Kindle 4

After spending an almost restless night yesterday, reading about Kindle, thinking about its utility and breaking my head over its different flavours (like plain Kindle 4, Kindle Touch, Kindle Touch 3G, Kindle Keyboard, Kindle DX, sponsored and non-sponsored versions etc etc), today morning I finally bit the bullet and bought the plain Kindle 4 sponsored version on eBay for INR 5390/- final delivered price.

The Kindle 4 comes with an inbuilt dictionary which would be a fantastic feature for somebody like me who is too lazy to keep one by the bed, and search as an when required. It's just a point-n-click on a word, that would trigger Kindle to find the word's meaning in a full-blown Oxford English Dictionary resting in its memory.

Also, another reason that prompted me to consider Kindle is the lack of space for keeping books. I have almost ran out of shelves to keep my books on. They are lying all around my room now - on the table, on a cupboard, around TV, on my bed, on the chair ... I am clueless as to where to place them, and it's driving me mad. So better - buy a Kindle, buy new books in digital format, and keep them inside that tiny device. And it's environment friendly too since it reduces demand for paper. And as an added bonus, it's possible to read PDF files on it too. Even better! A Kindle, it seemed, is to books, what an iPod is to music.

A Kindle Touch 3G (non-sponsored) would have been the best bet given it's strikingly awesome addon feature-set (over plain Kindle 4) - like X-Ray (what a concept!), all-time on-demand Wikipedia, free 3G, a touch keyboard, mp3 playback etc. A feature like X-Ray takes book-reading to a different level altogether. But it's pricing in India is ridiculous enough to give it a pass. In case, in future if I happen to like this e-Ink display and get addicted to reading on Kindle, well well, I will find someone to get one Kindle Touch 3G for me from US ;)

Cycling: Pirangut Ghat Climb on a Tall 38-24 Gear

These days my morning rides have been only to 2 locations. It's either Pirangut or the New Katraj Tunnel on the bypass.

When I had started up, after a few days of practice, a Pirangut ride used to take 1hr 24mins total for to and from home. Recently, after few of these rides, the ride timing had come down by 8 minutes to 1hr 16mins.

Then again, after few more rides to the New Katraj Tunnel, yesterday, I fell back to Pirangut, and had taken 4mins off that that time, clocking 1hr 12mins.

Today, I wasn't sure how much more reduction can be possible in this timing, since I was pumping quite extensively to clock times like 1:12. I was expecting around the same time for today, since there can't be much change in a single day. Change happens over time. How wrong I was!

The difference was made while climbing the Pirangut ghat. I always fall back to granny gears - 28-30 - when climbing a ghat section due to stamina and wearing out leg muscles. Today, I kept in a much taller gear - 38-24!! The reason was the truck that I started competing with. It was loaded, but still powerful enough to give a healthy chase if I showed any slack. It did give me couple of scares but I held on.

Trucks, overloaded, while climbing ghats, emit insane amount of black smoke. When they pass you, you are left in a large black cloud of smoke - breathless and disoriented. This always gives one the kick to keep these enemies behind you. Dont fucking go polluting my air.

I pumped up all I could and kept it on the boil. Even though I felt exhuasted, never felt like I will faint at the next corner. The small amount of seated relief between pumpings, was surprisingly enough for my legs to get rid of the created lactic acid and be ready for the next burst.

This way I went on, and couldn't believe it when I finally reached the top cusp without any over-exertion or breathlessness.  I had won agaist the truck, kept my air clean and I had done it in a gear I would have otherwise dismissed as impossible at this point in time.

Due to that speedy climb with tall gear, the end result was I had shoved off a massive 4 minutes off my ride time in a single day! I took only 1hr 8mins for the full ride today.

Now the next goal ofcourse is: Pirangut to-and-fro under 1hr!
Fingers crossed.

Richard Steven's UNP book is Legendary!

