Hoka Hey!!

My incessant listening to the podcasts keep throwing up some gems on and off. I am left with at least something to show for all the time invested.

But these two poems are something completely different, deeper.
Typing them here. Just so that I can enjoy these again.
First, Here is the original source:

The podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=48&v=okDzJ22CtCY

The wild woman: http://www.rebellesociety.com/2014/12/14/a-wild-woman-is-not-a-girlfriend-she-is-a-relationship-with-nature/

The wild man: https://www.aubreymarcus.com/blogs/aubrey-marcus/a-wild-man-is-not-a-boyfriend-he-is-a-force

And here are the words:


A wild woman
Is not a girlfriend

She is a relationship
with nature

But can you love me
In the deep?
In the dark?
In the thick of it?

Can you love me
when I am bigger than you?
When my presence
blazes like the sun does
When it hurts
to look
directly at me?

can you love me
then too?

Can you love me
Under the starry sky
Shaved and smooth
My skin like liquid moonlight

Can you love me
when I am howling and fury
standing on my haunches
my lower lip
stained with the blood
of my last kill?

when I call down
the lightening
when the sidewalks
are singed
by the soles of my feet

can you still
love me then

What happens
when I freeze the land
and cause the dirt to freeze
over all the pomegranate seeds
we've planted

will you trust
the spring to return?

will you still believe me
when I tell you
I become a raging river
and spill myself
upon your dreams
and call them you the surface
of your life?

Can you trust me
even though
 you can not
tame me

Can you
love me
even though
 I am all
that you fear
and admire

Will you fear
my shifting shape?

Does it frighten you
when my eyes flash
like your camera does

Do you fear
they will capture
Your soul?

Are you afraid
to step in to me?

The meat eating plants
and flowers
armed with
poisonous darts
are not in my jungle
to stop you
from coming
Not you!

So do not worry
they belong to me
and I have
invited you here

Stay to the path
revealed in the moonlight
and arrive safely
To the hut
of Baba Yaga

The wild old wise one
she will not
lead you astray
If you are
pure of the heart

You can not be
with the wild one
if you fear
the rumbling
of the ground
the roar
of the cascading river
the startling clap
of thunder in the sky

If you want
to be safe
go back
to your tiny room
the tiny sky
is not for you

If you want
to be torn apart
come in
Be broken open
and devoured
Be set ablaze
in my fire

I will not
leave you
as you have come
well dressed
in finely threaded sweaters
that keep out the cold

I will leave you
naked and biting
Leave you clawing
 at the sheets
 Leave you surrounded
 by owls and hawks
and flowers
that only bloom
when no one is watching.

So
come to me
and be healed
in the unbearable
lightness and darkness
 of all that you are

There is nothing in you
 that can scare me
 Nothing in you
I will not use
to make you great

A wild woman
is not a girlfriend
She is a relationship
with nature
She is the source
of all your primal desires
and she is the
wild whipping wind
that uproots
 the poisonous corn stalks
on your neatly tilled farm

She will plant pear trees
in the wake of your disaster

She will see to it
that you shall rise again

She is the lover
who restores you
to your own wild nature.




A wild man
is not a boyfriend
he is a force.

Can you love me
in the blinding heat
of a birthing star
when I shower warmth
on distant moons?

Can you love me
in the hole
of the cosmic black
where no one
can reach me?
Not even you?

Can you love me
then too?

Can you love me
when I drag
buffalo skulls
through the dirt for days,
to the rhythm
 of an ancient drum?

Will you love me
if my beard hides
the scars in my heart
from battles I cannot explain?

WIll you love me
when I lack courage
when I am defeated
when I won't let you
 patch my wounds?

WIll you trust me
when I smell of
sweetgrass and sage
and when I stink of
whiskey and sweat?

When I drink
from the cup
and play in astral light
will you anchor me
to home?

What happens when
my words don't work
and I can speak
with only my eyes?

Can you
love me enough
 to let me go,
without asking me
 where I'll be?

I am no poodle
to lay groomed
on a leash
at your feet

I am the wolf
that fetches
the bones of truth.

