DLF IPL 2011: Match 30 (DD v/s RCB)

Being a cricket fan, I cannot neglect IPL altogether. Well, it is more like a break from my continuous and monotonous internet sessions. Today, like yesterday, there is only one match. Delhi Daredevils meet Royal Challengers Bangalore today at Delhi. After the reshuffling, I am still getting used to the new team groupings. Earlier, when I heard RCB, Rahul Dravid used to sub-consciously come into my mind, but now I have to think of Chris Gayle instead, who made an amazing comeback in the last match against his previous club (KKR) after not being bought at the IPL Auction. Well, I am still biased towards Mumbai Indians, which is in fact the team which has the highest auto-correlation co-efficient among all the other teams.


Well, coming back to the match, I have just one phrase to describe it - A simple pendulum with damping oscillations. The match swung between two teams many times. Starting with the Delhi innings, it was going good even after Warner fell, but some good fielding and bowling put the brakes on the run and Delhi just managed to touch the 160 run mark. Pathan hit a few sixes at the death but not without wasting too many deliveries. The last match played on this pitch produced a very high scoring match - DD scored 234 and Kings XI also managed to score 200 odds in their chase. Today, the pitch had lesser amount of grass, and hence the ball didn't skid as it did in the previous match. At the half way stage, the match looked evenly balanced, but with the knowledge that Gayle was going to open at the other side of the half, no one was willing to put his/her money on Delhi yet.


Second half, RCB were off to a fantastic start despite looking a wicket early. Kohli was timing the ball superbly, and was later joined in by Gayle, after his dormant start. RCB were cruising along nicely at the 8-9 over mark, when Gayle fell down to a nice bouncer by Hopes. Just a few deliveries later, Ab de villiers was run out by an unbelievable direct hit from the deep by Warner. Kohli was played on after that, and suddenly the RCB camp was running for water. But, after a lean phase of 14-15 runs in 5 overs, Saurabh Tiwary and Vettori played some nice shots to bring down the run rate close to 6. But the tension was far from over, when two wickets fell very quickly putting the pressure back to RCB. Well, finally with some bad bowling and uninspiring field placements, DD gave away the match to RCB, who easily managed to bring the boys home.


A good match, and also an important win for RCB, who are now 2nd in the points table with 8 points just behind the Mumbai Indians. Well, personally I didn't care who won, but I wanted the Indian players to perform well. After all, it is INDIAN Premier League.

Scribbling 2:Confessions of an Internet Addict

Yes, I am an internet addict. I spend more than 15 hours on net daily. Well, my job forces me for 9 hours or so but the rest is all me. I spend most of the time watching online TV series one after the other. I recently finished with Flash forward. It was an awesome series, but the ABC channel didn't renew it for the second season. It was hardly one day after I finished with two seasons of V ( an alien invasion based TV series ), which was fine but with an ending so abrupt and odd that it left me thirsty for more suspense thriller type series', I started with CSI:Miami today, although I wanted to start off with the original CSI, but couldn't find the online episodes for it, well at least for my region.

It is not that I didn't try anything else. I thought to myself - what else can I do? Nothing stood apart by the Cost-Benefit analysis, so I am stuck with the TV series option. The effect of internet has been such that I have been wanting to learn cryptography, martial arts, spying, swimming, and what not, all at the same time. Seeing the amazing lives of the FBI, CIA, NSA agents, I am just eager to feel the same. I even searched for Internet Addiction on Google and Wikipedia, and found out that the only remedies that exist are Self-Control and Psychiatric help. Being an inherent lazy person, I don't find any reason to move from my seat when clearly internet is able to provide me with almost every human emotion possible. 

I noted down few possible ways of curbing my internet use:

1. Internet timer - Keeping a clock right beside me to track the time of internet usage

2. Load the necessary pages all in one go and them switch off the router, disconnect the cable and sit somewhere else - far away from the source of the internet

3. Involve in learning something that doesn't require sitting in front of a computer (ex: guitar, keyboard, singing, martial arts, yoga, photography)

4. Go out very often to smell fresh breeze of air and feel that you are an alive human being

Though right now, I am not taking any drastic steps, but I believe this blog will help me more in curbing or at least directing my internet habits to productive directions.

Television Series' I have watched so far

Well, I have been actively watching and keeping up with American and British TV series since my college days. There were times when I watched them continuously for hours and hours. The result is a long list of shows and hence to mark the memory and to keep a tab on the shows, I am sharing a list of them (not in any particular order).

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

How I met your mother

The Big bang theory

House M.D.

