Ashonomics

This Blog

2010-09-23T15:23:00.003+05:30

This blog is primarily maintained at http://blog.ashonomics.com/ and I will stop updating here in the near future (may be from the next post onwards).

iPhone more satisfactory than Android, report.

2010-09-23T13:38:00.001+05:30

As it turns out, 73% of iPhone users are "very satisfied" while the percentage of their counterparts on other smartphones (read Android) is in 30s at best.

Complete report here.

Mapping Stereotypes: The Geography of Prejudice

2010-09-22T21:43:00.001+05:30

Don't we all just love harmless stereotyping! This is a funny series of various maps of Europe doing just that. I found it here.

Zidane: First head-butt and now this. Don't we all just love him!

2010-09-18T23:21:00.001+05:30

That's one heck of a snooker shot.

My Résumé

2010-09-18T20:17:00.001+05:30

Download now or preview on posterous

Ashish_Gandhi_no_paper.pdf (201 KB)

I haven't tried out Posterous document features yet. So here goes.

PS: Oh, and I'm not looking for a job right now, thank you.

Ashonomics

2010-07-10T17:31:00.004+05:30

I think I've settled down now with where Ashonomics will be. At least for a while.

http://blog.ashonomics.com/

--
Ashish Gandhi

Ashonomics.com

2010-03-26T22:10:00.000+05:30

Hello Dear Visitor,

I have purchased a TLD, http://ashonomics.com/ and plan to develop and test web apps there. I might even port this blog there sometime later.

So if you think of a web app that you could use and shouldn't be very difficult to implement (single developer and limited time :P) the feel free to leave comments. I will try my best to deliver it to you earliest I can. Yes, for free.

Ashish Gandhi

Stop Forwarding Stupid Emails

2010-03-12T01:50:00.002+05:30

Following is the email I sent to some of contacts.

This is a BCC to multiple contacts.

A humble request, please don't forwards emails blindly. At least not to me. Forwards are good, but not of the "believer" kinds.

If my request renders you clueless below I have attached a sample forward and my reply.

And if you don't agree with me there please don't write back to me. Just try not to forward these mails. I mean no offence. Nor do I want to downplay anyone's work.
--
Ashish Gandhi

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ashish Gandhi <>
Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: The Power of words over water - unbelievable!!

Two things any rational person would say.

First, words are human-made. We has humans refer to certain ideas or feeling using certain sounds. The assignment is completely arbitrary. And the sound for the same idea or feeling differs from language to language obviously. I don't see how these arbitrary assignments by a species (us humans) should affect a "universal truth" or "fundamental laws" we observe. Say, even if this claim were true, what about words like रंडी which means prostitute in Hindi and come in Telugu. What effect will a bilingual person who speaks both of these languages will have?

Second, to establish a "truth" we should not have any human bias. To read more on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto#Water_crystal_work_and_criticism would be a good source. This person's work is a "claim" and nothing more. I may write some random arbitrary things and say they come form experimental evidence. They'll be nothing more than a claim unless they are reproducible and the methods involved in the experimentation are unbiased. (Note: For those of you who think Wikipedia is unreliable, at least in this section, most links are cited which implies they although may be "user edits" but have be mentions elsewhere.)

To summarize, I (and so should anyone) fail to reason why an arbitrary thing like language can affect a "universal truth" like crystallization. And even if does, so what? And if some patterns seem beautiful to you, others may not find them so attractive. (Perception again is not a "truth" for that matter.) Also the work is not reproducible, meaning if you and I do this at home and observe the crystals, they will practically never fit into these claims.

Think yourself. Think first, then believe. Stop being just an another blind sheep. People propagating these or any other kind of beliefs are merely fellow human beings. Just like you.
--
Ashish Gandhi

In response to the following [photos removed]:

You can check how true these are. But it makes interesting reading.

The Power Of Words Over Water
Can water be affected by our words? Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese scientist, believes so. And he has proof.
Dr. Emoto took water droplets, exposed them to various words, music, and environments, and froze them for three hours. He then examined the crystal formations under a dark field microscope. And he took photographs.
The results were totally mind-blowing.
Here’s a photo of ordinary water without any prayer spoken over it. The molecular structure is in disarray.