A wild man
is not a boyfriend
 He's not built
for animal husbandry

He is a force.
He is a cause
for an effect
He is a mission.

Are you afraid
to let me inside you?
Not just my flesh,
but my soul

The wild man
is neither burglar or vandal

I will not take
anything from you

I will not trample on
sprouting seeds
 or pick flowers as a trophy

I am the sun
on flooded fields
 and the fire
for tangled webs

Don't be scared

lover
mother
maiden
crone

 Take me as I am.

Even if I have
the power
to destroy worlds
I will not
destroy you.

A wild man
is a protector
A father
A warrior for all that is good.

When the chaos seek
to obliterate you
sheering your flesh
from bone,

I will hold
all the pieces
together in love

until you are ready
to reassemble.

When your seas boil
and your winds
throw cars at corn fields

I will wait
patiently
for you
to catch my eye
so that both of us
can laugh.

When Hell opens up
the fiery gates
and sends
all the cosmos
against you

I plant
my heels
deep in the ground
I lay
my shield low
My sword
is sharp then
my love

The steel
sings sweetly
With a smile
Hoka Hey!

My last breath
a farewell kiss

Today is a good day
to die.

For ours
is the oldest
love affair

The greatest story
ever told

Cupid and Psyche
Shiva and Shakti
You and I.

Same same
but different
Would we have it
any other way?

Break a leg!

(Advance warning: upper body nudity of a middle aged male variety ;) )

This is a story of how we had best of both the worlds and hit back harder when the universe took its revenge!

This is a story of how we went from this:

to this:

and hit back with this:

Here is the full story.

Last summer my family left me alone for a month and visited India. I being the full blooded Indian male that I am, did the thing every one in the same situation does. I missed them terribly and while doing this, I had a whale of time.

 Rounds of lake Washington on my bike, learning Kayaking and then taking the kayak to places where it has not gone before :), especially almost full day pedaling through Lake Samamish, Samamish river and lake washington, watching Blue Angles from the water.

And the debauchery continued even when the gang came back.


It had to stop some where and it stopped one day when I was trying to do my first hundred mile ride on my bike.
I broke my leg and tibia plateau. We really had a pretty bad time. Adding to this the complications in anesthesia which made me spend a night in ICU. This was easily the worst night of my life with kids + Pallavi balancing on rickety chairs whole night praying for me to recover. We were stranded in a strange country with no family nearby. Our kind friends were the only support structure. But we were definitely staring in an abyss.

At this moment, we started fighting and crawling back one step at a time. Pallavi and kids showed incredibly courage, we recovered together.

But we also had a lot of fun.  We of course maintained regular schedule of outings, enjoyed as and when we could what ever was happening around us

But we needed to hit back with something more.

And here is the coup-de-grace. While recovering we also decided and reduced my weight from here: 

to here:

The exact numbers do not matter. What matters is that we not only fought together but also improved the earlier conditions!

And all this has been possible only because of the tender love and care shown by my better half. Also the steel and resolve I really never knew existed.

And now we hit an arbitary deadline of reaching 70 kg of weight, just a number in general scheme of things, thanks you pillu for every thing. Here is for more and more challenges and goals together!!

Let's make lemonade when life gives us lemons!!!

Solaris - Lem : Dobara

I have felt this feeling may be a couple of times in my life (obviously, life till now :D ).
The feeling goes some thing like this:
As soon as I start reading a book - it kind of looks familiar. I have definitely read the book earlier. Each event feels like you have read it before. Some part of my brain known the story completely: but is teasing with rest of the head and not opening the unread part.

I keep reading on and as soon as the mystery reveals, the knowing part jests with the dumb part. May be they share a chuckle and I then read on.This goes on for pages and pages/chapters and chapters. I enjoy this game as much as I enjoy the original story line. It adds a lot of spice and color to an already engrossing book.

I am currently having the same feeling re-reading Solaris by Stanislav Lem. I had definitely liked the book earlier. With this private game being played in my head now: I like it even better the second time. Especially the way Lem has handled the mystery: it adds even more intrigue.

