What-so-ever

Nishkama Karma

2010-04-27T11:15:00.002+05:30

I am reading this book called "The Difficulty of being Good" by Gurcharan Das. In the book, he discusses the merits and non-merits of the concept of "Nishkama Karma" or being a "Karma Yogi", as put forward by Krishna in Gita.
He raises some interesting points. Like, the good think about doing something without caring for the fruits is that you can lose yourself into the task in hand, without getting diverted by thoughts about whether you will be successful, how your work will pay back, what will be the consequences. This can result in a better concentration and efficiency in the task. On the other hand, not thinking rightly about the results, and stifling your emotions to perform your duty can be dangerous. As, Nazis happen to justify executing millions of jews as "performing their duty for their country", although the task in hand seemed hateful. So, perhaps more jews would be saved if the individual officers worried about the consequences, and hateful nature of the task.
My take on this is, once you have decided this is what you are supposed to do, or this is what your duty is, you should then become a "karma yogi". Because doing anything with full heart is better than dillydallying whatever the nature of the task might be. Although, a difficult thing to do...

Kayaking in Ganga

2009-10-19T19:21:00.021+05:30

Just back from a roller-coaster holiday in the roaring waters of Ganga!
We enrolled for a basic level course on "Kayaking", yes the exciting cute colorful boats that run along with rafts for rescue.

We stayed in a most beautiful camp on white sand beach of Ganga. Camp was some 16-20 kms from Rishikesh. It could be reached only by a boat from the road. That gave it an exciting feeling of remoteness. We reached the camp in the evening, unpacked, had food, and enjoyed the camp-fire.

Next day Dharmendra, our instructor arrived with the gear. Things started with learning the 5 basic necessities for a kayaker - kayak, paddle, helmet, life-jacket, and the skirt. We learnt simple paddling, how to keep the kayak steady, and how to paddle upstream. We were also shown how to exit from the kayak if it topples over - the wet exit. I must say, it was all more difficult than I had imagined.

Second day morning... Trying to catch some sun, relaxing our torn muscles, we were praying for Dharmendra (our instructor) to get a little delayed :)

But he was as always punctual, and had no mercies. We learned to ferry across the river the second day. I liked ferrying. In a flowing river, if you want to reach the opposite bank, you have to take a sort of triangle (remember school day physics?). This, unlike paddling upstream, was more of balancing than muscle power. We were also taught "T-rescue". This is a technique where you can get your kayak straightened with the help of another kayak, without exiting from it. Saves a lot of time, which will otherwise be spent in emptying your kayak of water and setting it up again.

Third day, and we were doing much better in taking our kayak where we wanted it to go. And, were ready to do peel into and out of "eddies". This was a little risky. Including me, most of us toppled during this practice. We were introduced to a third and the optimal way of reinstating the kayak on topple - the eskimo roll. Though, none of us could get it going correctly :( Chetan tried most sincerely. One signal from the instructor, and he would topple his kayak! And, then try to come back doing the roll. I was pretty uncomfortable toppling myself.

From Shivpuri

Fourth day, and we were pretty much enjoying the paddling. We went to our first rapids today - the "Shivpuri rapids". I came out unscathed :) Chetan had a pretty difficult experience. He toppled, and had no place to set it up again. Dharmendra and he somehow managed.

Fifth day was the most exciting one. We went for a 10Km river run, starting from the "marine drive". This had about 4 distinct rapids. One of them - the 3 blind mice was a 2+ rapid, consisting of 3 rapids one after another. All of us toppled in this one by one, crossed one or more rapids in our life-jackets, rocketing on the waves. Pretty horrifying experience..., though seemed pretty exciting once rescued :)

From Shivpuri

In all it was a lifetime experience. I hope I continue kayaking in future too!

From Shivpuri

All photos

DevD and Gulaal

2009-07-13T21:05:00.004+05:30

Anurag Kashyap's movie grows on you. For both DevD and Gulaal, I did not like them that much on first viewing. Probaly, shocked by the "randomness". But, the scenes kept coming back to my mind. And, DevD felt absolutely brilliant on second time. Haven't had a second take on Gulaal yet :)
And, music..., don't know how Anurag Kashyap manages to do this every time! If you haven't yet heard Gulaal's music, please do this the first thing. Absolutely "Aarambh hai Prachand!"

vim tip: generate get-set functions

2009-05-14T22:21:00.011+05:30

Been programming in java now for some time. And, as it happens java needs a lot of get-set functions. Yes, I know you can generate them easily in Eclipse, but as it happens I love vi (or may be I am too lazy to switch ;)) So, here is a tip for all those vi lovers out there. To generate get set functions from your variable definitions:

1. Write all variable definitions.
Example:


  1 public class KeywordDimension extends Model implements Serializable
  2 {
  3     private Long m_vendorId;
  4     private Long m_keywordId;
  5     private String m_vendor;
  6     private String m_keyword;

2. Copy them once more below where you want to generate get-functions.


  1 public class KeywordDimension extends Model implements Serializable
  2 {
  3     private Long m_vendorId;
  4     private Long m_keywordId;
  5     private String m_vendor;
  6     private String m_keyword;
  7     
  8     private Long m_vendorId;
  9     private Long m_keywordId;
 10     private String m_vendor;
 11     private String m_keyword;

3. Run this substitute command in vi:


:8,11s/private \(.*\) m_\(.*\);/public \1 get\2() \r    {\r        return m_\2;\r    }/gc

