Hashemian Blog

NYC Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:43:00 +0000

What a nice day to be a part of the biggest marathon event in the world. Only thing is that I wasn't there. I did register for the New York City Marathon a few months ago but I was in the pool of some 60 thousand people who were turned down. No hard feelings though. I know there's a limit on how many people are allowed in and managing 40 thousand runners is a no small feat.

So in sympathy, I decided to run a mini-marathon of my own in my own hometown today and I logged 16+ enjoyable miles. Ok, I admit that running solo on back roads isn't exactly like being a part of a big event, but for me the fun is just the same, maybe even more.

With the solo runs there are no rules and no crowds. It's just me and the road. I get to choose the time, the distance, and the routes, and I can change them as I go along. There's definitely something liberating about setting your own rules and it costs nothing. The challenge, the therapeutic effect, and the satisfaction of finishing the course are still there. No, there are no official times, no like-minded people to hang with, no medals and no parties at the end. But for me running means a lot more than that.

How many activities can give one that kind of return with a pair of sneakers and a road? And as for the NYC marathon, maybe next year. Meanwhile, congrats to all of today's participants.

marathon,nyc marathon,running

Chrome Wishes

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:22:00 +0000

For a creature of habit like me it was a difficult move, but I have finally migrated from Internet Explorer v6 (IE6), and not just to v7 or v8. As long as I was making a leap, I went out on a limb and started using Google's browser, Chrome. While occasionally I find myself back on IE6 for a few sites, Chrome has become my default surfing window into the world wide web.

Chrome comes in 3 flavors, known as channels, Stable, Beta, and Dev. I took the middle ground and settled on the Beta channel, what I would call the Goldilocks version, not too safe but not too risky. For the most part I like this browser and as new versions go online and are automatically downloaded, it just keeps growing on me.

Chrome is fast and clean. It launches much quicker than IE or Firefox and it has an impressive response time, specially for the Web 2.0'ish pages that seem to be everywhere these days. And the so-called omnibox (combined search and URL bar) is an ingenious feature. But for all of its goodness, there are still a few areas that it falls short. Here are my top 3 pet peeves with Chrome:

• View source - Like other browsers, Chrome does allow one to view the HTML source of a page but not correctly after a form is submitted. This still stymies me at times, until I realize that when viewing page source, Chrome appears to make a fresh request to the URL rather than just display the current content. This results in displaying source code that is inconsistent with the page that's resulted from a POST operation, such as a form submission. This bug needs to be fixed.

• Image properties – Just about all browsers allow users to get the properties of an image (URL, size, dimensions, etc.), generally via a right-click and selecting "Properties". There's no such capability in Chrome. The "Inspect Element" menu item just loads the page source and positions the cursor at the declaration of the image tag. Hardly helpful for obtaining image properties.

• Referrer settings – This one can be generalized into allowing users to tweak low-level browser features. Chrome has a number of nice commands like about:memory and about:dns, but where is about:config, as in Firefox? One of the browser features I like to disable is the Referrer. I know this could lead to some usability issues on some sites, but I despise giving sites any information about myself including where I'm arriving from. Chrome doesn't allow any such tweaks, but it should.

Ok, I know Chrome's source code is out there and I could edit and recompile, but really I'm not that desperate :)

chrome,browsers,google,ie,firefox

Arizona Not-Quite Hiking

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:26:00 +0000

Last week I was at the Astricon show in Glendale, Arizona (near Phoenix), running the registration system. Not being one to pass up a chance for hiking, I had arranged to stay an extra day to hike the White Tank mountains. There was one problem though, I didn't have transportation to the park.

After some thought I hatched what I thought was a good plan, getting there on a mountain bike. The plan was to pedal about 15 miles from the hotel to the trailhead, hike one of the trails (about 8 miles) and then return on the bike and finally donate the bike to a charity before flying back home.

Getting the bike was the easy part. I bought a relatively cheap one from a nearby Wal-Mart and after making sure that it was road-worthy I had the hotel store it for me until later. By the way, being on a bike brought back some good memories of my childhood and that feeling of freedom one gets on a bike.

On the day of the hike I stocked my backpack with water and food and I was on the road by 7 AM. It was predicted to be a hot day but at that time the desert air was still relatively cool and pleasant. As I biked my way closer to the park, I started to hear the thunderous sounds of fighter jets, apparently from training flights at the nearby Luke Air Force Base. By then I had biked nearly 8 miles and decided to pull over the side of the road for a quick drink of water and some food. That's about the time when my plan unraveled.