This whole process gives my real good high, a purer high than the recently-legalized substances :). I really love this private kick that I get (private only till now. Now the inter-tubes know of this!!). Here is to read more about the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95558.Solaris

Post-fact world

History has a way of chewing out points of views and personalities. Obama's term in office is an example of such vagaries of time. When he came in the lime light, he was all about the audacity of hope, "yes we can" chants warming hearts on both side of divide.

The Crybaby

But when we see at the last half year of his term, it looks like a worst book end any president could have. He could have hung around and remained neutral in the upcoming elections. This would have added so much to his legacy as well as made his actions against Russia more believable.

The political progression

It is a well known pattern in US politics. There is a definite handover of power between parties every eight years. Only an exceptionally successful President can push for the next candidate from his own party. Only an exceptionally bad president loses the second term. You need extra ordinary proof on you side if you want to rule out this thesis.

Even exceptionally successful presidents, who have done two consecutive terms and still remain popular, generally prefer to remain mostly aloof from the electoral process. One of the major mistake Obama made was ignoring all these inputs. 

Never wrestle with a pig

I think this involved a large amount of miscalculation on his part. Instead of walking in the sunlight with his head held high, he got pulled in the mud by Trump. And as it generally happens, the pig won. It is not the pig's fault that the fight happened at all. It was complete miscalculation on the second party that got in the mud.

Difference between election and party

There is no new proof that the actual electoral process was affected by Russian hacking. As the clip above shows, it is also really difficult to actually impact the actual election process. Words matter here. This is nothing but a very clumsy effort of diverting the blame. Only thing that was hacked was the party's and Podesta's personal emails. The only thing that was leaked actually showed lacked of democracy within the democratic party. 

Only thing Obama is achieving by raising these issues is to land another foot in mouth. His priorities here should have been to (a) Take the foot out of his mouth AND/OR (b) Firmly keep the mouth closed so that nothing else can enter there again.

My conspiracy theory

Here is my contribution to the whole discussion :). I have my own pet theory why things turned out the way they did. In my opinion there are three major possible reasons for it:

Trump is firmly under Obama's skin Trump has got under Obama's skin since the time he started making allegations against him. This is justifiably so. I personally think the Donald played a really dirty game there. But Obama allowed him to get under his skin and did not actually take the "high road" as his better half keeps reminding. And the first chance he got, Obama had to pay Trump back.

It is all $$ If you remember correctly, Obama's campaign was one of the most funded ones. He raised more than 600mil dollars. Hillary Clinton also shared more or less the same bunch of sponsors. Obama owed this to his masters and he did not have a way out. Also once they did not need him, he did not have a lot of investment in making him look good. As soon as the backing went away, his feet of clay were visible.

He made a deal with the devil Hillary's support for 2008 run after she lost the nomination came with a bunch of riders. That's how she got the secretary of state nomination.

What ever may be the reasons, this has left this great country in an unenviable position.

Post-fact world

Every one is trying to out-Trump Trump. Wrestling with the pig.

But the fact is that this post-fact world is not ushered in by the Donald. He just introduced to world to the possibility. 

The media took it up whole heartedly. Instead of being a mirror to the people, they tried to become the opinion makers. They lost grasp of the the facts and objectivity. They manipulated their numbers 

to align with their political leanings.They whole hearted followed him to the post-fact world. 

But the credit of making this a highway goes definitely to his predecessor - Barak Obama. 

Two negatives do not make a positive

There is some thing which has been making me really agitated last couple of weeks. I hope making it public might relieve a bit of my pain by sharing it :)

This all started with this celebration:

First thing that popped up was it was so not unplanned and stage managed. Second thing was that the series was still a 2-2 draw. In 2015-16 they have just played Sri Lanka, Bangla Desh and England. They have won only in UAE and  (maybe in Pak).
Apparently to get to this 2-2 draw they practiced with Pak Army. There are some striking similarities between the Cricket team and the army. Army's terrorist catching record can compete with Akmal's wicket keeping record. Just like the Army then have been just beating starved Bangladeshis and no one else. They both are the best match fixers.
Add to that the frustration of a rained out game without any rain on couple of days in WI and we have the most undeserved test number one ever. Now the irony was full till the brim.
This was one of the few times I prayed to God. That too in Marathi. - "Irony"chyaa devaa tulaa thingi thingi waahu de - my fav song dedicated to the most powerful God of probability.
And lo and behold: my prayers were answered:

And I am like:
https://youtu.be/HRAjzK75M0U?t=1m30s
Hope you feel the same way too ....

