Understanding the Tour De France
Once a year, there is a bicycle race held in france, called the ‘Tour de France’. French is, of course, different from english, and frequently they take the first two letters of a word and put it at the end. So, the english ‘detour’ becomes ‘Tour De’ in french. So the ‘Tour de France’ means that they will be taking a lot of detours in france, because french people love going on strike and frequently leave the roads in a dug up state.
The race consists of different types of stages. There are the flat stages on which men with large hamstring muscles compete with each other for a green colored jersey, but more importantly, for kisses from nubile french lassies. But the organizers of the Tour De France restrict the kisses to three apiece, much to their chagrin. There is a polka dot jersey awarded to the person who climbs up mountains quickly. This is presented by women wearing polka dot umbrellas instead of skirts. This is handy if it starts raining during presentations. in 2010, this was won by a frenchman named Anthony Chartreau, who took this name because of his penchant for wearing chartreuse colored pants.
Yellow is the color of the race. The leader of the race wears a yellow jersey. The French call the person wearing the yellow jersey ‘Major John’ for reasons unknown to anyone. In order to win the yellow jersey, contendors (also known as contadors in french or spanish) have to cycle over big mountains and flatlands. Some of the big mountains in the 2010 stage included the ‘Col de Tourmalet’ which translates in English to ‘Hard to suck in enough air’, and ‘Col d’Aspin’ which is an abbreviation of ‘Its cold and climbing it will give you an ass-spank’
The leader of the 2010 race is known as ‘Contador’ since most people ‘can’t adore’ him. He caused a big controversy by sprinting up a big ass hill when his competitor Andy Schleck’s chain slipped. Andy Schelck claims to be from a country called ‘Luxembourg’ which very few people have been able to find thus far. Schleck also claims to be the national champion of Luxembourg. All the people who have successfully found Luxembourg say this is true, but they add that there are only two bicycles in the whole country. The other bicyle in Luxembourg belongs to his brother, Frank.
Lance Armstrong won the race seven times. His former teammate, Floyd Landis, accused him of taking drugs. So did another Tour De France winner, Greg Le Mond, who is, inexplicably, american in spite of his name. Lance is famous for wearing and selling yellow rubber bands.
Teams in the Tour De France are sponsored by companies. The US teams are sponsored by Radio Shack and by Garmin-Transitions. The Radio Shack team members are eligible for upto 10% off on any purchases (in store only). The Garmin team gets a free GPS, but all the riders turned it down since they are all using iphones. There is a team sponsored by ‘LiquiGas’, which is pronounced by as ‘LeakyGas’. It is unclear why a company would call itself LeakyGas, and why any bicyclist would be willing to say ‘I have Leaky Gas’.
On TV, the race is hosted by a group of four people. Craig Hummer moderates it . Craig invented the Hummer automobile after a long bike ride one day when he thought. ‘This is crazy. I could be in an air conditioned car and climb over 16 inch walls if I were to invent the Hummer’. The second person is Bob Roll, who was a pro bike rider before he got disqualified for making expansive gestures with his hands, and then found that television audiences loved it. There are two Britishers, Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett. They spend a lot of time polishing thier accent and arguing about whether Cant-Adore should have waited for Andy Schleck when his chain slipped.
The race always finishes in Paris, on the Champs-Élysées. This allows the riders to finish shopping for their spouses after the race finishes, without which they are not allowed back home.
Once the race is over, everyone goes home and sleeps for the next 3 months to get over their exhaustion. Especially the radio announcers who need time to recover from their excitement and relieve their vocal cords, which are stressed from the high pitched sounds they have made for three weeks in a row. Fans forget about bicycles till the next time the Tour De France starts. Many of them then pretend to be Tour De France riders and put on silly pants and shirts that cost $100. This gives them the privilege of advertising for large corporations.
Comparing WWDC and Google I/O
I was lucky enough to have attended both WWDC and Google I/O this year. It was interesting comparing the two: There were clear cultural differences, differences in approaches and similarities in outcomes. Here are my thoughts:
1. You are lucky to be here vs Thanks for coming
It was quite clear to me that Apple considers me lucky to be able to attend WWDC. This was made obvious in several ways: Long, Long lines to get in, though it was well managed (and expected). The massive gift giving at Google (HTC Evo, Droid -what the heck were attendees supposed to do with 3 phones other than quickly sell two?) vs the – oh wait, you were lucky enough to be standing in line to get into WWDC. All Google I/O sessions available to everyone vs very restricted distribution of WWDC sessions. The egalitarian $450 admission for I/O vs the $1600 for WWDC. Not to mention that after the two phone giveaways at I/O, you come out about $150 ahead, after some consultations with Craigslist.
Lunches at WWDC was quite horrible, compared to quite tolerable at I/O. (I am a vegetarian, so could not tell you much about the meat selections).
2. Slick and polished vs Functional
No question, the presentations at WWDC were really polished. I was in awe. Presentations were incredible. So polished, so precise, so well put together and so well organized. I wonder how they rehearse them. I can’t remember a single incident where things did not go exactly to plan. Hats off to Apple engineers who did the presentations.
