I hadn't seen this kick-ass feature on flickr that lets you add a note to your photograph which shows up when you mouse-over it. Here's an example of it in action. How cool is that?
I love all the rich UI's that people are building.
By the way, with all the talk about ajax, one really cool feature would be an auto-save for any large text boxes (like when I'm blogging or emailing). That way if I lose connectivity, accedentally close my browser window, or anything else, I don't have to worry about losing my data. Does anyone already do this?
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
more gmail
I got this email from a buddy:
That's a great question. I hadn't even thought about that. I kind of just assumed that it was a marketting gimmick implying that they are adding capacity. I thought maybe they're doing it at a predictable enough rate that they can just put a counter there for advertising. kind of how McDonald's has the 'number of burgers served' counter.
'Compression' would be an obvious but incomplete answer. Compression of historical data is actually tricky. You face this speed/space tradeoff when you compress, but just saying that you'll compress 'old' data doesn't work because data often goes through cycles of being relevant (think of your bank statements where, at tax time, you may need to go back one year in time). Maybe they've figured out better ways of predicting what data you're interested in, so that they can afford to compress some data a lot, some data a little, some data not at all.
Mail is also a huge revenue generator for them and for people placing ads. Maybe they're good enough at managing their system that the incremental cost of adding storage is less than the predicted incremental ad revenue they're getting (but that answer still boils down to 'more servers').
What else? If you owned all of the email servers in the entire world, maybe you could afford to store a single copy of every email message and just show it to all the people who are meant to receive that email. I doubt Google has reached that critical mass yet. But maybe they do this
with large attachments (since I figure you're only going to send a 300mb file to someone with a gmail account). That means they're actually storing less data. Actually, come to think of it, I think this is quite likely since the google file system would probably make it very very easy to do that.
None of the answers I have address the question of whether that counter means something more than a general prediction of their overall capacity growth (e.g. 200 GB worth of disk per day) combined with the average account usage (e.g. if they have 1tb of capacity and 100 users, they could actually advertise an account limit of more than 10GB if the average usage is much less - just as long as they're constantly forecasting their demand. Also known as overprovisioning.).
What do you think? What is the significance (if any) of the counter?
Thanks, Sood, for a great question to start my day.
- on the gmail login page they now have a continuously increasing, running counter of the max storage space allocated to each account. I've seen running counts like this for "interest paid" on savings account by a given bank which is straight forward since the number simply grows as a function of the interest rate.
What could google be doing that allows the storage space to continue growing a small, but constant rate? When they recently increased from 1gb to 2gb i saw some vaguely worded press release that basically said "we have better technology/methods" for storing information rather than "we bought a bunch more servers"
That's a great question. I hadn't even thought about that. I kind of just assumed that it was a marketting gimmick implying that they are adding capacity. I thought maybe they're doing it at a predictable enough rate that they can just put a counter there for advertising. kind of how McDonald's has the 'number of burgers served' counter.
'Compression' would be an obvious but incomplete answer. Compression of historical data is actually tricky. You face this speed/space tradeoff when you compress, but just saying that you'll compress 'old' data doesn't work because data often goes through cycles of being relevant (think of your bank statements where, at tax time, you may need to go back one year in time). Maybe they've figured out better ways of predicting what data you're interested in, so that they can afford to compress some data a lot, some data a little, some data not at all.
Mail is also a huge revenue generator for them and for people placing ads. Maybe they're good enough at managing their system that the incremental cost of adding storage is less than the predicted incremental ad revenue they're getting (but that answer still boils down to 'more servers').
What else? If you owned all of the email servers in the entire world, maybe you could afford to store a single copy of every email message and just show it to all the people who are meant to receive that email. I doubt Google has reached that critical mass yet. But maybe they do this
with large attachments (since I figure you're only going to send a 300mb file to someone with a gmail account). That means they're actually storing less data. Actually, come to think of it, I think this is quite likely since the google file system would probably make it very very easy to do that.
- What could google be doing that allows the storage space to continue growing a small, but constant rate?