The only easy answer to the question "why" is

Why not.

And now, after two weeks in US of A, I can think of only that to justify my move here.

I, as many people know was never a big fan of moving to the fatherland. This was one subject I thought I have a principled opinion and a strong point of view. coincidently, the other things I had so much strong opinion about India's nuclear tests, atheism,Sachin's captaincy, advances of t-twenty and bunch of other things.  And exactly like these points this particular opinion went the same way: it actually does not matter much.

I consider myself a person who likes to travel around and like visiting new places. Though missus thinks that I am the biggest couch potato ever. The thing is that discussion on this particular matter is already closed with me being shown the

As an aside, If you want to know the real nature of husband, the wife is the best source. And spouses are known to be the best critic. But all the wife-bashing aside, the fact still remains that I have not moved a lot unless really forced too.

And the movement (or lack of it) characteristics have not changed whatever the time scale or the distance scale. I do not move for hours together also for years together. On hour scale my movements are limited to TV remote searching and sofa to dining table/refrigerator reccee. On year scale it was limited to Hyd-Blr IT belt.

So all signs were pointing to continue to gentle walk into sunset basking in the sun of Indian IT industry, may be float in the middle management, earn fat paycheck till the time we retire and then do what ever retired IT folks do (what do they do? Browse net for hours together on your own machines rather than using the ones provided by the employers?).

So the question arises why take such a drastic (only relative to my scale of movement) decision to move to the fatherland the land of opportunities for medium term. Also a land where may be the time difference and location separation is not there to hide how less work I actually do!

 And the answer in there in the first line.

So most probably this is more of just muddying the still waters and  making a scene. This is the glorious habit of taking movement for progress. It does not change much the path the life in general is taking. Maybe it will be more comfortable, a little bit different, a little less routine till a new routine is found. The major difference right now is the two generations we are tying together. The grand parents and the grand children are affected far more than us.

Current status is that we have survived our two weeks in the cold here. Both end of the generation gap have taken it pretty well. Especially the less-study-more-play approach to schooling here has gone down exceptionally well with the younger ones here.

Will keep posting our progress here when ever I feel like: For folks who care or just for my records. To be looked at in the above mentioned retirement. I will also try and make it more of an events-and-happenings post rather than a thinking-and-opinioning one :D

Good bye Shiv

Shivnaraine Chanderpaul is a very difficult cricketer to like. He has been just about breaking stereotypes and kicking the romantics in the face.  In a game where it is mandatory for a left hander middle order batsman to be elegant, he is inelegance personified.
The game has evolved where the batsmen are analyzed very thoroughly. Even a few degrees of change in the arc of the bat coming down can be exploited as a opening for the ballers. It is known to end careers. But not for Shiv, he took his front on batting stance and faced and most of the times won successfully against the best in business again and again.
The temerity of the man was in being what he is and taking it in front of the best and surviving. The picture that I have of him in mind can not accommodate a farewell series. He is more likely to use it as an opportunity to come back in the reckoning. He does not ask favors, does not give any quarters. When the selectors take him in the team, they do not declare that he is the best that they have. But they need to say he is not good enough when they do not select him. I imagine his definition of fun would be grinding out hundreds under guyanese sun or delaying the sure shot defeat by grinding out partnership with tail enders. Delaying the inevitable opposing the best in the business may be yet another of his pastimes.
In this Shiv is Dravid minus the statesmanship. He is also Steve Waugh who was always riled up and backed into a corner. He is the most distilled doggedness that can be found on a cricket field.
If he is going to go out, this is the only way he would. But I hope he still has in him to fight his way back in to the reckoning again. That is the Shiv I came to know over the years.

