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आंतरराष्ट्रीय ऊर्जा किरकोळ मुल्य निर्देशांक / Global Fuel retail Price Index

From today, I have started recording the retail prices of fuel in daily use in India at following location,



Following is the matrix structure,

• country
• Retailer (largest retailer in the country if possible)
• Data Source
• Fuel Brand (standard, non premium variety for all categories)
• Fuel Category
• Note
• Fuel Quantity
• Currency
• Date (dd/mm/yyyy)
• Price (effective in Capital city if possible)
• Price Currency to Euro Conversion rate (on the same date when price was quoted)
• Price in Euro
• Price Currency to USD Conversion rate (on the same date when price was quoted)
• Price in USD

As you will notice, this structure allows additional country specific retail prices to be also recorded, and with a possibiliy to compare the prices in EU / USD with conversion. The only thing which is missing is probably the difference in units, I have used metric units. Probably a conversion will be needed for countries that use gallons etc.

The countries which should also be included IMHO are the top 15 consumers as per the wikipedia -

1 United States
2 China
3 Japan
4 Russia
5 Germany
6 India
7 Canada
8 Brazil
9 South Korea
10 Saudi Arabia
11 Mexico
12 France
13 United Kingdom
14 Italy
15 Iran

But the spreadsheet is open for editing to all and anyone from countries other than these want to add their own country to track and compare their country's prices in global comparison, you are welcome.

This is a personal experiment about the power of global collaboration for information sharing at individual level. The spreadsheet has gone online at approx 4 PM Indian Standard time on Fri 12 Sept 2008. I will be tracking the changes to the spreadsheet and would also try to share these details online - spreadsheet location.

Failed Perl Catalyst install on WinXP / Activeperl 5.10 setup log...

1] Install activeperl (5.10.x)

2] Check Activeperl PPM repository packages for catalyst packages.

3] Check catalyst packages

If unavailable search and add relevant repository... (http://cpan.uwinnipeg.ca/PPMPackages/10xx/)

Downloading University of Winnipeg's 5.10 PPM repository packlist ... done

Updating University of Winnipeg's 5.10 PPM repository database ... done

Synchronizing Database ... done

Synchronizing Database ... done

Synchronizing Database ... done

4] Install Catalyst-Devel


Catalyst-Devel marked for install

[Snipped...]


Installing package ...

Downloading Catalyst-Devel-1.03 ... done

Unpacking Catalyst-Devel-1.03 ... done

Generating HTML for Catalyst-Devel-1.03 ... done

Updating files in site area ... done

Installing package done

Synchronizing Database ... done

Verifying all packages ...

2244 files verified

Verifying Catalyst-Devel ...

7 files verified

[Snipped...]

5] Use CPAN


D:\Program Files\Perl\bin>perl -MCPAN -e "install Task::Catalyst"

CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.18)

CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v2.036)

CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.9711)

Fetching with LWP:
...[Snipped...]


This continued and CPAN based installed pulled following modules finding a recursive dependancy...


