Programming languages are like girlfriends: The new one is better because you are better.
- a deep thoughtful axiom from a broken heart who fell in love with Ruby. Not the girl you duff, a language. [link]
Increasingly, on my timeline, posting on a blog seems to be too much work, a format like twitter might be a better fit. I fear though that I’ll turn from a thinking vain techie to just a vain techie…
i have a story to tell. a story because that has nothing absolutely funny or whimsical about it. but because it taught me a lesson. a lesson of how much abuse my own body suffers silently at my hands and though i was very much aware of the problem, never recognized it really, because as i say ‘it depends’.
most of you might be knowing about tirupati, the magnificient temple town atop the seven hills – to reach the top either you take to the road by bus or a private transport or you could just take the road and your feet again.
we chose to go by foot as usual, its a breathtaking sight while climbing all the way to the top, you are truly in the cradle of nature, dense forests in the valley, trees along the walkway to the top. the whole trip walkway has three parts to it. the first part is a half foot high steps marginally steep till the checkpoint called the Gaali Gopuram. the second part is fairly flat and easy and you could easily sprint through it. the third part is what is called the MokAlu parvatam (The mountain of Knee), partly from the steps that the old steps were so tall that if you were to step on one of it and your foot was in the previous step, you ankle would touch your chest. thankfully though, it isnt so bad now, but yes its half a foot in height and is quite steep.
the journey in itself is a reward.
about three years ago when we had climbed to the top we had done it in 3 and a half hours and we had set a target to ascend in 3 hours flat this time and if numbers are anything to go by its quite easy to accomplish if you are fit marginally fit.
after reaching the first half of steps of gaali gopuram, i was giving a serious thought to giving up the walking plan. knowing me i belong to that class of idiots who believe giving up is never an option. dizzy, nauseated and quite sane, the truth hit me like a ton of bricks. not to speak of thigh cramps in the third part of the trip.
thankfully, not being a addict to smoking or drinks turned to be a saving grace. living in a hellhole of financial returns it was an fall from grace – atleast the self image took a heavy beating – always fancied myself to a strong guy, the extra fat notwithstanding i was pretty ok at physical fitness and stamina levels – and this experience completely blew that to bits…
we finally finished the trip in 4 hours. but then it was a decrease of efficiency of 15% in three years! and that coming from a guy in his prime of his years…
and this is when the nail finally hit the coffin when yours truly spoke of my revelation to my folks. paraphrasing my dad “we come from a generation where we had lot less money to spend and so couldn’t eat all the goodies we yearned for. but you are a generation where money is not at all a problem but you guys have no health where even if you want to enjoy them you cant”
Listed below is a list of games. Some of them are from the 3D computer games of yesteryears, some from the present 3D games, some from the 3D mobile games of today. Ill leave it as a exercise to know which are which.
A year or two years ago I would have laughed at the thought of a hifi true 3D mobile game; but now just comparing the 3D mobile games now, those of the yesteryear 3D mobile games and then the pop 3D pc games and Im almost convinced of the direction 3D mobile gaming is going to take. Maybe the business direction too might follow the computer games curve. Not only will we see a major shift in the hardware technology but will also see the mobile game creators embracing the limitations and the form factor of mobiles in highly creative formats. Just compare the older 3D computer games and the current 3D mobile games. Look very very similar!
[Brain Fart]
A while ago i remember John Carmack writing Quake 3 for NGage; but that didnt quite take off as expected. That was early perhaps and also because the 3D screen wasnt big enough for those type of games. Quite simply, I think mobile as it is, is highly suited for a sniper rifle type approach. Add a GPS functionalities to and also tilt to it, and you have your own sniper gun on your mobile!
Why do we even have to render in 3D? Why not add computer vision capabilities to the mobile and just add your own 3D elements to it? That will anyway enhance realism. But then computer visions algos are not so simple, and 3D rendering and rasterization much be much cheaper. But then, we never know.
[/Brain Fart]
I personally feel, that the mobile will embrace its limitation of size (and screen size too) and enhance its hardware (which anyways will grow in conjunction with the Moore’s Law) and we will have the next gen of games – highly innovative.
Its amazing how life is not a string of days but a string of events. Every moment counts.In the infancy its pretty much year to year, birthday to birthday. And then in school, its pretty much moment to moment but majorly a vacation to vaction, summer to summer, class to class.
And suddenly in +2 its a weekend to weekend life. EAMCET mock test, its no wonder life as a whole is just test to test.
