Raam Dev

Hello, future.

April Camping Trip

On Saturday I decided at the last minute to go camping in the White Mountains. I arrived at the entrance to the trail around 5:30pm. On my hike in, there were patches of half melted snow all around with moose and deer footprints everywhere.

That's when I heard a stick crack and looked to my left. Standing not more than 20 feet off the trail and totally oblivious to my presence was a huge 8' tall female moose. As I stood there admiring the huge creature, a sense of fear quickly settled in when I realized how screwed I was if she decided to charge at me. This was a seriously big animal. She noticed me standing there after about two minutes and after that she didn't take her eyes off me. When she made a grunting sound, I knew she was nervous and uncomfortable, so I slowly started walking away. Much to my relief, she too turned around and walked in the opposite direction. From that point on, I made noise (made up songs and talked to myself) to help prevent any further accidental run ins with big game wildlife.

The rest of the evening was quite uneventful. The place I camped was next to a river where huge ice shelves had formed. Without much daylight left, I quickly started gathering wood and material for a fire. Using a magnesium fire starter, my knife, and a small piece of birch bark, I had a fire going within thirty seconds. The fire didn't last long after I stopped feeding it and laid down to sleep.

The night was cold (<30 degrees) and constant gusts of wind made it worse. I woke up several times during the night from the cold, but managed to get about 5 hours of sleep. I awoke at 6:30am, shivering and freezing. It started to snow. I did some jumping jacks to warm myself up and then collected wood to get a fire going. Once again, the magnesium fire starter with some birch bark did the trick. I spent the next few hours feeding the fire and keeping warm before finally making the short one-mile trek back to my truck. I didn't bring a camera, but I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone. (This is the picture of the moose, but she's extremely well camouflaged. She's standing behind the clump of trees in the long patch of white snow.)

My New Workout Routine: Navy SEAL PT

I've started doing a Navy SEAL calisthenic workout routine that takes about 60 minutes and consists of a warm-up, various types of pull-ups, dips, various types of pushups, various ab exercises, a very tough lying neck rotation exercise, and finally lunges, calf raises, and 250 squats.

The only thing I can keep up with is the warm-up, pull-ups, and leg exercises. However, after two weeks I'm definitely seeing huge improvement. I do this workout three days a week and mix in 4-mile, 35-40 min cardio sessions in-between.

I've never done this much running before (15 - 20 miles a week) and my calves and knees are still adjusting to all the pounding on the treadmill. I'm ignoring the pain, but I need to be careful not to injure myself (I'm crazy enough to push myself to the point of injury; I've done it before).

I rarely feel the need for inspiration when it comes to fitness, but the Navy SEALs have given me a benchmark from which I can compare my own fitness. In fact, after reading so much about them the past few weeks I have undergone some profound changes mentally. But I'll leave that for a separate post. 🙂

The Importance of Offline Backups

WebHostingTalk.com, a very popular community used by both consumers and business owners to review and advertise web hosting services, was hacked recently. The cracker deleted all database backups (including the remote backups). The earliest offline backup appears to have been from October 2008, and if you've ever had to run a forum you can probably understand how frustrating losing even a few days worth of posts can be for the members.

This got me thinking about how important offline backups are and why we should all be using them. Never assume your online backups are safe and be sure to take extra precautions when setting up a remote backup system. For example, your server shouldn't be able to connect to the remote backup server. Instead, the remote backup server should connect to the server to retrieve backups. This way, if your server is compromised, the cracker can't gain access to the remote backups!

I've had my fair share of experience with data loss over the past 15 years and I make it a point to backup everything. But I'll admit that I'm not doing enough to keep my offline backups up-to-date. This event at WebHostingTalk.com has reminded me just how important they are to a well-rounded disaster recovery plan.

Hiking Loverens Mill Cedar Swamp

On Saturday, I visited my friend Adam in NH and we spent five hours hiking in the Loverens Mill Cedar Swamp. The area was purchased by The Nature Conservancy in 1998 and the conservation was expanded in 2006.

Loverens Mill Cedar Swamp

There was a good amount of snow still on the ground and several days of mixed warm and cold weather left the snow with a firm crust but a soft core. We found ourselves randomly falling knee-deep into the snow where the crust was too weak to hold our weight, sometimes falling into hidden pools of water. (Note to self: Wear waterproof boots, not breathable boots, when hiking in the snow.)

