Open Sourced processor

I was pleasantly surprised to see that SUN has opensourced the architecture of
their UltraSparc T1 processor.
http://opensparc-t1.sunsource.net/ contains a lot of stuff related to the
processor. The docs are very good. Chip architecture is very useful for s/w
programmers, since the h/w plays an important role in the way kernel behaves,
so essentially it helps them understand why things work in a certain way on one
processor and otherwise on another processor.

HP the new IT giant !

As per the latest financial results from HP, it has surpassed IBM
as the world's largest IT company. HP has forcasted that in
2007, its revenue would be $97 billion. Which is more then
that of IBM's. Though that won't be so easy for HP, since
if IBM manages to improve its revenue HP would remain
on the second spot.

IBM's revenue for 3Q 2006 -> $22.6 billion
http://www.ibm.com/investor/3q06/3q06earnings.phtml

HP's revenue for 3Q 2006 -> $24.6 billion
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=932290&highlight=

For Q3 2006, HP was the world's largest PC seller,
surpassing Dell. A feat, which was thought to be
almost impossible to achieve.

Sony going down ?

Sony - a company once respected for its products and their extremely high quality, now seems to have lost the quality tag. The recent recall of Sony laptop battery is a huge embarrassment for the company, add to it the delays in shipping PS3.
Earlier Sony was at the forefront of innovation. Today its rivals are catching up. Today I saw a Sony ad, featuring "James Bond 007 TX Spy Gear "http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_ViewStatic-Start;sid=v5yQ4vF7zfKQ77Qxax2a6b52OiDLXemnNE0=?page=static%2fpromos%2fcr_TX
What I saw amused me very much. The VAIO laptop, featured in this ad crowed about a feature called - "Sony Display Privacy Filter", which had this feature -> " Work on confidential documents in public without worrying about onlookers. This privacy screen makes on-screen data visible only to the persons in front of the PC." I had long considered this as a mark of poor LCD quality :-) Many times, I get pissed off by this so called "feature" that Sony has. Since when I want to show something on my laptop to many people, not all can view it properly, particularly for those looking at inclined angles. Talk of innovation !

Gas Problems

Ah, I never thought that getting a gas(LPG) connection could be such a nightmare. It has been more then 4 months, that I am trying to get a gas connection for my house in Pune, and still waiting, waiting.....

HPCL had such a good reputation(earlier), and now it sucks. I just hope, my building gets piped gas soon.

It is very strange that across India, there is such a shortage of LPG, and shockingly is hardly in the news. The news channels are mostly after spicy, glamorous news items, and the ones, which don't need them to roam around, leaving their comfortable surroundings.

In Pune the waiting period for a new connection is now 4+ months (atleast with HPCL and Indane, and the part which I am staying.) A google search however shows that it is not just my part of Pune, or rather Pune, but many parts
of the country are facing LPG shortage. Metros seem to be better.

Also the LPG shortage, is not a one-off instance, rather, LPG shortages happen several times, particularly in small towns and cities.

To make matters worse, the hike in petrol and diesel prices have made driving vehicles on LPG(not CNG) an attractive option. And though doing such a thing is illegal(I hope I am right here), it is very rampant across India.

It is a shame, that a basic thing like LPG should be so difficult to get, and there are talks going on of India becoming a SuperPower. Maybe their vision of India is where people are using Solar, or some other source of power, which is appreciable :-/

HP back with a bang ?

The second quarter revenue for HP, was very high, a whooping 51 % rise in profits http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060516/earns_hp.html?.v=15 This is the same HP, which was dying a couple of years back. The results have exceeded analysts expectations. Mark Hurd surely seems to be delivering. More importantly, HP might overtake IBM as the biggest IT company. Its 2Q revenues of $22.6 billion have overtaken IBM's 1Q revenues of $20.7 billion. Have a look at HP and IBM's propaganda, and its very clear that the battle between these two giants has become fierce now.

http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/cache/107553-0-0-0-121.html?ERL=true the above speaks about HP-UX 11i, and it is titled "The Real Story about HP-UX 11i", and makes some statements like HP holds the # 1 position in units and revenue for high-end enterprise UNIX on a worldwide basis. Seems interesting. Also keep in mind that IBM is investing heavily in AIX, and AIX is improving, with support for NFSv4 in AIX much before other *nix vendors. Personally, I was very much surprised that HP-UX 11i is still around :-)

However it remains to be seen, if HP can sustain this sort of growth.

