My new web page

Blogger friends,

My professional web page is public now :).

https://sites.google.com/site/kamalarchana/

It is kind of a semi-beta version, in spite of the painfully-simple-to-use google site template (which works a lot like blogger unsurprisingly!). Still, I feel reasonably proud of myself in getting around to do it after all this time.

It seems to me that improving the search rank of a web page is an almost independent task from making it public --- which means that you should not assume that Google will show it up 'automatically' just because now you have fought that awkward feeling about going public with your site. I am still learning clever ways to improve search rank of my page, but my few efforts of registering it in the periodic web crawls of Google and submitting my sitemap for indexing have at least led to its appearance on page 2 of google search for my name. I am not sweating over it though since my google scholar page, that appears on page 1 for my name search, has a link to my web page and should help do the job at the cost of an extra click.

Comments welcome. 

Google News

No, I don't mean to suggest searching for news on Google; I am alluding to an eventful last week at Mountain View:

1. Google has gone sans serif. It recently changed the logo that appears on its famous unadorned search page*, a change that has been called the biggest update for Google in last 16 years --- and this is when Google recently rebranded all its services and subsidiaries under a common conglomerate called the Alphabet! The new logo has been touted as having a more "benevolent" design with particular friendliness towards mobile devices. See a detailed evolution of the ubiquitous colorful 6 letters, as heard from the horse's mouth itself, here.

2. In another news, Google's driverless cars are running into a unique, but inevitable, problem -- perfect robots meet imperfect humans! According to the company, the cars are too safe as they follow the book when it comes to traffic rules, without spontaneous adjustments such as the ones human drivers are used to doing. Last month when one of the robot cars came to a halt to allow right of way to a pedestrian, it was rear-ended by a car driven by a fallible human being! Compels me to paraphrase the current (perennial?) state of "human"-ity in words of Christopher Hitchens -- "..the search of utopia is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle." **

P.S. Interestingly this ties into an article that I shared in my earlier post Link Think, where Nicolas Carr (in NYT again) had written about the impossibility of machines replacing humans (ever!). Seems like, it is not overcoming human imperfections but rather replicating them, that turns out to be  most daunting after all!

3. In the recent issue of TIME magazine, I read about the 'most powerful woman on the internet' --YouTube's current CEO Susan Wojcicki. She goes a long way back with Google (Page and Brin started the company practically in her garage!) and, much unconventionally, has a non-technical background unlike the rest of Google's top brass. Apparently, this plays out as a major strength for her and helps her decide on YouTube content from a universal perspective and with mass appeal (amusingly, she sometimes first tests the user experience using her four kids as the guinea pigs!). Recommended reading***.

* It was developed by Marissa Meyer, one of the high power tech women in Silicon valley and current CEO/President of Yahoo! , during her time at Google as vice president of Google Search.
** I should clarify that I am favorably intrigued by this effort of Google. I totally can do with a robot chauffeur, or better still, an implicit one!
*** though behind a paywall

Goodbye Facebook!

Less than 24 hours ago, I posted my last facebook message --- that I am going to delete my facebook account by the end of this month. I have been thinking of getting back to long-format blog writing for a while and precious few hours away from research every day were disappearing into thin air too easily (facebook being one of the wiliest wizards!).

I know this will cause some upheaval in my life (unintended) and schedule (intended), the extent of which remains to be seen. Already, I am feeling a little overwhelmed with lovely messages from my friends, who I hope to see on my blog some time. I will surely miss the pics of cute kids, gorgeous locales, laughing couples, and chuckling on those occasional witticisms on my fb 'wall'.

They have been fun 5 years, fb. Time to turn over a new leaf!

Link Think - Science/Technology

1. Nicholas Carr in New York Times, why with all their foibles and fallibility humans are not, and probably never will be, obsolete.

He notes "We should view computers as our partners, with complementary abilities, not as our replacements. What we’ll lose if we rush to curtail our involvement in difficult work are the versatility and wisdom that set us apart from machines."

2. Nature has released a special May issue discussing the prospects and challenges facing Indian science.

The article India by the Numbers includes a telling and instructive summary of statistics, such as "about 40% of Indian researchers work abroad" -- the highest percentage of brain drain than any other country in the world!

3.  Interesting three-part series of articles in Quanta Magazine on how quantum entanglement leads to space time geometry. It discusses one of the most mysteriously addictive equations I have come across, ER = EPR (sorry Podolsky!).

i. Entangled Wormholes

ii. Network Tapestry

iii. Quantum Geometry

Wired also featured a commentary about this series.

