Reason I want to do somethings

Dying Living to make some mistakes this year

I know it’s a mistake, but there are certain things in life where you know it’s a mistake but you don’t really know it’s a mistake because the only way to really know it’s a mistake is to make the mistake and look back and say, “yep, that was a mistake.” So really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake because then you’d go your whole life not really knowing if something is a a mistake or not. – Lily (HIMYM)

TIL(D): 27 Nov 2011

1. Waffle House Index from the article at nytimes
2. “Keep moving forward, because you’ll gain new tools that you can use to go back and perfect the fundamentals.” Its important to have the a very sound footing in basics. Kath Sierra.   (via a story on hn)                                                                     Bert Bates (my co-author) is a blackbelt level go player, one of the best amateur players in the state. But when a visiting expert–four belt levels above Bert–showed up at the local go tournament, Bert was surprised to see the guy reading a book on fundamental go problems that Bert had read much earlier in his learning. The expert said, “I must have read this at least a hundred times. My goal each time is to see how much more quickly I can solve all the problems in the book than I did the last time.”
3. IntoDNS – check DNS Server health for your server . Example : GeetShabda DNS
4. Watched Randall Munroe’s talk about XKCD @ AtGoogleTalks
5. He mentioned about ProjectEuler and hence signed up. – Still not clear about what constraint are followed for the problems on the site. – TBD
6. LOL’ed at the Richard Stallman Katana incident.
7. Learned that the asmarterplanet comics were being done by Randall Munroe (XKCD).
8. Read through Alex Rabbit MQ Slides. Browsed the web for article’s comparing IBM’s approach (WMB) vs RabbitMQ – Decided to undertake a extensive study for this with help of team (Sid, Saum).
9. Noticed a sudden activity on the GTUG list asking for articles – TBD pages
10. Tasted Madera – SulaWines – Not comparable to international brands – can give a pass.
11. Started reading ‘Chanakya’s Chant by Ashwin Sanghi’ – shared by Prateek P
12. Learned about these products
1. producteev - After reading the The Morpheus Post about selection process
2. theapplicants -for processing the applications. (via 11(1))   – Gives me meat to think about the interview process shortlisting idea for large conglomerates.
3. Lytro - (via a comment on submitted entry about Peter Norvig’s Dance Photography – upvoted the comment by avc ) Certainly a great leap. But not impressed overall – (price point being a main issue).
13. Watched BBT Episode 9 Season 5.
14. Words I Learnt
1. orinthophobia: fear of birds
2. psychedellic: denoting drugs that produce hallucinations and apparent expansion of consciousness.
3. clairvoyant: who claims to have supernatural ability to perceive events in future /beyond sensory contact.
15. Quotes from Chakya’s Chant
1. Any Clod would have facts – having opinion was an art. (So very well applies to the gyan I gave Sid, Saum)
2. Elephants are needed  to catch elephants so does one need wealth to capture more wealth
3. Impossible to know when a fish swimming in water drinks some of it
4. Politics is war without bloodshed and war is simply politics with bloodshed.

API Virtualization

Usage of an API has undergone a significant change in the last decade – from the practice of using libraries to that of web-services. This  has affected the life-cycle of software development in some significant ways and especially with respect to versioning, dependency and managing release of an application.

Most of the software architecture problems can be resolved with 1 level of indirection. Can this API change management be done via adding a layer? #api-virtualization.

(I have thought hard about this problem recently. I have no idea on how it is implemented in real world scenarios. These are just my thoughts on how that could be done.)

1. A middleware based approach seems most plausible.
2. Service versioning could be another approach. (Maintaining several versions of the same service for a specified period)  -  which seems to be the best approach if you are planning for enterprise applications.

1402

“Its finally here”, she felt, looking at the calendar.

It was that time of the year, when young and old alike have a tingling feeling in their hearts.

He hadn’t thought through – how he would do it. His work had been partially done for him though – a group of friends had decided to visit a nearby scenic place, in an effort to coax them into expressing their feelings for each other.

She was prepared to answer, and even ask the question if necessary. She just knew it was going to happen.

Waves of the lake were splashing across the rocks on the shore and setting the tone for that beautiful sunset.

He was bit unsure of what he was gonna say, but he was sure enough of what was going to happen.

All of them were having fun – clicking photographs, eating roasted corn and sipping masala tea under that lovely twilight.

She was looking into the sunset – just enjoying the moment – something she would reminisce later, during her lifetime.

Then he said it to her, just like that.

She smiled.

Until that time, she had spent hours preparing an appropriate answer. But in the beauty of the moment she could just smile. : )

Mischievous

(-posting an old draft.)

He was a kid, a mischievous type, but almost everyone considered him to be a silent, sincere, golden boy. There was no reason for him to be perceived the other way. Everyone used to just adore him. Almost everyone, I guess.. except the neighbours. Boy, did they know how good he was!

He had a ‘knack‘  for a systematic destruction of things – and specifically the neighbours’ scooter. That was always the target for his swordsmen, pike men, arrow men and even scouts from the mud-fort built during Diwali. How could the army survive without a war being waged? What would they do otherwise and how would the king, Shivaji, be happy?

The monsoon had begun a couple of weeks earlier and the weather was cool and pleasant. He had just returned from his maternal uncle’s (mama’s) place. It was the last day of the summer holidays. This simply was the opportune moment.

Only the kid knew what all ways he had tricked the neighbour.  It was last day before school. He just had to make his presence felt, before the school began.

He played around with the scooter. Systematically disassembled some parts, forgot about it, went to the maidan and played cricket in the evening – just like any other day.

When he came back home, to his disbelief he saw an argument between his parents and the neighbours. The neighbours held him guilty for the regular goof ups in their scooter.

He lied. He completely rejected that he had anything to do with it. He was just too afraid to tell the truth. His parents supported him, for what ‘he’ said.

The argument did end bitterly.

He felt he had won. In his heart of hearts, he had learned a lesson.

The thought of his parents supporting and trusting him – had taught him a lesson he remembered for life.

He knew they would support him and believe in him unconditionally. . This lie gave him the courage to tell the truth – always everafter.