Since yesterday, I have been reading Volume-I of Richard Stevens' Unix Network Programming book as part of preparations for an impending exam; and boy, I have very rarely been hooked up to a technical book before, like I have been to this one.

It reads like a novel even though the author doesnt make any attempt to make it particularly enjoyable by using any fancy or playful language at all. It's only the way that things unfold one after the other, keeping up with your thought process and answering exactly the same questions that linger in your mind, that make this book one of the best written technical books ever. No wonder the book is considered the best reference on the topic.

I have been reading it since yesterday, and I am not able to put it down. Never in my life have I enjoyed preparing for an exam, like I am enjoying today. It's one fabulous book to read and learn from.

Here is to the spirit of unix and the dedication/knowledge of the people who made it this much accessible to learn and use.

Why Palio Stile 1.6 Sport

The more you look at cars from higher segments, the more you start realising what a package this Palio Stile 1.6 Sport has been. Hydraulic steering (which even some high end cars are also missing), dead pedal, bucket seats with ample under-thigh support, thoughtful central locking, ample leg-room everywhere, live-wire engine with huge power on tap, high speed stability, gearbox and pedals totally isolated from drive-train vibrations, backwards folding rear-view mirrors, safe, strong build ... it's just an amazing package for the price. 


Ofcourse the interiors are dated, mileage is minimal and there can be niggling issues with maintainance and sourcing spare-parts, but once you drive a car like this you get spoilt. And then not-having-a-car probably becomes preferable to having-some-ordinary-one which has good mileage and low maintainance/issues, but is no match to a 1.6 palio when it comes to the fun-to-drive factor. So despite the petrol price hike, and pricey servicing bills, I still feel for this car.

Internet Explorer, Windows-7, Microsoft, Frustrations

This is why I hate Internet Explorer, and for that matter, almost all of Microsoft products.

2 instances of IE were running on my workstation, temporarily running Windows-7. One instance was running the website with my Ajax code changes, while the 2nd was automatically created as part of the testing (target=_blank). The 2nd instance had its own URL which it was trying to render since morning! I had tried to close it several times since morning, it stayed in busy state forever. I ignored it till evening, and then intending to cleanup unwanted stuff from the taskbar, I opened up Task Manager and tried to kill the process of the 2nd IE window. Even after trying to End Task twice, it wouldn't die. Finally after sometime, I got a message to the effect saying "Internet Explorer is not responding". And then it closed both the IE instances, 2nd one which was a zombie, and 1st one which I was using for testing my Ajax implementation for cross-browser compatibility!

These are the moments when I miss Linux most.  You don't have to think/wait/get-frustrated so much over a small issue, in Linux. Just kill-9 the process and get going if at all something hangs. There are no side-effects or no blanket-kills. You know what you are losing by running the kill-9 command, and you lose just that much, nothing more.

This happened with Internet Explorer  8 running on Windows-7; both of which are supposed to be sufficiently modern; built after MS received loads of flak over the last few years for substandard OSes and standards-defying browsers. Everything they make is still  loaded with kind of bugs which will put you off. And I haven't even mentioned CSS and zoom:1 and opacity and z-index and such myriads of issues that people face on IE after their HTML/JS/CSS runs impeccably well on Firefox/Chrome. I wish there was a world where people only bothered about webapp compatibility with browsers that were standards-compliant and just dumped IE for good.

Rear Window

There is a war brewing on the tree which is right in front of my rear window. Even though I stay on first floor, a tree branch flows just above the ceiling of my window, and hence I can be witness to quite a few interesting goings on in the world of birds.

Since some time ago, I have been witnessing an amazing war between birds with total disparity in their sizes. A pair of Fan Tailed Flycatcher was relentlessly attacking a mighty crow. The attacks were precise and coordinated. They troubled the crow to no end. Twice I saw the crow giving up and flying away. And then when he would return to the tree after sometime, the attacks would begin with new vigor. The crow then brought in a partner too. But these tiny flycatchers, with a fully fanned tail, were so audacious, they didn't care. They kept attacking!

