5 Things I saw in London, which I found utterly hilarious.

1. A man being pick pocketed. Total hilarity, the twat didn't even notice, and quite frankly if you walk about like an aggressive cock, like most Londoners, during my stay, did, then you deserve it. His phone was stolen, and I lulzed. Hard.

You see, the sad thing is, if people hadn't been unapologetically bumping into me all day, as if the entire city was on their period I might have done something, perhaps alerted the man that he had just become a victim of crime.

But you know what?

I hold you all responsible for the actions of the few, if one cunt is aggressive or rude to me, you will all receive my spite, and judgemental, cynical, scorn because of it.

2. An Asian woman pushing an 8 year old over, on an escalator, without apologising, or even looking at her... Brilliant. Pure genius.

I literally masturbated over this hilarious mental image when I got home.

The look of pure hurt on that 8 year old's face as she fell head first into an escalator to have her hair mangled, her shins bloodied; brilliant.

The screams that came from that little girl as the escalator caught on her hair; they were like a symphony of delightful sadism to my ears that helped to wash away the aggravation that had become pent up inside me throughout the day..

I took great perverse pleasure in doing absolutely nothing but sitting back, and watching her little face slowly become drenched in a sea of tears, blood and torn out hair. She looked like she'd just been brutally ravaged, by a really sadistic priest.

I came a little.

3. A black man giving an Asian man racist abuse... Priceless. Words cannot even describe the sheer sexually overwhelming feelings of ecstatic joy I felt in my crotch region as I watched this masterpiece of degradation and irony unfold.

4. Drunks on bikes. You fuck-tards shouldn't be allowed drink, you can't fucking handle it, end of story. I saw 3 twats cycling down the wrong lane laughing hysterically drinking cans of premium larger. One fuck-tard crushing his skull between his hands, crouched on the floor crying outside a pub, around 5 bar fights, and God knows how many drunk girls passed out in corners (and yes, I did rape them all.)

5. An Englishman pick a fight with a drunk Irish man. Granted, I didn't so much witness this as I did start a fight, but still the point stands; utterly hilarious.

One Reason I will not be going back to London in the future. (And yes, I only need one.)

You're all very fucking rude. You don't queue for anything, everyone's in a rush, nobody says sorry for pushing or shoving or bumping into you, your train carriages can be likened to being in the position of a Jew in a gas chamber, only the Ziclon B is the fat fuck sitting next to you's body odour, you're all really fucking loud, all the fucking time. Your accent is so so grating that it can only be likened to driving a circular saw through the side of my face. Nobody says thank you to bus drivers, you're basically all loud, obnoxious, cunts.

Fuck you and your city. Actually, in all fairness, I do quite like your city, I just fucking hate your people.

I hope the rest of England isn't such a raging disappointment for me.

[sourcecode language='java']
#include
#include
#include

using namespace std;

bool visited[5];
int graph[5][5] = {{0,1,0,0,1},
                   {1,0,1,1,0},
                   {0,1,0,0,1},
                   {0,1,1,0,1},
                   {1,0,1,1,1}};
queue q;
void BFS(int start_v, int n);

int main()
{
    visited[0] = true;
    BFS(0,5);
    cout << endl;
    system("PAUSE");
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

void BFS(int start_v, int n)
{
     cout << start_v << " ";
     for(int i = 0; i < n; i++)
     {
         if(graph[start_v][i] == 1 && visited[i] == false)
         {
             q.push(i);
             visited[i] = true;
         }
     }
     while(!q.empty())
     {
         int tmp = q.front();
         q.pop();
         BFS(tmp,n);
     }
}
[/sourcecode]

If you say forget it there are some things in the world you can’t change and this is one of it, well all right. In a particularly famous super market – one of the chain ones which cover the city – a guy literally pushed everyone out of the way to get to the head of the queue. Of course, this tendency is something as I said which comes from using public transport at some point in your life. But this guy carried it to the extreme much to everyone’s chagrin. This resulted in a lot of commotion because you see those people who stand at the counter don’t care how you got there; they just start billing and make a lot of fuss about ‘can’t stop the billing once it is started’. The rest of the queue clamoured enough to get the manager to come and sort out the problem. Still the guy who jostled and forced his way to the head of the queue got his way. Even the manager let him go with a warning about queue manners, but nothing more because – the customer – even that pathetic guy – is always right.

This got me thinking of the public transport and how might is right here and everywhere.

People I know would just as easily give up than stand up for something, anything.

Why is it common for the people who use force to get heir way? Is it something in our genetics to make some people the sheep who follow the others around and do whatever they are told? If there is one thing that is becoming the goal among more numbers then ever before is the need to stand out, acquire that might – in whatever arena it may be.

