Recollections and Rememberances

17. May 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Current Events

So many things have passed by when I look in the past. Every so often I feel like writing a few memories down. Perhaps I do it so when I search on the blog I find a thing that I recorded which so captures my thoughts and I don’t have to write it again. Or perhaps its the feeling of release I get by simply writing things down in reverse order. I don’t really rely on others ever reading this thing. As I have mentioned a few times, this blog does not exist to satisfy your curiosity about me, it does not exist to raise my so-called authority in the blogosphere, nor does it exist to link. I choose when and if I link to anything at all. Sometimes I would rather provide the gentle reader with a direct route to a piece of information out there. Other times I feel that the person can go look on google.

So, I’ve written this thing with a few goals in mind over the years. To me, the goals are:

  1. To capture a set of things in a format which is easily searchable and arranged in order of some kind and to preserve the identity and matrix of the things. This is rather important to me I think. These are “Mikes Thoughts” and I am Mike. So they capture all the changes with work. The happiness and unhappiness. The desires and frustrations. I’m not a terribly social animal so perhaps the set of things is my way of trotting them out.
  2. The blog is not meant to be a socio-political idea thing. Its only meant to take care of me. Not you. I don’t write this for your benefit. I don’t really care if you read this or not, okay? If I cared whether you read it, I would write fun and challenging things. I’d challenge your political and social views and ideas. I don’t give a rat’s ass for your views.
  3. Finally, I write here to maintain some sense of sanity. Of course, I have failed at that miserably. No one could be sane and go through any of what life tosses at you. Life just acts to make you insane. That’s because there is no reason and pattern. Nothing really is drawn out on some fabric where you can suss out the meanings. Its fucking R A N D O M. Okay?

So there you have my reasons and recollections and memories all gathered in a cute little bow. You want to find what I think of archeology? Search on it. I spent years doing it. Want to know what I think of Apple? Well, perhaps you don’t if you are a fanbois. As I have said in other social media, I am a Linux and Android guy. I can deal with Windows. I don’t like apple stuff.

Every so often, I feel like I need to re-state the obvious just in case a new person finds this thing. This thing is not meant to satisfy any curiosity you have about my life. You won’t really know any more about me if you read the 1000 and some posts than you do now.

Best advice I can give is write up comments that look like spam. Then Akismet will decide that you are not worthy.

The Wonderful Android Way

15. May 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: android

There are going to be game-changing events if the press has it right. There will be not just one Nexus device from one vendor. Imagine a world where there are multiple Nexus devices each with their own hardware footprint  but all tied to the common Google AOSP codebase. Phones and tablets guaranteed to work with the latest all the time. Phones selling as unlocked world GSM devices with the pentaband setup like my Galaxy Nexus has it now. Take a single device which is world-class and then multiply it out. So what are the benefits of this strategy you may ask. Here are the ones I see after just reading the release over on JR’s Posts on Computeworld and considering it a bit.

  • There would be a multiplicity of phones with the same baselines from all the vendors. No single vendor lock-in and you are free to choose if you use GSM technology. This truly means you travel the world with the phone and buy simple SIMcard technology to make it work. By the way, this is the way the rest of the world perhaps does things. But what it really means is that we are no longer locked-in to what a carrier thinks we should have.
  • No skins and almost proprietary lock-in to Sense or Touchwiz. We have the phones we want but yet you could still have the phones from carriers with the skins if you want. If you want to buy into the contract and service plan that is. But why would you? Why in the hell would anyone want a service plan and carrier cost when you can just go spend $400.00 US or so every so often on the phone. Imagine what you spend here in the US on the service commitment and upgrades. Its why I will never buy another phone from a carrier directly ever again. I’m on magenta though and I think they are pretty easy on the restrictions to what GSM phone you can use.
  • Hardware. You get the best of the best for whatever the vendors offer. There is no vendor excluded and perhaps the number just increases as the hardware gets different. What a change and what a plan for updates to new hardware. The phones just all work with the latest.
  • Software. Imagine the world of software you can have which will be updated to the latest because it is a Nexus device. But not a single one. A true gathering of Nexus devices which you can measure and choose.
  • Philosophically and idealistically, this widens the existing chasm of the existing base of traditional phone sales like the iPhone and others like RIM. It opens brand new territories for how we can use, modify, root, and then enjoy our phones and tablets. Suddenly the prices lower for the devices because the carriers don’t need their subsidies. If you want that world though you can get it with carrier subsidized Android phones as well with the fancy Sense skin on it.
  • Finally, choice. Choice is a powerful drug and the platform has seen what it can mean. But choice not intelligently planned is chaotic. No direction or focus to it. You are left to making the choice without the power ingredient of information and how technology can show you a path.