None of the answers I have address the question of whether that counter means something more than a general prediction of their overall capacity growth (e.g. 200 GB worth of disk per day) combined with the average account usage (e.g. if they have 1tb of capacity and 100 users, they could actually advertise an account limit of more than 10GB if the average usage is much less - just as long as they're constantly forecasting their demand. Also known as overprovisioning.).
What do you think? What is the significance (if any) of the counter?
Thanks, Sood, for a great question to start my day.
making people's lives better
FC has an article about Progressive Insurance; their feed had a quote that caught my eye:
Because I work on figuring out how to measure and improve large distributed systems. But the line that I really like from the article is
They're not selling just another product or service; they're selling a way to make people's lives better. And they're thinking about their business that way. Customer focus doesn't just mean making your product easier to use. It means thinking about how your product makes your customer's lives better. I think that's the only reason they were able to think of the kinds of changes described in the article.
Creating Passionate Users is a great place to read more about this.
- "If you want to improve something, start measuring it"
Because I work on figuring out how to measure and improve large distributed systems. But the line that I really like from the article is
- "We're not in the business of auto insurance. We're in the business of reducing the human trauma and economic costs of automobile accidents -- in effective and profitable ways."
They're not selling just another product or service; they're selling a way to make people's lives better. And they're thinking about their business that way. Customer focus doesn't just mean making your product easier to use. It means thinking about how your product makes your customer's lives better. I think that's the only reason they were able to think of the kinds of changes described in the article.
Creating Passionate Users is a great place to read more about this.
Friday, April 08, 2005
rails
I've been hearing a lot lately about the power of the Ruby on Rails framework. I decided that I'm going to create a website and learn ruby and rails in the process.
I've decided to host with textdrive because they support rails. I found textdrive by browsing around some tags on de.icio.us and trying to find the most popular links. Not terribly scientific; I'll let you know my experience with textdrive soon.
First off, there are a bunch of good tutorials on how to get started with rails; even some that specifically address setup on a mac.
My main reason for blogging the experience was that I had problems with the setup. So here's some tips:
I also couldn't remember how to get apache up and running. O'Reilly has a good series on web serving from a mac.
So far so good. I got through most of the rails tutorial and have a lame site running on my mac. I figured I take a detour though and read up a little bit on ruby.
I've decided to host with textdrive because they support rails. I found textdrive by browsing around some tags on de.icio.us and trying to find the most popular links. Not terribly scientific; I'll let you know my experience with textdrive soon.
First off, there are a bunch of good tutorials on how to get started with rails; even some that specifically address setup on a mac.
My main reason for blogging the experience was that I had problems with the setup. So here's some tips:
- After you've installed ruby, it may not be enough to set your path so that your new version (1.8.x) of ruby is found by default. Instead,
mv /usr/bin/ruby
out of the way, andln -s /usr/local/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ruby
- When installing gem,
sudo ruby setup.rb all
- make sure you add theallparameter. Some of the docs don't include it and then you get complaints from the setup util.
I also couldn't remember how to get apache up and running. O'Reilly has a good series on web serving from a mac.
So far so good. I got through most of the rails tutorial and have a lame site running on my mac. I figured I take a detour though and read up a little bit on ruby.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
random
Here's an amazing quote from an FC blog post. Peter Diamandis, the chairman of the X prize foundation answers "why prizes?" :
A prize is typically not intended for incumbent players.
They know it can't be done.
Also; I hadn't heard of this soft drink called "Jones soda" but it seems to be big in Canada. After reading this interview with the founder, I really want to know more.
A cool article about for-profit and not-for-profit organizations collaborating on a project; in this case to produce a better mosquito bed-net.
Instead of doing my daily blog reading, what I really should be doing is figuring out how I'm going to file my US tax returns from India. I'm hoping that I'll just be able to do it all online. I hate taxes. If I ever become an international man of mystery I'm going to make sure that my deal includes someone being personally responsible for filing all of my taxes.
update I hadn't heard of doors of perception but the little bit that I read about it in the past 5 minutes sounds intriguing. They just had a conference in Delhi last week. I have to know more.
They know it can't be done.