Engineering life is a different thing altogether. The freshmen year is pretty much senior to senior, ragging to ragging, class to class, assignment to assignment. The final year is just party to party, session to session.
As a software engineer active life is pretty much weekend to weekend. Any important personal work, social task gets relegated to the weekend. Its a 5 day vacation from every task day to a task day. Its living from week to week.
Being an entrepreneur has pretty much changed it to a day to day activity, at least in the early days. Now I live day to day, a far cry from the 5 day vacation life of the yore. And this journey shall go on hopefully from a day to day to a moment to moment, the ultimate tribute of living in the present, unfettered by the future and untouched by the past.
In oldage its pretty much moment to moment, as then what counts is the blog and a long line of comments from friends he once knew…
About the $100 laptop
The 100$ laptop consists of:
Linux-based
Dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode
Second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution.
500MHz processor
128MB of DRAM
500MB of Flash memor [no hard disk]
Four USB ports
Wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network
Innovative power (including wind-up)
The MIT professor Nick Negroponte is one of main promoters of the One Laptop Per Child programme (OLPC).
In the News: The OLPC programme in India Scrapped!
HRD rubbishes MIT’s laptop scheme for kids
Some excerpts from the toi site follow:
- India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with children in this area -HRD ministry
- Negroponte had made a presentation on OLPC at Yojna Bhavan on April 7 seeking to sell one million laptops at the rate of $100 per unit for children, the cost to be borne by the government.
- HRD thought the Rs. 4500 million could be better spent on primary and health education.
- There exists a conceptual vacuum in which the scheme is being propagated.
- Implications of computer-based pedagogy for childhood have remained a grey zone of research
- Both physical and psychological effects of children’s intensive exposure to the computer implicit in OLPC are worrisome, to say the least
My initial reaction to seeing this article has been one of suprise at the amount of thought process put in by the HRD Ministy and other of actually accepting their discretion. At the very outset, the whole problem looks like a very obvious cheap and effective solution which will help India leapfrog from an agro based society to a knowledge based society.
Why the Scrapping is a Sane Decision
The 100$ laptop is based on some premises which actually dont correspond to the ground situation in India. The major assumptions:
a. Laptop as a commodity increases Adoption and Hence Literacy
New usable laptops for an on the move IT professional or real user are in the range of upwards of $700. Where the average per capita income in India is still US$165, buying a laptop is out of question. Now the question that we will have to ask is “Is the laptop filling the gap for bridging the literacy divide?”. Adoption is inevtiable, if the things that are being promised are really kept; but that doesnt in anyway guarantee any of the other corresponding assumptions being made about literacy.
b. Laptop as a Pedagogical Tool
This assumption as yet doesnt have a concrete solid provable document of proof. Let us assume that a student never has to have to buy the laptop as the cost is borne by the government. Being a student of Comp Sci and as well interacting with friends who have _not_ been students of Computer Science, I do understand the uses of Computer Based Pedagogy. Im puzzle not with the assumption that cheaper laptops will increase adoption; but with that assumption that Laptop is a method to tackle illiteracy. Even though a laptop is a great supplement, its role as a relacement for classroom or a very effective notebook for a child is totally questionable.
c. Prohibitive Cost
$100 x 1 million children = $100 million = 450 crores. When our requirement is for more infrastructure, the 450 crore investment in an as yet unproved technology is hardly justified.
d. Filling in the Gap
The $100 laptop as is evident is not filling any gap in the education system of India. What we need to solve the literacy problem in India is simple:
– More classrooms and more teachers
- Less reasons for children to not come/discontinue education viz bad classrooms, bad teachers, costly education(not only in the terms paid but also in terms of money lost by not working), precious time, better shorter term advantages
- More reasons for coming to school and continuing education viz. better amenities at school, great teachers, better food, better future…
The laptop in spite of being a great tool is as yet has to fit in or solve any of the ground realities pointed above.
e. Software for the Laptop
Even though the 100$ laptop looks exhiliarating to be able to solve a great digital divide, the software required to distribute the content digitally over the laptops is still questionable. Just having Linux doesnt solve any/all of our problems. For any tool to penetrate even the deepest reaches in India, either the tool has to be very simple(like a mobile), or it has to have very good localised font support. In this scenario, the problem the laptop sets out to solve are as yet unsolved.