Bones

Scrubs

Gossip Girl

Hustle

V

Flash forward

Chuck

24

Entourage

Dexter

Heroes

Kyle XY

Lost

Prison Break

Two and a Half Men

True Blood

Castle

30 Rock

Avatar: the last airbender

Californication

Seinfeld

Numb3rs

Informatica B2B Data Transformation: First Look

Although I am pretty much new to this technology, but still I would like to share what I know about it, mainly because there is very less help material available on the net. I recently switched jobs, and my new job is in a start up with offices at London, New York and Mumbai. The first thing that I got trained in, and part of which is going on is on the Informatica B2B technology (B2B Data transformation and B2B Data Exchange). As per my knowledge, Informatica bought a company/product named Complex Data Exchange (CDE) seven or eight years ago and then integrated it to the main tool as B2B technology. This technology is very new in the market, I have hardly come across any developers and users yet, but it is on the rise, and slowly many businesses are starting to understand the importance of it. 

Informatica Power Centre, as we know, is useful when the data is in the form of tables, or more generally, structured data. Informatica B2B Data transformation is a tool which deals with unstructured data. When I say unstructured, it doesn't necessary mean that there is no logic at all in the source file. The thing is, the structure and logic present in the source file cannot be handled by Data management tools such as Informatica or DataStage (not sure about DataStage though). This feature helps the business for better data integration across departments and regions. The formats which are generally handled by B2B are xml, doc, xls, HL7, HIPAA, SWIFT, etc. The back-end of this tool is coded in JAVA, and thus can be altered with add on libraries (thought till now I have not felt the need of it).

This is how a normal working screen looks like. On the right side, we can see the source file on which the operations take place (format here is xml). On the left, we have the Data transformation Explorer, which gives us the information about the projects and its components (source file, script (actual code), XSD (xml schema definition), Results (output) and also additional files if required). Below, we see the various options such as Help View, Events view, Schema view etc. We will go in deeper on each of the features later, but the point to be noted here is the Events view tab, which contains the execution path of the whole project or part of it. Basically, it captures everything the back-end engine is performing as it runs through each line of the code and puts it in an events file, which has the format – '.cme'. The middle section is the one where we write the code (the script file has the format - .tgp). There are two modes of coding, one is pure java, and the other is Intelli-mode, which is being shown here. We can switch between these modes by just right-clicking on the code section and choosing the other mode.

Presently, I cannot help with the installation part because I got the software already installed by my employer. But, with time, a situation may arrive where I may need to know.

Before we start coding with B2B DT, we need some basic knowledge about XML schemas and Regex expression. These are pretty simple, and you can easily find them on net. Well, this was just an introduction to the world of B2B. I will post soon about whatever I know. Hopefully, it helps both the readers and me.

For now, just remember the top level things such as - why B2B is used, how the screen looks, what data formats it handles etc.

Scribbling 1: Life at present

This is the first post in the series of random thoughts and synapses emerging in my mind. Well, to start off, sometimes I give undue important to other people - their achievements, their failures, their status, etc. If I waste so much time on analyzing their lives, what would happen to my life ? I become impatient, and restless, trying to achieve too much in too less time. My academic record at school has left an ever lasting impression on everyone. Being a topper there, everyone feels or I think they feel that I am not where I am supposed to be. I should have been in some big shot job or doing some complex research work. This puts a lot of pressure on me. I have alienated almost all my friends from past just because I plan to contact them again with that same confidence which I had that time. They ask me often - where are you ? why are you not in touch anymore ? But, how can I explain them my situation ? Most of my friends are in an awesome position, some abroad, some at great management schools, some at MITs and sorts. Unfortunately, I have nothing to share with those old lost friends to make them feel proud of me. I am just waiting for such a moment in my life. There were few close encounters but they were snatched away from me.

In my previous job, people used to tell me to leave this low paying job and go towards Finance. Well, this caused a lot of resistance towards finance and finance-related jobs, so much that I developed a prejudice. Later on, when I started reading a bit about stock market, GDP, Inflation, Budget, Macro/Micro Economics etc. , I found that it is not a bad field at all. It is in fact, a very complex and dynamic field filled with challenges and lot of hard work. Unfortunately, the big financial giants use this to trick their customers and make huge profits. Also, after learning the fact that these giants are practically behind every possible war and crime in this world, it is tough to develop a soft corner for them. But speaking of the branch, if I ever get a chance to pursue this field, I would prefer research than practice. I don't want to get my hands dirty in the series of crimes. 

I have no idea how the things would turn out, but I wish I could regain that confidence level again. The recent events of getting rejected from IIM B, L and ISB didn't help the cause but I will not stop trying. Fortunately, my new job seems to be good, hefty raise from my previous package, and also a rise in designation. I will soon post some work related posts also, where I will discuss the technologies I have been working on very recently. These are very new in the market and hence add a niche touch to my skill set. Information about these tools is very less, even on Google, practically nothing on the development side, so those posts may be very helpful for those who are planning to learn it on their own.