Here is hoping for his return to international cricket ....

Docker on windows via Services for UNIX: An Engineer’s dream

 

I came across this news: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2836601/microsoft-subnet/microsoft-partners-with-docker-to-bring-containers-to-windows-server.html.

This is interesting in a lot of senses. It is a sign that in the new world the Microsoft windows is ready to move with the time and change. Also it makes the docker eco system more universal.

Of course we all have heard about demos that were run inside Microsoft and outside which showed these capabilities with windows pretty early in docker’s life time. So I won’t be surprised if this gets done sooner than expected !!

but I think it will be pretty difficult to get Linux based docker images working on Windows. So even when the technology is supported it may not be universal.

That is where the interesting part comes in. One of the major requirement of a docker image is the existence of Linux/POSIX kernel. As a few of us are aware, till recent releases, windows used to be released with a POSIX subsystem and tools on top of it.

I think implementing docker on top of Services for UNIX might be a better option or may even be a more compatible option.

 

This particular opportunity is tremendously exciting. Please watch this space for more discussions about the possibilities and approaches. :D

Hobbyist developer: How do side projects end

This is one of the most important things that folks tend to forget. You should always know the possibilities with your side project.  In my opinion, there has to be an out standing pipeline of projects. You should also know the priority of each of these. Also keeping the status as well as priority in your mind is pretty difficult. It is especially difficult if you have a demanding day job. and almost impossible if you are a middle-aging developer like me.

 

Discarded-Aborted-Saved-Shared

  This is the bucket most of the hobbyist projects end up in. Many reasons for that happening. But the major ones are that the developer is no more interested or the project is no more relevant. I thing there is nothing wrong in putting projects in discarded bucket. You should not take this as a failure that you are either discarding or suspending your side project. The generic idea is that very few ideas actually succeed. So it is definitely a win to have started. But once you realize things are not coming together, there is not point hanging on to an idea. The theme is that you should be generating and throwing away ideas very quickly.

 

You should be really cut throat about culling the old projects. This is how new and more exciting and more fruitful projects can be started. Working on the idea is not only the measurement of your will power but of the validity of the nascent idea itself.

 

One thing that I am trying to change at this point though is the way I let go of a project. I have not been very good at this aspect. When ever you decide to move on, you just need to spend a bit more time and get it in a shape where it is as useful as possible. This means that at the least, you should have it checked in to your private repository. If the idea is applicable, you should share it with the relevant folks.You can blog about the idea if it is globally applicable. And of course the most ideal way to let go of a project is the share the idea as well as the code as widely as possible.

Definitely there are limitations to this, which will reduce the extent of sharing. But you should still try and do it. 

 

Suspended-Saved-Shared

Another place where ideas end up is that because of some reason or another, we need to stop working on them for a while. This is the most dangerous place for any idea. This is where ideas turn into zombies. Not preserving them properly for a restart is the worst you can do to an idea and your potential. To preserve it properly, you need to ensure that you prepare it for a restart.ideas are delicate. So you need to ensure that you preserve them in great shape.  Here is one example :)

 

The way to achieve the same for a software project is to document as much as possible. Just before you assign you project to the crypt, you should ensure that you have checked in all the code and documentation. You should also think about future when you may want to restart work on it. For it, it has to be as simple to understand and start on it as possible.

 

Successful

Woo hoo !! YOU are the man/gal. If you have reached here, you have already been paid for your persistence. Now that you are out of limbo, other and more dangerous hells await you. But you have crossed the first threshold. I have seldom,if ever, been here.

Monetized

If you have completed something successfully and have been able to get some money out of it as well – that covers every thing. You , sir , should be writing this post :)

 

Hobbyist developer - Why do you do a side project

There are multiple reasons why one starts a side project. I have been starting those (and not finishing most of them). I think there can be many reasons and some of them are driven by the personality of the developer.
The point there is that it is important that you have felt to urge to try out some thing. This wish for action is more important than the nobility of the reason for which you started.
Here are some of the noble and not so noble reasons folks start their hobby programming projects - these contain a list of reasons why I have started my side projects as well.

