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Pune Rails Meetup

December 19, 2009 – 7:25 pm

I attended the Pune Rails meetup, hosted by my company Thoughtworks, this evening. Although I’ve had a brief (well, not-so-brief) encounter with Rails over the past 9 months (and for more than an year now with Ruby), I’m not that much of a Rails person. It’s an exciting framework, alright. But I’m not that much of a web person. I had a few observations about the event, which go as follows.

  • Rails has made it really easy for people to start developing database-backed web-apps quickly. Unfortunately, it appeared that not many people knew too much about Ruby the language.
  • The Rails meetup did not have much to offer to new comers. It ended up being more of a practitioner’s meetup, who discussed their apps and experiences. Nothing wrong about it, but my friend – who comes from the .Net world – didn’t get any taste of what Rails is about. I had hoped that attending this session would have made him a convert, given that he is a web developer. I was left alone at the end of it all, explaining to him why Rails is that cool. Not that I did a great job there…
  • The sessions lacked technical depth. I guess that could be primarily because people are reluctant to speak.  “Someone else will be speaking, I believe” – must have been the general belief! ;-( Maybe, it’s also because such meetups are far and few, so it is hard to set an agenda or topics.
  • Probably, many of the experienced Rails people just avoided turning up. Atleast, hardly any of the good Rails guys I know of personally turned up. As was rightly noted during the meetup by Anthony Hsiao, even though Pune has (probably) the highest number of Rails developers in India, Pune-ites aren’t particularly known to be as active when it comes to organizing such technical gatherings. No prizes for guessing that RubyConf India 2010 isn’t happening in Pune!

A quick note – ThinkDRY presented their Blank Application which they’ve open-sourced. Cheers to them!

On the whole, it could have been much better.

jaju | Scripting Languages | Comments (0)

Australia Steyned?

December 30, 2008 – 7:02 am

South Africa’s Dummy partnership Steyned Australia’s reputation further…

jaju | cricket | Comments (2)

Some numbers from the First Final between India and Australia (CBS 2008)

March 3, 2008 – 6:24 am

Can’t seem to recall all I had noted, but here are a few

  • Sachin and Rohit scored 123 runs for the 4th wicket.
  • At one stage, Sachin and Rohit were on 81 and 36 (9^2 and 6^2) respectively
  • At another stage, Sachin and Rohit were on 99 and 66 respectively. (Then Sachin moved to 100 and Rohit was out)

Will add more if I can recall.

On another note: Symonds and Hayden ko unki Maa ki yaad nahi aayi because Harbhajan ne unhe unki Maa ki Maa (Naani) yaad dila di! :D (Harbhajan ousted them)

Update on match 2: It’s Harbhajan again! Usne phir se Hayden aur Symonds ko unki Maa ki Maa ki yaad dilaayi aur pavilion ka raasta dikhaaya – all without being reprimanded by the match referee or ICC or any other pale man.

Update 2 on match 2: Unki Hussey to jaa chuki hai. Ab Hopes bhi chale jaaye to accha hoga. (Hussey and Hopes were playing well enough. Hussey (hassi in Hindi means smile) just got out, raising India’s Hopes…)

Comment after end of match 2: Australia, the new JChokers? England did that to them last year. India, this year! (What? you ask… Australia went in as favourites with most most points into both finals, only to lose badly!)

admin | cricket, india | Comments (1)

Sensexational!

January 22, 2008 – 9:06 am

What a fall! And who wouldn’t have expected it? Only when was the question.

The economy ‘fundamentals’ and all that might be great, but nowhere enough to justify the kind of rise the Bombay Stock Exchange had seen. Had the stock market not been such a dangerous place, it would have been an extremely funny one. Dangerous because it can cause so much grief, and unrepairable loss, to investors. Nevertheless, it’s kind of funny to see people putting price on vapor-ware. Even companies which do not exist yet (do I need name?) on the ground, but only on paper, as ideas, can have their IPOs oversubscribed tens of times over.

Stock markets were supposed to be places where you could put a price on shares depending on either the existing worth of a company, or bet on some term-based growth projections and offer buy-prices accordingly. But the manner in which prices have been moving in recent times makes you wonder what kind of a game this has become. It’s a purely speculative market, with mostly none of the buyers having any idea as to why they were buying some company’s stock.

