The People's car aka Nano

So finally Tata group launched its ultra secret small car, which
they have named Nano.
http://www.tata.com/0_media/features/interviews/20080110_one_lakh_car.htm

This is really an amazing achievement. To dream something, and to
make it true, is very tough. But even tough is to dream, something
impossible, and then to achieve it. This is precisely what
Mr. Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata group has achieved. Defying
all the nay-sayers, he delivered a car, which, well, almost
every-one except the Tata's had doubts about.

There are a number of things, which add greatness to this
gentleman.
- Indian automobile industry is well, not so much famous. This
achievement of Tata, has certainly put the Tata's in the top
league.
- Achieving efficiency in India's manufacturing industry is an
arduous task.
- While the car was in the making, inflation, was also rising, but
still, the cost of the car is same as, what was promised.

Mr. Ratan Tata has surely made every Indian proud, by this
launch. He is one genuine role model for Indians. It has proven
to the world, that India _can_ deliver.

I have never felt so proud to be an Indian.

Kudos to Mr. Ratan Tata, he has became a legend now.

Benazir Bhutto an evil lady

With all the emotional farce surrounding Pakistan's ex-PM Benazir, one
level headed French journalist Francois Gautier, had this nice article
on her, which portrays what Benazir actually did
http://in.rediff.com/news/2007/dec/31gautier.htm

She was an evil lady, who indulge very much in India bashing,
and spreading the poison of terrorism.

She got the death which she deserved, in fact, she was lucky to
die a quick death, unlike the millions of Indians, who are living a
hellish life, thanks due to her policy of supporting terrorism.

It is hard to understand, why all the idiots are mourning her death ?
Or are they mourning, that she died so easily, and deserved a
more painful death ?

Shawshank Redemption

After a friend recommended I watched this movie. Well I had this movie with me, for more then 2 years, and had almost forgotten about it, until my friend told me about it. It is very worth watching. It has this nice build-up and sudden punch. After the first 30 minutes, the film, seems to drag a bit, but not much.

This movie made my weekend :-)
If you haven't watched the movie, don't read the wiki description, it gives away the plot !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption

using Bit Fields

There was a question, as to write a program in C, which
when supplied 0, would print 1, and on being supplied 1
would 0. You are not to use, bit wise operators, i conditions, ternary operators. Below is my attempt at it.

#include
#include

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct packed_struct {
unsigned int f:1;
} pack;


pack.f = atoi(argv[1]);
pack.f++;

fprintf(stderr, " %d \n", pack.f);

return 0;
}

This works for me ;-)

The Empire Strikes Back !

I was talking with a friend of mine, who is a
die hard softie(MS zealot), and I casually
mentioned that MS is going to go down, and cannot
survive the Linux onslaught. On hearing this, he
he disagreed, and said that MS is going strong,
and coming up with new things. He said for e.g.
see www.surface.com, he gave a brief, like they
have came up with a board, and if you keep your
camera on that board, all the pics from that
camera are transferred to the board, and on the
flick of a finger, you can transfer all those
pics from the board to your mobile camera.
I had a look at the site, and it was _amazing_.
I recommend you to have a look at it, it is
a breakthrough thing, and you will have a hard
time describing it. A truly breakthrough
innovation. I think after PC's and the mobile
revolution, this is one major innovation.
This is real sci-fi stuff.

Coding in Pre-Internet days

Nowadays, it has become a common practise among programmers,
to search google for any problem they face. Recently one of
my colleague asked me, hey how did people used to work, when
there was no google (read WWW and search engines). Since I
was busy with something I didn't thought much about it.
Later, while pondering over the discussion, I remembered, in
the pre internet days, programmers used to rely much on
manuals, even now, many of the veteran programmers who
started coding prior to launch of www, do rely on man pages
a lot.

Also it came to my mind, that earlier when a naive(basic/
stupid) query was asked, the answer used to be RTFM (Read
the F* manual), which has now changed to STFW(Search the F*
web) Times have changed, and so have the acronyms :-)



Luckily or unluckily when I started learning C, and Unix,
around 97, our lab didn't had access to internet, and hence
I had to rely on man pages, and that was fun. So it feels
good to be part of both worlds (rtfm and stfw :-)

Switching to FireFox

So alas, I shifted to using FireFox from using Internet Explorer(IE). The reason
for the shifts are manifold. Well I started using Linux desktop, and well
firefox was the default browser in the distro I was using, and it wasn't
so bad I thought :-) So I got used to using firefox, and contrary to what
some so called "experts" claim, you don't have to be a geek to use firefox.

On my windows machine, I upgraded to IE7, and I saw that IE7 had support
for multiple tabs. Wow I thought, now that would make IE better. But
discovered later, that organizing favourites in IE is a nightmare now. I
have a pretty big list of favourites, and when I want to add a link to a
deeply nested directory, IE7 makes that a nightmare. Another good
feature that IE cannot handle well is increasing font size by pressing
"Ctrl +" keys. IE increases the horizontal screen size, when you try to
do so, due to which you get a horizontal scroll bar, which is quite
annoying sometimes. FireFox doesn't increase the size horizontally
and handles that pretty well.

Another feature is while browsing sites which present security
certificates. Firefox allows you to accept certificates permanently, so
that you aren't asked again for accepting certificates everytime
you browse the same site again. IE instead makes it harder, even
if you accept a certificate, and it doesn't understands the
certificate, or rather the certificate is not from some trusted authority,
it would keep on telling you that the site is untrusted and do you
really want to access that page. Also the button for saying "yes" is
red in color, and is pretty non-obvious. Adding to IE's pain points.