Humans love contests between the giants and small men. We appreciate it even more if the Davids win against the Goliaths. Like the thrill we feel as a group when a big corporation pays for a big mistake [which all big corporations make]. If I sound a bit anti-corporation that’s not entirely true. I am merely stating that it is very common occurrence with big corporations. Like the great contest to carry the words – cigarette smoking is injurious to health on every pack o’ them.

We were going to Northumberland for a week with my mother-in-law.  I needed a distraction.  My wife and her mother would do the kind of things that they don't get time to do together during the year, and which they enjoy - spotting birds and trying to identify names, spotting wild flowers and trying to identify names, (and if things get really desperate - and they did) spotting grasses and trying to identify names.  I really did need a distraction - something that would absorb me completely - a new toy.  A reward for my forbearance.  And afterall, I couldn't be expected to go into the middle of nowhere for a week without Net access or being able to read emails.  I knew that before going away, I just wanted to get one of the new iPhones (iPhone 3G).  They were being released on 11 July - so I only had one day.

Enquiries to the two stores in my town that were likely to get the handsets revealed that they were going to be in short supply (one shop admitted they were only getting two handsets - Apple may have sold over ten million between 11-13 July, but NOT in my area).  Shop staff laughed condescendingly if you asked about reserving one.  I would have to queue.

Having decided to begin my holiday a day early, I leapt out of bed at 05:30.  As I drove wearily into town I experienced a mild panic.  There was lots of traffic.  Perhaps thousands of others in the area had had the same idea.  It was a relief, therefore, to find that I was third in the queue.  I would have felt very silly if I had been first, anxious if I had been tenth (would there be enough handsets?) and very sad if I had been forty-first.

Having queued recently for over three hours to get into the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the prospect of just over a two hour queue outside the O2 store in my town didn't seem too bad.  During the next two hours, the queue lengthened steadily and I stopped counting once it got over forty and disappeared round the corner.

To begin with I felt slightly awkward, as if I had joined some disreputable group.  The person who was first was a middle-aged man with a crewcut and T shirt who revealed he had travelled some distance (but didn't say where from).  He spent most of the time composing emails on his existing handset and mentioning Beijing - I think we were meant to be impressed.  The second person was a male in his young twenties who spent most of the time answering my attempts at conversation in mono-syllables and texting on his Blackberry.  I was somewhat relieved as the queue then started to get more 'normal'.

There was a local accountant with his teenage son, a doctor I recognised from the local hospital, young 'totty' that chewed gum and listened to their iPods, mothers with distressed children in very smart uniforms, assistants who worked in nearby shops, white-van men who were reading The Sun as they waited, and power-dressed office workers.

The time seemed to rush by quickly.  We waved at the CCTV cameras that buzzed above our heads, clearly disturbed by the unusual gathering.  We smiled at the joggers and street cleaners who were clearly bemused by our unusual presence.  We discussed the merits and demerits of our existing handsets.  We huddled together rather secretly around one man who exposed his existing iPhone (the now old-version) for our furtive and admiring gazes (though no-one was allowed to touch).  We joked with the enterprising women from the coffee shop opposite who saw our queue, and then came across and offered us their wares.

Apart from all this distraction, there was one topic that hung heavily in the air: "How many handsets do they have?"  And everytime we asked one of the assistants going into the shop, we received the same answer: "I'm sorry, we are not allowed to say!"

The store opened promptly at 08:00.  There were three sales staff and three desks.  I was ushered into place and sat down with the Manager.  What should have been simple, wasn't, and it took over an hour before I left with my iPhone 3G.  There were two problems.  First, the O2 computer and telephone system couldn't cope with the volume of traffic it was receiving.  The details just couldn't be processed on computer or by phone.  They had to be recorded manually.  Secondly, there was a glitch with me over dates and the time when I could start a new contract.  In the previous week I had been assured that Friday 11 would be ok and that a note was put on my file to that effect. ("Don't worry sir. There won't be a problem.")  However, as no-one could access my electronic file, the manager wouldn't believe me and refused to give me a new phone.  After a fair degree of huffing and puffing and pretending that my business would suffer if I had to change my mobile number, I agreed to take out a new contract with a new number rather than transfer my old one.

I left the shop clutching my phone.  Because the shop were not able to process the details electronically, the handset didn't spring into life for over another thirty hours.  I later learned that the shop only had five handsets.  So, there were a total of seven available in my town on 11 July.  Hundreds wanted them, and I managed to get one.