4. You will get this:


  1 public class KeywordDimension extends Model implements Serializable
  2 {
  3     private Long m_vendorId;
  4     private Long m_keywordId;
  5     private String m_vendor;
  6     private String m_keyword;
  7     
  8     public Long getvendorId()
  9     {
 10         return m_vendorId;
 11     }
 12     public Long getkeywordId()
 13     {
 14         return m_keywordId;
 15     }
 16     public String getvendor()
 17     {
 18         return m_vendor;
 19     }
 20     public String getkeyword()
 21     {
 22         return m_keyword;
 23     }

4. Now run this to replace getk by getK (capital) for example:

:8,23s/get\([a-z]\)/get\u\1/gc

You get this:


  1 public class KeywordDimension extends Model implements Serializable
  2 {
  3     private Long m_vendorId;
  4     private Long m_keywordId;
  5     private String m_vendor;
  6     private String m_keyword;
  7     
  8     public Long getVendorId()
  9     {
 10         return m_vendorId;
 11     }
 12     public Long getKeywordId()
 13     {
 14         return m_keywordId;
 15     }
 16     public String getVendor()
 17     {
 18         return m_vendor;
 19     }
 20     public String getKeyword()
 21     {
 22         return m_keyword;
 23     }

Voila! Just two vim substitutes and you are done! Repeat similar stuff for sets, replacing get by set, and substituting by assignments:


:25,28s/private \(.*\) m_\(.*\);/public void set\2(\1 \2) \r    {\r        m_\2 = \2;\r    }/gc
:25,40s/set\([a-z]\)/set\u\1/gc

BLogging from Nokia E63

2009-05-08T20:52:00.001+05:30

This can be great if I can post pictures too!

--
Sent from my mobile device

Shweta Agrawal (Vaity)
http://blog.ashweta.com

Warli on Laptop

2009-03-01T16:27:00.007+05:30

A quick paint job on Chetan's laptop over the weekend!

MySQL vs Sybase IQ

2009-02-03T09:49:00.007+05:30

In my new role, I am playing around with mysql for managing our data, which is not very huge per se, but since we are running our db on tiny hosts (2GB memory etc), the performance tuning requirement is significant.
Now, being a former Sybase IQ developer, I cannot help but compare Sybase IQ with MySQL. Some of these comparison points are also inherent differences between a row-based and a column-based DBMS (column-based dbs rule!!), and I do not claim to be unbiased :) Being a amateur in MySQL, I might be missing some better ways in MySQL, feel free to point out!

1. In a row based DB, it's always a compromise between wide tables (and hence huge IO cost), and expensive joins.
We want to store de-normalized data in our datawarehouse tables, to accelerate our query performance. But that makes the table very wide, making the queries slow due to huge IO in even querying a few columns. While, if we break the table, we end of joining them while querying, again expensive. Column-based Sybase IQ is an answer!

2. In MySQL, your query will use only one index per table in a query!
Probably, this is something obvious for a row based DB, but it came as a shock to me. Being used to Sybase IQ way of using indexes, I was happily creating individual indexes on columns assuming that the query will use all that are required. (IQ gets found-sets using multiple indexes and use them for reducing selected sets). But MySQL does not do that. Result: my table has something like 6 indexes with various combinations of 3 columns, while all I would have need in IQ would be 3.

3. Mysql writers block readers.
We use INNODB, which claims to have row level locking. Also the mysql documentation says that if you are using a repeatable read isolation level, your reading transaction will work on a snapshot of data. But I never saw that in action. There are numerous "special cases" where INNODB takes a table-level lock for writing (auto-inc columns, probably duplicate key update), which ends up into the query getting blocked, waiting on lock to be released. IQ has "snapshot-versioning", not "locking", which means your readers will "never" be blocked on writers, unless you explicitly say so by locking table.

4. Mysql backup is great.
I can say that mysql is better than probably any other dbms in one thing. Simplicity. You can backup, migrate mysql dbs very easily by using mysqldump. IQ's backup procedure was confusing, even for me as a developer.

Rating Lenders in a Mutual Trust System

2008-11-18T21:06:00.005+05:30

I am creating a book sharing system. A problem I am facing is how would I reward my lenders. This is a mutual trust system, where the system does not have any direct way of verifying whether the lends were genuine. For example, I can create 10 fake accounts, lend books to those accounts, and increase my rating to get rewards.

It struck me that this is a generic problem, and must be faced by all systems which are trust based.

Is it possible to write an algorithm to rate the lenders in such a way that it catches/penalizes the malicious/fake lenders, or may be just make the fake lending expensive enough?
For example, suppose I reward my best lender over a month with a 200Rs crossword voucher, and if I feel that I can spend 200Rs on a person who spends 10 hours on my website distributed over 10 days within a month (as that might increase my advertising revenue), I just need to make the fake lending that much expensive.

So, how do we define "good" lends? What are the factors that define a genuine lend?

Requirements:
1. These factors should be implicit/natural for genuine lends but take extra cost for fake ones.
2. These factors should reinforce healthy lending trends into the system.

Here is a list of such factors I can think of:

1. The simplest one - number of lends
Factor: "number of total lends made"
Cost for fake lender: Time to put requests and approvals.
Healthy trend: Rewards lenders who lend more.

2. Lends to different unique borrowers
Factor: "number of borrower with a unique mail id lender lends to"
(Any lends to a user with same mail id as lender not counted)
Cost for fake lender: Time to create unique mail id's + time to create accounts with those mail id's.
Healthy trend: Reward lenders who lend to various people, instead of a fixed closed group.

3. Number of different items lent
Factor: "number of unique items lent by the lender"
Cost for fake lender: Time to add different items in collection.
Healthy trend: Reward people who increase number of unique items available in the system.

