Vikas Kamat is a programmer- entrepreneur
living
in Atlanta. This blog is a complex mix of Indian
culture, life in southern USA, computer sciences, and sports. Opinions are his
own. About - Bio - Contact
Computing, Libraries, Tennis, India & other interests of Vikas Kamat
The Thing Called That
Do Black Referees Help Black Players?
I recall from the 1980s, a racial incident during a Cricket match in Australia
involving Mohinder Amarnath and a Sri Lankan umpire. First this Aussie called
the two as Blacks, and suggested they were conspiring together. The
referee in the game of Cricket has no disciplinary powers, but I will always
remember what Mohinder said then --"It is too bad you mother did not teach you that."
It is a generation since, and it is too bad Lleyton Hewitt's mother did not teach her son either. I couldn't believe what I saw on television during 2001 US Open -- this guy (also from Australia) suggesting that a black linesman making calls in favor of James Blake (who is black).
I define normalization of content as a way to break a story into
its constituent parts for the purposes of better management.
Of course, I am influenced by other normalizations in the software
industry -- like the normalizations of relational databases and normalization
of software requirements, which serve similar purpose.
I first felt the need to normalize content in 1999 while importing an existing website into a Content Management System (CMS).
This phase becomes necessary to interoperate, and even to populate a CMS due
to the different ways the different CMS handle annotation, hyperlinks, and templates
By providing normalization filters the CMS vendors can give freedom to to the authors to use whatever tools they
need to write the story. In our case, we use Microsoft FrontPage to write the content, and the normalization
process gets rid of all the custom tags and junk Microsoft inserts into the document. Any look and feel elements (page margins,
non-standard formatting) are also eliminated this way.
What to do with the links
The processing of external elements (like images, toolbars, hyperlinks, JavaScript
functions) poses
a problem in content normalization. Like everything else, the Kamat Content CrowBot uses rules
to handle the links. If the link points to an existing, valid, internal resource, it is maintained, otherwise it is
tagged to indicated a link that might become available in the future. The separation
of links from the story has
turned out to be a great feature in the production of Kamat's Potpourri. Our customers (who may or
may not have
licensed a linked story) with a lot of content (hence linkable stories) get a richly annotated story while print
customers will not get any hyperlinks.
Sports
I enjoyed the Clash of the Titans at U.S. Open.
And that was just a quarter final?!
Today is the Fantasy Football draft day at Kamat home. After falling in love with Yahoo! FF site last year,
we are switching to the CBS Sportsline -- just because Yahoo! started charging. I feel bad about this --
unwillingness on the part of the users to pay for a service, but I ain't no fool to pay for something
that used to be free (and still is free from a different vendor).
Pet Peeves
Pet Peeve: "It is easier to find something on the entire Web than on my own desktop computer"
People suggest me solutions -- like Microsoft Office indexing service (ya right); install this, install that.
They just don't get it -- I didn't have to install anything to search the Web; I don't have to
buy anything to search web (Microsoft Office costs over $500 at Amazon, which is necessary for the indexing service to work).
Pet Peeve: "I want a search like Palm's search -- something that searches across the types of documents on my PC"
Example: To find my friend's phone number, I should use Outlook's Find. To find directions to his house, I should
use Explorer's Find (its is saved as a text file). I want a find that will find both.
People's solutions: "Why do you need that?!", "Oh store the directions as an e-mail to yourself"
Friday's Prayer: "God, give me freedom from Microsoft."
History of Education
"The purpose of education is to bring out the best in you" -- Mahatma Gandhi
History of Education in India
I have been proof reading a forthcoming book
on the Educational History of India by my mother (to be published by Bahri). The advancements made by the ancient Buddhists and Jainas boggle my mind, and make me proud.
The author takes the approach that education is a life-long experience, and that education not necessarily be academic (meaning read and write) in nature. I completely agree with her Gandhian approach to education -- involving vocational training, oral learning, and including spiritual discoveries. That is the education India had for centuries before the Europeans distroyed it with introduction of formal education.
More thoughts as I read.. there are chapters on vocational education, education of the royalty, female education, Islamic education, and on palm-leaf texts.
I am adding aliasing to the Kamat Content CrowBot. This will help me re-use all of my content processing rules (that were written for static rendering of content) with the dynamic rendering engine. I like it so far.
For example to see how a blog gets linked to a picture, look at this picture. Under the See Also: section there is a link to a dynamically generated story; which itself was a blog once.