Was it worth it? You bet!!!  I'm a convert.  I knew within minutes that I had made the right decision.  More in future postings. It is just so different from any other phone I have ever had.  And I spent a week in the middle of nowhere accessing the Net and reading and composing emails to my heart's content.  I even answered a technical question for my mother-in-law by searching Google.  She was impressed - and that is saying something!

so we get inside and grab a drink, have a dance etc.  all of a sudden we notice a girl completely off her face dancing solo in a cage next to the dancefloor.  she provided endless amounts of entertainment, but little were we to know that the cage would become the site of the most shocking event of the evening.  a few more drinks, dances, and random acquaintances later we look over to the same cage which is now occupied by a girl and a gay - again both off their faces drunk.  suddenly, or as suddenly as two people three quarters in the bag can muster, she has her legs over his shoulders and he's eating her out!  literally, her dress is hiked up, she's holding onto the bars behind her and he's trying to support her while, somewhat disinterestedly going down on her.  well, half the dancefloor is staring at this point as she slowly slides down the cage and her hapless gay attempts to hold her weight and fails dramatically.  so now this girl has her shoulder blades on the ground, her arms on the floor, and her ass still in the air as her 'friend' continues to try and get her off in this most awkward of positions. we're talking wasted face, now with seven chins and her minge in the air.  not the most flattering of poses for anyone.  so now everyone has gone from pseudo-horror at the drunk girl to shocked silence as the moment continues to spiral. thankfully, for the remaining shred of her dignity, the two were promptly removed from the bar.

as ryan pointed out, the look on her face thismorning when the memory of it creeps back to her will be priceless. 'did i do anything embarrassing last night?' she might ask.

sweetie, you took embarrassing to a whole new level.

[sourcecode language='java']
#include
#include
#include

struct _NODE
{
    int Data;
    struct _NODE* pNext;
};

typedef struct _NODE node;
typedef node* link;
typedef node _FRONT;
typedef node _REAR;

void AddNodeToQueue(_FRONT** front, _REAR** rear, int nVal)
{
    link pNewNode = (link)malloc(sizeof(node));
    pNewNode->Data = nVal;
    pNewNode->pNext = NULL;
    if(*rear == NULL)
    {
        *front = pNewNode;
        *rear = pNewNode;
    }
    else
    {
        (*rear)->pNext = pNewNode;
        *rear = pNewNode;
    }
}

void DelNodeFromQueue(_FRONT** front, int* nRetVal)
{
    link pDelNode = NULL;
    if(*front == NULL)
    {
        printf("[The queue is already empty]\n");
        *nRetVal = -32768;
        return;
    }
    *nRetVal = (*front)->Data;
    pDelNode = *fornt;
    *front = (*front)->pNext;
    free(pDelNode);
}
[/sourcecode]

Either start eating the bananas closest to your hand that's holding the stick (First In First Out), or stop calling it a queue and call it a stack.

LOL!

Well, the popularity of the gadget can be guessed from the fact that though it is far from being the best in terms of features, no critic could resist the temptation of calling it the future of cell phones! From what I've learned in past few years, Apple is one company you can trust blind-folded for dishing out the hottest and most innovative products. This was proven correct once again when, barring one or two cities, there were queues of people waiting for hours to get hold of the latest iPHONE! It fails me if 200-300$ is small enough sum to be given away without second thoughts to this company. But again, there are crazy people and there are the crazier, Apple fans.

So, while some lucky people relish tapping the screens of their brand-new asset, I'll just sit here cursing and waiting for mine to arrive someday! What a day would that be! Anyways, book your iPHONE with Airtel or Vodafone if you're an Indian dying to get one!

[P.S.: OMG stands for 'Oh! My God'... just in case you were wondering!]

7:30 am.

Apple Store.

Let's go.

Bad idea.

As you may have already heard, Apple and AT&T experienced some collective network snafus that ruined many people's day. It's my understanding that some stores let folks simply buy their phones and activate them at home, but not good ol' Clarendon, VA. They maintained the in-store activation policy, so when the network went down, the 300 or so folks in line outside the Apple Store just had to wait.

Outside.

In the sun.

Oh, sure, they gave us bottled water. Sure the flustered employees were kind and diplomatic. But listen, I was out there for over seven hours.

What?? Paul, what's wrong with you?

Lots, but let's not get sidetracked.

You see, there's a paradox that comes with such an unfortunate event. Everyone in line was ready to spend a couple of hours hanging around. It was expected. When the first delay became apparent, what's a person who has already been in line for two hours going to do? Leave? Of course not. You've been there two hours, you can do three. No problem.

But then three turns into four, and then five. With every moment that passes, two things happen simultaneously.

1. You feel stupider the longer you're there
2. You are more compelled to remain, given the time investment you've already put in

It's limbo. It's madness. It's a Milgram experiment gone horribly right.

As you can see, as the hours passed, my un-blocked, iPod-white skin began to change hues and sizzle. I tried in vain to find shade in my area of the line, but the sun was creeping up on me like a James Bond villain death contraption.

The store's network finally started humming again, and like starving peasants clamoring for bread, we needy consumers fell upon the castle walls. Satisfaction loomed.

Not until about 4:30 pm did I finally enter the store. I was nearly delirious from sun, hunger, and from holding in my pee since breakfast (a feat I have never before performed, and never intend to again). My knees aching from standing about on concrete since sun-up, I finally got my prize.

