Answers change

In my first post, I mentioned a novice blogger's dilemma- how to write what you like so that others like it. The more I thought of it, the more familiar it sounded. Extra-currics or GPA, job satisfaction or package, with family in India or with better opportunities abroad , children or career? All of these are instances of a very fundamental problem. Satisfaction and ambition clash and middle ground is hard to find.

To be honest, I don't know what will I do when offered such a choice. Most of these choices are hard to make because we have to juggle with multiple factors - individual motivations, family, societal norms, risk involved, things at stake and a few customized constraints for each problem. But as is the case with many hard problems, special instances are solvable while the general setting is intractable. So, I thought of restricting the domain of the dilemma to a special case - what if the decision concerns only ME.

This reminds me of some childhood stories. This is a couplet I remember from my school days

नानापुराणनिगमागमसम्मतं यद  

रामायणे निगदितं क्वचिदन्यतो अपि  

स्वान्तःसुखाय तुलसी रघुनाथगाथाभाषानिबंधम.....

  This is the preface (मंगलाचरण) from Ramacharitramanas(रामचरित्रमानस). Roughly translated, it means that "Numerous other people have also written their own Ramayans in agreement with numerous standard authorities. Tulsi(the author) is still binding the legend of Rama to words for the happiness of his own self......." 

 It is common among Indian authors to pray for fame and popularity in their prefaces. In fact, almost everybody writes for fame. Then why is an author of the highest caliber denouncing even acknowledgement, let aside fame and immortality ? Maybe because he already has his reward. The knowledge that he has made an indelible mark. This is the reason why grown ups head bang like crazy in a rock concert. This is why rockstars are cool not billionaires.

And as I go on, I realize that some things are really not that complicated as we conjure them to be in our minds. Sometimes it is good to do something stupid if it makes us happy. I think I'll take that risk.

This train of thoughts that had started at questions ends, as usual, at some radically different yet related ones, passing through some answers in between.What if write about some not so popular things that I absolutely love ? What if I write about manga and graphic novels - Lone Wolf and the Cub, Naruto, Bleach, Ramayana 3392 A.D. ? They are some of the most profound things I have read. But I have a question - suppose you have never heard of them. Will you give them a try if I insist? implore? request? beg? force?  My friends find it hard to believe that these childish pages can have so much intellectual depth. Yet they like my status messages from these manga. And everybody likes the dark, gory, gruesome movies based on manga and graphic novels. (Watchmen, Sin City, 300, V for Vendetta, Dark Knight to name a few) Same goes for Hermann Hesse,

I guess I know the answer. That will make me happy and either bore you or spark your interest in a completely new direction. My apologies in advance, but without them, my expressions are incomplete.

PS: If you haven't noticed, I sound a bit odd .Wading into algorithms considerably alters your vocabulary, especially about what is hard and what is easy (Tractable, intractable. instances, constraints). 

• Even the basic idea is borrowed from that field(Valiant-Vazirani Theorem). It explores whether a computationally hard problem is so tough because it has multiple possible solutions to choose from or because each single solution is hard to find. It doesn't give a definite answer. But the answer is most likely the pessimistic one, unless some miracle happens. 

• Neglect some spelling mistakes in the Sanskrit part. This is as good as I can do with Google Hindi.

Some Gems from Khalil Gibran

I have just started reading Khalil Gibran's Greatest Works. Everybody knows about 'The Prophet'. But his other works are equally good.He is the third most widely read poet in history - after Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.(+ other standard wiki stuff..Spare both of us the pain and look up there if you want to).Too much for an unschooled Lebanese immigrant?? A couple of pages were enough to convince me he deserves this stature. His work blurs the lines between prose and poetry.They sum up life's truths - from the humble ones to the heroic with enchanting beauty.As I haven't written anything worthwhile in the last six months or so,why not give a highlight of his work. Here we go.  