Also; I hadn't heard of this soft drink called "Jones soda" but it seems to be big in Canada. After reading this interview with the founder, I really want to know more.
A cool article about for-profit and not-for-profit organizations collaborating on a project; in this case to produce a better mosquito bed-net.
Instead of doing my daily blog reading, what I really should be doing is figuring out how I'm going to file my US tax returns from India. I'm hoping that I'll just be able to do it all online. I hate taxes. If I ever become an international man of mystery I'm going to make sure that my deal includes someone being personally responsible for filing all of my taxes.
update I hadn't heard of doors of perception but the little bit that I read about it in the past 5 minutes sounds intriguing. They just had a conference in Delhi last week. I have to know more.
distributed systems
The work I do is focused on distributed systems. More specifically, on keeping very large, extremely complex distributed systems healthy. This includes collecting metrics, knowing what values of each metric implies a (potential) problem, and figuring out how to respond. In part, one tries to eliminate as many outages as possible. Once you've done your bit there, you try to reduce the time to recovery as much as possible both by building systems that can heal, and by giving humans as much useful information as possible so that when they get woken up at 2am, they waste as little time as possible. And you have to do all of this while not actually screwing up the system that you're trying to manage.
I'm pretty passionate about this area; even though I often complain about being burnt out at work.
I used to maintain a blog on the company intranet pointing to the papers I was reading, as well as some thoughts about how those ideas may affect our work. We solve some pretty huge problems and run an extremely complex distributed system; the blog was internal because I found it difficult to write something meaningful without mentioning internal projects/tools/concepts/ideas.
I recently read one person's attempt at drafting some guidelines on corporate blogging and now I'm tempted to spin off a blog devoted only to distributed systems; obviously with content fit for public consumption.
I'm still mulling over the idea; I'm not sure how meaningful my content can be while not revealing company jewels. Especially since I'm not some famous industry guru or academic.
I'm pretty passionate about this area; even though I often complain about being burnt out at work.
I used to maintain a blog on the company intranet pointing to the papers I was reading, as well as some thoughts about how those ideas may affect our work. We solve some pretty huge problems and run an extremely complex distributed system; the blog was internal because I found it difficult to write something meaningful without mentioning internal projects/tools/concepts/ideas.
I recently read one person's attempt at drafting some guidelines on corporate blogging and now I'm tempted to spin off a blog devoted only to distributed systems; obviously with content fit for public consumption.
I'm still mulling over the idea; I'm not sure how meaningful my content can be while not revealing company jewels. Especially since I'm not some famous industry guru or academic.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Kayaking and prawn-stuffed-papad
At 7:25pm last Friday I was still typing away like crazy; trying to commit some last minute code changes.
7:30pm: eat curd rice
8:20pm: on the bus to Dandeli. I was literally jumping with excitement.
We got to Dandeli on Saturday morning. The Karnataka state government run Jungle Lodges and Resorts is an amazing chain - doesn't seem at all like a public sector undertaking. At around 11 am we were off to the river for kayaking lessons. The first drill was to get in the kayak, flip yourself over, and pull out of the kayak. The next drill was to do the same thing with a 'skirt' on. A skirt looks like a skirt, but the bottom of it water-seals the opening to the kayak so that water doesn't go in when you flip upside down. It also means that you have to pull the skirt off when you're upside down and underwater before you can get out of the kayak. A little scary at first.
Krishna, Vikas, Anand, and I did about 2 hours of paddling, capsizing, and attempting rolling, and then took off for lunch. After an amazing Rs. 17 lunch at a local joint, we decided to split up; Anand and Krishna headed back to do a safari and drink some beer; Vikas and I went back for another kayaking session.
Our guide, Kumar, took us paddling down the river to check out the rapids from afar and I was *sooo* pissed that I didn't know how to roll (capsize and then bring myself upright again) my kayak because doing the rapid looked really tempting. He said that I was paddling well enough that if I wanted to try it ("you just have to be able to paddle straight and hard, and have a strong heart. You're paddling okay, but...") - of COURSE I had to try it! I paddled like crazy and made it through the rapid without capsizing. Then, like an idiot, I turned to give him a hi-five with my paddle. At which point I capsized. Since we were out of the rapids, it wasn't a big deal.
