Waikiki Beach, Oahu

Waikiki is the beach for the first timer. It's a beach where everyone is doing something new. Lipa and I did snorkeling today. This is the first time I looked inside the water. It's an amazing world. We did our first paddle surfing, and body boarding here too. I am sure the beauty of Waikiki is long gone for excessive development. But a new kind of beauty has emerged from the reminiscent of natural beauty. It's the beauty of joyful face of tons of first timer. The majority of the surfers here stand on their feet for the first time. The joy in their face is no less than the one who just finished the triple crown of surfing. Look into their face, the beauty is no less than a Honu in crystal clear water.

I find people most amazing creature in the world. I am a city dweller, I grew up watching enormous number of people on the street. Probably that's why I find human being amazingly beautiful. Every face tells a story and most amazing of them is the face of the first timers. First timer of anything. And you would find plenty of them in Waikiki. It is the face of glory, it is the face of achievement, it is the face of fulfilment. I think Waikiki is still beautiful, may be not the way it used to be. It just got a new face.

BTW, the water is still beautiful and crazy blue! and waves are still gentle and amazing.

North Shore, Oahu

Majestic blue water, tropical weather and spectacular scenic! No wonder Hawaii is one of the top vacation place. I think Hawaii is not a place it is a experience. If it does not lure you to think about your life one more time, you are not living, especially North Shore. Something with this North Shore, that makes you feel festive at the same time extremely philosophical. No wonder everything is philosophical here. Every word is connected to the deeper soul.

I am sure the big waves are extremely philosophical as well when they are breaking into the hard rock of Oahu. You almost can hear them talking. The Hawaiian waves are nothing like I have ever seen, especially those are in North Shore, Oahu. They are almost alive. The fountain created by those waves are way more spectacular than any man made fountain including famous Bellagio fountain, Las Vegas. And the music! What can be more melodious than the song of the sea. Just sitting on the beach and listening to them can make one content. Playing with them is a whole different story.

North shore is little less developed compared to Waikiki or other beaches around. But if you sit there for a while you would know that that's the way it should. If it does not make you rethink about your life, I am sure nothing does. When I was in Sunset Beach, North Shore yesterday, I had that feeling that if I could be everything. If I were a surfer I could play with the big waves, if I were a singer I could sing with the sea. If I were a dancer I could dance with the waves. I wish I were many more things just to experience the sea. I have never felt the pain of not being any of those before in the same way I did yesterday.

I used to think I don't love sea, boy I have never seen a living sea before. This sea is so lively that you almost can talk to the waves. They know for sure what you are talking and you would know their roar as well. Life in North Shore is nothing like I could have ever imagined. North Shore is not a vacation destination, it should not be a vacation destination. It the culmination of a human philosophical inner soul where nature and soul crate resonance with each other.

ALOHA!

Wild Wild West

It is December again! Once more year. This is my fifth year in wild wild west. I have a feeling that I love this wild west. The more I see it the more I love it. I am not sure what I love about it. It is hard to tell. I guess the great thing about west is not what happened but it is what about to happen. I love the way it looks forward unlike other nations who sell their rotten history as their glory. 

Auto enhance, aww !?

This is what Google Plus Auto Enhance did to one of my photo taken in a beautiful day :)

Snapseed

Wow! Snapseed is cool. I have tried the snapseed after watching the Google presentation today. I think the end result is cool. This is a photograph of a Seattle morning while going to office. I think the interface is intuitive. I can see myself using it more often.

Packrat ;)

Found it somewhere, don't remember where. I liked it so much that I feel like it worth keeping.

New York

New York this time! New York, the capital of the world! I have been in new York before, it seems too busy last time. But I would definitely like to stay there for some time. New York has a lot common with Dhaka. The streets are too busy always happening. It is probably the most cosmopolitan city. But certainly yiu can feel Dhaka, even in Manhattan. There is always something to see, at least people on the street. What I like most about new York is its business. Some how everyone is running all the time. Settle is nice and busy but it is no way comparable to new York. The streets of New York are flavorful. Seattle on the hand is monotonous. However the scenic of Seattle is a second to none.

Waiting at the gate. Airport is dreadful place. I hate airport. Somehow airport makes me feel so bad that my face remains pale two days before and after any travel. Anyway, let see what's waiting for me in new York this time.

Travel photography in Las Vegas

Travel photography in Las Vegas, is little tricky. The lighting condition changes so abruptly, it is hard to keep up with lighting. If photography is the sole purpose of the Las Vegas trip then I guess it is not all that difficult, but if you are are a travel photographer like me, lighting can be very challenging. Each place has its own different lighting situation. Sometimes the light seems superfluous, sometimes it feels like creepy. Here are some things I learned in my last Las Vegas trip:

Keep a small bounce flash. Bounce flash is very useful is Vegas. Chances are high that you are taking indoor photographs, in that case bounce flash is really useful. You can definitely carry a large flash but if you want to travel light, bounce flash works just fine. I used SB-400 in my last trip and it served well.

Keep a careful eye on ISO. ISO is really important in Vegas. Each lighting situation deserves different ISO setting. The other two things of the triangle is pretty important as well. Carrying a monopod could be useful, but I used available camera supports (nearest wall or glass) for my pictures. But I definitely recommend something light, like monopod.

If you can keep up with white balance well, then no problem; otherwise I strongly recommend shooting raw. So that you don't have to worry about white balance. Otherwise white balance is another thing to worry about. Each place has its very different light, some are warm some are cool. Fixing white balance on-the-fly requires significant skill. You may ruin your trip messing with your camera settings. Hence, my recommendation is: shoot raw and fix the white balance later.

Play with frame ratio. Square frame or full frame could be very interesting as well. The good thing about Vegas, you can find all kinds of pictures for all sorts of frame ratio. Composition is the most important part of travel photography, at least to me. Frame size plays key role in composition. Don't get scared of experimenting with frame ratio. Experimenting with frame ratio could be very rewarding.