What guts! I don't know what was the reason behind this fight, but the coordinated manner in which these tiny birds, probably a third of the size of a crow, were bullying the crows, was fascinating to watch.

'Bliss'

Well, short of words. That's what happens when you experience some form of art which is beyond excellence.

'Bliss' is a phenomenally extraordinary movie. Not always you come across something that's as touching as this. The subject of the movie is very unconventional. Storyline and script is catchy. Climax - shocking. Performances - stunning; Terence Stamp was unbelievable, and so was the actress who portrayed Maria. Direction - well, amongst the best I have seen till date.

It's a movie with only 3 central characters. And it revolves only around these 3. Quite sure it's a very low budget movie. But the way the sensitive topic is handled, in a mature, gentle and suave manner, without an overt attempt at preaching about right or wrong, is something that puts this movie into one of my favourites of all time.

Movies like this make you think about those big bang deep pocket bollywood flicks and wonder if we will ever have something as artistic and touching as this. 

Missing my Android - the Moto Milestone

The android is in repairs for mere 2-3 days, and everything has already started falling apart without it! You dont know importance of something until you lose it for some time.

My Moto Milestone was suffering from ghost input in its touch screen (due to moisture entry it seems), and I had to give it for under warranty repairs. The Redington India guys have promised to replace the touch screen for the same. I had got a Blackberry 8830 World Edition as a temporary replacement, and as a breakaway from android bugs for sometime. Initially I was all praises for the snappy interface of the blackberry and a more organized way of device management. The in-holster out-of-holster stuff, the user friendly email composition stuff etc etc. But then I started missing the android when BIS services wouldn't sustain on the handset. Majority of the time the services remain down. The internet is not as fast and usable on the blackberry as it was on the android. The freedom on android is more desirable than the
snappiness of blackberry. You have to do a lot of workarounds to get a normal data plan to work with your blackberry. If you want to use native blackberry email or browser, you have to subscribe to BIS ... or get an alternative like Funambol, which is not really a good proposition even though it's opensource. Funambol uses its own email client which is a trouble to use, and is a harakiri in terms of usability. On android, on the other hand, it's mere configuration of your gmail and K9, and your every mail starts pouring in in a push-mail way. And the email clients there can render HTML as well.

So, in short, missing my android like anything. If at all I find the slow UI of milestone (blame the idiots at Motorola) a trouble to use anymore, I think I will bite the bullet and buy a Nexus-S for good. After all those are the purest android devices, and there is no worry of
it getting outdated, since first releases of all android versions are on the Nexus. Only thing that holds me back is the lack of QWERTY keyboard. On-screen keyboard is still not for me.

Why can't there be a device, which has the snappiness of a blackberry 8830, the virtuosity of an android, the purity and upgradeability of nexus, and a hard QWERTY keyboard of a Milestone or a BB 8830 or even HTC Touch Pro of the bygone era?

Internet Explorer and Standards Compliance

Just came across a javascript code snippet inside a try-catch block like this -

try{
.......
.......
}
catch{
.......
.......
}

The best part was a very innocuous looking comment that had deep meaning.

The comment was inside the try block, and it read -
"//standards complient; doesn't work in IE"

And the code in catch block was -
"//IE only"

So many times people fail to understand reasons behind why generally opensource guys are pissed off with Microsoft products. This comment should be more than sufficient for them to understand why.

Ask anybody who works in web designing and development and at some point in time he will crib about how IE disregards standards from HTML to CSS to Javascript.

Quite a lot has been written about Microsoft's embrace-extend-extinguish policy, apart from its disregard for standards. But this single comment captures it all.