Why the Scrapping is a Bad Idea
Now to the reasons as why scrapping is a bad Idea; not because the of OLPC programme per se; but because of its probable effect on other technologies trying to penetrate into the rural folds. Now for the reasons why this scrapping is a bad idea.
a. Money invested till now as a sunk cost
The HRD ministry for all now has to understand that the money invested hasnt borne the fruits as it had expected to. In that case trying cheap, alternative-technology driven solutions might be of use too. [I myself think that technology can solve this issue even without trying to solve the human issue involved].
b. No Alternative for Costlier Indigenious Solutions [Simputer, Mobile]
For all I know, even though scrapping the laptop is bad, its really an awesome tool for one. Ability to form cheap ad-hoc mesh networks is really a wonderful conceptualization of creating a networked mesh architecture. Compare this with the Simputer [www.amidasimputer.com] which costs upwards of $300 dollars for a simple gadget. I had been recently working on making been trying to see if a simputer can be a very cheap alternative to laptops [Rs. 9000 + Rs. 500 for a USB keyboard], and had been very much disappointed looking at the prohibitive costs, 20K for a full color Simputer. Why go for a micro sized screen plus a big keyboard for 20K when you can as well go for a better powered laptop device for 30K? And why not go for a lappie that costs 4500K???
Why should not the government try out the $100 laptops instead of using a Simputer or a bigger linux workstation? This laptop can definitely be used by a village teacher or a RMP doctor or many other adults as a better record keeping tool. For them it will prove much more handy and useful than to a child.
c. Deadstop for Innovation
A Digital alternative for pedagogy makes teaching interesting and not to speak of, the much more productivity increase for book keeping individuals. When this OLPC programme has been scrapped, the incentive for other high technology similar disruptive solutions have been essentially nullified. Not the best way to go for a ‘knowledge society’.
The Solution: Reorient the Vision
a. Make the OLPC and OLPT – One Laptop Per Teacher
b. Scrap log books & other arcane record keeping procedures and adopt the laptop as a better book keeping gadget for on the move rural professionals
c. Digital Kiosks can adopt the 100$ laptop instead of depending on the workstations. The dependance on electircity is effectively neutralized by adopting this laptop.
References:
Barcamp happened on the 15th July Saturday in Microsoft Campus. The numbers looked sparse to me initially but then when the final results were out, it came up to 150+ , which is huge, to say simply of it. Live blogging was missing again, but I did capture quite a bit of notes; and so here it goes for you people. So instead of LiveBlogging what you will find here is DeadBlogging interspersed with my postmortem notes and thoughts.
The initial talk was by Ramesh Loganathan, but I could only attend the later half of it, courtesy waiting at the reception desk to sign up people. Any case the last few things I could capture. Basically the talk was about GPS in India and the opportunities available.
* Ericsson has come up with a Standard Mobile Server
* EDR is in the GSM phone but you cannot get the latitude longitude locations. Ramesh’s team had earlier worked on a location based application but since the lat and long were not available, the product had to be scrapped
Atul Chitnis / Geodesic / 11:32 am – 12:10 pm / http://www.atulchitnis.net
Atuls presentation was minimalist zen(mostly seen in steve jobs presentations) type presentation with the typewriter font (lessig style). It was done in Fedora Core 4 PC; which makes it partially politically incorrect.
The main theme of the presentation was about how the PCs are not really mainstream.
* Computers are a misnomer in the present world. A very if not no part of the computer time is used for computing by the users.
* PC Users are a minotity. Most people dont use a PC. They neither have the means, nor the infrastructure, its financially infeasible, and mainly because people DONT WANT TO.
* ‘Form factor’ of the PC
* All mobile devices must be ‘Sized to be carried’. iPod, Walkman, Mobile
* You dont go to them, they do with you.
* We wait for the PC to boot up. And then do what the notebook wants us to do with it, not what we want to.
* The obvious analogy comes to land line phone <-> cell phone.
* Big screens are not exactly a need of the people. When it finally comes to viewing, perspective comes into play. A huge grand father clock 20 feet away is as effective as your wrist watch.
* Look at iPod, its a single function device where all we need is a start, stop, pause, skip next, skip front buttons. All are buttons are expendible.
