Check this out..

Scitable. Looks interesting.

What it must've been like..

Recently I finished reading Where Wizards stay up late. It's the history of the very thing that made possible the very thing that you are doing at this very moment. The interwebz ;). It's a light read, filled with interesting bits of trivia. Tracks the period from the birth of ARPAnet (which acted as a foundation for the Internet) in 1969, to its demise in 1989. Those 20 years surely changed the world. But what makes this book special is you can feel it in your bones; the engineering challenges, and hardwork, genius and sometimes old plain luck overcoming them. Like the turning ON of the the first IMP; the first network activity, a login from the computer at SRI to one that at UCLA, which failed because SRI had autocompletion of commands, but UCLA could not handle more than one character at a time; and many many more. I mean, if you are a developer, these kinda things happen to you all the time. You also get to meet many of the unsung Herores of the Net. Like J.C.R.Licklider; I had heard his name, but did not actually know much about him. A glimpse at the scope of his vision was a rare privilege. Here are a few more,

Paul Baran and Donald Davies: Both came up with the idea of Packet Switching at around the same time, Baran in US and Davies in UK. Davies coined the term 'Packet Switching'.

Ray Tomlinson: The guy who put the '@' sign in the email address.

Tom Marill: Coined the term Protocol in context of communication. Earlier it was used almost exclusively by Diplomats.

There is also a certain inspirational value to the book, I mean, these smart people building something wonderful, and the world actually letting them do it. I think everyone will benifit from reading this book.

Enjoy !!

Funny things happen to me

Remember my last post? It began its life as a post about a nice evening, but I (and of course you) can see that I spent a lot of time (and space) whining about my lost keys. I remembered opening the apartment door on Friday and that was the last time I saw them. Initially I assumed, hogi yahi kahi... But that was not the case. I looked inside/below almost all objects in my room. Did not even spare the kitchen (OK, even looked inside the fridge). But no luck. After spending a sizable chunk of the weekend doing this, I finally came to the conclusion that I've lost'em. That included the apartment key + bike key + suitcase (which had the spare bike key) key. Had to break the suitcase lock and go and make a duplicate apartment key. I was a little worried too, coz I had lost them in/near my room. One possibility was I forgot them in the latch, so somebody might get hold of them and rob us. OK, the robbers would have to be really desperate, but one could not deny the possibility.

OK, jump to the present. After a heavy day of work (which included CS+UT+DK), I return home. My roomie throws a key at me and asks to take a look. I am awestruck. Those are my keys. I am about to start crying in pleasure but logic intervenes. "Where did you find them, mate?" Answer: Inside my other roomie's drawer. Now I cannot imagine how the keys got there. a) I put them there b)Somebody else did. Not sure which is the right option. But that hardly matters. Good thing is, I found what I was looking for. Not that it happens all the time.

Enjoy!!

A nice little walk

Place: MIT Tekadi. Originally we had planned to go to Talzai near Parvati, but it can get very crowded in the evening, so dropped that plan in favor of this. We were to meet at 5 near Durga. 4:30: Amit's call wakes me, I dress up and start looking for my keys, but in vain. I call people and tell I'll be a little late, don't wait for me for snacks. Luckily some philotic (if you've read O S Card) connection had already told them that I was going to be late, so they had already started with the snacks. I love those philotic connections :p. Back at home, search, search, search. In vain, again. Usual place, unusual places, crazy places, no keys. I remember people are still waiting for me, I call Amit and ask him to pick me up. Thanks Amit.