Standards complaint; doesn't work in IE. Moral of last 10 years expressed in mere 6 words.

fighting with swords in both hands

implementing a revamp of existing feature. there are multitude of technologies involved. the mockup gui itself had taken me a week to put together. actual changes involve not only gui level changes and corresponding backed enhancements, but it's a full-fledged change requiring revamping of around 10% of the whole software, and bringing multiple screens together via ajax.

previously there used to be different pages for each of the functionality, and the pages were served on per-request basis. the original architecture, as a result was simpler and based onsuch individual-page-load mechanism.

introduction of ajax changes whole picture. now I need to order new page via ajax on-click of a button from one screen (mapped to one table cell) and then the response of the ajax call needs to go to a lower div in another table cell.

it doesn't stop there, the dynamics in those divs and table cells will have impact on other cells and divs!

these complex dynamics are making me sweat. especially because the deadline in at most a month from now, if not earlier. whatever way I think of, to implement this, gives rise to self-doubt, with a fear that it might all fail like a house of cards, because I wasn't aware about some minor thing/glitch in the technologies, due to my inexperience in these techs and domains.

I m feeling like I have taken a bite larger than what I can chew. the feeling is making me nervous.

on the personal front, the month of july has its own annual perils like insurance payments and tax returns submission. to add to the mayhem, my cousines' are getting married in this same month, and post-graduation classes on weekends are starting in july itself!

I hope I wont die while standing true on all these fronts simultaneously.

Nightmare at Sudhagad

My knees are sour. Toes are black and blue, and wont let me even touch them. Feet are snow-white and very rough. Hands and fingers are mercilessly scratched, cut, pierced and torn by thorns, so much so that I can't even drive a car or massage my head. Back has taken aback due to the amount of stress of driving as well as climbing; and carrying the camera bag all the time. In short, I am Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.

From starting the journey, till I completed my half descent, everything was fine, apart from some minor hiccups and frustrations. The plan was running as per schedule. And then couple of exotic birds which I spotted, lured me into the dense jungle. I hadn't carried my binocular, so I chased them for couple of minutes and then suddenly realised that I had lost my way, and that there was no way down from there. It was a dense jungle, and despite trying different things like getting down through a running waterfall, to climbing up again to find a route, to crawling under the thorny and strong twigs, to running astray for locating the way, to shouting out for help, and to abusing the clouds; I couldn't find my way for a full one hour. I was in such a location where
retreat was hardly possible since I had committed myself to the route quite some time ago, sun was setting and black thunder clouds were reducing whatever visibility that was left. More importantly, going by the density of the jungle and proliferation of strong intertwining of the shrubs, it was pretty clear no one ever came there and no one ever will. That was the thought that absolutely jolted me. I had to struggle even to find a place to put my next step, staying there was out of question. Finally through some intense and continuous pep-talk and frantic application of brute-force to force my way through the jungle, I could manage out. But the physical and more importantly mental scars of the nightmare are there to stay with me for sometime now. It was a horrendous experience and I still can't believe my luck that I never
stepped on a single venomous snake during the final half an hour ordeal while brute-forcing my way through the dense nets of shrubs without any chance of knowing what might be underneath or how deep the ground is below that net.

Sometime this week, I am going to write these events and the ghastly feelings down. There is a learning from this whole saga - think twice before venturing into the unknown.

EDIT: And now, a day after the trek, and after I wrote about it, I come to know that what I trekked was actually SARASGAD and not Sudhagad! What a revelation! जाना था सुधागड, पोहोच गये सारसगड, समझ गये ना?

भन्नाट रानवारा

सध्या पुण्यात पडत असलेल्या संततधार पावसामुळं अचानक आज "भन्नाट रानवारा" गाणं आठवलं. इंटरनेटवर शोधलं आणि ऐकल्यानंतर ते खूप भावून गेलं.

