Why Does Federer Need A Coach?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I'm not a tennis player but am surely a sports lover and tennis is surely one of my favourites. Over the years, I've realised that this is perhaps the best time to witness tennis. The fact is we have some of the best players on the planet of recent times if not the best players ever playing the game. Without a doubt, Roger Federer's name would be right at the top if a greatest players of all time list is released.

However I wonder why such a great player who is hailed as the best in the world, needs a coach. Paul Annacone has recently been 'coaching' the great man, after a certain drop in form which resulted in Federer not even making it to the semifinals at his favourite tournament, Wimbledon. But one wonders what would a coach tell a man who has already won 16 grand slam titles, has made a record 10 consecutive grand slam finals appearances and is believed widely to be the greatest man to have hit the tennis ball. Well I dont know, maybe because I'm not a tennis player. But anyway, there must be some utility in hiring the coach who coached the great Pete Sampras. Being a Federer fan, I honestly hope Federer overcomes this slump and emerges as a stronger player, with the help of his coach.

The Linux Usageshare

Linux is everywhere now. In the servers where it originally belonged and perhaps still belongs, in the desktop and now more recently even in mobile devices and tablets. But what has remained a mystery for a long time is exactly what the Linux market share is. Windows is touted as the most popular OS with over 90% market share. Mac OSX is said to have around 4-5 percent and Linux a measly 1-2% according to Wikipedia.

(Shown below are the relative market share of various OSes according to Wikipedia)

So Windows is the most popular OS. I think there's no controversy regarding that. What creates a controversy though is the market share of Linux. Now keeping a tab on Windows market share is relatively easy, since there is a definite sales figure (and perhaps tracking). But when it comes to Linux, because its free and no "buying issue" is involved, tracking the total number of users is extremely difficult. What complicates the problem further is the presence of literally hundreds of distros. Yes, Ubuntu is without doubt the most popular Linux distro (Distrowatch reports an overwhelming hits per day statistic in favour of Ubuntu), but its not the only one. Fedora is very popular among Linux users, and there is a dedicated fan following for OpenSUSE, Free BSD, CentOS.

(Shown below is a screenshot from Distrowatch showing average hits per day)

Tracking the growth of each of these distros requires an immense amount of coordination effort among companies and developers which unfortunately the Linux sphere has not seen in the past. Distro bashing these days is a favourite pastime for many and the importance of a collective effort to create a platform for collaboration and the bigger picture is missed altogether.

Canonical has recently brought a new tracking application to its distro Ubuntu which helps it to collect info about how long the OS is installed on the PC etc. As of now there is no detailed info about exactly what information Canonical is collecting and what it intends to do with it and as expected there this concern has been reciprocated by a few users. (See Slashdot and Phoronix more info on this)

So why is tracking all that important? Why is the marketshare such a hallowed statistic? Why does a normal user need to even bother about what percentage of users are using the same OS he's using? The answer has been eloquently given by Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack who says:

"There are hundreds of conflicting estimates of how many Linux machines are out there. Knowing how many people are using Linux is important because larger numbers provide leverage when we go asking for drivers from hardware manufacturers, apps from software makers or try and convince OEMs to bundle Linux."

(Source: TechNewsWorld)

Linux needs more support from hardware manufacturers and drivers support to improve the "Linux experience", if I may say so. The only way to convince manufacturers and developers to do that is to give them hard data. Thats a fair argument I think, as long as the user is aware of the info that the company is collecting.

After all for most (if not all) Linux is much more than just an OS.

The Alchemy of the Phirang Desire

Image via Wikipedia

This is quite hilarious, but frankly every single person has a 'little Britain' hidden inside us. Somehow when people venture outside the (ill demarcated) boundaries of this country to literally land in the West, their accents change! All of a sudden. The 'r' gets rolled and rolled and rolled to the point where its no longer the Indian 'aar' but the phirang 'Rrr'. The 'l' gets a certain thing done to it which is too complicated for me to put in words. Its almost as if its shameful and humiliating to have an Indian accent.