We ventured far off the trail and found dozens of untouched boulders and amazing rock formations. These formations are commonly called glacial erratics, although there seemed to be a very strange consistency to them. Evidence of repeated camp fires scarring the rock hinted towards heavy use of the area by Native Americans hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. We even found stone arrow heads scattered around the many small caves that were created by these huge formations.

Both of us forgot to bring a camera, but I managed to take a few photos with my iPhone. We found a huge tree that had been split in half from the ice storm a few months ago and you can't really tell from the pictures, but it was so big that both of my arms only wrapped half way around! I found an interesting fact about the area: Pollen studies have shown that the Atlantic White Cedar (which is actually a cypress, not a cedar) has existed in the area for more than 4,000 years, and its presence is rare because the species is usually found in much lower altitudes.

Overcoming Desire, Part II

My brother bought a motorcycle this past weekend (a black 1992 Honda Night Hawk 750cc) and after seeing him and my uncle riding together I suddenly had a huge desire to own a motorcycle. But this isn't the first time I've wanted to buy a motorcycle.

Last year when I got my motorcycle license I had planned on buying a bike shortly there after. I rode my brother-in-law's Honda CBR600RR a few times and went to a couple of Harley Davidson demo rides to compare sports bikes with the Harley's. I decided the Harley's were much nicer for long rides and since I expected to be doing a lot of riding, a Harley made the most sense. I quickly found the bike I liked the most: a 2008 HD 1200XL Sportster Nightster:

Harley Davidson Sportster Nightster

It's about $9,500 new, which isn't that bad for such a nice bike. However, due to financial constraints, I simply couldn't afford it at the time. I was still going through a bankruptcy and my bank accounts were empty. It was clearly more of a want than a need and even if I decided to buy one, I didn't have the money and I wouldn't be approved for financing. That made it pretty easy to dismiss the desire and bury it for future reconsideration.

After seeing my brother's bike this past weekend, the desire was unearthed and I found myself again wondering how I could buy a motorcycle. But I ran into the same problem: with my tight financial position it's hard to justify spending any amount of money on something that I only want and don't actually need. That's when I began subconsciously looking for ways to justify buying it: "I'll save money on gas!", "I'll save money on insurance!", "I'll be able to enjoy the open air!", "I can sell my truck and worry about winter and snow when it comes!", etc, etc. Inside, I knew I was trying to justify the desire for something that wasn't needed and I heard a tiny part of me quietly rebelling.

I felt a sense of déjà vu as I observed myself doing this and that's when I remembered going through the same exact same process of overcoming desire a few years earlier (in fact, almost exactly three years ago) when I wanted to sell my truck and buy a Jeep Wrangler. That got me thinking... what the hell would I really do with a motorcycle when the ground looks like this:

During the winter months, there would be absolutely no way to use the motorcycle and I'd need to spend more money storing it (or risk spending money on maintenance in the spring). I started thinking about the goals I set for this year and the things I've already decided I really want to do, all of which will require money: complete the AFF program, learn scuba diving (classes, gear, etc), spend lots of weekends camping (commuting gas money), plane tickets to fly to various fitness events, and of course simply saving some money!

It really comes down to priorities. When I stopped thinking about how cool it would be to ride around on a motorcycle and I started thinking about what my priorities were, overcoming the desire for a motorcycle became easier and easier. The motorcycle simply didn't fit anywhere within my priorities! This didn't obliterate the desire, but at least now I feel like I'm thinking more rationally.

"Maybe I can find a cheap $3,000 motorcycle that I won't be so worried about spending money on maintenance and that I would feel comfortable tinkering with (great learning experience!)." "Maybe if I find a good deal, I can resell it before winter." Suddenly my approach seems more practical and I don't feel this urge to just go out and spend money.

