manki’s weblog

“Seeing” gods

2013-06-17T23:04:00.001+10:00

Every believer defines god to be supernatural. Assuming that is indeed true... if a god walks in front of us, would our limited senses and intelligence be able to “see” the god? It’ll be like measuring pressure with a ruler. We just won’t have what it takes to see a god!

Given we have no way of really seeing gods, can it be that gods do really walk around right here on earth, among us?

Possessiveness

2013-04-04T23:51:00.001+11:00

Possessiveness is dominating in the name of love.

The world keeps changing

2013-03-17T20:15:00.000+11:00

Chanced upon this picture by todayshow on Instagram:

First thing that came to mind was a disapproval for the change the world has gone through. But soon I realised I am not here to judge anything/anyone. The world has changed, for better or worse. And it’s the nature of the world to keep changing in its every living moment. Just acknowledge the change and go on.

Competing by creating value

2013-03-09T22:13:00.000+11:00

I started using Dropbox three years ago. I really liked Dropbox because they were the only cloud storage service to support Linux. They have a very good web interface; their UI is pretty good; their service is very reliable; their security is pretty good too, in my view.

Google launched Drive last year. Their web UI is much inferior to Dropbox’s. They don’t support Linux. It’s uncertain if they’ll ever support Linux; even if they did, they may soon decide to withdraw. Despite all this, I will be seriously considering a switch to Drive if/when there is a Linux client for it.

Dropbox has been in the business since 2008. They have done an excellent job of building a reliable cloud storage service that people want to use. With their APIs, they have built an ecosystem around their service with noticeable success. But now Google comes along trying to build a much richer ecosystem of web apps. If Dropbox is a bridge for aspiring apps to connect to the future, Drive wants to be a building block of that future.

One way to think about Drive is as a personalised office suite with apps from different vendors. You can use LucidChart for creating diagrams; UJAM for creating music; Google Docs for creating documents — all from within drive.google.com! All these apps store the data in your Google Drive so your data is always with you on all your devices. It’s clearly a better model than Dropbox’s; and more ambitious and risky at the same time. If Drive’s aspirations work out well, Dropbox and other competitors will have a tough time catching up.
==========

This is something I like to learn from Google. They know how to compete with players who are already dominant in a field. When Google launched Chrome, everyone said “we don’t need another browser”. Chrome today has captured an enormous share of the market. Chrome did not try to do things that people loved about Firefox or Safari or Opera. Instead, Chrome has been focusing on things that are useful and unique. (Syncing profile data, supporting bundled apps, etc. are some examples that come to mind.)

Maybe winning is a byproduct of focusing on your strengths, bringing something new and useful to the table, and continuously improving your product.

Happiness and distraction

2013-02-27T12:39:00.000+11:00

Happiness is inversely proportional to distraction. The more you’re distracted, the less happy you are.

Related: Purpose, happiness, and Buddhism

Just how fast is USB 3.0?

2013-02-02T14:44:00.000+11:00

USB 3.0 isn’t exactly new, and everyone knows how fast it is compared to USB 2.0. I bought my first USB 3.0 device yesterday — an external hard disk — and I was curious how fast it really was. I used hdparm as described in an Ask Ubuntu answer to compare the speeds of 3 different storage devices I had.

Fastest was, unsurprisingly, the internal mSATA SSD my laptop had, at about 180MBps. The new USB 3.0 hard disk (a Western Digital one) managed to read data at 105MBps. This number is very impressive when juxtaposed next to my old USB 2.0 drive (a Hitachi) which could read only at around 34MBps.

Raw numbers for the curious and for posterity:

% sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sda    # Internal SSD
/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   8624 MB in  2.00 seconds = 4314.43 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 544 MB in  3.02 seconds = 179.89 MB/sec

% sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb    # USB 3.0 external HDD
/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   8584 MB in  2.00 seconds = 4293.72 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 318 MB in  3.01 seconds = 105.54 MB/sec

% sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb    # USB 2.0 external HDD
/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   8434 MB in  2.00 seconds = 4219.40 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 102 MB in  3.03 seconds =  33.69 MB/sec

Local discount

2013-01-08T10:25:00.000+11:00

I walk through Darling Harbour to work everyday. I’d often stop at Harbourside mall to grab something to eat or a cup of coffee. It’s been a routine for almost two years now. Today, as I was walking towards Gloria Jeans, a shop on the way attracted my attention with the sign “Best cappuccino in Darling Harbour”. I thought I’d try their coffee today. After ordering my flat white, I noticed that the price wasn’t exactly cheap. It was $4.80 here, while it’d cost me only $4 in Gloria Jeans, or $3.5 in the shop right next to my home.

