Sunday, 1st April 2007
Palm Springs
I had blogged earlier about the ESRI Dev Summit at Palm Springs, CA. Palm springs is hailed as "Americas Desert Playground" and a refuge for Hollywood's brightest stars. Palm Springs offers miles of palm-lined canyons, cascading waterfalls, desert flora, and big horn sheep. The city blends a rich heritage - steeped in Indian, Mexican and Western cultures - with world-class entertainment and a sophisticated business district.
Palm Springs is referred to as "The Golf Capital of the World," with more than 100 championship courses. 
The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway is one of the biggest attractions in Southern California and is a way of getting from the floor of the Coachella Valley to near the top of San Jacinto. One of the interesting sights that i got to see right in front of my eyes was a Dust Devil. A dust devil or whirlwind is a rotating updraft, ranging from small (half a meter wide and a few meters tall) to large (over 10 meters wide and over 1000 meters tall). In the southwestern United States, dust devils can be known as dancing devils. Navajo refer to them as chiindii, a ghost or spirit of a Navajo, if a chiindii spins clockwise it is said to be a good spirit, if it spins counterclockwise it is a bad spirit.
Posted by Nikhil on Sunday 01st of April 2007 at 10:36:25 PM in Life in General | Work | Events
Saturday, 31st March 2007
A Humdinger of a cricket match
Every weekend, the local cricket enthusiasts (mostly Indians and Pakistanis) get together to play cricket in a baseball field at Lawton, CA. A thrilling match played out on my second week. Incredibly, one of the blokes (Gaurav) managed to tape the exciting climax to the match. The situation was as follows. After amassing a huge 103 in 12 overs, everything seemed like smooth sailing (typically 75 is a good score on this ground) for the defending team (my team) until Manjunath (the batsman in the video) unleashed a series of big hits to make the unimaginable target seem possible. Going into the last over (which i was privileged to bowl) they needed ten runs to win. The following ensued.
6 balls, 10 runs :- Manjunath picks an easy single. Bowling team is happy to just give singles.5 balls, 9 runs :- The batsman holes out in an attempt to locate the boundary. They cross to give manjunath the strike.
This video captures the remainder of the match.
4 balls, 9 runs :- Batsman underedges a wide slower delivery to the wicket keeped. No run. Bowler is thinking that taking the pace off the ball will make it hard to hit boundaries and the batsmen will hole out trying to make the pace.3 balls, 9 runs :- An attempt to bowl a really slow ball goes horribly wrong as the batsman reverse sweeps the ball for a six. Since we are playing in a baseball field, the offside boundaries are very small. To add insult to injury, it is called a no-ball (over the waist). Problem is that idiosyncrasies of the game are such that the non-striker is the umpire and judges no-balls, wides etc. Clearly this was an error in judgment. Also as part of the rules, no runs are awarded for extras, (only the delivery is illegal).
2 balls, 3 runs :- Another attempted slog results in a top edge which goes to the weakest fielder in the ground (an elderly gentleman whom we hide in fine leg always). What should have been a run out at the batsman's end ultimately results in a run out at the bowler's end when they attempt to scamper a non-existent single.
Watch the video before you read furthur!!!
1 balls, 2 runs :- Plenty of mind games going out here. First the bowler pulls up in his run-up stride and warns the non-striker of backing up too far. The bowler repeats the same thing (pulling out of his bowling stride) to build the frustration of the batsman. Finally the ball is bowled, it is on a length and seams in a touch to beat the batsman's attempted forward prod. Quite obviously (going by the type of stroke played), the batsmen were clearly looking for a tip and scamper single to tie the game (safety first approach). The batsman is comprehensively beaten (plumb lbw infact) and the dot balls means that the bowler has won the game for his team.
The defending team has won (by 1 run) and the bowler and everyone are ecstatic with the thrilling victory. Don't forget to miss the celebration dance (similar to the Indian cricket team).
Read More ...Posted by Nikhil on Saturday 31st of March 2007 at 11:43:08 AM in Sport | Life in General | Fun
Friday, 30th March 2007
Death of Java
Last week, i attended the ESRI Developer Summit at Palm Springs CA. During the summit, there was a keynote session by Mark Driver, vice president and research director at Gartner Research who spoke about the strengths and weaknesses of the Java and .NET environments. The presentation left me pleased (because I am a .Net Developer) but also got me thinking at the same time. The question is, What do you think of Java as a language and virtual machines as a platform for software execution?Bjarne Stroustrup had this to say about it (in an interview from a long while ago):
Incredibly over-hyped. I'm unhappy about the degree of intellectual dishonesty surrounding its advertising. It is probably a nice platform for running small self-contained systems, but it is being proclaimed as the solution to every problem and for every programmer. It is not. No language and no system is. Even the platform independence issue is not as clear-cut as it seems.As the Java libraries are extended to deal with more application areas, these libraries themselves become a platform. As vendors add new facilities, portability to machines using facilities from competing vendors' portability becomes compromised.
Java is hyped as "Write once, run anywhere" but in my opinion, Java is failing miserably. It's true to the axiom of "write once, debug everywhere". Anytime you have a software stack, you always have support issues. JREs on Windows is one software stack and JREs on Linux, Unix, and MACs are three more software stacks requiring support. I find that Java does cross platform fine for basic web apps and simple file driven programs. But if you are developing for specialized embedded systems used by alien proctologists, then you better not sell your soul to the java environment.
Yes, java will be taught in universities 10 years from now and more importantly in the marketing classes and so you will still have fanboys with MBA degrees (but don't have a clue about programming languages) plug java as the panacea for software development. But a growing trend these days is that .Net and C# (its favorite child compared to the bastardized step child also referred to as VB) are penetrating the hallways of universities. With slicker and extremely impressive development tools for the .Net platform coming out, the days ahead look promising.