• We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay the debt of our yesterdays.
• Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from the truth. 
• There is a space between man's imagination and man's achievement that may only be traversed by his longing. 
• If all they say of good and evil were true, then my life is but one long crime.
• Inspiration will always sing.Inspiration will never explain.
• Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure. Only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
• When two women talk,they say nothing.. When one woman speaks,she reveals all of life.
• Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than our rights. 
• Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
• Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
• Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room. But I have lost the key..Perhaps I have only mislaid it.
• Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.
• But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

The Nerdy Nerve I: Cloud Computing

I have been dabbling into random technical stuff for a while now.(Guess this is what internship does to you when you take it seriously).And what use is dabbling without sweet babbling.Soooo, AUTOBOTS LET'S ROLL..

Cloud is the new buzzword of the IT industry.Everything big happens 'in the cloud'.To get things started, cloud computing is treating computing power as a commodity rather than a computer itself. Lease and release computing resources and pay as you use,somewhat like electricity. So, instead of installing a dozen new computers,you talk of getting the computing ability of a dozen computers.

Cloud Computing is not much of a technological breakthrough.It is more of a paradigm, a model. The concept is pretty much obvious and has been lingering around for a while.It is just another idea whose time has (finally) come.(The word "cloud" became a catchphrase after Google CEO Eric Schimdt used it) In my understanding, it is taking division of labor to the extreme.Just like you let the pro guys design your OS, let them do your computing as well.Simple economy of scale and specialization argument at the first glance.

The beauty and power of the model is obvious once you look at it from the consumer side..You have a new, BIG idea(or such is your conceited belief).You do the obvious and a start-up is born.But you never know whether the users will crown you or crucify you.You may be the next Twitter.(Twitter had just 50 odd employees when it stormed the net. Now it has 140 and isn't taking any more.These guys do have a thing for 140!!(If you don't 'tweet',140 is the word limit for a 'tweet')) You may be just one of the daily casualties of the internet - gone without a trace.Success and failure- both grow exponentially in cyberspace.So,here's your first headache - how many computers do you buy?? Go for the overkill ?? Play it safe and stunt your adventure?? Enter cloud computing as a knight in shining armor.Take as much computing power as you want and pay as you go. And you are really on cloud nine.And even when you survive and stabilize,no maintenance and operational overheads, no fear of crashes and failures.The IT equivalent of 'single window policy'.

The next obvious question - what does the service provider gain? A little bit of history will reveal the answer.(In CS, 90s is history and 80s is Stone Age) No one valued cloud computing in the 90s.Simple reason - the 'dot-com bubble'-the Midas touch of the .com prefix. People were too busy creating Google and Yahoo(It's not that straight.There were a couple of other factors too) When the bubble burst, there were a lot of computers to spare.Computers rarely slog at their peak ability. Average figures may be as dismal as 10% of the peak.(Finally,something in common with humans) So, a lot of computing capacity goes untapped.This led to the basic mantra of cloud computing.

Lot of lazy,underused computers + good business acumen    = lease their computing ability + mint quick money

This is roughly what happened with Amazon.So, they started EC2(Elastic Compute Cloud).And it created shock waves.A test user for the trial version refused to sell his opportunity for $10,000. That's some fanatic frenzy man!! And since then, Google,IBM,Microsoft and almost all leading universities have joined the bandwagon.

The whole tale is a bit too long. So, let me call it a day. Some parting words---Why wasn't it there before if it is so obvious?? There are a few enabling factors like virtualization and pervasiveness of the net. More on it in the next post. Also look out for description of various architecture levels, security issues, criticisms and the power of platforms and frameworks in the next post.(It will be a bit technical.Can't help it)

In the technical world, only time and/or geniuses can tell a paradigm from a fad.Once it was believed that a computer will overtake a man's intelligence by the 70s and nuclear powered home appliances would see the dawn of the day in the 20th century.Too fired up by science fiction,eh?? Will Cloud Computing see clear skies??Fingers crossed..

PS: If you have read attentively,there will be a sequel post soon...If you got this far,you must be really interested in Cloud Computing.If you want to read more- go for Above The Clouds:A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing and Cloud computing: state-of-the-art and research challenges by some Waterloo guys.