4. How distributed lends are over time.
Factor: "number of unique days" on which lends were made.
Cost for fake lender: Time for logging into website on different days.
Healthy trend: Reward people for being prompt with approvals (if people check their inbox every day their approvals will be distributed, if they check for example once a week, they will be clustered).

5. Last but the best, "lend rating" of borrowers.
Factor: "sum of ratings of all borrower's with unique email id's"
Cost for fake lender: All the above costs added for all the fake borrower accounts!
Healthy trend: Encourages people to lend to good lenders. So, lenders get rewarded for doing genuine lending.

So, a simplistic formula taking in all the above factors goes something like:
lender's rating = "number of lends" * "number of unique borrower mail-id's" * "number of unique items lent" * "number of unique days on which lends were made" * "sum of ratings of borrowers with unique mail-id's"

As, you can see, this formula is recursive. If we are calculating the rating for all the users on our system, we start with a rating of 1 everybody, and do a first pass of rating calculation. Then we do a second pass to get final ratings.

Would love to hear more thoughts on this... so do share!

Why it's more difficult for an Indian to start a startup?

2008-10-19T10:19:00.003+05:30

I was talking to somebody yesterday, who recently returned from US, and he said that he expects to see more startups in India than in US, because it is so damn easier to survive here without earning.
That comment brought back to me something that happened on the last day of my job... I was retuning back in office sumo, and I saw people lined up for buses. I saw the typical long shirts wore on saggy pants, faces tanned by having to roam around in intense sunlight, and the sweat... I had the feeling I had when I talked to my parents about my decision to leave my cozy job. The feeling of being "ungrateful".
Our parents never saw jobs that paid you so well, appreciated your work, and also gave you a raise every year! They are the jobs that separates you from all those people standing in the queue. People in the US never have to see those queues, so they do not realize what they are being protected from.
In Indian minds, the fear of falling back into that line is greater than the desire of being above it.

The Chanakya series

2008-10-16T17:32:00.002+05:30

We are watching the "Chanakya" series these days, borrowed from a friend. I used to like the serial when I was young, and it used to play on DD. But after some episodes it grew too complicated for me, that time. (I still watched it though).

Now that I am watching it again (almost half way through), I am amazed at how thoughtfully it has been made! I do not remember any other Indian serial made with so genuine thought and research. Chanakya is one of the very few Indian serials made on "history", and is one of the better ones (One other that I can remember which might be worth watching again is "Tipu Sultan"). Surprising, that none came up in last decade or so! The "soaps" ate them all!

The writer of "Chanakya" has done an incredible job. I am always fearful of speeches, but even a long speech by "Chandragupta" in Chanakya could keep both of us engaged. There is just enough drama. Though, you might find the cinematography, direction, and acting a little weak, and sometimes the speeches about "Rashtriya Gaurav" get way too repetitive, but the overall story and dialogues almost make up for it. The sets are absolutely wonderful. They are not jazzy like that of Mahabharat and Ramayana, which actually make them look much more realistic.

Overall, completely worth watching, may be worth buying, or gifting to somebody you feel will appreciate it (please do not forget your worthy friend ;) )

Expectations and Dissapointments...

2008-09-23T12:07:00.003+05:30

I have faced a cycle of this always in reference to my relationships with others. People's expectations from me, and their opinion of my expectations from them is so different from what I believe. I have always been a person who will call you or contact you when I truly feel like, not when I feel that it's a courtesy to call. And, I expect the same from you. I expect that people who are close to me will not "count" how many times they called or I called. I don't remember if I ever myself complaint anybody about being too busy to call. I have had friends who did, and either they slowly understood, or those relationships failed.
May be I am too unsuited for what a "social" relationship means today. I probably cannot change myself, because whenever I tried to, I felt as if I am "faking" to be something which I am not.... But, may be I can force myself occasionally, because, there are some relations you cannot afford to fail.

the curves of Ellora

2008-09-16T21:10:00.004+05:30

We had a trip to the Ellora caves this weekend. No need to say it was amazing... One thought kept coming to my mind seeing those sculptures. Who were these men who could so reveal the beauty of a human body! According to me, Ellora is not about hinduism, buddhism, or any of the stories of Gods that the caves tell. It is about the art of creating sculptures that could speak beauty, both in the expression of face, and more so in the curves of a body.

Time...

2008-06-05T17:53:00.004+05:30

...
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines...

(Time by Pink Floyd)

Why to not not start a startup

2008-01-09T12:39:00.000+05:30

Like many others, probably..., I have read Paul Graham's essays on start-ups many times, and felt blood rushing through my veins, always. Today, I made an attempt to evaluate my doubts while reading "Why to not not start a startup". Here is an account of whether or not I think following is a doubt point for me:

1. Too young
Not really... I have gone thru a 2 year MTech and worked for 3 years in a regular company. Infact, sometimes I feel I am too old for this.

2. Too inexperienced
Somewhat yes. I think I have worked for a regular company for some time to gain some insight on how things work, but certainly I am inexperienced in taking up new tasks on my own, deciding things and manage my own time..., but that probably won't come unless I actually start something.

3. Not determined enough
Hmmm, there is not a certain way of evaluating this. Your determination gets evaluated only when you are actually on to something.

4. Not smart enough
Yes. That's a real doubt :-|. But what Paul Graham's says about this is really inspiring: "If you're smart enough to worry that you might not be smart enough to start a startup, you probably are." :)

5. Know nothing about business
Yes. That's another one. But I'm somehow not really worried about this one... May be after seeing so amny successful startups started by techies... may be they knew more about business that I do, but I doubt if they knew that before starting the company...

