Google's April fool 2011 - Google motion

Its always a pleasure to blog about the April fool's joke played by Google each year. For 2011, its the Google motion way of communication.

Wonder if anybody would really start doing the 'motion's! Good exercise anyway!

The thing about documentation

I love agile methodology and extreme programming. I used to work in a team that loved it and lived by its core philosophy. To top it of we had a strong technical manager who was a certified scrum master and new the approach inside out. Life was good.

Then our manager left. We got a lot of new recruits, many who had never worked in a core agile environment. Our teams got shaken up. Ultimately, the loudest voices got heard. 6 months into it, we have sort of become a mess. To sort of patch up the mess, somebody suggested documenting processes, because to some people, agile meant chaos. Of course agile methodology minimises documentation. Its not that we hate documentation. But I hate certain kinds of documentation. Documentation of processes.

How can you encapsulate all the nuances about human activities - interactive communicative and effective procedures - into words? Documenting processes is like making humans machines. Without creativity or without thought. Processes always are evolving and no two situations can be asked to follow the same text. People need to think on their feet each time. Agreed - some process documentation come with a disclaimer that these are just guidelines and to use proper judgement before following them. Now a poor new recruit new to the agile world would ask - where is that documented?

I believe in mentor-ship and process mentor-ship that encourages and teaches the ideology behind thought. Perhaps putting this ideology into text would not be bad since it does just that - captures ideology.

Anyway, I do like documentation on one important aspect - requirements. Although requirements may change in the real world, they still need to be documented. Because requirements need to be translated into code, which a machine needs to understand. Quite unlike process documentation which a human needs to understand, assimilate and generate an effective action out of.

Are we doing enough, or are we sinners?

In the colonial era, my countrymen, Indians, with our peaceful ideology and treating-guests-like-kings mentality eventually got overpowered by the mighty British forces who had been thinking of and investing in arms and destruction years before.

In fact, the British powered over so many other peaceful regions and these innocent people paid the price for.. being innocent? The British in this case can of course be seen as barbarous and used their technological advantage to power over other (weaker) human beings. Nothing too different from Hitler and others who abused powers and got blinded by greed, possession and sense of omnipotence.

Question is: why did the peace-loving, God loving people have to pay the price for not having destructive weapons? They did not waste time polluting their minds thinking about exploitation, murder, destruction and such evil thoughts. Was it their fault that they were abiding by God's teachings?

I could not come up with a good answer to this easily. After pondering for quite a while, the most reasonable explanation I could come up was:

'The good' & the 'innocent' did not do enough to take over the world and spread their goodness. Evil took over the world quite easily. Why? Because the good was dormant. They perhaps did not do enough and did not think for other people in other lands so as to spread the wealth of their knowledge and values to other cultures. It is the duty of every 'good' person to spread the message about their ideologies. If they think its not worth spreading, then they probably are vagabonds without a purpose in life and in doing so, are committing a sin.

So it all boils down to each one of us. Are we doing enough to spread our message of our view of the world? Are we doing enough to share our thoughts and beliefs in the hope that it will help humanity? What are we doing for mankind? Are we doing enough?

Autocomplete paths and themes in Drupal

It is very important that any AHAH callback menu item is of the same theme loading menu execution path as that of the parent. Otherwise you will have themes conflicting and overriding each other.

Here's a case in point:

Say you are using 'rubik' theme for admin pages (node edit & add pages). And lets assume you are using Garland as the front end theme for other users.

If you happen to have an autocomplete or AHAH form element in the node edit page like so:

$form['book']['submit_book'] = array(
'#type' => 'submit',
'#value' => t('Select book'),
'#weight' => -4,
'#attributes' => array('class' => 'book-title-select'),
'#ahah' => array(
'path' => 'mybooks/js',
'wrapper' => 'edit-book-plid-wrapper',
'effect' => 'slide',
),
);

This will cause the Garland theme to be loaded to the current page when the AHAH callback 'mybooks/js' executes. If the callback happened to add new elements into the form, then they would be rendered in Garland. Not what you would really want! You could go around in circles with your UI team over this and waste a lot of time like I did!

Eclipse crashing & workspace in use?