As I got ready to jump back on the bike and pedal away, I noticed that the front tire had gone flat. On closer inspection, I saw that the inner tube had slipped out and wrapped tightly around the front brakes. It was a hopeless situation. Even if could untangle the mess, and even if the tube was undamaged, I had no air pump to bring the tire back to life, and I was in the middle of nowhere.

Standing by the side of the road and considering my options, it quickly became apparent that I really had no options. I had to scrub the plan and started the journey back to the hotel on foot, leaving the bike behind.

Sometimes you have to see the good side of an adverse event. While disappointed that I couldn't make the planned trek, I was treated to a decent air show with the fighter jets buzzing overhead, and sometimes flying low in tight formation. And instead of hiking the park, I ended up hiking by the roadside in the desert heat all the way back to the hotel. At least I had enough water.

Plans sometimes fail. I might have mitigated the problem had I brought an air pump along, but no point dwelling on that. The way I see it, I got a good aerial show and still had a decent hike. And if I make it back to this place, I'll be sure to be more prepared, at least for a flat tire.

The hapless bike with the inner tube tangled

looking back at the forlorn bike and the unhiked mountains just beyond

arizona,hiking,biking,fighter jets

2009 Hartford Half Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:06:00 +0000

Seems like it was only a few days ago since I ran my last half marathon. Well, it actually was only a few days ago, and I found myself running another one this past Saturday, the ING Hartford Half Marathon. Actually this is really a marathon race but it incorporates a half marathon as well as a 5-K races.

For me this was the first time that I was in a relatively major city running event. It felt quite different than my hometown's half marathon. There were a lot more runners, more spectators, more sponsors and it had a festival feel to it. Also the entry fees were higher. The organizers had done an impressive job managing the event. From street closures, to security, to feeding runners after the event, everything ran smoothly as far as I could tell. It was also the first time that my time was measured by a sensor on my shoe rather than the finish-line clock.

I'm sure the city of Hartford gets some good business and recognition from the race. I've lived in Connecticut for over 25 years and this was the first time I actually got the chance to walk around the capital and see it up close. It has a lot of history and culture to offer.

Aside from all the fun and festivities, Hartford had the good omen for me to set a personal record of 1:53:53 (8:42/min pace) for the half marathon. A good friend who was also running the half marathon set his own personal record in this race. Results here.

For me nothing can replace the fun of running in my own hometown, but Hartford proved itself to be a great enough venue for me to be looking forward to next year's race. Who knows, by then I may finally be mentally ready for a full marathon.

marathon,half-marathon,running,racing,hartford,connecticut,ridgefield

Half Marathon

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:11:00 +0000

Yesterday I ran the annual half marathon in my hometown of Ridgefield, Connecticut. It was the second time for me running a race after my herniated disc injury nearly 2 years ago and rather unexpectedly I did better than last year.

My results came in at 1:55:15 which made it a 8:48/mile pace. That's my second best time in the past 5 years running the race and it's nearly 20 minutes shorter than my last attempt.

I can't say if I owe the better results to a more recovered back, or perhaps just a psychological inducement as I move further away from the date of my injury. Of course a herniated disc will never heal and I still suffer some of the symptoms like pain and tingling. That’s something I'm always aware of.

I hadn't trained at all for this upcoming event, but I had been going on longer runs on nicer days and I'm sure the extra distance also gave me the extra boost. The weather also helped. While humid and warm, it wasn't uncomfortable. I did have to slow the pace a bit on some of the uphill sections but never down to a walk. Still I was surprised as I got to the finish line and saw the clock under 2 hours. I'll see how I'll do on my next half marathon race, a mere 4 days away.

Ok, enough about me. The winner of the race was a 39-year-old Kenyan native. Not much surprise there. When I Googled his name, I landed on a few articles describing how African runners arrive in the US, fan out, and make a living running (and winning) in various local races. It seems that some people are miffed at this practice, citing unfairness. Mind you, the African runners are career athletes, some of the best, even in their own native countries, with the physique, genes, and time for training only a few could match.

Of course for me, who would never even get close to their levels of proficiency, it doesn't really matter, but it could dissuade some of the locals from participating and that could hurt the events. I can understand both sides, but as long as no performance enhancing drugs are involved, I can't argue against it.

running,jogging,marathon,

From Pandora to Slacker

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:09:00 +0000

So finally the 40-hour free listening limit per month on Pandora caught up with me. I had expected it already but still when it happened, I started to think about ways of wiggling out of paying the $1 for the remainder of the month or the $36 annual fee.