What a wondrous world with little green robot guys running all around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I won’t even speculate what it means for tablet dynamics. Phones are one thing; but tablets are the major computing platform. Flood the market with cheap Google Nexus tablets from multiple vendors. By 2015 the old, tired, legacy single vendor model will fall apart. There are models which already show this happening now. By adding in the Nexus Marketplace or whatever it will be called all the forces come together. HTC, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony. Whoever. They all can play in a open market and have their Nexus devices participate.

Speaking personally, I will never buy another phone which has a skin on it which detracts from what I believe is the beauty of the AOSP experience. No more HTC Sensations. No touchwiz phones. Now all that remains to sit and watch. This future is a googley thing and as JR points out in the article, its already started.

Hang on tight and keep your iPhones inside the car at all times or we’ll replace them when you ain’t looking.

Meaning of Life, Truth, Time and Space

12. May 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Subterfuge

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought of late and have come up with a few reasons for things. I’ve either learned these things from routine life experiences or weekly recreational alcohol abuse. In the second state, many unusual ideas have come to me when gripped with devil alcohol’s tempting influence. Last night, I gently overdid it and woke on the couch at about 3am in some state of confusion. Not in bed? On couch with TV still going? What are the bra’s they are referencing anyways that keep things lifted where they should be. Perhaps like Seinfeld’s? Anyways, after that time and space altering event, I got myself to bed and slept again in a dreamless alcohol-induced state until this morning.

Anyways, here are the truths in all this I have uncovered. Your mileage may vary:

  1. Meaning of Life: There is no meaning of life. Sorry. Most men do lead lives of quiet desperation as Henry was wont to say. Unfortunately, our life song never creeps out either and we go from cradle to grave believing there is something about life which makes it have meaning. I think that this is utter BS. So if you are looking, meditating, wondering; you have simply lost more time to experience the vast nothingness of being.
  2. Meaning of Truth: There is no truth. What we believe is truth are elaborate lies which link to an underlying reality which does not exist. Abbey stated this in his consummate work Desert Solitaire. I direct you to that work for more understanding. Read the basics though on the link to reach an understanding that there is no real understanding and that truth is a deception caused by disturbed minds looking for the first thing.
  3. Meaning of Time and Space. We need this. Much as earlier cultures needed to explain their unknowns. Religion comes along to bridge the gap between science and faith and lets us place things into a cultural perspective where science does not travel well. Most anthropologists I have met are not atheists or even agnostics. They place value into each sphere. Science has its business explaining how theories and facts line up. Religion explains the metaphysical unions. You are free to disagree. Your comments will turn to spam though :-)

I mean all this in a so-called tongue-in-cheek mode. My daughter has asked me at least these questions a few times and others which I have graced the blog with. She wants to know why its important to tell the truth all the time. I am not quite sure why that is important since most people would admit as an adult they have told carefully crafted lies. Why should our children be different? We’re born of dirty cloth and our beings are placed in both the flash of inter-stellar space and the dirt of the alley. So I understand the need to always tell the truth but those that have espoused that lofty goal have lied the most to me while telling me how important it is.

Its an admirable quest to understand how all the poles of things interact and relate. But in truth we have a limited number of years on this reality or non-reality (sorry, it could be either and I am unsure). Don’t bore me with telling me how important the truth is when the very people that have said thus have lied the most over the years. Yet they tell my children why they should not do the very things that they do. Sorry. It don’t work that way. Its like the old saying,

Do as I say not as I do

Kids see right though that facade. Get over yourself and the life, truth, time and space thing. Get down to the dirty business of living. It will delight you when you understand that everyone is desperate and their song dies within. Of course I mean all this in a jesting fashion.

Get it?