Pune's heading towards doom ?

Although, I have been staying in Pune, for more then 3 years now, I still long to go back to Mumbai, my hometown. When I first came to Pune, the first thing I observed was that, it had very less traffic as compared to Mumbai, and that made me very happy.

Pune's pro's are
*. The weather is pleasant in the mornings.
*. Less crowded then Mumbai.
*. Lower real-estate prices, as compared to Mumbai.

However Pune is loosing out on its advantages. Its population is increasing, and along with that, de-forestation is increasing at an alarming rate, which has caused the average temperature to rise considerably. Its infra-structure is poor, compared to Mumbai, and it is worse then Mumbai's far-flung suburbs. Water scarcity is going to hit Pune hard in the near future, already the municipal corporation is having trouble supplying water to the growing suburbs. Upcoming area's like Kondhwa, Wiman Nagar, etc are already facing water scarcity problems, and with no good plans to augment Pune's water supply, the situation is ought to worsen.

Pune's municipal corporation needs to seriously consider these issues. The state govt also needs to look into the health of the city, since Pune is home to many IT companies.

The above holds true in some respects for most of the booming mid-size cities
of India. By mid-size I mean, those, who have a population of a few million, and
witnessed rapid growth in recent times.

Not all people endorse my view though, have a look at the below
http://skyscrapercity.com/archive/index.php/t-158205.html
It shows the positive side of pune. With more focus on the upcoming
buldings , malls and IT campuses.

OutSourcing

With all the hoopla around outsourcing and the current state of Indian IT,
the below link contains a lot of info, on both
http://www.openoutsource.com/resources-index-req-MostPopular-ratenum-5-ratetype-percent.phtml

It is a collection of news items related to Indian IT and BPO.

Technology as an enabler.

If given a choice to most software engineers, most of them would choose to work on OS Internals and related area's. Most of the software engineers are often fascinated by kernel development stuff. However, for the end-user, what matters most is how can technology help him to become more productive, and how much value it can add.

It so happened, that I had visited my cousin, and he wanted me to create a web-site for him. Now, I am not that interested in web related stuff, since to me, the coding is not challenging. However, for my cousin, he doesn't cares about kernel programming and stuff, and what he wanted was a web site, for his business. So there I am, playing around with html and stuff. Just to add, I had done a module on E-Commerce, while in APGDST, and that experience helped me, in building a website for my cousin.

That's the reason, why guys working in Enterprise computing are paid more :-)

Hibernating Humans

While travelling to Pune this week, the bus was mostly empty, unlike, past week, when it was fully packed due to the holiday season ( which peaks in May, and when people travel out of Mumbai to visit their relatives, or go to some hill-station). Since most of the folks, who have gone on vacation, are about to return back to Mumbai, now the traffic is in the reverse direction, i.e. people are travelling back to Mumbai, however this passenger traffic will dwindle too in a month, and I would be able to travel more comfortably.

For the transport companies off-season is a problem, since they have to run empty buses. State Transport corporations, are badly hit by this, since unlike the private transport companies, they cannot easily hire people on contract. This problem, where-in companies need people, when they need to cater to more customers, is universal, and applicable to almost all industries. The current solution is to hire more people, when people are needed. Most companies hire people on contract for short-term, to meet a surge in demand.

There can be another solution to this problem, how about hibernating human-beings. People would hibernate, when not required, and would only rise(awake) from their sleep, when they are needed. These humans, would fill up the gap, when demand rises. Maybe we can create humans, with this specific capability. However this will require advances in medical technology as well as in our society. Are we willing to create such a class of humans ? Considering the greed (i.e. the need to cut cost :-), which has engulfed our generation, I think yes. Since it would also help us improve our life style.

Hibernating humans, has been considered for space travel, wherein, they would go in hibernation, and awake, when they reach their destination. It has also been considered in warfare http://worldthinktank.net/wttbbs/index.php?s=738ede4b5e31e224c3137fda690baf56&showtopic=984&st=0&#entry6442 The above web page has quite a good amount of pointers to human hibernation concept.

Their is a suggestion, that people, who have incurable diseases should go in hibernation, and awake, and check for cure, if cure is not found, go in hibernation again. Imagine what happens if the entire human race keeps doing this stupid thing, and waiting for someone to find a cure for their disease. That doesn't sounds good :-)