before the iPods meteors hit).

For more of Masahiro Mori's work on Uncanny Valley, including the effect of movement on our perception, see here.

Livescience lists the Top 10 most popular myths in Science [Link]. They say chickens can live without a head...

True, and not just for a few minutes. A chicken can stagger around without its noggin because the brain stem, often left partially intact after a beheading, controls most of its reflexes.

I have a vivid childhood memory of our poultry farm in Baghpat, UP, where a farm worker was beheading chickens for the daily "production run". He threw the headless chickens into a drum where they ran round and round in circles till they passed out and died (ostensibly) from blood loss. He would occasionally miss the drum, and Chicken Little would run in brownian motion all over the floor of the slaughter house (it obviously couldn't see where it was going). 2-3 farm hands would then chase after the headless chicken, catch it and throw it into the drum. I remember coming back home and refusing to eat non-veg for a whole week afterwards.
And here's another gem: Men think about sex every seven seconds [Link].

Patrick Roos is a 24-year old Swede, a student of Japanese and Physics. He has a (discontinued) blog, on which he spouts practical advice like:

“Too much Prozac® makes you weird. Use it moderately.” (9/7/02)
“Pulling tampoons (sic) out of strange girls is fun!” (9/18/02)

In early 2002, he created Text-Image [Link], a free web-based service that converts any image into HTML or ASCII. I played around with it for a while and got the results you see above.

So, if you want to impress your girlfriend with cool pictures of herself or bore your relatives with cool pictures of your child or astound the world with cool pictures of random stuff, go forth and binary-multiply!

On discovering that Google Video may not remain free much longer [Link], I embarked on another Video Hunt. All comedy of course. With a large sprinkling of desi.

I started with the staple: Russell Peters - BBC: Comedy Central (46 min) [Link] - one of his better shows (i.e. more racist than ever before). If you're too busy, too lazy, or too ADHD-ed, bite into the excerpts instead: Company [Link], no more white people [Link], Indian Redneck [Link], Wedding Rice [Link] and Hong Kong [Link]. The Tsunami special [Link]. And a whole bunch more [Link].

As is the nature of celebrity, Russell too is beginning to face criticism. One hears accusations of eve teasing, arrogance and generally lame jokes [Link].

And then she drops the bomb "This guy Peters is creepy". I'm like "What?" G goes on to reveal how backstage, Peters was so hitting and making passes on her and the other waitresses and if they would politely turn and walk away, he would get mad and start making false complaints about them to the manager.

"Dude, no back-talking, no whistles, no speaking out loudly back to Peters, no…. this Peters guy has passed strict instructions to the management, if any of these things happen, he's gonna walk off from the stage."

The show did begin well and the best of the jokes, Peters used up in the first 15 minutes of his act. Then as mentioned by the waitress, I noticed Peters switching gears and picking up people in the audience, asking them questions, fishing for laughs. It was downhill from there on. Peters could never get the whole audience laughing at a time. It was always 5 people here or 10 people then who giggled when he said something.

The forced humor and people-picking is clearly visible in his Intense Comedy Night performance (59 min) [Link]. Competition is beginning to offer alternatives. A new face: Paul Varghese on Desi Vision [Link] (try username= arre, password=bhai). And the inimitable MC Vikram & Ludikrishna, with Curry N Rice girl [Link].

Onto our tour of the latest Indian TV Commericials, with great musical scores: Aish-Cash, with a tongue-in-cheek rags-to-riches story and addictive desi-rap, Yo [Link]. Peugeot's take on Indians' procifiency in Engineering and deficiency in woman-eering, set to Raja Mustaq's Husn: [Link]. A cigarette maker (Wills) promoting its sports-friendly image by capitalizing on India's love for cricket [Link]. This ad reminds me of all the "take care of your younger sister" lectures I received when I was growing up [Link]. Shah Rukh plays Bunty aur Bubbly [Link].

From this side of the globe, two new X-box commercials tout its immersive virtual-reality features: Bang! [Link] and Plane Ride [Link]. Jennifer Anniston is the American Aishwarya Rai (ala "Hi I'm Sanju. Ek Pepsi Milegi?") [Link]. The world's Worst Job Ever (be patient watching this one) [Link].