Finally and most importantly, don't ruin your trip in photography. There are other ways of enjoying Vegas, not just taking stunning pictures. Most importantly have fun in Vegas, don't ruin your entire trip on just the photography. 

Skalds And Shadows

Would you believe in a night like this?

A night like this, when visions come true

Would you believe in a tale like this

A lay of bliss, we're praising the old lore

Come to the blazing fire and

See me in the shadows

See me in the shadows

Songs I will sing

Of runes and rings

Just hand me my harp

And this night turns into myth

Nothing seems real

You soon will feel

The world we live in is another skald's

Dream in the shadows

Dream in the shadows

Do you believe there is sense in it

Is it truth or myth

They're one in my rhymes

Nobody knows the meaning behind

The weaver's line

Well nobody else but the Norns can

See through the blazing fires of time and

All things will procede as the child of the hallowed

Will speak to you now

See me in the shadows

See me in the shadows

Songs I will sing of tribes and kings

The carrion bird and the hall of the slain

Nothing seems real

You soon will feel

The world we live in is another skald's

Dream in the shadows

Dream in the shadows

Do not fear for my reason

There's nothing to hide

How bitter your treason

How bitter the lie

Remember the runes and remember the light

All I ever want is to be at your side

We gladden the raven now I will

Run through the blazing fires

That's my choice

Cause things shall procede as foreseen

[Blind Guardian]

Going back from Vegas

Vegas is the ultimate fun place. My Vegas trip this year was a total disaster. We were is Vegas for three nights. First the hotel! I don't wanna talk about it. All I want to say, you are spending so much for the trip, do yourself a favor, don't pick super secret hotel from travelocity.

It would have been not that bad, if only the hotel is the problem. I feel like it is one of the worst trip I have ever had. From the very moment I saw lipa, I felt like I don't know her anymore. I was feeling like everything is a big dream and everything gonna go away once I awake. It was a terrible feeling. I didn't know I was missing her so much. Bit then once I met her, I felt like I didn't know her at all. I kept feeling like everything is temporary, part of a big dream. I did not know feeling something temporary could be so terrible.

And then most part of the trip I kept thinking that why I am feeling so bad. Finally, I realize it is the feeling, feeling something transient, that is bothering me so much. Finally, my plane is one and half hours late. I came here in the airport around 4:45 to see off zafar, parisa and lipa. My flight is still two hours from now. I am sitting here in Vegas airport, leaving behind a horrible trip and my sweet loving wife. Life is beautiful.

Mobile typing

I think people hate typing on mobile device, I wonder why? I think there is plenty room for innovation in this area. I guess industry also recognizes this problem. That's why we see so many different keyboards and prototypes floating around. Some people are trying to solve the problem from different angle like Google or apple is trying to come up with better voice command based system. I think there are people like me who are not willing to spend their words for device. There must be some other way? The purpose of keyboard is communicating with the device? What else I can do to communicate with my device. Eye tracking? Samsung is taking care of that. It's not working at all, and on the top of that it is very difficult to represent everything just by tracking eyes.

Some other keyboard layout? Maybe? We have already seen couple of layouts. None of them really got any traction. Predictive keyboard? Well that's not working very well. Sure things like swiftkey is very popular but I feel like it is a temporary solution. We need some kind of input mechanism that would make typing even more effortless. Let's think out of the box, instead of making keyboard layout more convenient for people can we eliminate the necessity of keyboard altogether? What ever it is, it has to be fast, and it can be translated into plaintext pretty easily. 

Tablet usecases?

I guess I want little more than bigger screen from my tablet compare to my phone. I am not sure whether my tablet really offer anything else other than bigger screen! What is the use case of a tablet? Just the convenience of having bigger screen? I am curious is there anything that I can do in my tablet but not in phone? In this age of high resolution super phones, pretty much everything is convenient on the phone. Then, why would I carry two different devices with exactly same functionality? Especially when they are exactly identical. I do agree that having larger screen is sometimes convenient for some tasks. But most of the time portability supersedes that convenience. On the top of that, phone has a 'must have' reason that tablet is missing. Then my question is what is the strongest usecase for a tablet?

Chronicle of a Mundane Life!

My poor blog, it feels like I ditched you. Somehow, I feel like I am loosing my ability to write anything. I was never been a great writer but I used to post a few every month. I was super infrequent in last month. I feel like I cannot write anymore. I know it is a practice; the more I would do, the better I would become in posting. Am I too busy? Not really. I have plenty of spare time but it became increasingly difficult to get something done in those spare time. I have started couple of books and stopped in the middle of all of those. I have some ideas to work on, but could not make enough time to concentrate on those. I have one more paper to finish but hard to write even a single word. I think I should take control of everything again! I think Lipa's absence is pronounced in every steps in my life. I guess she has way more influence on me than I can think of. I should get her here in Seattle as soon as possible.

Sunday morning

I am sitting in my patio in this beautiful Sunday morning. Everything is so calm and quiet. Westlake is not a busy neighborhood. People live in this area are very quiet. I have little bit of lake view and gentle breeze coming from the lake. The water also looks calm and quiet. Everything together makes the perfect tranquil Sunday morning.

Sundays are always notable to me. Back home it was a lazy day. I remember we always ran out of work on Sundays. When I first moved in Norman, Sundays were horrible. It always comes with the empty feeling and homesickness. Then I moved with lipa, Sundays were our personal time. We spend most of time watching movie or entirely doing nothing. And now after five days of work, Saturdays are usually taken care of some exotic plan. That left the Sundays for relaxing. The tranquility of Westlake added little more spice to that. I am enjoying this beautiful Sunday morning.

