Stringing Words

Steve Yegge got it half right!

2011-10-14T19:38:00.003+02:00

I refer to the following incident in the article:

First up, my condolences to Steve Yegge - he genuinely seems to have crossed a line that he did not intend to. At least he sounds genuine when he says so. I do not think freedom of expression should be limited. As long as the author points out that it is his/her opinion and not a fact - things should be taken as such.

I think Yegge makes a pretty valid point in terms of platform vs. product argument. He argues that platforms are the way to go to meet all kinds of requirements that you cannot predict. I think he gets this part right. However I do have to sound a word of caution here - based on my experience, you cannot go on to create a platform from day one. Because if you do so, you will almost always over engineer it. First up, you will think and re-think all kinds of what-if scenarios and try to come up with a highly extensible platform that will in all probability be sub-optimal because it will try to be all things to all people. Never a good idea.

I think it is always better to start with a product, understand and acknowledge what sticks! And then you can go about creating a platform around it. Not the other way around.

Needless to say, this is my personal opinion (pun intended!)

IT and Business - two different worlds

2011-03-19T03:40:00.003+01:00

Returning to blogging after a long break – Lot has happened over the break. I have moved more towards problems relating to Business and its relationship with Information Technology in general rather than pure hardcore technical IT problems. This obviously does not mean that I have stopped enjoying hard technical problems; It is just that one matures over a period of time and priorities change as a professional. My professional life has taken me towards managing the relationship between Business and IT and I must say it has been a very enriching experience.

It has been clear to me right from the outset that both Business and IT look at each other as necessary evils. Both are not very comfortable working with each other due to various reasons that vary from situation to situation and team to team. However, they both need each other to accomplish a goal or remain competitive in most cases.

Business for one does not like disruptive change. It hates any change that especially requires lot of retraining of users or customers. This obviously makes sense if you think purely from their point of view. Business also tends to view the IT world in a very black and white terms – I pay x amount of dollars and expect certain product coming out at the end working well. It is pretty much a manufacturing mindset that does not apply very well to the IT world. After all, a 2003 study in Canada shows around 62% of IT projects are determined to be failures in terms of budget or schedule or both. This is very high considering that no other manufacturing process can hope to churn out profits with such dismal rate of success.

IT on the other hand seems to not mind disruptive change. Developers often like to implement cool Web 2.0 graphics even when they are evolving a mundane business app that 2 or 3 people will ever access. This is natural for the technical people, because what would you rather share with your peers – the fact that you worked on a cool app with bells and whistles or a dull looking business app that your peer anyway do not understand in terms of business value. Also what examples would you cite in your next prospective job interview to get the next role? Clearly the motivation for a software developer is much different than for the business world.

I intend to keep listing various gaps that I encounter between the Business and the IT world. This by no means, is the only gap between the two worlds. More to follow in later posts.

Completing a Year in Toronto

2009-04-29T04:15:00.002+02:00

I complete one year of my stay in Toronto today. Its been a very interesting time so far. Full of good things and not so very good things as in dealing with anything new. I had promised myself that I will write my impressions on Toronto the day I complete my first year. Here I am, I am a man of my word!

I will organize my experiences in three categories

The Good
Toronto is highly multicultural and does a very good job of making everybody feel at home. We have a Little Italy, Greektown, China town, India bazaar, etc! I love the fact that all of the nations have their own niches in one little place.

Toronto also offers very nice urban walks, good transportation system and downtown living. During the harsh winters, it offers the PATH - a underground walkway/mall that is 27 kms long, covers almost the entire downtown and makes the winter far more bearable.

Toronto also has a very good service culture. You generally do not walk off a place with dis-satisfied and if you do, you generally get a refund or something free in return. This generally does not happen in my experience in Central Europe.

The Bad
People in Toronto can be very cold and unemotional. Someone bumps into you in downtown Toronto, there is a very very high chance, he/she is not going to apologize. You would expect some courtesy, but that does not seem to bother anyone.

Toronto winters are not for the faint-hearted. You get loads of snow and wind chills can be deadly for a week or two during winter. Thanks to whoever conceived the PATH, barring that, this place would have been tough to live in.

The Ugly
Driving in Toronto has to be among the worst experiences in North America. Cars honk a lot which I find very irritating. You get out of Toronto and it gets better. There is something about a busy city in the sense that people just don't care what gets them from point a to point b. Good thing about Toronto, you actually don't need a car unless you are living in a suburb.