Not that the presentations at Google were bad. But they were what you’d expect a bunch of engineers to present. It totally lacked the polish. I think of Apple being a product management company, and Google being an engineering company. That explains the difference in presentations. Google could learn a thing or two from Apple here.
3. It’s HTML5 all the way, baby
Poor Adobe. Sorry buddy, but you’re so f’ed. All everyone at Google and Apple could talk about was HTML5. And it totally rocks. ( I will follow up with a post later on HTML5).
If you are doing web development, get on this bandwagon. This is one of those seminal events in technology. It has all the heavy hitters lined up behind it. Apple has put an extraordinary amount of effort into it, and the sessions on HTML5 were great at both I/O and WWDC. I preferred the Apple sessions just because of the additional polish in the presentations.
While the Adobe CEO was invited to the stage during the second day keynote, he got a very indifferent response. It was obvious to me – and I think most of the others – that Google was just inviting Adobe to the party to make noises about ‘openness’ not because they think flash has a future.
4. Baiting vs Ignoring
Vic Gundotra, the Google VP, was clearly going after Apple in his address with some nonsensical (IMO) talk about openness. Apple and Google have different business models, and they are executing to that. Some of the potshots were low blows, IMO. Jobs, and everyone else at WWDC, ignored Google for the most part – the feeling I got was that they were saying ‘eh? Android? What is that?’
5. Walk alone vs Partnerships
There was no partner pavilion at WWDC. I/O had a big one. WWDC is about Apple. I/O is about Google and friends
6. New friends and Old Enemies
Clearly, the Google vs Apple battle is now the new battle in town. The Microsoft vs Apple one is over. Apple spent a lot of time cozying upto Microsoft. Expect this partnership to deepen as they ally against their common enemy.
7. HTML5, again
This is where the enemies cross paths. Google and Apple clearly want HTML5 to win, and they work closely and deeply on advancing this. Safari 5 is pretty awesome, and a step ahead of chrome in HTML5 implementation. Maybe Adobe can work on a nice implementation of an HTML5 editor
8.Microsoft
If Adobe is the clear loser with HTML5, Microsoft is going to get cleaned out in battle between the iPhone and Android devices. They should consider cutting their losses.
9. Focus, Focus, Focus
Apple made it very,very clear where they want developers to be: iPhone and iPad, XCode/iOS4 and HTML5. Thats it. forget MacOS. That is a sidenote. All the presentations were arranged accordingly.
On the other hand, I/O presented a smorgasbord of technologies, with no real underlying theme (well, maybe HTML5 & Android). Google Wave was still there . Buzz has a few sessions. There was even a session on engineering management. Huh? Please, attend the WWDC and understand how to run these.
10. The obvious
All the women at I/O were interviewed, as were all the women at WWDC. Both the ladies attending I/O and all three attending WWDC said they liked the sessions.
Did you attend either or both? Do you agree with my opinions? Let me know
Hitler reacts to the IPL
My weekend project: http://blip.tv/file/3444216
This changes everything (10/4/2005)
12 years after I first used mosiac, it suddenly hit home how the web has changed everything. What an incredible equalizer the web is !
I wanted to get Hepatitis A shots for my son, who is 20 months old. My pediatrician said he cannot administer this since he is less than two years old, per the CDC guidelines. So I looked up the CDC web site and found that the CDC had changed this to greater than 12 months. The following conversation then ensued between us:
Me: I believe you have to be older than 12 months to get the Hep A shot
Doc: (somewhat impatiently) Look, I am the doctor here and am telling you it is 24 months
Me: Well, what is the source of your information
Doc: The CDC guidelines. I have the book in front of me
Me: When was it published?
Doc: (getting a little upset) 2004. See, it is new, and you are wasting my time
Me: On Aug 11, 2005, the CDC published new guidelines. As per these guidelines ( VAQTA and Haverix have been approved for use in children greater than a year old
Doc: Eh ?
Me: (repeat information)
Doc:(all confused) OK, let me find someone who knows how to use a computer and call you back
Me: Ok thanks
An hour elapses. I get a call
Doc: (grudgingly) looks like you were right. I’ll ask the staff to arrange for a vaccination for your son
No one can hide information any longer. No padlocks, no gatekeepers, go straight to source. The internet has changed all the rules. It is truly the great information equalizer. Thanks Google , and thanks Tim Berners-Lee.
BTW, interesting anecdote. I left my hotel keycard in my room while traveling to Mtn. View, and went down to the lobby to pick up a new one. I saw a rather distinguished looking gentleman in the lobby waiting to check in. Long beard, balding. Wearing a three piece suit and what looked like a clown’s costume in his hand. He looked somewhat familiar. After trying to figure out for a while who he was, I asked him.
His Answer? ’ My name is Vincent Cerf’.