And at the time, I couldn't have cared less. I just wanted to get home, shower, and consider death.

Now, of course, me and the iPhone are a happy couple. It just better not pull this shit on me again, or I might not buy the next model.

Yes, I will.

* * *

You can see the full Flickr set of my adventures as an Apple Outcast here.

It's only been available for one weekend but already 1 million new iPhone's have been sold. And, although the queues were not as long as those of the original release, figures show that despite this, the sales of iPhones were much quicker this time round (it took 74 days to sell the first 1 million original iPhones).

So, what a great start for the iPhone 3G. Especially considering that the new iPhone owners have already downloaded 10 million iPhone applications - which is even more impressive when you consider that there were only around 500 applications available at launch. These figures once again reinforce the belief that users don't see the iPhone as just another phone - it is another whole platform.

What do you think of the iPhone 3G and the available apps? Let us know...

[sourcecode language='java']
#define MAX_SIZE 100

int Queue[MAX_SIZE];

int front = -1;
int rear = -1;

void AddQ(int item, int *Queue)  // add a new item on the rear of queue
{
     if(rear == MAX_SIZE - 1)
         cout << "The queue is already full!!";
     else
     {
         rear++;
         Queue(rear) = item;
     }
}

void DeleteQ(int item, int *Queue)  // delete the item on the front of the queue
{
     if(front == rear)
         cout << "The queue is already empty!!";
     else
     {
         front++;
         item = Queue[front];
     }
}

void FRONT_VALUE(int *Queue)    // return the value of the front of the queue
{
     if(front == rear)
         cout <<"It's an empty queue !!";
     else
         cout << Queue[front];
}

void is_Empty(int *Queue)    // Test if the queue is empty or not
{
     if(front == rear)
         cout << "TRUE";
     else
         cout << "FALSE";
}
[/sourcecode]

I was first in the door and we started the '10-15 minute' process. Halfway through, the system came back with a 404 error and 25 minutes later we were no further on. I went to get a coffee and when I came back it was the same story. The T-mobile system was not highly distributed (or so the salesperson told me) and 10,000 salespeople had all tried to connect their new iPhones simultaenously to no avail. The guy took my number and was going to call when everything was up and running. It's 2pm now and I'm still waiting for that call...

This made me think about git (as it naturally would, of course). Git is a distributed source code management system. It's very simple and very powerful. It's not a source code management system that was built to work with one server, but it's got distribution in its very genes. And not despite that, but because of that, it's speedy and efficient and allows you to do all the things you naturally want to do in (say) CVS, but where you naturally end up hitting a brick wall. Splitting out branches and merging branches is whole a lot easier and more natural in git. A couple of servers falling over do very little to hurt it.

Anyhow, git is not a natural thing to think of, but as I make another of my deep dives into coding again, it makes you realise how much more common very distributed systems are now than they were five years ago. And the systems that aren't (are you listening T-mobile?) stand out like a sore thumb. The same goes for business processes. It certainly helps the hype to batch everything and drip feed iPhones into the market, but spikes of demand with supply and gluts of supply without demand and just not profitable ways of running a business. It results inevitably in waste. Lean workflows mean happier customers.

I hope there won't be too many people around so that I can get one before sun sets again. I guess that here in Switzerland many people are really looking forward to buying it. I have just watched a TV report about the iPhone sale and they showed a huge crowd of people waiting in front of the only Swisscom store that will sell it at midnight.

Furthermore, there is much news around on Swiss Apple sites, as on macprime.ch They have changed their normal interface to a special iPhone report page where people can send in texts and photos about their experiences. 

I think I should turn in soon in order to be fully awake next morning and to enjoy the shiny new iPhone without the wish to sleep. Wish me luck... :)

See this Flickr group with photos of the crowd waiting in Zurich: http://www.flickr.com/groups/iphone-day/pool/

UPDATE:

There was really a huge crowd waiting in front of the store. And the worst was that they had very few iPhones in stock. For example, there were only 8 (!) black 16 gig iPhones around. I had to wait about less than 2 hours after they opened the store for the first customers. The activation, which had be done in-store prolonged time for shoppers waiting. I was very lucky to belong to one of the first standing in queue because when I left the shop again there were about a hundred people waiting!

1. Dracula: Dead and Loving It (Dir. Mel Brooks)

Why Did You Pick That?

I've been wanting to watch more of Mel Brooks' lesser-known films, and the serious/comedy ratio is far in favor of serious at the moment.

2. Pi (Dir. Darren Aronofsky)

Why Did You Pick That?

I've seen all of Aronofsky's films except for this one.

3. My Kid Could Paint That (Dir. Amir Bar-Lev)

Why Did You Pick That?