[Photos removed]

Wait A Minute—
Aren’t You Made Up Of Water?
Yes! 72% of your body is made up of water.
Imagine how your words affect your own body.
When you say, “I’m a failure,” or “I’m hopeless,” or “I won’t get well,” imagine how these words weaken your health.
Make a choice to say the best words out there. Say often, “I’m wonderful,” “I’m beautiful,” “I’m God’s child,” and “God has a great plan for my life!”
It’s not only water.
Dr. Emoto also experimented with cooked rice.
He placed one cup of cooked rice in two airtight jars. On one jar, he wrote, “I love you,” and on the other, “You fool.” Everyday for 30 days, Dr. Emoto would say these words to each jar of rice.
After 30 days, the “I love you” rice was still white. But the “You fool” rice was so rotten, it was black. How can you explain this?
Just as a side note: When I was a child, my mother taught me to pray before meals. Now I realize it wasn’t just a nice thing to do. When I pray over my meal, I know a material transformation takes place in the molecular level of the food that I pray for. I say, “Be blessed,” to the water and food on the table—and I expect it to be blessed.
I encourage you to speak words of truth.
Dethrone the lies in your mind.
Say, “I’m beautiful.” Say, “I’m a wonderful person.” Say, “I have a great future.” Say, “I’m anointed. I’m strong. I’m blessed.”
Use your words to create your desired reality.
May your dreams come true!

New Gmail Logo

2010-02-21T13:14:00.005+05:30

I love the new Gmail... err... Google Mail logo they have. Yeah, just that. I like it that much. Maybe I'm bored with how Gmail has been looking for years and any change in welcome. But whatever it is, I like this.

My New Favorite Browser: Google Chrome

2010-02-14T12:57:00.012+05:30

OK. I admit. I should have been blogging more. And I will. I had just been busy, very busy, with the nothingness of life you get busy with at some point or the other.

Moving on. Some of you would remember how I loved Opera over Firefox but I had let Google Chrome out of the comparison because it was too feature-less so to speak. And then later I started to love Internet Explorer 8 for reasons which I now find funny. Well, guess what, I might have grown out of browser obsession (or have I?) but there's no denying I use them everyday, all the time. We use them everyday, all the time. You have to think about them at some point of time or other.

Google Chrome 4 supports extensions. Yes, I know everyone knows that. And it has been quite a while since this version was out. And I had tried the available extensions the day they were available. And I was disappointed. True, extensions did now make the browser more memory hungry, unlike my experience with the popular Firefox. But exactly like my experience with Firefox I would never bring about myself to using them. (I don't know why I don't like the add-ons for Firefox. They are ugly. Memory thirsty. Anti-user-friendly. Ugly! It's like going on a date with a 60 year old heart patient on a dining table arranged on the side of a busy motor-way in the middle of a city called Somewhere-Very-Crowded. Maybe it's just me but I never used add-ons on Firefox except Foxy Proxy.) But time has passed, things have changed. There is now a mature extensions collection for Google Chrome. And they are fast. Good looking. More like going on a date with a Swedish model in a posh French restaurant so tidy that the waiter will kill himself if you can spot a dust particle on the end tip of the shoelace of the shoe on his right foot.

Google Chrome is now impressive. I wait for the Chrome OS net-book (and not some kind of electronic pad) to come out now. I really like the Nexus One. Gmail has always been a favorite. There always was You-Tube. Google Buzz isn't that bad either. Google Voice sounds amazing. Now Google's Feedly and Aardvark are promising. And now Google is entering into the ISP market too. Google is taking... err... winning over the world. And I am not complaining. Goolge! O' Google! Please give me a job after graduation.

My First Blog Post Using Windows Live Writer

2009-12-12T21:25:00.002+05:30

Recently I have stopped doubting Microsoft and have started using their new products. Windows 7 has been great and right now I am using Outlook 2010 (beta) as well as trying out the Windows Live Writer application. Makes me believe web apps aren’t good enough to replace desktop ones after all.

--
Ashish Gandhi

Delays

2009-12-10T22:47:00.003+05:30

Suddenly today I got up screaming, "Arrgghhhh!! My blog!!" Well not really, but it's been pinching me a bit that I haven't blogged yet for a while. But then I have been busy. Very busy. Doing dunno what...?!

This space will be updated soon.

Ashish Gandhi

Dr. Music: A last.fm robot for Google Wave

2009-10-21T18:33:00.022+05:30

Dr. Musical Wave, or Dr. Music for short, is my first Google Wave robot. I developed it in Python. I am very excited about this.

Following is the little description I gave them about it:

[Updated] Dr. Music will tell you:

What a last.fm user is listening to you (includes you).
Music compatibility between people.
Similar artists to an artist you like.
All of this with pictures to make it colorful. Once you add Dr. Music he'll tell you how you can get him to do things for you.

You can add Dr. Music to your wave by adding dr-music@appspot.com to your contacts and then to your Wave.

(Note: Click the image for a different high-resolution picture.)

(Update: The screenshot is from a version without the similar artists feature.)

If you discovered a bug or want to request a feature leave comments.

The project is listed here. The page will have the latest features list.

Ashish Gandhi

Wave Developer Preiew and Wave Preview

2009-10-17T14:55:00.005+05:30

Short post this one.

Basically now I have a Google Wave Developer aka Sandbox account (thanks to Google) as well as a ordinary Google Wave account (thanks to Prateek).

