Teaching kids (& adults) about climate
Jan 10th
![photo_verybig_110295[1]](http://hitesh.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/photo_verybig_1102951_thumb.jpg "Climate: A burning situation")
With Copenhagen behind us, it makes me wonder is there something we as individuals do to help the climate? On one such thought tangent I wondered if it possible to teach kids about climate using a simulation game like Civilisation? On cursory search I could not find anything that could entertain and educate kids.
What would it be?
An empire building game that needs to balance technology, way of life and climate to achieve sustainable conditions. The players will need to move from stone age to iron age to industrial age to knowledge age. All this is well covered by games in the Civilisation series. The difference is, to advance in the technology tree, they will need to consume resources and they need to understand that resources are limited and that consuming them is not without consequences.
Learning
A game that will show the interdependence of several factors like:
- Exploitation of natural resources (wood, coal, oil, gold, diamonds, animals, fishes etc) for technical progress and their costs in terms of environmental impact
- The long term implication of the such impact
- Investing in technology to achieve sustainable development
- Also the flip side of not consuming natural resources and it impact on growth and empire building
- The need to consume resources to ‘unlock’ next levels of technical innovation
- Trading of resources amongst empires which have surplus of something
- I would probably underplay the option of war and more of foreign trade as a means to acquire scarce resources.
What next?
I am not a game developer so wouldn’t know how to get about doing it. But may be some like minded people will come together and look at it. Maybe Freeciv can provide a starting point. Maybe it even becomes successful and makes some money for the creators.
3 Idiots – The nitpicking
Jan 1st
I watched 3 Idiots yesterday, and could not resist reviewing it. This review is not about how great the movie is. There are several of those on the net.
Let me be quick in saying that my family and I loved the film and think it is one of the best movie. It is a good take on the state of education in the country, a subject I feel strongly about. This is also not about Chetan Bhagat, although the nit-picking could apply to Five Point Someone as well. But I haven’t read it, so can’t say.
I expected more from Aamir, the perfectionist.
I was born in 1978, the same year that Farhan Qureshi (Madhavan) was born. So I felt more connected to the movie than the current generation. This also means that the college period depicted in the movie was the same period I was in college, which is roughly 1995-1999.
So what?
Well you see, a few of the things shown in the movie are, let’s say, futuristic.
Mobile Phones
Mobile phones were launched in India after 1994. The call charges in a ‘scheme’ were 16 Rs. incoming/outgoing. They were not mainstream until 2000 when charges began to drop. Even then, in 2000, I was the only one in my MBA college to have a mobile phone, and that too was given to me by my employer.
So showing engineering college students carrying a phone, pre 1999, was a bit of a stretch.
Mobile Internet
Even if you think ‘chote’ (Rancho) was rich enough to carry a mobile, the movie shows mobile internet being used in the hospital for video conferencing.
- Internet in 1999 was the good old modem based dialup internet at blazing speeds of 56 kbps. Broadband Internet was unheard of until 2005.
- Mobile Data Cards / USB Modems were launched in 2008/2009.
- Even then, I don’t think the speed that Airtel EDGE gives is insufficient for video conferencing. I don’t know for sure, since I am not using one.
Scooter
The scooter that Pia (Kareena) drives looks most certainly like Kinetic Flyte, which was only launched in 2009.
Bottomline
With a little research, which Aamir Khan is known for, the film could have been more realistic. Anyways, if you haven’t seen the movie, please do, it is really good.
P.S. Happy New Year.
Micro ISV jump start tool kit
Dec 24th
Every micro ISV needs several standard things to get started. Few of them are:
- A web host
- A web site, including a blog
- A store front
- Customer support infrastructure like forums, CRM, Chat, etc.
- Bug tracker
- Source Control
- Build environment
Apart from these, some software related bits
- Common controls / Custom controls
- Framework things like:
- Installer
- Auto updater
And if your software is not open source, then
- Obfuscater
- Software copy protection
- Licensing
- Payment provider
And some marketing related:
- Software submitter
- Ad network
What I could come up with so far are:
- Trac: Issue Tracker
- VersionOne: Hosted Agile Project Management
- GetSatisfaction / UserVoice: Forums
- DreamHost / Google App Engine / Amazon: Hosting
- Google Apps: email and collaboration
- PayPal / FastSpring
I would update the list as and when I find more resources.
Is anything available integrated out-of-the box for a micro ISV to jump start, drop a comment below.
Django Flowchart
Dec 9th
Based on my current understanding of Django, this is how a user request is responded to.
- User requests a page
- Request reaches Request Middlewares, which could manipulate or answer the request
- The URLConffinds the related View using urls.py
- View Middlewares are called, which could manipulate or answer the request
- The view function is invoked
- The view could optionally access data through models
- All model-to-DB interactions are done via a manager
- Views could use a special context if needed
- The context is passed to the Template for rendering
- Template uses Filters and Tags to render the output
- Output is returned to the view
- HTTPResponse is sent to the Response Middlerwares
- Any of the response middlewares can enrich the response or return a completely new response
- The response is sent to the user’s browser.
Please leave a comment if I have got something wrong.
Week with python & Django
Dec 6th
Spent the last week picking up Python and Django. Notes to self and anyone else who wants a quick start on Python/Django on Windows. Most Linux flavours already come with most tools needed for python development.
Requirements:
- Installed ActivePython 2.6
- Installed Komodo Edit
- Installed Python Win32 Extensions (not sure why, but was recommended in some blog post and the project itself does not say much of what it does. Stuff like this gives me the heebie-jeebies.)
- Installed Pinax, which in turn installed Django.
- Installed PyQt4
- Installed Eric4 (uninstalled after using it for 10 minutes)
Problems faced:
- Pinax installation was a bit flawed, it could not install all dependencies. Worked around by manually installing (pip install else easy_install)
- Windows 7 was not passing command line arguments to .py scripts. Had to hack registry and add %* to the end to make it work. See the Key and value below.
Getting started:
Python: Like everyone else, I followed and recommend “Dive Into Python”. But more importantly, this page of titbits is amazing extract from the book and quickly brings a Java dev up to speed. I should blog about ‘Python for Java developers’. Time spent 4 hrs.
Pinax: Stopped at the installation step. Will delve further after understanding Django better.
Django: Followed the tutorial, then the Django Book, and finally the Django Docs for a deep dive. Time spent 8 hrs.
Django is surely one on the best documented project and also very straight forward. It suits my style of writing code and I did not feel like giving up in few hours, like the experience I had with RoR. Will surely blog about Django more.
What people want to know?
Nov 27th
And can only ask Google. Pictorial proof 
Indians want to know:
And the same on Google.com which I assume is US targeted.
