Death of a reader

I know its been a while since my last poorly punctuated post(I did make some corrections to it),and I am really sorry for it(I also have to stop this bad habit of starting each of my posts with an apology).For the past few weeks I have been searching for a good topic for my next post,and I had decided to do a series of posts about reality,the movies that dealt with it,How i perceived it and so on.I was even about to write a post about television and how it has drastically changed our way of looking at things.Then something happened,I decided to visit my college library after a long time.Well I should have seen it coming,I didn't feel the bliss that I always enjoyed when I am surrounded by books,I told my self it's just because of the big breakfast,but I knew inside I was broken.There I was passing through the catalogue and then I found myself asking "what can this book do for me?",the old sarath would have cried herecy,he read because of pure love for the stories.All those years of self help books and movies has finally gotten to me,it has broken me and I am not sure if I will be whole again.

Movies are a much easier medium to enjoy,its like feeding on regurgitated food,all the thinking is already done for you by the director and actors,you dont have to imagine the faces of the characters ,you dont have to imagine their voices,its already there in front of you.But it is never truly as satisfying as the books.

Books has always been a part of my life,I have spent a major share of my hard earned money(Read pocket money)for books,they have been always there for me.One of my greatest pleasures in life is hunting for second hand books,searching through dusty shelves,going through old boxes,never knowing what treasures you will find(or crap,most of the time it's crap).One of the most exciting thing about the hunt is the fact that usually the shop owner has no idea what he has got.Sometimes I spend hours at a time and not even find a single book that is of value and sometime you emerge with rarest books.

Some of the most remarkable finds for me are the books with some messages scribbled in it.A message that has been set adrift through time,a private conversation with a person long gone.what did he/she think when they wrote it?.

When you spend most of your time watching movies or reading or just being alone,you slowly start loosing grip with reality.Every other person just becomes another image or sound,you feel distant, like you are not a part of it,you are just a spectator.But some how these messages reassures me that there is a real world out there, filled with real people. People who cared about others, people who had something to say. These messages gives me an opportunity to glimpse into another man's soul.

I believe every man is by nature a voyeur,because he likes to be reassured that there is life outside his own,that other people also have pain,anger and happiness, in the end that is why we watch movies or Tv or read books or blogs or other people's journal to be reassured that we are not alone.

Films,inception and a bunch of bad jokes.......

Well films have been part of my life since as early as I can remember.I have spend more time watching movies than on any other activity.My view,ideals and in a way my self has been shaped by hours and hours of movies of different languages and genres,and I know I am not alone(please tell me I am not).The very fact that there is nobody in this earth who hates watching movie is a proof to this fact(if you do hate it,then you don't deserve to live or you are blind and deaf in that case its okay).

The second reason I wanted to write about movies is because I genuinely believe the movies are a wholesome experience that does not just end with actually watching the movie (which is just a small part of it).To truly enjoy a movie you also have to read about it,discuss it and in this case write about it.Through this blog I hope to write about all the great movies I have seen the last four years ,and boy have I seen a lot of movies.....

With this post I want to write a review about inception

INCEPTION

The reason I wanted to write about inception was because of Christopher Nolan,He is undoubtedly one of the greatest film-maker in today's film industry and will undoubtedly change the face of modern cinema and inception is his second greatest achievement after memento and followed closely by redefining super hero movies. Mr.Nolan you rock...

The basic plot of inception deals with a group of extractors(I hope you guys have already watched the movie if you haven't please go watch it) lead by a once great and now nearly deranged Tom Cobb,who has been banished from his country and the only way he can get back to his home is if he performs an inception (again go watch the movie).

Now what elevates this movie above the rest is it's script,which is brilliantly crafted and fool proof,more of a labyrinth than a piece of linear story telling.It is said that Nolan spend 10 years of his life writing and perfecting this script.In our current movie scene where torture devices are marketed as films a movie with a pre- written script is a rarity.

Dream has always been a source of mystery and awe for human ,a place of refuge for few and a dark prison for some .Nolan has successfully tapped into our fascination with dreams and created an exciting adventure.He plays with the definition of reality and dream and asks where the line dividing them lies,if ever there is one.Here we have a protagonist,who is confused with the validity of his own reality.we are entering a realm of madness,because madness is nothing more than a different perspective of reality and like the creepy guy from yusuf's cellar says "who are we to say otherwise?".

The characters were very well made,each one had a soul and a purpose.The new architect Ariadne through whom the audience understands the rules of the world,Arthur the faithful sidekick,the mimic,the billionaire and finally our tragic hero and the ghost of his ex-wife,they would have fit well into a Shakespearian play,if it weren't for all the zero gravity stunts.But I did find Di caprio's character very similar to his character from shutter island,they had similar looks and almost similar back stories.

Something we really have to give Nolan credit for is the fact that he did not make up rules for his world as we went along rather he gave us a clear idea about how his world worked and then moved into the story.My only complain about the movie is that it's end twist wasn't much of a schocker.

Now about the ending,I know there is a lot of debate going on about if its still a dream or has he gotten back to the real world.The very fact that the director chose to show the entire sequence is shot in a very ambiguous fashion points to the fact that's exactly what the director wanted to achieve.But the fact remains that he chose not to look at it,a man's reality is what he chooses to be ,whether a dream or not it was where he wanted to stay and "who are we to say otherwise".

An Apology

First of all I would like to apologize to all my readers(all 4 of them) for my absence for the past few months.Well to tell you guys the truth I have been busy and also I wanted my next blog post to be about deep learning ,but i realized such a post would mean whole lot of work I just never got around to doing it,and i dropped may other great blog post ideas for this.But I promise you guys that I will do it sooner or later.Any ways I really missed blogging deep learning or not I had to come back,and hopefully this time I am here to stay.

AI

I am writing this post to tell you guys about this really cool article I read recently on AI.It is a general article written by Push Singh on what he feels is the reason for failure of AI.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~push/why-ai-failed.html

During its inception in early 1950s AI was heralded as the way to the future.Visionaries dreamed up futuristic worlds where your every whim and fancy would be fulfilled by intelligent robots.Billions of dollars were spend on numerous AI projects.But as you can guess the results were just not what the investors where expecting.Many high profile projects were dropped and a period called as AI winter followed.Most people started seeing AI as nothing more than a fluke and false claims. Most researchers started distancing themselves from AI and started calling their works with different names such as machine learning informatics etc..

But now things are looking better than ever before,many breakthroughs have been made in the fields of AI and machine learning.yet we have not yet achieved the ultimate goals of AI in creating a truly intelligent system.In this article Push singh points out to reasons which he believes are preventing us from achieving this goal .

for more information on AI winter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_winter

this post is dedicate to the memory of Push Singh

the Future

Hello non existent readers
I know you must be waiting anxiously for my new post,So worry not and here it is finally, the second post(hopefully not the final) on my Blog.

Currently I am working on a seminar based on the topic of deep learning,a promising new area in machine learning.So in the next few days you can expect a series of posts on deep learning(or what i understood about deep learning after reading through all those papers) aptly named "An Idiot's guide to Deep Learning"(Idiot-obviously a reference about the author) .

What this blog is all about?

hello world! My name is sarath ,I am an undergraduate computer science student from India and this is my third attempt at becoming a successful blogger(well as they say third time is the charm).


And now comes the obvious question what is this blog about??
well in simple words this blog is all about me.I hope to use this blog as a platform to show the whole world my ideas and thoughts and more importantly I wish to use this blog as a journal of my journey through the vast world of machine learning,which i believe is my calling. (PS:before machine learning i had numerous other callings that i eventually dropped at least i hope this one's for keeps)