Exploring alternate employment opportunity: There can be hardly any developer worth his salt who has not dreamt about starting a google or a facebook in his spare time. This can also be a fact that you have an organization as your next target and you are getting your feet wet with whatever they are doing so that you can hit the ground running. You may also think it makes your resume more attractive if you have some code written especially in the public domain in the same area you want your next employment in.

Your bid to change the world view:  Some of us have thought at least some point in time that folks are not thinking right. The soberer version of it is that you think you have another point of view for the current one which is also right. What better way of doing it than just doing a side project.

Learning:There is some technology, language you want to pick up and what better way than doing a quick project. I tried to learn Ruby on Rails the same way. (Before forgetting it even more quickly :))

Proving your point: There is some assignment at work. You think it can be solved in a more generic way. Your folks do not think so. You build your generic solution and open it to folks. People flock to it and you thumb your nose at the aforementioned nay-sayers. (Have not seen it happen too often - but no danger in trying)

Jealousy: You have the core piece of the work you are doing. You do not get it because it is assigned to somebody else because of experience, credentials or age. A healthy outlet to the envy is to implement the same thing for yourselves.

Of course I have not covered every thing. Do share if you think there are other reasons. It is highly likely they may make more sense than the ones that forced me to start my projects.

NSA vs The Great Chinese Firewall : Role Reversal

These are two of the most prominent monitoring and analysis agencies in the world. The interesting thing is that they have very peculiar behavior. In fact there is a very good case of role reversal here. Where China is as open and bone-headed as Americans in the popular culture where as NSA is as sly and Machiavellian as Chinese are portrayed to be.

But the interesting thing is that both these things do work and do solve their motives. But the straight forward approach really brings a lot of cost with it - from image to impact on business. As well as because it is known and in the face, the folks who actually need to overcome the challenge would have developed better techniques. If not already done, they will do so definitely in near future.

But NSA surveillance would have continued unnoticed but for inside leaks. Even with these, I will be surprised if they did not plan for this contingency and have already controlled most of the damage.

Looking at it just from strategic and execution point of view, US strategy really is magnitudes superior to the Chinese one.

The reason being that at least in this field, camouflage is the best strategy. Knowledge and awareness is the thing that makes all the difference. If you are subtle and hidden, you can actually monitor things and then take right decisions at the right time.

You will know your enemy, but he will not know you. You will decide the place,time and manner of attack. And in the game of one-upmanship this is what matters the most.

As usual, depend on Hollywood to put it succinctly. Here you go:

A shout out to Daspalla, Vizag

We are on a small trip to Araku and Vishakhapatanam (more on that trip later). And as folks in the know would definitely know we did not plan enough (usual) and did not stick to the plan which was present (again nothing out of ordinary here).
This led to us ending up in Vizag late night without any reservation or even in idea where we will go next. Some kind soul on the train told us to try at Dasapalla Vizag.  The thing is that we faintly remember searching and coming across this hotel but the review were nothing extra-ordinary so we overlooked it. We were really skeptical when we called the reservations desk from the train.
But the booking was really quick and efficient. The surprise was that they did not overcharge us, as most of the other hoteliers would do when they find a customer in tight spot.

And the surprises did not end up then. The food in the restaurant down was very good (especially for the kids and the better half - as they were without any food for long time). The staff every where were very friendly and helpful.

The terrace pool was very nice and kids and myself really enjoyed the surprise.

 The complimentary breakfast spread was really nice. Special mention to the staff who would recommend different dishes and ensured that kids are comfortable and enjoyed the food (which we did).

I was surprised why the reviews were not more glowing on the internet. This is attempt at doing just that.

(P.S. In the spirit of full disclosure : they also had a surprise parting gift for me, but that did not affect my opinion :))

Tools:project tracking and the doctrine of cold start

The idea of lone wolf hacking away in the darkness of the dungeon slowly falls apart in a few weeks at the most. Writing your hobby code is no where glamorous.