Wow. I saw him at his first day at work at Google . I believe he has joined as ‘Chief Internet Evangelist’. Rather silly title, if you ask me. I mean, if you work for the water company , do you need a ‘chief water evangelist’ ? Are you afraid that people will stop consuming water ?
Anyway, he was a really nice guy. The clown outfit was not really a clown outfit, as you might expect. It was his gown from the University of Balearic Islands which gave him a honorary degree.
rails with mysql: uninitialized constant MysqlCompat::MysqlRes
if you get this error on snow leopard, check to see which version of mysql is installed.
%> file `which mysql` <-- notice the backticks
The correct response is below
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
If you have 32 bit mysql installed, uninstall it (be sure to back up your databases first) and then install the 64 bit db. Uninstallation is simply removal of the /usr/local/mysql dir using sudo
Upgrading rails from 2.0.2 to 2.3.5
- Edit config/environment.rb. Change the rails version from 2.0.2 to 2.3.5
- run rake rails:update
- Edit config/environments/development.rb. Remove the line
config.action_view.cache_template_extensions = false
thats it
Lies and damn lies
I found this ad in Newsweek. This one was breathtaking even by normal dubious standards that advertisments have.
Here is my beef with it:
1. See what the small print says. THere was a payment of $14,352 plus $648 annual premium. Somehow, that is equated to an initial payment of $15,000. How does that work? And then the return is computed on 22,005 based on an initial payment of $15,000. I dont get it.
The way I see it, the net payments were: $14,532 + ($648*10) = $20,832.
The internal rate of return on that (using (final/initial)^1/#years)-1)*100 = .54%. Far cry from 3.91%!
2. It is very interesting that they have chosen the time period from 9/30/1999 to 9/30/09. What if you had chosen a different time period? How about Dec 1994 to Dec 2004? The S&P 500 went from 45.54 to 120.87. That gives an annualized return of 10.25%. How much did the insurance pay out in that period ?
This kind of bad advertising from a large company is sad to see
3rd law of possibilities
For every situation that you find yourself in, there exists a pithy proverb that justifies your proposal to deal with it.
For every pithy proverb, there exists an equal and opposite proverb that is every bit as pithy.
Startup school: My learnings and favorite quotes
0. Ignore advice for the most part.
Advice = limited life experiences + overgeneralization (Paul Buchheit, gmail, friendfeed)
1. Useful is better than innovative. Useful is better than cool. Innovative things fade away. Useful never does. Think of the postit note. You will be using it 20 years from now, not because it is innovative, but because it is useful(Jason Fried, 37 signals)
2. Never raise money when starting something. If you raise money your temptation is to spend. Instead, if you do not have money, you will try to make money instead (Jason F)
3. Realize that the word ‘Planning’ is equivalent to ‘guessing’. Financial planning is really financial guessing. Strategy planning is really strategy guessing. Realize this when you plan (Jason F)
4. Technology Company cultures vary widely. Look at google. They have a strong ‘academic’ culture. Facebook has a hacker culter. We encourage hacking. (Mark Zuckerberg)
5. Everyone in our company is a technologist. Our product managers have a strong technical background. Our management team has a strong technical background. Any company that does not have top management that understand technology is not a technology company. (Mark Z)
6. A museum does not become a great museum because it has every piece of art ever produced. A great museum is defined as much by what it does not allow in as much as what it does. Make your software have hard edges. Define what do you not do, and stick to it. Learn to say no to users. (Jason F)
7. When you are sorry, say sorry. Stop saying shit like ‘We apologize for the inconvenience’. It is not an inconvenience to your users when your software falls over. It is a fucking nightmare. Understand that. Say you’re sorry.Say it with feeling, and put yourself in their shoes (Jason F)
[Siddharth's edit: a good apology
And a bad apology
8. Failure is not a rite of passage. Your goal should be firstly to NOT FAIL. You want to be successful, not a quick failure. Avoid saying things like 'fail fast'. What you learn from success is way more important than what you learn from failure. (Jason F)
9. Solve for net happiness, customers + employees. (Tony Hseih, zappos)
10. Have values. Implement them. Be willing to fire based on those values. Many organizations will hesitate .. 'But he is sooo smart, we will tolerate his idiosyncracies'. Zappos will fire such employees without thinking twice.
[Note2: If you are ever in Vegas, call zappos. They will pick you up , give you a tour and drop you back at your hotel]
[Note 3: download 'tribal leadership' free at zappos.com]
11. Be inspired, not motivated [Tony]
12. Values are useless if they are not controversial [Mark Zuckerberg]
Facebook, Zynga and Twitter made it clear that they believe they are changing the world in fundamental ways. A theme that echoed across them was they are reconnecting people that had been distanced by technology (think about the internet connecting people, think about social gaming vs playing on your PS3 alone). They do not object to the money, but the social change is what keeps them hyper engaged.
Siddharth’s law of Software Inertia
Software hacks, no matter how terrible, live forever. Once a hack is in place, an organization will talk about the ‘right solution’ but will immediately deprioritize working on the right solution.