I like clearing out my wallet of all coins, and today I had $4.90 in coins in my wallet. I paid $4.80 in coins, and the shopkeeper asked me, “Do you work here, sir?”. “No, I work in Pyrmont. I live in the city, so I walk through this way”, was my response. He gave 80 cents back and told me that locals get a discount in all shops in the mall. He said, “When you buy something in this mall, tell them you work here and get a discount. Even if you’re just walking through, you are eligible.”

You have no idea how pleased I am!

Yearly review: 2012

2013-01-02T12:45:00.000+11:00

As each year ends, I’d think “wow, this year was great”, and 2012 was no exception. Contrary to last few years, I am extremely satisfied with how my work has improved. Often, it feels like I am back in my MKU days. I love going to work most days.

On the personal front things are a little bit different, though. I am not reading as much as I used to; I am not writing as much as I used to; I am not thinking as much as I used to. I probably don’t write as much code as I used to for my “hobby” projects. But it’s understandable because I devote a lot of time for my work. I sometimes even want to work during weekends, which is completely unlike me. (I’d usually leave work behind when I leave office.)

I didn’t travel much this year, but I did do a few road trips, including a 1.5 weeks trip to (a part of) the Australian Outback. I was super-active on Google+ for a few months, but I think my interest has been slowly waning like it does on any social networking platform. That’s probably a good thing because I can use that time in doing things that are more meaningful — like reading books or writing code.

Earning in dollars makes many things possible, but like everything else in life that comes at a price, too. Staying away from family has made me realise how much I identify myself as a part of my family rather than my own individual self. The desire to do something meaningful to people of my town, my state, and my country, has been intensifying too. Sadly, I just can’t figure out what it is that I can do. Hopefully I would some day.

When I was in college, I had deep disrespect for a kind of people. I can’t quite describe them in words, but they’re ambitious, they seem to work hard, they have habits that look very artificial (like consciously avoiding negative thoughts). Over the past few years, I know I am slowly becoming one of that kind. Only difference is, now I am seeing those despised characteristics from inside out and they don’t seem all that bad.

Overall, I enjoyed all of 2012. Thinking about it, I think there wasn’t a single day when I wasn’t willing to die. Quoting Dido here would be appropriate, I think.

Just this life, I need no other
Just this day, I need no more
Just this moment, let it all stop here
Let it all stop here I’ve had my fill.

Improving someone else’s product

2012-11-20T19:16:00.000+11:00

I spent a nontrivial amount of time writing code for uploading photos to Flickr from a web app of mine. Flickr has apparently made it easier to upload pictures now, so my friend — the only user of my app — doesn’t upload pictures from my app anymore.

Lesson learned: By making your product a mere feature of someone else’s product, you’re giving up control over your own userbase. (Related: Twitter and developers, a love story)

Better tools, better results

2012-11-08T21:05:00.001+11:00

Get the best tool you can get. A lousy keyboard causes more grammar and spelling errors.

Shying away from success

2012-10-21T18:17:00.000+11:00

I wonder if I have been shying away from success. I know I fear the unknown. What happens after completing a task or project is probably “new and unknown”, and I subconsciously avoid it just so that I don’t have to face unknowns.

No parentheses

2012-10-15T07:44:00.001+11:00

I think the next improvement I should make to my writing is to drastically reduce the number of times I include notes in parentheses. They make reading unnecessarily hard without adding much value.

Bad writing

2012-10-07T17:09:00.000+11:00

I was chatting with a friend and remembered something I had blogged about. Naturally, I shared the link to the post. That post was written two years ago, and it wasn’t the best of my writing. After reading, she said I had come a long way from that point and I write much better these days.

