pound-o-meter

Full disclosure: I work for Google. I do not work on the AppEngine product in any capacity.

I wrote a webapp! It is designed to solve one problem: help you keep track of your weight. I had iphones and nexuses in mind, so it should work well on those.

Please check it out: http://poundometer.appspot.com/

Nerd Fanboy Talk:
I love AppEngine. I don't know of other technology that lets you go from something in your head to a production deployed app in a few minutes; where you don't have to worry about creating tables, dealing with databases, all that nasty stuff. And running your own servers too.

OK, I lied. I am aware it is possible to do these things running my own python/django instance or having someone host it or doing something similar with ruby/rails and a myriad of hosting services. Regardless, I stand by my adulation of AppEngine. The ability to write something and deploy it in minutes/hours is simply awesome.

Edit: 

Forgot the best bit: Throwing in an easter egg that triggers if user=.

Result (via twitter):

"oh and the bf made me a valentines day app (sort of)! Doesn't get any sweeter than that. ;)"

Nerd Stats:

find . | xargs wc -l
total: 236

python, appengine, Google Chart APIs.

Seashore to do simple image and favicon.

~3 hours, including an inordinately long time dealing with css and figuring out that stupid meta viewport tag to make it look right on a handheld.

[book] Matter

Matter by Iain M. Banks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My third Ian M. Banks book and perhaps the best so far (Feersum Endjinn and Consider Phlebas being the other two). Matter does not have the distinct writing style of Feersum Endjinn, but is bigger and more interesting in scope. It is a Culture novel and the latest one in the series. Culture novels are distinguished by the fact that they are set in the post-materialistic, intergalactic society/empire called the Culture, but each book is a complete story and environment by itself, so one needn't go in order.

On genre:
Banks writes epic space dramas where the sci-fi and space elements just add that much more spice and deft story turns, but just like the other two books I've read, the space and sci-fi parts of the book are almost incidental. At the end of the day, it is really a political drama set on the edge of a culture clash between highly advanced and underdeveloped societies. The fact that it is set in space, allows Banks to use everything from extremely intelligent AIs to nanotech to really drive home the deification of a super advanced society from the perspective of the backwards. There is this constant, dark overhanging thought of how little the lives of billions of people matter when two highly advanced societies clash. This was present in Consider Phlebas as entire planets and star systems got destroyed in the Culture-Idiran war and is present in Matter as well.

On environment:
I enjoy reading about the environments he creates - Matter is set on a shellworld and it is difficult to explain what exactly that means and why it is interesting without revealing too much. Not only does he create one fantastic world, he throws in 5 distinct species competing for this world (in a way) and their own worlds and backgrounds and such. The Morthanveld water world, the Nariscene war-rock, Culture ships, the Oct and Aultridia and of course, the Sarl that form the center of the novel - each species with its own language, planet/star/cluster etc.

Complaints:
The only complaint about this book, really, is that like the others, it is slow to ramp up, sometimes drags along, and then speeds up and barrels like a speeding meteor to an end that is almost entirely unpredictable (until you get into the final few chapters). It also leaves a bit of a "whaaa???" feeling when its done. I had to go back and read the last chapter again - it made things better, but a bit more closure would have been better. Perhaps.

Overall:
Recommended.

View all my reviews >>

[books] Feersum Endjinn

Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Feersum Endjinn is a work of science fiction set in a time long after the enlightened humans have left the planet and the people living on earth have some technology, not all of which they understand. There is also the kript, or crypt or cryptosphere: an internet of sorts where AIs are free to roam. Moreover, when "real" people die, they can download into the crypt and continue "living" as a sentient being there. People can crypt in at any time and in some cases, crypt forms can take take control of corporeal entities.

This jumble provides for a great story set in the time when the sun's orbit is going to lead the planet into a space cloud, thereby dimming the sun and bringing on a long ice age (the whole thing is referred to as the Encroachment). The first generation of humans anticipated this and left a device to help the rest survive this - this is the titular Feersum Endjinn. The problem is that the current humans have no idea how to activate this and, as if that wasn't enough, have embroiled themselves in internal petty conflict.

Thats a lot to say without giving away the rest of the plot - one last interesting element: the book is written as 4 different alternating narratives. One of these, a character named Bascule, speaks only in phonetics. Thus, there is a good fourth of the book that reads like this:

Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? & I agreed & that woz how we decided we otter go 2 c Mr Zoliparia in thi I-ball ov thi gargoyle Rosbrith.

Its interesting, albeit on a different plane, how quickly the human brain adopts to this form of written english. Pretty quickly you will find yourself reading phonetics just as well as you do regular English. Fascinating.

