Friday, October 17, 2008

Why I like Obama



That's why I like Obama .
He is a gentle man, So self-confident ,a dandy guy, and a skilled solicitor who knows how to use every word in a proper place. I hope Americans elect him, he puts more pressure on dictator countries (truly ,not by playing role), reconstructs the economy and can makes up the financial crisis ...
Hope So....

UPDATE: I changed the Pic, because of respect to McCain's great personality. Maybe his reaction in the last debate was a little mistake ....

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Start a Startup in a Bad Economy ?

A very nice and new-brand article by Paul Graham. Worthwhile to read. I'm specially interested in this sentence :
" Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you're the right sort of person, you'll win even in a bad economy ".
This is the heart of his article. That's why I told it's worthwhile to read. Briefly, he says that your success depends on your personality more. And I'm completely agree with him . I don't deny the importance of facilities and the economy a country. There is no doubt at all that nowhere else has Silicon Valley. Everything needs its atmosphere . Starting a startup in US is absolutely different from India or , god forbid, Iran ! You need some preliminary infrastructure to do a great and innovative work. BUT ..... it doesn't mean you stop to try . Interestingly , the history of human being shows that the people who grow in hard conditions , have higher capability to perform more complicate things. That's not due to being more intelligent, but , it simply is a Adaption Paradigm . Where the " Evolution" matters !!
long story short, Paul wants to say there are scarce people who are brave to do risk. That's why we have little pioneers and lots of ordinary people . Don't you think so ?

UPDATE: Here is another inspiring article that proves the idea .


Saturday, September 27, 2008

My trip to India

As I mentioned before , I had a trip to India . It was my first international trip , but seeing other country and contacting with its people was not too weird to me. Frankly, I knew India and maybe that’s why I didn’t shock when I saw its streets.

India is a very big, ancient , nice to travel country and people are calm and peaceful. Meanwhile, it is too complicated to analysis. I mean, you will never find any society in the world that its people live in such a kind of paradox conditions.

Wealth and Poverty live with each other in an absolute consent ! No one wants to be poor, but ‘most’ of them believe that it’s just their FATE !! They do believe it and this is the key to understand why they live in peace. Though, the cultural impacts due to globalization has affected them, which is completely normal, some cultural approaches like believe in concepts (like “Dharma” , “Karma”, etc.) still attend in their mindset .

In my opinion, If you don’t know India and you have decided to go there, you will be surprised when you see streets. But wait ! It is a little part of India. More and more events are waiting for you ! Just open both your minds and eyes and look at every minute thing. Concentrate on their interchanges , focus on their poverty, their wealth, their customs, their believes, their temples architecture, their behave with animals (in any specious),etc.

On my behalf, briefly, rejecting Buddha from India ( over 1500 years ago) , was maybe the biggest strategic mistake by Indians. Although relation between Buddhism and Hinduism is as strong as a massive string , there are some fundamental differences too. Investigating these differences need a separate post and I don’t want to explain it here …

Anyway , to conclude the argument, here are some pics which I took over there :

Mumbai's Airport in a raining day:










The road between Mumbai and Pune:










Pashan Lake :










Mumbai's beach :









Mumbai's beach from another viewpoint:









A nice building in Mumbai (British style):










Another Building in Mumbai (another nice British architecture):










EVERY thing is in peace :









A little temple:









Pune City from top:









Pune university :









A very nice park in Pune and the place of Gandhi's wife SAMADI :









Gandhi's personal instruments :









I bought a great coffee here :)









An indian VEG restaurant ( Oh my, so spicy!)









At Bazar :









Monkey and elephant Idols :









P.S. The captions of pics have added ...

Cheers :)

Sunday, September 14, 2008

India

I came back from India :)
I had a good trip . Indians are very nice people. I will post my experiences and photos soon.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

In Defence of C

" In defence of C" is a very short and expressive article about the importance of C as a prominent programming language. It is worthwhile to read. In fact, as I've mentioned in my profile, I'm a hardcore fan of C. I do love it. It's a very strong language, meanwhile, it's little, pretty, elegant and has a very clear syntax. The grandeur of UNIX has derived by the power of C ...
If I were in an island alone, and I had to choose two programming languages, I chose C and python :)

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

I support Open Web Foundation

This is an Elegant and timely attempt about protecting web from exclusive behaviors of some just-profit-seeking companies !!!