I like apps which consume less memory, and if you use the Multi
tab feature in IE, IE starts to hog a lot of memory, which makes
the system slow.
And if you browse through a zillion sites in half an hour, right-click
stops working in IE and sometimes even in Windows, and bizzare
things starts to happen, unless you restart IE.

With all these annoying features in IE7, I thought I better switch to
Firefox, and stop this "feature discovering" exercise on IE :-)

Also Firefox comes with a lot of cool extensions, to make browsing a
lot of fun. So goodbye IE and welcome to FireFox !

Software Documentation

While working on any software project, while talking with people the first question that most people ask is where is the documentation, or manual. Most of the people expect good documents of the software to be there, so that they can spoon feed. However while working on UNIX, which follows the philosphy of "code is the documentation", such a question really sounds stupid sometimes. Particularly in this age of google. When my team members asks me this question, it peeves me sometimes. There is a good reason for that. Most people hate to document their work, but at the same time expect documents to be ready for them. They fail to realize that they are part of the problem. However common sense is not so common :-)

The need for documentation => But good documentation is a vital component of software engineering. I make it a habit to document much of the stuff I do, that helps me, when I want to look at those topics again, and even while preparing my status reports. I heard this is a part of personal software engineering :-)

Today's Scenario => Apart from the manual's, in todays world, the online forums/mailing lists are a big boon, and they act as good pieces of documentations. Many queries, which a book simply cannot take care of are easily answered on a mailing list. In fact most of the time, the queries are already asked and answered by some expert on some forum or mailing list.

Enthusiasm the key to achieve success

Maintaining one's enthusiasm is one of the most
difficult thing for a human being. There is a famous
quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

So true. Enthusiasm is one of the most important
quality that one needs to achieve success in life.
However it is not only enthusiasm, I would like to
prepend it with the word "unlimited". Having
unlimited enthusiasm is important. Many times,
we don't start a venture simply because we don't
have enough enthusiasm. So ensure that you
have enough(well unlimited) enthusiasm in you
so that you can achieve your goal.

Is google cheating ?

Recently saw that he serach results provided by google,
have "sponsored links" at the top. These links are
being marked in a different color. But the color usually
used is very faint, and it is not so obvious at first time,
whether the link is an ad or not.

Earlier google used to put the ads in a column, on the
right side of the page, they still do, but it seems to
generate more ad revenue, google, is now putting
them at the top of the search results. Today they
are putting 2 results, some day later, they will
increase it. Think of it, by default 10 results are
displayed. 2 ads for 10 is about 15%. And you thought
google was ethical ?

Do we need SEZ's ?

There is a lot of debate going on in
India about SEZ(Special Economic Zone)
SEZ's are being projected as an elixir,
which will give a huge impetus to the
Indian economy.
Big industrialists are pumping in huge
amounts of money in lobbying to create a
favourable atmosphere for SEZ's.

What is an SEZ -> As the name suggests, it
is a piece of land, running into thousands
of acres. This area would have special
labour laws. The industries operating
inside these SEZ's would get huge tax
benefits. There would be housing complexes,
malls, restaurants, movie theatres, etc in
SEZ's. One salient feature of SEZ's is
that govt would be acquiring land, mostly
from farmers for SEZ's at supposedly
throw-away prices and simply evict the
farmers. More on this later.
In short SEZ's would be like leeches on the
economy. They would enjoy benefits from
India, without much obligation to pay
back. SEZ's are promising huge employment
opportunities, for getting these benefits.

Do we need SEZ's ?
To take care of industrial development,
each state in India has got a state
Industrial Development corporation, which
creates industrial areas, and take cares of
the infrastructure needs of industries.
Also to take care of export oriented
industries, most of the states have EPZ aka
Export processing zones. Industries under
these zones, are given import duty benefits
under the condition, that all their
products would be exported.

SEZ's are supposed to enjoy the benefits of
EPZ's but not the responsibility, i.e. the
export obligation won't be there. This
would give the industries in SEZ's an
unfair advantage over companies, which are
operating outside SEZ's. This question is
still largely vaguely answered.

Opposition to SEZ's
Opposition to SEZ's is from several quarters
- farmers
Farmers are asking, why should they be
displaced ? A fair question. If someone
comes at your doorstep and tells you to
leave your house, and get relocated what
would be your re-action ? The situation
gets more complex, when you consider that
the livelihood of these farmers is their
very own land. Their skills are in
farming, and they have a lot of attachment
to their land. Govt and the SEZ lobby
wants the farmer to learn new skills, and
be part of the industries under SEZ. This
is like telling a software professional
to start working on a farmland. So
outlandish, and absurd ofcourse.

- Economists
Some economist, are questioning, whether
SEZ's will really help India. A report of
a recent SEZ has shown that the company
proposing that SEZ had earmarked 45% of
the land for housing and related things
like malls, etc. And 55% for industrial
activity. So the real motive is to create
hosuing enclaves under the facade of
industrial development ?

- Credibility
There is a huge question on the
credibility of private players. In the
past private sector has been largely
socially irresponsible. So it remains
to be see, if the private sector, can
really achieve the stated goals of SEZ's,
rather then becoming real estate
companies.

- Area of Land
The size of land that these SEZ's are
demanding are raising serious doubts,
about their real motives. Thousands of
acres of land is being ear marked, without
a real need for it. In fact the actual
need is only a fraction of the land
that is being demanded.


There have been violent opposition to SEZ's
from farmers, and they have a very good
reason for it. The govt is behaving like a
dictator, and caring less for the
farmers. The recent spate of demonstrations
by farmers in the state of West Bengal and
Maharashtra, have put the state governments
temporarily on a backfoot, and they have
softened a bit. Lets see what happens next.

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 :-)