I've been interested in it for a while, but Jeffrey Overstreet's recent post about the film bumped it to the top of me queue.

The new iPhone 3G will be released in just 7 days from today...do you think it's too soon to start lining up to ensure you don't miss having one on launch day?

Regardless of your own thoughts on the matter, a line has indeed formed at Apple's store on 5th Avenue in New York with the first position being shared by a man, woman and a baby (won't hopefully won't be there the entire time).

I know the iPhone 3G will be great and all, but it's more evolutionary than revolutionary with a lot of current-generation iPhone owners struggling with whether or not the new features justify the extra expense both upfront to bring it home and monthly with what it will add over your current iPhone charges with AT&T.

Decisions decisions. One thing I do know, though--no way I'm lining up more than a few hours for any product launch, even the iPhone.

[Via Engadget]

Mr Neil "Let's make a fucking difference" Mitchell on 3AW started a campaign today to get petrol stations to sell discounted petrol in return for plenty of free advertising.

One petrol station owner in McKinnon took the bait, and slashed the price by 10c to $1.49 for one hour, which seems cheap these days. Cheap enough as it turns out for 200 cars to queue up, some of which were driven about 45 minutes from the western suburbs to save about $5.

I know people are hurting, but Jesus Christ, as far as I'm concerned anyone who's willing to go to such great lengths to save a few bucks is a tight-arse fuck who has no place in a functioning society. If you know anyone who did this, tell them I hate them.

Fuck queuing up to buy petrol. I'd pay five bucks to avoid a queue! I queue for no cunt!

A couple of weeks ago Netflix announced that it would be eliminating the profile feature which allowed multiple profiles to be created under one account with each able maintain it's own rental queue, rate movies, and receive unique recommendations (so the kids wouldn't be recommend Rambo while the parents wouldn't be recommended Barney the Dinosaur).

After receiving lots of calls and emails complaining about this decisions Netflix has decided to back off and keep the profiles feature intact.

Why would they want to eliminate profiles in the first place? To "continue to improve the Netflix website for all our customers."

It's not really clear how eliminating the profiles feature would improve the website, but they've backed down--profiles are here to stay.

[Via Ars Technica]

Instead of asking "what permutations can be generated by a stack?", the book slowly converges on the problem using a succession of exercises involving numbered railroad cars being moved into and out of a dead-end track. Before I knew it, I was proving things about a_n, the number of ways a stack can rearrange the sequence 12…n.

After a very brief exercise about the permutations possible using a queue, the subsequent exercises tackle a data structure called a deque. A deque (or "double-ended queue") can accept new elements at both ends, and release elements at both ends. (People tell me deques are used in writing compilers. Also, the iTunes playlistParty Shuffle works like a deque.) The problems are the same as with the stack: can you generate permutation P using a deque? What's the qualitative difference between those permutations you can generate and those you can't? In how many ways can a deque rearrange the sequence 12…n? Knuth explains it much better than I do; go try the exercises and see for yourself.

Right now, I'm brooding over exercise 11, with difficulty rating M40, meaning "quite a difficult or lengthy problem involving mathematical concepts". I've coded up a partial solution in Perl — given a permutation, it produces a sequence of railroad car move, if they exist — but writing it, I felt increasingly bogged down by the kludges I kept adding for every new special case. Functional programming can be awkward, but I have a definite sense that it would actually be a help to code this algorithm without the temptation of assignments. Since I'm interested in Arc and Clojure at the moment, I think I will write one solution in each of those languages, and do a writeup about the results.

Ramudu had to travel to Chennai from Hyderabad, to check the average height above mean sea level of the Chepauk pitch. Considering the Iraq war, the oil crisis, the recent air-fare hike and the relocation of the Hyderabad airport to Shamshabad, he decides that traveling by Indian Railways is a far cheaper and more comfortable option. So one fine morning, he goes early to the Railway Reservation Counter at Secunderabad. The office is yet to be opened, yet he reaches early in time. He is joined by many others most of whom, who weren't like him. Ramudu was there to book a ticket , well ahead of his scheduled departure, whereas most of these people were there to book tickets under Tatkal quota.

Fools, Ramudu thought of these people, because he saw the Tatkal quota in a totally different light. It was similar to what he saw at Anand theatre in Begumpet. The management would open the advance booking counter for the evening and night shows in the afternoon and close it early. Later in the evening, before the respective shows, they would put up House-Full boards and then sell a significant chunk of the tickets for these shows, in black. Ramudu saw Tatkal quota as a front put up by the Indian Railways to sell tickets in black. If only the government could do the same by legalizing ( illicit ) drugs, betting and the related what nots and earn heavily and do away with the multiple taxation structure and Ramudu, with his enhanced savings, could travel to Chennai by a flight, in spite of the higher airfares. But then again, this was the stuff dreams were made of. Ramudu realized he was still standing in line for the Railway Reservation Office to open.

