Year: 2004

Listen hard

Since I started playing the guitar, I seem to be listening a lot harder than ever before. I seem to have learnt a few important lessons:

Music is sacred
An important conversation demands your attention, now I think, so does music. I hesitate from playing music and not listening to it anymore. This was not even a concious decision! It’s just not cool to code/study anymore while listening to music! That of course is my opinion. There is a downside to this discovery, I spend more time just listening :)!

Music offers interesting puzzles
Music maps to moods, the way you feel and other projections from within yourself. The more concrete and scientific projections however, are chords, notes, progressions and rhythym, to name a few of the things I picked up along the way. I usually stop, listen hard, and think, what are the chords being played on that guitar? What is the strumming like? Which strings are being picked?

Music has a message
Whether it be intense, subtle or garbled, the artist is trying to convey something to you. I hope you will be listening the next time she talks :).

Monad – Finally, Windows Admin made ‘powerful’

Quote Jon Udell (Infoworld):With MSH, Windows system administration manages to be both fun and productive. And the story will only improve as the .Net Framework continues to enfold Windows� management APIs. Competitors take note: Windows is about to convert one of its great weaknesses into a strength.

An object pipeline for administration :)! Wow!

Breaking Unicode applications

A compilation of techniques to break ‘rich’ applications by through some general rules:
1. Making assumptions about the encoding that has been handed to them
2. Converting byte streams to String objects (represented by the primitive character)
3. An application that ties its behavior to another application downstream that actually interprets the content!

Funny Slashdot thread

I love this one, about Klingon programmers! – Santosh
Oldie but a goodie:

Top 12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say

12. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
11. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual processors if I am to do battle with this code!
10. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you’ve read it in the original Klingon.
9. Indentation?! — I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
8. What is this talk of ‘release’? Klingons do not make software ‘releases’. Our software ‘escapes’ leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
7. Klingon function calls do not have ‘parameters’ — they have ‘arguments’ — and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
6. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
5. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest. They will not concern us again.
4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
3. By filing this SPR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!
2. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!

The original Slashdot thread.

Porsche’s in India?

The improbable is finally true. The Porsche 911, Carrera GT variant is now available for purchase in India :). I’ll quote Bijoy Kumar, his own unique style:

“Peeling out of a by-lane and onto a straight, the tacho needle held firm and the speedo started staring into the better side of 150 kph. Bliss. Yet, the 911 felt as if it could do better. Much better, actually, with a top speed of 285 kph available on demand. But I ran out of guts before I ran out of road.

It took ten years coming, but I’m not complaining. When I started my career as a motoring journalist, I knew that one day I would test drive a brand-new Porsche on Indian roads. Take that, all those who thought I was insane trying to make a living out of driving Premier 137Ds.”

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