I use Eclipse with PDT at work. True it may be a memory hog but I love using it now.

I usually edit the eclipse.ini file in the eclipse/ folder and increase the memory usage of it.

For e.g. for 512MB RAM, I set:

-Xms256m -Xmx256m -XX:PermSize=64m -XX:MaxPermSize=64m

Here are some more configurations.

Another common problem is eclipse crashing. When you restart it, it may say that your current workspace is in use and you need to choose another workspace.

This is because there is a .lock file hidden in your .metadata/ folder in your eclipse/ directory. This file is created when eclipse starts and is deleted at every proper shutdown of eclipse. So if eclipse crashed, sometimes it would not have deleted .lock file and hence it thinks there is another eclipse program running. Delete the .lock file and you are on your way.

Google new home page (A/B testing I think)

I happened to hit a Google A/B testing page from UK today.

They seem to be loading just the Google logo and the search bar first. Then once you move your mouse onto the page, the top header and footers appear. Some javascript funkiness to a simple page. ~Why?

Also if you notice, the "Search" and "I'm feeling lucky" buttons have disappeared.

The live search suggestions work from the search bar still.

I'm feeling this may be one of the new Google home pages we may be seeing in the near future.

Changing the scenario of global development: The great economic crisis of modern times

Will the current economic crisis just be a short circuit for the current development trends of the world, and will the same technologies and advancements continue in hoping for a quick recovery? I don't think so.

Economic trends of money generation and consumer satisfaction are based on unforeseen habits that can quickly catch up. Like in art and architecture, they are parts of the current age. They are born, live a span of life (based on various acceptance and factors of chance) and also face death. I am analysing the impending of the current Information Technology age advancements in niche areas. True, the Internet was a revolutionary invention. People are so dependent on it. But not all its seedlings are going to be properly nourished or going to have a market in the future. The economic crisis has forced us to look inwards on the basic needs of life and sustenance.

Humanity is going to reinvent its business-space. Looking inwards, we are going to realize the basic necessities of sustenance in Food, agriculture, and its related areas. People will be less concerned about technology except for the most widely used areas (like e-commerce). The basis of business is going to be reshaped. Organic farming is going to be the most popular choice. Service based industries will pop up their heads but will be difficult to survive for long as customers are less cash-rich.

Non iodized salt in Kerala

For Thyroid Cancer patients undergoing a Low Iodine Diet (LID), finding non-iodized salt in some regions of India, especially Kerala can be a pain. The Kerala government has imposed a state-wide ban on selling non-iodized salt.

Those who require non-iodized salt can buy "induppu" from any ration shop or place where you buy whole sale dals, grams, rice etc. If you do not get induppu, crystal salt can also be bought. This does not contain iodine as well.

Osama has achieved total annihilation

Al Qaeda -> 9/11 -> Billions spent on Iraq War -> Trillions in debt -> Wall St. crash -> World economies follow -> Worldwide crisis -> Osama still alive.

And thats just the way it is.

This year's April Fool from Google

If you were wondering what the New! Gmail Custom Time atop your gmail page was, it is this year's April fool from Google!

Ha, if you thought they really did use a flux capacitor to set date time back...April fool :-)

Check it out!

Unable to be everywhere!

Its the truth. With all the networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut, its difficult for me to keep my blog updated.

There are so many applications on Facebook that being there is like the next level of blogosphere with instant interaction with the audience. Try the iThink app out there.

Thanks for coming by!

Must see: Airbus A380 cockpit (incredible interactive view)

read more | digg story

Time to change, Google AdSense

True, it might have added great financial value to Google. But why are they stuck with the same design for all these years?

The monotonic banners that botch up the look and feel of otherwise great sites still have not changed. Can't Google make their adsense banners more colorful and have different varieties to choose from?

Its the age of Web 3.0 now, change your design!

Wii Horse Racing

Wii remote and racing game hooked up to a child's bouncy horse. Check it out..hilarious!



read more | digg story

Why you need to increase your vocabulary Now!

Here is an altruistic way to increase your vocabulary.

By doing so, you also help provide food to the hungry.

Check out http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Leopard and the new-born Baboon

Watch the transformations of a young leopard's emotions as life demands the more important natural call of duty from him. To save a life? Or follow your hunger? Touching and amazing!