Going through the rapid pretty much made the entire trip complete. We tried for another 20-30 minutes to learn the rolls and I never got the hang of it. But I had been longing kayak through white water for a long time so I came away satisfied. I'll be back to the Kali river soon for a few days of lessons.
Sunday morning was spent rafting. Although the rapids were quite tame in a raft, we had a bunch of fun. Our guide kept throwing us out of the raft, and we eventually started picking on people in other rafts as well. I went on a safari in the evening and didn't see a single thing. Oh. we did see a rooster and the eyes of some deer gleaming in our safari-guide's searchlight. I do highly recommend a Jungle Lodges vacation though - they really take care of you.
Monday morning we took a 6am, 4 hour taxi-ride from the hotel to Goa. After unloading at CSM on Baga, we went straight to the beach and ordered some beer and prawn-stuffed-papad. I was a little worried that the papad wouldn't taste as good as I remembered it but I was wrong. It was phenomenal. Twenty drinks, five prawn-stuffed-papads, three prawn-curry-rices, one goan spiced sausage, one pork vindaloo, six hippie-beads, three henna tatoos, three massages, three beach-chairs, and seven hours later, we were down approximately Rs. 1700. I love Goa.
We didn't party that night; though I woke up and 2am and walked into town to check out the action and found it all at 2-3 bars in Baga. Somehow, chilling, eating, drinking, sleeping are more than enough fun for me. On Tuesday morning, Krishna and I rented a scooter and drove around some of the quieter beaches north of Goa. They were very scenic but none had quite the variety of food that Baga did. We came back and hit the beach again and proceeded to gorge ourselves again.
At 7:30pm we finally said goodbye to Baga and caught a bus back home. They have this concept of an 'A/C sleeper Volvo luxury bus' which sounds amazing. The sleeper part is wierd. Instead of having rows of four seats with an aisle in the middle, you have double-decker beds such that you get about 8 people sleeping in the space where you could have seated 12 (each bed is about 3 rows long; you still have 2 beds, then an aisle, and then another two beds, and you have two levels of those). It's pretty damn wierd if you have to sleep next to someone because there's just about 48 inches of width to each bed. I had to get cushy with Krishna, and Anand got luck and got an entire double bed to himself. Anyways, I was back at work at 10am with a tan, a tattoo, and a bushy beard (I'm not in a hurry to get rid of any of them).
I'm definitely going back to Dandeli for a weekend of pure kayaking.
Update:Here're some pictures I uploaded - from Krishna's camera.
7:30pm: eat curd rice
8:20pm: on the bus to Dandeli. I was literally jumping with excitement.
We got to Dandeli on Saturday morning. The Karnataka state government run Jungle Lodges and Resorts is an amazing chain - doesn't seem at all like a public sector undertaking. At around 11 am we were off to the river for kayaking lessons. The first drill was to get in the kayak, flip yourself over, and pull out of the kayak. The next drill was to do the same thing with a 'skirt' on. A skirt looks like a skirt, but the bottom of it water-seals the opening to the kayak so that water doesn't go in when you flip upside down. It also means that you have to pull the skirt off when you're upside down and underwater before you can get out of the kayak. A little scary at first.
Krishna, Vikas, Anand, and I did about 2 hours of paddling, capsizing, and attempting rolling, and then took off for lunch. After an amazing Rs. 17 lunch at a local joint, we decided to split up; Anand and Krishna headed back to do a safari and drink some beer; Vikas and I went back for another kayaking session.
Our guide, Kumar, took us paddling down the river to check out the rapids from afar and I was *sooo* pissed that I didn't know how to roll (capsize and then bring myself upright again) my kayak because doing the rapid looked really tempting. He said that I was paddling well enough that if I wanted to try it ("you just have to be able to paddle straight and hard, and have a strong heart. You're paddling okay, but...") - of COURSE I had to try it! I paddled like crazy and made it through the rapid without capsizing. Then, like an idiot, I turned to give him a hi-five with my paddle. At which point I capsized. Since we were out of the rapids, it wasn't a big deal.
