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.

We all probably had moments when we desired\mentioned a need and it was fulfilled in unexpected way. You tell a friend you are looking for a gym and the friend finds out something in a few days and you have a reference.

This is typically filed under “Coincidence” category. The key question, “Can this be made to happen on request\demand\desire?”
Here are a few real life examples just from the last year:

-Somebody I know decides to deepen her meditation practice and thinks maybe she should considers trying out a group or center. Mentions it to a friend and the friend in the same week runs into someone who goes to a Tibetan Buddhist center close by.

-I was considering which martial art to pick up. I was waivering between BJJ(Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) and Akido and reading a bit, but could not make up my mind. Literally the next day evening, I had one of those solictors on our door. He was from Sierra club of which I am a member and so we spoke for a few minutes. Soon, he mentioned he was a Akido student and I had first hand information on what it involves and so on. I have not yet picked up any, but that is another story.

Steve Pavlina, one of my favorite blogger puts a bold theory about this in his article, Musings on Reality, the Scientific Method, and the Cure for Dandruff and that it can be controlled. See under what kind of universe do you think we live in?

If reality is indeed created by our thoughts (at least partially), then therein lies the potential for enormous strides in the development of humanity if we can understand how this works and put it to good use.

Furthermore, I suspect there is in fact only one consciousness, and we all share it. We have separate minds and bodies, and therefore our own individual thoughts, but consciousness itself is an underlying field that we’re all connected to. One of the freaky things I did a few months ago was to shift my identification of self away from my own body-mind and into this field. Imagine regarding your self identity not as an individual person with a body and a mind but rather as all of consciousness itself.

Then from that vantage point, you regard your body and your mind merely as parts of you but not the whole you. Your body and mind are merely limbs in a larger body. But then in this larger identity, you also have access to other limbs, like the ability to manifest synchronicities out of thin air or to manipulate reality through intention. I’ve been spending the past few months trying to identify and to learn to move these other limbs.

As an example, instead of asking for a reference to a gym, hike or a meditation center, he and a group are asking for a million dollars for each of them.

From Nipun: On Lee and Laundry basket
Lee is quite a guy. He’ll buy basketballs for inner-city kids, he’ll write cards to cheer people up, he’ll give his neighbors honey from the bees that he nurtures in his basement (Lee loves bees!). He’ll even go stay with the homeless. One time, when he was living in a ghetto for some time, someone stole his laundry basket at a local laundromat. So he goes and buys another one, but when that gets stolen too, he went out and bought a dozen of them and would leave one in the laundromat everyday! After about a week, the baskets stopped getting stolen, people loosened their fears about guarding their laundry basket, and that little corner of the world was restored with trust.

and
I told him a story of how I was once fed by a homeless man. “You see, Lee, I have this strange suspicion that no one is really poor. If you have kindness in your heart, if you offer whatever you have, you have won the world,” I said.

Ten Great Books

#1)The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas.

#2) Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler.

#3) Design Patterns, by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides (also known as the “Gang of Four” or just GoF).

#4) Concurrent Programming in Java(TM): Design Principles and Pattern (2nd Edition) by Doug Lea.

#5) Mastering Regular Expressions, 2nd Edition, by Jeffrey Friedl.

#6) The Algorithm Design Manual, by Steven Skiena.

#7) The C Programming Language, Second Edition, by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

#8) The Little Schemer, by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen

#9) Compilers, by Aho, Sethi and Ullman

#10) WikiWikiWeb, by Ward Cunningham and thousands of others. (Not a book)

Notes from Entrepreneurial Proverbs on OReilly Radar

Momentum builds on itself — just start. Do whatever you can. Draw a user interface. Write a spec. Make something, anything, that people can see and touch and try

Pay attention to the idea that won’t leave you alone — this is taken from Paul Hawken’s Growing a Business. Sometimes an idea catches hold of you and you find you can’t put it down. Pay attention to that! Just start working on it. Can’t get yourself to do anything on it? Move on.

Build what you know — this is the most basic advice of idea generation: scratch an itch you have yourself. To make a great company, stop and ensure that your need is broadly felt, and that your solution is broadly applicable — not everyone spends their life in front of a computer, remember.

Founders: Three is fine; two, divine — having too many co-founders makes decisions hard to reach; if you’re on your own, you have to bear all of the stress and worry about the success of the company. In my judgment, three people can do well together, but having two founders is best.

Work only with people you like and believe in — I once heard Eric Schmidt say something along the lines of, “The older I get, the more I think all that matters is working with people you like.”

Great things are made by people who share a passion, not by those who have been talked into one — a corollary of the last; you can spark a passion in someone, but you can’t do it without some fuel to catch.

Build the simplest thing possible – engineers have the hardest time with this, with not overdesigning for the need they’re addressing. Make the simplest possible product that makes a significant dent in that need, and you’ll do far better than you would addressing two or three needs at once. Simplicity leads to clarity in everything you do.

Money: Start with nothing, and have nothing for as long as possible -

No means maybe and yes means maybe – you should never take a “no” from someone you want to work with. Accept the no, ask for feedback, and then just keep sending them updates on how much butt you’re kicking in the market.

For investors, the product is nothing — the classic engineer’s VC pitch has ten slides about the product and two about the academic achievements of the founders. That’s a terrible pitch. One slide should be about the product, while the rest cover the market, competitors, financials, funding history, and the relevant experience of the team. The product matters far less to most investors than the reactions of customers, the properties of the market, and the credibility of the team. Obsess about the product on your own time; present your business in all of its parts.