Physical Therapy

Continuing from my previous post; I went to the Ortho with the MRI films today. He said what I had suffered was a Patellar dislocation (knee cap dislocation) and that my ACL was fine.

This means the main shock absorbers in my knee are fine. However, my knee cap could dislocate in the future again. Since this was the first time it has happened, he suggested a non-operative treatment with physical therapy for 4-6 weeks! Luckily, there is a therapy place close to where I am staying right now and I hope to join there. Till then, its one more week of rest and working from home.

Between all my visits to the doctors, I was able to get to know a lot of cab drivers. I learnt that almost everybody or someone in their family had knee dislocations and, a lot of them are unable to do anything about it since they cannot afford medical insurance! This was quite disturbing to me. One cab driver had torn all his ligaments and was living with it. Living with twice or thrice the pain I am complaining about. And for 5 years! He wears a double knee-brace, but he says he frequently dislocates his knee. I wonder why the US Govt. cannot give the poor free treatment. There are a lot of charitable hospitals in India. I like India for such culture.

For those who are lucky to not have had knee problems, its great, but please be cautious. Your knees are very important to you and also quite susceptible to injuries. They take 7 times our bodyweight during strenuous activity. This even includes climbing down stairs! To prevent knee injuries, make sure you do a host of knee strengthening exercises before any sports/strenuous activity. Its also good to do this generally. Take care!

October updates...

October has been a nasty month for me so far.

Week 1: I injure my ankle bad enough that I had to take a day off of work

Week 2: I get involved in a car accident. Not hurt, car needs repairs.

Week 3: It hurts to even talk about it: I dislocate my left knee. Here's the scoop:

I was kicking around with a soccer ball and I suddenly felt something in my left knee and I take a fall. I look and find to my utter disbelief that my knee is dislocated. I mildly tried to press it to put it back in and it luckily did. I lied in some pain for some time and then I got up and try walking. Though it hurt too bad, I was able to walk ok. I couldn't bend my knee backwards too much since I felt something locking. I have no idea what the problem is.

I rested for a few hours, and the knee got swollen. I then went to the ER of Bryn Mawr hospital (many, many thanks to Lana for being with me from then and also helping me out finding the best available treatment!). A couple of quick jokes with the triage nurse and I was soon X-Rayed. No visible bone damage. I got immobilized with splints and was given crutches. Oh boy. I was then referred to an Ortho and spent my time trying to get an appointment with an available Ortho.

I got the earliest appointment on Tuesday - Oct 16th. Till then, I had to pass 4 days in bed, immobilized. I used this time to find the agonizing truths about knee dislocations. I hate to even talk about it.

On Tuesday, I took a long cab ride all the way to Devon to see the Ortho. As expected, he asked me to get an MRI. He said his gut feeling was that I have a Patellar (knee cap) Dislocation and a torn cartilage. Anyway, I was sent back to get an MRI and to then report back.

I am currently trying to schedule an MRI. The center the hospital suggested has no openings until next Monday. That would mean another 5 days of wait. A friend of mine suggested a closer option, and I have scheduled for the MRI there, this afternoon. See you after that!

[update] Scanning complete & back. Report will be sent to the Dr. tomorrow. I also got an appointment with the Ortho Dr. for Friday, Oct 19th.

Magic Show

Here are a couple of hilarious magicians. Normally I don't care about magic stuff, but I was wiping the tears away from my eyes as I watched this.

Orkut

8-10 years have passed by since I left my best friends at school. Suddenly BOOM they reappear on Orkut, with a pic in place for their profile. From weird parts of the world, doing something you never thought they'd. Some totally changed, some the same.

But the biggest of changes so far were to see all the still-so-young-and-childish-in-memory girls holding a couple of grown up kids and some new dudes by their side. I secretly naughtily cant help thinking - how on earth did they get there :) Few more years and I'd be seeing the guys from school holding their kids and secretly showing off their wives..ah and then I'd be thinking..lucky guy - he got that damsel, and oh poor him, how on earth did he fall for her..and so on. Sigh, now poking fun seems to be taken seriously all the more!