Going through the rapid pretty much made the entire trip complete. We tried for another 20-30 minutes to learn the rolls and I never got the hang of it. But I had been longing kayak through white water for a long time so I came away satisfied. I'll be back to the Kali river soon for a few days of lessons.
Sunday morning was spent rafting. Although the rapids were quite tame in a raft, we had a bunch of fun. Our guide kept throwing us out of the raft, and we eventually started picking on people in other rafts as well. I went on a safari in the evening and didn't see a single thing. Oh. we did see a rooster and the eyes of some deer gleaming in our safari-guide's searchlight. I do highly recommend a Jungle Lodges vacation though - they really take care of you.
Monday morning we took a 6am, 4 hour taxi-ride from the hotel to Goa. After unloading at CSM on Baga, we went straight to the beach and ordered some beer and prawn-stuffed-papad. I was a little worried that the papad wouldn't taste as good as I remembered it but I was wrong. It was phenomenal. Twenty drinks, five prawn-stuffed-papads, three prawn-curry-rices, one goan spiced sausage, one pork vindaloo, six hippie-beads, three henna tatoos, three massages, three beach-chairs, and seven hours later, we were down approximately Rs. 1700. I love Goa.
We didn't party that night; though I woke up and 2am and walked into town to check out the action and found it all at 2-3 bars in Baga. Somehow, chilling, eating, drinking, sleeping are more than enough fun for me. On Tuesday morning, Krishna and I rented a scooter and drove around some of the quieter beaches north of Goa. They were very scenic but none had quite the variety of food that Baga did. We came back and hit the beach again and proceeded to gorge ourselves again.
At 7:30pm we finally said goodbye to Baga and caught a bus back home. They have this concept of an 'A/C sleeper Volvo luxury bus' which sounds amazing. The sleeper part is wierd. Instead of having rows of four seats with an aisle in the middle, you have double-decker beds such that you get about 8 people sleeping in the space where you could have seated 12 (each bed is about 3 rows long; you still have 2 beds, then an aisle, and then another two beds, and you have two levels of those). It's pretty damn wierd if you have to sleep next to someone because there's just about 48 inches of width to each bed. I had to get cushy with Krishna, and Anand got luck and got an entire double bed to himself. Anyways, I was back at work at 10am with a tan, a tattoo, and a bushy beard (I'm not in a hurry to get rid of any of them).
I'm definitely going back to Dandeli for a weekend of pure kayaking.
Update:Here're some pictures I uploaded - from Krishna's camera.
Friday, April 01, 2005
niches, microbrands.
Through a long series of clicks (isn't that how it always is?) I got to this dude Thomas Mahon's blog. He's a tailor on Saville Row. Why would you want to get a suit stiched from him? He answers here. How much will it cost you? Try here. Where can you find him? Well, you could fly to London, like many of his customers, or you could wait for him to come to a city near you.
Damn. I have no idea what services I could render to convince people to fly half way around the world to meet me, but I hope I figure out soon.
Damn. I have no idea what services I could render to convince people to fly half way around the world to meet me, but I hope I figure out soon.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Legalize
15-yr-olds who have used cannabis within the past year:
From The Economist, Pocket World in Figures, 2005 Edition
The top few countries show about a 5-6% difference between males and females, except the US and France which have about a 10% difference.
| Rank | Male, % | Female, % | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | % | Country | % | |
| 1 | Canada | 43.3 | Canada | 37.5 |
| 2 | Switzerland | 40.3 | Switzerland | 35.3 |
| 3 | United States | 36.5 | United Kingdom | 31.7 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 36.3 | Greenland | 31.1 |
| 5 | Greenland | 36.1 | Spain | 30.0 |
| 6 | Spain | 31.6 | United States | 26.2 |
| 7 | France | 31.2 | France | 23.8 |
| 8 | Czech Republic | 30.9 | Czech Republic | 23.2 |
| 9 | Slovenia | 27.3 | Slovenia | 21.4 |
| 10 | Ireland | 25.5 | Belgium | 20.2 |
The top few countries show about a 5-6% difference between males and females, except the US and France which have about a 10% difference.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
connected.