MIT Tekadi is quite close to my place. I'd been there once before. IIRC it was a Sunday, the job life had recently begun, and that particular morning me and a roomie found ourselves awake at 7:15 AM. Natuarally, nobody else was awake. So we went and sat on the Tekadi. That was good. The Tekadi is just as beautiful in the evening. We were five people in all this time. Our first stop was this tall tower that I had completely missed the last time. Not in the best of conditions, but the view from the top is Awesome. There is also this huge quarry nearby. Beautiful, but even more so in rains when it's full of water (or so people tell me). We sat by it's side and discussed Heroes and stuff. The place is wide open and you can't resist checking if you get echo. So I shouted "Hello" (could not resist shouting "World" after that ;-). That was fun. And yes, you really get echo. Also worth mentioning is the view of the highway at dusk. Wonderful. It was almost dark by then, so we decided to return. Recharged.

MOTD (Message Of The Day)

साधं सोपं जगायचं,हसावंसं वाटलं तर हसायचं,रडावंसं वाटलं तर रडायचं||.......
(Thanks to Shrinivas)

Aaj

Browsing ............................ ho gaya..
Chatting ............................. ho gaya..
Neend ................................ ho gayi..
SMS ................................... ho gaye..

Aur abhi sirf 2:30 baje hai.. Din lamba hai.. :p

[Ab to Blogging bhi ho gaya :p]

A random thought

Karnaugh Chess. So you will be able to hit pieces by going around the edges. I hope at least then I will be able to play chess :p.

My New Hobby

Stealing Caller Tunes. I was never a big fan of them, but recently I discovered that you can copy them with just a single keypress (the '*' key). Works even between Vodafone and Airtel. So you call someone, you hear their caller tune, press '*' and now it's your caller tune. Pressing '*' after calling someone who hasn't set a caller tune does not reset your caller tune though. I think it should.

The meaning of it all

Finished reading The meaning of it all today. It's a collection of three John Danz lectures Richard Feynman gave in 1963. They are not technical, the official topic is the effect of ideas from science on other branches of knowledge. In the first lecture Feynman clarifies what science is. He defines science to be a way of finding things out, a way based on the principle that observation is the sole judge of the merit of an idea. He discusses the importance of imagination in science, how ideas develop and more importantly, the uncertainty inherent in all scientific knowledge. You can never be 100% sure, but that also doesn't mean you are perpetually trapped in the middle of possibilities. You can be pretty sure of things, it's just not 100%. Which is a good thing, as Feynman points out, because we are uncertain means we'll keep trying new things, and I think this is an important statement, to keep trying new things out is the way to do everything.

The second lecture discusses the relationship between science and religion. Feynman points out the difficulties faced by an young man brought up in both scientific and religious disciplines, and the conflict he might see between the two. He also describes how the wonders of the universe are greater and more challenging and ultimately more satisfying than the greatest human imagination has to offer. A point made by many other scientists too, and I guess you start seeing the truth behind it after only a bit of exploration.

The third lecture is titled 'This unscientific age'. Here Feynman confesses that he ran out of organized ideas in the first two lectures and hence will present some of his uncoordinated thoughts. That gives him opportunity to jump from topic to topic, everything from radio ads insulting the intelligence of listeners (he takes on Pepsi here, What is thinking young anyway? he asks..) to some ways to improve how ideas are judged (talk about what is probable, not what is possible. UFOs are possible, yes, but what's the probability?) and some gotchas that media and sometimes even scientists make (like using the data that suggested a conclusion to support that conclusion instead of doing independent experiments and seeing what happens) and some more. Naturally, Feynman's enthusiasm makes this the longest lecture of the series.

Probably the most impressive thing about Feynman's writing is his honesty. Here's this guy adorned with words like 'The smartest man in the world' and 'The coolest scientist who ever lived' and he'll tell you straight away that you don't have to believe him because he's won some awards (Feynman shared the 1965 Physics Nobel). He'll frankly tell you that he does not know the answer and can live with that. This kinda honesty is something hard to find. But honesty is not the only thing that makes Feynman remarkable, it's also his amazing clarity of thought, his wit and enthusiasm, and his ability to successfully convey ideas, important ideas to be sure, and that without boring you.

I'll urge you to read it (won't even take that long, it's a small book (122 pages)).