Tantric Temples of Alampur Pradesh
Numerous romantic sculptures can be found on the pillars of Alampur's Kumara-Brahma temple in Alampur, Andhra Pradesh
I store the blogs in a Microsoft SQL Server database (see: Anatomy of the Kamat Blogging Engine), and I have added a full text index on that table. The search script uses the CONTAINSTABLE clause to determine the search hits. The relevancy is computed by sorting the RANK field returned by the query.
September 11th
America Under Attack
Of course the big news is the terrorist attacks on USA.
Most news sites are too busy to get to, and television is ruling supreme again.
This is a great opportunity for individuals to become news reporters (i.e., bloggers). BBC, New York Times etc are soliciting first hand information and eye witness accounts.
Of course, Dave Winer is leading the alternate news reporting, driving home the value of amateur writers and reporters.
Who Dunnit?
While it is easy to do, it is of utmost importance not to look for an obvious party to blame. The aftermaths of Oklahoma bombing, and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi have taught us that (wrong people got the early blame).
While the Palestinians are celebrating the destruction, I do not believe they have a direct hand. Just because they are celebrating, does not make them guilty; just makes them stupid.
I say this because in 1984, I witnessed some Sikhs celebrating the assassination of Indira Gandhi. All of them were innocent, but paid a terrible price for their insensitivity (they were massacred in one of the most shameful episodes in Indian history).
Obviously the persons responsible for these attacks were so dedicated to their cause that they were prepared to die. Present day suicide attackers come from two groups --motivated by religion, and motivated by injustice.
That's where we should begin the investigation.
update: Jan 23, 2003 I am providing links to neighboring entries to show how our lives were changed after 9/11. One of the advantages of maintaining a diary is you can go back and visit how an event changed your thinking or life...
Yesterday I wrote that Palestinians probably didn't do it.
Reuters: "We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani army, and the Taliban" (via Yahoo!)
GWB: "...we will go after those who harbor terrorists"
On behalf of all the victims of ISI terrorism in India, I thank you George! Especially go after the Governments that harbor terrorists. The time has come to stop terrorism as a means of conflict resolution.
Yeah. Right. While at it why not solicit help from Gadaffi, Saddam Hussain and Kim Jong Il ?
That was my first response. But thinking more about it, involving Pakistan might be a wise thing -- and probably
necessary. This will force Pakistan to take a stand, hopefully against Taliban.
This might be a big moment for the leadership and the people of Pakistan... a time to open
their minds to the wrongdoings they have been morally supporting, and an opportunity to bond with the rest of the world. I sincerely hope
that the military and political leaders of Pakistan (however illegitimate their powers),
grow mature to distinguish between the just and unjust causes, so we all can be friends again.
From the Indian perspective, if Pakistan decides not to co-operate, it might be good thing too. That will prompt a closer Indo-US nexus (India has the most intelligence about Taliban after Pakistan, and also has ties to Afghan citizens who are opposed to Taliban in Afghanistan.)
I have already gotten many copies of this e-mail. It is a well written editorial, but assumes
that no one else in the world thinks the same. Of course they do. I do, and everyone that I know
feels the same -- that Americans are a generous, and unappreciated people. I disagree with the
editorial in that, the other nations are unwilling to help -- I am sure that there are many societies and countries
who will be honored to help America. And I am hoping (see above) that Pakistan will be among them.
Rediff: "It ain't over yet" -- Indian intelligence
intercepts messages on further terrorist activity.
Let People Mourn their Own Ways
The Net is swamped with do this, do that messages.
Why not let people mourn in their own ways?
Many people mistake me for an Arab; and the prejudice (in the context of the terrorism IMHO), is even understandable. But to mistake a Sikh for an Arab because of the turban is very sad. FYI the religion of Sikhism started to defend against the Islamic fundamentalism.
I also take the opportunity to point that not all Muslims or Arabs are terrorists. They might be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians, but all the Muslims I know are God fearing, honest, normal people. Unfortunately, they are the silent majority, lacking leadership and publicity. Perhaps it is time for them to stand up and identify themselves with the mainstream.
My father once told me that terrorism has no religion, and that it was a religion of its own (he was opposed to the term "Sikh terrorists", prevalent in India during the 80s). I have wondered about it for many years now, and am still pondering over it.
Senseless Carnage
What most people in non-democratic cultures do not get is that America is a people ruled democracy. This means that the policies and decision making of the nation can be influenced via dialogue, debate, and non-violent protests.
If an American policy is wrong, that can be corrected by her people -- there is no need to bomb buildings and kill innocent people.
