Make various updates including publications

Author: madiator

.gitignore

@@ -2,4 +2,8 @@
 .jekyll-metadata
 node_modules
 Gemfile.lock
-_site/
+_site/
+cache/
+extensions/
+gems/
+specifications/

Gemfile

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 source "https://rubygems.org"
-ruby RUBY_VERSION
 
 # Hello! This is where you manage which Jekyll version is used to run.
 # When you want to use a different version, change it below, save the
@@ -8,13 +7,16 @@ ruby RUBY_VERSION
 #     bundle exec jekyll serve
 #
 
+gem "jekyll", "~> 4.3.2"
+gem "minima", "~> 2.5"
+
 # If you have any plugins, put them here!
 gem 'wdm', '>= 0.1.0' if Gem.win_platform?
 group :jekyll_plugins do
-    gem 'jekyll-feed'
+    gem 'jekyll-feed', "~> 0.12"
     gem 'jekyll-sitemap'
     gem 'jekyll-paginate'
     gem 'jekyll-seo-tag'
-    gem "jekyll", "~> 3.6"
     gem "kramdown-parser-gfm"
-end
+end
+gem "webrick", "~> 1.9"

README.md

@@ -1 +1,113 @@
-Homepage/blog of Mahesh Sathiamoorthy.
+# Mahesh Sathiamoorthy's Website
+
+Homepage/blog of Mahesh Sathiamoorthy.
+
+## Building and Testing the Website
+
+This is a Jekyll-based website. Here are the steps to build and test it locally:
+
+### Prerequisites
+
+- Docker and Docker Compose installed on your system
+- Git (to clone the repository)
+
+### Building the Website
+
+1. **Clone the repository** (if you haven't already):
+   ```bash
+   git clone <repository-url>
+   cd madiator.github.com
+   ```
+
+2. **Build the Jekyll site using Docker**:
+   ```bash
+   docker compose run --rm jekyll bundle exec jekyll build
+   ```
+   
+   This will generate the static site files in the `_site` directory.
+
+### Testing on Localhost
+
+1. **Start the Jekyll development server**:
+   ```bash
+   docker compose up
+   ```
+   
+   This will start the Jekyll server with auto-regeneration enabled.
+
+2. **Access the website**:
+   Open your browser and navigate to `http://localhost:4000`
+
+3. **Stop the server**:
+   Press `Ctrl+C` in the terminal to stop the development server.
+
+### Alternative: Using Local Ruby Environment
+
+If you prefer to use a local Ruby environment instead of Docker:
+
+1. **Install dependencies**:
+   ```bash
+   bundle install
+   ```
+
+2. **Build the site**:
+   ```bash
+   bundle exec jekyll build
+   ```
+
+3. **Serve locally**:
+   ```bash
+   bundle exec jekyll serve
+   ```
+
+   Then visit `http://localhost:4000` in your browser.
+
+### Troubleshooting
+
+#### RubyGems Version Warning
+
+If you encounter a warning like:
+```
+Your RubyGems version (3.0.3.1) has a bug that prevents `required_ruby_version` from working for Bundler...
+```
+
+This typically happens with older Ruby versions (like Ruby 2.6.x). Here are your options:
+
+1. **Recommended: Use Docker** (avoids all Ruby version issues):
+   ```bash
+   docker compose run --rm jekyll bundle exec jekyll build
+   docker compose up
+   ```
+
+2. **Update Ruby** (if you want to use local Ruby):
+   - Install a newer Ruby version using a version manager like `rbenv` or `rvm`
+   - Ruby 3.0+ is recommended for better compatibility
+
+3. **Ignore the warning** (if everything still works):
+   - The warning is just about future compatibility
+   - Your current setup may still work for now
+
+#### Gem Version Conflicts
+
+If you get an error like:
+```
+You have already activated i18n 1.12.0, but your Gemfile requires i18n 0.9.5. Prepending `bundle exec` to your command may solve this.
+```
+
+**Solution**: Always use `bundle exec` with Docker commands:
+```bash
+docker compose run --rm jekyll bundle exec jekyll build
+```
+
+#### Other Common Issues
+
+- **Permission errors**: Use `sudo` for gem installations if needed
+- **Bundle install fails**: Try `bundle update` or use Docker instead
+- **Port 4000 already in use**: Change the port with `jekyll serve --port 4001`
+
+### Notes
+
+- The Docker approach is **strongly recommended** as it avoids Ruby version conflicts and dependency issues
+- The site uses Jekyll 4.3.2 with various plugins for feed generation and other features
+- All site files are generated in the `_site` directory when building
+- The development server automatically regenerates the site when files are changed

_includes/menu-header.html

@@ -3,21 +3,17 @@
 </li>
 
 <li class="nav-item">
-<a class="nav-link" href="{{site.baseurl}}/blog">Blog</a>
-</li>
-
-<li class="nav-item">
-<a class="nav-link" href="{{site.baseurl}}/research">Research</a>
-</li>
+    <a class="nav-link" href="https://bespokelabs.ai">Bespoke Labs</a>
+    </li>
 
 <li class="nav-item">
-<a class="nav-link" href="{{site.baseurl}}/projects">Projects</a>
+<a class="nav-link" href="https://madiator.substack.com/">AI Blog</a>
 </li>
 
 <li class="nav-item">
-<a class="nav-link" href="{{site.baseurl}}/art-photo">Art & Photography</a>
+<a class="nav-link" href="http://smarter.substack.com">Personal Writing</a>
 </li>
 