I didn’t start writing because I wanted to become better at writing; I have always been a person who likes to write... it’s a way of self-expression for me. English isn’t my first language, but my primary blog (this blog) is in English. God only knows why. My posts from years ago are nothing to be bragged about. They are childish thoughts expressed in an awkward way. Not that I have become a great writer now, but I have improved over time.

The way to improve writing is to exercise bad writing. You know your writing is horrible, and yet you keep on writing. Some day you’ll find yourself writing like a good writer. I don’t know about others, but my takeaway from this is that there isn’t anything inherently good or bad. Everything is equally good and bad.

Going back to writing well. As I said, I like writing. I think good writing should feel like the writer wrote it effortlessly... like words dancing together to make the text, and not like odd components stacked together. If I were to wish, I’d say I want to write like Rob Pike or Bruce Eckel. Those are two authors I loved reading... people from whom I have learned many things.

If you have been trying to become better at something, I think you’d like watching this video. (Source: Daring Fireball)

Winning and losing

2012-10-07T14:34:00.002+11:00

If you’re not willing to lose, you have a rather slim chance of winning.

Don’t pay for web hosting if you don’t have to

2012-09-29T12:01:00.000+10:00

A few months ago, I moved all my websites, including my personal homepage www.manki.in to Google hosting. (That is, some Google product running on my own domain.) However, there was one piece in the puzzle that was still with my web hosting provider: redirecting any requests to the naked domain manki.in to www.manki.in. Once the request reaches www.manki.in, Google would take care of it from there on.

This was the setup of my site for several months, until yesterday. Only yesterday I found out an awesome feature Google Apps has. It can redirect requests to your naked domain to any subdomain you specify. Precisely the one thing I was paying my web hosting provider for! And Google would do this for free because I am on their free Google Apps plan. That amounts to saving more than $50 a year. Very cool!

Essentially, I had to set up DNS A records to point my domain name to Google’s IP addresses and tell Google Apps which subdomain I wanted the requests to go to. Check Google’s help page for detailed step-by-step instructions.

One last thing you need to do is disconnect your domain name from your hosting provider’s IPs so your users are always sent to the right place. Once you have added the A records to map your domain to Google’s IPs, delete all original A records so your domain is not pointing to your hosting provider anymore. When your hosting contract runs out next year, you can simply not renew it :)

Error-handling: Java vs Go

2012-09-18T23:34:00.000+10:00

FotoBlogr is the first toy I wrote using Go. As a part of FotoBlogr, I also wrote a Flickr client library, an App Engine helper library, (unpublished) Blogger client, and Picasa client, so I got to see some idiomatic Go. One thing I really missed when writing Go was exceptions. Many things that are one-liners in languages with exception support (Java, Python, etc.) become 3 or 4 lines in Go. Let’s take parsing a string as an integer for example. In Java, you’d write:

int n = Integer.parseInt(str);

and you’re done. If you expect this conversion to fail, you’d catch NumberFormatException, but it’s not mandatory. Compare this to equivalent Go code:

n, err := strconv.Atoi(str)

Of course, you can choose to ignore the error by using an underscore in the place of err, but it still won’t be as expressive like in Java. For instance, you cannot write return math.Sqrt(strconv.Atoi(str)). You must write that in two different statements:

n, _ := strconv.Atoi(str)
return math.Sqrt(n)

Of course, this is wrong, and it should actually be something like:

n, err := strconv.Atoi(str)
if err != nil {
  // Handle this error.
}
return math.Sqrt(n)

It was very annoying to get used to writing code this way... almost as if writing dumb code.

Fast forward a few months. I had moved to a C++ project where the style guide prohibits using exceptions. Existing code in this project ignored errors in several places, but when I was writing new code I always made sure I did something about errors... at the minimum log it and proceed. I didn’t have to make a conscious effort to do that; writing Go code had trained me to naturally think about error handling. It felt awkward to not check for errors, in fact.