A quick note of how things are. Mostly I am skipping the parts which a zillion bloggers have already posted about. So here goes:

Dev accounts are Google Apps accounts with the domain wavesandbox.com. Which basically means you have another Gmail account with the @wavesandbox.com domain. Same for other Google services.
Preview accounts share the contact list with you existing Gmail account.
Wave isn't cross-platform yet. So @wavesandbox.com users and @googlewave.com users cannot wave with each other.
Sandbox account lets you try out unofficial-ized extensions. Plus these have an extra debug button. (Which I still am trying to figure out how to use.)
One last thing that I want to talk about which is common to both kind of accounts is the fact that neither can you leave a wave you've joined nor can you remove someone who is one it.

That's that. And for other developers who would like to help me out in developing a last.fm python robot please do drop in an email.

Ashish Gandhi

Google should give out unlimited invites. :-/

2009-10-06T12:38:00.008+05:30

I am sorry I haven't been posting as frequently as I should. But here goes...

What is happening is that I am desperately trying to get hold of a Google Wave account. I unfortunately wasn't one of the fortunate 100K people whom Google invited to try out their new piece of brilliance. I also want to develop some robots myself for the folks at Google but even in that department they haven't been generous.

What's not fair is that they won't even tell you if you application has been looked at yet or not. With Google you expect things to be top-class. You probably expect some sort of application tracking mechanism that'll tell you so many applicants lie ahead of you, or your application was processed and they waiting for the time they can send you an invite, or they think you and your ideas are boring and don't care if you would like to come aboard and develop... the last bit a bit more politely I guess.

What I want: A Google Wave account.

What Google has: Google Wave accounts.

I don't see the problem. Yeah, yeah talk about scalability and all, c'mon! We all know they can buy some zillion servers faster than the piston in an Audi R8 traverses from the bottom of that V8 to towards that spark-plug during a power-stroke.

They already have the demand, they don't need to try drive it up by controlling supply. It might not be ready for *prime time* as they say, but hey, if it's ready for 100K people to try it, it is ready for 200K people to try it. And if it's ready for 200K people to try it then hey, it's ready for 300K people to try it. I know I am being stupid but there is no reason why 100K people can try it and it is not ready for mass adoption. I don't see why. Wort case at least it's ready for all the geeky, if you may, people who signed up for a preview stating they are okay with bugs. They already are interested and they are okay with bugs. Where's the problem??

And lastly I'll wine about a developer's account. Why don't they give out developer accounts? If you can't handle developers banging on your doors then why tell them where you live?

Proposal: All march to Google offices near you and eat Googlers up. Salt to taste.

C'mon Google! Give out unlimited invites.

Edits:

Google made the protocols and the Wave server open-source to achieve the same inter-portability email has achieved. We should be able to see third-party Wave servers coming up. One is http://bit.ly/r5GOl. Any one knows any other?
I am 13lackhat there. Feel free to add me. Wave is more fun if you have people around. =)

[UPDATE]

Now this post seems to have been gone all wrong. It was written on the assumption Google is giving out invites to non-developers because Google Wave was neigh ready for prime-time. I have been using the service for quite some time now and turns out there are some features yet to be sorted out for mass-consumption. (Yes, you consume services.) Things like you cannot leave a Wave you have joined. Anyone can add you to any Wave, think spam. Things that deal with permissions. All the things we need to have when the honour system of things fail. So limited invites is a good idea. *Wonders how could he think Google was wrong :P*

Windows 7 Build 7600.16385 RTM x86

2009-09-04T21:58:00.012+05:30

Warning: I won't explicitly point out in details why I have such opinions because this isn't written to convince people to change their view. Nor is a product of a technical test. The post only has opinions resulting from my experiences.

Microsoft is back in business. Yeah, that's right, I am saying that. For those of you don't know I have used Linux for more than half the time I have had this laptop. And at the same time I have used Tiger and Leopard. Both of which I loved.

A little background: (Skipping this is allowed.)

Linux. I liked openSUSE the mostly. Strangely with all the talk going around about Linux being stable and all, I have had instability issues with Ubuntu. I have installed and re-installed clean copies of Ubuntu and it never did present itself as stable. Windows they say has virus issues. But I never had any. Probably 'cause I never went around looking for files at the wrong places. So,

Microsoft + Virus(es) = Unstable

but

Ubuntu = Buggy + Ugly (0ut-of-the-box).