Open it did finally at 745AM and he rushed to the inquiry counter, picked up a reservation form and rushed to one of the many counters. Since Ramudu was a regular to this ordeal, he knew one thing very clearly. One might be at the end of the line before the office is opened, but with so many counters, one can still be in the first 5 persons in a line at any one of those counters. It so happened that he was the fifth person at one such counter. But there is a sense of uncertainty about these counters at the start of the day. In front of every counter, there is a display board, showing the availability, train no., fare and related details of the booking they are making, assisting the customer to get the exact change ready as the Booking Executive (B.E. if one may call them that ) goes about booking the ticket.

Now it was a known fact for Ramudu and others, that the counters which had their display boards powered off, were not going to opened immediately and would be done only if there is a huge rush for reservations. But it also happens that some of these counters, which had their display boards on, are not opened at 8am, but a little later in the morning, say after 30-45 minutes or so. But there are customers at all the counters which have their display board powered on. One by one, the railway staff started occupying their seats at the counters, in a seemingly random order. At this stage all but few ( 2-3 ) lines, were being catered to by the railway staff. Ramudu was in one of those few which weren't. But he had not wasted time while this simple situation was being obfuscated by a gargantuan description. He had meticulously filled the reservation form and was patiently waiting.

But his patience started to run out, when he saw that he was in one of those lines. He started contemplating moving to another line. At this moment, sanity prevailed as he remembered The Golden Rule of Lines in Railway Reservation Office ( to hell with Queues ), which stated that, the moment you ditch a line on the premise that it is moving slowly and move to another, that line will move so much more faster than the line to which you have moved to. Of course, the rule never alluded to the pace of the line when you showed loyalty to it in the time of a conflict of interest between two lines, but the disincentive proved enough for Ramudu to decide against moving to another line. For this, he was rewarded with a railway staff person immediately taking charge of the counter. Poor fellow got stuck in traffic it seems.

There were a few who shifted lines only to be done in by the Golden Rule. Their counters, got staffed 2 minutes after they had left the line and they created a huge commotion at the Chief Superintendent's counter. In spite of all this around him, Ramudu was not perturbed one bit. He was in fact, feeling good about himself for having stuck to the line. It moved and it was now his turn. The B.E. , after confirming with Ramudu, entered the details in to the DOS command like package from the previous century, from the reservation form. After a final confirmation about the berth to be allocated, the B.E. pressed a combination of keys and voila, came out the ticket, looking something like this Know Your Ticket dummy ticket.

( Note that the ticket has no details about the passenger's name or the photo-id that they ought to be carrying )

Since this story was supposed to also include Shyamudu, let me bring him in now. Shyamudu wanted to accompany Ramudu, since it was his Differential GPS that Ramudu was taking for the measurement. Ramudu informed Shyamudu about his travel plans. Shyamudu was not inclined to go to the Reservation Office, stand in line and book the ticket manually. Instead, he preferred to use the Indian Railways online booking service at www.irctc.com. He logged in, searched for the train Ramudu was traveling by, entered his travel details, credit(debit) card details and photo-id details. Everything is done in a flash and a printout of the ticket is ready.For travel, Shyamudu (foolishly) decides to take a photocopy of his passport and not the passport itself, citing ( to himself ) security reasons.

The travel to Chennai went ahead without an incident. Together they found out that a barometre would hardly suffice their cause, and that they needed to invest in a differential GPS to get anywhere close to the accuracy levels they needed to settle their argument on the pitch at Chepauk. After having a nice meal at Murugan Idli Shop, they boarded the train back to Hyderabad. The TTE ( Traveling Ticket Examiner ) arrived a good hour into the journey. Ramudu gave his ticket, following which the TTE did the routine looking back forth into the reservation chart and ticket, ticked the reservation chart across Ramudu's name and returned the ticket to Ramudu with the most lifeless face. Then he took Shyamudu's e-ticket, checked with the chart and asked Shyamudu for his photo-id. Shyamudu showed the photocopy of his passport. The TTE refused to accept the photocopy of the passport, which had Shyamudu's photograph, as a valid proof of identity. He insisted on the passport being present in original for him to verify. Shyamudu was fined for traveling without ticket. What happened after that is beyond the scope of this textbook.

Finally the rant after all that crap.

I do not know whether Shyamudu actually paid the fine. As such he could have just shown another valid photo-id in original and be done with the process. But Shyamudu was a 70 year old lady who at that point of time, did not have any other id on her person. All she could come up with was a <em>this will not happen another time as I was not aware of the details</em>. Probably someone else had booked the ticket for her online.