There are Dragons

09. May 2012 · Comments Off · Categories: Current Events, Ideas

I’ve been reading Game of Thrones of late. The book is jam-packed with good guys that get killed, bad guys that do good, innocent victims that are victimized over and over again. I’m impressed with the sheer depth of things. Mr. Martin knows how to punch my buttons as well since he seems to take malevolent glee in killing off the very people I am hoping win the wars. Then I’m left with who I felt were minor characters but suddenly they become major good and bad guys. Just an amazing set of work but the last book can be disappointing since it does not feel to be cut from the same cloth as the first three. The type of writing requires a commitment as well. Having each chapter on a character means that you may not really hear back from Tyrion or Jon for some chapters but Martin expects/demands that you remember exactly what was just done in their lives. I would call this an investment in reading and comprehension and not just a laid back Saturday evening trip.

The investment extends to what it takes to really get going as well. You are not gonna pick up this book and start reading all the battles and intrigue up front. Its going to take some time to get the story line out to the reader, build out the character database, understand the variability. Soon though you will get a look inside the incredible fabric of the world that Martin has wrought. Then you are caught and you cannot escape. The characters loom large and each one has a million or so points and counter-points to consider. But the most frustrating is how the books are written if you want to rush through and just get to the “good points”. This is not a read where the good points are in a chapter or two. You have to exercise patience and diligence.

The fourth book disappoints some and leaves others wondering why Martin diverged from the goodness to another way of doing things. He could have wrapped up so many stories and characters but everything extends out. It reminds me in a way of Tolkien’s second book in LOTR. In that book there is no beginning and no end. You don’t start reading at the beginning or finish at the end. You are at his mercy and you have to deal with where he decides to cut things off. In the movie it was incredibly frustrating because of the nature of the thing. I kinda expected it though after having read the book more than a few times.

Parables of Life

Out of this comes a few parables and similes and ideas and concepts which I have gathered like Valyrian steel to show you:

  • Rarely are good people truly good and the same with those not so good being evil. We all trade back and forth between the poles of our existences.
  • People that travel a great distance on a quest rarely achieve that which they started out for. Brienne in the book searched for Sansa far and wide on a quest. That also is true in our lives. We can journey forth across space and time and never really get a glimpse of the the end point since we seem buffeted by forces outside of our ken.
  • Time and Space is really not real. Its an exciting concoction that is partly truth and partly fiction. Yet we need that soup of life to make sense out of the higher order. Much like those that guarded the wall looked down from its icy heights to a world gone mad below.

Perhaps the book covers things which affect us all but covers them in dragons and games of thrones where all the good kings go to dust and we’re left with a less desirable set of sons and daughters. Kinda like our political scene these days I guess :-)

Words

In a rather funny moment and perhaps it lines all this up, my precious daughter was telling me the things she learned at school the other day. We came to a condition she referred to as a “hyper bowl”. I could not quite get it until she described its a thing which is not meant to be take seriously. Oh. I got it now. She is not talking about a “hyper bowl”. She is talking about a hyperbole. We had gone round and round about the word and what it meant. She had the definition down but the actual word got away from her.

Such are the words of life and their multitudes. Thanks to Martin for frustrating and irritating me and making me read all four books with a growing sense of unease as the characters were taken down that I truly appreciated. A shadowy wall standing sentinel which is more of a metaphysical barrier of the known to the unknown, and epic quests and battles which partly failed and partly succeeded. Damn!

And thanks to my daughter for ensuring that life remained interesting. I think a “Hyper Bowl” sounds better after all.

Work

08. May 2012 · 3 comments · Categories: Current Events

So here is the place…

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a fun decision process this time around. Had two companies wanting to keep me. Unfortunately, at the end Microsoft dropped out and I had a verbal offering. Yesterday afternoon I was called with the official offer to start working as a Project Manager with the Cisco IT Services team. I’ll be engaged on Linux virtualization and VMware strategies for internal businesses.

The nice thing is that its not an annual or 6 month contract. Its “on going”. So I get some of the benefits of full-time but none of the culture clashes. Pay is also really good! I also get a brand new laptop at the very start of things which is powerful enough to run a nice Debian or Ubuntu guest I am assured.

I start on May 14th or May 21st. Whenever everyone gets their so-called act together. I’ll really miss the guys at Microsoft and will always feel tremendously grateful that I was given that opportunity. It meant a whole bunch to me and extended my sanity during troubling times. I feel at the end of those times now and will be able to do whatever I want to do with the money I make now.