It's not so much about the money. I know nothing is free, but having grown up on FM radio I pay my dues by listening to commercials, not cracking open the wallet. In the end I opted to give Slacker a try. I chose the classic rock station and so far I'm impressed. The music is good and there is good variety. There are more commercials than Pandora, but I don't mind that.

Being a loyal kind of a person, I didn't make the switch lightly. I'd been listening to Pandora for over a year after switching from the Launchcast service by Yahoo. I had Pandora trained pretty well to play my kind of music, and recently I had noticed that Pandora was playing more variety which was a good thing.

I realize that Pandora has done its best to strike a balance between keeping its audience and paying its dues to the music industry, but in the end I decided that Slacker was a better option for me. I hope Slacker can continue with its current model to keep the music free and support itself on commercials. Maybe some day Pandora can do the same and win back some of the defectors, but for now it's goodbye to Pandora and hello to Slacker.

music,pandora,slacker

Iran Kidney Trade

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:47:00 +0000

I already knew that Iran is the only country in the world where the sale of the kidney is not only legal, but government sanctioned and subsidized. When I sat behind my desk to watch the documentary, Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale, I already knew what to expect - sort of.

There were 2 things that affected me quite deeply:
1- The human faces and stories behind the kidney trades.
2- The tough ethical and moral questions that creep up on the viewer.

Here you have two desperate and nearly hopeless people, each clinging to the hope that the other party can resolve their devastating problem. One gripped with such destitute that has decided to sell a vital organ, the other in urgent need of a kidney to regain a semblance of a normal life.

As I watched the movie, I kept wavering between siding with the donor and the recipient. I would condemn the Iranian government for allowing the kidney trade, only to condone it a few moments later.

This is not a simple black and white matter. It's one big gray area. Is it fair for people to sell their kidneys for as little as $3,000? Is it fair that potential recipients continue to haggle over price, as if buying a car? And yet, is it fair that some of the lives saved could have been lost without this trade? Or perhaps barring the legal trade, unscrupulous black market operators abuse and intimidate potential donors at their most vulnerable times, the way it's done in India or Pakistan?

To be fair, the government does seem to have strict policies in regards to who can donate and who can receive a kidney. Among the rules, they must both be Iranian citizens (eliminating potential abuse by wealthy foreigners) and they must pass rigorous medical exams to qualify for the procedure.

I would imagine that the little money the donors receive could hardly resolve their problems. In most cases they would be back at their original financial position, minus a healthy kidney. The recipients seem to benefit the most from the trade, that is if the transplants are successful.

In the end I still couldn't make up my mind on whether allowing this practice was ethical. Given all the parameters, I think the kidney trade in Iran is somewhat beneficial to the society, because it does assist in saving lives. Not just the lives of the recipients, but also the lives of the donors who would otherwise be at the mercy of the black market operators.

Then again my opinion couldn't possibly carry that much weight, since I haven't walked in the shoes of the people on either side of the kidney trade.

kidney transplant,iran,laws

The Bridge

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:32:00 +0000

I'd heard about the documentary movie, The Bridge, and always wanted to see it. Thanks to Hulu I got to watch it last night.

Based on what I had read, the producers had set up cameras around the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, filming for the entire year of 2004. The intention was to capture jumpers. Of course they hadn't mentioned that detail on their permit application.

The movie tells the stories of a few jumpers that succumbed to their deaths and one that actually survived the fall. Shots from their attempt is interspersed with interviews with families and friends. It's a powerful commentary on human frailties and struggles.

Possessing a dark side of my own, I can understand why some people may decide to end their lives. What I don't understand is how their logic and reason is so completely circumvented. I must assume that for the jumpers all hope was lost and despair dominated their lives completely. What was striking is that most were young and healthy. I can understand (and support) the desire to die from an elderly patient stricken with a terminal disease, but these people had many chances to turn things around. Time was firmly on their side.

I don't know, who am I to judge? Maybe we make too much of a big deal of life and living. We're all destined to be recycled anyways.

May they rest in peace.

golden gate,san francisco,suicide

Fantasy Home

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:40:00 +0000

If you are not familiar with New Canaan, Connecticut, it's an exclusive, plush town in Fairfield county where a million-dollar home is considered cheap. The movie, The Stepford Wives, was filmed there.