All in all, a good book, recommended if you are into science fiction and want something a bit different.

View all my reviews >>

How much money should you donate to Haiti relief efforts

As much as possible.

This form of ambiguity makes my engineer brain implode. It can't deal with things like "as much as" (possible is a known quantity). So we need to come up with a reasonable model, plug in some numbers and see what it looks like. Here's a proposal:

Match every non-essential dollar you have spent for a week (its been close to a week after the earthquake) with a dollar for relief.

What does non-essential mean?

It depends (hah, ambiguity is back!) but we can take a stab at the definition. For a person reasonably well off (steady job, income that you actually save or invest), it should be everything except food and housing.

Average food cost is $18/day according to Dept. of Labor statistics - so lets double it and say $30/day. For a week, thats $210. Please note: if you are a Googler or a Facebooker or any of the Valley companies that covers your meals, you can't take this deduction.

Housing is 1/4th your monthly rent/mortgage and similarly utilities are 1/4th of your monthlys. Apply corrections as appropriate if you are supporting a family.

Weekly spending estimate:

Favourite form of spending (credit card / cash / atm card) over a month divided by 4. Round up to nearest 50.

Subtract essentials from spending and you are good to go. Mental math if you keep a close track of your expenses, two minutes checking your banking/credit card online if you don't.

In case you need any more motivation:

CNN photos

The Big Picture: Earthquake, 48 hours later and 6 days later

How to donate: Any way you can.

I personally find it easiest to use Google Checkout or Amazon Payments, but thats because I have an established account and its just easy to click away. I work at Google (full disclosure), so if you are uncomfortable about that connection, please use Amazon.

Google Checkout

Amazon Payments (if someone knows the simple URL for this let me know - I cannot unscramble amazon's URL here). You can also just go to Amazon and find the prominent link on their main page.

EDIT: Most companies I know of have donation matching programs; please make sure to look into these to potentially double your gift.

UPDATE: I was reminded of http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/ in case people are trying to find people in Haiti.

[books] Nerds on Wall Street

Nerds on Wall Street: How Robots, Computers, and Mathematics Have Wired the Markets by David J. Leinweber


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Nerds on Wall Street (NOWS, because nerds must obsessively abbreviate) is a fast, interesting read about the increasing use of computers on the Street. Its a good overview book: Leinweber draws on his vast experience doing stuff at the intersection of computers and finance for a long long time. Its really great if you are a nerd wondering what there is to do in the financial world or frankly how to get a piece of that trillion dollar pie that is the Street. Leinweber talks a bit (and just a bit) about pretty much everything that is computer related - from charting and visualization, data analysis and automated monitoring to algo trading.

There are two reasons for the mediocre rating:
1. Its thin on details: probably because the desire to disseminate information to a larger audience (every equation halves the number of copies that you can sell).
2. There is a lot of repetition. He draws on his experience building several software firms doing various things on or for wall street but repeats the same story several times. Maybe because the book is an agglomeration of various papers he has written (where the mention of his experience would be novel and non-repetitive). Regardless, it does not work for the book.

The good stuff:
1. Good overview. This can't be overstated. The book gets the job done.
2. For a non-fiction book, its a really easy read.

View all my reviews >>

Rolling stones-paint it black

I'm discovering the Stones thanks to @kristinstecher

Devan

Devan-112, originally uploaded by Rooosh.

Yes, he is *that* cute.

Taking baby pics is probably the funnest thing I have done as a photographer, not to mention perhaps the most rewarding.

[books] Good Omens

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love Terry Pratchett (though not as much Neil Gaiman, though I'm beginning to change my mind) and this has all the usual humour and fantasy that I would expect from Pratchett. Great book, fast read, just overall fun.

View all my reviews >>

[books] Infidel

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An autobiography that you can't put down - the story of Ayaan Hirsi Magan/Ali from birth in Somalia, childhood in Somalia, Saudi, Ethiopia and Kenya, to adulthood in Holland and an eventual rise to becoming an MP in Holland, to death threats and security crises and eventual move to the US.

Extremely compelling, makes you think of life in the non-western world, especially in Africa and especially Somalia. This is in equal parts a commentary on women's issues in fundamentalist Islam as it is about her life. She does not really offer any solutions to the problem of dragging Islam out of the 5th century into the 21st but does highlight the problems.

A very good read - though not exactly your lightweight beach reading. Strongly recommended.

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Has Twitter taken over?

I feel a bit guilty for not blogging in a long while. It seems that all I do is send pithy tweets about something or another and don't find the time and opportunity to write something (semi-) thoughtful.

This is rather unfortunate :(