* But mobile devices are too small to use
* Keyboard is only for PC. Not for all applications. Only 5% of time is used in typing. There needs to be a change in application
* browser on palm – is unusable by users
* the information that needs to appear is the ones that are important to the user and that is visible to them
* ‘Not all’ information. Only ‘design’ information
* Desired information is to be showed
* Goals of Mobile
- stay informed
- to reach and to re reach
- as a phone
- media player
- anytime
- anywhere
I disagree with Atuls talk per se; but I look at the problem differently. The problem is not as much with computers as it is with their design. The whole interface that is provided to the computer are the monitor, keyboard and mouse. And hence ‘any’ applications UI is centered around this same interfaces available. Of these only the keyboard and mouse are capable of taking feedback. Whats needed primarily is a rethink of this design and interfacing of computers. iPod is a great single function device, but again a single function device is not a solution to the design problem. PC is now a consolidation of many single function devices which can again intercommunicate with each other. The mobile too is not at all a solution to any of my problems. Mobility is a great advantage here; but once the battery runs out; the use is debatable. Again, for recharging i need to carry the device specific charger equipment. On the other hand for a pc, the plug points are available everywhere! Im not yet convinced that my experience is the same on big screen and on a small pocket media player. Having seen a movie in imax and then on a small screen, i disagree. I think its time to look at bettering the human computer interaction experience than that of saying the pcs are themselves obsolete.
Farhan / spokn /12:15pm – 12:50pm / farhan AT spokn DOT com
* All our communication on mobile is bursty in nature
* The mobile comes in the flow of your work
* Taken from a personal example, having a bad interface can literally kill you
* UIs on mobile phones are extremely important
* Have to be extremely robust
* Spokn have create a new LTP (Light Telephone Protocol) which has no dynamic allocations
* Number of PCs are 350 million
* Vodafone had its 500 billion written off in loss
* Compare the PSTN World & IP World where the PSTN world is a walled garden
* Telcos need to open the networks to IPs
* Hutch has invested 60B in picking up 3G licenses and the speed you get is 128 kbps
* 5B in Wifi – 10 Mbps
* Right now the color phone is now a ‘hygiene factor’
* Number series can be neither GSM or Landline network; we can have a LTP number also
* All 36 nets of Hutch are in bad shape
* — From audience, Single point access to GPRS by subscription. Voice Roaming is by Telcos. At this point, the discussion diverted into the fractured network of the WiFi network –
* — Rajan added that the main difference Farhan was pointing was regarding the Open Closed system. This is where Fon, the new company was aiming to remove this fracture and to create a seamless wifi network –
* About Spokn, it provides a platform to create your own subnetworks.
* It is through javascript; own ui using spokn
* Based on the LTP stack. Can go through NATs. Does not need TCP, uses UDP. Entirely OS. Speaks codec. Used GSM
* Does not switch calls
* Uses UDP port punching [?], can work behind NATs, does not have rendezvous, uses relay peers
* VOIP works over GPRS connection
* Calling costs as much as email costs you!!!
Sigbjorn Vik / Opera / 12:50 pm – 1:15 pm / my.opera.com/Sigbjorn/
* Presentation available on http://people.opera.com/sigbjorn/barcamphyderabad2
* Opera on Mobile
* Opera Mini – Java installed on mobile
* Any device supported! Not only a pc, nintendo…
* Design principles – Graceful degradation
* could not down a lot
Dr Vishal Garg / IIIT / 1:20 pm – 1:40pm
The presentation was a demo of their project of using a mobile phone as a remote controller. They were using the power line for transmitting the messages. Using the X10 protocol.
* Mobile phone as universal remote control
* In general for a remote the Media of communication : RF / IR / Power Line / Dedicted wire
* Why mobile as a urc? Widespread, possibility of independent settings, proecessing power, memory, display, ringer, secure ID, portable, has IR, Wifi, Bluetooth, has buttons
– Break for lunch –
My lunch session was the highlight of my day mainly because of the flow of information we had. I dont have any guys name and didnt note any of them down . [update from Puneeth] The discussion group consisted of Anil from Bosch, Damodhar from Dolphine Computers, Puneeth, Jaihind Reddy and Marx. The main idea was if we can make the entrepreneurship a systematic process[Anil's idea]. It was actually great seeing the amount of thought that went into it. Other than that it was also personal talk where we felt these days its the young guys thats taking the leap into entrepreneurship because the risk goes up as you get older. The discussion was interspersed with a lot of personal anectodes from all in the group and it was interesting to see that each and everyone of is either an entrepreneur or an aspiring one. Thanks guys.
[Please if any of you guys read this, please send me mail regarding the same]
Post Lunch
Post lunch, we had a video screening of Guy Kawasaki’s ‘Art of the Start’ talk. Most of the audience loitering in the lobby immediately sitting in the conference room. That was brilliant idea by Rajat and Rajan to get the barcampers back into the talks.