Conclusion
Every city has its pros and cons. I find Toronto offers a good balance in terms of its negatives and positives. People can do more with acting civil but on the other hand the service culture is good. It comes across as an oxymoron of the sorts. It offers good outdoor living during spring/summer and good infrastructure to get through the winters. I would rate Toronto as one of the better cities I have lived in so far and that list includes places like New Delhi, Hyderabad, Tokyo, Kagoshima and Prague.

Fantastic Idea! - Ad on public transit

2009-02-05T03:42:00.002+01:00

This is why I like west more than east part of the world. You can express yourself freely. Australia rejected this ad, Britain ran it, Spain ran it, Italy rejected it and Canada is going to run it.

Obama on Tire inflation

2008-08-07T03:41:00.001+02:00

This clip made me chuckle. I love American Politics since it is so connected to ground roots and spoken in layman terms.

Watching Rafael Nadal in Toronto

2008-07-28T05:09:00.002+02:00

Had the pleasure of watching Rafael Nadal in the semi finals of Rogers Cup 2008 live in Toronto. The match was played on July 26th. Watching Nadal play Andy Murray of Scotland who I think was very impressive too was a treat. What Nadal brings to the game of tennis is not possible to express in words! He has a fantastic persona with amazing humility. He is about the best athlete I have ever seen hold the racket. Watching him play is like watching a gladiator battle a lion. He just keeps on fighting, fighting, fighting. Sometimes you even wonder whether it is because he has not learnt to give up! But he would not be half as idiolizable should he ever know his limits. One thing I find fascinating is that he is really a right hander who plays with the left. Does everything else except tennis with his right. This kind of dexterity is more common among the left handers since we live in a right handed world.

2008-06-15T03:51:00.002+02:00

View Larger Map

This seems to be my house in Hyderabad! I think after months and months of searching this is how close one can get when pointing to locations in India. My house does stand out from the rest for some reason!

Toronto vs Prague

2008-05-12T03:27:00.002+02:00

I have been wanting to compare my living experience in Toronto vs Prague. I fought the urge to jump into this early on because I wanted to spend at least 2 weeks before I could give Prague a fair chance. Its unfair if I had blogged on the first day or first week because I think you generally look at only the good sides during that period. Now that I am feeling my way around Toronto much better - this blog post shares my comparative analysis.

Prague
I must say this - Prague has to be about the most scenic beautiful city I have lived in so far. Its almost fairytale in terms of its sights. I felt this aspect even more just before leaving the city. However there are few aspects that can spoil the experience, here it goes:

a) Service - Prague offers about the worst service culture I have experienced so far in my travels. You should consider yourself lucky if you get what you want, because generally people would consider everything they do for you (no matter how much money you paid) a favor.

b) Us and them culture - I never really could understand why at the heart of Europe you will be made to feel alien at every opportunity. They always look at foreigners as just that - "them"! No matter how well behaved you are, no matter how much Czech you can speak, you do not belong there period!

c) Economics - This aspect baffles me! It always will and I will never get over this. If the average salary of a city (Prague) goes to pay around 60% of the average rental accommodation then how much money do you have left to eat? I did not have too much of trouble keeping my head above water but I managed just about that and nothing more! There is something eerily wrong in the Czech economy and people who work for someone else seem to accept it with amazing ease. The only way you can make money and live a decent life now in Prague seems to be going the entrepreneurial route. Nothing wrong with going entrepreneurial mind you but it cannot be the only way to have a decent life! Let me give you a real life example. As an entry level IT professional you would make somewhere around 2500 USD. Your monthly rent in a decent accommodation would be 930 USD. You do the math now. You have to pay the EU prices for food, EU prices for monthly rent but you will be paid the central European salary.

Toronto
Toronto is a very typical North American city. Now what that means is that it is very concrete-y and has a cosmopolitan feel to it. Apart from this, it differs in one way from many other North American cities - it has a decent public transportation network! I could go from downtown center of the city to the airport (around 40 kms) in 40 mins with 2 CAD. I think that is quite a deal there.

a) Service: My personal move to Toronto was pretty straightforward - no questions asked at customs, no questions asked at Immigration. No hassles whatsoever with getting into the city. People are amazingly friendly. No hard-nosed snobbish treatment so far. If you did not hear me say "Jalepeno" while you were making my sandwich, its your fault and you will fix it with an apology and follow it up with a smile! I love this aspect - I was missing this level of service in Prague especially having lived in Tokyo! So the service level definitely beats Prague hands down.

b) Us and them culture - Integration into the Toronto life seems easy. People are completely okay with you being wherever you are from and that is because around 55% of the people in Toronto were born outside Canada. So the "Us and Them" culture is completely absent here.

c) Economics - Food is cheap. Real cheap compared to EU. Your monthly rent of an average IT guy would be around 20%- 30% of your monthly salary compared to 60% in Prague. Electronics is cheaper than EU. Organic healthy food is an option you can actively pursue here unlike Prague where it is beginning really slowly now.