Nikon E 50mm

I got a Nikon E 50mm. After reading all the good things about it by Kenrockwell, I decided to get one. I think this lens takes great pictures but focusing is a pain though. If focused correctly, this lens is capable of taking very good picture. The pictures came out really sharp and crisp. But I had to throw away eighty percent of my pictures because of soft focus. Again, bad focusing is entirely my fault, the lens is perfect. My version was okay, no visible dust and issue. This is a thirty years old, so I should not expect too much. Here are some sample pics.

November Rain

When I look into your eyes

I can see a love restrained

But darling, when I hold you

Don't you know I feel the same?

'Cause nothing lasts forever

And we both know hearts can change

And it's hard to hold a candle

In the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long, long time

Just trying to kill the pain, ooh yeah

But lovers always come and lovers always go

And no one's really sure who's letting go today, walking away

If we could take the time to lay it on the line

I could rest my head just knowing that you were mine, all mine

So if you want to love me

Then darling, don't refrain

Or I'll just end up walking

In the cold November rain

Do you need some time on your own?

Do you need some time all alone?

Ooooh, everybody needs some time on their own

Ooooh, don't you know you need some time all alone?

I know it's hard to keep an open heart

When even friends seem out to harm you

But if you could heal a broken heart

Wouldn't time be out to charm you?

Oooo, Oooo, Ooooh! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sometimes I need some time on my own

Sometimes I need some time all alone

Everybody needs some time on their own

Don't you know you need some time all alone?

And when your fears subside

And shadows still remain

I know that you can love me

When there's no one left to blame

So never mind the darkness

We still can find a way

'Cause nothing lasts forever

Even cold November rain

Chorus,

[Don't you think that you need somebody?

Don't you think that you need someone?

Everybody needs somebody

You're not the only one

You're not the only one]

[Guns N' Roses]

Summer Solstice Parade

I went to the Fremont Solstice Parade yesterday. Something new, something interesting. How it is different from other parades I have attended before; mainly costumes and probably this is first time I am attending any parade during the daylight. I don't remember if we had any parade in Oklahoma in daylight. Since, it is a day time event, it is a superb opportunity for photography. It is so colorful. My only complain is, not all participants are up to mark. But I was amazed to learn that, they deliberately avoid any kind of advertisement or sponsorship. That's kind of big deal :) And of course the solstice cyclist! They were new and interesting.

Sigma 10-20 mm f/4-5.6

I bought this wide angle two or three months ago. The lens is quite cheap in that range. Wide angle is a whole different paradigm of photography. I am trying to learn wide angle but I must say the pictures are magical if taken correctly. More often than not pictures have way more things than I would like to have. I guess this is because of me. I have to learn how to use wide-angle. One quick tip, you would feel the pain of wide-angle lens if you take it with you for travel as an only carry around lens. So far I like the lens but my only complain is, pictures are not sharp. By not sharp, I mean they are significantly not sharp. I am not talking about razor sharp; the difference is noticeable by human eye, even in a crappy laptop display. If someone is fastidious about sharpness I guess he/she would hate it. Pictures are really soft. But most likely this lens is going to be used for landscape; in that case sharpness does not really matter much. But if you have a plan for close range distorted picture, be aware this lens gonna be real soft and that could be a huge turn off for some pictures. Here are some sample pics

New apartment

Finally, I moved to my new apartment. It's nice. It is tiny but big enough for myself. It is really difficult to stay alone now, I become so much habituated to have lipa around. It feels like something is missing, something is not right. It is not like we always spend time together, but now that she is gone I kind of always looking for her. It seems like I have nothing to do alone at home.

If you ever live together with somebody else, you would know; when he or she is not at home it seems like the other one does not know what to do. Time seems like a burden. I guess I better learn to live alone again. New life, new beggining.

Google keyboard

Finally Google keyboard is in play store. I have been using swiftkey for some time. My primary complain is it does too much and most of them are annoying. I find Google keyboard more balanced approach. It has correction and it does not do it too much. In that a sense I like it better. On the top of that I make less error on Google keyboard compared to swiftkey.

It looks like Google is disintegrating many killer feature of android. I am expecting Google luncher next. That would be very interesting. All the OEMs are spending so much money to make their own skin and then if people start dropping their skin that would be a total waste of their resource. Android ecosystem is interesting. Sometimes, I feel like it is wild and uncontrolled. And that's the beauty of it.

Washington Life

First week was pretty crazy. I had to cope with everything. Moving from a campus town in Oklahoma to the heart of the downtown of a big west coast city was quite shocking. And then start working for a corporation is a big jump as well. I think I enjoyed my first week. It was lot of work though. I am still working hard to cope up with everything. The transportation is driving me little crazy though. I can't drive because usually it takes about 30 minutes to park the car. I can ride the bus, but it is somehow not working very well for me because of road work.

My office environment is quite nice. I kind of enjoying it. People are interesting and cool. I met lot of cool people, I think my experience gonna be great. BTW, this is the last thing I am saying about my office. Unfortunately I am not allowed to write about it; well I am allowed but, there is a chance that might cause security breach. And so I have decided not to blog at all.

Washington is a beautiful state. Tons of places to go. I guess once I fix everything and get used to Washington life, I would have lots of places to go. Let's see how everything goes for me in future. The interesting thing about Washington is the road signs/instructions are on the top of silhouette of George Washington.

Seattle, WA

Seattle from my window

Apartment hunting

Yesterday was our apartment hunting day. Apartment hunting in Seattle is very different from apartment hunting in Norman/Hazelwood. I accompanied some of friends to find their apartments back in Norman. We did the apartment hunting in Hazelwood last week. It was significantly different in Seattle. Or maybe I never looked for apartments in the center of the downtown. Finding apartments in the center of the downtown is a perilous task.