Now when I say buggy I don't mean it used to crash right away but it wasn't neat (which will be an understatement). For someone who gives attention to details Ubuntu was ugly not in terms of looks but in terms of quality. Does work but doesn't work elegantly. Also Ubuntu isn't any good with nVidia. At least not for my card (7300 Go). But on the other had openSUSE 10.3 made me really happy. Until the released 11.0 which rubbed me as a pre-Beta release although it wasn't. Linux in general does nothing what an average user wants out-of-the-box. Multimedia support s_cks. Cannot support iPod touch or iPhones. Cannot play MP3 (generally) without searching for codecs like a mad man (or woman if that applies to you). And other stuff I won't go into. Yes Linux is a lot more user-friendly than it used to be but come on, it isn't really friendly, is it? I mean I can't even chance my wallpaper without going into Settings/Preferences/Appearances/Background/Add/Browse and then selecting the image. No, Right-click/Set as background isn't something they have "innovated" yet. Also not many applications available. Would it be too much if I say Linux is a terminal with GUI? Like Windows 95, Windows 98 and some others were DOS with GUI.

Mac. Macs are lovely... and costly. Whatever they do, they do it brilliantly. But they do only a limited number of things. And did I mention they are costly? Even after the student discount. And all thought they talk about how their kernel is open-source and all but we all know Apple is the god of all propriety companies. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple's products, but I don't really love Apple. Nor their pricing. I have said that enough number of times already. Why can't they write an iTunes for Linux if they are all that open-source? Why are we allowed to chose only from applications that Apple approves for it's iPhone? Why can't we install the applications we want on the iPhone we own? They even rejected Google Voice and have given a very vague and inaccurate answer to FCC's questions. (Google it if you want to.) And Steve Jobs makes ever small baby-step advancement sound like a breakthrough. Dunno how grown-ass men take him seriously. Reading iWoz, I started to believe Steve Wozniak is the guy who should be credited for Apple's success. Apple I and Apple II were both designed by him (allegedly single-handed) which was (allegedly) the only source of income for Apple for many years even when they were selling other products.

Windows. Microsoft is successful because they have a lot of applications available for their OS? But then you can't help wonder why are there so many applications available for their OS. Because it's popular? That's saying A holds because B holds. But when talking about why B holds you can't say it's because A holds. At the very beginning of the game there must have been some real good reason why developers and users alike flocked to Windows making it the monopoly it is today.

Problems with Windows XP: Security and desktop composition and some exclusions of advancements in technology.
Solution: Windows Vista.

Problems with Windows Vista: Compatibility, speed, annoying UAC and hardware requirements.
Solution: Windows 7.

Problems with Windows 7: None that I can identify yet.
Solution: Stop doubting Microsoft.

(Skip-able section ends here.)

Recently I've been using Windows 7 Build 7600.16385 RTM x86. Unlike the 6801 build this is NOT the stripped down-version of Vista with a different taskbar. It is not RAM hungry nor does it get in your way unlike Vista. They have give attention to details this time. Every bit of the OS feels faster. Especially the search. Doesn't even wait for me to finish typing to give me accurate results. (Unlike in Vista when I had to finish typing and after that wait for results.)

For developers who talk about how coding on Linux enables you to code on all *nix, developers can have a convenient POSIX layer from various official and unofficial sources for Windows. Windows 7 comes with Power Shell for shell scripters. Yes, ls works for dir.

But mostly Windows 7 does not hang, does not make you wait, does not make you buy expensive and high-end hardware and works smooth like shit through a goose. Finally Aero servers as a usability tool and not simply eye-candy. Linux forced Mac to improve. Improved Mac forced Windows to improve. (That what happened, right?) Only competition like this can give consumers real choices.

Why did Google really unveil it's server design?

2009-09-02T15:45:00.010+05:30

Companies generally buy servers from the likes of Dell, HP or others. But Google designs and assembles their own servers... in secrecy... until now. Google unveiled their server design as reported on many tech sites recently. Interesting bit is right now Google is reaching levels of efficiency that the EPA hopes will be attainable in 2011 using "advanced technology".

Now, official they would be revealing this for all the philanthropic reasons mankind has ever come-up with. But what's interesting is if we could really guess why Google really opened up their genius design for the world to see? Officially they feel that opening up will help other businesses in a dire economy focus more on efficiency—although Jai noted that Google was already on it's 6th or 7th generation of the server design. But also not to forget Google has patents on the built-in battery design. "But I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle says. Right, sounds like, "We want to help the world and the environment. Give us your money." But heck! Their innovation they surely do deserve the credit (and the money) but why bring in corporate philanthropy?

Some design details with images here.

Google's New OS (not Android)

2009-07-09T14:41:00.005+05:30

They have finally done it. They have found the balls to announce something in a year advance. While Microsoft is very lavish in promising all what they'll deliver in the future, and don't quite do actually, Apple and Google seldom announce anything before it's ready. But this time they have promised something that's was heavily anticipated for quite some time now. A lo0OO0ong time actually. They call it Google Chrome(?) apparently.

So here it is, they announce their desktop operating system (this is not Android). They promise it in 2010, free and open-source of course. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. I am sure you'll read more about it here and there.

