cool ad

a really cool ad by hp featuring mark cuban.

http://www.hp.com/personalagain/us/en/mark_cuban.html

strong, soft, weak and phantom

this blog on java.net provides a very good writeup on weak, soft and phantom references.

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/enicholas/archive/2006/05/understanding_w.html

though the article explains all the concepts clearly, these two particular lines are just a bit confusing–>

“…and then elsewhere in the code you can use weakWidget.get() to get the actual Widget object.“

and

“you may find (if there are no strong references to the widget) that weakWidget.get() suddenly starts returning null"

if you too find it confusing, hop over to this other article on sdn that provides another writeup with some more nicer pictures, which provides a different perspective of the types of references.

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/ALT/RefObj/

2 industries

industry 1

http://www.ideasbazaar.com/blog/archives/2004/02/09/the_great_indi.php

• “The new India is a very different place”
• “Mobile phones jingle everywhere”
• “and catches up with friends in the evening at a pub called 10 Downing Street”
• “Where graduates used to get starting salaries of 5,000-9,000 rupees (£68-£120) a month, they now get 18,000- 30,000 rupees,”
• “The most successful new industry to emerge from this growth was the software industry“

industry 2

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/07/20/PM200607206.html

• “She is well-connected to the kidney trade here. She said she could introduce me to at least 50 families who’d sold kidneys for money”
  “In fact, one of them even offered to sell me her kidney on the spot”
• “She says typically the recipient will pay about $1,300 for a kidney. Of that, $1,000 is promised to the donor, though many times they only receive half”
• “India’s Ministry of Tourism is promoting what’s being called Transplant Tourism, aimed at drawing wealthy foreigners in search of a cheap medical fix“

didi

i was travelling for the most part this saturday and almost forgot and missed a concert i had planned to attend. i am so glad that i did not.

the concert was by a leading indian pop singer. she is pretty famous and is considered ‘inimitable’. i did not know much about her before going to the concert.

so here is what happened

• she sang about 10-15 songs in about 10 different indian and non-indian languages. she is capable of singing in almost 25+ languages.
• she sang hindi movie songs, religious songs, pop songs and even some rap.
• she did not pause between songs and just merged songs into one another with dialogue. it was pretty cool.
• she kept the audience engaged for the entire 2+ hours
• she did not have a band and was singing to pre-recorded background music. so, she was the only one on the stage. single handedly, she kept the whole audience entertained.
• not even a single soul left the show during the half time.
• it was so weird to see grown men and women start dancing. they were just mesmerized by her.
• kids started running around the stage and dancing for the music.
• overall, it was “the” best musical show, i have attended. (i have attended about 7 such shows)
• she said her thank you and was preparing to leave, but the entire audience begged her to sing a few more songs.
• she obliged and sang a couple. the audience wanted more, but things had to stop. they finished up with a standing ovation.

i personally was just thrilled by the peformance. i would recommend anyone not to miss a chance to see her live in concert.

you probably know the singer by now. yep, it is usha uthup. you can read more about her and even download some songs at her website http://www.ushauthup.com . you can also see her concert schedule and some other info.

i do not know classical carnatic music, and tend to categorize indian music singers into three categories

• good non-carnatic music singers – the few very talented singers who have never learnt carnatic music, but are very creative and are very good with their creations. usha definitely falls into this category. the notable others include jesudas and spb.
• good carnatic music singers – there are also many carnatic music singers who have learnt and perfected their knowledge of carnatic music and also have learnt to keep any type of audience engaged and entertained. many greats including kadri gopalnath, balamurali fall into this category.
• useless carnatic music singers – there is also a category of carnatic music singers who are so stuck to traditional carnatic music and consider an audience that does not know carnatic music as useless. i tend to usually find their arrogant behavior pretty irritating. i did happen to attend a few such horrible performances recently.

if you get a chance to see usha live, please do not miss the opportunity.

goofs – insight

A very good writeup that gives a layman’s view on Google’s File System.

The primary philosophy – “rather than build availability into every IT element at great cost, build availability around every element at low cost.” is explained quite well.

soap formats

a very good article in msdn describing the intricate differences between Document and RPC SOAP Formats and the differences between the encodings.

you might also want to read this ibm developerworks article before reading the other article to understand the differences better.

writing a good tech resume

a good article on eweek.com on writing good technical resumes

a real crappy show

this weekend, i drove the 5+ hours all the way to see the so called blueman show. it was a different show. there were few things to laugh at. but just a very few handful of things.

overall, i thought that the show was a piece of crap. i was just so disappointed.

i have had a chance to see few other shows in vegas. mystere by cirque du soliel is a show that i really liked a lot. so were most other shows. i guess my expectations for this show were very high when i went in and it was just horrible to sit through the show. many times i contemplated getting the heck out of there.

well, it is over now. i would just recommend anybody planning to go to this show to read a lot of reviews before you waste your green on those frigging expensive tickets.