Coder To Developer

Trying to lay my hands on this book. Haven't been particularly successful.
Anyone has any ideas on where I can get this in Bangalore (India). Yeah! Amazon is an option, but I would prefer to walk into a bookstore and buy it.

The Connected Car Initiative

If the videos at The Connected Car Initiative have any semblance to reality, I would be interested....

Damn, too cool :)

Loony Left

Been reading this artcile Imbalanced media and the loony Left on Rediff.com

Here are some excrepts.

Congress after making hazaar hullabaloo about Narendra Modi and promising to prosecute him, promptly made Jagdish Tytler into a minister. A simple google on 'Tytler + Sikh + riots' will reveal ample evidence of Mr Tytler's unflinching leadership in the perpetration of the 1984 riots. We now have the premier protagonist of the anti-Sikh riots being re-knighted, while at the same time rants of 'Modi must be strung up' fill the air.

Just after we had A B Bardhan of the CPI, the proud king-maker based on the 10 or so seats won by his party, pontificating about the removal of criminal elements from politics, Taslimuddin was brought on as a minister. Taslimuddin, of course, has such impressive claims to fame, as alleged dacoity/rape/extortion and the pride of being kicked out of the previous Deve Gowda government. Who came up with this particular nomination? As far as we know, the Left, including the CPI, have supported this nomination -- strange, since it was the veteran CPI leader Indrajit Gupta, who many years ago, refused to take charge of the home ministry, until Taslimuddin was removed from office.

Sometimes, of course, openly lying just works well too. One scribe declares that 'when one looks at the performance of the BJP over their five years in power, one recognises that they achieved nothing.' But CNN, which has a little more of a reputation than this gent, declares, 'Atal Bihari Vajpayee changed the face of the world's largest democracy transforming it into a military and economic power. During his administration, India became a declared nuclear power and emerged as an economic power as well, firmly embracing globalisation and the market.' Now you decide, which one rings true.

The danger of having extremist ideologues so near the seat of power quickly became apparent as the stock market took a 300 point plunge, wiping out $20 billion of market value. Not satisfied with wiping out hard-earned Indian corporate growth and people's life savings, immediately after this, these Left-wing extremists declared that there was a massive conspiracy to manipulate the market. The market panicked on hearing such irresponsible statements from folks who could well be part of the government of the 10th largest economy of the world. The result -- at one point nearly $60 billion of hard-earned national corporate wealth had vanished. Wonder how many lives would have been destroyed, if the market had not reacted positively to Dr Singh's subsequent nomination. Sucheta Dalal puts the magnitude of this loss in perspective -- No global capital market has witnessed a 25 percent collapse in stock prices in just two trading days. Thanks, in no small measure, to our ideological warriors, who now want to roll-back hard-earned power-reforms, thus propelling India back to the dark ages.

But, who'll tell the Leftists about patriotism? They are internationalists, first and last. These extremists suggest dialogue with Pakistan, but never ever mention terrorism against India in any of their missives about Pakistan. Instead, they pout over 'Israel being the only State that sponsors terrorism.' For a country that has lost 100,000 people to organised terrorism from Pakistan over the last two decades -- that definition, which does not include the primary source of terrorism against Indian citizens, is tantamount to sedition. Unfortunately, for our Leftist extremists, it's always internationalism first, as has been clear since the Quit India Movement and the 1962 war with China.

Hmm.... That is some interesting reading. Find the complete article here.

I should be dating a Pisces

Quizilla's What Zodiac Sign Are You Attracted To? quiz tells me that I should be dating a Pisces. Hmm... Anyone interested?


You should be dating a Pisces. (19 February - 20 March)
Your mate is loving and caring, trusting and hospitable, and romantic. Though he/she can be self-pitying, temperamental or dependent, the fishes are quite romantic in bed.

CMP or CPM

Don't know if the Common Minimum Program could have been more leftist.