Mumbai Visit

Amit's Engagement..

Usual delays, blame games (Thanks to Lalit was the operative phrase :) and still reaching before time..

Fast & Furious 4 @ Vashi Cinemax and sleeping through the entire first half (seats were that comfortable)..

Random shopping (I won't have to beg for a USB drive now)..

Plus the usual dose of jokes, songs, discussions and arguements..

Let me rephrase.. A fun filled Mumbai Visit..

Life @ Wall Street

The name of Wall Street inspires a certain amount of awe. People making (and losing) millions overnight. But apart from that I knew almost nothing. So thanks to Abhishek for sharing Liar's Poker with me. It's an honest, witty, funny glimpse at the life on Wall Street circa 1980s. The author describes his journey from a lowly trainee to a geek salesman(yep, Finance guys have their geeks too, but it does not appear to be a badge of honor as in programming circles) to the proverbial BSD (can't share the full form, this being a family blog ;-). And you get a rare glimpse at why trading is so addictive for some. Being a book about Wall Street, Finance-speak appears here and there, a language which I can confidently claim to barely understand. I understood enough to follow the book, but it you have read some books about Finance-speak which are interesting and informative (in that order), please leave a comment (or Email, or tweet, or sms, or something, there are (too) many ways to express yourself online these days. You can also come and plain-old-talk to me, if you are old fashioned ;-).

Take a look

Image of Earth from Chandrayaan-I. (Taken on March 25th)
[From Planetary Society Blog]

This is old news, but still..

We're here to put a dent in the Universe, they proclaimed. And I am happy that at least one guy took them seriously, the rikshawallah. But the part of the universe that he chose to put a dent in happened to be my bike, a fact which I cannot say I am particularly happy about. And let me spare you the drama that followed. After all that I go to the mechanic, and ask him to reduce the number of dents in the universe by one. But he misunderstands, and returns me my bike with the same dent in the same place, only polished (and shiny). Apparently the dent-ist (Dent-ist: a guy who reduces the total number of dents in the universe) is on leave. I wonder if he's fixing dents in some alternate parallel universe. I mean, they too might have rikshawallahs. Now I am fully committed, determined and whatnot to get rid of this one (so there is more space available for dents-to-come), it seems that it's not gonna happen for atleast two more days. So yes, if you want to take a look (and I remember a few souls out there giving me enthuasistic ideas about how we can photoshop me+dent+riksha to create a realistic image), come stop on by..

You should read this book.

To err is human. To cover it up is Weasel.

So begins Scott Adams' Dilbert and the way of the Weasel. Now we all love Dilbert, but this was the first time I read a book by Mr.Adams. And I simply couldn't stop chuckling while I was at it. The central theme is the Weasel Zone, which Scott defines to be the gray area between good moral behavior and outright criminality and where most of life happens. He shares his invaluable wisdom about how to survive and succeed there. Let me share some bits..

Data Collection: The most useless kind of data is the accurate one. The whole point of Data Collection is to persuade people to do things they aren't already doing.
or
The first step of Marketing is to collect data about what people want. The next step is to throw all that data away and make whatever your company can make; it's called Product Development.

I don't see how we can survive without that kinda knowledge (Weasel Knowledge: crossing a bunch of ignorance with Powerpoint charts). Later part of the book discusses social weasels, financial weasels and some more. Strangely enough, Software does not make it to his list of weaseliest professions; how could you miss it Scott?

On a more serious note, we've all met weasels, and to be completely honest, have been weasels ourselves sometimes. So yes, there is something to be learned from the book. If you are so inclined, you can learn how to identify and counteract weasels. [On the other hand, which means if you are like me, you'll add new tools to your weasel toolbag ;-)]. One more note: I think the more workex you have, the more you'll enjoy this book, because you might have already met some weasels from the book in person in your years. As for me, I plan to read it again a few years later, just to see what has changed. And you should read it too.