Random thoughts

2009-06-22T17:52:00.003+05:30

Just 10 random points on-the-spot:

RapidShare now has upto 80 secs. of wait-time.
I finally have a US iTunes store account.
Still haven't got over this: iPhone 3G 8GB $99.
Downloading WWDC '09 keynote presentation - 1.3 GB.
My bike has a petrol leak. Now I know where all that fuel was going.
iPod Touch OS 3.0 with games.
La Cenerentola (Cinderella - with English subtitles) was not bad. They even had complimentary dinner.
All music gets boring given sufficiently long continuous repetitions.
Now technology can read human thoughts... to an extent.
Windows 7 in Europe will not ship with Internet Explorer preloaded. Nor with Windows Media Player. Users will be able to download the browser of their choice. (I still am wondering how? Without any browser is it not impossible to connect, let alone download, anything?)

Python for S60 (pys60) on Nokia E51

2009-06-20T10:11:00.006+05:30

This should be a piece of cake, right? So did I think. I have Nokia E51 which runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. So one would think of downloading PythonForS60_1_4_5_3rdEd.SIS and PythonScriptShell_1_4_5_3rdEd.SIS from SourceForge. So that's what I did. But it would simply refuse to install. "File corrupted" error it would say without any further explanation which was weird 'cause I had downloaded the files from several sources (official and unofficial) multiple times. Apparently E51 is not as popular (not launched in US... or something) as other S60 phones so no one else was discussions about this issue. I was so irritated that I resorted to posting my problem on Nokia's discussion forum. (That was an all new experience for me. I have never posted a problem on any discussion board ever before this one.) At the same time I left the phone to upgrade from firmware 200.34.36 to 220.34.37 overnight. On the new firmware in the morning everything worked just fine. So I guess it was some weird firmware issue.

Lesson: Always run the latest firmware. Many people ask why; so now you know why - so that you don't spend a whole day attempting (and eventually failing) to do something that takes 3 minutes.

Important note: Upgrading firmware erases all phone memory which you think might be fine as you have all your pictures, videos, music, etc. on the memory card but keep in mind it also erases contacts and messages. Take a backup, it's easy.

Also: The people on Nokia discussion forum are very helpful. A Gargi Das had replied by the time I got up.

My first (real) Python program...

2009-06-11T20:49:00.025+05:30

Okay, it's NOT hello world. It actually is a pretty robust program with basic error handling. I like it a lot. It accepts numbers from the user. Then prints them out along with the count, highest & lowest, sum and mean. It also is a solution to the second question in the exercise at the end of Chapter 1: Rapid Introduction to Procedural Programming of Programming in Python 3: A Complete Introduction to the Python Language by Mark Summerfield. It's a brilliant book.

The reason I decided upon Python (as opposed to Ruby) is the organization where I am currently interning requires us (our team) to. Also everybody seemed to be rather more interested in Python. So python it is. And here is the solution to

numbers = []
count = 0
sum = 0
mean = 0

while True:
try:
 line = input("enter a number or Enter to finish: ")
 if not line and count != 0:
  break
 i = int(line)
 numbers.append(i)
 count += 1
 sum += i
 mean = sum / count
 if count == 1:
  lowest = highest = i
 elif i < lowest =" i"> highest:
  highest = i
except ValueError as err:
 print(err)

print ("numbers: " + str(numbers))
print ("count = " + str(count), "sum = " + str(sum),
"lowest = " + str(lowest), "highest = " + str(highest),
"mean = " + str(mean))

So that's that for now. Ciao.

--
Ashish

Bing! Bing! Bing! Microsoft's Bing overtakes Yahoo!

2009-06-08T12:21:00.011+05:30

APOLOGY: While the graph below is correct, MS Bing's "Sunday" lasted only a day and after 4th June its market fell even below what it used to be. Daily updates: http://gs.statcounter.com/

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Search Engine Market Share

Now I don't want to be sounding like a reporter but I can't help but talk about Microsoft's new search engine Bing and how it has over taken the global second (in terms of "market-share") Yahoo! after failing to acquire the same for $40bn. Now the question of course is will Bing be able to keep it that way. Bing of course has lovely daily-changing backdrop image on its homepage but I am not too sure if I really like the results. And anybody who knows me know about how talk about Micosoft being a company that provides cheaper solutions that, on paper, might even be better... but keep crashing as if they are meant to crash at every random point in time. Anyway, the results definitely are good but not as promising (at least in my case) as they show in their video.

Only time can tell. But as of now Bing has second place on 16.28%. Yahoo! has 10.22%. Google still commands the US search engine market with 71.47%.

--
Ashish
(*Wonders if Vaporware is one of Microsoft's aliases*)

Google Wave

2009-06-06T14:26:00.012+05:30

Google I/O was a web developer-focused conference organized by Google to discuss web applications using Google and open web technologies. During this conference, on 28 May 2009, Google announced a new product/service they shall be introducing: Google Wave. Although Google Wave crashed several times during the demonstration the over all presentation was impressive, credit to the fact that Google Wave itself was so compelling that it almost promises to replace your email, instant messenger, social networking site and even your blog to an extent. In the case of your blog you'll be able to blog using Google Wave while it might not change at all.

