Big Junction Jam was a good fest with more than 25 bands playing from morning to late night. The list of bands that played on Day 1 included Evergreen, Old School Rebels, Bourbon Street, Joos, Mad Orange Fireworks, Black Sun, Indian Blues, Khalihann, Pralayh, Live Banned, Indigraffiti, Paradigm Shift, Bridge, Agam, Parvaaz and Beat Gurus. The list of bands that played on Day 2 were Dark Desolation, Amethyst, The Renegades, Verses, Corrode, Mechanix, Audi-o-file, Heretic, Jekyll and Hyde, Brahmm, Flee, Chronic Blues Circus, Blakc, Kryptos, Ministry of Blues, Sulk Station and DJ Vishnu.
There were several good and talented bands and the light and sound system was fabulous. Unfortunately the event was not very well marketed and attendance was thin. On the flipside, that was good as few photographers including me got stage access and could get good photos in the brilliant lighting. In this gig, I experimented a lot with the square format, B&W post processing and triptychs. Below are few samples of the three formats. Click on the photos to make them bigger. You can see the complete set on flickr at Big Junction Jam Festival 2011 slideshow.

Square format is fairly uncommon in photography but in this cases it looked apt like CD covers.

SANOG (South Asian Network Operators Group) is a conference where various stakeholders from the Internet infrastructure ecosystem can come together, share operational experiences and learn from each other. SANOG is targeted towards the SAARC Countries (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives). SANOG is loosely modeled on APRICOT conference with 5 days of Workshops, 2 days of tutorials and 2 days of conference.

The 16th edition of SANOG was held in Paro, Bhutan. This was the second time that Bhutan was hosting SANOG. SANOG was held in the the Paro Engineering College beside the Paro river in very picturesque settings. The earlier edition of SANOG in Bhutan was held in the capital, Thimphu. This was the 2nd time I was attending SANOG, having attended an earlier edition of SANOG in Mumbai in 2006.

I attended the workshop on Network Security by Gaurab Raj Upadhyay and Johhny Martin from PCH. It covered the basics of security specifically for ISPs and large network providers. There were some good discussions on how to manage the different security audit process as well as an incident management program in case of network security breaches. The hands-on part of the workshop concentrated heavily on securing backbone routers and exchanging routes information securely. Some aspects of filtering and verifying network traffic were also covered. The last day had demos of several tools such as nessus and nmap. The slides can be downloaded from the SANOG Program page. Also in between the workshop breaks and during one of the days of the workshop, Devdas and I wrote a improved whois server that is hopefully in production now at the NIC website.

In the tutorials part of SANOG, I was giving a half-day tutorial on application-level performance measurement [Slides,PDF]. There was an small but interested crowd in the tutorials. I ended up covering a lot more of the web-facing and measurement tools as many of the participants were application developers who had written quite a bit of PHP code. It was the first time I was giving a tutorial on this topic and it helped that it was interactive. In addition to the material on the slides, I talked a bit about front-end performance and tools such as Yslow (Yahoo), Pagespeed (Google) and Webpage Test (AOL). There was a lot of whiteboarding and veered a little away from the slides. I also spoke about the network measurement work being done in the IPPM, BMWG and PMOL working groups in the IETF. The feedback was pretty good and I plan to give a longer version tutorial at later versions of SANOG/APRICOT. I skipped the second day of the tutorials and went to Chele La pass.

The conference had several talks that I was looking forward to and I was not disappointed. The standout talk were on long distance wireless network deployment by Matt Peterson and F-root update by Pete Losher. Both has interesting networking insights and interesting traffic data. I also gave a talk on my IETF fellowship experience [Slides,PDF]. Some of the slides were liberally lifted from “The Tao of the IETF” written by Paul Hoffman. As (good) luck might have have it, I ran into Paul Hoffman at the IETF 78 and told him about it . There were a few questions about the fellowship after the conference so I hope it would inspire more people to apply to the IETF fellowship.

Meanwhile my camera (Nikon D80) should be back from repair and servicing tomorrow from the Nikon service center.

While Startup Saturday has been great for interacting with local entrepreneurs, the Headstart Network mailing list provides another great platform to interact with other entrepreneurs all across India. We have been deliberately loose with the moderation and have seen several great conversations happen over the mailing list but slowly but surely the mailing list itself is becoming a victim of it’s own success. Earlier we had just 2 moderators but now the count of moderators has grown to 5. The list itself has grown from few hundred members to more than 2500+ members across India. We have had to introduce some guidelines to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the list and also to make the archives easily searchable since there is a wealth of information there. These are guidelines and not rules as strict enforcement of rules sometimes stifle conversation that we all value so much.

Headstart Mailing List Rules:

Headstart Mailing list has grown to more than 2500+ members consisting of Entrepreneurs, Investors, aspiring entrepreneurs, consultants and service providers from all over India.