Even if you are not as bad as myself,a self declared blue-moon start-and-stop brogrammer, it will definitely happen that you will shelve what ever you are doing and come back later to it again.

This is where a version control system really comes in handy. But the issue is that most of the times you will leave when even your ideas have not completely blossomed into code.

So more than version control, a project tracker which can track status of action items and hold action items under a group representing a single idea is very important.

For example, the project which brought me back from the dead is nearly two years old. I did have a skeleton proof of concept ready in last December and showed it to a few folks. I again started on it in April for nearly two weeks.

In this scenario only way to keep track of what is happening is to religiously document your ideas. The generic idea is that you should be able to pick up the threads within a day or two and get started with whatever you were doing.

This means just like any big organization, you should also treat your self as a cog in a machine. You should always leave things at a place where it can be hydrated with minimum efforts and restarted again.

I have been trying options like Asana, and Trello and I will definitely recommend giving these a whirl. both are pretty good and I remember that their being mobile based can also be deciding point for a few who happen to read this.

But for me, tying things to code and iterations was the most essential part I was looking at. And it leads me (again) to Visual Studio Online. You can really manage your work withing sprints and have a meaningful product backlog. May be it is me but I have always enjoyed the scrum meetings of one where I report progress to myself and then raise questions and answer them myself.

In this particular case, I just started with the pending and planned items in the product backlog and slowly things started making sense. I was almost able to hit the ground running. I am not at a place where I can add more items to the overall product backlog and hopefully when I get back to this the next time, I would start from a newer baseline :D

Let's talk about the dev and deployment environments in next few days !!! I was not doing much for balancing their mutability but that is the next piece of puzzle that needs to fall in place if you really need to follow the doctrine of cold-start. 

Tools:Version Control:Open Kimono

The most important thing in open source culture is the concept of "Open Kimono".
You need to show your real self, what you are with out any inhibitions. While I agree in principle to this, the thing that I want is control over when I "open my kimono" (sheesh!!)

And I need a public repository which gives me a chance to do it. And of course I want it without having to pay for it.

Github is definitely the first choice as every one who is some one is contributing there. And if I get there, I will definitely release the final version of the things that I am trying out there.

 But it does not at this point  have a free private repository, and I desperately need it

I am known to crash the machines and disks irrespective of the code that I am planning to write. So I also need a repository where I just keep my temporary changes and use it to sync code on different machines and even at different location.

Because of this, Visual Studio is definitely the choice of Version Control for me.

(Disclosure: My previous job with Microsoft I had a chance of working with Visual Studio team. And I am intimately aware of how things are designed and they work. So there is going to be some subconscious bias towards it).

But it solves most of my issues and also has some benefits rarely found in other solutions. So Visual Studio Online it is.
In further posts I will try and get to other issues I want to fix on my hobby coding project (also known as my secret plan to take over the world) and how I got around to solving those.

If while surfing the dark bowels of the webs, you hit this spot and have some opinion - expert or otherwise - feel free to share it.

A speed breaker early is the best measure of level of interest and investment ...

And in my case this is UBUNTU system updater.

Usual week end scenario: I turn on machine and boot to UBUNTU. It boots urgently, almost expectant and eager after a week of booting to windows. After kicking face the face-book habit- (semi permanently as of  now - more on it later - same place, some date) -I have the weekend stretching in front of me and some old ideas jumping around my head. And of course they are world-changing, at least changing the face of computing as it is known today- whose ideas are not :).

And there it is, my nemesis, pops up. As if it is suffering from the same OCD which drives me towards it. This is the Software Updater. Which has week long stash of updates for me. Takes its own sweet 2 to 3 hours to get things in shape. The only significant thing I can do till it is done is open a browser and see what the world is up to. And whether facebook or not, that is still a rabbit hole. and a rabbit hole I have not yet found the other side of.

The conclusion is that this is yet another plant where I am forced to test my actual interest in the thing that I am trying to do. This is yet another gauntlet thrown in a long running tussle and I need to find a way around it.