Sriram Krishnan / Microsoft / 3.00pm – 3:20pm
* Web 2.0, Devices and MS
* On best practises and things to watch out for
* Web 2.0 has brought out a change in website where each website is a service. [SOA]
* Anyone can consume the data
* ProgrammableWeb.com to get a list of all Open APIs existing and the Mashups
* SOAP: NTLM architecture, Federation – NOT lightweight
* Put your own server in the middle. REST based APIs
* As a reply from the audience if it is time to move to binary protocols, the answer was to use Zipped xml protocols, instead of binary protocols
* The main point was also about making the protocol less chatty. Put a server in the middle between the website and your mobile phone 
After this we split up into two parallel sessions, I missed the talks of Rajan on Mobile 2.0 and the talk about the building the small business apps platform.
Anyways the two talks I attended were by Naresh and Mohit
Naresh / IIIT / 3:20pm – 3:50 pm / pSearch
The talk was basically about the search on mobiles based on location. So if you a hungry coder in Kavuri Hills near HiTech City and you key in ‘hyderabadi biryani’, you will get the most appropriate results based on your location. So mostly you will get the HiTech Biryani Center or Silicon Dhaba as your top results whereas your Bahaar or a Bawarchi or a Paradise would come later 
The local city locations database is build by these folks and the location code is extracted from the mobile service operator and the results which are extracted from the serach provider like google/yahoo and the results are provided by combining with our city location database.
You can get more information about this project at http://mobilesearch.nokia.com
Mohit / Entrepreneur / 3:50 pm – 4:00 pm / Bootstrapping your own enterprise
Mohits talk was basically about the bootstrapping the selves and a lot of tips and observations on entrepreneurship having been entrepreneur himself.
* Created a network called bootstrap hyderabad
* TiE is for VC connections. Bootstrap is for entrepreneurs to help bootstrap themselves
* Students have a lots of ideas, but most of the time they are clueless on how to proceed
* The time to market should be really less. Efficiency and good speed are very important
* Explanation on valley of death, ideation.
* There is no rule about which road to take. Its all about your individual choice and individual risk propensity
* Take care about your debt/equity ratio
* Start early. So you can have the time to prove yourself. Even if you fail, time is on your side and you can start again
* If “Be your own boss” is your reason for being an entrepreneur, think again. Your devil boss will appear like a sissy in front of your toughest customers
* Be Nice. Be moral. Be Ethical
* SCRUM approach: Demo. Sell. Build approach
* Liquidity is important. If possible get your clients to pay for the prototype or for a part of the product.
Talks I missed
1. Ramesh’s Talk
2. Rajans’ Talk
3. PDA for Pharma
4. Last final Brainstorming + Panel Discussion
Things I wished I did
1. Gave a presentation. My unfulfilled wish in Barcamp Hyderabad too
Quake on a 24 Screen Setup in Linux!!!
Nirnimesh, where art thou?
Edit: From the horse’s mouth, click here
Was reading this interesting blog post by rajat on recoja
At one time my idea was to create a micro-bookmarking tool (i.e. bookmarking of micro selected content) in firefox. Its interesting how recoja has extended this to tags. Am quite eager to see how this can be developed into a revenue model.
However my own initial issues with the idea were:
a. pages with dynamic content. since most of the web, atleast the content for scholastic content is static, so this would not be a major problem with such pages. however, the dynamic nature is still a major issue.
b.because of the micro content analysis, micro-management might be an issue, umpteen issues might crop up. (1) as shown is already an issue
c. will a community interface work with it? i mean what all value can it add to the micro-bookmarking process? so can something like del.icio.us interface for this micro-bookmarking?
d. revenue? if its not being done with revenue in mind, cool…
e. laziness to make a quick prototype
In this age of sequels & prequels and movies, (its the summer of the sequels, aint it?), things are already apace for Barcamp Hyderabad 2. This time the theme is on Mobile Space, Opportunities and Entreprenuers. Without much ado, the details are already posted here
Its exciting times we are living in right now!
Come to think of it, will we have a prequel to barcamp hyd? barcamp hyderabad -1.0?
In under 2 hours, I could put all the major cities I visited on a map. Either that makes me very very less travelled person or google map api rocks. However, to make it a win-win situation for the parties involved, I decree that its the latter