This whole situation made me finally write what I felt about a situation. The verification of identity, for railway travelers using an e-ticket. It is important to note the premise of this verification; a ticket booked on one person's name is not transferrable to another person. Verification is needed, that is something I totally agree but what is irksome is the fact that the same verification is not done for Ramudu. Note that Ramudu needn't always be a manchi baaludu ( good boy ). It could very well be that Bhimudu had booked the ticket on Bhimudu's name but Ramudu travels ( he got the ticket somehow ) pretending to be Bhimudu.

The two basic ( for my rant ) differences between a normal ticket and an e-ticket is that for the e-ticket you pay a little bit more and that the information is keyed in by a railway employee in one case and the customer in the other. So the railway decides to trust their own info excessively but is totally skeptical about the customer. Fine. But the chances of malpractice are the same in both the cases. In that case they ought to be checking every single passenger's identity. I know it is not all that viable but that is the only solution that I see that can be termed fair to e-ticket passengers and monetarily beneficial to the Railways. One might say that it ends up being more workload for the TTE's but for someone whose job is checking every ticket, checking another ID should not be a big deal. But then not everyone has an id, you may say. Then why the insistence on an ID for an e-ticket only?

As I see it now, one gets suspected for using the online portal, paying more to the railways and avoiding the personal contact with the Reservation office whereas you can go scot-free for having a normal ticket, even if you are flouting the most basic of rules.

Il middleware svolge un ruolo cruciale per le applicazioni enterprise, permettendo di integrare i componenti dell'infrastruttura in modo affidabile, e semplificando sviluppo e gestione.
Può essere definito come lo strato software che risiede "in mezzo" alle applicazioni, uno strato intermedio che consente l'interoperabilità tra le piattaforme, i processi e le tecnologie più disparate.
All'interno dell'infrastruttura aziendale, il middleware fornisce un livello di astrazione tra i componenti e le applicazioni che vi accedono per fornire o richiedere servizi. Divenedo il cuore dell'infrastruttura, consente agli sviluppatori di concentrarsi sulla logica di business piuttosto che sulla complessità dell'accesso ai servizi e la comunicazione tra i componenti.
La sua collocazione è al di sopra delle reti ed al di sotto delle applicazioni software.

Le caratteristiche fondamentali del middleware sono:

1. Accesso: permettere di accedere a risorse locali e remote con le stesse modalità
2. Locazione: permettere di accedere alle risorse senza conoscerne la locazione
3. Concorrenza: permettere ad un insieme di processi di operare concorrentemente su risorse condivise senza interferire tra loro
4. Guasti: permettere il mascheramento dei guasti in modo che gli utenti possano completare le operazioni richieste anche se occorrono guasti hw e/o sw
5. Mobilità: permettere di spostare risorse senza influenzare le operazioni utente
6. Prestazioni: permettere di riconfigurare il sistema al variare del carico
7. Scalabilità: permettere alle applicazioni di espandersi in modo scalabile senza modificare la struttura del sistema e degli algoritmi applicativi

Esistono diverse tipologie di middleware:

• Transaction Processing Middleware: semplifica la progettazione di applicazioni che richiedono esecuzione di transazioni distribuite (TP monitors: IBM CICS, BEA TUXEDO, Transarc Encina, . . . )

• Message Oriented Middleware: supporta lo scambio di messaggi tra applicazioni distribuite attraverso le code in modalità asincrona. Esegue routing/trasformazione di messaggi e coordinamento dei processi di business (IBM WebSphere MQ, Sun ToolTalk . . . )

• Object-Oriented Middleware: è basato sull'Object Request Broker (ORB), un software che gestisce la comunicazione tra oggetti. Permette di sviluppare applicazioni ad oggetti distribuiti (Java RMI/JINI, CORBA . . . )

• Remote Procedure Calls (RPC): permette di invocare facilmente una procedura residente su di una macchina remota

• Portal: permette l'interazione tra l'utente desktop e sistemi di back-end e servizi (IBM WebSphere Portal Server, Tibco Enterprise Portal . . . )

• Database: permette l'accesso diretto alle strutture dati e prevede l'interazione diretta i database. Dispone di una grande varietà di opzioni di connettività (IBM DataJoiner, Sybase Direct Connect . . . )

My day job is a Regional Sales Co-ordinator and our office is located at harbourfront office tower. Today, to my surprise, that I had never been notice it all day long, when we were going for lunch, and I'm talking to one of my colleage, and we were standing at the escalator for quite some time.

And we realise that we were waiting for the escalator, and when we lift our head to see at the escalator in front of us, then we were saying, "Oh Mine! We were actually queueing up for the escalator!!" All of us laugh thru the way, and thinking how sad we were.

Too bad, I didn't manage to take down the photos for you. If tomorrow is still the same, I make sure I will take down the picture for you to see. And you will have the same comment as me. hahaa.

———————-

Jolin Chew

http://xiujuan80@wordpress.com

**Being The Right Person To Attract The Right People.**

In order to save all of our work rating movies and creating queues, we wrote Net::Netflix and netflix_mover, which are free and open source. This software allows you to retrieve your ratings and queue from a Netflix profile and, optionally, populate a different account with the information.