I work in a city adjacent to New Canaan and sometimes browse the listings to see what I can't afford. A couple of weeks ago I saw this listing (depicted below) for $20,000 that almost made me jump out of my seat and call the broker.

Good thing I didn't, because the house is only the size of a small room (160 square feet). But it does come with 99 bedrooms and 99 full bathrooms! I decided that it wasn't worth my time inquiring. obviously the house was made for mice. If only it came with 99 garages :)

housing,new canaan,real estate

Mexico Top Level Domain (.MX)

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:14:00 +0000

Today I happened to see that Go Daddy is offering the .mx TLD which happens to be assigned to Mexico. Based on what I read the .mx TLD had been restricted to addresses within Mexico up until recently and now they have decided to open it up for international registration - for $210 per year? Altruistic? Hardly. I bet they're hurting for cash and that's the real reason behind this scam.

Are you kidding? $210 annual fee for an .mx domain? No thanks. Unless there is very compelling reason to own an .mx domain, such as a conglomerate trying to establish itself south of the border, I see no reason why anyone would pay such an outrageous sum for it.

There are plenty of other TLD's around to choose from at much lower prices and more are on the way. Why throw good money away?

mexico,domains,tld

Virgin America

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:40:00 +0000

I flew Virgin America for the first time on a trip to LA last week and I was thrilled with the experience. It doesn't take much to make me a happy flier. A little in-flight entertainment, decent seats, and a clean plane is enough for me. I got all of those on Virgin America. Sort of like JetBlue with a bit of European flare.

Even the safety instructions were pretty entertaining. Richard Branson also makes a cameo cartoon appearance peddling the Gogo in-flight wireless service (it's fee-based like everything else.) He made a humorous reference that made me do a double-take. Did he really say that? I don't remember the exact words but it was something like

… because everything is better at 35,000 feet. Uh, wait, what are we trying to say, like a mile-high club? …

Conservative-minded passengers probably weren't amused, but it made me laugh. I didn't even bother with the TV on the return flight. There was enough selection of classic rock, alternative, and blues music to keep me listening the whole way back. If only the traditional airlines could learn a thing or two from Virgin America.

virgin america,airlines,richard branson

San Gorgonio Wilderness

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:19:00 +0000

I never thought I would find anything likeable about Los Angeles, until last week when I discovered the San Gorgonio Wilderness. Ok, this is really about an hour drive outside Los Angeles, but hard to believe an area so beautiful is near the smog city.

The San Gorgonio Wilderness is situated in the San Bernardino National Forest and it shares its name with Mt. San Gorgonio, rising from the south of the Wilderness and the tallest peak in southern California.

As I was visiting my sister in the area, we decided to hike the South Fork trail, one of the many trails in this wilderness. The trailhead with a large parking lot is already at 6,000 feet or so, but the to reach the summit at 11,500 feet, one must still hike about 9 miles and it's a relentless climb the whole way.

Since we had started the hike late (around noon) we knew that reaching the summit wasn't in the cards, but we managed to hike up about 6 miles before turning around to beat the dusk. According to some info I had read, South Fork is supposed to be the most popular trail from the group. I had dreaded running into big crowds, but surprisingly people were sparse, giving us a peaceful and serene hiking experience, being greeted with one splendid scenery after another.

The only excitement we had was spotting a black bear after we were about 2 miles into the trail. Not accustomed to seeing bears roaming freely, we were startled and decided to quietly retreat. After collecting our nerves we returned and fortunately the bear was nowhere in sight. Apparently we were the only ones who saw this magnificent animal.

As we wrapped up the hike, we vowed to return to this place and possibly the same trail, this time with the intention of reaching Mt. San Gorgonio's summit. Of course that requires a bit of will power to rise early to stretch our available daylight hours. Considering the reward, that shouldn't be an issue.

If you are in the area and want to give the San Gorgonio Wilderness a try, you'd need to obtain an adventure pass and a separate wilderness pass prior to visiting the area. While it's an inconvenience, these permits directly fund preservation projects and they are used to control the flow of the crowds in an area where open space is such a rare and fragile commodity.

hiking,california,national forests,los angeles

Oracle and Bing

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Oracle has already bagged the U.S. regulatory approval to acquire Sun. If the Europeans go along as well, Sun will become a part of Oracle by September. That means Oracle will also own Java, the popular open source programming language used widely on the Web.

Today while installing a Java upgrade I was presented with an option to install the Bing toolbar. As you know Bing is the much hyped search engine by Microsoft. As you also know, Oracle and Microsoft are rivals in several industries, the biggest one being the database industry. That will just get bigger when Oracle takes control of MySQL (also owned by Sun.)