Google wave, in very simplified words, promises to be a "document" (they call it a Wave) which can be edited in real-time by more than one persons at the same time. It supports adding pictures, videos, links and all-the-other-crap-in-the-world. It has a very good spell-checker which automatically corrects words it is confident about. There are a lot of other fun plug-ins and a lot more to come. And since it can be edited by multiple users at the same time, applications of this fact are only limited by your imagination. One example is people can play games like Tic-Tac-Toe and Sudoku or opinion polls can be conducted. To facilitate use features like playback, reply and others are also implemented. The best part is they plan to make majority portion of it open-source. I can't wait for the time when we shall stop exchanging emails and start sharing waves! (I did mention that you can add and remove as many people as you like on a wave, right?... Oops! Okay, so only the people on a particular wave may have the permissions to view or edit that wave.)

I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand
- Chinese Proverb

Also I would recommend everyone checks out the following video:

--
Ashish

This blog is NOT dead!

2009-06-04T15:42:00.007+05:30

People have been asking if my blogging days are all over and I don't blame them. But how could I stop? (The Rolling Stones style). So as you can see that I have made a few changes here and there to my blog in preparation of my return and I thought it'll be a good idea to document them:

I have replaced the old whitish template with this darker one. Unlike its predecessor; this one does not render well in Microsoft Internet Explorer; which happens to be an aging, old-school, pre-Internet software company's attempt at making something modern. The result being a piece of code that almost works... just like most of their other things. But it renders perfect in Mozilla Firefox. Tests on other browsers are due.
... for only if it made sense!... is now Make sense of it...
Now both Ashonomics and ...nOOdled thOughts... share the same "shout-box".
And the most important (legally speaking) change is the license of my work. It not longer is a Creative Commons license but a traditional copyright one. Dunno why the change... or for how long, but for now it's that.

So those were the changes Ashonomics has gone through and it should not be long before there is an another post here. Till then, see you and take care!

Update: The template has been changed again to a yet another one.

--
Ashish

Earth Hour - Is it really useful? Is global warming for real?

2009-03-30T18:42:00.020+05:30

Why? Yes that's right; why? It won't save any power anyway. The power companies don't start producing when you ask for it (by switching on your appliances). They produce power on a continuous basis and power not used it power wasted. Even if you don't use it it still is produced and it will not be used. Also there is not need to give the statons a sudden huge load change by suddenly switching on our lights together at a pre-decided time. This might even damage their equipment.

And on top of all, yes the global average temperature is rising but is it carbon-di-oxide that really is warming the planet up? Rigorous science suggests it's warmer temperatures that cause the oceans to release CO₂ with a lag of about 800 years. Yes, even if you use the data sets which Algore uses you can see that the temperature curve leads the CO₂ curve by 800 years.
They tell you that warming of the planet will cause the ice to melt and show you glaciers breaking off but what they don't tell you is that about 1000 years ago Greenland was much more warmer than it is today and that did not affect the ice one bit. Nor do they tell you that ice rearranges itself over time - while it breaks off at one place it is being formed at the other.
But we all have been hearing that average global temperature since 1975 has risen quite a bit but what we don't hear is that it has only risen half a degree since 1940. That means that temperatures fell during that span from 1940 to 1975. Note that this was the same period as of the post-war economic boom when carbon emissions were at record high levels due to rapid industrialization. Temperatures should have shot up not down.
These people who make predictions of future climatic changes are the same as those who try to predict your tomorrow's skies... and never get it right. If we talk about predicting a handful of years ahead predicting the day tomorrow should be a piece of cake, right? They use the same model. A model that is based on huge number of assumptions. It only takes one assumption to go wrong for the model to fail and only a minor tweak in any to turn the prediction around. That brings us to Dr. Piers Corbyn who has consistently won awards for predicting the weather better than anyone else. But this time his predictions were strikingly different about the winter compared to the meteorological department, which only won him yet an another award. His method was to observe the sun rather than the planet. He observes sun spots, solar winds and their relation with cosmic rays. This, obviously, leads us to see that it's the sun that controls our weather more than anything else.
If you still are shaking your head in disapproval then let's talk about your green-house model on the basis of which the innocent CO₂ has been depicted as the culprit. As the the green-house model it's green house gases that trap the heat of the sun in our atmosphere and keep it warm. Ninety five percent (95%) of the heat that is trapped is trapped by water vapour. On top of that you have other green house gases of which CO₂ happens to be but only a minor member in terms of contribution. CO₂ is only 0.54% of the atmosphere of which human CO₂ (that produced by humans and human activities) is a single digit percent. Volcanoes produce more CO₂ than us. Animals and bacteria produce 150 giga-tonnes of CO₂ while human CO₂ is only 6.5 giga-tonne an year. Dying vegetation, like fallen leaves, produces more of it than any of this. But the biggest producers of CO₂ are the oceans. We are insignificant.
And even if we were significant then plotting CO₂ and artic-wide temperature over time clearly shows that they both do not match. But instead of CO₂ if solar wind is plotted then there is a clear connection.