And though at the end I burn a couple of hours, I am still happy as this is proof that I am at level 2 in the super hit game "me against me", and I have a winning card up my sleeve - disable the popup :D

P.S. Nemesis :)

Custom hardware/software and scale

Though this is a start, I think at scale, the answer to all the problems is that you can not solve high scale issues with consumer level solutions.  So ironically a thing that started with using off the shelf consumer grade hardware and software as a base and built custom solutions on top of it, again needs specialization. Or the other point is that if there is one flaw in this suggested approach, it is the fact that this approach is not universal.

http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/5/13/the-secret-to-10-million-concurrent-connections-the-kernel-i.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HighScalability+(High+Scalability)

Most of the technologies in this area of high scalability do use standard software and hard ware at its base and build on top of it.

Every thing including big table,big data and other associated technologies do use the off-the-shelf file system and off-the-shelf operating system on individual nodes. The speed and scalability is achieved by software running on these machines by custom software which most of the times runs in user space as well as is written in high level languages (mostly JAVA).

So even when the suggested approach works, it is definitely needed to first work for the individual machines for existing software stack in consumer space before it gets really prevalent usage.

Hello world!!

My third day at EMC and it has already been a roller coaster experience. There have been a lot of things that are unexpected and hence even more pleasant. Some of the things are shocking and even when such things should be expected are irritating for the short term.
But I am here and I am loving every moment of it. right now I am sitting in a cubicle and this is a change from my earlier job. The buzz is really heartening. Occasional snippet of Kannada tell me how much I liked hearing it in my earlier stint in BLR. The Bangalore variey of the language is really endearing. This time I want to really learn so that I can understand and enjoy it even more .

This is my first post from my laptop. Something which I am able to do after three days of joining this company. I have always heard about companies where people change code,check in and roll out to production on their first day.Such companies exist. But because of the nature of the domain we exist in, as well as size of the org, this definitely does not happen here. Since joining I filled forms, submitted documents, resubmitted them, showed people signatures on different forms from HR and got different things as gifts.  A bunch of people joined with me and the joining process, though tedious, looks pretty stream lined. Nearly hundred people joined in last two weeks, everyone more or less started working almost on their second day. But you just fall out of step with process and then beware of the effects. As it happens with a stream lined process, any thing that does not fit the process takes extra ordinary amount of effort and time. And I have natural talent that such things happen with me.

But first the thing I liked the most: I liked the large number of empty spaces as well as I really dig the facade of the building.

"A very bad photograph of the gorgeous facade of the building"

 Here are some more from a search engine :) : 

"A lot of empty spaces with breath taking views"

Quality of the workspace is better than my earlier org which has really been a pleasant surprise. The coffee is better, cafeteria is better stuffed. 

But as I am lucky enough to draw all the cosmic rays of distrubance. It is a talent I have from a long time and I keep exceeding myself every where I go. The same thing happened this time also. One of the most important person you'd meet is the photo ID printer person. Also known as the key-maker.
(and as importantly hidden as the keymaker from matrix - behind the reception in the basement)
"I am still preparing your ID card"

As the disturbance in the field caused by my presence, he happened to throw away my form without actually printing it. Another interesting thing I found here is the interesting checks and balances. I have to give "form X - 100" signed by "P Q and R" to pick up a thing "Y".
After a lot of concentration I get all the pre-reqs to collect the card just to be confidently questioned on my existence in the company. Finally this got solved as the gentleman found his mistake and retrieved my crumpled form quickly from debris.

This cool, confident and kind smile has been the major companion of my interaction with the non tech staff till now.

Even the emperor at IT,  placed appropriately in the farthest corner on the top floor showed that. With the same kind time he told me "you will get your machine in one month". I was shocked. I ventured: " Did you say one day" - *smile* "One month". "Did you mean a week?" - "One month".

"When I say one month, it is one Month".

But then I talked to the HR and admin and things worked out pretty well after that. Now I have a machine and a team and looking forward to my first interactions with my team and especially looking at the code :).

So with some interesting twists, my rendezvous with EMC is well and truely on its way :)