Finally, if you have 3 hours to spare, you could watch the best hindi comedy movie ever made: Dil Chahta Hai [Link].

Related Post: Vela Afternoon

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! On the Last Day of the Old Year, his Royal Mightiness Prince Amit of York (New) proposed to Sonali Gokhale, a kindergarten teacher whose demure nature and wholesome beauty distinguish her from past royals (see related story). In accepting the Prince's handwritten proposal, the soon-to-be princess left behind a trail of broken Maharastran hearts and a restaurant bill of $74.12.

The fairy tale proposal unfolded in a Thai Restaurant, with the charming prince charming the vegetarian Atlanta teacher over Moo Satay and Green Curry with Tofu (see related story). The prince, an ardent patron of romantic-era Hollywood films, was keen on a proposal atop the Empire State Building (see related story), but the petite princess, hailing from the South (US and India), was not a fan of the cold.

In keeping with Atlanta tradition, a party was planned for the Royal Couple at the Nebuchadnezzar Palace (photo). However, due to unforseen circumstances (see details), the venue was later shifted to the Grand Palace de Midtown (photo). Party regulars will remember this location as the venue for another stately wedding party last year: his Majesty Sir Alok, the General of Electric (see media coverage).

As special friends of Lady Sonali (that's "Her Majesty" to you), you are cordially invited to join us at the Grand Palace for an evening of fun, frolic and debauchery. The prince will fly in from his Northern Palace in York for the occasion.

Electronic RSVP is required to ensure table-settings and optimal resource allocation. To RSVP, please Add a comment with your name below. It would be appreciated if you could provide an estimated time of arrival and approximate value of gift.

Details:
Date & Time: 7:00 PM on Jan 14, 2006
Location: xxx xxxxxxxxx xx xx xxx, Atlanta GA 30309 [Map] [Satellite Image]
Attire: Formal. Ethnic clothing is acceptable, including kurtas, dhotis, sarees and heavy salwar-kameezes.
Parking spots have been reserved for each invitee in the cordoned-off security area with 24-video surveillance. Please enter from the side door using the double-secret door access code (#018).

The holidays are coming to an end today, and I'm finishing up my hectic schedule of watching paint dry over the past few days. Those of you who share my eclectic taste might want to try these links:

Time Lapse Photography: Eirik Solheim, an Accenture Consultant, has been taking a picture out of his living room in Norway at random intervals for the last year. He has edited this into a short video that morphs through the year [Link]. Though the first few seconds of winter are dull (aren't they always?), things pick up in Spring and Summer.

� � � � � Chicken Run: For those of you who weren't lucky enough to own their own poultry farm - here is your chance to have your very own chicken. Better than Jeeves, this chicken will perform any acrobatic manouever possible in a 10x15 room [Link].

� � � � �Cat People: Cat owners all over the world post pictures of stuff on their cat [Link]. Hilarious, bizzarre, funny.

NASA has some gorgeous pictures of our universe: Solar System, Stars, Nebulae, Galaxies, Star Clusters - you name it, they've photographed it. Their extensive photo archive can give you a weekend full of browsing delight and a lifetime supply of screen backgrounds. Two of my favorites - the Eagle Nebula (shown above) and the Carina Nebula - remind me of uneartly sunsets. Their hues are similar to mortal dusk, but their tonal ranges and "cloud formations" are humblingly incredible.

Not to be outdone, the Jet Propulsion lab posted pictures of their mission to Saturn and Titan online here [Link].

While I was a student at CMU in 1999, the Robotics Institute created algorithms for the Mars Exploration Rovers. In Jan 2004, it created Personal Exploration Rovers and deployed them in museums across the country, in a well-executed publicity stunt. The original Mars Exploration Rovers, in the meantime, clicked some of the most expensive 1 Megapixel digitial photos ever taken by rover-kind, and beamed them back home. These photos were then stitched together (using CMU algos again) and posted on the Official NASA JPL Mars Rovers Website. The original images were taken by panoramic cameras in true color, across a large frequency spectrum, ranging from near infrared wavelengths to violet light. The original, unstitched images, before color modification, are available here, with a discussion of the process used obtain the final images.