The traffic on the mailing list has also grown to more than 400 messages per month. To maintain the quality of messages, the moderators of the mailing list who are volunteers of the Headstart Network Foundation have decided to enforce some rules to maintain the signal-to-noise ratio. This mailing list is primarily for
entrepreneurs and startups so it will help if the posters ask themselves these questions before posting the mailing list (to make the life of moderators easier – BTW these are the questions moderators ask themselves before allowing posting):

1. Has this question been asked before ? – Suggest searching the archives before asking questions on the mailing list. Many questions such as which hosting provider to use have been answered many times
before.

2. How is this information _specifically_ useful for other entrepreneurs or other startups ? – Especially for those posters who post information regarding other conferences / seminars / tutorials / workshops ?

3. Is this a personal reply to the poster ? If then I would request posters to directly answer to the poster and not the mailing list.

4. Is this message relevant to the objectives of the mailing lists (helping startups and entrepreneurs) and does it follow the guidelines of the mailing list ? Please refer the guidelines below before posting.

Guidelines:

1. Please prefix informative links and posts with [Link] in the subject of the messages.

2. Please prefix queries with the [Query] in the subject of messages.

3. Please prefix queries regarding events such as conferences / seminars / worskhops with [Event] in the subject of messages. Also putting the deadline (if any) in the subject is useful.

4. Please prefix messages for office space / space sharing with [Office Space] in the subject. Putting the locations of the area & city (such as Indiranagar, Bangalore) in the subject header should it make it easy to search.

5. Please prefix offers for Funding / Investing startups with [Fund]

6. Please prefix hiring / jobs descriptions with [Jobs]. Also describe what your startup does (with founders background) and if you offer options/other facilities. If the jobs are not for startups these posts will be rejected.

Last but not the least Please read “How to ask Questions the smart way ?”. This is directed mainly towards technical folks but is still useful for other people. This will increase the probability of finding the answers to your questions quickly.

You can subscribe to the mailing list online here

Please leave any reactions in the comments.

Tivoli Gardens is the world’s second oldest Amusement park and the most popular one in Scandinavia. It is located in the heart of Copenhagen right opposite the central station. Tivoli Gardens is much more than a amusement park – it is a cultural institution, a national symbol, company listed on the Copenhagen Stock exchange and has inspired writers such as Hans Christian Andersen whose statue stands right outside the gate of Tivoli Gardens overlooking it.

Tivoli gardens has a variety of restaurants and rides catering to a wide range of audiences. It is also a popular venue for many concerts, especially on weekends. The all-ride pass cost about 260 DKK (about INR 2000). I got it from the vending machines. Unfortunately the instructions on the machine were not clear and I picked up the receipt but not the band which wraps around the wrist and acts as a ticket for the rides. Fortunately the guards helped me out and issued me one. As a rule the most easy looking rides are the most crazy fun. Like the Golden tower – It takes you to height of 207 feet and then you fall down (actually pulled down) at 1.5G-force. The fall seems like eternity. The experience for me was akin to bungee jumping. The first time you do not know how it will feel so you go along and hold on for dear life. The second time is the scariest as you know the fall is going to happen. I did the ride a total of 8 rides until I started feeling vertigo. The Education minister for Netherlands sat with a glass of water on the Golden Tower ride and during the fall, the water fell down later as compared to the glass as the fall is faster than the acceleration due to gravity (1 g-force). The views of Copenhagen lit in the night from 207 feet above are really magical.

I was lucky to be there on a Friday night as there was a rock concert in progress at the time. There is generally a concert scheduled there on weekends. Tivoli also has a pantomime theatre and the small ponds and different structures are lit up at night. It gives Tivoli a very fairytale feel. In fact, H. C. Andersen’s “The Nightingale” story was inspired by a play in Tivoli. I read several of H. C. Andersen’s fairytales as a kid and was totally fascinated by them. Copenhagen historic centre has changed little since the 18th Century and H. C. Andersen would feel at home even today. Walking around Copenhagen, it is easy to relate to some of his stories such as the “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” (the first thing that came to mind when watching the Change of Guards at Amalienborg Palace), the famous “Little Mermaid” statue and “The Ugly Duckling” (from the artificial lakes around Copenhagen). H. C. Andersen’s other famous stories are “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “Thumbelina”. Even after so many years H. C. Andersen’s remains Copenhagen’s and Denmark’s most famous son.

I had watched the changing of the guard at Stockholm and loved it. So when I heard about the same at Copenhagen, I wanted to see it. The changing of the guard in Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen takes place every day at noon regardless of the weather in Copenhagen. The changing of the guards was a much smaller event as compared to the one in Stockholm.

The soldiers wear distinctive uniforms consisting of a dark blue jacket, blue trousers and the “Bear” – the huge headgear. The bear skin garment is dreaded by most soldiers and it is not uncommon for soldiers to faint during long patrolling periods. The typical shift is is two hours but only the shift change at noon is as ceremonious. The uniforms worn by the Royal Guard date back to the 18th Century handed down from generation to generation by guards. The only new piece of equipment is the German-made rifles.

