SRK and the US

Since SRK got held up for detailed questioning at the Newark airport, there has been a lot of reporting, blogging and discussion on it.

You hear two main opinions :

1) That detaining SRK, who is not only one of the most popular stars in the whole world but also has a very clean image, was inappropriate. That it inflicted some kind of insult on SRK, India or even the whole world.

2) That this is normal procedure and many people have to go through it. US has the right to be entire sure about who it lets in and this is why another 9/11 has not happened in 8 yrs.

These opinions are not at all mutually exclusive. Logic and emotions, both have equally important places in this world. And they need to reconciled.

The issue is as follows :

Such behavior by US brings out their inefficiency and stupidity which when not understood appears like arrogance.

The purpose of such stringent security measures is to prevent terrorists from getting into the US. But why is it necessary to assume that a person who has lived a good public life can turn terrorist any day? US should maintain a list of people who are frequent travelers and who are well known. Frisking a person and his luggage should always be done. But it should be harassment-free. Some might say that this is like differentiating between people on the basis of their success. I would say - NO. This is in turn making the system more efficient.

The anger of people on such occasion is because it appears that US is arrogant enough not to acknowledge that there are people in other countries who are relatively above suspicion. Not only because they have a clean public image, but also because everything that one could possibly gather in that 1.5 or 2 hrs of questioning can already be known if only they maintained a database of them. It's about according respect to the emotions of those who love them.

Harry Potter 6

Well made. Skipped some things in the book.

Good or bad, a Harry Potter movie cannot be missed by me.

Yes, it did take 40 mins to find parking and I waited in a line for 1 and half hours to get a good seat.

But with good friends along, no pain, only fun.

International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

Today was the first day of the conference. Now, I have started getting the feeling that I am an AI researcher. Until now I was always in doubt whether my work was good enough and was it really AI-ish enough. Spending a day among so many researchers (1200) from all over the world is overwhelming. The thought that people are attacking these problem daily in so many different places is surreal.

The talks were great. I have only been to one more scientific conference before, but I can tell that the works being presented here are good contributions.

But the day ended with honoring two achievers in AI, Andrew Ng and Carlos Guestrin. I have seen geniuses being depicted in movies but to see them speak in real was great. Then was the AI video contest. It was like a party.

Yes, there can be a sense of purpose in research.

Encryption

I think Public-Key Encryption is a genius of an idea.

Awesome Operating System lecture

UC Berkeley has its Operating Systems (OS) course lectures available online freely. I found them very lucid and helpful.

Here is the link:
http://academicearth.org/courses/operating-systems-and-system-programming

NB: http://academicearth.org/ in general has really good lectures. I also saw the Psychology lectures by Paul Bloom at Yale. He is a very good animated speaker. Check it out at http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-psychology

Rajasthan

I visited various cities of Rajasthan this winter. It was kinda cool. Palaces, forts, temples, shrines ... all some hundred years old.

Udaipur
Ajmer
Pushkar
Jodhpur
Jaipur

I went with my family. Papa, mummy and Ruchi.

Traveled by all sorts of transportation. Trains, buses, cars, autorickshaws, cycle rickshaws, boats.

Kings, their lives, their wives, their wars, their ends.

Did some shopping as well. That's the boring part. [smile]

Camel rides. Bullock cart rides. Awesome local food.

7 days.