Oh I forgot to mention...
I finally got connectivity at home!
The dudes from Airtel came yesterday evening and did some wiring in my house. They then came this morning and hooked up the dsl modem, etc. I was really impressed by how professional they were. They had everything up and running within 25 minutes. And they showed up at the time they promised me. Very rare. I was all smiles. The wireless is up and running as well.
BTW. I still can't concentrate on work.
I finally got connectivity at home!
The dudes from Airtel came yesterday evening and did some wiring in my house. They then came this morning and hooked up the dsl modem, etc. I was really impressed by how professional they were. They had everything up and running within 25 minutes. And they showed up at the time they promised me. Very rare. I was all smiles. The wireless is up and running as well.
BTW. I still can't concentrate on work.
Winding up/down.
Damn.
I'm having problems concentrating right now. I'm feeling pretty burnt out from work and really in need of some chill.
SO here's the plan for this weekend (at the risk of jinxing myself by prematurely publishing it):
I'm sooo excited.
I'm having problems concentrating right now. I'm feeling pretty burnt out from work and really in need of some chill.
SO here's the plan for this weekend (at the risk of jinxing myself by prematurely publishing it):
- Friday night: leave by bus from Bangalore
- Saturday morning: arrive on the banks of the Kali river
- Saturday + Sunday: Take kayaking lessons; possibly do some white-water kayaking.
- Monday morning: Hop on a bus. Arrive in Goa.
- Monday afternoon/Tuesday: What? It's already Tuesday evening!? I want more prawn stuffed papad!
- Wednesday morning: shower at the office and get back into the grind.
I'm sooo excited.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Pining for the outdoors.
This past week there's been a tournament going on at KSLTA so we haven't been playing tennis. I went and watched a little bit yesterday morning - it was awe inspiring and made me itch to go play (in private so as not to embarass myself).
Not playing tennis all week, combined with the fact that I haven't been camping or hiking since I got here, plus the fact that we're scambling to meet a code complete deadline; that means I'm just dying to go outside and play.
I found out that there are quite a few adventure travel companies in Bangalore so hopefully I'll get outside this weekend.
It's 2:30am and I'm typically not a night person.
Not playing tennis all week, combined with the fact that I haven't been camping or hiking since I got here, plus the fact that we're scambling to meet a code complete deadline; that means I'm just dying to go outside and play.
I found out that there are quite a few adventure travel companies in Bangalore so hopefully I'll get outside this weekend.
It's 2:30am and I'm typically not a night person.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Holi
Holi is tomorrow.
We celebrated at work today. Someone brought in colors today and my face, hair, and shirt are now a mixture of yellow, pink, blue, green, red, and some other colors. My shirt is also pretty much soaked with water. I had forgotten to wear old clothes today (actually I figured since Holi is tomorrow I didn't need to do that today).
I'll post pictures as soon as I get them. The office looks funny though because everyone is walking around doing work with peacock colored faces.
Update: Here's a post that has pictures.
We celebrated at work today. Someone brought in colors today and my face, hair, and shirt are now a mixture of yellow, pink, blue, green, red, and some other colors. My shirt is also pretty much soaked with water. I had forgotten to wear old clothes today (actually I figured since Holi is tomorrow I didn't need to do that today).
I'll post pictures as soon as I get them. The office looks funny though because everyone is walking around doing work with peacock colored faces.
Update: Here's a post that has pictures.
Are you happy?
are you happy doing what you do?
On a different note, I'm curious to know what rss feeds you're tracking. Here's what I read. Tell me if there're other interesting ones you think I'd like.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Life expectency
So I was looking through the Life Expectancy rankings and felt suddenly ashamed at not having even heard of the number one country on the list. I'm even more ashamed to be publicly (well, as public as a blog is since I don't think I have much of a readership anymore) admitting it.
So I went and read about Andorra in the CIA's World Factbook and I think Andorra and the Caymans may not be the most legitimate entrants on this list because they probably have a large population of rich, old transplants that have moved there for tax reasons.