Temperature changes are normal and have been hapening all the time. Recall the Little Ice Age and the exceptionally warm period of the Medevial times. There happens to be no need for worry simply because it has happened so many times already. We have survived it before (and so has the polar bear) when we were lesser equipped and we will survive it again.
Now that I have you thinking of more rational lines (hopefully) you might ask so if all this is not true then why has it gather so much momentum? That a completely different issue and I plan to write about it in detail on nOOdled thOughts in the near future, the simple answer is: politics. And are the so-called top 2500 scientists at IPCC lying. Answer: No, they are not. But most it's the IPCC that is. Again this is the short answer.
Note: This post is inspired from the eye-opening The Great Global Warming Swindle video documentry. It's worth a watch. No, you should not download pirated copies.
More Important Note: The documentry has been hugely criticised. There were a total of 265 complaints to the British regulator Ofcom, including the complaints that the programme falsified data. But also Ofcom found the film did not "materially mislead the audience." So some arguments presented might be false. But whatever be it, CO₂ or not, switching off lights for an hour is not helpful.
--
Ashish

India Shining... Or Is It?

2009-03-15T18:10:00.009+05:30

There has already been a lot of talk about how India and China are emerging as superpowers. But that hardly means they are not poor or living standards are improving or anything we take for granted. In fact, if we talk of the present, China seems to be in a better position in all respects and India is way far behind. But if we look at current policies and other factors which shape the future, then the story doesn't seem to be that clear.

I know I should give logic to my claims or provide verifiable facts and refrences to what I say, but instead I would give you a link to a professional research paper by Deloitte Reseach. Anyone - irrespective of an understsanding of ecomonics - should look into it to get their facts right. It isn't what most of think... unfortunately.
Link: http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/US_ChinaIndiaReality_Research.pdf
--
Ashish

26 reasons why I like Opera more than any other browser...

2009-03-03T06:20:00.013+05:30

Finally I write my first post here. And it's not about introducing me 'cause that will happen as you keep reading this space*.

Before I start quickly jotting down my say I think a little background of how this happened. I have been using Mozilla Firefox since the commencement of ape-kind. And there was absolutely no problem with it... except one - it froze for short moments (which always seems like ages) sometimes (which always seem like always). So I gave Opera a try. And this is what turns out I like in it:

Speed!! It simply is faster. Where (meaning in certain type of portions of the interweb) Opera is faster than Firefox, it beats the later with a good margin; but wherever Firefox is faster, it is only by a thin margin. But the overall difference might not be apparent on a fast connection but there is a clear difference in both the application's responsiveness. Opera being better.