The Amalienborg Palace is one of the best examples of Rococo style of Architecture in Europe. Ironically the Palace was the home to the nobility but the Royal family moved into the Palace when the original ChristianBorg Palace burned down. The Royal family did not want to pay for the palace so the 4 noble families that lived there were given a tax holiday for 40 years in lieu of payment for their houses. The Marble church or Frederik’s Church is adjacent to the Amalienborg Palace though it is not part of the Palace complex.

The complete set on Flickr

Having stayed in Copenhagen, you notice a few things very quickly. It is a city always on the move – mostly using bicycles – The public bus transportation system is also good. People who live in Copenhagen are very conscious of the environmental impact of their lives – the UN Climate summit was held here. The quality of life is very high as compared to even many Scandinavian cities. Research & Development and Design is an major source of economic growth and also one of it’s many exports. It is apparent from the modern architecture of the city and the abundance of design studios and design exhibitions in the city. In addition, due to it’s location and also due to major investments, the city is also a vibrant cultural hub and has a very international feel.

During my stay, the city was celebrating Copenhagen Design week and there were exhibits all round the city celebrating the works of designers, architects and other creative artists showcasing works from all around Europe. Due to a high concentration of creative people, Copenhagen is a beautiful city to walk and cycle looking at Graffiti (such as the Obama pic here or art on the walls).

Christianshavn

Christianshavn is an artificial Island surrounded by Canals. It was initially built to strengthen the fortifications around Copenhagen. It has a large bohemian community (Freetown Chiristiania) of artists living in what earlier used to be military barracks. It is a semi-legal partially self governing neighbourhood which is known for it’s idiosyncrasy. For example This can be seen on the greeting on the exit to “Freetown Chiristiania” – which says “You are now entering the EU” (pic here). It is often considered to be a “city within a city”. Christianshavn is also home to the National Opera (from where the picture at the top of the post was taken), Danish Architecture Centre , The Royal Danish Academy of Fine arts and Danish Film School.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth

– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish dramatist, novelist and poet.

For instance, I never realized how many faces there are. There are lots of people but still more faces, for everyone has several. There are people who wear a face for years, of course it wears out, gets dirty, cracks in the folds, stretches like a glove one has worn on a journey.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, from “From The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge”

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek is art museum which houses the personal art collection of Carl Jacobson whose father founded the Carlsberg Breweries. It features several collections from Roman sculptures to Danish and French Impressionist paintings. When I was visitng the museum there was an exhibit of masks gathered from all over the world – old and new and made from materials from Papier Mache to Stone. The Glyptotek itself is a very beautiful building with beautiful modern interiors and a landscaped garden and several fountains inside the big building.

After leaving Norway after a long stay, I stayed for a few days while in Gothenburg, Sweden. Soon it was time to move again. The penultimate stop on the journey was in Copenhagen, Denmark. Almost everyone I met on the trip told me that Copenhagen is a beautiful city and rated it it higher than Stockholm. The train journey from Gothenburg to Copenhagen was nice as the train had to traverse the Øresund. The Øresund bridge-tunnel is a combined two-track rail and four-lane road bridge-tunnel across the Öresund strait which separate Sweden and Denmark. It is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe. The tunnel part of the bridge was built to provide a clear flight path for the Copenhagen Airport which is nearby and also for the ships crossing the straits.

In Copenhagen, I had a gracious CS host who lent me a bicycle to explore the city. Using a bicycle is the best way to explore the city. There are even separate pathways in the city for bicycles and even separate traffic signals (pic here). You will find the greatest variety of bicycles in Copenhagen. I even saw a impeccably-dressed women wearing stilettos zooming past me in a bicycle during my stay there. About 37% of Copenhagen’s population uses bicycle to commute to work and together they cycle more than 1.1.million miles.

By the time I had reached Copenhagen it was evening, so I decide to explore the city and take some photos using my tripod. The results were good but it took some time to get the settings right in manual more. All of these photos were taken around the artificial lakes flanking the western ends of Copenhagen.

Gothenburg is the biggest port in Sweden and the Nordic countries. Gothenburg is unique in Sweden due to it’s location. It is considered a very friendly city and is host to a large working class immigrant community. There are several distinctive buildings in the city like the “Lipstick Building”, Fishhallen (The Fish Market), The Gothenburg Opera and the Post office building.

The best way to get around the city is to use it’s extensive tram system which is the largest in any Scandinavian City. The reason for the lack of the subway system unlike other Swedish cities is the soft earth the city is built on. In addition to using the tram system I also went round the old parts of the city on a “Paddan” boat through the city. This tour takes you through the cities canals and under it’s bridges including the “hair brush” bridge and the “Cheese-slicer” bridge (to pass under which you have to crouch beside your seat). This tour also takes you through the Gothenburg port whose huge cranes (like the one at the top of the post) look straight out of a Pink Floyd song.