On a different note, I had lunch with Matt (Jigna's husband) and his coworker from Avenade Riccardo today; they were here from Seattle, on a weeklong whirlwind tour of India. They'd spent the week eating at super fancy restaurants in 5 star hotel. I'm glad I was the one to take them to a tiny little south-indian place where they ate a Thaali each (and I drank a lassi) for all of Rs. 77.
I was hoping to treat them to the lunch in exchange for a lunch treat in Seattle, but they wouldn't let me. Damn.
Random Tidbit: Check out Experience with Evaluating Human-Assisted Recovery Processes from the ROC group at Berkeley.
| Rank | Country | Years | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andorra | 83.5 | |
| 2 | Japan | 81.6 | |
| 3 | Sweden | 80.1 | |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 79.9 | |
| 5 | Iceland | 79.8 | |
| 6 | Cayman Islands | 79.7 | |
| 7 | Canada | 79.3 | |
| 8 | Spain | 79.3 | |
| 9 | Australia | 79.2 | |
| 10 | Israel | 79.2 |
So I went and read about Andorra in the CIA's World Factbook and I think Andorra and the Caymans may not be the most legitimate entrants on this list because they probably have a large population of rich, old transplants that have moved there for tax reasons.
On a different note, I had lunch with Matt (Jigna's husband) and his coworker from Avenade Riccardo today; they were here from Seattle, on a weeklong whirlwind tour of India. They'd spent the week eating at super fancy restaurants in 5 star hotel. I'm glad I was the one to take them to a tiny little south-indian place where they ate a Thaali each (and I drank a lassi) for all of Rs. 77.
I was hoping to treat them to the lunch in exchange for a lunch treat in Seattle, but they wouldn't let me. Damn.
Random Tidbit: Check out Experience with Evaluating Human-Assisted Recovery Processes from the ROC group at Berkeley.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Pay what you like
A while ago I read something about an internet content-charging paradigm that is summarized by the phrase "pay what you think it's worth". I go read a blog entry that I think is superb, so I donate the author $1.50 for her wisdom. Then I read some piece-of-crap article and close my browser tab without a second thought.
Seems like a pretty reasonable concept. I think I read somewhere on The Long Tail (though I'm lazy to find the exact post) that a similar model could be used for all sorts of 'independent content' (think indie bands, indie movies, etc).
Here's an article about someone who tried that for a restaurant. Clearly it caused lots of anxiety for both the restauranter as well as the diners. I wonder if it was only because of the human-interaction factor, or if there were other factors involved? i.e. is there a lesson here about online settings in which this strategy wouldn't work?
Incidentally, I think it's funny that some good old desi guys headed over there and ate for free. $5 says they were Guju ;)
Seems like a pretty reasonable concept. I think I read somewhere on The Long Tail (though I'm lazy to find the exact post) that a similar model could be used for all sorts of 'independent content' (think indie bands, indie movies, etc).
Here's an article about someone who tried that for a restaurant. Clearly it caused lots of anxiety for both the restauranter as well as the diners. I wonder if it was only because of the human-interaction factor, or if there were other factors involved? i.e. is there a lesson here about online settings in which this strategy wouldn't work?
Incidentally, I think it's funny that some good old desi guys headed over there and ate for free. $5 says they were Guju ;)
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Environmental Sustainability
Are you (I'm assuming that someone is reading this thing) bored of country statistics yet?
Here's another one, assuming that you're not. A ranking of countries by environmental sustainability index:
In other news, a9 launched OpenSearch today. It got some great reviews, and some not so great reviews. I guess I agree with Greg's comments; it would have been a nice launch gesture for a9 to expose its own search in OpenSearch format. One thought I had was that I may soon need a meta-search to find the OpenSearch search add-ons that I really want.
I need to find blogs where I can read realtime reviews of O'Reilly's etech.
