AUM - Pranava Mantra

AUM - Pranava Mantra

The first Sound.

These three sounds can made without using your tongue - probably the only sound that could be generated without the help of the tongue or teeth.

A - Creative, Beginning, Neutral

Pronounce: A in Apple
Origin (of Sound): From Stomach
God Associated: Lord Brahma

Brahma is considered to be born out of Lord Vishnu's navel - Stomach!

This sound helps boost your creativity by boosting your brain cells. The beginning of life has to ve fed with knowlwdge to live it. Every baby born with empty mind a clean disk to be written.

Thamizh Language:
Thinking of it, in Thamizh (Tamil) language a baby hav to use the following word to refer others.
Amma - mom, appa - dad, anna - elder bro, akka - elder sis, anni - cousin sis, aththai - aunt (dad's sis).
The Language itself has been designed to boosts the brain growth of a baby many many thousands of years ago.

U - Sustain, Survive, Live, Positive

Pronounce: U in Bull
Origin (of Sound): Chest
God Associated: Lord Vishnu

Lord Vishnu carries two symbols on his Chest. 1.) Chakra - Infinity 2.) Conch - A symbol for vast ocean - Life!

The middle part of the mantra. The middle and major part of our life. Sustaining, Leading, Maintaining a life. Living as a community, in family, with kith and kin. Swimming across the ocean of troubles, love, hurdles, blessings, hassles, acquaints and surfacing as sound as a conch!

Lord Vishnu lead by example; by living as Parashuram, Ram, Krishna based on the circumstance to swim across the infinite Ocean - Life.

M - End, Complete, Negate

Pronounce: M in Boom
Origin (of Sound): Throat. And ends here.
God Associated: Lord Shiva

Lord Shiva is also called as Neelkanda -or- Neelkanth - The one with blue throat; holding the poison, that was affecting the world, in his throat!

The force that kills or ends a cycle. Negating the otherwise forever struggle - life. Ends the forever aspect - End of life.
Secluded, serene, calm, quiet, deep, dark, peace...

The last part of the life, has to be lead this way. Looking forward to it, once I finish the U.

Semantics for better User eXperience

Semantics intrinsically gives a better User eXperience!

What is Semantics?

Per Wikipedia:Semantics: Semantics is the study of meaning; focusing the relationship between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, symbols etc.

For Internet, Semantics mean a Web with a meaning!

Semantics Web enable the Machine to understand the web. These machines - Search Engine, Browser, Geo Locators and other Devices or Service - matters for you in many ways.

HTML

Below are the semantics present in HTML standard, which provides a user and machine to grasp the content and interpret differently. Try differentiate the below group of HTML tags, that will give you the idea of what Semantics can do to User experience - visually and by usage.

• h1, h2, h3, h4...
• em, strong, b
• div, span, p

HTML5

Seeing the need, usage and benefit of Semantics, HTML5 is coming up with quite a lot of Semantics for the data to be structured. Below are few of them for your quick reference.

• HEAD
• META
• LINK rel="icon|alternate|canonical|stylesheet|license|nofollow|noreferrer" 
• newer: rel="start|first|prev|next|last|stop|up|down|prefetch|search|tag"
• HEADER
• NAV
• ARTICLE
• SECTION
• ASIDE
• HGROUP
• TIME
• MARK
• FOOTER

Before HTML5 could come up with these Semantics the Web community started inventing and pushing for the Semantics to be included in the web pages. Below are the most popular and adopted formats.

1. MicroFormat: 
1. (+) Simple and Quick to implement
2. (+) Less side effects to the webpage
3. (-) Limited formats and proposing a New format takes 
2. MicroData
1. (+) Very clean and explicit about the usage
2. (+) Good documentation
3. (+) Searchability/Finding is straight forward
4. (-) Takes time to implement
3. RDF
1. (+) Has all pros like MicroData; also similar implementation
2. (+) Complex representation can be made
3. (+) Custom data representation
4. (-) Since its complex, it take even more time than MicroData.

Google (@ Google support), Yahoo! (Monkey finds MicroFormat) and Bing (Marking up your site) support these formats, and provide a very informative search result accordingly. They also rank the pages better than other if such formats are implemented - since the machines are sure about the pages content via these Semantics, while others are _guessed_.

To conclude, Semantic Web is about Linking data and some say it as Hidden Web Service!

User Experience

User Experience is all about:

• The attractive design - e.g: Jewellery, Ferrari etc
• The engagement of the product - e.g: Gaming consoles
• Usage of a Product - e.g: Touch screens
• Interaction of the product with its eco-system, i.e. retaining the user within its eco-system. e.g: Mac products - iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac etc.

UX Design Lab says: User Experience Design has to attract, engage, acquire and retain.

Semantics for UX

Try searching for "Events in Bangalore" in Google - or for any location. Notice the results from burrp.com.

Try searching for "Nikon" in Google - or for any location. Notice the results from mysmartprice.com.

When I look at search results, my immediate impressions are:

1. Precise details for my search without clutter.
2. Additional info for my search, upfront, without going to another page 
3. More interaction points for the end user and machines
4. Richer User experience 
5. Better conclusion on the search.

There are more usages:

1. Readability of the machines to voice over for the Visually challenged people. An article from Instagram inspired me to provide rich content.
2. Data Portability. 
1. If there is an 'Address' snippet
1. The search engine can help locate it quickly
2. The address can be downloaded to Outlook or any standard address book with one click
2. Author info
1. Helps link the content from different sources.
2. Identify the related documents owned
3. Header & Footer
1. Mobile browsers may adapt to hide the HEADER and FOOTER section, if the user is staying on the page for a considerable period, to provide more real estate for reading the ARTICLE!
2. Highlight them as necessary, since it contains information about the website and page - like Logo, Copyright etc.
4. Social network portability. FOAF - Friend of a Friend
1. Social networking has enabled a various industries in improving their UX multi-fold. How many decisions have you made online because one of your friend or friend's friend have chosen/used/reviewed/accepted it?
2. Find items, relations, jobs and professional connections via this Semantic.

Conclusion

• Semantics provide a clue for minimally required content. 
• Try leveraging the rich capabilities of Semantic technologies to design and enhance the vision of next-generation products. 
• Let the machine understand and enhance the user experience - like the way HTML5 is proceeding
• UX for the visually challenged - Semantics is the answer!

Related references (Not necessarily related to above content!!):
http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000228.php
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff979268.aspx
http://blog.search-mojo.com/2013/07/23/new-download-the-definitive-guide-to-rich-snippets-for-google-and-bing/
http://uxontherocks.com/rich-snippets/

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/
http://uxmag.com/articles/many-forks-in-a-new-road

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/04/how-blind-people-use-instagram-tommy-edison_n_2409973.html

Nothing to Infinite

Invention or Expose

India dint Invent Nothing, India Revealed Nothing!

Since Nothing was existing for a long long long time...

Nothing

What is Nothing by the way?

It is Zero - 0.

It is interpreted as NONE. But, It is also Infinity!

Any number, except zero, written, should I say drawn, in any language, will have a start point and end point. I can think about eight not falling into that case, but it has a cross section!.
Only Zero does not have a start or end point explicitly. It can be correlated with one of the identities/attributes of Lord Shiva - the one with no start or end - an Infinite!.

So can Nothing be referred as Infinite!?

A Zero or Nothing means it is empty or void - one that can be filled with anything i.e nothing to something!

If any item is to be divided by a number, there will be a 'x'/some number of pieces of that item.
What if the item is divided by Zero i.e. do not split. The item will remain the same - as a whole. This can also be interpreted as Infinite pieces of the item - just intact! - or as a One!

Hence Infer India invented Nothing and Infinite at the same time!

▶ Atheism 2.0 - Alain de Botton - YouTube

▶ Atheism 2.0 - Alain de Botton - YouTube:

Thoughts:

There is always something bigger than us. Religion gives us that feeling to answer that question to some extent. And I concur when the orator mentioned that Religion has a lot to give to any field, whether its science, business, communal industry, education etc.

When it comes to management  I could immediately think about Dr.Dev Dutt Patnaik and his views. The ideals or ideas or context are briefed from the rich Indian history - some wants to refer it as mythology!
I should say its Hindu history, which is a way of living, spread across many countries in Asia - as i know and realized.

Coming back to the Atheism speech. I agree in today's Christian religion is a Multi-national, Big brand, Richest enterprise, Highly disciplined, Well organized, Clear road map - even for centuries!, Collaborative, Open and with Enormous fan following.
I doesn't mean the other religions aren't. But they aren't the way as today's world require.

• No Good leadership role is present in today's Hindu religion. 
• Gathering are not mandated/pressurized in few religious temples.
• Some religion are not open in welcoming new followers, they mandate the newbies to follow some regulation/rituals, which is not exactly disciplinary!
• Some don't see a need to build a strong Institution - inside or outside their community.
• etc.  

However, when one understand his/her/any particular religion in depth, then there is no necessity to be remarked as a 'Theist' or 'Atheist'. Both are same!

Design for the Senses

Designing is always an interesting topic, since it attracts people, get them inspired, make them awe-struck, helps to get a pride by envy, feel good etc.

Even nature has its own design by exposing patterns. Like in pattern and shapes in a Bee hive, circle in planets, Symmetry in most objects and elements, Fibanocci series in plants and flowers. etc.

Every design requirements differs based on the field, usage of the object, need of it, its type, existence in the environment and more.

These designs/patterns follow one or more mathematical rule to fulfill the requirements. But what to be remembered or followed to come up with a good design?

Today morning I found this TED talk to be interesting. Though I cannot agree that the rules defined in the talk is the only rules/basic rules to follow for a better/attractive design, but surely these rules would help the design stand out.

Bee Hive (Courtesy: http://www.abc.net.au)

Fibonacci in Plants (Courtesy: http://www.bookmakingwithkids.com)

Ted talk: Design for Five Senses

Curx: Design to satisfy the five senses!

Every design satiates some sense - sight, smell, touch/feel etc. If a design could accommodate satisfying more than one sense, then it surely could stand out of others.

As the orator pointed out, Sex/intercourse satiates all the senses and hence it is the most favorite in nature.

So... To attain Bliss does all the senses has to be satiated?!