Note here, that I am not talking about the language differences between java and other languages since that argument is mute. But the focus is that enterprises who do not wish to sell their soul to Micro$oft (but inadvertently end up selling a large portion of their soul a vendor such as IBM, WebSphere, BEA, etc all on the context of staying vendor neutral and not getting into vendor lock-in) and opt for entire java stacks thinking that it gives them the most flexibility are actually fooling themselves. The problem is that java hasn't been able to reach the platform independence that it claimed (and everyone hoped) it would. The problem is caused by vendor (IBM, BEA etc) interests creeping into the framework libraries which compromise the platform independence goal.
Read More ...Posted by Nikhil on Friday 30th of March 2007 at 06:29:05 PM in TechnoBabble | Work | Nonsense
Sunday, 7th January 2007
Indian Youth and Pop Culture
Highly paid, widely traveled, extremely sensitive, dressed in indecent clothing, claustrophobic work culture, maddening traffic manners and artificial socializing characterize youth of today in a world that is frustratingly filled with Page 3 parties. As the culture bridge between the maverick West and the once traditional East narrows, it is worthwhile measuring if the right balance is being achieved and are the youth being smart in choosing the best of both worlds. A reality check is needed on whether the changes in the youth's conceptions are correct.
Culture is probably one thing that restrains the mind from straying and falling prey to thoughts which seemingly rational and interesting ultimately lead to mayhem. The misconception that getting Westernised is synchronous with improvement has housed itself in the minds of the youth. While in some cultures, it is not absurd to end up in bed with someone you just danced with at a party and believe that you are thinking and acting rationally. Hopefully our culture can stay away from such impressions.
Media is probably the biggest culprit and facilitator in glorifying sensation, thereby diverting the attention of the youth from the ground realities. Bangalore Times is one newspaper media that comes to mind right off the bat. The youth today are falling prey to the worst of values that are unfortunately glamorized by a section of the media ultimately succumbing to a culture whose birth was uncalled for.
From my brief stay in Bangalore, i see that the Pop Culture is well and truly going strong in India. For the time being i only see the youth spiraling into a culture which is similar to the western US with no shortage of bare midriffs and drug abuse. Hopefully i will be proved wrong.
Read More ...Posted by Nikhil on Sunday 07th of January 2007 at 12:50:38 AM in Life in General | Fun | Nonsense
Saturday, 6th January 2007
Building a Digg Culture
Everyone in the blogosphere likes to get noticed. Earlier people considered being slashdotted as the ultimate honour of online recognition. Lately with sites such as digg and reddit and other popular web 2.0 news-sites coming to the fore, the focus of bloggers has shifted a bit.
Whether the attention generated when a blog post is dugg is enough to cause a reader to re-visit the site is debatable. I think it's been pretty much proven that any traffic a site gets from digg is fleeting and doesn't translate into long-term traffic however I think there is much more value for the blogger than the initial burst of traffic.
Sure it generates a lot of traffic for the website but if they have a business model that is solely ad-based then having your website dugg would not generate any money for you. I mean, how many digg users would click an ad even if it was relevant? Some of the obvious benefits of building a Digg Culture on your blog include the fact that you get Fresh RSS subscribers and Newsletter subscribers.
Every time a blog gets dugg a leap is noticed in RSS subscriber count. Similarly newsletter subscribers (if you have one) will generally get a bump when you're dugg. On the contrary sometimes The Digg effect can have killed a site in the first six hours.
If you are able to convert your incoming readers from Digg into regular readers you then have a unique opportunity to get repeat appearances on Digg again.
The actual traffic from digg is a nice (but short lived) thing - but the real benefit of being dugg regularly is the increase in traffic from loyal readers (RSS, bookmarks and newsletters) as well as the benefits of new incoming links.
Read More ...Posted by Nikhil on Saturday 06th of January 2007 at 05:56:13 AM in TechnoBabble | Humour | Fun | Nonsense
Tuesday, 14th November 2006
Movie Reviews
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (often referred to simply as Borat) is a film mockumentary comedy starring the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as his satirical character Borat, travelling around the United States meeting different people. The plot finds Borat dispatched by the Kazak government to the US in a bid to get to grips with the American culture. Along the way Borat gets distracted from the job at hand when he catches sight of Pamela Anderson on TV.
It's a film where, in between drying your eyes, you'll shake your head in disbelief at the sheer insanity of what's going on in front of you - and perhaps feel a bit uncomfortable about how no-one is spared in the name of comedy. If you're easily offended or sensitive, stick with the re-runs of 'Friends'. While the ending is a huge anticlimax, it's easy to forgive because so much of what's gone before is unforgettable.
The other movie i watched (incompletely) was Man of the Year staring a perennial favorite of mine Robin Williams. Although the critics have been harsh on the money, i enjoyed the movie and the jokes. After watching the movie, I was able to entertain myself with thoughts of what might happen if an actual celebrity were elected president. Would Oprah hire Dr. Phil as Secretary of State, and would Mick Jagger make a good Press Secretary? Don't laugh. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The last movie i saw was Vivaah. I was watching a Hindi Movie in the theatre after a long time and this was only my second ever Hindi Movie in the US (Rang De Basanthi being the other). The movie depicts the old-world charm of an arranged marriage and is depicted well by the lead pair (Shahid Kapur and Amrita Rao) who go through the mellow motions of falling in love similar to the adventure of an unexplored journey. But an unholy fire creates a crisis in the last half-hour. That's when (according to me) the movie comes alive.
Posted by Nikhil on Tuesday 14th of November 2006 at 05:33:06 PM in Life in General | Fun | Nonsense