6. No cofounder
Yes. That's a major one. And, the reasons are exactly what Graham states. Have been in a regular job for long, lost contact with people who want to ditch and can afford to do that..., and ofcourse would like to do that with me... My husband is there, but he cannot afford to not earn ;)

7. No idea
Yes. Another one. But I think... solvable.

8. No room for more startups
Hmmm, no, don't think so...

9. Family to support
No.

10. Independently wealthy
NO!

11. Not ready for commitment
Not really... I mean may be a problem later... but now... manageable.

12. Need for structure
Not at all! Infact, its the reverse... I hate a structure or a routine in life, and that has been my main pain point about a 9 to 6 job.

13. Fear of uncertainty
Again, no.

14. Don't realize what you're avoiding
A big NO!

15. Parents want you to be a doctor
Nothing like that...

16. A job is the default
Yeah, I guess that's what has lead us all to a job...

So, in summary, I think I am in job because it's the default thing to do when I am a little inexperienced, probably not smart enough..., know nothing about business, don't have a co-founder, and don't have an idea!

We are there in voice recognition!

2008-01-08T19:17:00.000+05:30

I always used to wonder what is it that is preventing people from giving end-user level services in voice recognition. Technology is certainly mature, a number of enterprise level softwares have been available for long. For long, we have had small voice recognition softwares on our desktops, that can interpret your voice and generate text... but then what! I mean, nobody was really "cashing" this.
And, look, while I wasn't looking, a few very interesting services/startups have cropped up:
SimulScribe
Read your voicemail! You can receive your voicemails as SMSes on your mobile etc.
SpinVox
Provides all sorts of services around voice-recognition. You can store your voice mail/talk to your blog, and a lot more...

Needless to say, all these services is for english (It would be a pleasent surprise if they can detect successfully interpret Indian accent :) ), and available in US/Canada/Europe mostly.

Home Unwired!

2007-05-29T00:18:00.000+05:30

I am sitting in my bedroom blogging this, and chatting with Chetan, who is in the balcony with his laptop! Not so dramatic...? :), we just installed a Linksys wireless router in our home!
It works amazing! We get full strength in our whole house! (Not that our house is very big though... ;) ) Chetan tested outside the house too...
More than anything else, it allows us both to be connected to net, and saves the contention on plug points and space on the computer table :)

Happy riding... :)

2007-05-07T01:31:00.000+05:30

Really thankful to George (my colleague in office), who lent me his bicycle to go around while I am here in US... That is a "real good" bike! (Not that I have much experience with other good bikes :) )
Am becoming more and more comfortable with its gears, and it takes very less effort to ride. Although, I am pretty slow as compared to other bikers I think...

After shifting to a new hotel (Best Western) closer to my office, had a trip to the "Concord center", and a little further up to "Lexington road". Lost way while coming back... so I must have ridden atleast 6-7 miles. Legs hurt a little, but, it was good. This is a perfect place to bike. Less traffic, beautiful houses, charming gardens, and cheerful weather!

My office is around 5 miles from here. I think I can bike to office, lest for the heavy laptop bag.

A game of...

2007-05-06T04:04:00.000+05:30

What is this heavy robust man doing with this thin-at-one-end-fat-at-another funnny looking stick? His expresisons and posture says he is doing something very respectable... and sporty... Ok, there is another man throwing a small ball at him... standing so close! They almost seem like playing a kid-game like... "gilli-danda"? Ok!... this is baseball! :)

Any baseball-lovers out there, no offence intended! But, honestly and innocently, that was my first feeling when I had a look at the baseball game being broadcasted on TV in the hotel.

Baseball is a famous game, and the baseball players are popular. This is so apparent in their body-language, but seems so odd to an out-sider (Perhaps the feeling will be same for an American watching cricket). I mean..., how can you take pride in that funny looking posture before throwing (pitching?) the ball, where you just raise your one leg! The stick looks so thin, the ball so tiny, and the ground so small... while the players look unnecessary heavy built. Ok, ok, I know the ball is heavy and its not easy to hit the ball... but still, this is a game which appears to me seriously out of proportions!

Anyways, I think I will watch the game a little more, now that I have looked up the rules on the net, and try to change my opinion about it :)

Best of Boston!

2007-04-29T08:39:00.000+05:30

Had a trip to Boston today. Nice city... very beautiful, obviously...

All the places I have seen in U.S. are beautiful in their own way.
California was huge, groomed and modern. New york was commercial, busy and... majestic. Concord is simple, natural, and scenic. Boston is... historical..., commercial,... and very scenic. With the river flowing right in the middle, and beautiful bridges and office buildings around..., looks amazing... My bias for Boston also comes from the fact that I can roam around in this city without knowing how to drive! :)

Boston has a very good subway train network, which has red, green, blue, and yellow lines... someting like, central, western and harbour lines of Mumbai. Ofcourse they are relatively very small and less crowded. I took a "Charlie" ticket for 9$, which lets me roam around on the lines any number of times for the whole day.

My first destination was the Museum of Science. Saying "first", because I had expected many more destinations after this, but it turns out that I ran out of time, and the total was only two :-|

Museum of Science is a place where you can easily spend your whole day. They have science exhibits: nice little experiments, models, and science shows. I saw the "lightning" show. They have a "big" machine that produces lightning through particle acceleration. And, then a man will stand in a steel cage and show how the lightnng only remains on the outside of the cage :)
There are also special live shows, each of which costs 4$ and runs or 1 hour. I saw 2 of them. First a dome theater show on Grand Canyon. I had this feeling that I have seen this before (atleast a shorter version may be) in the IMAX dome at bombay! Chetan, is that right? :( But still it was good. Not a bad repeat for 4$. Second one was a planetarium show on Universe.