I wonder if Java users will still be given the Bing option after Oracle acquires Sun. Then again Sun and Microsoft were themselves pretty big rivals until a few years ago. Passage of time makes strange bedfellows.

bing,java,microsoft,sun,oracle,mysql

Google Chrome View Source Bug

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:23:00 +0000

Many web designers and developers use the "View Source" feature of browsers to check the HTML data behind a Web page. It's perhaps one of most basic debugging tools that has been a part of every browser since the beginning. The Chrome browser by Google is no exception and it also has the "View Source" feature, but as I found out recently, it doesn't work quite as expected.

In general, When a POST request is issued to a URL (for example when a web form is submitted), the content returned is usually different from the original GET request (when the page is accessed the first time.) If "View Source" is selected, all browsers show the source of the currently displaying content, regardless of the request type. That is, all browsers but Chrome.

Apparently Chrome developers have decided to show the source of the page as if it was accessed the first time (GET request). I noticed this when diagnosing a web form submission issue. On Chrome the page source didn't match the content of the submitted page being displayed. That puzzled me for a while before I discovered the glitch.

This bug hasn’t gone unnoticed by others, as evident by this post. What's strange is that Google hasn't done anything about it so far, even in their latest beta release of Chrome. So for the time being the solution is to use another browser like Firefox or IE.

chrome,google,browsers,html,firefox,ie

Stock Market – Back to Greed?

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:28:00 +0000

For those of us who held on to our 401(k) investments and stuck to our contributions even as the market was plummeting, the rewards are nearly at hand. Looking at my 401(k) balance I was pleased to see a bit of life back in it.

The stock market is still off its highs (for NASDAQ you’d have to go back a decade to the tech bubble era), but it has made sizeable gains in a rather short time and that is cause for a bit of concern.

Many, including bank and insurance stocks, have quadrupled or quintupled in a short few months. Look are Citibank, Bank of America, or AIG. Ford is going for $8 per share now; it was barely over $1 in March. That is just not normal.

Now one could argue that the market is just correcting an extreme oversold condition that occurred a few months ago as a result of extreme fear. Maybe so, but a pendulum swings both ways and we may now be looking at extreme greed and we know where that leads to.

stock market

Neuschwanstein Castle

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:59:00 +0000

If you ever find yourself in Bavaria, southern Germany, one of the attractions you won't want to miss is the Neuschwanstein castle. The castle was built in the late 1800 by King Ludwig II but its design was borrowed from the splendid castles of the medieval period.

What makes the Neuschwanstein castle a popular destination is its amazing location, perched on a hill at the base of the Alps mountains, its enormous size, and its majestic design. It seems like the king spared no expense in making sure that the castle was grand in its splendor and beauty, bringing it to the top of its class among its peers.

Being a private king, the castle was off-limits to the public, but after the king's death it was opened for all to come and admire the structure.

That's why on a recent visit to Bavaria, I put the castle in my list of places to visit and it didn't disappoint. The castle is about a 2-hour car trip from Munich. Once we reached the town of Fussen, we just followed the signs to the location. There's ample parking at the base and the castle is about a half hour walk up. There are also horse-drawn carriages that can take people up the hill for a nominal fee. Parts of the castle are off-limits but visitors can still wander about the grounds as they try to imagine what living in such a structure must have been liked. There are also guided tours inside the castle in English and German.

With its combination of history, natural surroundings, and architectural beauty, the Neuschwanstein castle is a treasure well worth a trip to experience.

Neuschwanstein,germany,bavaria

Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fees

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:02:00 +0000

This is probably old news to some but it came as a surprise to me. As I have done so for many years, I booked a flight online with a foreign carrier with offices in the US and made a credit card payment in US Dollars. About a month later I got slapped with an unexplained foreign transaction fee. After some inquiry I was told that my credit card was charged in an overseas location, probably the airline's headquarters in their native country, and per new rules I had to pay this fee even though the amount charged was in US Dollars.

Credit card companies have gotten real sneaky with their fees these days. In today's global economy when you make a purchase using a credit card, you can't be sure where, geographically speaking, your card may be charged. In my case, the order was probably routed to the carrier's datacenter in their native country. In past this was of no consequence as long as the amount was in US Dollars. But now the greedy credit card companies have decided to tack on additional fees for these cases.