Three years ago, when I almost sold my truck a splurged on a Jeep Wrangler, my truck had 133,000 miles on it. Now it's got 190,000 miles and I've had it for 4 years 8 months. Here's to another 110,000 miles of overcoming unnecessary desires. 🙂

Adjusting to a new routine

A few days ago I decided to finally get into a routine of starting the day off early. My intention was to leave for work earlier so that I could get out sooner and still get some sunlight. However, despite waking up at 6AM and coming into work three hours earlier, the past two days I've left work at the usual time, 6pm or 7pm. Ugh. Couple that with my intense late night workouts (around 10pm) and I'm beat. This has also screwed up my posting schedule, as I am not finding any time (or energy) to write. I'm going to get things back on track this week.

Starting the Day Earlier

I've decided to start going into work earlier (6:30AM) so I can leave the office sooner and still catch some sun. I'd really like to start spending a regular amount of time outside during the week instead of only on the weekends.

Conducted my first two interviews

I conducted my first two interviews today and I must say, it's quite a different experience being on the other side of the table. I've got plenty to work on (I need to be more conversational), but overall they went better than I expected. Here's to new experiences!

The sooner you start, the easier it will be

I've been put in charge of hiring someone at work to help elevate some of my workload and, this being my first hiring experience and all, even doing the initial phone interviews was a bit stressful. But once I had done three or four the anxiety was gone (OK, almost gone) and the experience reminded me that the sooner you start doing something you're afraid of, the sooner you'll overcome the fear of doing it.

Exhausted

I've been keeping up with my workout routine quite religiously lately, spending about two hours every day either running and stretching or doing body-weight workouts and stretching. With my recent commitments to exercise I haven't found much time to do anything else. At work, my workload has been heavier than usual and the three hours of time I spend driving to and from work really feel like a waste. I'm beginning to consider taking the T again so I can at least read/write while commuting, but that means an additional hour of commuting every day.

Learn to Easily Interpret Military Time

For at least half my life now I've favored military time, or the 24-hour clock, over the 12-hour clock which is much more common in the United States. When I was younger and learning how to convert the 24-hour clock into 12-hour time, I accidentally discovered an easy solution: Simply minus two from the hour, and then drop the first number.

For example, 18:30 (24-hour clock) = 18 - 2 = 16, drop the first number and we're left with 6. Therefore, 18:30 is 6:30 on a 12-hour clock! It gets slightly more tricky when the 24-hour clock gets to 22:00, because 22 - 2 = 20. But now you simply replace the leading 2 with a 1. Therefore, 22:00 = 10:00. Telling AM vs PM is easy: if the time is greater than or equal to 12, it's PM. Less than 12, it's AM.

Once you've used a 24-hour clock long enough, you won't need such methods of converting between the two types. For me, when I see the number 18 I now automatically see 6pm, and when I see the number 23 I automatically think 11pm. However, for those who are clueless when it comes to 24-hour clocks, this simple method of converting between the two might help. Of course, the only way you're really going to get used to reading military time is to change all your clocks (at least as many as you can) to use a 24-hour clock.

My Foray into the World of Firearms

My only experience with firearms prior to this weekend occurred when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I remember my dad taking me to a firing range and shooting a .22 handgun, a .22 rifle, and a 9mm handgun. (I remember the 9mm being so heavy that I couldn't even hold it up!)

Neither my dad nor myself shoot regularly, or for that matter own any firearms (he rented at the firing range) and I haven't shot a single round in the past fourteen years. I assume we visited the range those few times when I was younger only because it was something he wanted me to try, and for that I'm grateful. The experience most likely helped with my respect and total comfort with being around guns, despite having no real knowledge or experience with them.

Growing up vegetarian, hunting was not exactly a family tradition and, at least I suspect, my mom hated (and still hates) guns enough to have never allowed one around the house anyway. The most we were allowed to have (much to the disapproval of my mom) were tiny hand pump powered BB guns -- so harmless that my younger brother was able to shoot me in the butt and thigh with nothing more than an angered response from his victim.

A few hundred years ago, nearly every person living in the United States was expected to know how to use and operate a firearm. I'm someone who believes that possessing a vast array of skills and experience helps us grow as individuals, and I decided that experience with firearms was one of those must-have skills. A gun is a tool, nothing more. It can be used as a weapon, yes, just like your kitchen knife or screwdriver can be used as a weapon, but guns don't kill people. People kill people.