After this, I went to the "Prudential Center". This place hosts the "prudential tower" which was once the tallest building outside NY. They have a "skywalk observatory" at the top No, don't get swayed by the name, its nothing as adventurous. At the 50th floor (yes the ears just roll in the lift), they have an observatory from which you can see the whole Boston and its landmarks with an audio guided tour.

It was already 5:30 when I was done with the above. So, took a train back to concord, changing between green and red lines. I think I can almost count the "subway" as my third destination. Enjoyed the ride!

Let's talk America!

2007-04-26T03:47:00.000+05:30

So, I am in US right now... observing things..., and... trying to get used to them? not so much... I have to return back in some days anyways :)
Still I have few observations about America, sharing here...

There is so much space all around!
Even the mountains look to be groomed.
It is Christmas every day? Or everybody gets a jackpot ! So smiley!!
You can see somebody "running" anytime in the day!
There are no "wall clocks" nowhere! Probably they are worried about having to change their time twice a year...
Most of the answers end up like questions.
What's in the potatoes!
What is GAS? Petrol.... ?
People have defied the basic rule of nature... They don't drink "water"!

Oh, but, they are all very nice people! Especially, those who live in this nice little town called "Concord"... Have to say that, especially, after having a belly full of delicious dinner at one of them's home! :)

how pipe works

2006-06-21T13:35:00.000+05:30

I had a (slightly heated) discussion today on whether one should know "how pipe works". One of my colleagues was very upset after interviewing some supposed to be brilliant candidates who did not know (according to him the "most basic concept" of Unix OS), that "how pipe works". I was not very convinced with him that it was very shameful of him.
I was myself very fearful of these (according to me jargons) of Unix like pipes, fork etc. etc. which make such good interview questions, but one like me always forget them as soon as done with an interview. I always used to hate such interviews. And, used to come out flying colors from them, if and only if, I had read an OS book before them.
If I were an interviewer, I would surely like to have candidates which have these on their tips "without reading a book". But I believe that only people who have done real system programming can have these always current. You cannot expect that from everybody out of college, however good college it might be.
So, what should you see?
I believe the reason why companies prefer to go to "supposed-to-be" good colleges, not just because the students are most well taught, and hence they know-all. But because the students there are supposed to be smart, according to that college's admission criteria. To further that, the students with good CPIs are supposed to be smart by that college's gradation criteria. A company just wants to make sure that whoever it recruit is smart enough. Can learn and can get things done.
So, I believe it's not important to know "how pipe works". But it's important that the person should be able to understand it as and when needed. So, if you are interviewing a person who has done a multi-tasking project with lots of programming, which involves using pipes-and-stuff, and he doesn't know how pipe works, he is surely worth nothing. He did not learn when he was needed to.
But what the hell, pipe is just something which takes an input and put it to a output. I think there will be more to it. Otherwise, it isn't even worth asking. But that was all I ever needed to know. And, thank god nobody asked me this in an interview!

A blog discussion on Sybase IQ

2006-05-25T10:16:00.000+05:30

Came accross this:
http://www.rittman.net/archives/2005/10/sand_sybase_iq_and_columnbased.html

An interesting discussion about Sybase IQ, which points two things:
1. Most of the customers or people who benchmarked it were extremely impressed and satisfied with Sybase IQ performance.
2. They were amazed how they never came accross this technology when it existed since 90's !

My personal opinion is that Sybase IQ would have taken off in much brighter flying colors but for a lackadaisical marketing by Sybase.

Truly cosmopolitan

2006-05-24T12:45:00.000+05:30

Somebody asked me some days back - "Where are you from?" After a significant deliberation over the question I replied - "What do you mean...?"
That I am an Indian, he obviously knows, it was difficult to zoom in further. My father is from Agra, U.P. My mother's father is from Agra too. But my mother was brought up in Cochin, Kerala. I was born and brought up in Sriganganagar, Rajasthan. My parents currently stay in Jaipur, Rajasthan. I am married to a Bombayite, and my in-laws are Maharastrians staying in Mumbai. So, probably the closest answer is Rajasthan... but then I cannot really call myself a "Rajasthani". Most of my older relatives (my grandparents etc.) stay in Agra and have a U.P accent. So probably U.P is closer. But then I don't have any specific accent. And, I do not associate culturally either to U.P., Rajasthan, or Maharashtra. I know only English and Hindi and none of local dialects.
Perhaps, like many of today's generation and cities, I am cosmopolitan too :)

Reservations?

2006-05-24T12:31:00.000+05:30

I wanted to stay away from this debate ... mainly because I thought I have not made up my mind yet. Infact, I was amazed how sure, about their stand, students/politicians seem to be.

Reservations is a complicated issue. Nobody can deny the obvious deprivation of the so-called lower caste, and a need for upbringing them. The important question is what is the right way of doing this.

The best thing will be to have so many good schools and colleges that there is no dog-snatching over the seats. Or atleast, the issue of "seat" is less emotional and critical. But, even if we suppose that this will eventually happen, it has not happened yet. And, we have to find some way that the current generation who was deprived gets an opportunity.

Reservation is one way. Unfortunately, it is the easiest and the most populistic one too. As a result, it has led the politicans to use this tool again and again for their own advantage.
My reservations with the current "reservations" are:
A. Their implementation lacks any kind of vision. Arjun Singh just shot a ball, and others are busy catching it in a defense fielding mode. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of this decision being based on analysis of effect of reservations so far. Infact, the politicians seem to hide from any such analysis.
B. The reservations seem to for ever. There is no planning of phasing them out. For example, there should be some rule like children of beneficiaries should not be allowed to avail reservations... or something along these lines. Politicians seem to be entirely silent on such important questions.
C. Reservations in education are still ok, but they don't seem to stop anywhere. They are in jobs, in promotions everywhere.