Something to be careful about the next time you make a purchase. The price you pay may not be the final price. What's next? Charging fees if you use your card outside your hometown? Seems silly, but nothing is beyond these shady companies when it comes to helping themselves to your hard-earned money. So much for the consumer protection laws.

credit cards,credit card fees

Pandora Starts Charging

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:52:00 +0000

In case you don't know who or what Pandora is, it's a music Web site that learns about your taste as you tag or rate the songs it plays, so after a while it ends up playing mostly what you like.

Pandora's algorithm is decent but far from perfect and sometimes it tries to please too much by sticking to a tight list of songs, so there are the occasional repeats. But that's fine, since the best thing about Pandora is that it's free.

But we always knew the good times wouldn't last. Last year there were a couple of emails indicating that they were haggling with the music industry on licensing issues, basically over money.

Tonight came the email outlining the results of their negotiations. It was what I had expected. Users now get 40 free hours of listening every month. If they want more, they are charged $0.99 for the remainder of each month. Or they can pay $36/year for unlimited listening.

I guess for now I'll take the 40 hours and maybe go without for the remainder of every month. The $0.99 isn't such a bad deal either, but obviously it won't last either. My feeling is that after a couple of years Pandora will phase that out and just go to a flat-fee subscription service.

No, I don't like this at all, but I try to see it from the other side's perspective. The music industry is evil, but someone must pay all the people that make their living off music, from the artists down to the janitors who shine the studio floors. Pandora deserves to make some money too, as the radio stations do. But their advertising model just doesn't command the same earnings as radio. I guess radio stations have a more targeted and captive audience.

So for now the burden of keeping Pandora alive has fallen on the listeners' shoulders. I sure hope they make it through and don't go belly up. I've grown rather accustomed to listening to it while at work.

pandora,online music,music,music industry,riaa

Google Translate, Persian

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Google Translate has been around for some time. you paste in a block of text or a URL, set the source and target languages and off it goes, translating.

Aside from the omnipresent Spanish, German, and French translations, Google had been steadily adding other languages to its list, save one, Persian (known as Farsi in Persian language,) until now.

It's a well-known fact that Iranians are one of the most active Internet users in the world, certainly far and above the others in Middle East. That is more noteworthy given the censorship and restrictions by the government. I wonder what the activity level would be if people are given complete freedom of expression. Then again, it may just be the political situation that has given rise to the Internet-savvy generation who has been pushed into harnessing technology for its causes, but I digress.

It seems that the interest surrounding the post-election turmoil in Iran finally pushed Google into adding Persian to the list of their languages. They should have done it a long time ago, but better late than never.

The Persian translation page is in alpha mode (read, crude), but it's a good start. Being fluent in Persian, I tried the translator for a number of sites and text-passages, and I give it a barely passing grade translating to and from English. In most cases it was coherent enough to get the main concepts across. Of course, translation technologies as a whole still have a long way to go, and they may never reach human proficiency.

As an example, this Persian sentence:
با گوگل ترجمه فارسی در حال حاضر ، شما دیگر باید با دوستانم تماس فارسی تبلیغ خود را به دولت ایران را برای شما ترجمه :)

is translated from:
With Google translating Persian now, you no longer need to call your Persian friends to translate Iranian government propaganda for you :)

Not exactly a perfect translation.

Here's the Persian translation of this blog's home page.

google,translation,google translate,persian,farsi,iran,language translation

Amazon Vs. Internet Sales Tax

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:05:00 +0000

As an Amazon Associate (you can see the banners even on this page), I have been following the spat between Amazon and the cash-strapped states that are legislating Internet sales taxes.

The states argue that Amazon Associates in their jurisdictions are tantamount to company branches constituting presence and therefore any sales made to their residents are subject to state sales taxes. Amazon counters that associates do not add up to physical presence and therefore it should not be required to collect sales taxes on behalf of those states.

To put its money where its mouth is, Amazon has terminated its relationship with affiliates in North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Hawaii and has vowed to do the same in other states where such laws are passed. California, for example, is one such state that Amazon could axe its associates if the state decides to go through with an online sales tax law.

Admitting bias in this debate, I think Amazon is right and the states are being short-sighted for something that doesn't amount to much money anyways. By pushing Amazon and others into terminating their resident associates, not only would they lose potential sales tax dollars, but they would financially harm their own residents who would most likely spend their earnings in their own states as well as pay income tax on their Amazon earnings.