Now, I am fixing a bug in a Java project. This is an old project with design decisions independently made by hundreds of engineer over several years. The change itself is fairly simple: instead of simply sending a request to an RPC server, now we have to first check whether it’s okay to send that request. If this query fails, we’d show an error message to the user. But the complication is this: I’m changing a void method that does not throw any exceptions. (This method in effect promises all its callers that it can never fail!) This method is being called by half a dozen classes, which are being called a few others, and so on. Unless I touch a large number of files to handle the new error, I can’t get the code to compile.

I was discussing this issue with a teammate and what he said was remarkable. He said, “Every method in every class should throw a checked exception irrespective of whether that method can fail or not. If it cannot fail today, maybe it can tomorrow.” He didn’t literally mean that, of course. What he meant was we weren’t using checked exceptions as extensively as we should have. If this method I am changing now threw some checked exception, I could simply use that in my client code without scratching my head too much. This is precisely what Go does. Almost all functions return an error status. You can choose to ignore it, but when someone new to the codebase reads it, it’s obvious you’re ignoring an error. I’m starting to think that Go’s way of error-handling is a much superior way than Java’s and C++’s.

SIDENOTE: The easy and obvious fix is to throw a RuntimeException and catch it in only the places I like to change now. But that’s a really wrong way to fix a problem like this. First of all, RuntimeExceptions are not meant for cases like this. They are for things like division by zero, dereferencing a null pointer, etc. Things that can happen in any code and thus are impractical to handle specifically. Since they are rare and usually very serious, they are allowed to propagate through deep call stacks. Defining application errors, input errors, etc. as RuntimeException can lead to severe debugging issues over time. You really don’t want that.

White headphones

2012-09-16T14:09:00.001+10:00

At work, we can pick up headphones for free. You just walk into the place where they’re kept, take one, and walk away. You don’t have to ask anyone, and you don’t have to tell anyone. I took a really nice Sennheiser pair a couple weeks ago. Though they are expensive (about $60), it was painful to use them. 10 minutes into wearing them, my ears would be paining real bad.

I decided I’d just buy a better pair myself. Being a predictable BoseSheep, I went to Bose (like iSheep buying Apple without thinking). They had two different models: OE2 and AE2. OE is on-ear while AE is around-ear. AE2, when worn, doesn’t even touch your ears so they are more comfortable than OE2.

But I am not a rational buyer... I’ve never been one. Very often I’d buy things for totally random reasons. This time I decided to buy the OE2 because that was the only model available in white. AE2 came in one colour and that was black. I just cannot buy a black toy when there’s a white alternative.

Within two days of usage, I don’t like the OE2 because it’s pushing on my ears almost like the Sennheiser. Unhappily but with no other choice, I go to Bose Store again to return the OE2 and pick up an AE2. To my surprise, they had white AE2s now! Bose must have launched these in the two days I had the OE2! Funny how lucky I get :)

Slow = bad

2012-09-11T13:17:00.000+10:00

Having to wait for machines repeatedly is one of the most demoralising things you can experience when trying to get something done.

Understanding code

2012-09-09T21:03:00.000+10:00

You don’t understand a piece of code until you can confidently add features to it.

Is screen the only advantage tablets have?

2012-09-09T12:55:00.000+10:00

Quite often, I find myself wanting to read on my Nexus 7 than on my laptops. Checking my Google Reader, reading any article that’d take more than a couple of minutes, reading Kindle books... I prefer the tablet for all these. This is not surprising because the Nexus 7 has a 216-dpi screen while my laptop has an incomparable 96-dpi screen.

When it comes to doing some real work... work that involves multitasking and/or precision, touch devices are very inadequate. Think of writing code, for instance. I’d have 6+ browser tabs open with various manuals, one terminal for building and running the code, one or two more terminals for other random stuff, one editor/IDE window (usually GVim; occasionally Eclipse), and a few more browser tabs that are pure distraction (Gmail, Google+, etc.) A touchscreen device without overlapping windows just won’t work for this use case.

Android’s multitasking UI would improve over time, but I doubt if it can catch up with current desktop OSes in the next two years. On the other hand, it’s likely that before the end of 2013 there will be enough high-res monitors and laptops in the market. When that happens, I may use the laptop a lot more frequently than the tablets.