The first thing I noticed was I had make an appointments in order to get a tour. That was something new to me. And the property managers usually don't have any office unless the complex is really big. Property managers have no intention to sell their apartments, somehow all of them are in high demand. Parking is a mess. Find a suitable parking is somewhat comparable to the conquest of troy.

Driving in downtown Seattle is a nightmare. The roads are hilly. I am not familiar with their street sign and two sides of a street are always filled up by parked vehicles. It was a pretty hectic day. Apartments are very expensive. I have seen 430 sqft studio apartment with the price tag of 1650$/month. But I have to say, they know how to design a studio. Some of the studios are so well designed that it feels like everything is in separate room. The most important part is they are neat. In general, Seattle is a pretty neat city.

I hope I'll find something by today. Not that I'm in hurry but I want to wrap things up by this memorial day weekend.

Emerald City

Finally, I am in Seattle, WA. It would be my new home for next couple of years. People like me who don't have permanent address, our home floats around with us. I am lucky, Seattle is a beautiful city for being home. We have reached last night. I was quite a shock for me: the way I was treated in Seattle. After being a graduate student for so long I almost forgot that I have any importance at all. Amazon treated us well since yesterday. I picked up my car from VIP car lounge where five other cars were sitting there to be my ride. And then got a place in the middle of the downtown on sixth floor with immaculate furniture and wooden floor.  That was quite a treatment. I think Seattle would take a good care of me.

We had burger last night. The place we had burger was not that expensive but they charge five cents for ketchup! That was something new. I think people would take it as a joke if somebody starts asking money for ketchup in Oklahoma. Life is different here. I think I am gonna get an apartment in the middle of the downtown as well. I wanna see embrace the busy life next.

Norman to Seattle! It was quite a shock. Everything is slow and flat in Norman. Seattle is quite opposite. People are busy, lands are hilly and tranquility is a dream. This is a new america, totally unknown to me. Goodbye my Oklahoma life. I hope I would be able find a new home here in this beautiful Emerald city.

Springfield, MO

It was a busy day. We packed our stuff, sort everything out and left Norman. Our plan was to get as close as possible to St Louis, MO by tonight. Finally, we stopped at Springfield, MO. Somehow we always stop at Springfield, MO in between Norman and St Louis. This is our second time stay in Springfield. In turns out that I always end up in some hotel room in Springfield. I have no idea about this city. I saw a long list of tourist places downstairs of our hotel. I think there are couple of popular places nearby. I will make some plan for Springfield someday. For tomorrow, our plan for tomorrow is to wake up early in the morning, have breakfast and start toward St Louis.

Real life

My next stop is Seattle, WA. I would be there for some time. This part of my life is often called real life. Like Fareed Zakaria, I also don't know why the other part is not real. The real life is not entirely new to me. I had a glimpse of it back in 06. I worked for KAZ Software Ltd for two years. I am not sure whether KAZ was like real world or not, I had enjoyed every moment of KAZ. I am still proud of KAZ. I met some brightest people there. I often think about KAZ, the more I think, the more I respect Wahid Aziz Chowdhury. I think he is the architect of such a great work place in Dhaka.

KAZ was not very famous when I started working for KAZ. I don't know whether KAZ is famous now or not. When I went to the interview I was not very sure about the company. Even when I joined KAZ, I didn't know much. I was kind of taking chance. But one thing I was sure about, I liked the people. I liked the people I met on my interview. So I was not too worried about the company. After all it is the people that make an organization.

I am going to join Amazon on May 27th. This part of my real life would be defined by Amazon. Amazon is a big name, apart from everything, I liked the people who interviewed me. I know that does not matter much for big companies like Amazon. But that matters for me. I believe I have to spent at least one third of my day with my colleagues. So, they need to be the way I want. Let's see what real life has for me.

Norman, OK

I am counting my last days in Norman. I came here in Norman from Dhaka back in 2008. Norman is the place how I know America. I have been living in Norman since then. Zafar was asking how many days I can recall out of my 5 years in Norman. I think I can recall pretty large number of days. I have tons of memories in Norman. I have my success stories, I have my failure stories. I saw my dreams, materializing into reality, I witnessed my dreams, evaporating into ashes.

Norman is one of the best places to live. I have enjoyed my days in Norman. I didn't know what to expect from Norman when I first came here. Everything was a surprise. I think as a college town, Norman offered way more than I expected. I meet my life parter here in Norman.

I think the beauty of Norman lies in its tranquility. It has an interesting attraction to its dwellers. Norman pretty much except everyone from everywhere. Life in Norman is usually very slow. It's not a very happening city. Today here is not much different from yesterday. Again, it has everything a modern city dweller might need on daily basis. In that sense Norman was perfect balance between busy and calm life. People who live here tend to keep living here.

I think I would miss Norman. I would miss its tranquility, its vive during the first week of fall. I guess my life won't have fall, spring and summer any more.

Dallas, TX

Shirshendu describes it best when he says every big city is like a giant blender, it blends everything. People are blended with their creations. Every big city has its own appeal to its people. We, the city dwellers can never leave them. We have a sort of invisible bond with our own loving cities. The bond that got into our gene long ago in Mesopotamia.

Every city has its own unique message to the visitors. And in my experience the message is not too hard to grasp. You would probably can tell once you rest your feet in the city. Somehow I never can grasp the message of Dallas. I have been in Dallas in numerous occasions. But still, I am not sure what is the message Dallas is trying to convey. In that sense, Dallas is always a mystery to me.

Dallas is a city of immigrants. I guess Dallas is the most accepting city. It accept anything from anyone. And it's beauty is it evaporates everything from everyone without affecting itself at all. I have been in other big cities. You can probably tell what differences immigrants have brought into the city. But for Dallas it is hard to tell whether there is any immigrant at all. Somehow everyone becomes a Texan after a while. Or maybe the message is how it changes everything on its own way. Maybe the message is don't dare to mess with Dallas, it will evaporates you.

