Time Zone conversion using date command

Just found out that we can convert between time zones using the Linux date command.

e.g. date -d '16:00 EST' will convert from EST to current time zone.

Wondering how many more things are hidden inside Linux!!

Drools and CEP

Drools 5.0 now supports CEP and workflows. I did not get to checkout the workflow support yet, but CEP using rules is a topic I have been involved while at the extreme Lab @ IU. Although it is not apparent, CEP network (different compositions of event streams) and the Rete algorithm, which is the underline algorithm for Drools, both share much in the sense that both construct a tree to represent queries and match events by propagating them through the tree. We worked on creating a layer on top of Drools to handle CEP, but by supporting events from Drools deep down, Drools have enabled concurrent processing, whereas the layer we build on top of Drools have to be synchronized because Drools is not thread safe. It is going to be a versatile tool to build new applications/ usecases.

Sri Lanka, a Brids eye View

This is the clip Sri Lankan Arilines runs few minutes before touching down on SL, no need to say that I am so happy to see it. Thanks for Kaushalya for pointing it out.

FreeMind Resize Problems

If you try to install Freemind using the most simplest way in Ubuntu 9.04 (Unzip, set java home, do a chmod 755 freemind.sh), it runs in to a problem in resizing the window. It can be fixed by setting the enviorment property export AWT_TOOLKIT=MToolkit, and more details can be found in Freemind Linux Page.

How Big is the Enterpise

Who Has the Most Web Servers? provides some speculations on the number of web servers some well known companies do have. Does companies who out-compute indeed out compete? Fact that most companies does not release the number of servers seems to suggest most of them believe that way.

Data over Fedex is real

According to this Werner Vogels's Post, now Amazon lets you ship (literally via Fedex) your datasets to Amazon and have it uploaded to S3. Also the post points to few papers/ talks about data intensive computing.

Hope for a New Age

Finally, the day---which most of us feared that would never arrive---has come to pass. Sri Lankan armed forces have finally brought whole Sri Lanka under one flag, a feat that took us three decades. Let us bow our heads in salutation to each member of the armed forces and to their families, whose sacrifices that made this victory possible. I hope in 10 years from now, all of us will remember their sacrifices, and when we look back at that time, we will see that we made good use of this opportunity so that we could face them without shame.

After years, I felt that on this occasion Sri Lankans have united under same idea and hope we can figure out a way to make use of this opportunity, may be the best we have had after 1815. We must remember nobody will solve our problems for us. Not UN, not the west! Otherwise, why after all those years, we have never heard of a 3rd world nation that stood up with help of their aid and direction and become a developed nation? Why we only hear exploitations and Wars created by others? No! We are alone on this fight, nor will others fight it for us, nor can others understand the situation enough to fight it for us. It is up to us to figure out a way, and stand on our feet.