This thought has been floating in the background of my mind for a few months and I could not pin it down. Till the following post I read by Dare, PM MSN\Windows Live on the OReily Database War Stories which put it on the same page and made it realize.

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life – O’Reilly Database War Stories Highlights

The blog posts has snippets of Database and Scaling stories with some technical details from Google, Flickr(Now Yahoo), Bloglines, Craigslists and so on. And it ends with Dare commenting (hightlighting mine):

I’d have loved to share some of the data we have around the storage infrastructure that handles over 2.5 billion photos for MSN Spaces and over 400 million contact lists with over 8 billion contacts for Hotmail and MSN Messenger. Too bad the series is over. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the OK from PR to share the info anyway.

In the last 20 days or so since the above post, Dare has not shared the data on his blog which makes me believe he might not be doing it. This has nothing direct against Dare, whose posts have technical value to merit reading.

A similar example is the interview with Hotmail ‘s(Microsoft) Phil Smoot with ACM Queue which was lacking in details to make it worth a developer’s time.

Noticing that Google publishes it’s technical implementation papers (Including on MapReduce and Google File System even though they are used for inspiration by competitors like Findory) and some code that Google uses, Livejournal code is available for others. IBM’s algorithms are available for trying out, when will MSN start contributing to the developer community at large.
The Microsoft Research publications do not cover directly anything on the practical implementation topics. The question comes to mind, When will Microsoft\MSN start contributing to the developer community?

Granted it is not obliged to do so under it’s ‘for profit’ charter. It does mean it is not contributing to the overall increase in developer community’s knowledge.

PS: I did search for papers or talks with details on Microsoft\MSN large scale internet services and found nothing. I checked with a source in MSN and found nothing. If I missed it, please email me or add a comment.

Amit’s Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21

Authoritarian
Left		Right
Libertarian

To take the test yourself, Political Compass and some examples and explaination

I have also noticed, difference of +/- 1 is pretty large.

An update to the C++ code found the Blowfish website, mentioned as contributed by Jim Conger.

Blowfish C++ v1.1

It includes fix for data corruption in encode when in and out buffer is same.

Yamas – Interaction with the Outside World

• Ahimsa – non-violence.
• Satya – truthfulness, honesty.
• Asteya – non-stealing.
• Brahmacharya – Appropriate sexual conduct.
• Aparigraha – Non-possessiveness.

Niyamas – Interaction with the Internal World

• Saucha – Purity of mind and body.
• Santosha – Contentment.
• Tapas – Austerity.
• Swadhyaya – Spiritual study, self-education,
• Ishwara-Pranidhana – Faith, Surrender to God.

Originally attributed to Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as first steps of a spiritual journey.

Announcing release of TuxCards 2.0, the Notes taking software for Linux. I used the TuxCards 1.2 by Alex Theel. After waiting more than a year for updates, I decided to go ahead and fix some of the more obvious bugs and added a few features including encryption and text colors. I will also put it up on freshmeat and sourceforge soon.
The main page for downloads (Sources, precompiled executables and Screenshots): TuxCards 2.0

TuxCards right now is the most optimal Linux application for creating and managing lists of notes (I create a lot of those.)

It is the most similar one on Linux to Action Outline mentioned by Steve Pavlina in his planning blog entries and software mentioned on the GTD inspired 43things blog.

When discussing whether one on one or in a meeting in my role as a software developer, I noticed it has helped me to keep handy the data behind a request.

The following is a made up example:

We should check to see the rpm hang bug in Fedora Core 1 is now fixed, before using it for package verification in scripts. I remember running into it in a project around a year back.

is much better (in terms of what to check, what is the reasonging that anyone can verify) than

We should not use rpm to verify package state as rpm hangs all the time and the script will never return.

which really is the speakers’s opinion based on hearsay.
In most of these cases, it would take less time to confirm one way or the other than to discuss or speculate.
Incase of Computer Science it helps in remember, it is an exact science, it either works or not, a feature does something or not. (Well, except for those hard to reproduce bugs and estimates)

Some background articles:
1 . This is one the same lines as used by similar to Wikipedia requiring verifiable sources.

2. It is #6 of the Google principles of innovation as per Marissa Mayer, VP Google

Don’t politic, use data

Mayer discourages the use of “I like” in meetings, pushing staffers to use metrics

3. Steve Pavlina’s: Stop Debating and Start Testing

There are a number of reasonable risks to be taken where the negative consequences of failure are negligible, but the potential upside is considerable if things work out. That’s the time when it’s often a good idea to dive right in and risk making a mistake, even if it’s probable that you’re wrong.
For example, consider the decision many bloggers face of whether or not to put ads on their blogs. Some bloggers type many words discussing and debating this matter, trying to decide whether or not it’s a good idea for them. Such words are wasted. With programs like Adsense, it’s so easy to just put up some ads and test them in a matter of minutes. Then you can see what kind of feedback and income you’re generating and have all the facts in front of you to make an informed decision. Guesswork, polling, and debate are pointless when it’s so easy to test something and get the facts.