Untill now, just Google and FaceBook have supported it ; but in my opinion, it will appreciate by the most of FOSS individuals and big companies in close future ....
Their definition is quite expressive :
"The Open Web Foundation is an independent non-profit dedicated to the development and protection of open, non-proprietary specifications for web technologies."



Friday, July 25, 2008

I abandoned my part-time job

After a long discussion with my colleague, we decided to quit our job ! We worked on a Computer Vision application to find and trace vehicles on road. We succeed to release the software , but we faced with VERY low demand for our product. Unfortunately, our customer deceived us and we even could not compensate our initial needs (Renting apartment,etc).

Yes , that's it. We were not business guys and we even did not know what it is !! We just sat and started to code (and what a hard code, purely math). My country is not a High-Tech one (at least in Robotics areas).

We were lucky to have another job. My friend works for an accredited software company in Iran(mostly web developing), and I work for this company as an Electrical Engineer who is expert in Electrical Relays and have practical experience on its control systems like DCS and SCADA. In fact, these control systems use some OS technologies like Linux and Unix and some well known communication technologies like TCP/IP,etc to communicate with each other..... Not so bad.....

From now, I'll just work for my heart and not any company. I will release my free softwares for my own and not for profit. I'm so tired to think about novel algorithms (at least until second announcement). Anybody who faces these problems feels this sadness too. I want to focus on some other fields like web developing using python. I tried some frameworks like Web2py, TurboGears and Django ,etc. But I didn't think about build a real world application yet.

I'm so tired , I need to rest. Or in One republic's word :
"
Well, all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head
"

UPDATE: I've decided to just write about my FOSS interests. You will not see about Electrical Engineering stuff.
UPDATE 2: We came back to our business ! Surprise :)
We will work on Face Recognition ( oh my). I do love this area of research. It's too hot nowadays.
Cheers

Saturday, July 19, 2008

FSF Logo

I've just added FSF Logo !!
I don't know why I didn't it some years before?!!
In fact, if I have to make a choice between Free Software and Open Source, I will choose the first one definitely... That's because of my Freedom concerns and not for technical issues ....

Thursday, July 17, 2008

FireFox "Formal" party in Tehran

Yeah. That's right :) FOSS friends, at last, succeed to present the party.
It's today (6:00 - 8:00 pm). I'll do participate it. Come on folks :)

Sunday, July 06, 2008

WOW ! One Republic ?!


Nowadays, I just listen to one republic's new albom songs.
They, specially Ryan Tedder, are very cool guys. I think he and me maybe have a very close feeling about the universe. Just see his lyrics, for example " Say All I need", or " Apologize".
Oh, my God, they are great,great, great ....

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Getting started in computer vision ?

I have recently received some emails from some newbies which asked me how to become an expert in Computer Vision(CV). As a matter of fact, I don’t know myself as a CV expert; hence, maybe I can’t show you the door (remember the Morpheus in the Matrix film :) .But as a self-taught software developer who does love this major, I have some proposals for you. Here it comes:

First : Start by the procedure that Robin Hewitt suggests: Getting started in computer vision. She is an independent software developer who is a prominent expert in relevant stuff. Do whatever she proposes !!!!

Second : Become familiar with Matlab and specially C/C++. I can argue more than one hour that you need both C and C++. I do love C , and I can extend CV algorithms with it; but in the industry you do need C++. In the real world applications , you need software engineering approaches beside of algorithms and therefore, you MUST develop softwares in OOP mode. You HAVE to learn it. It’s Compulsory !!

Third : Learn to develop softwares with Python. I don’t want to start to describe it. Just google it….. You will be a better hacker when you use it to develop raw algorithms.

Forth : Start to study Math every day. It’s like an exercise for your brain :) I’m not kidding !!

Fifth : “ Concentrate and NEVER give up!" Take this as a fundamental rule….

Cheers


UPDATE: You can use the python binding for OpenCV too .