Reservations are right in principle and I respect B. R. Ambedkar for it. But, the way they are being used is dangerous. They have become an excuse for incompetence and lack of motivation for any real work by the politicians. They are never reverted or taken back from people who don't deserve them. I fear if it goes this way it will just result into taking spoon out from one's mouth and putting into other's.

It's a fine day today...

2006-03-10T13:48:00.000+05:30

I start for office and find that it's a fine morning... I come down my building to the basket-ball court. The bricks washed up by the rains last night look redder than ever. I come out of the complex to see the washed streets, flowers from the trees have dropped down on the pavements. I cross the school, and a nice carol hit my ears. The washed up lawns of Daffodils where I used to stay earlier look more inviting than ever. I reach in front of my office buildings, and the white lilies (or are they some other flower?) outside "Deccan harvest" are blooming with enchanting fervour.
Wow! It's going to be a fine day!

Government at its best!

2006-02-20T10:04:00.000+05:30

Slowly, I have come to believe that the job of government is to harass people, make their lives a little more complicated at every step, and slow down whatever progress they want to make. That is why when I went to the registrar office to get my marriage certificate done, the government was at its best.

My father-in-law had been preparing for this hectic adventure since about a month. He had noted down all the neccessary documents needed, and arranged them. The day when we had to go to the registrar office arrived. And, we realised the first offence that we had made! None of us was a government employee. So, all our documents that were duly signed by the great authorities of India hold no significance, until their photocopies were signed by a gazetted government officer. With people going less and less for government job in Mumbai, it was no easy task to find an officer at home. Ultimately we found one, and went to the registrar office.

The office was in a dark, old building, and looking at it, it was easy to understand the mental state of employees working there. Anyways, we patiently stood at window for our turn. The lady officer there looked at us with an expression which seem to suggest "Why do you marry after all to increase our workload!". Then, she took the documents and said where is the file? One person ran to buy the file. Then she started examing the documents, and we stood waiting nervously, as a child waits when his father is examining his report-card. She threw some small small points which we handled successfully! At last she caught us! She asked "Photographs kahan hai?". We said the marriage photographs are there. She looked at us with a wining expression, and handing the file back to us said, "Passport size photograph chahiye sabka". It would have been an offence to say that it is nowhere written in the instructions. So, we meekly asked, kab tak la sakte hain? She said come by 1:30. Then, again returning to her-haughty-self said, "1 baje tak aa gaye to kaam hoga, nahin to nahin hoga". It was 12:15.

So, now all the private systems get their efficiency together to fight against the inefficiency of government. The auto-rickshaw person takes us home in 10 minutes. We collect the photographs. The Konicha photo labs give us a polaroid photo ready in 5 minutes. We get back in another 10 minutes, and phew, we are there at 12:45!

Thankfully, the proceedings start. Everything goes well, till we reach the desk of a person, who seems like a nobody but is bent upon impressing himself as the highest authenticating officer in the office. He takes our file, and goes through the documents very carefully again and again, reading each line. (Note that this has been done already by two people in line.) He stucks at my name, and says - "Write full name". I told him that my full name is as written - "Shweta Agrawal". He insists on writing father's name in between. But, I am afraid that if my certificate is printed with that name it may mismatch with my existing documents, esp. passport. Anyways, I agree and write the full name on the form. After doing some more time-pass, he takes out the certificate and signs it. (Note that the certificate was already done, and name was already there on it!).

Atlast, we reach the last desk, back from where we had started. She gives us the certificate, and says, "50 rs. for receipt and 200 more". Hmmm, so all this delay was to impress how important those additional 200 are. It doesn't matter that we had done more labour for the certificate than those people, and probably we deserved those additional 200. We give the money, and return back.

Happy, because at last we are legally married. Not so happy, because the "legally" comes from so drone a system...

My last unmarried day at office :)

2005-11-25T15:00:00.000+05:30

Yeah, that sounds like a big thing! The next time I come to office, I shall be a married lady. Will be writing "Married", instead of "Single" in marital status! Will be writing Shweta Vaity instead of Shweta Agrawal! (Hmmm.., probably, I will have to give some more thought to this last thing.) What about just getting up and coming to office in jeans-tshirt, hair all screwed up... People will now expect something more from me probably :( Lots of bangles and a big Mangalsutra with jeans, pretty trendy, yeah!

Socialism... and free market.

2005-07-18T14:26:00.000+05:30

A nice article on Slashdot on importance of free market in America..
It has echoes of Ayn Rand of "Atlas Shrugged", Gurcharan Das of "India Unbound".

An excerpt:

Socialism scares me. The direction of America scares me. Patton said ``America loves a winner. America will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise a coward. Americans play to win. That's why America has never lost a war, for the very thought of losing is hateful to an American.'' I wonder if now this is no longer true; Americans love losers and cannot tolerate a winner. And it's sad, really, because Americans have the opportunity to become winners. We're just choosing to bring everyone down to the loser level, making sure nobody gets ahead, so that nobody will be left behind.

America has to prevent socialism from paralysing their economy, and India has to cure it!

Those sounds of Ghungru...