Here's another one, assuming that you're not. A ranking of countries by environmental sustainability index:
| Country | index |
|---|---|
| Finland | 73.9 |
| Norway | 73.0 |
| Sweden | 72.6 |
| Canada | 70.6 |
| Switzerland | 66.5 |
| Uruguay | 66.0 |
| Austria | 64.2 |
| Iceland | 63.9 |
| Costa Rica | 63.2 |
| Latvia | 63.0 |
In other news, a9 launched OpenSearch today. It got some great reviews, and some not so great reviews. I guess I agree with Greg's comments; it would have been a nice launch gesture for a9 to expose its own search in OpenSearch format. One thought I had was that I may soon need a meta-search to find the OpenSearch search add-ons that I really want.
I need to find blogs where I can read realtime reviews of O'Reilly's etech.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Quality Of Life
This is a rank of countries by the Human Development Index, compiled by the UNDP.
Does anyone else see a correlation between how frikkin cold a country is and its HDI ranking? Why is it that you have to skip all the way down to like 25 before the weather gets consistently warm. Or is Hong Kong 25 because the weather is consistently warm?
If you click around on the UNDP site you should be able to find some descriptions of the index. It looks like it weighs factors like Life Expectancy, Literacy, Gross enrollment in primary/secondary/tertiary schools, and GDP per captita.
What is it about hot places that puts them low on the list? Even Australia gets kinda cold. Why aren't any tropical islands chilling (metaphorically speaking) in the top 10?
| Rank | Country |
|---|---|
| 1 | Norway |
| 2 | Iceland |
| 3 | Sweden |
| 4 | Australia |
| 5 | Netherlands |
| 6 | Belgium Canada United States |
| . | ... |
| 25 | Honk Kong |
| 26 | Barbados |
| 27 | Singapore |
Does anyone else see a correlation between how frikkin cold a country is and its HDI ranking? Why is it that you have to skip all the way down to like 25 before the weather gets consistently warm. Or is Hong Kong 25 because the weather is consistently warm?
If you click around on the UNDP site you should be able to find some descriptions of the index. It looks like it weighs factors like Life Expectancy, Literacy, Gross enrollment in primary/secondary/tertiary schools, and GDP per captita.
What is it about hot places that puts them low on the list? Even Australia gets kinda cold. Why aren't any tropical islands chilling (metaphorically speaking) in the top 10?
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Largest Countries
This weekend I picked up The Economist's Pocket World in Figures 2005. It's a great 2 minute diversion during the work day.
So here are the largest countries (includes freshwater):
So here are the largest countries (includes freshwater):
| Rank | Country | Area, sq km |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Russia | 17075 |
| 2 | Canada | 9971 |
| 3 | China | 9561 |
| 4 | United States | 9373 |
DVDs
A coworker took me to an area of Bangalore known as Majestic. Most cities in India seem to have an area like this; it's near the main bus and/or railway station, it's super crowded, has lodges (motels) on every corner, lots of cheap eating places, and many shops specializing in gray/black market goods.
We went to these tiny stores which sell DVDs for Rs. 110 ($2) each. Most of them have somewhere between 2 and 5 movies per DVD. I picked up Finding Neverland (loved it), Road to Perdition (haven't seen it yet), and a few others.
Oh. While we were there, another customer came and asked for some 'special english movies'. He was handed a paper packet which he looked into. Then he asked the shopkeeper for his top pick among the three movies that he was apparently handed. After some discussion revolving around verifying the picture quality, he left with a DVD. Good to see that the oldest trade in the world is high tech, pirated, and flourishing.
I definitely have to go back to that area and check out all the other stuff there - imported electronics, fake perfumes, fake watches, fake shoes, etc.
We went to these tiny stores which sell DVDs for Rs. 110 ($2) each. Most of them have somewhere between 2 and 5 movies per DVD. I picked up Finding Neverland (loved it), Road to Perdition (haven't seen it yet), and a few others.
Oh. While we were there, another customer came and asked for some 'special english movies'. He was handed a paper packet which he looked into. Then he asked the shopkeeper for his top pick among the three movies that he was apparently handed. After some discussion revolving around verifying the picture quality, he left with a DVD. Good to see that the oldest trade in the world is high tech, pirated, and flourishing.
I definitely have to go back to that area and check out all the other stuff there - imported electronics, fake perfumes, fake watches, fake shoes, etc.
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