Somehow, this city feels very dull to me. I don't feel the life in Dallas. This city has so many diversity but somehow I can't feel it's life at all. There is hardly any activity on the street. I feel like something is missing, everything is so polished and artificial. This city does not appeal me at all. But for sure it is as lovely as any other cities to their dwellers. I guess I will never get the message of it or may be recognise the message of it.

Doctor of Philosophy

I am often asked what's my blog is all about? I guess the straight forward answer is life journal. I think my blog is a life journal. I think in that sense, it would be incomplete without a post about recent course of events. I got my PhD!

What's interesting in that? PhD is an interesting diploma unlike any other I have stumbled upon before. It is an art that require superb craftsmanship. I don't think the dissertation defense has much importance independently. But the time one has to been throw to get to the defense is the lesson of PhD. It requires patience and tons of it. I have heard that many of my friends are not happy with their advisor, actually it is even worse. But I am not sure why? I think at this stage of our life we should understand there is nothing called absolute right or wrong. Advisors are human being and they are bound to differ with you in hundred different ways. And the lesson of PhD is you have to get it done, no matter what.

I am hoping PhD is meant to make one more tolerable to the ideas that he/she doesn't share. PhD doesn't teach you more interesting stuff in your area, it teaches you the overall human quality. Sure, you could read few more papers and books but if you think that's what PhD is all about then I suggest you better try something else. The reason over many years it is called "Doctor of Philosophy" not "Doctor of Computer Science" is because it is not meant to teach you Computer Science, it is meant to teach you Philosophy. The philosophy of patience, tolerance, perseverance and systematic way of thinking. Sure, I have read lots of books and articles but those are not the lessons I learned. They were just a media to learn the lessons of PhD.

At the end of the day, it is "Doctor of Philosophy," we are expected to learn and master the philosophy not computer science.

PhD!

Finally I got the oral presentation of my defense done. Last five years of work materialized throw my degree. I think I am happy. The milestone has been touched.

Google wave

I was exploring tumblr today. Tumblr is interesting. I think Tumblr was designed for mobile and they got superb mobile app for social networking. Then, I spend some time with Facebook home. Facebook home, no doubt an interesting concept but I feel like Facebook overestimated themselves. All of these remind me of google Wave.

I was not a big fan of google Wave. But then, I realized google Wave might have had better future if it would  have been released after mobile revolution. Google Wave was build on based on the idea that everything is a conversation. If you think about that in your desktop that sounds like chat but if you think about that for mobile, that is exactly what we call mobile social networking. In that sense, google Wave was little ahead of its time.

This is an interesting problem. A product no matter how good it is, if it is ahead of time, there is no hope for it. Look at tablet, it was a Microsoft's concept, just little ahead of time. Some people might argue, it is the software that didn't click back in 2000. But I would argue otherwise, the world was not ready. People didn't know what they are going to do with such a device. They didn't know in 2010 either but it was easy to figure out in 2010 but not in 2000. There was not enough content clouds at that time either. PC was used for content creation at that time as oppose to content consumption. So when Microsoft introduced tablet people found it less useful. Over the decade the world had changed a lot. PCs shift their usefulness. They become a content consumption device as oppose to content creation. So, lightweight devices like tablet found their sweet spot in the market.

I think the world is ready for Google Wave now. I am hoping that we would see a reincarnation of wave pretty soon.

Freedom of speech

Not that I am a big fan of Obama, I but I think in the current context of Bangladesh I might share a speech of him

I know there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution protects the right to practice free speech. Here in the United States, countless publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.

Moreover, as President of our country, and Commander-in-Chief of our military, I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so. Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views — even views that we disagree with.

We do so not because we support hateful speech, but because our Founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views, and practice their own faith, may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics, or oppress minorities. We do so because given the power of faith in our lives, and the passion that religious differences can inflame, the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech — the voices of tolerance that rally against bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of understanding and mutual respect.

- Barack Obama

You might think there is no harm in something like Blasphemy law. Trust me, you know nothing about it :)

Mobile blogging

I don't write blog from my computer anymore. I have not been using blogspot Web interface for last two months. That's an interesting shift. It was quite predictable I guess. People like me who blog just for personal purpose don't have much thing to research. Blog in that case works more like personal tracker. It is no wonder the device that accompanies me most of my time would definitely have the upper hand when writing just for personal stuff.

I thing personal blogging would be one of those things that gonna be totally mobile in next few years. I guess social networking is another one. I just have one inconvenience which is typing. I hate mobile keyboard. I bought SwiftKey, but it didn't help much. Sometimes it becomes irritating. I guess there is plenty of room in this area. I guess there are lot of people who feel like me. That's why we see so many keyboard prototype surfacing on the Internet.

One interesting thing that gonna be very mobile is searching. When I say searching I don't mean researching. We do tons of quick search in our daily life for quick info. I guess mobile gonna take care of that from now on.

I see enormous potential on mobile devices for content consumption. But there is hardly any content creation. My biggest grievance is we cannot create content using Mobile devices except picture and video. That's why we see so many pictures and videos surfacing on the Internet now-a-days. I guess we are still lacking proper input method for these kind of devices. That's make me feel like these devices may not be in the market for long time. I do enjoy my devices though.

First draft

I just finished the first draft of my dissertation. I am feeling good. I have to revise it at least twice within next 15 days. I think writing the dissertation is a test of patience. Starting with an empty word file and watching it becoming bigger and bigger. I am thinking of adding one little thing today. I am going to send it to my advisor today no matter what. I have to prepare tons of materials for the course this week as well. I think I won't have much time this week. So I got to finish everything as quick as possible.

The clock is ticking real fast. I am going to defend my dissertation on April 17th, approximately one month from now. Thus I got to finish everything real fast. Life is pressing!