No matter how I try, the cowardly acts of September 11th do not make sense to me. Perhaps I do not understand hatred of that magnitude. Perhaps I am expecting too much; expecting sense from senseless morons.
The Indian Perspective
HindustanTimes: Warning to Hindus -- a boy was shot and injured Friday outside his school in Agra,
apparently as a warning for India
not to side with the United States in any conflict arising out of the recent terrorist attacks.
Indian Express: India
and America -- both have been victims of terrorism, but their responses to terroism has
been very different.
Perspective from Rural India:
I spoke via phone with a long time friend in India, and apparently the town of Honavar is waiting the news that Afghanistan has been bombed. "They have suspended training in the terrorist camps of PoK (Pakistan ocupied Kashmir)" he told me " and they have gone into hiding".
Apparently, astrological predictions on what is going to happen to Pakistan now are selling like hot cakes in India. Many magazines have brought out astrological suppliments...
"Some people in India want to offer Kashmir as a base for military action to the USA" my friend told me --"But we have heard that once the Americans come, they never leave!"
The Turbans of India
Man Wearing a Turban Detail from a temple sculpture, Mudbhatkal, 16th century A.D.
My Mother: "Vikas, we must do everything to protect the innocent Sikhs"
For the uninitiated: The religion of Sikhism was started to defend against
the evils of Islamic fundamentalism in the 15th century (see Timeline of Sikh History)
From Here and There
Salon: Fix the Policy "..as long as millions of Islamic and Arab people hate America because of its Mideast policies, we will be in danger."
I've said this before (and have invited the wrath of people dear to me), and the author Gary Kamiya is correct.
We, the peace loving, non-violent people think that we can do no wrong. Perhaps we have... in Middle-East and in Kashmir....
South-Central Asia Cheat Sheet
A Cheat Sheet to Understand South-Central Asia
First there was the Second World War.
It gave rise to present day Israel, and the Cold War.
The USSR invaded Afghanistan (1979) and installed a puppet government at Kabul
(the capital city of Afghanistan).
During the 1980s the USA funneled billions dollars to locals to combat the
Soviets. These were called the Mujaheddin (or Holy Warriors).
These Afghan rebels (of whom Osama Bin Laden was a prominent one) caused heavy
damage to the Soviets (over a million killed in either sides) and the Soviets withdrew in
1989, submerging Afghanistan into utter chaos.
Meanwhile the Jews had built a formidable nation, a powerful army, and had
made a large number of Arabs homeless especially in Lebanon, and in Palestine. In the subcontinent, India and Pakistan could not live with peace
with each other and had fought three wars.
Osama bin Laden took up the cause of the Islamic states -- notably Palestine
and Pakistan. He was funded, had recruited many young Muslims, had access to a devoted army of hardcore professionals,
and he preached religious fervor.
Then the cold war ended (1991) and Pakistan and Afghanistan lost
America's patronage.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia (both Islamic nations) became friends of the West.
Osama Bin Laden unleashed his powers against the West and its allies.
Trouble broke out in Chechnya, Algeria, Kashmir, and Lebanon. Under pressure,
many countries deported Osama Bin Laden, but Taliban,
the ruling faction of Afghanistan sheltered him in exchange for his resources.
President Clinton bombarded the hideouts of Osama Bin Laden in 1999.
In revenge, Osama Bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon in the
911-01 attacks.
Pet Peeve:Osama Bin Laden is not a new problem.
Unequal Blood
Unequal Blood
I donate blood several times a year; have done so since
I discovered that I have a rare type. The American
Red Cross even tracks me and reminds me as soon as I qualify to donate again.
But not this year. Because I visited India, they said, and gave me "I tried" sticker. I was disappointed, and joked that my blood, due to exposure to germs, and having developed immunities, is a better quality blood. But I understand their point of view.
FYI: The Red Cross does not accept blood from gay men either. I undestand that too.
I have encountered social tragedy before; fellow children burnt alive
during a circus (Bangalore, 1980), the
Bhopal gas tragedy (Bhopal, 1984), the massacre of Sikhs (Delhi, 1984), the series of cyclones and
earthquakes India regularly faces, etc. But no event has depressed me more than the 911-01.
I am trying to find refuge in tennis, software, libraries, movies, and music, and none is working
I thought of taking a vacation, but my wife feels that this is a time to work
harder than normal (I already work 12-17 hours a day), and I tend to agree..
