aBlog

Can connect to localhost but not to its IP Address?

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:34:25 -0800

Welcome! If you got here, you probably searched for "Could connect to localhost, but not to its IP address" or some variation of that phrase. That's how I got here. To writing this post, that is. After unsuccessfully trying many clever variations of my query theme in finding an answer to this problem, we decided to troubleshoot it ourselves, ended up fixing it, and decided to blog for the benefit of the wider community. If you're lucky, (a) our solution works for you and (b) this post shows up in the first few pages of your Google results saving you much time you might have wasted in following dead-ends.

When is a good time to die? (Farewell 33Across)

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:00:54 -0800

"Not to be born is the best thing of all and the next best thing is to die soon after", said a great Greek playwright once. Almost two and a half millenia later, those powerful words have not lost their poignant profundity. As Arnold Toynbee had observed just a little bit earlier in our own time, the greatest problem of mankind is spiritual suffering, and no amount of plumbing and central heating can alleviate spiritual suffering. Yet, much as I resonate strongly with the ultimately pessimistic wisdom of Sophocles and Toynbee, I believe we should make the best of what we have. When it comes to parting, I think Fonzie packs the most punch (although Nick Romano said it first according to Richie) "Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse".

Now that I've been around the block a few times, I think that Fonzie's counsel applies equally well to people's careers. When's the best time to leave? Of course, the answer is different if you are a founder, or you are treated like one. You would carry what I call the founder's fardel - The company is as much a part of you as you are of it, and you relish the burden on your back - Like Hotel California, "you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave". But for almost every one else, I think this is what I've learnt: The best time to leave is when you've done a great job, you've delivered on your commitment, you're having fun, you're proud of yourself, and you have successfully and fearlessly made yourself redundant (or almost).

From Powerpoint to Profitability

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:36:34 -0800

Another fantastic year at 33Across. We have come a long way since our early Power-point days. We have accomplished amazing feats and as Eric said at our recent all-hands, we have continued to hit the ball outta the park. We have had our ups and our downs, petty squabbles and grand confluences. But in the end, we've all come to truly appreciate what we have. So here's to a great year in celebration and anticipation. John, Mike and Sree - We missed you last night and hope you can make the next one.

Here's the 4-second video that FRC wanted - as one of us said, ultimate proof that the 33Across engineering team always over-delivers :-)

Happy 2010 all! &

Unintentional Poetry

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:19:01 -0800

Here is the best of totally unintentional communal poetry. It's written by folk who didn't have the slightest suspicion that they were contributing to the effort, and shamelessly plagiarised by me. Read on, and sue me if they don't rival with the best koans you know. After you've read the first one, see the picture below to reveal the secret behind the poem, and the names of the authors, themselves unaware of their worthy words.

Please Tell Me

Please tell me it is so But what will you give me Such a little firebrand And I have no mother or father From that dark day to the present Far and few, far and few Look what I pictured on road At midday scraped the cupboard On that little heap of stones But You decide, if they die or not Sorry for your father Dead or alive If I were In the middle of a wood Reed broke the silence An inn when he suddenly noticed You can save more on the goods for solving man's problems

And here's the secret to the origins of this poem.

The Four Fours

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:14:42 -0800

This year I'm a volunteer teacher at JLS in Palo Alto to help guide a small number of curious children into the wonders of advanced mathematics over 12 classes in 6 weeks. The program is called "The Number Devil". It uses chapters from the similarly named book by Hans Magnus Enzensberger as anchor points for discussion during each class.

Just before the holidays started, the students were to do a warm-up exercise in preparation for diving into the deeper wonders of Number Theory in upcoming classes. Here is the exercise, called the Four Fours. Using exactly 4 digits, all of which are fours, and any number of the arithmetic operators Plus, Minus, Times, Divide, Exponentiation, Factorial, Square Root, and Parenthesis, derive each of the numbers from 1 to 50. E.g. One way you can derive 1 is obviously 4/4 *4/4. No doubt there are a number of different ways to derive each number and the goal is to get students to think about this, and to come up with expressions that are different from those of their colleagues.