Norman weather

We got an excellent glimpse of summer today. The temperature is in high end of seventies. This is the start of spring break. Campus is close next week. This is my last spring break. I have never been in any place during spring break. Well, I guess this year I cannot go either. I have to finish my dissertation. I am almost on the verge of my dissertation. Everything is done. I am finishing my writing. Writing is not difficult but it requires lot of energy for writing. Writing an entire dissertation within a month is not fun at all. Anyway, I am hoping I would be able to finish everything on time.

Well I was suppose to talk about weather, not dissertation. We got a great day today. I think Norman is really nice during the end of spring and early fall. The gentle breeze during the end of the spring feels like tuned with life of Norman. Norman is not busy, people have plenty of time; no rush, everything seems relax like the breeze. It is the tornado season as well. Tornados are surely coming very soon.

I have seen most weather active days in my life in Norman. It was equally interesting part of my life. I met my life partner here. In that sense I will carry some memory of Norman for my entire life. This chapter of my life is going to end pretty soon. I guess this part of my life was pretty much well explained by Norman weather. Typically calm and quite, slow and steady with occasional tornados. Was it active like Norman weather? I guess yes, sometimes. Looking outside of my window I feel like Norman was not that boring after all. Norman reminds me my grandfather's house. Slow and steady life. I would definitely miss the tranquility of Norman. After all Norman is how met america for the first time.

Microsoft, Inc

People like me who grew up in late nineties, Microsoft is the boss. When we start our undergrad in computer science, Microsoft was on the top of the world. I remember, in my first semester in BUET one of alumni came to BUET. He gave a talk about Microsoft. He used to work for Microsoft. We kind of saw him as a legend. Then I have heard a lot about our legendary alumnus who work for Microsoft. Growing up at that time, I have natural fascination about Microsoft. Microsoft is a great company to work for, I think.

I went to Redmond last week for Microsoft interview. I think their environment is great. The scenic from their Bellevue office was second to none. I loved it. I think the team that I was interviewed with was superb. I still feel the warm of the name Microsoft. Well, I got the offer today. This is one of my dream comes true moment. I could say that this is one of those moment I have been waiting for last thirteen years. The name Microsoft has lot of weight in it. I guess for our generation, we grew up dreaming to work for Microsoft someday.

Flights!

I hate flights. Hanging around at the Dallas airport at 6:00 am in the morning is no fun. I guess we should seriously think about the long distance travel. The way we do it right now is just tiresome and hectic. I heard that some people travel 5 days a week. I don't understand how they become productive after travel. I feel like I am gonna die after 30 min flights from Dallas to Oklahoma city. I am not sure why flying is so popular in US. If I have option I choose 1 day of driving instead of 1 hours of flight. Flight is just such a horrific thing for me.

In my view, everything is bad about flight. The seats are not comfortable. You have to sit almost in other peoples lap. The leg room is so small to fit even feet, for even my standard. There is just no incentive to fly. I guess this industry lost interest and so nobody cares about flight anymore. If you think about a flight, you pretty much have the same thing you did have 10 years ago. Now I am not saying the planes have to change but the amenities inside a flight could have changed. Aircrafts are using same old fashion overhead screen to show me even more stupid stuff. It is just all craps.

Finally the price! Which is always a mystery to me. I have no idea how they are selected and what they mean. I have not seen any single change in last five years. Now, I understand everything is not as fast as tech industry. But I did not even see the tech inside the aircraft is changing at all. It feels like life inside aircrafts are frozen in time. Good luck everyone, I have a feeling that it gonna be this way for long time.

Blogger!

Munna Bhai was the man who introduced the word to me back is 2006. He used to say he is a blogger. He used to write technical blogs quite a lot. Mostly about .NET. I guess his blog was fine. But I was attracted to the idea for a very different reason. It felt like it could be a portal for me. My own portal into the vast ocean of internet. So I start writing my own blog. Well, I never claimed I am a blogger though. But it struck into my mind yesterday. Lipa was saying, you know what, blogger is a profession in Bangladesh now. She was saying you have a good prospect in Bangladesh now. If you can say you are a blogger since 2006. Ah blogger! I feel sorry for myself that I write blog.

Mostly, I kept apart from politics since I graduated from BUET. Until now, I was glad that I did that. But I feel like I was wrong. It was way better then, than now. It is always easy to fix now, before it get even worse. Those who think politics is for nasty politicians, for sure someday they would have to clean the wound left by the nasty politicians. Sometimes, I feel like running away from our political debt was not that great idea.

February, 2013

It is the second month of the year. This month was mostly unproductive. I spend most of my time looking for jobs, mail corresponding and stuff like that. Good thing is I got some positive feedbacks. I hope I can concentrate on my dissertation now. I have to finish my dissertation by April, since May third is the last date I can defend. I am hoping I would be able to do so before that. Let see how it goes.

I got a great deal of experiences I can say. I have seen all kinds of interviews. I attract quite a lot of wrong guys. I had an interview with a company where I applied hoping they are going to some cool stuff with cloud. Later I realized it is just a CRM software management. Then I was interviewed by people who are looking for UI guys. Technically I have zero experience with UI. UI is something I never thrilled to work at. Anyway experience matter, bitter or sweater :)

I feel like I should thank countless recruiters who helped me in the process. What matter most in job hunting is persuasiveness and networking. I guess they are pretty handy regardless the task at hand. Now that we have spring around the corner, it's time for a new beginning. I am trying to make myself ready for the next phase of my life.

Google play store

I stole Lipa's Nexus 7 today. I reset the device and erase all of her contents and login using my id. That's when the surprise came on. Google play installed all of my apps that I use in my phone. That was a pure surprise. It did not do the same thing with my phone though. I changed my phone last, I still had to install of apps. So I guess it is either new version of android or a feature of pure android.

