I checked the weather forecast at 5am on Easter Friday (race day) and Environment Canada had a gale warning in effect for the Straits. Winds were expected to gust up to 40kts easing to 20kts by 2pm that afternoon. We’d experienced 25-30kt winds under full sails on a weekend trip to Gibsons a few months back and Kiva and the crew handled it very well. I’ve only been racing for a year now but had grown somewhat accustomed to high winds at the start of the racing easing off as the day progressed. This was typically in line with predictions by various weather services and I didn’t expect any different this time.

A small crowd had gathered at the pier to see the race start. Winds were at 20kts when we started off heading south west towards the Gulf Islands. We held off on flying our spinnaker while we assessed the situation. Two boats put theirs up and within minutes, one of them was torn to shreds – overpowered by the high winds. The second one didn’t last much longer. Holding off on the kite meant that I was done for now as I was on kite flying duty. We saw one boat round up in the distance but we were able to hold our own. By the time we got to UBC, we were in 2nd place however, it was still just the beginning of a long race.

As we got into deeper waters, the winds had picked up past 30kts and the sea was visibly rougher. We rounded up a couple of times however, quickly came up with a rhythm of calling out the wind gusts and bearing away just in time to keep control. After about an hour of this, it seemed like we had things well in hand and that we could wait out the gale. After all, the forecast was for winds to ease at around 2pm. Watching other boats wipe out was gut wrenching for me – I couldn’t help but empathize with the crews out there. Given my limited rough weather experience, I was getting a crash course on how boats handle when overpowered.

We checked our watches and it was now 1pm. We’d been racing for just over 2hrs. Something was not right, instead of the weather easing, it was getting stronger. Winds were now inching up to 40kts and when we managed to surf a wave, Kiva saw bursts of speeds close to 15kts. The waves were getting more erratic and were building. Without any clear reference point, it was hard to figure out how high the waves were however, on one occasion, it felt like I was peering over the edge of a second storey balcony. We got overpowered and rounded up a couple more times and each time, it seemed to take a bit longer to get back on course. But each time, my crew mates skilfully brought Kiva back on course. And then, all hell broke lose…

We were once again rounding up when I saw a rush of water coming at me. I yelled out “wave” and braced for impact as water rushed over the me and submerged the cockpit. When I managed to pop my head up, I saw a tangle of boots and jackets on the low end of the boat. The cockpit looked like a hot tub and I could see sandwiches and drink bottles floating away out to sea. As the water drained out, we saw that one of our crew had gone overboard. Thankfully, we were all tethered in. I held on to the high side as crew close by rushed to pull him back in. Our skipper called to drop sails and powered up the engine – we were done racing. Our priority now was to fend of hypothermia. As I struggled to release the jib halyard, the boat heeled violently onto port and another crewmember trying to lower the main sail went overboard. I ran up to foredeck to help him aboard. Just as he climbed aboard, I saw the jib rip out of its track and fall into the ocean. Thankfully, between that and the main sail coming down, we no longer had the full force of the wind upon us. Just as we managed to get the ship under control, we saw a boat in the far distance lose its mast. Once we were able to ascertain that they had the situation under control, we made for Nanaimo and safe harbour.

It took us about 2hrs to motor out to Nanaimo as the storm continued to surge. Once docked, my crew mates and I took stock of the boat and began reporting damages only to be waved off by the skipper. “We’re all safe and no one’s hurt and that’s all that matters…” is all he said as he cracked open a bottle of rum. We listened to the rest of the carnage on channel 16 as boats radioed the coast guard, eager for news about friends and loved ones. We heard of one sinking and two boats dismasted as we rendered assistance to boats coming in.

There’s been lots of coverage on whether the race should have gone ahead and no doubt, it was a rough day for the coast guard (not to mention those who waited for them in frigid waters for well over an hour). I’m told there was a total of 36 calls into them for assistance. The weather is very hard to predict and I don’t believe anyone rightfully expected winds building past 40kts let alone 60kts as was finally the case. A lot of the news coverage has the benefit of hindsight and I don’t believe that any skipper would knowingly put their rig and crew in harms way. Same goes for the race organizers. I’m sure there will be a lot of talk about this race in the community and as a rookie, I got to learn from having been there. The coast guard did however knowingly put themselves in harms way to rescue those in need – for that, I’m certain the sailing community is forever grateful. I for one am very thankful to have been on Kiva, serving with the crew I had and having everyone in the race return safe.

If you’d like a more colourful account of the race, here’s one by Peter Lagergren (Strait Jackets) and another one here.