We, however, decided to turn this little exericse into a game, which as a matter of fact, also turned out to be a good game to occupy young minds during the holidays! Here is how you would play it:

The game has 15 rounds. Each round lasts 1 minute. We tried to cover 15 numbers in the game.

Each round consists of:

Host (me): Calling out a different random integer between 1 and 50.
Players: Each of them has 30 seconds to write an expression with exactly 4 4s and the arithmetic operators to get this number.
We compare answers and points are scored for this round as follows:
- Zero points - No expression or invalid expression (meaning it doesn't evaluate to the number called)
- M-N points - Otherwise. M is the number of players and N is the number of other players who have the same expression as you. If your expression is unique, you get the full M points for the round.

Cool Currency

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:52:16 -0800

After a long year of Sharon teaching their delightful children, the parents had decided to reward her. On Teacher Appreciation Day, following heart-felt expressions of gratitude and astonishment at what a wonderful job she had done, the head parent, who had coordinated by collecting contributions towards Sharon's gift, presented her with a brightly colored sealed envelope amidst generous applause. Sharon opened her gift with great eagerness and found what she would never have spoiled herself with in her wildest dreams - She was now the proud owner of a certificate bestowing upon her the gratitude of a thousand children in Rwanda, who had just been donated $500 on Sharon's behalf. Yes - The head parent, in her infinite wisdom, had decided that the best gift for Sharon would not be a couple of sessions at a posh Palo Alto Spa, or a comfy sofa to relax between classes, or even a Bloomingdale's gift card, but rather a donation to a worthy African cause in Sharon's name. "What could please Sharon more?" would likely have been the most pressing question in her mind, as she tossed around various options for a gift to proudly decide that someone who spends almost every waking hour with children could only ever be pleased by being told that she had benefited yet more children.

Deanimizing - A necessary first step to dehumanizing?

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:39:43 -0800

Last night, I was at a networking social with the Olympic Opening Ceremony on an enormous screen. But I was there strictly to socialize and catch up with good friends. I could not bring myself to enjoy the opening ceremony, flamboyant and ostentatious as it was, in light of the appalling abuses of human and animal rights in a country where, at the very least, all this money could have been put to much worthier use in improving the human condition! People might say that it's my loss for missing this magnificent display of oneness and splendor. But I don't see it. Fortunately for me, there is no dearth of interesting alternatives in today's world that can equally well and guiltlessly take up my time. Fortunately, I suffer the ancient Chinese curse. I live in interesting times. I must boycott the Olympics to protest in what little way I can against such appalling cruelty as PeTA exposes.

Skinned alive and tossed on to a pile of flayed friends?

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:08:04 -0800

Fuck! I cannot think of any other word. Sorry. I don't know about you, but I couldn't watch past the midpoint of this video. I was hoping to vent some in this article, but it doesn't seem to help! Perhaps the least I can do to show my support to PeTA (where I am a member) and to other animal rights organizations is to spread the word. I bet half the people who wear fur will give it up if only they knew what went into making it for them, just as Erwin Schrödinger hypothesizes in his famous essay that half the people who ate meat will give up if only they had to kill the animal themselves! The following video is not for the weak-hearted. Click not if you can stomach not. Instead just read the equally compelling but less shocking text at: http://www.peta.org/feat/ChineseFurFarms/index.asp

Pledge to go fur-free at PETA.org.

Again, here is a link to the full article at PeTA's site: http://www.peta.org/feat/ChineseFurFarms/index.asp Please support PeTA! &

Irrational decisions in the workplace

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:46:38 -0800

Ori Brafman asked on Linkedin: What are your best examples of irrational decision-making in the workplace? I answered thusly, though not to his point: I believe, perhaps irrationally :-), that we all make two kinds of decisions regularly in our life. Well-founded, data-driven and reasoned decisions are the most common and form the first kind. The much rarer second kind is driven by instinct, gut feeling and perhaps no more than a deep sense of passion and belief in the long-term success of what appears, on all immediate counts, to be unfounded.