But I am not productive, my mind wanders non-stop from how easy it is to get fake passports in India to
my own personal safety... from my dislike of Microsoft to the hope that XP and XBox would provide the
necessary boost the American economy needs...and what to do about the sad state of soup the
airline industry is in ...and where are all my critics now who said everything should be
controlled by the marketplace without interference from the Government? Without the Government
interference
now, we won't have an airline industry... but without Microsoft we will have a software industry?..
there's a new worm/virus on the Internet today..and someone asked me if I wrote it.. What?! perhaps
this person also thinks I am sympathetic to Osama Bin Ladin?...
Perhaps there is no such thing as a normal life; by definition, life is something that is changing..
so what do they mean by stable life?... see I told you, I am disturbed.
Is this midlife crisis?
Updares
Updates to Kamat's Potpourri
I tried to immerse myself in creative work and resume the pre-911-01 life as usual. See the timeline of human art page I designed based on the prehistoric paintings found in Central India. It is truly amazing how the development of mankind is reflected in the art of its time.
My mother's new book in Kannada language - Mahile Andu Indu (Sai Publications, Bangalore) is released.
• Christian Science Monitor: Children
of Kabul -- If this does not melt your heart,then join the Taliban.
• Rediff: Laden already of out of Afghanistan ? -- " the meeting of the clerics
was ploy"
• Associate Press (via Yahoo): Pakistan
President Stands up -- despite his anti-India rhetoric, we must support
Musharf to stand against terrorism, (although some of it is his own)
Fear and hatred
On Fear, Hatred, and Injustice
I heard on NPR yesterday: A Pakistani businessman (Mr. Khan) was ejected from a Delta airline flight beacuse the pilot was not comfortable flying with him. I commend Mr. Khan for his poise, and for a lucid interview. What am I going to if people are not comfortable developing software with me, or playing fantasy football with me? Afterall, I look like at least seven of the suspects!
Use Pakistan Against Taliban: "Why not pay Pakistan to take out the Taliban and bin Laden.
Literally, pay them to take over the country, then pay them to rebuild?"-- This idea not only won't work, but also is immoral. Let us fight our own war, and stop exploiting the poor.
War Jokes
A joke only people of Indian origin will get:
Robert: Boss! War will happen anyday in Amrika!!
Loin: What's the big deal? We have war everyday in India.. Somawar, Mangalawar, Budhawar...
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" -- Mahatma Gandhi
Pictorial Navigation to Kamat's Potpourri
Depiction of Hanuman in Various Forms of Indian Art
Section
Sports Resume
National Sports Resume
In a welcome race back to normalcy, Football and Baseball
matches are being played today. My fantasy football team of Dancing Cobras will take on Hiryoung's Menacing Matadors. God, save my marriage
America Won't Solve India's Terrorism Problems
U.S.A. Won't Solve India's Terrorism Problems
From the feedback I have recieved from friends and family in India, I gather that for some reason they think U.S.A. will solve the problems of terrorism that India has suffered for many years. I do not get this at all.
I know President Bush has declared war on global terrorism and called 911-01, an attack on the civilization. But just like I said it is immoral
to use Pakistan against Taliban, it is immoral for Indians
to expect American soldiers to fight for India's causes.
I have just added a new way to browseKamat's Potpourri. I call it the pictorial table of contents -- basically you get to see all the pictures in a section without large downloads. You can then either click on the thumbnail or the caption to see the enlargement. See an example.
As you go back and forth, the browser shows you which pictures you have visited by changing the color of the captions of the pictures you have seen. In this way this navigation is superior to the Poker face navigation (see: Website Navigation - Balancing Mystery & Usability).
Gotta love dynamic content management. It's like I just added 143 new pages to Kamat's Potpourri, while in reality I just added only a 25 line script.
One is a fourteenth century coin, and the other shows a tribal woman. Do you see anything common between the two? Probably not, but if you visit either of the two pictures, you will notice that they point to one another under their See Also: section. Why?
The answer lies in a technique I call content heuristics, which is used by our Content Management System (named Kamat Crowbot) to associate related pages. Think of it as an artificially intelligent picture suggester. I investigated why the CMS associated the two pictures, and found out that the software went in search of the term "coin" (the core content of the first picture) and found a picture in which the woman was wearing a necklace made with "coins", and thought that somehow the two were related!
I am giving you a rather extraordinary example to illustrate a point. Turns out that most of the suggestions the CrowBot makes are pretty good! See for yourself as you browse Kamat's Potpourri -- all of the See Also: suggestions are automatically generated by the CMS.