India may not have been truly shining, but then I think it was getting close to it and doing that pretty fast.

Till 1993, the government was just a huge organization for distributing subsidies for the "poor" that never reached the poor. Then Dr. Singh changed that and the following governments tried (more or less) to reduce the government's role in things that don't concern governance. NDA was doing this particularly well.

And now the irony that under the same Dr. Singh things have taken a U-turn. The leftists have once again been able to get on with policies that they (and they alone) call "good for the poor man". They have successfully stalled economic reforms. And made sure that the taxes are going to go up and that wasteful expenditures and subsidies are going to continue.

Sure enough India is going to progress under this "able government". The only catch is that the progress would be negative.

How to make friends by Telephone

Scanned instructional manual. Probably published sometime in 1940s.

Myth of moral superiority

In his article Myth of moral superiority, Rajeev Srinivasan says

In Iraq, it is clear that Arabs, even though white, are considered sub-human by the average American soldier. Throw in Islam, are Iraqis are considered doubly inferior by the GIs.

Actually some pretty interesting observations...

Extensible Programming for the 21st Century

In his article Dr. Gregory V. Wilson says

Functions, user-defined types, operator overloading, and generics (such as C++ templates) are no longer enough: tomorrow's languages must allow programmers to add entirely new kinds of information to programs, and to control how that information is processed.

Next-generation programming systems will accomplish this by combining three specific technologies:

• compilers, linkers, debuggers, and other tools will be plugin frameworks, rather than monolithic applications;
• programmers will be able to extend the syntax of programming languages; and
• programs will be stored as XML documents, so that programmers can represent and process data and meta-data uniformly.

Wi-fi lifeline for Nepal's farmers

BBC is running a story on how Yak farmers in the mountains of Nepal are using wireless internet technology to keep in touch with their families.

Hmmm.... Wish I could be using wireless internet technology to keep in ouch with my office and home work from anywhere. Would be pretty cool... Ah! how I wish...

Attempt to curb the Freedom of Expression

Mumbai police gag hinduunity.org

The site has been blocked on the basis of a request from the Mumbai police commissioner's office in a letter sent out to ISPs on April 28.
Sources at the Mumbai police commissioner's office said the directive was issued because the web site published inflammatory material against Islam. Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Dr Satyapal Singh, a decorated officer of the Indian Police Service, authorised the note.

Now I haven't been to this site till now and definitely don't know what it preaches. But even if I do not agree with what the site says, does that mean I can ask for a ban on it? Just because you don't agree with something is definitely not reason enough to ban it.

What does Freedom of Expression mean if you are not free to express yourself. Having it as a nice article in the constitution is totally useless unless you are actually permitted to express yourself and the police forces cannot curb it just because they got a complaint from someone who happens not to like what you say. This is totally crazy.

Freedom of Expression (and tolerating others opinion that you may not agree with) is perhaps the most important aspect of democracy, and by this standard atleast India has a long way to o before it can call itself a true democracy.

U.S. military arrests war's 'bargaining chips'

U.S. military arrests war's 'bargaining chips'

In a little-noticed development amid Iraq's prison abuse scandal, the U.S. military is holding dozens of Iraqis as bargaining chips to put pressure on their wanted relatives to surrender, according to human rights groups. These detainees are not accused of any crimes, and experts say their detention violates the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. The practice also risks associating the United States with the tactics of countries that it has long criticized for arbitrary arrests.

So much so for the "Liberating Forces".

Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years

Gum Returns to Singapore After 12 Years
Wow! These guys had a ban of Chewing Gum for about a dozen years.. Hmm.
I used to think of SIngapore as a pretty decent place. Now I know its more of a crazy totally government controlled state where citizens have almost no rights (well, so it seems to me)

Now this is what I call a Camera

Photographer Makes High-Resolution Camera

The result was R1, a 110-pound, 6-foot film camera that produces what experts say are some of the highest-resolution landscape photographs ever made.