It was really a cool feature. If changing device is now become really simple. I wish Google would do the same for app data as well. Specially, some apps required tons of data. I really hate to configure them again.

BTW' Swiftkey mobile version on Nexus 7 sucks. The default android keyboard is way better. And overall nexus 7 is way better for blogging compared to smartphone. Technically I guess blogging is the only potential use I have now for this nexus 7. It is really fun blogging with nexus 7.

Looking for job?

Looking for job itself is a tough job. Sending resume to thousands places and then wait for the call. Sounds like fishing :) well in many respect it is fishing. Your job is to pick an appropriate one for you. You have to do everything right for the right fish. At least it is told that one simple miss step can slide you down at the ground level again. I think those who are good at fishing should do a real good job at finding the right job.

I have a feeling that the job market is not that bad now. At least I saw plenty of openings in every company's website. But the game is just not right for fresh graduates. I still have not cracked the job searching problem. I guess I need little more time to understand the problem better.

Some people call it number game, at the beginning I thought so. But I have a feeling now that I was wrong. If it is simply a number game then flooding with your resume would be sufficient to secure one job. But that did not work for me. I don't thing flooding is the right strategy.

Spending hours for one job sounds like promising. But there is no guarantee that it gonna work end of the day. You need to spend your time for the right position. Which is by definition is a hard searching problem. Let say you spend 5 hours a day to look for jobs. If you spend 2 hours for one position you can apply for at best two positions per day. In order apply for 10 companies you have spend an entire week. And at the end of the day you may not heard anything from any of them.

Networking is a really good strategy. I think networking works better than aforementioned twos. Networking helps a lot to get the interview call. Of course you are on your own after that. In my case I have real trauma about phone interview. Somehow phone interviews don't work for me. I have a feeling I never gonna pass any phone interview. I don't get nervous, it just doesn't work for me. Here, in America employer's first screening is always via phone that limits my probability to extremely tiny. If one thing I am never short of is hope, let's hope for the best :)

Multitasking is evil?

I was reading an article on therumpus.net yesterday. It was about some things about mediocre. One interesting section caught my attention is multitasking. The author was trying to established a point that multitasking is evil. We should avoid it. I remember I have seen similar idea in other popular best selling books. What is so evil about multitasking that turns these people against multitasking.

The first and most common thing in these articles is statistics. They provide such and such statistics to justify how our brain fail to perform its regular operation while multi tasking. Okay buy that. Now what? So our brain cannot perform multitasks. Well, I have a problem with the statistics and experimentation as well. Surely, our brain can multi task, you don't pause your breath to see what you have in front of your eyes. What is missing? I think most of these statistics is flawed because when we measure these statistics we essentially ignore the bias of instrument we are using for the experiments. Sure, you cannot text while drive but that does not mean you cannot do anything!

Well, if that is true we can design a whole variety of things those are multitasking friendly. Or can we make multitasking friendly instruments? I think it could be whole different area of product design philosophy. The author of that article cannot play chase while talking on phone and so he asked us to avoid multitasking. But suggestions would be change the design of the phone so that our author can play chess while talking without interfering one another. Is such a design possible?

Dissertation

I need to start writing my dissertation. I have been so busy with job hunting that I could not manage any time for dissertation. I guess I have two more months to wrap up my dissertation. I guess that's okay. Once I have an offer I can finish writing anytime. Writing the entire thing and putting them together should not be too difficult.

I need to collect few results as well. That's okay. I have the preliminary results for the extended approach and I noticed the final results are not too different from my preliminary results. I hope I can use some parts from my masters thesis. That's a big relief. I guess my introduction can be made out of my SIGMOD paper.

I need to complete the approach description part and theoretical analysis part. Result and analysis should not take more than month. Technically, I have March and half of April. I think I should start writing. This is middle of February and a dissertation would take at least two months.

My idea is I will finish first draft of four chapters by next week! Let see how it goes :)

Snowy Norman

Here is my mobile photography again.

Sweet Dreams

Sweet dreams are made of these

Who am I to disagree?

Travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody's looking for something

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

Sweet dreams are made of these

Who am I to disagree?

Travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody's looking for something

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

I wanna use you and abuse you

I wanna know what's inside you

Movin' on, movin' on, movin' on

Movin' on, movin' on, movin' on, movin' on

Sweet dreams are made of these

Who am I to disagree?

Travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody's looking for something

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

I'm gonna use you and abuse you

I'm gonna know what's inside

Gonna use you and abuse you

I'm gonna know what's inside you

[Marilyn Manson]

Foggy Norman

I think you can see all kinds of weather you can imagine in Norman. Here is one for yesterday's foggy Norman.

Looking for something

We were watching an indian movie. The movie was about the struggle of a pregnant indian woman who is looking for her husband. In the middle of the movie we realize that if the a movie is about finding someone or something, it tends to capture viewer attention very well. I am pretty busy these days, maybe right way to say is, I am pretty consumed these days. Then, I realized looking for something can bring all kinds of fun. Sometimes I am excited, sometimes I am frustrated, sometimes I feel hopeful, sometimes I feel desolate. I have all kinds of feelings just by pursuing a single thing. Isn't it amazing? Somehow pursuing something desperately can be anything but boring. I don't get it, how come something seemingly similar can dig up all these different feelings from a single mind. Human mind is an amazing thing.

