Hackety Hack Video

The Boston Ruby User group has a number of good Ruby related videos up on google. I especially like the 3rd one which seems to cover some of the technical details of the project.

Enjoy and check out their other videos as well (click on "From User" link in the sidebar)

Rails 1.2.3 LOC

Here are some interesting numbers. Just for the heck of it, I counted the number of lines in the ruby files (including comments) and here are the numbers:

* actionmailer-1.3.3     =  10224
* actionpack-1.13.3      =  34142
* actionwebservice-1.2.3 =   7096 
* activerecord-1.15.3    =  32750
* activesupport-1.4.2    =   7049
* rails-1.2.3            =   7433

Total:                   =  98694

I used the following sh command in each directory:

 find . -name "*.rb" -exec wc -l '{}' ';'  | cut -d . -f 1 | (tr '\n' +; echo 0) | bc

What difference does it make?

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

- Mahatma Gandhi

The Trouble With the World

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

- Bertrand Russell

Using Twitter as a backup alert system

I was just wondering today that it would be cool if I could have secure twitter channel for all my server alerts. Twitter doesn't seem to have a secure email interface and it would be hard to convince "powers that be" to allow production system messages to a public site, but if the channel was encrypted, then maybe.

But I find the idea intriguing. Along with system level alerts, one could also get numbers on system loads, cpu usage, runaway queries etc. The possibilities are endless.

Sarkozy Wins! :(

Damn! Damn! Damn! BLASTED!

Reaching another Critical Mass?

Looks like the sacked Chief Justice of Pakisan is becoming the catalyst for the people to come together under the same banner. It is interesting to see the flags of PPP and the various right of center parties in the same rally supporting the ousted judge.

What will Musharraf do? Pakistan's institutions are rotten to the core. The one that remains standing, still is the Army who thing they are gods sent to earth to "guide" this country.

Looking at the video's of the protest and the number of the people reminded me of the historical Rally in lahore in 1986 (or was it 1988?) to welcome Benazir Bhutto back from exile. I was in that Rally, and it stretched from the airport to downtown Lahore. It was literally kilometers long!

Is this the latest 'Lahore Spring' ?? Not sure, but certainly, it seems that the democratic forces in the country are coming together. This rally may be regarded as a watershed moment in terms of cooperation between the right/left and centerist parties.
Could this become something bigger than this? Not unless Musharraf does something stupid like the Shah did.

The utter disgraceful state of education, and therefore political confusion helps the Army junta as well. Takes ages for people to recognize they are being exploited, and every movement for democracy peters out because the new set of leaders are just as corrupt as the army which they want to replace. (see exhibit a: Benazir Bhutto, exhibit b: Nawaz Sharif)

Oh well, the cycle goes on.

Spimes, Newscloud, Japanese Curry Beef Buns

Listening to Bruce Sterling's talk on 'spimes'. While enjoying a Curry Beef Bun yum!



I wonder why newscloud.com is not more popular? Seems like a nice opensource platform for publishing a community news site??? According to Alexa.com, reddit.com has 50 times more traffic than newscloud.com .. hmm..