2005-06-21T18:34:00.000+05:30

I was looking around for kathak classes in Pune for long. Came to know of some, but they were far placed. Yesterday, I put an effort and went to the most famous one - in Deccan. Reached the Poona Coffee house in front of the Deccan Bus-stand. It was rainy. Was quite tired of driving till there after office, and was wondering where it can be near such a place. And... I heard those beautiful sounds. The sounds of ghungru being played in rhythm. Something happened! All the tiredness vanished. I was elated and moving in direction of the sounds. I climbed the stairs and reached the room. Yes! that was the place. I was quite happy, thinking that the effort was worth it...
But, the caretaker there turned me down... saying it was the class for seniors. I have to come again the next day to enquire about the classes. Came down quite dissapointed. Called up the classes in Bund Garden and confirmed that I will be joining them. And, earlier, I was not able to decide this since weeks...

2005-06-16T15:19:00.000+05:30

Me in Goa!

The HitchHiker's Guide to The HitchHiker's Guide

2005-05-25T10:57:00.000+05:30

Found it here...

I am still half-way through "The HitchHiker's Guide to Galaxy". After some amount of lost of interest and delays in between, it has again caught my interest and attention. The guide does not probably have a continuously increasing graph of interest, but the intermediate triumphs are worth it.
My favorite quote in the book till now... In fact this was the one which lead me to start reading the guide. (Later discovered that it is the most famous one too...)

On the planet earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

So long and thanks for all the reading. ;)

Linux for human beings

2005-04-05T12:10:00.000+05:30

Yes, that's Ubuntu!

Installed it on my home PC last night. The installation was pretty simple and fast. Just one installation CD, and it does install most of the useful packages. The installer is not all that graphical, but still quite straightforward and easy, probably more than the Redhat graphical installer.
I have my PC next to my bed, and I was literally doing the installation half asleep. It was all very smooth, except that I formatted the wrong drive :-P

With linux at core, debian packing, gnome desktop, and open-office, it makes a good desktop solution. It can make shifting from Windows to Linux a bit more comfortable by small but useful offerings like
- installs firefox as the default browser rather than mozilla.
- gives small toolbar icons for "Browser", "Show desktop", and "Adjust sound" similar to Windows
- The default desktop settings make a clean desktop with a good look and feel.
Not that you cannot set all this up easily in other linuxes, but the good thing about ubuntu is that it gives you the desirable things without doing anything extra.

That's what I noticed on first shot, ready to do some experimentation with it and my iPod!

My pink iPod!

2005-03-31T12:22:00.000+05:30

My pink iPod!

How can somebody afford anything than just loving it! :)
It is so cute... I am sure that Apple has got one of the best creative designers in the world! (may be the best after google :), have to say this after using picasa and hello for posting this picture...)

But it is so good. It's cool! It just rocks!

So, let me see, here is a list of my most loved possessions:
- my pink mini iPod!
- my newly bought silver Honda Activa! (though the bank half-owns it yet)
- my nice and loved black Sony headphones
- my red "Easies" bag
- my LG-reliance mobile (just added it, don't love it that much though)

Hey, the thieves out there! don't take the alert!

Why do you hate Windows?

2005-03-16T16:07:00.000+05:30

Ok, so once again I face this question. Actually I have never given a
concrete answer to this to anyone. So let me attempt so.

First of all I do not "hate" Windows. Windows is all so pretty and
useful. And, I have all the due respect for the great brilliant
Microsoft guys who made it so :) And, for my father, say, I would ask
him to please stay away from linux, get his work done fast and happily
in Windows.
But for myself am irritated using Windows. And, it is mainly because I
have no use of most of what it offers. And, it does not offer many of
what I need and like.

Why I mainly login to computer
1. to work
2. to mail and browse
3. to listen to songs and maybe watch a movie.
I find linux and windows both pretty good for 2 and 3. (I don't play
computer games, if I did I would prefer Windows).

Now comes "work". And for that I need
1. A good command shell
2. A good editor (which I do not have to change for every language I work in)
3. Compilers and debuggers for the languages I work in.

And, for these I find only workarounds in windows but "the nice
solution" in linux. Lets say I want to do some C programming. Oh, I
will have to bring somehow and install Visual studio!
And, in Linux, gcc will be mostly there, or can be installed in few
minutes without much overhead. I can use my old practiced VI, no need
to learn a new editor! Similarly for perl, for python, anything that I
can think of, windows makes you buy (or pirate) for each and every
small thing you need. On Linux, it is just available!

OK, one thing that I may need is MS powerpoint or MS word. That is the
only thing for which I might go to windows. But I am not ready to
compromise on above fronts for document editing which is not so often
for me. I am ready to use workarounds for that!

And, above all I do not want to be dependent on a thing which I cannot
buy for my personal use, (or say do not want to buy) but only pirate!

Hmm, may be I missed some points, but anyway was not a bad attempt,
and totally my personal opinion and choices. There might be people,
who do not want a command shell, and who are happy learning and
installing a new editor/compiler for every language, and pirating as
long as it goes!

HTML docs and Tables :(

2005-03-09T16:59:00.000+05:30

splurr, splurr, splurr
doc, doc, doc
table, table, table...

I have become a document generating machine. Am writing a new document almost every day, and that too in html :((. Escaped from Word, and resorted to use VI.
And, how much the managers love tables! Was forced to search around to find a right CSS format to define a table, and came to know how horrible and frustrating it can be. Even after years of standardization of HTML and CSS stuff, there is no good way to define or say freeze a table format. Added to it the discrepancies between different browsers. There are always some properties that have to be written in the table tag itself, if you want a pleasent (or better said as expected) look in IE as well as firefox :(

I had a very simple requirement 1px solid borders, some cellspacing, cellpadding, align and width.... Did it very badly. Sharing it here only in hope somebody would tell me a better way :).

