Zubin Wadia's notebook since 2008.
The pace of evolution in AI is unprecedented. Models keep arriving more intelligent, more perceptive, and more autonomous than the last, and they are reshaping how software is built: agents now write, review and operate the code, alongside humans and other agents. The tooling that generates this software also exposes you to variability of outcomes. The same prompt produces different programs on di
Carnage as Joe CIO brings tokens to bear on problems he understands best. NYSE: IBM, pre-market · July 14, 2026
The consequence of one playing the game too well is that the rest switch to another. Regardless, the individual remains the bagholder. Sparked by Thinking Machines’ The Future Worth Building Is Human .
Watch Starbucks closely: they’re replacing parts of their Microsoft and IBM stack with tools built in-house. Margin pressure is an underrated transformation tailwind; when a competitive market punishes waste, betting on your own AI-empowered teams stops looking like risk and starts looking like discipline.
Good FDEs know the customer, the market, the edges of the product’s surface and where it’s headed next, the partners and tools that support expansion, and the competition — intimately. They navigate that terrain with fluency and systematically expand the addressable market. Bad FDEs arrive context-poor and pattern-rich — force-fitting the last customer’s solution onto this one. Good FDEs build pon
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I was lucky enough to attend the 6th Annual Grain Gathering for the first time last weekend. It’s a well-organized event bringing together an eclectic mix of makers & dreamers committed to introducing the full nutritive value of grains into our food supply. Approximately 300 Farmers, Millers, Bakers, Restauranteurs, Entrepreneurs - young & old, from around the world, were in attendance this year.
An interesting article from JJD (an InfoQ stalwart)… http://www.infoq.com/articles/no-more-mvc-frameworks And an interesting discussion on Gitter around this topic… https://gitter.im/jdubray/sam With the SAM pattern, he’s clearly approaching the problem from a server-side engineer’s perspective — the emphasis is on clean abstractions, formalism, clear representation-of-component-state — but he mis
Ran into an interesting piece by Robin Sloan in The Atlantic delving into two contrasting approaches to experiencing food in San Francisco. I’m not sure we need to choose between “warmth and inefficiency” vs. “cold and efficient”. An interesting alternative might be the following: – A Josephine-like ecosystem of home cooks that are “discovered” by curators/taste-makers within the community. These
Youtube recommendations are generally great, but tend to weigh my most recent (read: last two weeks) interests disproportionately higher than anything I have seen in the past. Binge-watch anything in particular and the algorithm rapidly assimilates its recommendations around that interest to “feed the fire”. Because I saw a couple of Schumacher F1 videos, and checked out some SUV reviews - I now h
Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed indeed. Has anyone’s burden been lighter today Because I was willing to share? Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way? When they needed my help was I there? Then wake up and do something more Than dream of your mansion above. Doing good is
I ran into a great piece by Kalyan Karmakar aka @FinelyChopped about the story of Prabhakar Desai and the founding of Sindhudurg. The against-the-odds theme of his life story is one you see repeated many times over in various acts of life. Vim and vigor, coupled with deep-seated focus, is a formidable potion in the pursuit of success. Those qualities however, are not the genesis of mastery and exc
This RFP for an Human Resource Management System ( HRMS ) for the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI ) is a classic. PDF here: http://bit.ly/1nQPQQG This is an opportunity to deliver a payroll, roster management and timekeeping solution for a prestigious agency. Solutions can be delivered using monolithic enterprise-y stacks or modern open platforms. But alas, “ modern & open” options will not be present
While I always appreciated Tendulkar, I could never get myself to be a fan of his until latter part of his career. It mainly stemmed from my own belief that his contemporary, Brian Lara, was always the more expressive and dominant batsman. And it is a belief I still hold. Lara made bigger 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s and 500s. Lara seemed to find another gear when the chips were down. Most importantly,
In 1910, a young Parsi assistant accountant with the Bank of India in Bombay had the far-fetched idea that he could set up a bank of his own. When news of this alarmingly ambitious enterprise reached his Manager, H.P. Stringfellow, he sent for the young man seeking confirmation of such vaulting intent. At first, Stringfellow regarded it as a ‘ huge joke’ but when he realised that the young man was
Ran into a very nice article by Colleen Taylor @ TechCrunch about Code.org’s video A/B testing strategy. A particular paragraph stands out: Using a Facebook ad campaign, Code.org ran a 36-way ad campaign on Facebook with each combination of six different headlines and six different thumbnails, settling on “ What most schools don’t teach” because it performed nine percent better than average — and
Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school, where children strove At recess, in the ring; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. Or rather, he passed us; The dews grew quivering
Great TED video via Fred Wilson’s AVC blog. Clay Shirky does a great job of explaining tech to the uninitiated. The premise he sets in the talk is tantalizing.