Tomorrow and On

06. May 2012 · Comments Off · Categories: Current Events

Well, hopefully the job journey ends tomorrow. I have two offers on the table and have to take one of them. Cisco wants me for an ongoing consulting deal at almost 50.00 an hour. Microsoft wants me at 47.00 an hour or so. Truth be told, I really like where I am now. The team element at Microsoft really has been key for me. The project I finished with there was challenging, had risks and unknown issues until we got engaged, network problems. It had all the elements that either make Project Managers run for the hills or get all excited. I’m in the second group. Then again, I’ve never done a project where there were no risks, no changes, no impacts. Projects are supposed to change something and you cannot manage all the change down to nothing. Its what makes the Project Manager become the instrumental person in the effort and not just another bean counter.

I have no doubt Cisco would be fun and challenging with its technical requirements around Linux and VMware either. There would be the challenge of moving key internal customers to a virtual environment, working with applications teams around the globe, ensuring business and technology issues were addressed. The contract is nice too with Cisco. No real end date. It just goes on and on.

But I can only do one thing. Which one? I spent Friday night drinking beers and wondering. I don’t have any clarity yet on the answer. Choices usually come down to weighing the alternatives and finding one that is more attractive at whatever the measurement criteria are. My son suggested flipping a coin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I’ve always felt there had to be more consideration than taking the roll of the dice. What if Microsoft offered me work in Washington State? Aha! Then things take on another perspective. If a job requires me to move; why I would just have to leave here. Leave all this behind. Maybe find my own way in the world again. Not take the guilt people put on me about things. Like a friend from Celestix has told me,

Its only guilt if you accept it

Thanks! Have to wait and see. I’m sure in some cloudburst of rationality and reason the answer will come to me tomorrow :-)

Done and done

04. May 2012 · Comments Off · Categories: Current Events

I finished my consulting gig today with Microsoft IT. Have to say they saved me and taught me and let me again feel accomplishment. I had forgotten how good it feels to finish a thing to everyone’s satisfaction. Positive comments given. I walked out of the SVC campus today happy. Went over and had lunch with a friend from customware. We talked about working, playing and some other personal stuff.

Now I most likely go on to Cisco. Another small unknown company to do Linux and vmware at. Pay is good. The contract does not end. But Microsoft wants me too. So if the one thing falls down I have another thing that would be good for me.

What this means for my travel plans I’m not sure. Might be a year before I get back home to chennai.

But I’m happy. First time in awhile. Bring on the Friday night beer.

Updates…

I also ordered a new toy with my second consulting job wages. I have had a Motorola Xoom Wifi edition for over a year now. Its a very nice tablet but recently I have been wanting a new tablet toy in the smaller, cheaper mode. The Kindle Fire is not it. That’s just a glorified ereader and media device. Tablets to me are extensions of laptops. I also want the google experience applications on them. So, I decided to get something different that would be fun to use, unique looking, and interesting because of its smaller form factor. I also believe that the 7-inch form factor is going to get very hot this summer with cheaper tablets like the rumored Google Nexus Tablet. I also wanted a wifi tablet only. I have a Tmobile mifi 4g thing which makes a hotspot where I need one. My Galaxy Nexus also does the same thing.

Enter this pup…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just got done setting it up on my gmail accounts, getting the calendar sync’ed and email working on it. This is a fun and easily affordable little tablet running ICS by default in a form factor which makes it easy to pack around but still have the entire tablet experience. Things I really like about it:

  • It has a SD card slot and my 16gb sd card was recognized right away when I added it. Now I can watch my movies using MX Player on it. Netflix works very nicely on it so I can watch my Netflix account movies. HuluPlus also works so my hulu account also comes right up.
  • The form factor makes it easy to tote around while still maintaining the google applications unlike the Fire.
  • It has decent specifications for a tablet of its size. I personally think we will see an explosion of cheap tablets at this size and range and even the larger ones will come out and challenge the more expensive iPad and older slates.

There are tablets running ICS now coming in at 150.00 here and there. This is the way to challenge Apple. Make them cheaper, better, but include really nice hardware. People will naturally gravitate to these things and I’ve watched people who were sworn Apple fanbois dropping their iPhones in favor of android devices. This is the natural evolution of the android ecosystem. Challenge with the sheer number of devices. Challenge with the price. Challenge with availability. Apple simply can only do a single device a year. Who wants that jaded old ecosystem.