Of course, the automated software sometimes behaves rediculously. Like the translation software that translated: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"
to Russian as "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten"!
Non-Violent Approach to Anti-Terrorism
A Non-Violent Approach to Anti-Terrorism
Excerpts from a message I sent to protest the Bribing of Pakistan stragegy
suggested by some leaders in USA.
The people of Pakistan, Taliban and many Muslims elsewhere are brought
together by a vicious religious fundamentalism. This is much bigger than interests of
economics or selfishness. Just pause and wonder how many suicide bombers, like the ones we saw,
can we recruit with money? None. Some things money cannot buy.
Religious blasphemy perceived) is one of them.
Why are we not making any attempts to
win over supporters of Osama Bin Laden (OBL)? You know, convince them
of the wrongs they are engaged in, and provide a path to their redemption.
This is the way to go -- seek support of Pakistani people by *converting*
them to our side, rather than seducing them.
Covert seduction is how we created OBL, didn't we? Short term solutions
are dangerous, and just won't work.
We've seen this strategy fail time and again (Taliban in Aghanistan turning against USA, Hizballah turned
against Israel who created them to destabilize Lebanon, and the Akal Dal in India whom Indira Gandhi created to control an opposing party).
Perhaps, the supporters of OBL will convince us of an unjust behavior
we are engaged in, and we should be prepared to accept that.
The best way to counter social evils, Mahatma Gandhi has said, is to convert people
to see the injustice. The Civil Rights Movement, hence brought a more
fundamental social change than the Civil War in America. The Taliban once
had a
strong opposition called Rabbani, and Taliban is still unpopular within
Afghanistan. We need to strengthen the
opposition's hands there (and I do not mean by supplying them with arms),
just like we strengthened the hands of Nelson Mandela during his epic struggle in South Africa.
Again to quote Gandhi, "a few men, however powerful, cannot rule
millions of non-cooperating citizens". Hitler, the Japanese, Marcos,
Khomeini all enjoyed popular support without which
their agenda would not advance. We need to break this popular support.
Yes, this non-violent war will take years. Just like the Bush proposed
armed war of bombardment will. Both will take a heavy toll.
But a non-violent war has a logical ending. A violent conflict
does not. True, the non-violent approach will mean we'll never
get our revenge, or salvage our honor, but it might ensure that a tragedy like 911-01 will
not happen again. On the contrary, a violent struggle will beget us revenge, honor, and more
violence in return.
Some of Both?
Perhaps Bush will do some of both - so he
can salvage America's honor, yet seek a long term solution. You know, eliminate the
bad guys, and then work with the moderates.
The risk of President's strategy is that the moderates
might become the bad guys during the conflict.
The beauty of non-violence is that at the end of it, there are no bad guys.
Friday, September 28, 2001
Rep. John Cooksey: Yes to Racial Profiling -- Thank you for your sensitivity Mr. Cooksey, you are helping the President a great deal.
During the above interview, the honorable Congressman referred to the turban as 'diaper on the head'; so I thought I'd put up this picture to show what brilliant ideas might be concealed by the diapers.
Gandhi Wearing Diaper on Head
I also want to show the picture of another Bearded Middle-Eastern Man, who would have qualified for the Congressman's profiling. (via this).
You might say I am anti-war. I am not, I am pro-war, just for a different kind of war
Q: Don't your beliefs in war and peace contradict each other?
A: No. See an explanation.
List of Indian Blogs
By popular request, I have compiled a list of Indian blogs. If you know of any regularly updated Blogs on India, please let me know.
Today Hiryoung and I will start design of the Peer-to-Peer Content server I outlined in "Computing via E-mail" sometime ago. The early version will be only for Wintel boxes, and will support http, pop3, xml, odbc, and many of Kamat CrowBot's Content Management Rules.
January 2003. This software is now available for sale via a private label. Contact me if you need more info.
Powered NOT by Blogger or MovabaleType or
WordPress, but by SimplyBlog, a software I wrote to
create blogs.
See details
of implementation or download SimplyBlog.
This is how I surf the web. Turns out
creating your own start page beats all portals, back-flipping,
personalized corporate pages, and book-marking tools.
This is a great opportunity for individuals to become news reporters (i.e., bloggers). BBC, New York Times etc are soliciting first hand information and eye witness accounts.
update: Jan 23, 2003 I am providing links to neighboring entries to show how our lives were changed after 9/11. One of the advantages of maintaining a diary is you can go back and visit how an event changed your thinking or life...
