One man show - Congratulate the Turbunator

Its the heroics of one man - The Turbunator, India had snatched a sure victory off of England. 37 with bat and a menacing 5-31 proved too hot for England when they tumbled to a 39 run defeat in their first ODI against India in Delhi. There is a lot to be done in the Indian batting camp as it gets hard to defend low scoring games. Its good to see Bhajji back - It was a long due.

All decisions going wrong for Indian cricket

I don't know if there is any other better word than bleak for the current Indian cricket team. United they stand but they slump together. Nothing is getting right to whats happening to them. Decision to bat first in the third test against England turned out to be a fatal one. Even a college captain would opt to bat first in Mumbai but not so for Rahul. Sehwag continue to falter and so is Dhoni. We can see the cracks in the wall, back to square one Yuvraj and unimpressive Kaif are now a repeatable phenomenon. Not including Munaf Patel as the fourth seamer for the first ODI is proving another insane decision. Yet to see what gem is Mr Chappel in process of inventing with his continuous failed experiments. Shameless and pathetic!

US a Brahmin state?

No there is nothing casteism about it. Have been listening a lot about the immigration reforms and some of the comments made by the senators and other influencial people of the society. It seems time and again it has been said that the US need migrant workers for the work Americans do not want to do. That struck the cord. Is that something how centuries ago a caste system was introduced in India? The division of labor and the emergence of a labor class? The labor class later being increasingly alienated and ended up changing the political equations. I do not like "classes". The empires which spread it were doomed and I hope it does not come back in the free world again.

Then why was Saurav removed?

Indian cricket board is full of controversies. When Saurav was removed from the team on the basis of his age and his recent performance, Sachin is kept for no reason. There is no question that we all love Sachin. He is a great cricketer who is going through a rough patch - a long one though. We all know when he comes back, he will come back big. But the Indian team can not indefinitely wait for it. Saurav is an extraordinary player too who was going through a rough patch. But if Saurav has been asked to prove himself in the domestic cricket to get a place in the national team then why shouldn't this be applied to Sachin too? And for that matter Virender Sehwag and everybody else who remain in the team without performing? You can not be complacent just because you were something sometime. Learn from Kumble - the real genius. He fights and performs again and again even though his place in the team is never assured. Its funny to see that with the so many stalwart batsmen in the Indian team, Kumble ended up being the third highest scorer. If a depleted English team can sqaure the test series in Indian conditions then its a shame on Sachin, Sehwag, Dhoni and even Rahul for not rallying the team to success.

What Sun grid is not

This is my understanding:

Its a on demand processing space. It is not the application portal.

The application should be self contained. The application should not use other networked resources

It does not guarantee high performance. The application is responsible to use proper algorithms to implement the logic. Grid is as efficient as the application is.

Grid does not provide web containers for the servlets or EJBs.

The grid is not OS agnostic. It has to be a Solaris or Java app

Twenty nine is not 209

I woke up one day when I was in class 6th I guess. I had forgotten to complete my homework the other night. I asked for help from my Papa and I was asked to write 29 for something. I kept writing 209 again and again when I was reminded rather in a way that I was I think awake all day. Concatenation doesn't do maths and phonics can be deceptive. Even though 29 and 209 are both prime numbers but for sure twenty nine is not 209.

Frameworkitis - A funny word

Taken from http://www.artima.com/lejava/articles/reuse3.html

Erich Gamma: Frameworkitis is the disease that a framework wants to do too much for you or it does it in a way that you don't want but you can't change it.

Erich Gamma: Because the bigger the framework becomes, the greater the chances that it will want to do too much, the bigger the learning curves become, and the more difficult it becomes to maintain it. If you really want to take the risk of doing frameworks, you want to have small and focused frameworks that you can also probably make optional. If you really want to, you can use the framework, but you can also use the toolkit. That's a good position that avoids this frameworkitis problem, where you get really frustrated because you have to use the framework.

What eXtreme Programming is NOT:

Over a period of time I encountered people who said they follow the eXtreme Programming practices. With more analysis what I found was startling as Its quite often misused. xP is simple to implement and complex to understand its' essence. What XP is not is:

An excuse to not follow any process

To not apply design patterns

Collective ownership? Aha! Now I can change what I think the way it should be.

Lets scratch each others back and we will be alright

Scalability? We do not care.

The place I am leaving the bricks and walls behind of

Must have been a historic game

Cricket is a game of uncertainity. Be it 5-day tests or 100 overs one dayers. SriLankan's 398 against Kenyans were at one time seemed to be an unacheivable target. Lankans then were at the top of their game and Kenya had just started. Such a high score was understandable. What happened yesterday between Australia and South Africa was nothing much but a history. Sometimes a change in a rule changes the game. When 200/220 were considered a high score in '80s, the 15-over restriction rule made 300 acheivable, but 400? nah! Aussies made 434/4 and it seemed an unassailable target in 50 overs. Most of the teams will get bundled in less than 280 to try to acheive it. But what South Africans did is beyond the words - reaching this humongous target with just one ball to spare. And this contest was not between the two extremes of the teams but between two strong contenders of the next world cup.