Just " from opencv import *" and have a lot of FUN :)

Sunday, May 04, 2008

web2py, an amazing web Framework

After some experiences with many python frameworks, I found a framework which is very nice and clear in my opinion. Its name is web2py (known as gluon too) . Its motto is pretty and expressive : "Easy as pie", "Serious performance", "Very intuitive", "Great documentation", "The best web framework ever" .... I found it interesting and for sure you can try it too :) hummm, another point; If you wanna know about the differences between it and other web frameworks, read this document. The document is comprehensive enough and is well documented. For those hackers who have long time experiences with different languages and frameworks, this comparison will be interesting and makes them clear view point.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Return to Tehran

At last, I came back from that hell :). What a bad place was over there…. There are lots of work I must get them done !!!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

TOO Boring Life

My life is absolutely boring ! I can't stand it anymore. Oh my God, Just one hour for the internet connection :( It's like a prison for me. ME?? I was connecting to the internet 7-8 hour per day before I came to this hell. What a mission! What a mission ....

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Working mission? Oh, no please !

Bad luck... I'm in a working mission in a very bad natural condition. I had to go to a territory last week which has no water at all ! I'm near to the YAZD city, an ancient city that is near the hottest area in the planet Earth (Loot desert, or Kavir loot in persian)!!!!
The most irritating thing is not the shortage of water,but it's lack of internet connection. :) Unfortunately, I'm far from city ( we are working for a cement factory as investigating engineering group). Please see this picture of Loot desert ....

Friday, February 01, 2008

Microsoft acquires Yahoo??

After some weird deals like Mysql&SUN and Qt& Nokia, I just heard This News by Reuters !!!
Damn ! It's the most ridiculous news I have ever heard in this stuff. I can't do anything, but if Yahoo accepts this belittling, I will drop my Yahoo mails ....

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Python and productivity

Python increases productivity unimaginable. Even though you've never had written any code with it, you can understand its very nice syntax. Consider this:

def fibonacci(n) :
if n==0 or n==1 :
return 1
else :
return fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2)


Like common speaking huh? seems pseudo code ! Now imagine you have decided to implement an algorithm (a very hard and comprehensive one) with python. Believe me,It takes 30 min in max :)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Where are you :)

1) Ten minutes ago, I added a link of software that says on which point of planet Earth(!!) you have visited my weblog :)

2) Nowadays, I have faced by a lot of problems. My TOEFL TEST date is Feb2 , numerous challenging problem (math approaches) with my day job project and the most important the documentation of my first open source project has still remained. My problem is entirely a classic one: "The shortage of time."If you are interested in my open source project, please refer here

3) Maybe I'm not an ordinary person. I have great ambitions, and honestly, I am working hard to achieve my goals. I'm getting geeker and it's not so good! Real world is completely forgotten by me. What will be happen? I'm not a predictor but I hope I can become closer to my targets. Please prey for me. No problem what religion do you have, I do need it :(

UPDATE: I forgot to say that I added RSS feed too ;)

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Why I claimed that?

About 4 month before, in a post, I claimed that the " programming is not an engineering discipline". Maybe you think that I completely missed the main points about Computer Science, but it's not true. As I mentioned before, it seems that there are two kind of judgment about programming. One viewpoint looks at it as a regularly repetitive classified task and another one looks as a high challenging innovative style of thinking. I believe at second one. Maybe inasmuch as I do love Algorithms, or maybe because of anything else.
Here is another fact which proves my idea. The writer of this essay is a professional programmer (second category for sure :) Please consider his strong reasons .

Sunday, December 16, 2007

A visionary article !

Some minutes ago, I faced by a visionary article (by Amir Salihefendic , a really briliant young Hacker). In general, he talks about how to increase our productivity. As soon as I conclude the paper , an intuitive feelings raised in me suddenly. What ? just focus on your main stuff? Never give to until make it done? Holly shit, I knew it. It's like Meditation. Why the hell I didn't do that before? I always wanted to do at least two work in parallel until now, I mean in entire of my life:(
I don't know why, but I just know that I will do it FROM NOW.
Well ......... what's my main work right now? Ahan, got it. Thanks Amir :)

No Comment 2



Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Killer robots could replace soldiers


Ten minutes ago a 25-year-old self-taught engineer named "Adam Gettings" pulled into the Waffle House parking lot, lifted the hatch of his black SUV, and unveiled what could very well be the future of urban warfare: a toy-like but gun-wielding robot designed to replace human soldiers on the battlefield.


