Germany vs Argentina

The pinnacle game to the World Cup 2014 made its way last Sunday to millions of viewers. Both Germany and Argentina displayed superb football skills and embraced their passion for the football game as well as for the pride of their nations as they went on the field. The game intensified towards the end of first half as both sides let of steam to score goals towards the second half. During the game one could wonder that it might have just led up to penalties in end. However, in an unexpected score from Gotze it brought the end to the Argentina dreams of World Cup glory in just a matter of seconds. Lionel Messi for whatever reason did not have what it takes to clinch a victory for Argentina and throughout the game he was relatively unimpressive as almost on the sidelines. Even his last free kick could not hold any surprise hope at the last remaining minutes of the game. As Germany celebrated their victory, the Argentina team could be seen utterly distraught. However, both sides played an impressive game. Argentina throughout the game had many chances of scoring and yet they kept missing to the surprise of the Argentina fans. The celebrations in Germany will mark the well deserved performance of their national team and provide for much shared learning of their efficient game plays during the whole World Cup. It seems the World Cup came and swiftly left us. For some it was filled with surprises while for others it was the real passion for the game. One must wonder what will Brazil do now after the event. Will they attempt to resolve the real issues of their nation or continue to spend on such events while their people struggle through economic hardship on the streets. It seems as many watched the World Cup, the reality often is left bare towards the end. All things come to an end as we look back to the games, and then look to the future.

Big City Parking

In big cities parking can be a real struggle especially during rush hour or at times when there are specific holiday events on the go. Driving around to look for a parking space is a waste of time. One wants to be able to track parking and for private lots to be able to book in advance. Or, at least utilize geo-location to track an empty spot within an urban grid. Linked Data could play a part in this as well. Firstly, to build an ontology of public and private parking. Then to utilize linked data to build resource query through the web of interlinked data. Other resources like geonames could come in handy. One could then build a mobile application to consume the services and that looks up nearest empty parking spot in the vicinity of a particular location as well as to find out parking spaces within private lots for where advanced booking options may be available. In certain areas, there may even be schemes where private residences offer their parking spaces for rent which could also provide an additional point of lookup. These services become handy for the traveller who needs to get a parking space in a densely populated city area and avoid much frustration. They also help in reducing double parking as well as traffic when movement of vehicles is slowed down by the lack of parking availability. Even the idea of monitoring congestion and events in area could enlighten most during their travel and to inform as to whether parking spaces might be challenging at a particular time of day or season. Linking such methods to Sat-Navs would be quite useful too.

IBM Global Parking Survey
Ordinance Survey
Data.gov.uk
Data.gov
Freebase

Data Serialization

Serialization is an important step in converting objects or data states into particular storage formats and then reconstructed for further processing. The process of serialization of objects is called marshalling and the process of extracting data from deserialization of bytes is called unmarshalling. The benefits of data serialization involve: method for persisting objects for storage, a method for remote procedure calls, a method for distributing objects, and a method for detecting changes in data. Object serialization is supported by many languages. However, different data serialization formats provide for different efficiencies in performance or flexibility over domain contexts. Big data requirements often rely on efficient data serialization formats for processing that are not only compact but also provide native support for partitioning as well as schema evolution features. However, in other cases it may be more appropriate to rely on text formats of XML and JSON which provide for more sophisticated data structures with composite fields as well as hierarchical data.

List of Data Serialization Formats
Comparison of Thrift vs ProtoBuff vs Avro
Comparison of Data Serialization Formats
Understanding RDF Serialization Formats
RDF And Serialization Formats
Thrift
Avro
JSON
JSONLD
YAML
Protocol Buffers
MessagePack
XML
XML-RPC

List of Useful Python Libraries

There are an ever increasing amount of third-party libraries available in Python especially for it being open source and accessible to all. The below link provides for an aggregated list, organized by category, of some useful libraries that are available in the open community.

awesome python

Brazil vs Netherlands

Brazil were at a loss from the start. Their hopes and dreams had already vanished from the previous game with Germany, having horribly beaten on their own turf. As the game turned a few Brazilian fans could be heard in distance cheering for the team amid the disappointment of the majority. To add further dismay, a penalty was given which put Netherlands in the lead. Further reducing Brazil to an even darker hole of gloom. Their weaknesses in defense outshined throughout the game as evidence in the goals that Netherlands further mounting at them. The more goals that were scored, the less Brazil was seen to fight back. Perhaps, they just did not have the muscle left or the reason to fight. Was third place not good enough to fight for? It seems Brazil were still in the shadows of dealing with what they lost to even find reason in their game play with Netherlands as they had nothing left to lose. Netherlands dismounted their prowess and brought on the mighty goals to further clinch their win to the end. It was a one sided game from start to finish. Not a thing left to be shocked as so many anticipated Netherlands position against Brazil. 

List of Useful Scala Libraries

Scala is evolving in a fast way with many third-party libraries erupting on the scene. It is gaining in traction in a multitude of domain areas especially for data processing. The below link provides details to some aggregated list of useful project libraries that can be found on the web.

awesome scala

Build Your Own Robot

Almost everyone has played with legos in their childhood. They have become a nostalgic episode in lives of most adults especially laying the foundations of spatial abstractions to engineering. As the use of robots evolve commercially so will the demand for consumers wanting to develop and design their own. Gradually, they may become the next trend of ubiquitous gadgets for the new generation of households. What we really need is an evolutionary change and serious inspiration from legos towards building viable robots. Although, such robots do exist in the market they rarely if ever provide for a real-world solution other than as toy prototypes for playing and research. We need more evolvable and programmable hardware that can be constructed in whatever creative form to build a sense of individualism. Although, tools like Rasberry Pi and Arduino are making some strides in making such flexibility in hardware possible. However, what people really desire are robots as inspirational from movies like Real Steel and I,Robot that could eventually become part of our home experience and aspect of our everyday lives. A robot with a near enough cognitive ability to walk around in our local streets that perhaps a human had created. Robots can play a variety of roles to benefit humans and not just as toys. Humans often find having pets in the house a valuable experience as part of nurture and nature. However, robots could provide for even more multitude of experiences around the house. Currently, creating your own robot is not just for the lighthearted though. It requires the ability to understand artificial intelligence as well as engineering of hardware circuitry and sensors. Perhaps, what we lack here is a level of abstraction similar to a PC or a mobile which allows people to build their own and yet not have a need to build a CPU, a memory chip, and at such a low level of abstraction. What most people desire is robotics that can be built like a metaphor of infrastructure or even platform as services in a blackbox manner. Not every one needs to know hardware. But, providing them the versatility of lego-like pieces allows them to not only build robots of their own but also to design their own programmable software. Even connecting them to internet of things approach for the cloud could be an option. Such approaches are still very bare bones in the market, very much research oriented, or for industrial scale use. In time, we as consumers are likely to see robots becoming an every day item of gadget that could be transposed through a transformer like set of pieces, in large scale, and powered up through downloadable programs in a USB or bluetooth plug and play fashion. 

How To Train Your Dragon 2

A long awaited sequel to the successful story of a boy and his dragon. The new story revolves around the boy evolving into a dragon master almost depicting richer themes around his life story. The story also has a deeper meaning than before and a more intermingle of action. How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a powerhouse of animation built to tantalize and titillate our minds of our own dragon. The animation sequences display a 3D awe inspiring delivery for thrills and audience imagination. But, also to involve us in the death-defying battles that erupt and swoop through at dizzying heights. Perhaps, such movies might even trigger interest for more remote control or even robotic dragons.