A take on 2008...

So I have not blogged for the 2-3 months now... That consistently keeps going the other way of my resolution to blog more frequently. Twitter has not helped either - http://twitter.com/arnab_deka

I find that twitter adequately satisfies my urge to burp out bits of info effectively... and thousands of other excuses... So lets stop that thread right there and concentrate on how the year was instead.

At the start of the year, I had just moved into a new city. Another 2000-3000 miles away from home. And at least another 1500 miles away from anyone I could call a friend with an honest face (so that takes out Social Networking Online pals). Agreed I knew Diganta (from college) here - and he was a cool guy to hang with. But he lived in Bellevue (10 miles from Seattle) - I did not have a car and we probably met once in 2 weeks. And he moved back to India in Feb! I had moved from the safety and security of an Indian company into an entirely different kind of organization (I moved from Infosys to Amazon.com in Dec/Jan).

Looking back - it wasn't a such a bad decision after all -

1) By now I have made a group of good friends - ok - you can't make college buddies after starting work - but these are a cool bunch of guys. Apart from other things, playing cricket with this lot will be a memory to treasure. The feeling of doing consistently good in a sport is cool (our team, Eagles, finished 3rd in the Cricket league this year - and got promoted to the next division for the next season starting in Feb. And (to a bit of my surprize) I did really well!

2) No regrets about my job - actually with each passing day, I am liking it more and more. I think Amazon and the bunch of incredible enginners have opened me up to a new world. I always knew I loved tech - but not how much. It is definitely an experience to work in such an energetic company and work with such geeky (no offense at all) brilliant people.

3) Got exposed to Ruby! For me, getting exposed to Ruby was by pure chance. The group that I joined was heavily into Ruby and was probably in a handful of Ruby-pro teams in the company at that time. I was open to experiencing a new technology while joining but did not know that it will change how I think about programming. Ruby is now mainstream and by no means I am an early adopter - but I am thankful that I joined the boat early. I was thrilled when I had started to play with Java and all the cool stuff with it (Unit testing, Continous build/integration etc.) - but Ruby has fundamentally changed the way I think about Programming. It is a joy for me now - I think I am a better coder now and I am making the right moves in my career.

4) And most of all - I met this beautiful person - Ujwala. If there is such a thing, she definitely fits me! And the happiness is doubled when she also gives back as much as you do... (We are getting married in summer'09)

I could probably come up with a few other things - but these are the highlights. So, all in all, not a bad year at all. In fact, it could be the turning point of my career/life - time will tell when I revisit this in 5/10/15 years from now!

So -signing off on 2008 for now!

Heights of e-tailing

I was not a big fan of online shopping till recently - I needed to see and feel the product before buying it. Then I joined the world's biggest e-tailer (and I have to say with pride that e-tailing is not the only thing Amazon is doing well - see wikipedia to know what I mean)... and that need to see and feel the products has magically disappeared. Oh, the employee discount helped - and did I mention I am a prime member now? (which means free 2-day shipping) :-)

Anyway. I am moving to my new rented apartment tomorrow and went to Ikea today to get some stuff (Bed frames etc. TV stand, some furniture)... and figured out that it's a time-consuming clumsily organized (or maybe I don't have enough interest and/or intellect to SPEND at shopping. No pun intended. Oh, BTW, are you a typical gal? hmmm... I really did not mean any pun).

Another anyway... :-) I am observing that I am digressing too much today (maybe it's the shopping)... ooh there I go again...

Anyway anyway, so I figured that Ikea will take up-to 2 weeks to deliver the stuff to me. And the bed or the book shelve might be in like, umm, 72 pieces, which I have to install myself... So when Amazon does the same (I mean 72 piec-ed thingys that I have to install myself) why don't I go for it (with a free 2 day shipping and discounts on everything?)

So yeah I decided to do that - I am like, 10% done now and am tired (I don't know how you girls do this). So here I am taking a recreational break... Do check out my effort here - mind you, it's ongoing.

Anyway. ummm I know I have said this enough times now - no more, I promise. So I made a list of things I think I need and started researching for the cheapest and the best (if there ever is such a thing) on Amazon. Of course Amazon's "People who bought this also bought these..." does make my efforts longer and more interesting. Like I needed up checking at least 57 different types of bathroom floor mats.

(Ok I won't say any more anyways right). So... :-)
Pretty soon I was checking adding unbelievable things into my shopping list. Like TPs - yes Toilet Papers. Online. One year ago I would not have believed myself.

I know that there are amazingly hilarious things you can buy at Amazon: like, Uranium Ore!!!
But something absolutely made me laugh like mad - Comments about Toilet Papers. Yes people actually write reviews about TPs. Some people actually laugh while writing them (oh is that kinda like me? I am laughing while buying it - just one step away now :-))

Check out some - you'll know what I mean... Lemme quote just one line: "Sure, this bath tissue isn't going to be the softest you'll ever find--but it does a great job"

Go and read them if you need a good hard laugh!!! :-)

Seattle and the Rain!!!

Ok it really does not rain that much here - but it's overcast most of the time. And drizzling... yada yada yada... But statically it's less than LA, NYC, Miami and most eastern-seaboard cities.

However - "RAIN" is a big part of of Seattle life (It's not called Rainy City for nothing! That reminds me - it's also called Emerald City - but I haven't seen any lying around yet)...

Anyway so much so that our intranet has a full wiki devoted to jokes on Seattle and Rain (which is not a big surprize since the Amazon intranet, rather wiki, is full of, ummm, ANYTHING - from comparisons on Grocery Stores to Even-Horizons/Black-holes and to some really good tech material).

This page has a load of jokes - here are my top three:



#3 You can apply the old Mt. Rainer forecasting guide.

1. If you can see Mt. Rainier it isn't raining but it will be soon.
2. If you can't see Mt. Rainer, it is raining, and if not on your head, it will be shortly!

(Mt. Rainier is a range of mountains to the SW of Seattle - there are 2 other ranges, Olympics and Cascades surrounding Seattle - hence the rain!!! Go read up on Seattle in wikipedia)



#2 "I can't believe it," said the tourist. "I've been here an entire week and it's done nothing but rain. When do you have summer here?"

"Well, that's hard to say," replied the local. "Last year, it was on a Wednesday."




#1 A newcomer to Seattle arrives on a rainy day. He gets up the next day and it's raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that. He goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and asks out of despair, "Hey kid, does it ever stop raining around here?" The kid says, "How do I know? I'm only 6."

Betting on weather

There was the Amazon Developer Conference last 2 days (Jan 16th and 17th ' 2008) - it's yearly event... Among others was Tim O'Reilly presenting "The O'Reilly Radar" - basically talking about the new things in the internet/tech space!!!

I hope to write more about it and the other talks... but before that I have to tell you about this idea that I loved a lot: www.weatherbill.com

This thing startled me... It's like an insurance on weather... on top of that... you can bet on the weather and if you win they pay you!!!
Go to the site and try the quoting thing. You put a condition (like I am saying it's going to snow above 5 inches each day between 1/27 and 1/29 at Zip Code 07310 - if that happens you pay me $10 a day!!!)

Now it takes your details and uses its own weather predicting algorithm (at the minimum I would assume it to be very very complicated) and gives you a quote - you buy that quote and if it really snows above 5 inches each day in that period you get paid)... I am sure you got the analogy - it's like an Option - but on weather!!!

That and much more - go to the site and read blogs about it!!!

BTW: Started by an ex-google guy... :-)

More to come - watch this space...