Multiplication is a horrible thing

In one of my interview, the interviewer was saying multiplication is a horrible thing to do. I thought those days have passed, processor architectures have came a long way since then. Since, I don't work in that area, I don't know what actually the complexity of multiplication compared to addition. Finally, the solution I gave to the interviewer had couple of addition but no multiplication. But I was thinking is it really true that multiplication is still a horrible thing to do. Well, I am not sure, I am sure the answer to this question would be very different in different language. I pursued this problem is java. Here is my small piece of code

public class TryMultiplication {

  public static void main(String[] args)

  {

    Random random = new Random();

    int tryCount = 100000000;

    int buffer = 0;

    long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    while(tryCount -- > 0)

      buffer = random.nextInt()+random.nextInt();

         long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    System.out.println("Total time (ms) : " + (endTime - startTime));

     }

}

Apparently, there is no time difference between addition and multiplication. Well, it was never my intention to say these two takes same amount of time but I am sure in most cases (if not all) the difference is insignificant. Why? because there are other things that takes way more time than arithmetic operation, like load and store. In that case worrying about multiplication, from engineering perspective, is not very pragmatic anymore. Of course, I am aware of the fact that this kind of micro bench marking seldom produces reliable results but there is no observable time difference between addition and multiplication.

Here is a discussion about this issue, http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2010/07/19/is-multiplication-slower-than-addition/

OU campus

Weather is nice today. I am sitting in the patio, fifth floor of Devon energy hall. I think OU looks nice on my cell phone.

Facebook like

This morning I realized I like something on Facebook called Iran before. That's funny, to my best knowledge I have never clicked like button once I reopen my Facebook account. Yes, I saw a video posted by one of my cousin and I tried to see what is that. But for some reason the video was not played and I gave up.

But then this morning I saw somebody liked that I liked that video, really, seriously? Why would I like a something so political in nature. I read on reddit couple of days ago, there was tons of bogus likes going on in Facebook. But I don't know whether any of them is this kind. Even interesting, all of activities are private, meaning no one would be notified based on my action. Why this like thing was notified to my friends. That's very weird. Unless Facebook thinks, if I wanted to see something means I must like; and I would also like to share my idea with everyone else. Or my account has been compromised?

Salesman

This is my fifth year in USA. I am still trying hard to cope up with my new life. The latest buzz is about the job. I am on the verge of my graduation, I need to find a job. So I am trying to prepare myself for the job market. Well, I am not sure why I need to know why I need to know how to sell myself, I am not applying for the salesman position. I am applying for engineering position where I would make things not sell things. I need to know how to makes things right so that they are sellable. But sale is last thing I would do, yet I have to fight with my salesman skill to find a job. Is not it funny?

Phone camera

I think getting habituated with my phone camera. It seems like my phone camera is pretty good. I think it is even better than lower end point and shoot camera. Here is campus view from my Window. I am not a big fan of my office but it has most spectacular view of sunset. My only complain is this Blogger app does not allow me to resize the picture for my blog.

Life of PI

We watched Life of PI yesterday. How was it? In plain English I hated it. But that's not what all I intend to say. I have a long story to tell. We went to the sleep late the day before yesterday, probably around 6:00 AM in the morning and wake up around 10:00 AM. We pretty much start our day with an Indian movie. It was not all that bad, one pregnant lady searches for her missing husband. I would say it was pretty good in Indian standard.

The real story started after that. So Zafar was on the hot seat of selecting movie for us. So, we start with a stand up comedy show and then some real bizzarely short films. After couple of hours of persuasion we managed to convince him for an anime. So somebody selected "Brave" for us. It was an anime but not meant for adults. And it was a little overdose for us.

Life of PI was next on the queue. Zafar built an hype for the movie. We were suppose to watch that movie the night before yesterday. And it was well reviewed by many critics according to Zafar. We all were excited to watch the movie "life of PI." So we decided not to start the movie without anybody. We eight and it was really hard to get them all together. Finally we managed to get all of us around 1:00 AM in the morning, and start the movie "the life of PI." Then all those craps! It was an overkill. At the end we were so f**ked up that we were desperately hoping for its end.

At the end, the day ends with Zafar's inglorious remark "cold outside and movie inside."

Facebook

I had to activate my Facebook app. Well why? That's an interesting question. Let's start with a story. Shishu uncle came to our house last Saturday I think. He was saying we don't know how to keep old friends! Well that's an innocent claim but it stuck into my head for quite some time. I was thinking it is very true! I have always failed to keep old friends. I have lost many of my school friends already.

Then it came into my head. Things like Facebook are meant to help us to keep our friends. Yes it is true I suck when it comes to the business of keeping friends. And I am not using the resources I could have to deal with the problem. That's inexcusable to me. Facebook is a tool to keep friends, maybe it can solve some of my problem. Maybe I would not suck from now on. Is it a good idea to nourish your drawbacks? I believe not, so I decided to use the tools that would help me to solve the problem.

So far I have intentionally overlooked the question why do I think loosing old friends is a problem? That's a whole different discussion, but my argument would go as follows. In a world full of beautiful people we are meant to stay along with them not away from them.

Golden afternoon

When I was looking outside of my office this afternoon I was amazed by the golden color of the setting sun. The view is truly amazing. I thought may be I better keep this moment on my log.

Windows Azure

My advisor decided to teach cloud computing in this semester. So I have prepare all the materials for the cloud computing this semester. She is thinking of one or two assignments for cloud computing. So I am trying windows azure. It is interesting. I have to say the documentations have improved a lot. Almost everything works in first try. So far azure looks pretty straight forward. I am amazed that they offer support eclipse and java, not only that they provide simple instructions for eclipse. I have to say the documentation has came a long way. My early impression is so far good. Most importantly azure provide 90 days free trial for every new account. That's good we can ask for one or two assignments in this semester. I think we will ask for few simple cloud applications.

The boring part of exploring new technology is the waiting time while the software are being installed. I guess this is the time for blogging and that's what I am doing. I think my sp1 for visual studio is stuck :( let's see what can I do.

Rassel's Wedding

I had to go to Florida to attend Rassel's wedding. My best buddy's wedding! Me and Hasib met in Memphis and went to Florida together to attend Rassel's wedding. It was super fun. Here is our newly married couple. Please wish them good luck!