Minekey - "Renaissance of Web Personlization"

A lot of people have mentioned a lot about Minekey in the blogosphere. I would like to express my views. First of all being a KGPian I am really really proud of this indigenous product made by a group comprising of Alumnus, Professors and Students. This is one of the startups incubated under TIETS. This is an effort by SRIC, IIT Kharagpur under the supervision of the present Dean, Prof. P. P. Chakrabarti. Before I start giving details about Minekey, let me just give some details about Incubation program. The incubation prgram is in-line with the entrepreunership efforts encouraged at IIT Delhi and IIT Powai. The process involves presenting your idea before a panel of judges, from Industry and academia, who judge the viability of the idea. It is this committee that decides whether a particular project is worthy enough to be incubated. Incubation process involves providign resources, seed capital and a mentor for the project. IIT in return would like a very small percentage(3-4%) of the shares of the company. There are funding agencies which are currently getting associated with SRIC to fund startups associated with the incubation program. There have been success stories and Minekey is definitely one of them. IIT KGP has played a very important role in Minekey right from its inception. Delip Andre, who is the founder of Minekey is an IIT KGP Alumni, Prof. Sudeshna Sarkar, a KGPian and currently associated with CSE department of IIT KGP and a whole bunch of students BTech, Duals, PhDs and Mtechs. So Minekey is inherently KGPian. Minekey the name has been rightly coined, its purpose is to give you the key to the information you are looking for in the countably infinite mine of data present in the web today. The concept is very beautiful in the sense that, the end user does not have be aware of anything except for putting up the minekey widget and clicking links he is interested in. You are presented with links of your choice as the system understands your sense of clicking links better. The results get better and better as we make the system aware of our choices. Human behavior is temporally predictable and so is the nature of his mouse clicks while browsing through the internet. It is this aspect that has been very well observed and utilized in the development of this technology. Moreover, you will not be presented with links you have visited earlier, so you need not worry about getting to read new articles. The systems presents you with new links everytime you visit a listed link and referesh the webpage. So in a way it goes one step ahead of search. The system understands you and tries to present you with results you might have looked for. Minekey marks a new era of intelligence, a landmark in web personalization. For now, this is what minekey is about, will write more on its performance when I learn about how it fares, until then adios amigos!!!

Liberation

Liberating oneself from the mundane desires of the human mind is one of the foremost task of a well established intellect leading to the emergence of what is called a disciplined mind. The basic difference can be observed in the way the rays of sun cause and effect under different circumstances. Sun's rays do make us feel hot, they do not burn , unless you go realyl near and get burnt by solar flares. However, if the rays of sun are focussed using a lens then it burns. This is a simple experiment to demonstrate the power of concentration. The term concentration is associated with the mind. We are always told to concentrate, never are we told to get disturbed. This simple observation says that the mind is inherently disturbed, its inherent state is that of disturbance. It needs to be balanced and calmed. It needs to be brought to the concentrated state. Just as the "disturbed" sun's rays were not able to produce any visible effect, whereas the "concentrated"(focussed) rays could produce fire, similarly the concentrated mind is much powerful than its disturbed counterpart. But it is the inherent nature of the mind to go after the object of its desires, inherently getting disturbed. The mind has been referred to as the "Monkey Mind". The mind has to be transformed from a state of dissipation to a state of concentration. It is then that one can realize his/her true potential . One realizing his own potential is what is termed as liberation. Will discuss more on this when I get time.!!

Life Without Water

Devastating, a thirsty throat searching for water, where a drop of water can make you feel the billions and billions of molecules it is composed of. One can feel the taste of Hydrogen and Oxygen in every molecule of water. Well this blog is not about thirst. Speaking of other needs of water, there are certain basic needs which is partially true in case of people from the west. I wont go into the gory details of that. I had a bitter experience today and that has led me to vent out my feelings about it. I usually come to office after a bath without fail until and unless there is some urgent matter which may stop me from bathing. These events are high priority NMI(Non Maskable Interrupts) and they take up the purpose of living till they are asserted. Anyway, its not NMI that led me to this unbathed state but rather the scarcity of water that has led me to this state. I thank GOD and will always be thankful to him to let water trickle down the tap till I finished the other tasks which involve ({Basic needs} - {bathing}). I could not expect water to stop flowing this fast. I was ready for a shower, I had just finished brushing my teeth and washed my face. There were signs of annihilation but I ignored them. The flow rate of water had decreased by then but .... I have never expected it to happen this way. I put on the tap for the shower and lo and ho......there was no water, not even a single drop. You cannot imagine how high your expectations can take you such that drop of water feels like a diamond crystal...Anyway I had to come back disappointed and come back to office unbathed....and unclean...and as always put on a lot of deodorant.

Reflections on a Busy Life

Life has become really busy now a days. When I think of the time I was a kid, fun and frolic was the key aspect in everyone's life. Elders in the family would be free to go out for a picnic, family outing. Teachers had time to spend with family, socializing with students and a lot more. Life was easy and "cool" in a way or the other. Young kids had time to play, but it has transformed to all work and no play. Mothers keep their students busy with studies either preparing for an entrance examination for some Big School or for some class test or blah blah blah. Conclusion is everyone is getting busy and people from all age groups have been affected. Television and cinema play an important role today portraying our day to day life. Hence the effect of living a BUSY LIFE can be very well observed in typical Bollywood style. Earlier the heroes and heroines used to be free enough to move around trees(TUM DAL DAL HUM PAT PAT), singing songs and do a lot of useless boring job depicting love, this all has been cut short in today's movies. Bollywopd directors stick to basics now. They just start with the cause and without extending it directly come to the effect without wasting time. There is no Rajkumar or Dilip Kumar who used to take an hour to deliver a dialogue of few words with full emotion, where as we have Upen Patel now, whose words are not at all decipherable. Who cares we are all BUSY. Songs also reflect how busy our lyrics writers, actors and everyone else associated is. I would end after this as I am also very very buzzzzy with work as you must have observed by now. Song in the earlier days,"Subah se lekar shaam tak, shaam se lekar raat tak, raat se phir se subah tak, subah se phir shaam tak mujhe pyaar karo....oooooooo". The lover had lots and lots of time for his/her beloved. Compare this to our Serial Kisser's movie MURDER, he is too busy which is well depicted in the song, "Kabhi mere saath koi raat gujar, tujhe subah tak mein karun pyaar." He does not have all time for his beloved as he is busy. Anyway guys will keep you posted when I get time off my Busy schedule!!!!