“ Quem Metui Moritura” What need have I to fear–so soon to die? Let me work on, not watch and wait in dread: What will it matter, when that I am dead That they bore hate or love that near me lie? ’Tis but a lifetime, and the end is nigh At best or worst. Let me lift up my head And firmly, as with inner courage, tread Mine own appointed way on mandates high. Pain could but bring from all its evil s
Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire, Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire. Blest! who can unconcern’dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away, In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day, Sound sleep by night;
David Boudia - 10m Platform Gold Why: This guy turned into another diver during the semis and finals. Put the Chinese under pressure and found the path to victory. Nathan Adrian - 100m Freestyle Gold Why: 0.01 seconds, that’s why. McKayla Maroney - Team Gymnastics Vault Why: Nothing else in gymnastics comes close to what this lady can do on the vault. The delta between her and the rest is astoundi
1957 , Russell Kirsch’s team at the National Bureau of Standards ( NIST in the future) invented the world’s first scanner, a drum design. The first photo ever scanned was a 5cmx5cm picture of his 3-month old son, Walden: Walden@3mos Source: Wikipedia On October 7th 1959, the Russians would take a similar approach (Photomultiplier Tubes / PMTs) to scan and transmit images of the far side of the Moo
In both cases, program managers blamed the delays on the challenge of customizing commercial off-the-shelf software. DEAMS managers cited the need to address more than 3,400 “ problem reports” during testing, the report said. Key point from a damning report on DoD IT project performance. It is a fallacy to think that it is easier to chisel down monolithic software packages to fit needs vs. just cr
Opening day was a let-down due to the lame pitch @ Oval. Two really good bowling attacks need juicier pitches to make it interesting. Batsmen have all the time in the world to get back after committing to the front foot. India’s batting line-up would have racked up 350+ by days end on this pitch.
Tim Bray brought up an interesting discussion on his blog today: Does it make sense to carry around two, three, or more portable computing devices? Select from: Regular-size laptop; say 15”-screen or higher. Skinny laptop i.e. Air at 13” or even 11”. Big tablet at ~10” as in current iPads. One-hander tablet, typically at 7”. Handset, 3½”-5”. *items in strike-out = my ideal combination, assuming a
Background: The Air France Flight 447 crash has become one of the most well studied in recent memory, primarily due to the relentless efforts by the French to retrieve the plane’s black box. A recent report attributed fault to a number of factors, including malfunctioning sensors and pilot error. Another potential contributing factor was Airbus’ fly-by-wire system which operates in an asynchronous
As any cricket fan now knows, ESPN Cricinfo announced their all-time Cricket team . Not team of the century, not team of the decade. This is it, the 11 best to ever step on the field. The World XI : Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Don Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Adam Gilchrist, Malcolm Marshall, Shane Warne, Wasim Akram, Dennis Lillee But here’s my stab at it >> Zubin’s World XI
Sorry everyone - absenteeism in the extreme here over the last few months. Good reasons for it though - things have been hectic on the career side of things with all aspects hotting up pretty much together. The new start-up, CiviGuard , is going well. We had a momentous three weeks, starting with a DHS summit on modeling & simulation where we were able to share our thoughts with some of world’s gr
Pretty interesting post by Sara Sidner ( CNN ) about villagers fighting a big corp . Only difference is that “ Toruk Makto ” is not Sam Worthington but a 75-year old Grandmother of three ;) I wish them luck!
So… looks like Karsten Nohl went through with one of the most pervasive open source experiments in IT history. The GSM A5/1 encryption algorithm is now cracked, code books have been generated, real-time decryption and snooping is now a distinct possibility using off-the-shelf hardware (ATI/Nvidia/IBM-Tosh PS3 Cell Procesors/USRP2) and open source software ( Asterisk , OpenBTS ). Assuming that Kars