4. Ross Andersen in Aeon magazine has a long piece about current state of cosmology. He gives a detailed account of the recent BICEP2 saga where initial hopes of detection of gravitational waves were, quite literally, shattered to dust. Reading about the entire episode in detail made me think that demanding stringently objective standards of science is not equivalent to assuming that its practitioners are less prone to usual (and frankly, expected!) human prejudices and biases. This is especially true while practicing science in the contemporary times of hyper-hype and hyper-competitiveness. I, for one, would try to be more sympathetic not just to the cause of science but to that of scientists, who put in honest and sincere work with no deliberate intent of scientific misconduct, while struggling to win over all their prejudices and biases with varying success. We need to remind ourselves that scientists are human after all!

5. Singularity hub recently published a report that gives a synopsis of leading quantum computing (QC) efforts in the world right now. It especially highlights superconducting circuit based QC, my field of research. 

NPM - Day 18 (Finale)

The motivation for the NPM series is to celebrate April 2015 -- the National poetry month (hence NPM in the title), by sharing a favorite poem of mine every day of this month, starting April 13, 2015.

It is the last day of NPM series and I am far from sharing all my favorite poems on this blog. There are multiple reasons for this --- I started out late in this month on April 13, then due to my far from perfect multi tasking skills I defaulted on 5 out of 18 total days at hand, and finally and most importantly, there are definitely many more than 18 pieces to share.

In any case, I have really enjoyed this stroll in the world of poetry this month. In the process of researching some of the details for pieces that I like and posted about, I actually discovered some new  gems. Plus after a long time I made a serious effort to reconnect with poetry. So these past 2.5 blogging weeks have been really great!

There are two poems  -- one in Hindi and the other in Urdu, both by poets who have superstar status in the world of Indian poetry.
1. Madhushala by Harivansh Rai Bachchan. There are translations available on the web, for more often quoted portions of this long poem, but I have not been able to find a credible translation of the full piece yet!
2. Aurat by Kaifi Azmi (with translation) -- a recitation by the poet himself is available on YouTube (Highly recommended)

I resisted the temptation to post them mostly because I have already talked about both of them in the past on this blog (here and here). Nonetheless, since I cannot conceive any collection of my favorites from poetry to be complete without them, I definitely need to mention them in this finale.

In addition to the poets whose works I posted as part of the NPM series, I have really enjoyed poems by Sahir Ludhianvi, Jaishankar Prasad and Mahadevi Verma, in Hindi and Urdu. Amid English poets, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Rabindranath Tagore and Oscar Wilde are some of my favorites too.

So to conclude, here is the last poem of the NPM 2015 series on Ankasya. It describes a young bride being carried in a palanquin to her husband's house. The words of the poet delicately capture the vivid beauty of the scene, the tumult of emotions (of the bride), the rhythm (of the palanquin) and evoke an enduring image from the memory --- some reasons why reading poetry is always such a special experience!

Palanquin Bearers

-- Sarojini Naidu

Lightly, O lightly we bear her along,
She sways like a flower in the wind of our song;
She skims like a bird on the foam of a stream,
She floats like a laugh from the lips of a dream.
Gaily, O gaily we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

Softly, O softly we bear her along,
She hangs like a star in the dew of our song;
She springs like a beam on the brow of the tide,
She falls like a tear from the eyes of a bride.
Lightly, O lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string.

NPM - Day 16

The motivation for the NPM series is to celebrate April 2015 -- the National poetry month (hence NPM in the title), by sharing a favorite poem of mine every day of this month, starting April 13, 2015.


When one of the most celebrated mystery writers of all time writes a poem, it is bound to be unusual. This poem by Edgar Allan Poe is a testimony to the fact. Its characteristic style of rhythm and unique use of poetic devices, combined with the agonized undercurrents in Poe's writing, have given way to rich interpretations and speculations, including psychoanalytical impressions about its poetry and Poe himself!

A Dream Within a Dream

-- Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone? 
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the road
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

NPM - Day 15

The motivation for the NPM series is to celebrate April 2015 -- the National poetry month (hence NPM in the title), by sharing a favorite poem of mine every day of this month, starting April 13, 2015.

This following poem by William Wordsworth is commonly known as Daffodils. This site maintained by Wordsworth trust has a nice article about its genesis and evolution. The third stanza especially seems to have been added by Wordsworth later, accompanying a series of revisions.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

-- William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
 
Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay,
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
 
The waves beside them danced, but they 
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee,
A poet could not but be gay, 
In such a jocund company,
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought.

 
For oft, when on my couch I lie 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils.