Predict who is drunk using tweets

I have never blogged (to my knowledge) without something controversial before. This one is nothing like what i have written before.

For the last couple of weeks i have been playing with the idea of identifying if some on is drunk based on their tweets.

I started of with below thinking process.

Some one jumps on a site and says i want to monitor twitter id A.

We will gather tweets from that person every hour/time slice and basically analyze as below

1. Remove acronyms/#tags

2. Find number of spelling mistakes (using standard distance algorithms)

3. Find number of swear words (need to build some dictionary of swear words, not that hard :-))

4. Remember number of spelling mistakes and swear words/time slice.

5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 every hour/time slice

Say at about 10 PM in the night the person tracking twitter id A asks, is A drunk? Based on the trends in mistakes and swear words, predict if that person is drunk or not.

Sounds funny but could be useful. I even thought about revenue stream, connecting this to cab services who can push notifications to those twitter ids about being safe and not driving.

All for a social cause :-)

Addendum: Pitfalls of mobile keyboard dynamics that are hurdles for this project

• auto-correction
• typing while angry or tired
• typing while talking to someone
• last but not the least copy-paste

K

I am Scared!!!

I will be starting a new job this Monday and for the first time in my life I am scared. I have changed jobs umpteen number of times in my 15 year illustrious career (shortest duration with an employer is 1 week). With so much job changing experience on my back why am I scared? Below are the things that I will be loosing from Monday.

1. I have been working for a startup with 4 people since 3 years. I am not used to seeing more than 4 colleagues in a Day.
2. I had the freedom of working when I wanted, where I wanted.
3. I have not attended a single meeting since 3 years (demos to customer not included).
4. Not reported to anyone.
5. Other than some customers (read as IBM) and our CEO, I never had to deal with any idiots.
6. Since a year I have not commuted. I have been working from home(wfh) most of the days. I used to go to city on Fridays so that I could have beer with some friends.
7. When you wfh you get things like, you don't have to get out of your Jamis (Pyjamas), Going to Gym at 11 in the morning, volunteer work at kids school, cooking something nice for my daughter before she comes home etc.

From Monday the opposite of all those points will be true....(except 5, crossed fingers). I had an envious job till date but good things don't last longer. I am shit scared and excited for my new adventure.

Whom should naturalised citizens support

This morning when I was talking to a friend of mine i asked him a hypothetical question, if an Indian becomes a citizen of America, in future if ever America attacks India (i mean war) whom should that Indian support? My friend immediately answered, obviously motherland, India. His argument was that, Indian existed because of India. I asked the same guy, say some one disowns a kid and the kid is adopted. After the kid grows, if the biological parents try to claim the kid, whom should the kid support? According to the previous argument kid should support biological parents. In my opinion kid should support the people who adopted the kid. Biological parents didn't want him. If we translate that to naturalisation, an adult made a choice of accepting citizenship of America (for whatever reasons) and let go of Indian citizenship, he should support America. When i thought more about it, it is the stereo typical Indian/Human thinking that kids are indebted to parents as they exist because of them. That is horse shit, kids exist for 3 reasons; want, mistake & love of unprotected sex. No kid is indebted to parent.

Most of these naturalised fuckers are neither patriotic to the country they were born in (not much choice there), nor to the country they live in and happily accepted the citizenship of(by choice, no force). If ever I take citizenship of some other country, I, Keshav declare that I will support that country.

Sania, Shoaib & Ayesha

disclaimer: I do not have problems in any 2 people marrying each other (even if they both are men/woman)

There are already thousands of columns, jokes about this marriage. I really don't care who marries whom. Specially when they are from a faith which Say's, a brother can marry his brother's wife in the event of one's death. Is there a problem in that? I don't know but need not be mentioned in your bible. Hindu woman chose killing themselves when Mughals killed their husbands due to such hideous things. What is my interest in this marriage that encouraged me to write something about it? Well there are couple of things I am curious about.

1. Who made marriage over phone legal?
2. Is Ayesha happy to be a Muslim living in India?
3. Does Sania know what she is signing up for?

1. In which country is marriage over phone legal? (apart from Muslim countries) My curiosity is, did prophet write that? Did he know what a phone was? (may be he did, he was Messiah (mess ayya).) Even if he did, this is the guy who stopped his followers from eating the tastiest meat (pork), what can you say?

2. I am sure Ayesha is happy to be a Muslim living in India. If she is not, she better be. Since Shoaib and Ayesha both are Muslims, if she were to live in a country where Muslim law (I think sharia..) was the law, she had no case. As polygamy is acceptable in Islam(Wikipedia: In Islam, polygamy is allowed for men (making it polygyny), with the specific limitation that they can only have up to four wives at any one time. The Qur'an also clearly states that men who choose this route must deal with their wives as fairly as possible, doing everything that they can to spend equal amounts of time and money on each one of them), only thing Ayesha could do is fuck herself. I know that Uniform Civil Code is not fully implemented in India yet, still Ayesha had a case. This should be a lesson to all the Muslim fuckers in India who oppose uniform civil code. When their daughter's get raped and eye witness is a woman, they will realise why uniform civil code is important (curious? read about woman witnesses in sharia ).

3. Last but not the least, does Sania know what she is signing up for? She is from a community where some morons were complaining that she should not wear revealing outfit while playing tennis. She is bringing shame to Muslim religion(LMAO). I hope she has thought about what will bigger morons across the border have to say about this (after they jack off seeing her). My advice to Sania is, imagine yourself playing tennis wearing Burqa and a clinking chastity belt from Mughal era (chastity belt is, punishing woman to protect them from men, awesome invention. Couple years ago, a Muslim clergy in Malaysia was talking about bringing it back to protect woman from being raped). Opponents will complain that the noise made by your belt is distracting them (hahahahahhaaha...).

Is it worth IT?

(caution: unlike anything i have ever written before)

I am writing this an hour after I came to know that I had lost a cousin of mine in Kenyan (Kisumu) floods. This cousin of mine had lived in Kenya for 15 or so years and had moved to India around the same time we had moved from USA. He had moved to India obviously for his kids education. I am sure Kenyan education system will be as fucked up as their political and social situation. He mentioned that his house was robbed umpteen number of times when he lived there. He had also mentioned how unsafe Kenya was.Last when I met him was during a function before we moved to Australia. After coming to India he did not have a job and was staying home. He was one of the first guys in our family to have a masters in something. He studied fisheries. Its to do with fishing, storing fish, things like that. Job opportunities for him in India are very bleak. After couple of years of sitting idle at home he decided to take up a job in some middle eastern country. He moved there alone leaving his family behind. I am sure this was primarily not to affect his kids education. All said and done his kids had to live without their dad. I have no idea when he moved back to kenya. I remember him telling, his previous employer (owner of a fishing company) owed him heaps of money and he would not go back to that job unless the owner paid him. I came to know that he rejoined Kenyan company as he lost his job in middle eastern country. I am not blaming my cousin for making certain choices, just wondering if the last question that came to his mind was "Was it worth it?"

I know how it feels to grow up with out a DAD (physically my dad was there). Even though I saw my dad quite often, we were never mentally connected to him. He was always busy with his gambling addiction, leaving my mum to take care of the kids. I don't think any one of us (my brothers and I) can really say "I love you" to my dad. If we did say that, it would be the most hypocritical statement. When Hita asks me, "how come you never speak about your dad?" makes me speechless (in my mind I say, he was useless that's why). Some of my friends travel on their job (not talking about week or days of travel) leaving their families behind. Whatever is the reason/obligation for the travel (unless that's the only way to put food on table), there is no way to get that time back. I don't think my cousins death will make much difference to his kids as they are used to living/not seeing their dad often. You might speak every day on phone, but "out of sight is out of mind". If you are not there when they need, you not being there makes no difference.

I know that if you start thinking at meta physical level, if you are to die, you will. It does not matter where you are, what you are doing. What matters are the choices made before death. If there is feeling after death, I want to be saying "wow what a journey, thanks for that" rather than guilt of not doing something or not being there for my kids when they needed me etc.. Is this a revelation after hearing about a death? absolutely not. This event has cemented my belief that nothing is worth the time you loose with your kids (if you wanted them and are sure they are yours) and wife/partner (again if you want them and love their company). I do live(1000's of miles) away from my parents, but that's what birds do when they learn to fly, they build their own nest. Once you have a little one in that nest, you better stop flying. It is your responsibility to teach the young one how to fly. If you are not around (mother and father), your death will make no difference(forget about world, to your own kid) and that ain't worth it.

K

Teachers OR Cheaters

Couple of days ago, my daughter asked me a very interesting question "papa you never give me examples of your teachers, why?" I said hmmmm, give me couple days to answer that. When I started thinking about it (during toilet breaks), I realised that is so true. Apart from one man, I have never had a teacher (teacher means only in school or uni, mentors at work place not included.) worth mentioning. When I am at work or even doing day to day life things, it has never occurred to my mind that oh yea this guy had taught me this. I have dropped out of 2 schools in US, even there I didn't find anyone outstanding (may be cuz I dropped out :-)).

All my experience with teachers in India has been bad. In school they only had complaints about me(My mum had frequent visitor miles... :-) ), even when I was always in top 3 (until 9th grade I think). My faith in teachers was shattered when I came to know that they did not like kids who didn't contribute to so called building fund. One man who taught me math(for free, he happened to be math teacher for my mum too) in 10th grade, stands out. I realized, it was not a job for him. He loved teaching. When you do it as a job is when you fuck up. In India most of these teachers have private tuition's, which I am sure makes them disinterested in teaching properly in their day jobs. I have had teachers ask me to come to their tuition's when I asked question in the school (of-course in the staff room). Some of the teachers when I was in engineering, were terrible (doesn't help a student who has lost interest in education around 9th grade). Some of them were my seniors who graduated previous year. I don't think that young grads are incapable of teaching well(they were doing it while they were preparing for GRE, GATE whatever), but I believe teaching is an art. It is very similar to acting, If you don't have that talent it will take years to get better. Take people like Ajay Devgan, Karishma Kapoor etc (heaps of names from bollywood come to my mind). When they started acting they were pathetic, as they did more movies they got better. If it takes couple years (for some one with passion to teach) to be a better teacher, they would have had bad influence already. Students might start hating those subjects, hate school itself.

I don't think teachers play a big role after say 10th grade in personality development (after 15, if personality is not developed, then its a bigger issue). In primary and high school, teachers play a huge role. Teachers should not be hired if they don't have passion for teaching. How do you find out if they have passion? (same situation as finding good programmers). Well let them teach teachers before they go in front of kids. Have some training, make them sit in a good teachers class. Teach them ETHICS (very important, if madarsas can teach terrorism so effectively, I am sure there should be a way to teach ethics). Pay them well, ban private tuition's. Kids spend more time in school than at home (10 hours sleep, 8 hours in school, left is 6 hours... go figure...). We don't want pedophiles or fuckin morons who love child pornography. We don't want teachers asking kids to come for private tuitions. I know its easier said than done implementing some of these measures. One thing I know for sure is, teachers should not feel they have power, if they do they will be bad. We want teachers who teach not think they control kids destiny. There is a saying in kannada (I had told this to one of my lecturers in engineering, when he was bragging about marking my paper badly), here it goes "haalu anna haak bahudu, hane baraha bariyakke aagalla". Translation, You can provide food to some one, you can't change their destiny. All of us need to do KARMA... Lets do it well and sleep well at night (without guilt)

Jai sri krishna :-)

Indians being attacked in Melbourne, Australia

I have been reading heaps about this issue since last 6 months. I realised, i haven't written anything (bummer). Things i have read go from, its not racist its opportunistic. Honourable police department of Victoria even asked Indians to look poor and act poor. He even asked Indians not to take up taxi driving(fuckin moron, that means its ok if Taxi drivers are not safe). I read an article (here http://bit.ly/ddzBcI, don't know if its still there) which highlights the lack of manners in Indians. How Indians speak loudly in trains and listen to music loudly etc.. That sure is fuckin annoying. I have been annoyed by Australians/so called white people too. I call Apple head phones as "music to neighbours", If you like to listen to music in high volume and you are using apple head phones, god save your neighbour. Couple of weeks ago an Australian teen was asking my daughter where she lives (ass hole), unfortunately i had to be rude to him in front of my daughter (usually i am a very sweet guy). The article also mentioned that Indians don't say hi to a cashier at a store in reply. Does that mean its OK if he is attacked? My dad was a public transport driver (after retiring from Indian Army), how many people would have said thank you to him for taking them to their destination safely? None I am sure. I think it was not there in Indian culture. As we get exposed to, we need to learn. It is bad if we don't. A week ago I got bit by a manner less Indian on Facebook, can you believe that "virtual bad manners". Story is this, I commented on a post of my friend (which was something to do with Rahul Gandhi). In reply to my comment, friends friend replied asking me to get a life(to a total stranger). When I taught her manners she felt it was rude hahahahahaha....

Like every other article I don't want to get distracted from the real problem. Real problem is "A human being was attacked". Now what colour of skin that human being had, who cares. Does that guy have good manners? who cares. Does he have a right to be safe? of-course he does! I hate Muslims, I don't go around bashing people who are Muslims or have a beard like them. All these fuckers who are hurting people are either under the influence of ICE(drugs) or too much alcohol. If it is an opportunistic crime then some kind of material thing will be stolen. Hundreds (if not thousands) of laptops gets stolen in the suburb I live and in the night druggies sell it to Uni students for couple 100 bucks. When my MAC got stolen, this is what cop said "This is very common in this area, do you have Insurance?". I said, isn't it shameful to say that, it means you are not doing your job well. My wife stopped me from further friction, you don't wanna rub cops on the wrong side. If the attacker does not steal anything from the victim, then it is either racist or bastards are bullies. I read that laws in Australia regarding crime committed under the influence of ICE is pretty stupid (Specially if you are under 18), that's why kids exploit it.
By nature Hindus are cowards, if you don't know read some history. We chose Gandhi as our leader, do you need better proof. All Indians who migrate to other countries have their own reasons. May be they do not have a great life back home, which motivates them to migrate. All said and done you need to watch your own back. During such times its very important to behave smart. I have seen New york when it was scary to take subway at 8 PM. Below are some of my tips to Melbourne Indians;

1. Avoid taking public transport very late in the night.
2. If you don't have much choice, at-least don't travel alone.
3. If you cant do that either then you are shit out of luck, sit in the couch immediately next to the train driver.