I spent most of this weekend taking a National Rifle Association (NRA) course on basic handgun usage and safety, taught by Thomas Brown at the Manchester Firing Line range. The course was split into two days, the first of which was eight hours of classroom time where we watched a few videos and got comfortable dry-firing a mix of various handguns, including revolvers and semi-automatics. The second day (that was today) consisted of four hours of range time, where we fired 200-300 rounds from a variety of different handguns. We also got to shoot a 9mm rifle and a 20-gauge shotgun (that's got quite a recoil!).

Everyone had a primary weapon that they used for shooting during most of the range time. I chose a handgun used by those in the military and many U.S. government agencies, the SIG Sauer P229, a .40 caliber semi-automatic (its got a lot more kick than a 9mm):

SIG Sauer P229

Towards the end of the class, the instructor and his assistant set up a fun competition: a timed drill. One at a time, a student would approach the bay and stand in front of his chosen handgun with the magazine loaded, but separated from the gun. The instructor would tap on the shoulder of the student to indicate the start of the timer and, as fast as possible, the student loads, racks, and decocks the gun. He then fires at two targets, steps around a corner (maintaining proper gun safety) and then tries to hit a third target with a single shot.

The first two targets were rigged so you had to shoot at a specific (hidden) area in the center to pop a balloon hidden behind the target which was holding up a piece of cardboard. When you hit the center of the target the balloon pops and the piece of cardboard being held up by the balloon drops to display a red X. You can then move to the second target. After the second target has been hit in the same manner as the first, you need to step around a corner and shoot a third plain target with a single shot.

The winner of this timed competition (the lowest time) won a free t-shirt. Most of the eighteen students completed the run in 25+ seconds. The second and third fastest times were 12 and 18 seconds. I completed my run in 9.25 seconds and won the t-shirt. (After this, several people came up and asked me if I was in the military. If I was in the military, why would I be in an introductory firearms class?)

New Hampshire is one of the few states in the United States where no license is needed to legally purchase and transport a handgun (however, a CCW license is needed to carry concealed, which, inside a vehicle means anywhere within reach). In Massachusetts, to purchase, posses, or transport a handgun or ammunition you must have a proper LTC license and, unlike most of the other states, it does not recognize any out-of-state firearm licenses. The firearm laws in Massachusetts are very strict, compared to neighboring New Hampshire (or Vermont, which has virtually no gun laws!).

I had lots of fun learning and firing various firearms. I plan to attend more advanced classes at MFL in the coming months and to practice somewhat regularly at the firing range. If you're in the area, I highly recommend you give it a shot (pun intended). And if you're curious but hesitant and uncomfortable, I'd be happy to show you around the range where we can fire a few rounds (you don't need to be an NH resident, and no permit/license is necessary to shoot on the range).

Playing Tetris and Pong with Emacs

I'm vi user, but I'm slowly trying to pick up Emacs too. I discovered today that Emacs has a built-in Tetris game. Simply launch Emacs, press Esc and then the letter x, and then type tetris and press Enter (or simply start emacs with emacs -q --no-splash -f tetris). You can also play Pong using the same method!

BigDog: The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth

Boston Dynamics, a Waltham, MA-based robotics company with funding from DARPA, has created what they're calling "the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth". The robot, named BigDog, weighs 170lbs and can carry loads of 340lbs. A recent video of BigDog in action shows it operating in several different terrain conditions, including an icy surface. Do you think you can kick this bad boy over if he comes to attack you? Think again! The video shows a guy trying to kick him over with full-force and it doesn't even knock him down! (When you're finished watching that, check out this video for a funny spoof.)

A busy past few days

The past few days I've been extremely busy with projects at work. That plus my two hour daily exercise commitment hasn't left me with much time for writing. Never the less, there is light at the end of the tunnel and by this evening I should be back to somewhat of a normal posting schedule.

Comparing the iPhone with the BlackBerry

For the past eight months I've been an iPhone user and during that time I've kept notes on the things that stood out most when comparing the iPhone to the BlackBerry. This post is a compilation of those notes.

I was a dedicated and happy BlackBerry user for close to five years prior to switching to the iPhone. I decided against jumping at the first iPhone for two big reasons: it was an entirely new device and I was already very happy with my BlackBerry.