Online affiliates should be considered nothing more than advertising vehicles. If a company places an advertising in a state's newspaper, that doesn't constitute presence. A Web page is just like any other publication, the only difference being that it's online.

There are other factors that complicate matters even more. What if the Web servers used by an associate are housed in a state different than the associate's residence? Suddenly that state may want a piece of the sales taxes too. What if an associate has a second home in another state where weekends are spent tweaking the Web site?

In the end, if many states succeed in passing Internet sales tax laws, Amazon will most likely pull the plug on its associates program completely. Or it may decide to only work with associates from a handful of states that are too lucrative to walk away from. That may be bad for Amazon, but it's even worse for those states that would in fact cut off their residents from a source of income, possibly forfeiting tax earnings to other states who may be wise enough not to pass such laws and, as the result, harm their residents and ultimately themselves in the process.

amazon,sales tax,income tax,internet sales tax,amazon affiliates,

Cell Phone Tax

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:29:00 +0000

Saw this article the other day that makes one wonder how desperate the government must be. Seems like if you have a company-issued cell phone and you use it for anything personal, the value of that use should be reported as income to be taxed.

So guess if I'm in the office and scribble a personal note on a piece of paper, check email, get water from the cooler or coffee from the pot, or have lunch at my desk while surfing the Web, I should pay taxes on the value of all these.

I wonder if Google employees pay taxes on all the extra benefits they receive from the company, like free food and gym.

Anyways, I don't need to worry about the cell phone tax. I don't have a cell phone nor do I want one.

irs,income tax,cell phones

Google or Bing

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:03:00 +0000

Microsoft is nothing if not persistent. Last week the company unveiled the latest incarnation of its search engine called Bing. I don't know, but this is probably the 5th iteration of the company's attempt to force itself onto the psyche of the net searchers.

You've got to give Microsoft credit for trying. Squeezed by the champion, Google, on one side and the runner-up, Yahoo, on the other, Microsoft keeps on trying and trying and trying. So far they have yet to chip away at the search market share in a meaningful way and this latest salvo, as far as I can tell, is far from impressive.

Bing looks sleek for sure but it's so obvious that the underlying engine is the same old algorithm as before. Adding a nice graphic and a bunch of bells and whistles is well and good, but winning converts is another story. To be fair, I tried Bing for a little while, only to slide right back into Google's arms. Don't blame me for being faithful to Google. You did it too. But it's not blind faith. Google still produces much more relevant results without the Web 2.0 trickery, and at the end of day the one that produces higher quality at the same price wins the eyeballs.

What really surprised me was when I plugged the terms "search engine" into Google. Google's own site was nowhere to be found in the results page. The top 3 results were AltaVista, Dogpile, and Ask.com. Does anyone really use these search engines anymore? Over on the right-hand side where Google displays sponsored ads, Bing was at the top of the list.

It appears that even Google is excited about Microsoft's new search engine, if only to charge them a premium for a top sponsorship spot. It's almost like Google is saying, "who, me worry?"

google,microsoft,bing,search engines,yahoo

Robocopy Slow on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:20:00 +0000

A few years ago when I needed to synchronize large collection of files for a number of Windows Server 2003 hosts I stumbled upon a Windows Resource Kit utility named Robocopy. This is a great file synchronization tool with lots of switches that can quickly copy entire folders from one Windows host to another along with their NTFS data such as dates and security details, yielding exact duplicates.

There are a number of tools on the market that can do the job, but Robocopy is free, fast, and easy to use. I had a number of hosts auto-synchronized using Robocopy in scheduled tasks and they worked admirably without any hassles. It's one of those set-it-and-forget-it utilities that once configured, it doesn't need any further attention.

Apparently Robocopy was such a useful tool that Microsoft decided to bundle it with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. There's even a GUI interface for it for those less inclined to run it from a command prompt. The newer bundled version may have a few extra switches but is otherwise almost identical to the previous versions that were part of the Resource Kit. There's also one more difference that is perhaps less noticeable. It runs substantially slower that the past versions.

I discovered the performance issue today while doing a routine check on the scheduled tasks I had configured for our newer Windows Server 2008 hosts. It appeared that the Robocopy tasks I had set up on the new servers were taking considerably longer time to finish than comparable tasks configured on Windows Server 2003 hosts. The copy operations were still being performed flawlessly but the completion times were drastically longer, specially for servers with large numbers of folders and files.

I spent a number of hours investigating this issue on multiple servers. I took various measurements, tweaked networking parameters, and used various Robocopy switches and values, but no matter what I did the performance issue kept persisting.