Details of the mountain's snowcapped peak — 7 miles from the camera — are in sharp focus, as are individual blades of grass only 30 meters away. When sections of the image are magnified nearly four times, other details are clearly visible: the shingles on a barn 1,200 meters from the camera, a red bird in the grass 45 meters away.

Each imae when scanned results in file about 2.6 GB in size. Wow!!!!!!

Spam messages on the increase

BBC reports that Junk mail now accounts for nearly 70% of e-mails worldwide, according to filtering firm MessageLabs.

Hmmm..... Wonder how can one escape this menance.

ASP.NET: ASM to IL compiler

80386 Assembler scripting Language. It's really the x86 (Intel 80386 actually) instruction set that gets compiled into IL.
I don't know why I would like to use x86 instructions, but then it sure is fun to do such things :)

Find it at http://home.worldonline.dk/viksoe/asmil.htm.

A .NET Developer's Guide to Windows Security

Keith Brown has his book A .NET Developer's Guide to Windows Security. I have been enjoying reading it. Definetely a great book :-)

Adam Nelson on Offshoring

Adam Nelson in his article on offshoring at CodeProject says

First, outsourcing work to offshore workers who are cheaper and equally capable as domestic workers makes good financial sense, and is not inherently immoral.

Second, corporations owe no duty of loyalty or employment to their employees, and can (indeed, should) seek the most efficient and effective way to perform a given task, regardless of physical location.

Third, offshore outsourcing of programming jobs is potentially perilous domestic companies' bottom lines, and must be considered in terms of total qualitative and quantitative cost, not simply the US$ 20,000/year the Indian programmer makes.

Fourth, an industrious domestic programmer concerned about competition from offshore coders must resist the temptation to sulk and blame others, and should instead endeavor to differentiate himself such that offshore coders cannot compete with him.

If you look at it, outsourcing is actually good for the economies of both the countries that are involved. But then explaining the long term economic benefits is not easy when your audiences is facing a more immediate threat of losing jobs.

Dr. Singh could make India Shine Brighter

I am not what could be called a Congress supporter. In fact I am not very much in favor of that party coming to power. However, the one good thing is the choice of Prime Minister.

Dr. Manmohan Singh is the person who is destined to become India's next prime minister. And I believe he would make a great prime minister.

He is the same person who started the process of economic liberalization. And this economic liberalization was the single most important factor in India Shining. When he made the decision to take India on the path of economic reforms away from the license quote raj, no one could have imagined that this would have such profound consequences. Anyway, the economy progressed and lives improved.

I feel confident that the architect of India's economic reforms would be able to further the reforms and make make India Shine even brighter :-)

Here is wishing Dr. Singh the very best......

A Cool Design

The goal of a good object-oriented design is to be a "cool" design---that is, one that requires the engagement of the reader in order to make sense.
Too many designers and methodologies seem to push the notion of over-specifying a design. Provide too many details and the design becomes "hot". Think really hot. Think melt down.
The more explicit the design is, the less freedom you (or anyone else) have to implement it. The code becomes a brittle slave to the design; inflexible, and software rot can start to set in.

Thus spake The Pragmatic Programmers on this page.

A lot of people who are entrusted with the responsibility of designing an application seem to fill in tons and tons of details. Thus leaving your average coder Joe with absolutely nothing to do, but slavishly translate the design into code with no need to think. Reminds me of Assembly Line Manufacturing. Is our software industry (that is supposed to be mentally challenging) headed in the same way. I would hope not, but the more and more explicit designs make me fear otherwise.

1 GB Mail (Google and more....)

Google led the race by announcing its Gmail service. This was followed by announcements from Yahoo that its mail service offering 100 MB free space and "virtually unlimited" space to paid users. Lycos is also in the race, offering 1 GB for paid users (no free service) and Spymac offering a GB of free space. Spymac is the only service that offers a gig NOW. You can sign up here.