Now this by no way means that Toronto is better than in Prague in all respects. It is better than in Prague in respects I personally care for. Everybody is different and they have different things they look for in a city. For me, Toronto is better than in Prague but is it better than Tokyo? - only time will tell.

I do intend to follow similar line of thought comparing Prague and Toronto in 3 months and then in Six months (during bitter cold winter) to show you if/when and how my perspectives evolve on this subject.

Enjoy.

Peace,
Raj

Exploiting the artistic license

2008-02-26T21:54:00.003+01:00

It has always amazed me how some people can take advantage of environments and present anything in light of being artistic. I took these photos at the Palladium shopping mall in Prague, Czech Republic. This is in my mind a classic example of how far people can stoop in order to make money.

Now keep in mind that Czechs are always known to be bit lenient on such things but this for me is a new low.

Look at these photos and judge for yourself.

It happens only in India

2007-12-03T04:17:00.001+01:00

Came across a hilarious blog post at:

It Happens only in India!

Enjoy!

What do you want to do in life?

2007-11-19T05:37:00.001+01:00

I am always asking myself the same old question:

What excites me the most in terms of work?

And I continue to struggle to answer this one. I am guided more by my little experience than any wisdom at this moment in life. Hopefully someday or someway it would become obvious to me as to what I really want to do in life. What shall be my contribution to this world? Questions galore! Ponder on Raj!

Ramachandran and Neuroscience

2007-11-03T06:07:00.000+01:00

I have always been a big fan of Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran being so interested in brain myself. His TED talk is just as fascinating as his book - Phantoms in the brain.

Global Citizen eh?!

2007-11-01T04:09:00.000+01:00

Time and again I meet people in my life who tend to display a complete lack of vision on why immigration is not such a bad thing and how it could even be beneficial sometimes. If economics was the basis on which people based rational actions, I am sure people would never think about immigration as something you can do without. Nevertheless it begs to question, as to why I would choose to be an immigrant in Europe rather than living at my home country with things like this not affecting me on a daily basis at least! Not too sure, I am convinced about pros of living in a foreign country when there is no war going on in your native country. I bought into the concept of "its a flat world and I am a global citizen" kind of rhetoric without realizing that world is yet to move in that direction. It wants to be seen like that in distant future but not now.

The truth is I am yet to see any real advantage of living in a country like Czech Republic over my home country (India) and constantly question my idea of living here. This is one of the things that I would soon decide on in the coming year I hope.

Mediocrity!

2007-09-20T12:23:00.000+02:00

Had a funny thought in the morning today! Realized that no matter how good you are at what you do, the environment always tries to cast your performance into mediocrity! For example, I work for a company with very bright people but at the end of the day, when I view my performance I find it mediocre! When I try to average my entire team's performance, its mediocre too!

But this does not mean that mediocre performance implies people themselves are mediocre. Take for example, the event in the video below. Yuvraj Singh was known to be a fantastic cricketer but he has been having a mediocre run until something happened on the field. He decided to revert back to his best state - being brilliant at what he used to do at the domestic level in India.

Yuvraj on a song

Wine Place!

2007-08-05T22:41:00.001+02:00

Found an absolutely beautiful place called Havlickovy Sady (a park 5 mins from my house). Not only is the park a very good relaxing spot it also has a vinarna (Wine place). The Wine Restaurant is on top of a vineyard! Absolutely gorgeous Cheese and Wine!

Check out the pics!

India's economic growth

2007-07-07T20:06:00.000+02:00

India apparently is on its way to become the third largest economy soon beating Japan in near future! Poverty and the basic infrastructure remain handicaps - Does this mean that the fundamentals for future socio-economic growth are dicey?!!! Brood on!

Microbrewery Beer!

2007-06-26T22:17:00.000+02:00

Beer! Here is to you!

We went to celebrate Chris Lacey's wedding announcement to a Microbrewery called Pivovarsky Dum at Stepanska Street in Prague! They serve 8 beers for cost of 7 and put this miraculous thing onto your table! Here you go! Serve yourself and spare us the trouble! Smart indeed! Quite an experience I must say! Highly recommended.

Good Software for Geeks!

