Saturday, July 07, 2018

The inevitable changes in the journey of life

I was on this flight to back home the other day, deeply engrossed in the in-flight entertainment TV show when my co-passenger tapped on my TV screen. I pushed back my headphone to look at him and he pointed me to the flight attendant. The flight attendant was trying to get my attention to check if I wanted food. I took the food, politely apologized to both the attendant and the co-passenger, stopped the TV and settled down to eat. “You like that show?” my co-passenger asked me with a slight questionable smile. I nodded my head but did not understand why he was smiling. “Your kids traveling with you?” he asked again, and I said no. We did not speak after that but I was surprised how he knew I had kids. It then occurred to me. The moment the in-flight entertainment had started, I had gone to the kids section, searched for a cartoon and had settled down for a princess cartoon which my daughter watches. The funny part was that my kids were not even with me on that flight J

I got down at the airport, and my connecting flight was after an hour. I sat in the waiting area still thinking about that incident on the flight. I think every event in life brings about a change in us, however subtle. We change after high school, after college, after marriage, after kids, when we start a job; and it goes on. Probably the biggest change is after marriage and after kids. When you have kids you know what your kids want and adjust your life to suit the kids. Your vacation list now has only kid approved places and the vacation days are only around the kids’ school holidays. You no more go to a movie or watch a TV show which is not appropriate for the kids. Maybe that co-passenger had kids and that is how he knew I had kids.

Outside of these big changes I think we also go through temporary transformations every day as we step into work. In my case I think I become a little more patient, little more attentive, little more careful, the moment I step into office. It’s not just the different work wear, the funny part is even our language changes. We are no more just at work or in meetings. We are now in “stand up” meetings, preparing “decks”, working for weekend ‘deliverables” and focusing on “production installs”

I glanced at my watch and still had over 30 mins for my next flight. I walked to a coffee shop to get coffee. I took the coffee and went to get sugar and cream. I was at the sugar and cream table when another gentlemen came and stood next to me. He too had coffee in his hand and had come to get sugar and cream. I usually take about 5 to 6 sachets of sugar for 12oz of coffee. I would take sachet after sachet never thinking twice while I was in college, but getting into work has changed it all. I had to put through surprise stairs and questions from people in office for consuming so much sugar. I am now a little more discreet while adding those extra sugar sachets trying not to attract too much attention. So I took 2 sachets and stirred my coffee waiting for the gentleman to leave. The guy too took 2 sachets and kept stirring his coffee. It was more than like a few seconds but the guy did not move. After probably a minute of stirring the coffee I gave up and decided to go for 4 more sachets and ignore if the guy comments. To my utter surprise, the guy too took 4-5 more sachets of sugar and looked at me. We both realized we were waiting for each other to move, to add more sugar. We greeted each other and he told me how he too gets strange looks from people when he adds those extra sachets of sugar. We bid goodbye to each other and I walked back to my flight gate with an added sense of assurance. 

So it’s not just me. Everyone who goes through the regular life events also goes through some inevitable changes. One change might be to accommodate something new while another change might be to accommodate something different. Bottom line, I think it’s these changes that defines where we stand in this journey of life.

~Narendra V Joshi

Tuesday, April 03, 2018

The Ghost Alarm

The arrival of spring signals the arrival of pollen. To me, it means allergies. I am allergic to tree pollen and avoid going out during pollen heavy days. This past weekend was nice and sunny, and we thought of taking the kids out to play in the park.  However with the air heavy on pollen I had to stay back while my wife and kids went out. With the kids out I sat down to watch a science fiction horror movie. Over the course of the weekend, I ended up watching 3 horror movies, 2 of which were recommendation based on my previous watch item.

My allergies were acting up by the time I reached home from office yesterday (Monday). I took an allergy medication before going to bed, which as a side effect causes marked drowsiness. The medication helped me breathe easy and I was asleep soon.

I was woken by the sound of an alarm this morning. The sound was not defying to get me out of the bed, but was enough to wake me up. I looked around and it was still dark. There was heaviness in my head due to the allergy medication but that did not bother me as much as the alarm did. The alarm bothered me because there is no clock in our home which makes that particular sound. So where was this sound coming from? I looked around in the dark but could not make out anything. The alarm suddenly stopped sounding. I thought maybe it from our neighbors’ house and went back to sleep. I was woken up again with that same alarm sound and this time too it was still dark and no sign of where that sound was coming from. I thought I was dreaming and rubbed my eyes but I could feel my hands and face. So I was definitely not dreaming. The alarm sound stopped again and I quickly pulled the blanket over my head and tried to sleep. It was complete silence but I could not sleep this time. That alarm sound however faint it was, felt sinister.

I was trying to put my thoughts to rest when that alarm started again. I sat up on the bed and looked around. It was dark and nothing was moving. There was suddenly a sound of someone running which came from the living room, but I recognized that sound. It is from the dog which stays in the house above us. But what if that sound was not of that dog but actually came from within our house? I thought of getting out of the bed when the alarm stopped again. I wondered what to do next when I noticed a faint white light at the other end of the room. Just like that alarm, the light went on and off maybe 2-3 times. Was this some kind of a game? What was happening? At some point both the alarm and the light stopped; and the whole room was quiet and dark again. I quickly went back to bed and pulled the blanket over my head. All this was new and had never happened to me. In a moment every scary scene from each of those horror movies played through my mind.  Was my blanket getting pulled? Am I hanging in the air as they show in the movies? Was that a ghost standing at the corner? I tried to tell myself I don’t believe in ghosts and all this was just a bad dream. I had started to calm my mind when I suddenly heard a sound and felt like someone was standing right next to me and I could feel his breathing. It sent shivers down my spine. I lay still on the bed with the blanket over my head. The scariest scenes from the horror movie were now replaying in my head.