Sonia Gandhi refuses to become PM

Sonia Gandhi refuses to become PM

Well, let's say this: I am VERY glad :)

Isn't it odd that...

Isn't it odd that...
From the files of things that make you go hmmmm

Brad Abrams says

System.Exception (the base class for all exceptions) is indeed an exception: throw new Exception ()

But

System.Enum (the base class for all enums) is not an enum: typeof (Enum).IsEnum == false

System.ValueType (the base class for all ValueTypes) is not a ValueType: typeof (ValueType).IsValueType == false

System.Attribute (the base class for all custom attributes) is not a custom attribute [Attribute] -> compile error.

There is, of course, good reason for all of this, but still a bit odd when you try to explain to someone the first time.

Bloodbath on Dalal Street. Investors Lose Billions

Bloodbath on Dalal Street. Investors Lose Billions

Protests, panic, rage outside BSE building

Hundreds of livid traders and small investors, for the first time in the exchange's 130-year-old history, protested vociferously outside the BSE building against the Congress-led alliance.
There was a sense of doom, gloom and despondency amongst the market players. They had lost billions as the Indian stock market went into a free fall.

Some indiacation on how "investor friendly" this new left supported government is oin to be. The stock markets tumbled almost 20% and ended the day at a loss of about 15%. Wouldn't be surprised if it goes further down by another 20 percentage.

Gmail is good even if you don't have an account

Gmail is good even if you don't have an account

In what could only be termed the Gmail effect, Yahoo boosts free e-mail storage to 100MB. Read the whole story here.

PS:I don't mind getting a Gmail account. So if you know how to get one, drop me a line :-)

A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator.

A program generator creates programs that are more "buggy" than the program generator. *
After having played (and not done any serious work) with something called BrightSword and seen others (who actually had to do some serious work) struggle with the bugs it generates, I can surely vouch for that.

* The quote was from Murphy's Computer Law + others at CodeProject

Chad Wants your details

You are important to me! You spend your money and time on VS, and you expect VS to help you make more money and time. ......
So tell me who you are and what you do with VS. Send me a picture. I'll print your picture, write your name on it, and write down a word or two about what you do with my product. I'll put your picture up in our hallway and help everyone on my team remember you're out there, depending on us to build a great VS!

Chad Royal (Lead Program Manager, Visual Studio - Core Team) wants to know you better.
So send him the details he has asked for :-)
Read his post

Why am I disturbed if Mrs Gandhi is about to take charge?

Why am I disturbed if Mrs Gandhi is about to take charge?

Frankly, I cannot explain why. It's an emotional thing, a sensation I can't quite put my finger onto -- like an itch I cannot scratch, like religious faith.

It is a feeling where you suspend judgment, and reflect in manner against which reason might probably rebel in saner moments. Logic cannot explain it.

Says Shishir Bhate in his column Why am I disturbed about Sonia as PM?.

I could not have agreed more with him. He kind of reflects my oen opinion. Read the full article here

The elections are over.....

The elections are over. The biggest democracy in the world has voted. The results are in. India has decided to outsource the prime-minister job to Italy.

In what could only be termed an extremely unfortunate turn of events, Inida could not find one amongst the billion plus Inidans to lead the country and had to import a prime minister.

Funny thing how parties and their ideologies change. The grand old party of India - the India National Congress which led the 1942 Quit India movement with the battlecry "Foreigners Quit India" has now decided to have an Italian as the prime minister.

Of the two major aliies in the new government (the Congress and the Leftists) expectin any nationalistic sense out of the leftists would be a waste. Afterall in the 1962 Indo China war the leftists had openly supported the communist China and not India. But surely one would have expected more out of the Congress. Maybe they should consider renaming "Indian National Congress". Maybe India can be exchanged to Italian. Or maybe the National part can be dropped, afterall the actions dont speak of much nationalism.