async messaging from mysql to java ?

Is there a way to send a async message from mysql to the JVM. I want to execute a java method on a row insert in the mysql table. Is there a neat or a standard way to achieve this? I want to avoid polling the table. I think it should be doable using GET_LOCK, RELEASE_LOCK function calls and some application level logic, but there are side effects to this function and doesnt seem to me to be a cool solution :)

Trip to Munnar

We start. On Time.
This weekend we went to munnar. Munnar is a hill station in western ghats (kerela). We started at 9:30 PM on thursday. Before that I had to go to commercial street in druelling traffic to get some stuff for the trip. But by our standards we started off "on time".


Journey to Munnar - Amazing and long; very long
I dont know who proposed it but the first hop on our trip was mysore. As usual we didnt research the route in advance and paid for it :). We did reach mysore on time but noone knew the definitive route from mysore to munnar. Apparently there is no direct route to munnar from mysore. Anyway the best route from there seemed to be thru chamrajnagar. We got it from a lorry driver. There werent many people on the road to ask. So we blocked the road using our two cars and hoped that someone would stop. Definitely not a suggested way, but it worked. we headed toward chamrajnagar looking for the ever reclusive left turn after the railway crossing. After some 30 kms it turned out that we missed it.

We decided to continue and go thru ooty. The route to ooty was amazing - we stopped and enjoyed the scary lightless jungle night for some time. We saw some wild bisons too.

We had to stop at the entry point to ooty, since it was "locked". It was 2 AM in the morning and gates were locked till 6 AM. We bribed the guards and proceeded further. I slept afterwards in the car , but we went to ooty, then connoor and then reached coimbatore in the morning. Had a good breakfast there. Munnar was another 180 KMs from coimbatore. Saw a wind mill farm.

Finally finally reached munnar at around 1PM. Finally we reached, after a full 16+ hours.

Munnar and around- the town
Munnar turned out to be a lacklustre town. There was only one bar in the town :). Saravana bhavan was a good food place. All the chicks in the town seem to hang around there. Anyway we found a place for ourselves near the town and took rest for the rest of the day.

Munnar and around - waterfall and viewpoints
Next day we checked out attukal water fall. Took a bath. Had a great time over there.


We checked out some of the view points and the mattupeti dam. Went back to our hotel. It was already night by then.



Munnar and around - national park
Next day we just checked out the national park. Park had amazing cool view. We saw some wild life too - a snake and a goat :)


All done - The Journey back
We started our return journey. This time we decided to ask often and not to take the oooty route. We went to coimbatore and then took NH47 to salem. From salem took the route to hosur and then finally reached bangalore at 3:15 AM monday morning. Without any untoward incident. Awesome:).

Group Games for Mobiles ?

Is there a service/website for playing collaborative card games over GPRS (internet) on mobile phones ? Card games wouldnt require that much bandwidth, would be liked by many people, should be easy to develop.

[UPDATED] What about chess ?

Nokia open sources s60 browser

Nokia has open sourced s60 browser . I got it compiling and working.
I hacked it to have some minor changes - integrated it with google wap gateway, and
changed some of the rendered text. It was easy. Some of the symbian C++ tutorials helped a lot -
here and here .

Technical agenda for weekend is done,done,done.

Anti Quota Rally in Bangalore

Went to the anti-quota rally in bangalore . Checkout some of the news coverage from bbc ,hindu .
I felt there was lack of enthusiasm and seriousness on the part of protesters. I was in the non-serious group :). On deeper thoughts I am not that sure if this policy change affects that many people, and hence there is lack of seriousness.

The rally was unneccessarily docile :). The rally route was bad . There were stretches where noone could have heard us. Also rally caused no traffic jams - another bad. In the end I dont think anyone noticed. Whats the point of going to a rally when noone notices it ?

Reservation in Education

Reservation in education is hot topic in india right now. And it is rightly so as it affects future of mllions of youngsters.

Is reservation right or wrong ? I think reservation or affirmative action is required to pull up categories who have been historically weak in their social standing. There can be several implementations of "Affirmative action". The present one of blanket quotas in education is the worst. I would list out the problems in the current policies and possible solutions

• Reservation percentages are too high. They are more than 50% in some states. The propose d 50% in central univs would be devastating for general category.
  
• Creamy layer. The current policy has created created a "creamy layer" withing SC/ST and OBC category. The children of beneficiaries, who have a good education and good financial status, still avail the quota. Creamy layer should be removed from the reservation since they already are at a higher social and financial standing.
  
• Reservation Benefits are allowed multiple times for a single person. A person shouldnt get benefit of quota in education, then higher education and then in job, and then again in promotions. A person should be given the benefit possibly once or twice in a lifetime. From then onwards he/she should prove himself/herself on pure merit.
  
• Not much emphasis of the government on education. India needs a hell lot of skilled people at all levels - technicians, engineers , doctors etc. Education oppurtunities are scarce, thats why reservation is such an issue. If we have enough education oppurtunities then reservation becomes a non issue. Some of the european countries actually have free education for all. We should strive for universal basic education along with more colleges at the higher education level.
• [UPDATED] No onus to remove the quotas. There is a deep concern that quotas once started would not be removed. They would remain forever. Quota percentages should decrease at a constant rate every year.
  

What is tripti ??

You may ask what/where is tripti ? Tripti (actually trupti) is the name of our house in koramangala. Also note that literal meaning of tripti is "satisfaction". Now I think you dont need any other intro to the house.
BTW this is the (side)pic . better one coming soon-

Yo. Now even I am a blogger.

I never tried blogging till now. I was ashamed of this especially because I thought the reason is that I am not internet savvy. To make it worse I work for a dot-com.
Anyway It looks like things have changed now. I am internet savvy and can justify my dot-com job. Welcome to my blog. This blog would be mostly for/about my friends, family and some doze of technology.

Enjoy madi
nitin