No Comment !!!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

IBT TOEFL + Reschedule

I rescheduled my IBT TOEFL test . I postpone it until Feb 2 , It was Dec 15. I need the score of 100/120 ( equivalent to 600 in paper based TOEFL). I wish I can get this work done :)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Comments

I made active the commenting system . However , there is some "word verification" mechanism for non blogger authors . I hope your kind comments help me to improve my Ideas and performance :)
Cheers ...

ADSL2+

I'm so pleased to announce that my ADSL2+ link is attached now. From now , I will be online 24hour ,7days in a week :)
Anyway , I can understand why some guys like Mark likes to get their work done individually. In my opinion , some conditions can help you to make your productivity more than 80%-90%. However , Telecommunication is one of this conditions. I wish I could find one of these telecommunication jobs , unless I have to start my own from scratch ! Is Hiring is really obsolete?
I think yes , unless you wanna work for NASA or Google :)

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Programming is not An Engineering Discipline

Yeah... That's it ! At the moment, I strongly believe it.
Maybe it's offensive or maybe not,but when you think about a program (a web application for example) , you don't need to calculate the fundamentals , you don't need mathematical design and.... In the best form, you design an UML chart(albeit with prior thinking) , collect your coders, discuss with them about the code(if you have experienced coders) and start to code in tomorrow morning :)
But Engineering is not like this. In power engineering or Vision/Image processing, you need more and more info about the "nature" of your problem. Just when you understand the mathematical nature of a problem, you can estimate the solutions. It's not just transaction to DataBases !!!
I'm very pleasure to switch to "Vision" and more for studying "Electrical Engineering". They taught me the "style of thinking". I can break ANY problem to it's elements at the moment ,Cause my mind is trained in a logical form. It's hard at the first glance,but has a lot of Fun. Self trained Hackers don't switch to the stuffs like these, because of Math I think :)
What about you? Do you like hard sciences inasmuch as more challenging problems???

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Bye Bye Power Engineering

AT LAST.... I told good bye to power engineering ! Now,It's a great time to focus on Vision( My main interest) for ever... It's a very nice feeling. Vision has been my real interest from 2-3 years ago. I wish I can be a GURU in the stuff :)
UDPATE: Maybe I have to work on power engineering for several month. Because of money,you know ;)
UPDATE 2 : No , I can't. Since the life is too short, why I waste my time on working on unfavorite things??? If there is no company in Iran which it's field is Image processing , I will start the first :)

Monday, February 26, 2007

Advanced methods for Feature Extraction

Since I'm implementing a project in "Face Detection", I have to use advanced methods for "Feature Extraction". I have designed a MLP network for training, but I used raw pictures as an input layer… As maybe you know, it's better idea to decrease the input dimension by using Feature Extraction/Selection approaches.
There is some approaches like :"non Linear PCA" and "Kernel Methods".
I want to use Kernel Methods. I think it's more applicable and most of recent papers that I have read were about this major! However , It's maybe because of my guide attitude (Dr.Araabi) who have focused on it more :) I don't know. But because my learning procedure is "Learning by Doing" I will implement both of them. If you have any prior experience, please email me and let me know…


Cheers :)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Going in depth on Vision

Hi friends... :)
After a long time,I came back.... I have focused on Vision nowadays (and maybe for the rest of my life !). It's a VERY HOT and High-Tech area; specially when you focus on Advanced Autonomous systems(like Robots and Vehicles). BTW, if you are interested in AI too(specially Neural Net and Fuzzy approaches on vision), please check my blog and send me email (your proposals, etc..)
Hummm...... my current direction of studying is about Image and knowledge classification based on a Neuro-Fuzzy and Neuro-statistical(PNN) methods . Thank you Pattern Recognition !!!!;)

cheers.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

zen and Net

I have disconnect myself from Net because of meditation!!!
I need it,you know....
I will come back ;)