I recently needed to save the filtered result set and didn’t find this to be straight forward. I did come up with the solution described here.

Let’s assume you have a simple Contacts database and the user is able to filter by FirstName, LastName etc. Now let’s assume you need to be able to save the filtered result-set (or alternatively bulk modify the filtered result-set). The challenge is to retrieve the Contact id’s with the client side filters applied.

If we were to implement a save function as follows:

IQueryable SaveContacts()
{
    var query = from contact in
                Context.Contacts select contact.Id

    // use the id's in query
}

This would return all the contacts in the database and not the filtered set. Thankfully, the DomainService class implements a virtual function where we can intercept the client side filter expression:

public virtual IEnumerable Query(QueryDescription queryDescription, out int
totalCount);

We however have to merge this expression with the Context.Contacts IQueryable. This didn’t prove to be straight forward as you have to know a little bit about Expressions. I overrode the function like so to save the query for later retrieval:

IQueryable savedQuery;

public override System.Collections.IEnumerable Query(QueryDescription queryDescription,
                                                      out int totalCount)
{
    if (queryDescription.Method.Name == "SaveContacts")
	savedQuery = queryDescription.Query as IQueryable;

    return base.Query(queryDescription, out totalCount);
}

We now have the query expression which contains the “Where” clause generated by the client side FilterDescriptors. We have to merge this query expression into the Context.Contacts query to get the filtered query. The following implementation of SaveContacts demonstrates how to accomplish this:

// The FindWhereMedhod recursively looks for the "Where" clause in the query
// expression
MethodCallExpression FindWhereMethod(MethodCallExpression expression)
{
    if (expression == null)
        return null;

    if (expression.Method.Name == "Where")
        return expression;

    foreach(Expression sub in expression.Arguments)
    {
        MethodCallExpression result = FindWhereMethod(sub as MethodCallExpression);
        if (result != null)
            return result;
    }
    return null;
}

public IQueryable SaveContacts()
{
    IQueryable q = GetContacts();

    MethodCallExpression method = savedQuery.Expression as MethodCallExpression;
    MethodCallExpression whereMethod = FindWhereMethod(method);

    IQueryable contactIds;

    if (whereMethod != null)
    {
        ParameterExpression pe = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Contact), "contact");
        UnaryExpression unaryExpr = whereMethod.Arguments[1] as UnaryExpression;
        MethodCallExpression whereCallExpression = Expression.Call( typeof(Queryable),
                                                                    "Where",
                                                                    new Type[] { q.ElementType },
                                                                    q.Expression, unaryExpr.Operand);
        IQueryable merged = q.Provider.CreateQuery(whereCallExpression) as IQueryable;

        contactIds = from c in merged
                    select c.Id;
    }
    else
    {
        contactIds = from c in q
                     select c.Id;
    }
    // You now have a query merged with the client side contact id's. You can now do
    // whatever you'd like with the contact id's including save them via SqlCommands

    DbCommand command = Context.GetCommand(contactIds);
    string connectionStr = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["myConnectionString"].ConnectionString;

    using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())
    using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionStr))
    {
        connection.Open();
        try
        {
            // There are other queries here that necessitate the transaction scope however,
            // these have been removed for simplicity

            string insertCmd = "insert into ContactResultSet (ContactId) select Id from ({0}) as subQuery";
            insertCmd = string.Format(insertCmd, command.CommandText);
            SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(insertCmd, connection);

            // We have to copy over the parameters
            foreach (SqlParameter param in command.Parameters)
                cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue(param.ParameterName, param.Value);

            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
            scope.Complete();
        }
        finally
        {
            connection.Close();
        }
    }
}

I had the pleasure to do the Round Bowen 2009 Regatta on Arashi. To get there, I took Toybox out for a nice three day weekend on my first crossing of the Georgia Straight. I had a great crew and we sailed all the way from just past the Burrard Bridge to Passage Island.

It was a beautiful race day and we were fortunate to have wonderful winds for the entire circumnavigation. As usual, the Arashi crew were in high spirits. Various friends came out on the Granville Island water taxi or on the BC Ferries to join in the festivities.

You can see pictures of the long weekend here.

Well, summer is here and what better way to spend it than bombing around the Straights on a sailboat. Last weekend, we took Arashi out to Silva Bay on Gabriola. We raced down on the Saturday, spent the night and raced back the next day.

The sea was angry on the Saturday and we sped along at close to 7 knots in 17 knot winds. 7 foot swells and white caps ensured a bouncy ride. We had waves washing over the deck on more than one occasion. I got to witness my first sail change in the middle of a race. By the time we made it to Silva Bay, we were all soaked. But good humour and a good supply of beers ensured a fun time. The pub at the marina was closed because of plumbing issues. We ended up cooking a great meal from supplies procured at the local grocery store. The party on the docks went on till 2am.