The kiss you can remember

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:10:56 -0800

How often do you google yourself? Other than for reasons for plain vanity, I think it important to do it often enough to ensure your online identity isn't hijacked. Since I have multiple online aliases, some of which I share with others, I have an automatic system that googles my online avatars every once in a while, reporting any "anomalies". Imagine my surprise when I found that I had, unbeknownst to myself, given some lame-ass kissing advice on an eHarmony forum. After several email messages to the moderator, I decided to take matters into my own hands and just made a half-decent post myself, pointing out that I if I were to post, I'd have posted something that at least took a few minutes for me to pen, like the poem below:

Calculating the median of a MySql table column

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:52:38 -0800

My staff are amazingly efficient at automating the various slices and dices of data for me. They like to do it in SQL scripts, MySql in specific, and as a consequence, the data I want to look at is automatically generated every night into various MySql tables. I, in turn, have my own scripts, and ye old console, to extract the information I want. However, one issue that bugged me early on was getting at the median of a set of numbers.

How to browse the Internet perfectly anonymously

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:31:02 -0800

Related website: Pippini.com

"Tell me Mr. Jones," said the public prosecutor, "All the evidence points to the fact that you were indeed contemplating the murder of your lover on that night. Were you not? Remember that you are under oath, and that your polygraph results have betrayed your innermost thoughts. You had the motive, ability and, in your judgment, sufficient anonymity to carry out the macabre act with impunity. And I admit that were it not for this mass of incontrovertible evidence we uncovered by following your intent, you might well have succeeded in pulling the wool over our eyes! Is this not what you are thinking?"

There it is. Fragment from a mystery novel as it were, when you gauge your own mental reaction as you read the passage, you will find it to be a clear example: Most reasonable people would not think twice about sanctioning techniques, including the administration of polygraph tests, that authorities may use to probe into and conclude on the conents of that innermost repository of our private thoughts - our mind. Yet, it appears unreasonable to most of us if authorities claim to have the ability, much less to use it, to determine probable intent in criminal behavior from one's behavior on the Internet. Is the Internet that different in people's perceptions as a place where absolute anonymity may be enjoyed regardless of disposition and intent? Indeed, do people honestly believe it is ok to probe one's mind, but not one's online behavior?

Governor Schwarzenegger helps to make Bay Area housing affordable

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:50:09 -0800

In what may be Governor Schwarzenegger's most sympathetic move yet to make housing more affordable for potential home-buyers in California, he does what he can to encourage young Californians to migrate away from the state, thus setting the stage for home-prices to spiral downwards.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/10/financial/f113022S86.DTL

With already ailing education budgets slashed even further, convicted criminals let loose to terrorize innocent citizens and 20% of state parks closed, the Governor hopes that more productive Californians will be encouraged to seek domicile in Oregon and nearby states. This calculated and clever move will enable property prices eventually to reach levels where the 22,000 inmates, who will be in dire need of good housing after their early releases, can afford them.

On Data Analysis

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:38:54 -0800

Forget OLAP cubes and pivot tables! As is the case most of the time, 90% of the insight can be gleaned from very simple data plots. To be sure, the remaining 10% does shed valuable new light, but is also orders of magnitude relatively more tedious to distill. One of my favorite tools for performing quick sanity checks on data and even for inferring high-level trends is a histogram; it simply partitions your data points into a fixed number of buckets, with each bucket holding points that fall within a given range. The resultant bucket sizes are then available to eye-ball, often plotted as bars whose lengths are proportional to the number of elements in the corresponding buckets.

Fixing Fontconfig on Linux with strace (Unable to load default config file)

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 09:15:56 -0800

Today, Linux is a beautiful thing and I typically waste no opportunity to evangelize it to friends considering a new desktop purchase. I mean, if the average user today calculates how much of his or her computer time is spent either on-line or within office applications, it seems like common-sense to buy a Linux desktop with Firefox and Open Office rather than buy expensive Microsoft products. Homer Simpson captures the sentiment best in the opening line of the latest Bart Simpson flick. Why would someone pay hard-earned cash to get something we can get for free? We're all giant suckers!