Task-Catalyst-2.0001-oKtSqX
Catalyst-Plugin-Authorization-ACL-0.09-Gpol3T
Tree-Simple-VisitorFactory-0.10-dNL2E6
Test-Exception-0.27-AJ6hbL
Sub-Uplevel-0.1901-hpRDs3
Tree-Simple-1.18-09oniZ
Class-Data-Inheritable-0.08-0x8KSx
Class-Throwable-0.10-6Ao6iI
Catalyst-Runtime-5.7014-PraD54
Class-Accessor-0.31-Ortdtv
File-Modified-0.07-BicdSp
HTTP-Request-AsCGI-0.5-MjRCZ1
Text-SimpleTable-0.05-kZz9Yb
HTTP-Body-1.04-LxdagF
YAML-0.66-G985Hn
Path-Class-0.16-Uhw8cm
CGI-Simple-1.105-UQ1aWO
Class-Inspector-1.23-SZys3g
PAR-0.982-QQsP2A
PAR-Dist-0.31-ATcCRO
Catalyst-Plugin-Prototype-1.33-5wZiqS
HTML-Prototype-1.48-uARHxe
FCGI-ProcManager-0.18-voB0Gr
Catalyst-Engine-Apache-1.12-gtIFTR
Catalyst-Plugin-Authorization-Roles-0.07-Y3ouUX
UNIVERSAL-isa-1.01-VWGMW3
Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-0.10007-twuncg
Catalyst-Plugin-Session-0.19-QMatgn
Test-Deep-0.103-T8FpHw
Test-NoWarnings-0.084-oCrPOQ
Test-Tester-0.107-Pg0dby
Test-MockObject-1.09-ljL2Z2
UNIVERSAL-can-1.12-7ek4hE
Object-Signature-1.05-QoHwDP
Set-Object-1.25-nV6JS4
Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-Store-DBIC-0.11-ipHLAH
Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-Cookie-0.09-fPkcmJ
DBIx-Class-0.08010-OhonF1
Scope-Guard-0.03-maOI6F
Class-C3-0.19-2UX78k
JSON-Any-1.17-aTeoCK
JSON-2.12-kSkvyX
Class-Accessor-Grouped-0.08001-0VNxKR
MRO-Compat-0.09-GMbr6w
SQL-Abstract-Limit-0.12-BcDrT5
SQL-Abstract-1.24-9vIl4z
Data-Page-2.00-cc3XzP
Class-Accessor-Chained-0.01-vCAY4R
Class-C3-Componentised-1.0003-8VEBE8
Carp-Clan-6.00-dpVIH9
Module-Find-0.06-stzdQi
Catalyst-Model-DBIC-Schema-0.21-srEMuI
UNIVERSAL-require-0.11-IRADdT
Class-Data-Accessor-0.04004-Z8PdYQ
Catalyst-Log-Log4perl-1.00-0cZRrB
Params-Validate-0.91-mxHBz7
Sub-Install-0.924-Yl1s1q
Log-Log4perl-1.18-dwIFG6
Catalyst-Plugin-HTML-Widget-1.1-7VTUA3
HTML-Widget-1.11-izYg1h
HTML-Scrubber-0.08-ppJjVj
Email-Valid-0.179-0y5zTM
IO-CaptureOutput-1.09-GY93Ui
PathTools-3.2701-pJX0vI
MailTools-2.04-ChAdns
TimeDate-1.16-drkRVs
Test-Pod-1.26-eVUFA9
Module-Pluggable-Fast-0.18-FXT5qd
Date-Calc-5.4-6NU9AV
Bit-Vector-6.4-ao2AR3
Test-WWW-Mechanize-Catalyst-0.43-trafjs
WWW-Mechanize-1.34-0f5aLM
Test-WWW-Mechanize-1.20-meNXWC
HTTP-Server-Simple-0.34-g79Qvt
Carp-Assert-More-1.12-Wggf1f
Carp-Assert-0.20-7qKWbD
Test-LongString-0.11-igUJUF
Catalyst-Plugin-Authentication-Store-Htpasswd-0.02-29cYuQ
Authen-Htpasswd-0.16-Tp8JQh
Crypt-PasswdMD5-1.3-qePNwu
IO-LockedFile-0.23-I5kVqp
Catalyst-Plugin-Session-State-URI-0.07-v2N0hu
HTML-TokeParser-Simple-3.15-nubsEZ
Sub-Override-0.08-y9k2CR
MIME-Types-1.24-VjxWta
URI-Find-0.16-cyjyxS
FCGI-0.67-TwK3Bh
Catalyst-View-TT-0.27-MTF9XB
Template-Toolkit-2.20-s4ha05
AppConfig-1.66-R7me2Q
Template-Timer-0.04-MSWi2X
Catalyst-Controller-FormBuilder-0.04-PzXC6a
Tie-IxHash-1.21-OFFtKf
CGI-FormBuilder-3.0501-v8d6DT
Catalyst-Plugin-StackTrace-0.09-CMuNNI
Devel-StackTrace-1.1902-tGSIyQ
Catalyst-Plugin-Session-Store-File-0.13-fdkKc3
Cache-Cache-1.05-6O2oB0
Error-0.17015-qNMBNL
Catalyst-Controller-BindLex-0.05-jUYODg
PadWalker-1.7-D9Kn6Z
Devel-Caller-2.03-rjrmhb
Devel-LexAlias-0.04-a9gbvA
Array-RefElem-1.00-1YrJxD
Test-use-ok-0.02-j7UDbu
Catalyst-Plugin-I18N-0.08-Us0KCg
Locale-Maketext-Lexicon-0.68-VtXjf8
Task-Catalyst-2.0001-JE1Cmu


Some 3-4 hours later, the CPAN based installation stopped mentioning that installation is impossible!

Getting into development - MVC framework

It's been time since I coded anything of late. When I was trying to create a portable system on a disk system, I found a lot of very lightweight standalone apps that were really good for the task at hand. The feeling to code some really needed functionality was felt badly. I needed to decide the platform. So, I decided to identify some crucial filter criteria.

1] It should be a MVC framework based development tool
2] Frontend should be web
3] Backend should be sqlite
4] Controller should be in a scripted language... (perl, python, ruby, Javascript...)

I searched and found quite a few MVC frameworks for scripting languages. Since I am already familier with Perl, I was more interested in perl based tools.

I finally zeroed in on Catalyst. Over the coming weeks, I will posting my experiences in getting into at least one of the MVC frameworks. Let's see how far it goes...

new mumbai train carriages - information scroller display

discovering podcasts and audio books...

This will interest you all book who enjoy reading or at least have to endure long commutes common in any large city..Since I am back from project, travel takes a lot of time (3 hours +) and that's a quite sad.. so I have started doing something that may interest you... I have discovered podcasts and more importantly, audio books podcasts which can be enjoyed on any mp3 player. After some P G Wodehouse, and Anton Chekhov short stories, I would say, this is the best way to spend the painful traffick jams...

Check http://librivox.org for free books. I would recommend book from link below as a start...
http://www.archive.org/download/mystery_coll_001_librivox/deathattheexcelsior_wodehouse_mn_64kb.mp3

If you are already into podcasts, do share if you know good sources...

"cookbook" guidance vs. experience and common sense

In consulting, there is often a danger to preach ideal advice in terms of to-be processes that has little practical relevance. While recently browsing 'NASA Systems Engineering Handbook', following quote by Dr. Edward J. Hoffman, NASA Program Manager in a forward written to the
Handbook makes an interesting point about this habit.

"In an attempt to demonstrate the potential dangers of relying on purely ''cookbook" logical thinking, the mathematician/philosopher Carl Hempel posed a paradox. If we want to prove the hypothesis "AII ravens are black," we can look for many ravens and determine if they all meet our criteria. Hempel suggested changing the hypothesis to its logical contra positive (a rewording with identical meaning) would be easier. The new hypothesis becomes: "All non-black things are
nonravens." This transformation, supported by the laws of logical thinking, makes it much easier to test, but unfortunately is ridiculous. Hempel's raven paradox points out the importance of common sense and proper background exploration, even to subjects as intricate as systems engineering.

In 1989, when the initial work on the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook was started, there were many who were concerned about the dangers of a document that purported to teach a generic NASA approach to systems engineering. Like Hempel's raven, there were concerns over
the potential of producing a "cookbook" which offered the illusion of logic while ignoring experience and common sense..."