 <li class="nav-item">
-<a class="nav-link" href="http://newsletter.smarter.blog">Smarter.Blog</a>
+<a class="nav-link" href="{{site.baseurl}}/art-photo">Photography</a>
 </li>

_pages/art-photo.md

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ layout: default
 	        </div>
 	    </div>
 	</div>
-	<div class="jumbotron jumbotron-fluid jumbotron-home pt-0 pb-0 mt-3 mb-2rem bg-lightblue position-relative">
+	<!-- <div class="jumbotron jumbotron-fluid jumbotron-home pt-0 pb-0 mt-3 mb-2rem bg-lightblue position-relative">
 	    <div class="pl-4 pr-0 h-100 tofront">
 	        <div class="row justify-content-between">
 	            <div class="col-md-6 pt-6 pb-6 pr-lg-4 align-self-center">
@@ -36,5 +36,5 @@ layout: default
 	            <div class="col-md-6 d-none d-md-block pr-0" style="background-size:cover;background-image:url(assets/images/charcoal.jpg);"></div>
 	        </div>
 	    </div>
-	</div>
+	</div> -->
 </div> <!-- /container -->

docker-compose.yml

@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
-jekyll:
+version: '3'
+services:
+  jekyll:
     image: jekyll/jekyll:latest
-    command: jekyll serve --force_polling
+    platform: linux/amd64
+    command: sh -c "bundle install && bundle exec jekyll serve --force_polling --host 0.0.0.0"
     ports:
         - 4000:4000
     volumes:

index.html

@@ -68,14 +68,14 @@ <h5>Brief Bio</h5>
     <div class="pl-4 pr-0 h-100 tofront">
         <div class="row justify-content-between">
             <div class="col-md-6 pt-6 pb-6 pr-lg-4 align-self-center">
-                <h1 class="mb-3">Research/Current Work</h1>
-                I recently started a startup called Bespoke Labs. We are still in stealth and building our product! <br>
-                I was a Tech Lead in Google DeepMind and worked on LLM-based recommender models. 
+                <h1 class="mb-3">Recent Work</h1>
+                I started Bespoke Labs in 2024. We focus on RL environment curation and Data curation.<br>
+                <br>
+                Previously, I was a Tech Lead in Google DeepMind and worked on LLM-based recommender models. In 2021, 
+                very few people were thinking about applying the bitter lesson to recommender systems. 
+                I kickstarted a project to scale recommender models using LLMs, which resulted in
+                several research publications (and one best paper award) and many impactful launches across recommender systems such as YouTube.
                 <br>
-                
-                I have been instrumental in scaling up our recommender models and delivered numerous launches that improve either the quality or the performance of recommender models.  <br>
-
-                I work on all aspects of recommender models: infrastructure and productionization, research, and engagements. My work benefits surfaces such as YouTube.
             </div>
             <div class="col-md-6 d-none d-md-block pr-0" style="background-size:cover;background-image:url(assets/images/tpu.png);"></div>
         </div>
@@ -90,6 +90,9 @@ <h1 class="mb-3">Research/Current Work</h1>
             <div class="col-md-12 pt-6 pb-6 pr-lg-4 align-self-center">
                 <h1 class="mb-3">Selected Publications</h1>
                 <ol>
+                    <li>Etash Guha, Ryan Marten, Sedrick Keh, Negin Raoof, Georgios Smyrnis, .. <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>, Alex Dimakis, Ludwig Schmidt. "OpenThoughts: Data Recipes for Reasoning Models". <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.04178">arXiv</a>. 2025</li>
+                    <li>Yashar Deldjoo, Zhankui He, Julian McAuley, Anton Korikov, Scott Sanner, Arnau Ramisa, René Vidal, <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>, Atoosa Kasrizadeh, Silvia Milano, Francesco Ricci. "Recommendation with generative models". <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.15173">arXiv</a>. 2024</li>
+                    <li>Yashar Deldjoo, Zhankui He, Julian McAuley, Anton Korikov, Scott Sanner, Arnau Ramisa, René Vidal, <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>, Atoosa Kasirzadeh, Silvia Milano. "A review of modern recommender systems using generative models (gen-recsys)". Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGKDD conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. 2024</li>
                     <li>Shashank Rajput, Nikhil Mehta, Anima Singh, Raghunandan H. Keshavan, Trung Vu, Lukasz Heldt, Lichan Hong, Yi Tay, Vinh Q. Tran, Jonah Samost, Maciej Kula, Ed H. Chi, <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>. "Recommender Systems with Generative Retrieval". <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.05065">arxiv</a>. NeurIPS 2023</li>
                     <li>Jiaxi Tang, Yoel Drori, Daryl Chang, <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>, Justin Gilmer, Li Wei, Xinyang Yi, Lichan Hong, Ed H. Chi, "Improving Training Stability for Multitask Ranking Models in Recommender Systems". <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.09178">arxiv</a>. KDD 2023, <b>Best Paper Award</b> in Data Science Track.</li>
                     <li>Wang-Cheng Kang, Jianmo Ni, Nikhil Mehta, <b>Maheswaran Sathiamoorthy</b>, Lichan Hong, Ed Chi, Derek Zhiyuan Cheng. "Do LLMs Understand User Preferences? Evaluating LLMs On User Rating Prediction". <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.06474">arxiv</a>. Workshop on Personalized Generative AI, CIKM 2023.</li>