Filling the vacuum with emptiness

I want to blog, to write something but do not know what? Its like trying to listen the sound of the silence or to fill the vacuum with emptiness. But I have to write so lets see what is happening around? The blogs.sun.com is down as it does quite often these days. And I can't get nostalgic reading what the sun bloggers are thinking. Conan O'brian is clowning and I can't imagine how can he replace Jay Leno in three years. My complex XSD eventually got compiled. The bunch of letters are sitting on top of my table waiting to be either shredded or being replied. But it feels good that I ended up writing this blog even though with an agnostic content.

Please love Scott McNealy

I would hate him leave Sun. People hate him, people despise him. I love him and is so many other Sun and ex-Sun employees for what he is - A fiery figure.

Blog link nuisance(s)

Blogs are supposed to be the reflection of the blogger. Its mine and only mine, my personal space. What I write is what I think and believe in. Then who do I invite? Who do I keep in my links? Should the blogroll reflect changes in my own thought process? Some of the nuisance are:

1. Damn! my manager blogs too. Now I have to link him on my page.
2. I don't know how to delete this person's link. I never liked him but I linked him once and now he's there.
3. His contents rarely change. Shall I remove him?
4. By linking him will I maintain my network?
5. He blogs about things I don't believe in.

Couldn't stop laughing

[courtsey: www.dilbert.com]

Politics going bad if..

If we do not manage it properly. Here is one fictious scenario:

1. Indo-US deal is ratified by the US congress.
2. US denies similar agreement with Pakistan.
3. China criticizes US.
4. Pakistan turns to China.
5. China signs similar nuclear deal with Pakistan.
6. Situation in north western province worsens.
7. Top terrorist killed in Pakistan.
8. Iran does its' first nuclear tests.
9. Iraq splits.
10. Iran assisted terrorists from Palestenian land attack Israel
11. Israel bombs Iranian nuclear facility.
12. Failed military coup in Pakistan.
13. US lands its' first military attache in Pakistan
14. Civil war breaks out in Pakistan.

The world can prevent this from happening If:

1. Pakistan signs a nuclear deal with China
2. US ratifies it.
3. Russia reaches an agreement with Iran to supply the nuclear energy.
4. Democracy is established in Iraq
5. Hamas changes to a political front.
6. A sovereign Palestine nation is born.
7. Top terrorist dies in Afghanistan
8. Government in lebanon changes.
9. US pulls out of Iraq

I wish I was 90

Cuz, I hate preaching at my age. But there are things which do matter to me and how I judge people. Five things which makes me uncomfortable:

1. If you can't laugh at yourself.
2. If you can't listen to the criticism.
3. If the intentions of the discussion are hidden.
4. If you are thinking something else and saying something different.
5. Arrogance

5 good things for Unix

1. Ubuntu
2. GNOME
3. No more releases of HP-UX
4. Open sourcing Solaris
5. x86isizing it

The significance of Indo-US nuclear deal

Even if the US congress does not ratify the Indo-US nuclear deal promised by George Bush during his first India visit, it has a lot of symbolic significance. The Indo-US relations are important for the following reasons :

• India's largest opposition party [N]ational [D]emocratic [A]lliance led by the Hindu nationalist BJP was known to be the key architect in working towards the Indo-US relations. The ruling Indian National Congress didn't deviate from this path. NDA in the past had not changed the decision of the then congress government in opening up the economy. What it means to US is that the relationship is not bound to one person or one party, Its with the nation and where its headed.


• Its a reward to the democracy.


• Even though India has not signed the NPT it has a very strong safeguards against it and very good track record.


• India is a country of religions. It has a Muslim president, a Sikh Prime minister, the chair of the ruling congress party is a Christian and her two kids are Hindus. Its easy said but the fabric is hard to acheive. When we find in other regions with two communities of the same religion having highted tensions, India lives with 150 million Muslim population, 80% hindus and 5% Sikhs.


• Its a well known statement by some US official : "150 million muslims and no Al-Qaeda".


• Peaceful left party and muslim demonstrations greeted Bush to India. It demonstrates the freedom of speech in the country. These demonstrations were louder than the sound of two suicide bombings at the US consulate in Karachi in the neighboring Pakistan.


• Clinton's visit to India were as historic as Bush's. India doesn't look upto one political party in US but as a nation.


• India does not want to rely on the unstable regions of the world for its' energy needs.


• We need more energy dammit!

The split second awakening

My TV was on, my alarm clock just went off and I was still sleeping. NBC was running the news when I heard India and [...]. In the split second my brain filled in the gap - India and Pakistan. But the word was wrong and the training my brain took over the years needed a new dictionary. It was India and US. The context "India" appeared in the US news in was different. I was awake by now.