This has happened time and again to people and two of the brightest examples I can cite right now are Aishwarya Rai and her hubby. When Ash 'hit' the west, she almost immediately lost her accent. Maybe she got a voice coach or something. Or accent coach actually. I think these are the ones who get paid big bucks in the BPOs for raining newbies, right? Anyway, so I guess when these accent coaches get tired of their job they become coaches for celebs! And of course the pay scale is better. Greener pastures you see.

Anyway, back to the point. If you havent already, take a look at Ash on David Letterman video. Its on youtube and its already gotten quite a few thousand hits from some sane and many perverts. Ash almost behaves like a true phirang woman! At least accent wise.

The other day I saw Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN doing the same thing while interviewing James Cameron. He almost seemed like the perfect NRI! Cant we just be proud of the way we are? Is it all that necessary to American-ize our accent?

The EVM - fallible and insecure

We have been hearing about the 'un-hackability' of the Indian EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine) for a very long time. And frankly this has been reiterated so many times by the Election Commission of this country, that now even questioning the vulnerability of it is held as a crime.

Hari Prasad, a security expert from Hyderabad, demonstrated on Live television the severe security vulnerabilities the Indian EVMs suffer from, shattering the very basis of the boastful claims by the Election Commission. The video has since then become almost viral and the debate has risen to a different level altogether.

There is also a debate about how Mr. Prasad aquired the EVM, supposed to be under strict security vigil. However instead of addressing the basic issues, the Government has committed a blunder by arresting Mr. Hari Prasad for theft. That Prasad exposed a serious issue is of no value to the government or the commission. Both have found an easier way out by trying to bury the incident. Both would have won over the hearts of the countrymen had it made an announcement about patching the security loopholes and going public with the source code. Pity this isnt the election season and hence, winning hearts is the last thing on the government's agenda right now.

Bad Time to Buy an E-book Reader

Image via Wikipedia

This really is a bad time to buy an e-book reader, especially if you happen to live in India. I'll tell you why. The two of the most popular conventional (read eInk) e-book readers are the Amazon Kindle and the Infibeam Pi. They are slow, colourless and lacked intense multimedia capabilities. But then, after iPad release a host of companies came up with their tablet offerings. The netbook, once a hot product, seemed to dying a painful rather sooner than expected.

The problem with the tablets is that since they have an LCD display, there is a considerable amount of strain on the eyes on prolonged usage. The eInk on the other hand doesnt do colour, so thats a potential let down.

Enter Notion Ink. A revolutionary product in the making which seems to have solved the problems of netbooks and tablets all at the same time. Its powered by android and has a pixel qi display. Pixel qi is something quite revolutionary which inspite of having a brightness comparable to LCDs, has the ability to reflect direct sunlight and also reduces strain on the eyes. Seems too good to be true doesnt it? Even I didnt believe it until my friend Abhirup convinced me about this truly amazing development going on in this country. A lot is being promised and lot of interest has been generated thanks to this cutting edge device and thanks to its really attractive price tag of $498 for the 3G with wifi version. However, no release date for this device has been announced as yet although its expected that it might release by the end of this year or early next.

Incidentally even Infibeam is ready with its tablet offering. They call it the Infibeam Phi (the eInk edition is the 'Pi'). The Phi has Android as well as Windows versions and is decently powered. However since it has an LCD display, its difficult to call it as an ebook reader. The dual screen technology of pixel qi is far superior than the traditional eInk and almost as good if not at par with LCD brightness, this is where I think the Notion Ink tablet scores over the Phi. But even the Phi hasnt been released yet, although Infibeam is taking preorders.

Hence my conclusion that this is indeed the worst time to buy an ebook reader. The suggestion would be to stay put and abstain from investing in any such devices until both the Infibeam Phi and Notion Ink hit the mainstream market.