A lot of people are upset about this announcement from Netflix:

• Netflix blog
• Netflix community forum
• Ars technica
• Ars technica - user comments
  
• Twitter users
• Slashdot
• Hackingnetflix

We really hope they change their minds! Petitions: Save Netflix Profiles, Petition Online.

Further to my Blog about the strange folk who queued up to be the first to enter the new Apple Store in Sydney, the Fairfax, obsessed with all things Apple, has gone up and asked 10 people in the queue why they are such fucking geeky idiots - though not in those words.

The responses were not part of the original article.

1. Rochelle Quantock
Age: 36
From: Melbourne
Occupation: Graphic designer
Arrived at: Wednesday 8am
Reason for coming: "To allow my kids to be among the first people to walk into the Sydney Apple Store."

Jesus this is something your kids will really treasure for the rest of their lives. "Mummy we want to go to Movie World". "I have a better idea, let's spend the night outside a fucking computer store instead". You flew all the way from Melbourne for this? Fuck! Even the fact that you're a graphic designer who earns all her keep on a Mac does not excuse the fact that you're fucked in the head and should seek help and have your children taken away.

2. Moyzschya Belle
Age: 61
From: Brisbane/Hawaii
Occupation: Investor/research scientist
Arrived at: Wednesday 8.20am
Reason for coming: "Because I can - I didn't drink the kool-aid, I drank apple juice."

Stupid cunt.

3. Kenneth Nordahl
Age: 24
From: Brisbane/Norway
Occupation: IT and film student
Arrived at: Wednesday 8.45am
Reason for coming: "I'm a Mac user, I love my Macs."

I'm a Breville sandwich maker user but I don't wank off and bore every cunt about it. It's a fucking appliance, made in a factory. Would you queue up if Brevelle opened a shop? Would you? It's amazing that your parents named you Kenneth 24 years ago - they must have fucking foresaw this!

4. Gary Allen
Age: 60
From: Berkeley, California
Occupation: Magazine publisher and writer of a Mac blog dedicated to Apple stores, ifoAppleStore.com.
Arrived at: Wednesday 10.15am
Reason for coming: "Really it's about the people - to meet the people in line and also for the store employees and the Apple team; they've been really appreciative."

OK so you have an excuse because you write a blog for Apple stores - which is like saying I like to fuck and kill baby foxes because I write for fuckandkillbabyfoxes.com. Cunt.

5. Devin Allen
Age: 21
From: Berkeley, California
Occupation: Criminology student
Arrived at: Wednesday 10.15am
Reason for coming: "To meet other Mac enthusiasts. I'm here to support Apple and visit another gorgeous store - and check out Sydney."

Devin, surely your real answer is "my daddy made me do it".

6. Jason Davis
Age: 35
From: Sydney
Occupation: IT distribution
Arrived at: Wednesday 10.30am
Reason for coming: "To support the company, meet some fellow Mactalk.com.au forum members and just meet new people as well."

I'm sure that the Apple shareholders will value the support of yourself and your celleagues from your collective iWank fest. You're 35 Jason, there is a life to be had. If by chance you ever meet a woman, don't tell her you did this.

7. Mike Kaufmann
Age: 72
From: Santa Cruz, California
Occupation: Retired airline pilot
Arrived at: Wednesday 11am
Reason for coming: "Because I'm an enthusiastic Apple nut; n-u-t. 

Apple c-u-n-t more like it.

8. Anthony Agius
Age: 23
From: Melbourne
Occupation: Founder of Mactalk.com.au
Arrived at: Wednesday 2pm
Reason for coming: "To be with my fellow Mac users and to bask in the glory of the Mac church."

I hope the Mac church hands out "the kool-aid" laced with arsenic and we find you all dead on the fucking porch. You've been brainwashed by marketing hype cockhead!

9. Richard Olsen
Age: 29
From: Sydney
Occupation: Retired insurance underwriter
Arrived at: Wednesday 2.30pm
Reason for coming: "I came to buy a Macbook - I wasn't going to come originally but then I thought, no, bugger it, it looks like a lot of fun."

You're 29 and retired? Retired from life in general I'd say Richard. I guess that's why you have the time to queue up all night to buy a laptop which you could have got from Harvey Norman. 

10. Gavin Hughes
Age: 30
From: Sydney
Occupation: Unemployed
Arrived at: Wednesday 4pm
Reason for coming: "I don't truly know why I'm here but I'm glad I've been here because I've met some truly wonderful people."

Judging by your occupation Gavin I'm guessing these fuckers have taken your usual sleeping spot.

Why couldn't any of these peopkle be honest and say Apple actually paid them to queue up out front so the opening of their wanky store can get news coverage.