#tbsolid {
border: solid 1px; }
#tbsolid td{
border: solid 1px; }
#tbsolid th{
border: solid 1px; }

table style="border:solid 1px" id="tbsolid" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=5
align=center width=90%

If it doesn't get better, I may revolt and to dismay of my managers and reviewers, start floating around pdfs written in LaTeX :))

Current mood: Nostalgic

Software Code is Design

2005-03-03T15:59:00.000+05:30

http://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_design.html

Came accross this interesting article which says that "programming is not about building software, but about designing software". The author compares the software development process with a manufacturing process saying that the programmers are not the manufacture workers. That work is done by the compilers and linkers, and we rightly call it a "build" in a typical software development. The build in a software project, unlike a manufacturing process is pretty inexpensive. Most of the software project is "Design", and the ultimate design is the software code that we write. Testing as well as debugging is a part of design.

The idea is pretty controversial, but I tend to agree with him. What we typically call a "Design" in a software development process always seemed to me unsatisfying, incomplete, and the continuous pester of so called good software engineers to freeze it before coding, very unrealistic. The Software engineering Gurus seem to take pride in making the "Coding" the most unimportant and short part of the whole project.

I guess many have now realized that it is inconvenient and inefficient to make a design independent of a pogramming language. Languages like C++, Java etc support this trend. And, probably that is why we see the software development process moving from waterfall to spiral etc all evidences of slowaly making coding a part of design.

Confused...

2005-01-05T20:59:00.000+05:30

Between what is right and what is wrong. There is so fine a line between good and bad. Infact, the line is not there, everything is mixed, and I guess to make a line is as hard a problem as.... SVM in datamining :) (or may be harder!)
Anyways, I think this is common enough, and boring enough as I am not going to say here what is the exact confusion! But it does make me thoughtful, and refrain me from making a judgement about anyone. It is better to think of everyone just as "good" or "don't know", "bad" is a faulty and a cruel judgement.

Some questions

2005-01-03T10:19:00.000+05:30

I have some questions revolving around in my mind for long, or say from the time I have started seeing myself as a Computer Engineer...

1. Assume all your degrees and certificates are gone. You have no piece of paper saying anything about you. Also, asssume there are absolutely nothing related to computers anywhere. Now, what can you do for your livelihood?

My options are - open a "dancing school for small kids", take some tutions of maths, physics..., teach in some primary school , work as a receptionist in a hotel, company etc...
What are your choices!

2. How far can you take a new civillization with your brain, knowledge and skills, if you are left alone with them with no aids of the present world?

I guess, for this one, mechanical engineers have an edge :)

Living IIT again...

2005-01-02T19:09:00.000+05:30

When I was leaving IIT after 2 memorable years of MTech, one thing pained me more than anything else - that whatever may happen, I might come here again, I might meet the people again, see the department, the hostel again, but I won't be able to live those years again.
And whew!, the fate (or so many people who wanted to go to their homes or places at christmas time, and due to whom I couldn't get my reservation confirmed) gave me that rare chance too! :)
I spent my whole vacations (7 days!) in IIT, and spent them almost as older times!
That getting up late, feeling a little shameful for that, having a bath after much postponement and short naps, going to department, working a little (yeah, a little work of my old project, made it all the more realistic), having some tea from Badlu, going somewhere out with Chetan in evening.. coming back in night after dinner, try to work (this time this is for Chetan, I didn't work that hard), feel sleepy, sometimes have a walk outside, coffee at H8, going back to room, reading a novel (co-incidentally picked up Arthur C. Clarke again as while in IIT ), and sleep wondering how fast the day runs in IIT!
Yes, I lived the IIT again!

Fountains of Paradise

2004-12-31T01:22:00.000+05:30

He does it again. I am amazed by Arthur C. Clarke's capability of doing far-fetched imagination. "Fountains of Paradise", an outstanding example of this. No, but I am not talking (only) about the "space elevator" here. I was impressed by the simple yet brilliant "News" system that he mentions just in passsing.

People specify their items of interest (of which he mentions the most interesting ones!)

Eggs, Dinosaur, hatching of
Circle, squaring of
Atlantis, re-emergence of
Christ, second coming of
Loch Ness Monster, capture of
World, end of

And, the intelligent news system blink when any news related to any item of interest comes up!
Interesting.

And it's Sybase now!

2004-12-01T17:54:00.001+05:30

Yesterday was pretty adventurous! Going to HP in morning, completing the formalities, flying to Pune in afternoon, and joining Sybase at 2'o clock!
It all came out quite well. Although, it did not seem so when I was stuck in the traffic jam on Airport road in morning, feared missing the flight, vented out my anger on the traffic policeman who was stopping the traffic for some minister to pass, and ultimately became the last person to board the air-van towards the plane!
Anyways, all the three DBMS TAs met today, and now one can imagine the fate of yet to join DBMS students :)

Exiting HP

2004-11-30T06:05:00.000+05:30

Just returned from the building I am most reluctant to get in - 29C, the HP main office. Somehow, I like the sun-lit plain old offices better than Air-conditioned rooms lit with the white light in software companies, especially if they have low roofs! I have a claustrophobic feeling at such places. Anyways, it was perhaps the last-but-one day when I have to go there, my "Exit Interview" went pretty well.
So this is my last day at my first-ever-full-time-job. (By this I remember, I am yet to write the conventional, "My last day at HP" mail). But I am not feeling anything, except that a lot of things are to be done, before I leave. And that I should make a list now, and start doing them!

My first blog!

2004-11-20T04:24:00.000+05:30

And what is all this fuss about! My first love, my first ball, my first kiss... (I am reading too much of Jane Austen), or ...................... "My first blog"! Sounds stupid.
Anyways, I never thought blogging was a very good idea, except if you want to do some tik-tak on the keyboard even in your free time!!
But still, here I am, with "My first blog"!