Shorter version: Over the internet Opera is slightly faster. But Opera is way faster on your machine, meaning, it is more responsive and eats less of your RAM.
Ctrl + F and "." or "/". When you press Ctrl + F you look at a more powerful search tool than in Firefox. It gives you the option to match case, search top-down or ulta and some other options. But if you don't want a dialog box popping up and coming in your way you can hit the "." key or the "/" key and type in the word you want to search. First occurrence is highlighted in green while all other occurrences are highlighted in yellow. Hitting F3 or Ctrl + G takes you the next instance.
It has a very effecient and user-friendly feed reader. While Firefox can create "live bookmarks" it does not have a feed reader.
Better bookmarking. Period.
A very very useful notes feature. Comes in handy when you want to make a quick note of something while browsing. All you need to do is select the text and right-click. You will be presented with a lovely Copy to Note option. This can be directly accessed by hitting Ctrl + Shift + C.
Opera also has a better download manager. It is far more efficient and has built-in aka out-of-the-box support for BitTorrents.
It has build in support for MTHML. MHTML file-format lets you save web pages as single files which is very useful. (In Firefox you can only save it as a HTML file and a folder containing the image files. If UnMHT in Firefox the web pages saved are not fully compatible with the rest of the world.) Even Microsoft Internet Explorer has MHTML support.
Everyone loves the Speed Dial feature. Speed Dial gives you quick access to your favorite Web sites. There are nine thumbnails displayed in all empty tabs which show you favourite page. Pressing Ctrl + n (where n from 1-9) takes you to the corresponding page.
Tabs can be maxmized or not maximized within the Opera window. You love this feature whenever you click a some link on a page which in other browsers opens up a new window of a smaller size. Here a new tab of smaller size is opened up. Real tabbed browsing.
It out-of-the-box is configured to save your previous session when you click on the close button. Moreover you can specifically choose to save your session as a file which you might want to resume sometime later, for whatever reason, but would like to surf the net now with all the current tabs closed. (Hint: Too many people around maybe ;))
You can add a side-pane which comes in handy (unlike other browsers.) And it takes up very little space.
You can configure Opera to sync your IMAP mail (e.g. GMail) or download your POP mail (e.g. Yahoo! Mail.) Opera mail has loads of other features like faster search, learning spam, filters (even ones which are based on attachments!), etc. Basically it replaces your daily Outlook Express, Thunderbird or any other piece of software you were using.
This one I just absolutely love. You can hide Opera in the system tray area without it using up you task bar space if you have a lot of programs running. This is particularly useful when you are taking a break from browsing or you just want Opera to be running for it's awesome download manager.
Passes Acid Test 3 with 85/100 which is the highest by any browser released. (Apple's Safari 4.0 Beta does a 100/100 but then again it is beta and it uses a lot of your RAM. Even more than Internet Explorer... and that's saying something.) Acid Test 3 is a web-standards compliancy test whose results (for your browser) can be obtained within seconds by visiting their link.
There is an option to choose whether you wish to place new tabs next to your current tab (like in Internet Explorer) or if you wish to place them towards the end of the tabs bar (like in Firefox).
In fact the web browser is completely customizable by even the most novice of users.
There are so many shortcuts available in Opera that you don't need to use the mouse at all. (The geeks are drooling right now.) There even is an official guide to help people out. Not to mention that even the shortcuts are customizable.
When you hover your mouse over the tabs a small preview of the web page pops up. Yeah, like in Microsoft Windows Vista taskbar.
Also when you are switching tabs using Ctrl + Tab (to tab through sequentially) or Ctrl + Shift + Tab (to tab in order of the most recently active) you are given small preview of which tab will have the focus if you release the Ctrl button then.
The search-box is individualised to tabs - meaning it is different for different tabs. This comes in handy when, say for instance, you are simultaneously searching on Google and Wikipedia or IMDB - then you can have one tab in which the search-box is set to Google and another tab in which the search-box is set to Wikipedia or IMDB.
Available widgets are absolutely awesome.
It has a built-in cookie editor >:P.
Built-in support for IRC chat \m/.
It has mouse gestures which you will obviously find useful.
When visiting an image, the image is loaded right in the center (vertically as well as horizontally) of the page. Importance of this part will only be understood by those with high screen resolutions. (Mine is 1680x1050.) It also says something about the artistic side of the browser and how tasteful it's coders and users are. That again leads us to the next point and the last point.
It is way better looking. And that is important. (If you have been raised by wolves it might be a different case.)

There you have it. And all this comes from using Opera for just three days. Also I might make additions later. If there's something that you would like me to add then please leave comments.

Note for those who say Firefox can also be made to do all this: Yes, maybe it can. But then if you are so jobless that you would be willing to sit down to customizing more-or-less each and every aspect of your browser to its finest of details when you already have a readymade one available then you might as well sit and write your own browser from scratch. Moreover with loads of plug-ins installed on Firefox there is no elegance left of whatever there was.

PS: There is no point bringing Internet Explorer into the comparison. Clearly that would be a waste of resources. But Microsoft Windows 7 is awesome :D.

PPS: I have been using Opera 9.63 and Firefox 3.0.6 which are the latest versions available as of now.

Update (Reason 27): I also love the search shortcuts. In the address bar if you type g this is what you search it searches on Google (for whatever words that follow g), or if you type y this is what you search it would search on Yahoo! (for whaterever words that follow the y). The keywords of course can be changed.

*Does anybody truly know anyone?

Solution to bX-bliced and bX-39cc9q

2009-02-19T18:05:00.010+05:30

Right. So everyone is having this problem. And obviously everyone wants to know a solution. And I happen to have a solution to bX-bliced and bX-39cc9q. It's pretty simple actually. That's a bad thing because that would mean that this post will be short. But anyway, here's the solution:

Change all default widgets IDs, say for example About1 in the template you are trying to upload to About2. Almost all new default blogger widgets end with a numeric two. The widget ID can be found in the HTML tag that starts like b:widget.
Save the template and upload it.
Please report your experience in the comments section of this post. Also comment if you are still having problems. I will try to help you out.

Cheers,
Ashish.

Addition: Change all feed widget IDs to Feedx and all HTML widget IDs to HTMLx where x is a number of your choice. (Here 1 will also work.)

bX-bliced and bX-39cc9q

2009-02-15T14:12:00.001+05:30

People this is getting really irritating. I can't upload my own XMLtemplate which I am sure does not have any coding errors. If I try to upload via the XML file it gives the now infamous bX-39cc9q error or if I try to upload by copy-pasting my new template in the expanded-widgets view I am slapped the again now infamous bX-bliced error. There are other people also facing the same problem. Let's just hope Google fixes these problems as soon as their wit permits!