"भन्नाट रानवारा, मस्तीत शीळ घाली .... मस्तीत शीळ घाली
रानच्या पाखरांची, रानात भेट झाली

एकाच रानामंदी, वाढलो एका ठाई ....
एकाच रानामंदी, वाढलो एका ठाई ...
पूरान्या वळखीला ज्वानीची नवलाई ...
मनीची खूणगाठ SSSSSS ...
मनीची खूणगाठ, लगीनगाठ झाली ... लगीनगाठ झाली
रानच्या पाखरांची, रानात भेट झाली"

किती सुंदर शब्द आणि तरीही किती साधे. आणि त्यातल्या त्यात ती "पूरान्या वळखीला ज्वानीची नवलाई" ओळ. संदर्भ वयात येण्याशी असला तरीही त्यात कसलीही अश्लीलता नाही, बीभत्सता नाही किंवा भडकपणा नाही. फक्त सहजसुंदर शब्द आणि त्यातून व्यक्त केलेली प्रांजळ भावना.

Life in IT: Dealing with Pigs

As you grow old in a corporate, and start coming across various types of people, you start realising how ungrateful, arrogant and rude people can become for their own personal gain. To the extent of not even valuing common courtesy norms of person to person communication. It's so difficult to work with these kinds of people. However you try to keep the conversation civil and decent, they will keep being rude and arrogant, fishing for your 'response' which will allow them to stoop even low. All the while, comfortably uncognisant of the help they received. Lack of tact. Lack of decency. Lack of courtesy. Absolute lack of gratefulness.

They say you shouldn't fight with pigs, because you get dirty and pigs love it. But then you can't help but wonder, in such situations, if developing a thicker skin is the only way to cope up with these types of idiots.

Such situations also highlight the rarity of the kind of people you hold close to you.

Play Misty For Me

Another Clint Eastwood starrer. Another nice thriller without unnecessary crap. Apart from being fine entertainment, it spooked me big time about the marriage stuff.

The only thing that surprised me about this movie was the background music direction - which was terribly out of place. When a character is assassinating another character, the music is supposed to be of rising pitch and intensity; and intemittent - to jolt the viewer at the time of actual action. Here, they play happy-happy guitar and piano music which actually uplifts the mood rather than making the atmosphere tense.

It felt so out of place even on the subconcious level, that I suddenly came out of the story and action, to hear the music and wonder why on earth they were playing merry-time music during tense thrilling action. It partially dampened the thrill during the climax.

Other than that though, another fine Clint Eastwood movie. I am becoming a fan of this guy.

The Eiger Sanctions

Just watched - The Eiger Sanctions; featuring Clint Eastwood. A mainstream movie, about hardcore mountaineering, that was made without any exaggerations. Fantastic movie. Especially considering it was made in early 70's.

I have been reading Eiger Dreams by John Krakaur recently, and due to the way Krakaur dramatically talks about the north face of the mountain, I absolutely enjoyed the filming of the climb and Eiger mountain footage from the movie. They have shown the technicalities involving an intense climb, really well and without any bullshit. Besides, some of the initial rock climbs were also filmed realistically.

It's a must watch for any fellow interested in climbing and mountaineering.

Linux is cool, baby

Everytime I switch my office desktop from Linux to windows7 for sorting out mails and sometimes for booking conference rooms, I cant's help but notice how painful it all gets.

Right from the agonizing startup time, which is upwards of few minutes, to the audible humming of processor fan. Such a blatant indicator of how cool linux runs in comparison with windows. I never ever hear the noisy processor fan when I am working on linux. Linux is cool even in this regard too! ;)

Yet another blog!? Why??

For sometime now I have been feeling that twitter is a little restricting when it comes to expressing yourself at that nick of a moment. 140 chars are not enough even to express your elation when you caught your boss farting.

So here I start a new blog just for those small tidbits where twitter is too short, and a post on pyarabola too long (and low quality in comparison). It's a filler. To fill in for those moments when I find myself in a dire need to pour out all those elations and frustrations and raves and rants and everything like that, right at that moment. No caressing of the posts, maybe no images, nothing. Just those raw emotions assembled in an email , without any word limit, and sent quickly over GPRS or any other available medium, for direct publication on the blog.

Pyarabolic-musings is gonna be a blog without any moral or qualitative compulsions. *Raw* will be the keyword.