This is not me; I told myself. I don’t believe in ghosts and a horror movie cannot scare me. I pulled the blanket off and stared in the dark. There was no one next to me. I could almost hear my heart beating. I am better than this; I told myself. I got off the bed. The air from the AC duct hit my head; a sign of relief. Suddenly I saw the same white light at the corner. I went to check and it was my cell phone. I had put my cell phone on silent mode and face down when I slept and it glowed every time there was a message. I put the phone face down again and went into the living room. There was no one there. I switched on the light and looked at the front door and the porch door. Everything seemed fine. I was about to switch off the light when that alarm sounded again. It was loud and seemed to come from the play room. My kids use the play room to play but sleep in their own room. So no one should be in the play room yet there was a sound. The door of the playroom was closed. I slowly opened the playroom door and switched on the light. There were toys scattered but no one in the room. The alarm sounded louder and closer now. I looked in the direction of the alarm and there was a bag.

It suddenly occurred to me what might be making that sound. My wife had brought a watch as a gift for someone; maybe it was that watch alarm sounding off. I tore the wrapping paper and pulled that watch out. The watch had different alarm modes and it was indeed set to go off at 2:48 AM on Tuesday, with a 10 sec snooze mode. So this was the problem. Today being Tuesday the alarm went off at 2:48 AM and it snoozed every 10 seconds. I fiddled with the watch for some time but was unable to switch off the alarm. The only option left was to go through the user manual. I patiently went through the user manual and finally at around 3 AM this morning I was able to switch off the watch alarm putting an end to that ghostly sound.


~Narendra V Joshi

Sunday, March 04, 2018

The humbling experience


I recently attended a meeting of a small group of technology and domain experts. The meeting was to focus on a problem statement and dissect it under different technology and domain lenses. Each person was from a different field and bought a unique expertise to the table. It was evident they had spent years in their focus area assimilating and growing their knowledge. Very quickly I had realized ‘expert’ was too modest a noun to describe them. The meeting which had started as an amazing experience had soon turned into a humbling experience for me.

I have been thinking about that experience for the last few days and seem to have found a correlation between that meeting and Expert systems/Artificial intelligence-Machine learning (AL-ML) system. That meeting to me resembled an expert system building pattern where experts pour their knowledge and experience to solve a complex problem.

As I thought more, my mind started drawing random parallels between that meeting and expert systems and generally wandered into the direction of the expert systems. Every expert system (or an AI-ML system) when introduced, first sparks a sense of bewilderment. It is approached with a set of presumptions and questions, bordering disdain. As the expert system proves and grows with promise, the disdain soon turns into an admiration for the expert system. The user starts appreciating the system and its potential. Often the admiration might even give way to distrust. A distrust might arise from a question of job security or individual well being or even from a question of ultimate survival. Take the example of Self-driving cars; they were initially struck down as a work of fiction. But as the self-driving promise held ground, it turned into an admiration. Distrust too found way in the hearts of the car enthusiasts who hated the very thought of sitting in the back seat and not at the wheel.  Isn’t it a similar pattern for most AI-ML systems, maybe with only slight variations? But one stand out feature among all these systems is the sense of humbleness that they evolve. Once you accept and understand the power of expert systems, they undeniably lead to a sense of humbleness. The user is humbled at the sheer talent of these systems.

As my mind searched for parallels, some things started falling out - the non-parallels. The non-parallels in terms of human emotions, or spontaneous thoughts, or even simple non-verbal expressions. Are there parallels to these? Even two humans can rarely experience the same levels of emotion. Any level of admiration, distrust or even humbleness that the AI-ML systems evoke, cannot replace these simple non-parallels. It is these subtle non-parallels that defines us as humans, and separates us humans from the AI-ML systems.  Maybe at some point in the future when the AI-ML systems have significantly evolved, they too might hit a point of humbleness. The humbleness that might arise in them from the fact that non-parallels exit between them and the humans.

~Narendra V Joshi

Sunday, January 21, 2018

The White Blanket

We had record snow of almost 8 to 10 inches in our city this week. It snowed nearly the entire day covering the streets, lawns and trees like a thick white carpet. It was a beautiful sight, to see everything white and glowing. But that sight was short lived. The walk ways were quickly cleared and people thronged the lawns to play in the snow. The beautiful snow carpet was trampled and almost destroyed. The temperature increased today and all snow melted. I am now waiting for the next snow.

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The lawns and streets looked carpeted white;
With snow stuffed trees on the sides glowing bright.
The snow had covered every inch of the land;
Eclipsing the earth at the stroke of its wand.

The men soon arrived with shovels and salt;
To clear the snow and bring its spread to a halt.
Children and families swooped to capture the enthralling sight;
Trampling the snow which was laid picture perfect right.

The earth showed again as the day grew old;
Bursting with colors as the snow started to unfold.
Despite all colors the earth missed its glow.
Waiting to be painted with a fresh coat of snow.



~Narendra V Joshi

Only the memories

 To my father...  I have come to accept, the fact you are gone. Yet your presence in my heart, stays warm and strong. In the stillness of my...