One of the 99

01. May 2012 · Comments Off · Categories: News

I’m one of the 99 and The Occupy * protests are not part of the 99 percent that I’m part of. Maybe they used to be before they started hoisting bricks at people in San Francisco, destroying property in Oakland, and generally making themselves less and less relevant by simple acts of destruction. You want to make the rest of the 99 be receptive to your cause, support your protests? Well, stop hurting other people and their property. Your rights of self-expression end at the tip of my nose.

I’m basically tired of the 99% which think that its okay to stage a protest, hurt people, and then say how they’re part of the 99. You are not part of the 99. If you were, you would be helping children in the US that go hungry. You would aid the homeless. You would reach out to the Vets of all wars.

Instead you just cause irreparable harm and you make me think so much less of you and your questionable tactics. Here is what I say.

Stop hurting other people and fucking up their property and lives.

Skipping Stones

30. April 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Ideas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every so often you skip a stone across water. If done successfully it creates ripples and circles showing the stone’s path across the water. Perhaps if you are good it leaves 4 or 5 or even 6 circles. Each of the circles has a beginning and end in and of itself. The circles rarely touch each other and the stone continues until it sinks to the bottom at some remote spot on the water.

We all have circles and sometimes maybe they do touch and we see the pattern to it all; but I think most of the time we’re too anxious to move along to the next spot. Work, home, family, personal life are circles. Sometimes the circles are well-formed and intricate and the stone leaves a great mark as it passes on to the next. Other times, the circles are ragged and the stone acts glad to leave that particular circle for the next chance at making a better mark.

I think none of the life circles are ever as perfect as the ones above in the water. The stone strikes too hard, too soft, or we miss the mark.

There is always time to pick up another stone and learn.

A week to go

28. April 2012 · Comments Off · Categories: Current Events

Another week to go at the current place. Remaining project requirements closed down. Going to be departing on 4 May. I feel like I got a lot done and like I blogged before, I have this sublime feeling of accomplishment. I also will miss this rich team at Microsoft IT which made even the hardest times bearable. I realized a long time ago that I don’t take work home with me too well. My soon-to-be ex-wife would treat me to an hour of reprisals most walks we did with issues with work, issues with me, issues in general. Given that I walk over an hour now, this got to be unbearable. Walking was supposed to be fun and relaxing and enjoyable. Yesterday I walked for 1.5 hours at work. I just find walking in Mountain View truly enjoyable. The Stevens Creek Trail is a fabulous place to walk and its enjoyed by legions of folks each day I walk it. If you check out the map below, you can see Moffett Field to the east and the trail splits between Moffett and the campuses of leading technology companies. Interesting physical location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That bit of walking is always good for me. I get back to the car and am so pleasantly tired, hungry, wanting my Friday  beer exercise. I stopped and ate a sandwich, watched people streaming to the Shoreline Ampitheatre for a concert, ate in my car with the seat back, KFOG blaring. I don’t know why this is enjoyable to me. I could catch a meal at a nicer place than the car; but each Friday I do the same that I walk at work.

Yesterday, I left for my walk at about 3:50pm and got back to the car at 530pm. Great distance, beautiful weather yesterday to walk the Trails. I’m gonna miss the trails and the water all around the walks. At one point of the walk, I exit the the Stevens Creek Trail and end up on the San Francisco Bay Trail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trail is split into regions and my walk is in the South Bay part of the trail. I basically walk to where I cannot go any further and meet the bay. Birds scream at me overhead. Ducks waddle and Geese honk. Then I turn back.

Turn back to the end parts of the walk. Back to the Google-plex and back to the car.

What’s next? Well, Cisco sounds like its next. Its a great job and its so within my sweet spot of things I want to do, have been wanting to do for someone else. I could be starting as early as 16 May. Before then though, I hit the rails. I’ll plan a trip for a few days to clear out of this place. There is really nothing worth saving at this place besides my kids. Everything else is waiting on 16 August to come. And I’m good with that. No hidden denial. No acceptance either. I just learned to live with it finally. Human evolution is blessed with adoption and adaptation.

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