While tablets may replace laptops for quite a few people going forward, I don’t see myself giving up the functionality I get from desktop OSes.

Inspecting 302 HTTP headers

2012-09-02T10:06:00.000+10:00

Let’s say you want to inspect the response header for an HTTP request. But the response is a 302, so your browser immediately navigates to the new location and you never get to see the 302 response (and the headers).

One way to solve this problem would be to install a browser extension that would keep the headers for you even after the redirect has happened. But I’m not a big fan of installing browser extensions for functionality that I very rarely need. So I use the wget command instead:

wget -S -O/dev/null --max-redirect=0 'http://www.google.com/'

-S flag tells wget to print the headers to stderr
-O/dev/null discards the response body (by writing it to the null device)
--max-redirect=0 tells wget to not follow any redirects.

This is the 302 redirect google.com sends for redirecting users to country-specific Google domain:

--2012-09-02 09:54:33--  http://www.google.com/
Resolving www.google.com (www.google.com)... 74.125.237.50, 74.125.237.48, 74.125.237.52, ...
Connecting to www.google.com (www.google.com)|74.125.237.50|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 
  HTTP/1.1 302 Found
  Location: http://www.google.com.au/
  Cache-Control: private
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
  [...snip...]
  Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2012 23:54:33 GMT
Location: http://www.google.com.au/ [following]
0 redirections exceeded.

Some monospace fonts

2012-08-28T06:58:00.000+10:00

Being the monospace font freak that I am, I recently found PT Mono and have fallen in love with it. Turns out, I’ve been liking the PT family of fonts for a while: I have been using PT Sans for this blog’s headings. You can download PT Mono (and others) for free from ParaType’s web site.

If PT Mono is my newly found attraction, I have been really liking Envy Code R for its extreme readability. If I had to pick a single monospace font to live with for the rest of my entire life, I’d choose Envy Code R. You can download Envy Code R for free from Font Squirrel.

If you’re into serif monospace fonts, give Verily Serif Mono a try. This used to be my favourite font until I stumbled upon Envy Code R.

Poor battery life after Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) update?

2012-07-30T22:37:00.002+10:00

If your Android phone was recently updated to Android 4.1 (aka Jelly Bean) and you have been seeing really bad battery life ever since, read on. It could be that Google+ sync has been enabled by the update and that’s using up a lot of power. Go to your phone’s Settings > Accounts > Google settings screen. For every Google account listed, deselect the Google+ option. This should bring back sane battery life to your phone.

See Demystifying Android power usage for more generic tips on saving battery life on Android devices.

Kovilpatti boy

2012-07-23T15:19:00.000+10:00

It’s been 5 weeks since I came to India. I have been living in our new house since my arrival, and it’s been pretty good. Wide open sky with almost no light pollution. This time of the year is usually windy, and I quite like the weather. Being with my family has always made me happy.

Went out on my bike (a motorcycle) to a few places. Even after seven years, I think my bike is pretty good and I like it the same. The reason for the possessiveness I have about the bike and my riding gear has been unfathomable. I just don’t want to share them with anyone! Have a slightly longer ride coming up tomorrow; looking forward to it. Want to take some pictures during the trip too; let’s see how that works out.

I would have liked to be a bit more productive at work, but the lack of productivity hasn’t made me very unhappy. My mind keeps telling me that this is my place. I really want to come back here and start living here again... like the Kovilpatti boy that I am. There’s something magical about this place... maybe.

Better than animals

2012-06-11T17:23:00.001+10:00

“Even when they don’t know much—or not at all—about Americans, many Indians think that Indians are generally better than Americans. Do you think it’s correct to think that way?” When I ask people this question, they almost always say “No, it’s not appropriate to think ill of others without knowing them well”. Or they’d say “It’s incorrect to generalise all Americans or Indians that way”.

However, when I discuss morality with them, an argument they love to put forth is that “We are humans, shouldn’t we be better than animals?” I just don’t understand why. Vast majority of us don’t know much about the lives animals live. We don’t know why individual’s free will should yield to society’s morals. We can’t be sure if we are actually better than animals to begin with. But somehow we as a society have to live “better” than animals!