Open Source vs Closed Source

Love this ;)

Optimizing time in getting off the plane

Two cases:  With or without check-in baggage?

• Get your hand baggage as soon as possible and stand in the line.
• This will take around 5 minutes.
• Get into the bus, but make sure you take the seat close to the gate or preferably stand
• Get out of the bus and go out (no check-in baggage) 
• Get out of the bus and wait for baggage to arrive. 
• Usually baggage will come first if you were the last one to check-in the flight (FILO).
• Wait for baggage 

When getting out of the landing airport is decided by when you arrive at the departure airport, then why do people continue to fight for being first to get out of the plane. 

Why Low Scoring IPL Matches Last Long

IPL makes money via advertisements in the match.  If the match finishes in 10 overs instead of 20, it means loss of revenue. It seems like  no matter what, both "strategic timeouts" have to happen in any match. I am not aware of any match in which a team won before the "strategic timeout" irrespective of the required runs.

Sometimes I wonder if sports is a form of Reality TV.

Named Queries in Relational Databases

Databases don't provide a way to create named queries with runtime arguments.  Yes we have views but most databases are accessed via programming languages where we need to construct the SQL query. We do have the Prepared statements but again they are programming language constructs and not named database level constructs.

Benefits:
1) No need to parse queries. They are callable by name.
2) Prevents SQL injection attacks because of not parsing.
3) Easy integration with programming languages.  db.execute("myQuery", arg1, arg2,...)

4) Instead of trying to optimize every SQL query, every time, database will have the list of the most important queries it needs to answer. This allows databases to save time by pre-planning the execution in the short run and in the long run, databases can optimize the layout of files or creating of indexes automatically to optimize the access pattern.

5) Easy to change db logic. As long as the query returns the same fields (may be more), you can easily change the actual query logic without changing application code.

Their is a lot in the name. 

The better side of corruption

Corruption is an enabler. It thrives on inefficiency, shortcomings of the system and provides a way to get things done for a price.  People pay for stuff that is valuable to them, hence at the very least corruption is a great validation...it validates, confirms that something is important.  The answer to the question, how do I make something better becomes self evident...fix things where their is corruption.

I wanted to move from Reliance CDMA to Airtel GSM. After 2 weeks, 6 visits of 30 minutes each and asking 10 times when should I disconnect my Reliance connection, the ultimate answer is - "Sorry your request couldn't be processed because you have not disconnected your Reliance connection".

I wish Airtel guys were corrupt. They would have known what people want, how much they want it and  the best interface to execute it.