Sigh. You can only feel bad for the really badly hurt souls.

admin | india, philosophy, society, world | Comments (0)

Singhling out Singh

January 18, 2008 – 9:29 am

For some mistreatment. It looks like Australians have decided to get back at RP Singh for what he did to them in the first innings. Now, in the second innings, he is being singhled out for some thrashing. Or so it seems.

Good luck, Team India. You can make it! Be a part of the new record. 17, and maybe, 18! You will own half of the record, since there’s no win without an opponent.

(Posting these views at an unmoonly hour, and there’s a long way to go. Aus, 38/1, scoring mostly in FOURs.)

PS: For those unfamiliar, I picked the capitalized and bold form of FOUR because that’s all that captures your sight when you see cricinfo.com’s live commentary.

admin | cricket, india | Comments (0)

Of Monkeys And Bhajans

January 10, 2008 – 6:55 am

A nice title to have, but I’m not dwelling on that.

What strikes me is the following

  • Ponting and Kumble apparently agreed to take the fielding side’s word whenever deciding whether a batsman was out or not was doubtful
  • Then, Ponting gets to exercise this agreement twice in cases where there wasn’t an iota of doubt that the Indian batsmen were not out. The umpire apparently, in moments of racist insanity, took Ponting’s words for those.
  • When Australian batsmen were really out, and the Indians were convinced, the umpires simply changed their standards – or should I say, racism reared it’s ugly head in their minds, and they really had something against Indians on their mind?

Surprising that no one even discusses this funny agreement and how it was selectively exercised, and supported selectively by the umpires!

admin | philosophy, society | Comments (3)

Stupid? Yes, I Am!

January 5, 2008 – 3:16 pm

I just don’t get it, do I? I’m plain stupid. The good guys at Tata Indicom Broadband are at it again. Doling out goodies to customers. I have been a bad customer, I know. Haven’t paid them rent since June, 2007. I had asked them to disconnect, but the good souls that they are, they don’t want me left in the lurch. They have been calling me religiously every month to remind me to pay my bills. Obviously, money is the root of all evil, and they want me to get rid of some evil every 30 days. But evil, and stupid, I am! I want a piece of their bandwidth in exchange for evil money. And they won’t let me have any of it! What if I use their bandwidth to make more stupid blog posts – I know how thoughtful they are!

Oh, sorry. I dwell too much on the past. Back to the doling out goodies to customers thingy.

They seem to have a wonderful plan (screenshot) for customers. Wonderful! Either you pay up Rs. 18,840 21,169 (inclusive of all taxes) for a prepaid connection of 512-Kbps, for 1 year, OR pay up Rs. 22,000 (and add service tax at 12.36%, i.e., Rs. 24,719.20 in all) UPFRONT for a postpaid connection of 512-Kbps for 1 year, and get a FREE wireless router! Ah, so mighty cool!

But I am stupid, I tell ya! Why would I not choose the first option and keep some evil stuff with me? Almost 6000 3,500 Indian evil units! I am not stupid. I am evil.

They have a record of doing such things which make me feel plain stupid. But sorry, stupid that I am, I don’t keep records.

admin | Uncategorized | Comments (1)

A Fix for Opinions. And Opinion Polls!

October 4, 2007 – 10:42 am

Opinions are mostly irrational. Atleast that’s what my opinion about them is. And as if one opinion isn’t enough, we have opinion polls. So many irrationalities to deal with!

I decided to take this issue head on and come up with a solution. And I believe I have achieved something which could be life-changing! Atleast as far as opinion polls are concerned, I might have stumbled upon something which could cause the world to stand up and take notice!

It’s a brilliant idea, but surprisingly simple! Having put in years worth of effort on math, I am proud to have come up with a mathematical marvel. Something that I believe could be my best tribute to all my teachers and mathematicians of the world.

In a brilliant stroke of ingenuity, I found the perfect way to weed away irrational components from any opinion polls to get the best, pure and most useful feedback from the masses – the best way to harness the power of potentially millions, if not billions of human beings on the face of the earth.

Here it is, the magic recipe. As we all know, ‘Pi‘ is irrational. So, from now on, calling all oPInion polls as onion polls will simply take away the pain from this important activity and make the results infinitely more usable and meaningful!

Patent pending. Please provide onions (rational opinions: get used to onions, ok?), and I might rationally consider associating your name with this great invention.

Ravindra Jaju – 2007-10-04

Update: Notice, how of late onion prices have been rising in India? Looks like people are taking note of this breakthrough and stocking onions! Keep watching this space for my IPO.

jaju | Uncategorized | Comments (3)

“Welcome back!”