2007-06-26T22:11:00.000+02:00

Introduction

We have all read the "XYZ for Dummies" books! The geeks generally look up or down on the titles thinking that they are for the common man and not for them! The title is meant to attract the geeks and business leaders alike to start taking software much more seriously in terms of the user than ever before!

Having written various applications in the past 8 years of working life and 5 years of academic life before that, this question still beckons me! I have not been able to understand, why is that the proportion of good usable software so low compared to bad unusable software. Please note, the terms "good" and "bad" here are used merely in terms of usability. I believe usability is the single most determining factor for someone to put up with your masterpiece! I shall explore why making good usable software is so tough and rare and how we could possibly address the issue!

The Good, the bad and the ugly!

The Good

As much as people would like to criticize Google for getting into all industries and generally making everything ad driven, Google remains a flashing example of good usable software. Their website scores well both commercially and common sense wise. It’s hard to find extraneous content on most of the Google websites that do not relate to what the user is doing and yet they make money!

The bad

Look at most of the job sites, except few like Simply Hired or Monster and few others most of the others offer the most appalling user experience. Yet, we all use these websites since we are generally desperate looking for jobs by the time we get on them.

The Ugly

Gosh! now this can get so demeaning! I remember working on web applications that were downright buggy, would not even let me apply for a job or complete my purchase after getting my credit card number! You are left stranded with no clue whether the purchase went through or not! These websites are generally good looking but hardly usable in terms of getting anything done.

Why is Good so rare!

The problem with software industry as far as my experience goes is this - people who develop software generally have no idea on how it is going to be used. They do not know anything about their target user, his average intelligence, and his perception of the software. Hence geeks write software knowing the audience they know the best: Geeks! It’s a different matter if you are developing a Software development environment like Visual Studio, in which case, you are developing software for the geeks but otherwise, you are not! Even in the case of Visual Studio, it is very much arguable how Visual Basic developers differ from the developers of the Visual Studio itself!

How do we fix it

I am sure the readers of this article would have theorized ways to address the issue by now (provided, they did not skip directly to this section!). In my opinion, the most important aspect of software development is the product itself! Product Analyst or Product Managers need to be able to define the vision and the user experience in quantifiable measurable terms! Whilst this is easier said than done but it remains one of the most oft missed/ignored aspects of software development. Just like Coffee Serving companies like Starbucks do surveys on whether their new flavor of coffee will work or not on various age segments, software may very well need to be looked in similar fashion. Gone are the days when bad software affected only few due to limited usage, web applications are hit by millions of people world wide and this needs to be taken seriously now! Also it is very important in the software industry that these product analyst or managers are not geeks themselves, they need to be closer to the user than the geek developer in order to achieve the desired result!

Shilpa Shetty and India's Image

2007-04-27T06:49:00.000+02:00

Gosh! this is so ridiculous! I can hardly believe it!

The BBC report reads this:

"Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protestors in Mumbai (Bombay) set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident."

Its tough to believe that Indians would keep demeaning themselves like this! Considering that Bollywood movies are full of lip to lip kisses nowadays what on earth was wrong with that?!!

Indians! You got to be the most illogical bunch of nuts on the planet!

Peace,
Raj - sad to be an Indian today!

India's passion for Cricket

2007-03-30T07:00:00.000+02:00

I have often wondered as to why the nation of 1.2 billion is so cricket crazy. Its not as if they had invented the game, the credit for that goes to the English folks! In my opinion, it all started in 1983 when India won the first cricket world cup. Suddenly the poor nation in Asia had outplayed the giants of world cricket at that time, the west indies at Lords cricket ground in England! Indians thought that they had finally arrived on the world scene to be reckoned as the new giants of world cricket. It was glory that Indians sought being tired of called a third world poor country and they caught a glimpse of this glory through cricket.

Cut to 2007, a new edition of Cricket World Cup is underway and Indians have crashed out of the first leg of the tournament. Indian advertisers are losing money like crazy since not many Indians want to watch the world cup anymore. All the Indian cricketers who are worshiped as gods there are now hiding their faces and running around trying not to get killed.

I look at all this and what do I have to say: "Oh Joy!"

Peace,
Raj

The Last Word (Beta): Google's OneBox • Aditya Mukherjee

2007-02-21T10:50:00.000+01:00

A bit of info about Google!

The Last Word (Beta): Google's OneBox • Aditya Mukherjee

Not to mention, I liked the design of the above blog also!