The Solution
Out of options and with no solutions at hand, I made one final attempt that I hadn't thought of before. I copied an older version of Robocopy (a version that came with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit) to one of the Windows Server 2008 hosts and proceeded to synchronize folders using that version. To my amazement, the copy operation completed as fast as it used to do under Windows Server 2003. We're not talking a small improvement here. The job ran over 40 times faster than it had using the newer bundled copy of Robocopy. Incredulous, I tested this multiple times on multiple servers and the results were the same. The older version of Robocopy dramatically outperformed the newer version even when executed on Windows Server 2008.

There you have it. If you are not happy with the speed of Robocopy on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, give the older version, included with Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, a try and see if it does the same for you as it did for me.

There are a couple of caveats here you should be aware of. First, I checked and rechecked my results quite extensively but I wouldn't claim that to be exhaustive. Do your own detailed verification before you let the old Robocopy loose on your hosts. Second, I ran the old version of Robocopy (a 32-bit image) on 64-bit Windows Server 2008 hosts and as mentioned, I had great results. But that version of Robocopy is not even supported on 64-bit Windows Server 2003, let alone Windows Server 2008. So I suppose there is a slight inherent risk of malfunction. For me, that risk is worth the performance gain, but your risk tolerance may be lower.

robocopy,windows,windows server,microsoft,windows resource kit,vista

The Morality Argument

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:22:00 +0000

For centuries religion has used various natural events and objects as proof of god. The Sun, the rain, storms, plants, and the stars have been essential tools in justifying the existence of god. But as science has progressed and has been able to provide answers for many tangible matters, religion has shifted its argument to the metaphysical, mainly the question of morality. The crux of the argument is that without an originator, morality could not have come to existence. In other words there is a supernatural force that guides us towards being moral and ethical, and that force is god.

Indeed science is currently impotent to link morality with molecules and atoms, but one can argue that morality is the result of accumulated human experiences and a need for perfection. Centuries of human development has taught people that societies can better function based on certain rules and one can sum up such rules as morality.

If god is responsible for morality, why would he dictate such behavior only in the last few millennium? And why is it that the rules of morality differ so much is various societies today? Many indigenous people around the world walk around with no clothes on. Polygamy is still widely practiced around the world. Stoning and severing limbs or heads happens in many places for even minor offences. Some consider these immoral, while others do not. And if god is the origin for everything, shouldn't he be considered as the originator of immorality as well? Isn't he the creator of Satan after all? Isn't god directly responsible for death and destruction and natural disasters and famine and disease?

It seems hard to believe that without god moral people would suddenly turn into rampaging criminals, that they would abruptly turn into thieves, rapists, and murderers. I think most of us try to be good because generations of built-up experiences have taught us that civility gives much more favorable returns than chaos and anarchy.

If morality is pre-programmed by a supreme being with no alternatives, then what value can be placed on forced virtue? And what good is morality if only practiced out of fear? To quote Albert Einstein, "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

god,religion,morality

Portland-Vancouver Interstate Bridge

noreply@blogger.com (rh) — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:22:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I was in Portland, Oregon visiting my uncle and I found one of greatest urban locations for running, the I-5 bridge connecting Portland to Vancouver, WA. The weather was the usual overcast and drizzly but the run was nothing short of exhilarating. The bridge spanning the Columbia river is actually two adjacent bridges, 3 lanes each with sidewalks on both. There was no way I could miss this opportunity and in the morning I was out running from Portland to Vancouver.

Half-way above the river is where Oregon ends and Washington state begins. The scenery is spectacular. After crossing the span, I hung a right and continued between the river on the right and the railroad tracks on the left. This is rather the industrial section of Vancouver. I almost lost track of distance and time as I continued farther away from the city. By the time I turned around I had already covered about 4 miles. Happily I was rewarded with the bridge-crossing once again on my return trip. With cars zooming by on one side and the wide body of water flowing underneath, it almost feels like the whipping wet wind could lift you up and hurl you into the river and that certainly makes the run even more exciting.

Being still high on the first run, I went for another one the next morning. This time, after crossing the bridge, I turned left and that got me into the center of Vancouver. This is a smaller city than Portland and has a nice small town feel to it. Judging by the traffic pattern, I got the feeling that most residents commute to Portland for their day jobs.

If you are ever in the Portland area, give the I-5 bridge a try, running, walking, strolling, whatever.

portland, oregon,vancouver, washington,oregon,washington,running