When the iPhone 3G was released and I had heard reports of near-100% satisfaction from current iPhone owners, I decided I couldn't wait any longer. Two big motivating factors were having a camera phone (I was using a Blackberry 8700g at the time) and the ability to carry my music on my phone and get rid of my iPod. I hate carrying more than three things with me wherever I go (wallet, keys, phone).

Important BlackBerry email features that are missing from the iPhone

Being an avid email user, I immediately noticed several features missing from the iPhone:

  • Mark as Read (without opening the email)
  • Mark Prior Messages Read
  • Search
  • Copy and Paste (anywhere!)
  • Save as Draft Edit: A friend pointed out that a Save as Draft feature exists, and he's right. They must have added this in a software update, because it definitely wasn't there when I got the phone!

The above missing features are why I still steer business class users (at least those who intend to use their phone for receiving and replying to large volumes of email) away from the iPhone. It's just not ready and it can't compete with the refined email features of the BlackBerry. I've definitely changed my email habits and I reply to fewer emails from my phone than I did with the BlackBerry.

Touchscreen Interface

While contemplating switching to the iPhone, the on-screen keyboard was my biggest worry. However, when I tried a friends' iPhone I was pleasantly surprised that software does a very good job of correcting any mistakes made while typing fast using the on-screen Qwerty keyboard. Although lacking the tactical feel of a real keyboard, it does its job exceptionally well for a touchscreen interface. Still, typing more than a few sentences is uncomfortable and the lack of saving an email as a draft makes typing long emails risky (the need to reference another email for information, etc.).

The all-touch interface was easy to get used to and it still amazes me how intuitive it is, even for the technically-challenged who give it a try. But the quirks that seem to come with every touch interface are still there. For example, to unlock the phone you need to press and slide a button across the bottom of the screen. Most of the time this works fine, but sometimes the interface will mysteriously be unresponsive and nothing will happen.

Heat-sensitive Touch Interface

The iPhone implements the same heat-sensitive technology as the iPods to prevent accidental key presses by anything but your skin. Most of the time this is really helpful for preventing accidental calls, but when your hands get really cold (shoveling snow, skiing/snowboarding, etc), the temperature of your fingers can actually drop below what the iPhone is expecting and suddenly you can't even use the phone!

Applications

One of the strongest points for the iPhone has been the amazing success of the AppStore. The store is integrated with the iPhone and applications can be purchased and downloaded right from the phone. With over 10,000 applications there's an application for almost anything. Some of the games are simply amazing and the huge variety of games means there is sure to be something fun for everyone.

With the BlackBerry, finding new applications was a nightmare (and finding a good quality, free applications was nearly impossible).

In Summary

In recent comment on HN, I wrote this comparison summary between the iPhone and the Blackberry:

As a former 5-year, very satisfied Blackberry user who switched to the iPhone 3G last June, I have this to say about the comparison:

For business use that requires lots of replying to email, management of large volumes of email, copy/paste functionality, and the possibility of integration with existing Enterprise systems, the Blackberry is a must.

If you mostly just need to read email and only occasionally reply, you have a moderate volume of email (< 30 per day), and you are more interested in a device you can have fun with on the train and use as a replacement for your iPod, then iPhone is perfect. The apps available on the iPhone are truly killer. Real, playable games that you can fully enjoy. Also, web browsing on the iPhone is beautiful -- sometimes I find myself using it in front of my laptop! I've convinced both my boss and my manager NOT to get an iPhone and to instead upgrade their phones to either the BB Curve or Bold. They both thanked me afterward when they realized just how much they relied on easy email reply and the ability to "mark as read" multiple messages (come on iPhone!). The iPhone is definitely a more media-centric device, whereas the Blackberry has been refined for the specific needs of business users.

Safari 4 Beta

The new Safari 4 Beta web browser seems just as fast as the reviews are saying (42x faster than IE7; 3.5x faster than Firefox) and some of the new features are pretty cool: cover flow for bookmarks, CSS animation (now part of WebKit), and even 3D animation using the new HTML5 canvas element. I'm eagerly awaiting a Mac release of the Google Chrome browser to compare with Safari 4. (In the meantime there's always CrossOver Chromium, a Mac & Linux port of Google Chrome.)