September 29, 2007 – 4:45 pm

(This happened on the 17th of September, 2007. Around 8 PM.)

What a welcome it has been! I spent more than a month in a so-called developed Western country where switching off anything is probably unheard of. And people are very courteous and polite. And then my first day in Pune (yeah, home sweet home!) was spent without electricity for some time, and then very-low voltage supply for some more time – enough to make me worried about my appliances. Anyhow, minor stuff.

On my way to my native place, I had to get into a queue at Jodhpur station to buy a ticket. I stood in the queue for quite some time, and when it was my turn, I was turned away because I did not have change. I went back to get some change, and got into the queue. I had spent some considerable amount of time during this exercise. Just when it was my turn, a well-built guy barges into the queue just ahead of me, declaring that he needs to take a ticket urgently for his brother, who is in the police department and is getting late for his duty! I protested, only to be pushed physically by this person. I started protesting loudly. And then. Wham! He punched me right on my left face, and my spectacles flew away! It was a hard punch, and I instantly started to ’shiver’. That guy threatened me with dire consequences. “Let’s move away from here. I’ll show you what it means to challenge me!” I feared for my sight. I am completely blind without my glasses. Well, almost. Luckily, they fell on the ticket counter, and my glasses were safe. The frame was damaged though. I didn’t want to leave without taking my tickets, so I handed over the same 100 rupee note I had used the first time, and not the change. This time, all the commotion caused the person at the ticket window to not worry about change! He handed me the right ticket, and also the right change!

I started following that guy. I am not strong or well-built, but at times, I can do things which I wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance. Normally, when I am not being a hypocrite, I can’t stand any bullying or injustice. (Yeah, I am not perfect too!) This guy was now with his brother, who looked mightier and more well-built! I was walking immediately behind them. They stopped, turned, stared and then started walking again. I kept following. They stopped again and turned. And then, asked me why I was following them. (Ha ha!) Of course, I gave them a piece of my mind. Loud enough. The younger (I believe) guy told me how because of me he had to get a ticket ‘in black‘ (What? There’s a black-market for railway tickets??). Without thinking too much about what that meant, I asked them how they, as upholders and supposed protectors of the law of the land, could do illegal stuff! They started walking again, and of course, I was following them. I could sense some sense of fear in them now. One started climbing the stairs on his way to platform number 3, and the other kept walking on the platform. And then both stopped, looking confused. ‘We have to go to platform 3!’ said one to the other. ‘Oh good!’ I said to myself. ‘I am going there too. So, this can carry on for some more time.’ Since they had stopped, I now overtook this guy standing on the stairs and moved ahead towards the place my relatives were waiting.

Next, I approached a policeman, and asked him if he was on duty. I knew these people avoid any kind of trouble and turn you away with excuses like not being on duty, even if they are in uniforms! So, it was a good idea to ask this before asking for help. Unsurprisingly, he said he was not on duty. Now, there was a TTE (train ticket examiner, or something close) close by who immediately showed concern, talked to me, and then asked another policeman to accompany me.

To cut this short – I took this policeman to these guys. The police asked them to accompany us to the police station. The ‘younger’ guy asked his brother to stay back and he came along, trying various tricks along the way…

  • ‘No, it wasn’t me who hit him! He pushed me!’
  • ‘He threatened me of dire consequences. He claims to have good connections!’
  • To me, and loud enough – ‘Do you really wish to stay here overnight at the police station?’

I excused myself for a few minutes, and brought my uncle to ‘negotiate’. After all, I had to travel further and had no intention of getting involved any further! My main goal was to make sure I send across a good message to these guys that not everyone takes things lying down! And I believed I had done it to some extent. My uncle, who was traveling with me, knew how to deal with this guy’s nonsensical points and arguments, and cleverly got the discussion to the point where this guy accepted that he had ‘only pushed’ me! And in the end, he apologized (unwillingly, of course!) in front of the police, and we went our ways.

And that’s my ‘Welcome back to India’ story.

jaju | india, world | Comments (6)

God, Dog

August 24, 2007 – 8:55 am

Madam, I’m Adam.
Malayalam.
Nitin.
Raw war.
Do good. Do, O God!
Star rats.
Pull up, if I pull up.
Spot on. No tops!
Decaf, I faced.

jaju | Uncategorized | Comments (0)