Michael Shermer

2007-02-05T07:15:00.000+01:00

I really liked this one! Its amazing to witness the power of data manipulation! You do feel a bit manipulated by the media now and then but presentations like this makes you wonder if you have access to any good information at all!

Jeff Han on TED Talks

2007-02-04T11:31:00.001+01:00

This is pretty good though a bit old now since iPhone features this too now. One thing I keep wondering is how much effect are these sort of interfaces going to have on human eyes. I think the speed at which you can interact with such interfaces could land people in motion sickness!

Interesting Statistic!

2007-01-26T07:43:00.000+01:00

Apparently, and this shocked me:

Taken together, the export of all the world's poor and middle-income countries (including comparative giants such as China, India, Brazil and Mexico, big oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia, and large-scale manufacturers such as South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia) represent only 5% of the global output. This is an amount roughly equivalent to the GDP of Britain.

Now if this does not convince me to move to UK, then I wonder what will!!!

Sums up my life!

2006-12-23T10:26:00.000+01:00

Stranded on the streets
Got nowhere to go
Don't know what to do and
I don't know what to know
Groping in the dark
I am searching for the light
I don't know what is wrong and
I don't know what is right
Nowhere to belong
Missing my hometown
Someone pull me up
Think I am going down
Think I picked the blues
I am feeling down and low
I need someone to know
why I am feeling so

Why can't I be
the way I meant to be
Why can't they see
Everything the way i see
what could be so wrong
in the way I have been so long
Tell me my friend
Tell me where do i belong
Its a long and lonely night
I need someone to hold me tight
Give me a brand new start
Before I fall apart
Chase away my blues
and mend this broken heart

Mr moon would you tell me now
how you feeling alone above
If you're looking for some company
Just look down and smile on me

Mr moon tell me would you care
Hear my story that I got to share
Tell me why life is so unfair
You know better cause you're sitting up there

Violin - My passion!

2006-12-09T14:17:00.000+01:00

Just came across NPR's audiocast on Stradivarius violin!

http://www.npr.org/dmg/audioplayer.php?prgCode=ME&showDate=24-Jun-2004&segNum=16

The sound of the Stradivarius violin is definitely the best I have heard so far.

Can't help imagining how it would play when a master like the Czech violinist Pavel Sporcl would use it!

And went on to explore it further on the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/11/28/science/20061129_VIOLIN_GRAPHIC.html

Its an amazing article on the art and science of violin making!

Life : Change in motion

2006-11-25T04:23:00.000+01:00

It has never ceased to amaze me how life keeps changing! The way relationships change one's current perspective in life is absolutely mind blowing! The fact that every time I make a new friend or meet old ones, I tend to experience a slight change in the way I look at my life makes life a complicated phenomenon to understand. I have always been a big believer of "I am what Iam and that is what Iam" sort of philosophy but lately I have realized that living life that way is almost impossible (I wanted to say implausible! too). And then there are issues with the perception of how people view you! The number of variables to consider in ones existence relative to others cannot be comprehended at all. It is best to just not think of life as a bundle of connection sometimes but then that does not change the way life works!

It probably needs a whole lot of experience to understand how it works but then by the time you realize how it works, you are too old to do anything about it really.

So here's to life as it exists today and to continue the struggle to understand how else it could change!!

Peace,
Raj

India as a sex starved nation

2006-09-23T14:57:00.000+02:00

Let me first put things in perspective. I am an Indian, grew up and lived there for 22 years and started travelling all over the world. I have now been living in Europe for the past 3 years.

Now for the real content.....

I was recently in India and was amazed by the fact that Sex is still a taboo in India. Nevertheless, you look at any movie produced there and the female assets are always shown pronounced right from the movie posters to song sequences in the movie. They would even shoot the song in rain, just so that the viewers get that drenched in dress view of the herione! If this is not hypocrisy then what is?!

Look at the facts - India is the second largest populated nation on the planet (I generally joke reproduction is our national sport!) and is the owner of Kamasutra - the guide for making love. Indian society cannot tolerate the usage of the word "Sex" anywhere in any form of public media because it thinks that talking about Sex in general is immoral.

Look at the number of rapes in India. Its mind boggling. The Indian youth is sexually frustrated due to lack of openness on the topic of sex and to add to their woes, the movie industry constantly pours oil over the burning fire.

Is this the India we really thought is morally rich? Is this the India we imagined to be full of good values? Isn't it time that the Indian society opens up to the notion of being open about sex? If the above argument does not convince Indians to open up then I do not know what will!

Here's to hoping that the Indians will wake up and do something about this someday!

Cheers!