The sail back was nice and calm and a cumulative seven hours on the water ensured that everyone got a good dose of sunburn despite precautions taken.

The next regatta is to Bowen Island on the weekend of the 13th. I expect to take my boat Toybox up there. In the meantime, you can catch pictures of the Silva Bay trip here.

Update: Oops…yes the wind was doing 17 knots. Arashi was closer to 7

The here’s an article about the notion of quarantined assets in order to isolate toxic assets. Not sure about the mechanics of this but it’s an interesting idea. The moral hazard issue remains unresolved.

It had been a particularly busy year. I worked on three new start-ups and finally complete my MBA. As the holiday season approached, I found myself with a rare window of lesser than usual workload. What can I say, when the planets line up, it is best to simply not think too much. I booked my flights and I am now in Mumbai.

Ok it’s not all vacation; I brought my laptop so I can do a little work. After all, it has the side benefit of being able to keep my blog updated. I thought I would post some pictures from my visit around Mumbai.

 
This is Bandra where I am staying at Grandma’s place 

Cool abandoned house by the beach

 
Sunset at Bandstand 

Funky Mumbai building

 
Hanging out the train on my way to downtown 

Masjid wholesale bazaar – they say you can buy anything you can think of here

 
Throngs of people out shopping and dealmaking 

The Mumbai "City Hall" accross the street from CST station

 
City Hall from a distance 

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station from the outside

 
Flora fountain 

This is as close as they would let anyone get to the Taj Hotel

 
Lots of well wishers and curiousity seekers out for the evening 

The famous Leopolds Cafe in Colaba

 
Leopold’s packed with patrons – there are some visible bullet holes in the walls but… 

…the beer was especially nice. No sign of "Shantaram" but it was a Sunday after all…

 
Paan – an Indian dessert 

Back on the train

I argue that Canada should not imitate restrictive Copyright legislation governing the use and distribution of digital media but instead, require that business adapt to changes brought about by technology innovation. Copyright law bestows the exclusive right to control the distribution of an original work onto the author for a certain time period. Prior to the development of digital media, publishers of original works maintained control of copyrighted material by tying it to a physical medium (e.g. book, cassette tape). Furthermore, the act of copying analog data resulted in a degradation of quality of the original work. The physical medium and degradation of quality helped check copyright violations.

With the advent of digital media, original works are now freed from their physical medium and the copied material is indistinguishable from the original. This has greatly enhanced how licensees purchase and use copyrighted materials. Unfortunately, it has also contributed to rampant copyright violations as legitimate information exchange over the Internet is virtually indistinguishable from illegitimate without serious intrusion into the end-user’s privacy. Various industry associations have taken civil action intended to set examples of copyright violators and to strong arm infrastructure providers into monitoring the activities of Internet users. The industry has also responded with digital rights management technology that in some cases severely restricts what customers may do with a digital material. In addition to this, these industries are lobbying for changes to the Copyright act to deal with consumption of digital material and Internet distribution.

The strongest proponent of Copyright reform is the music industry. The book publishing industry provides a great deal of value add to an author through the editorial process. By contrast, the music industry is largely built upon the distribution controls of physical goods. It is therefore not surprising that the changes proposed to Copyright legislation are largely geared to preserving this business model.

Most users of digital media are not legal experts and may not distinguish fair use from copyright violations. Users have established behaviour patterns based on physical (analog) media. People often lend materials to friends and move materials from one playback device to another. The same behaviour patterns, when transposed to digital media often result in violations. This is because digitally copied materials represent an exact duplicate where both parties get to simultaneously enjoy the benefit of the material which is not possible with physical goods.

If left to fend for themselves, the industry seems to want to turn back the clock on innovation and strip consumers of the vast benefits of digital media. This is akin to trying to put the genie back into the bottle. The problem is not one of legal or technology innovation but one of business innovation. As technology evolves, new business opportunities are created while old business models fall by the wayside. Businesses have to learn to adapt to changes brought upon through innovation.

The software industry was arguably the first industry to experience copyright violations through software piracy. Today, the software industry has learnt to take a stick and carrot approach to achieving harmony between fair use, unintentional violations and outright violations. For instance, in addition to legal deterrents, the software industry requires that customers have legitimate versions of software prior to gaining accessing value added services such as product support and security updates. This evolution in business practices is a result of accepting the detrimental together with the beneficial aspects of digital media.

We are already starting to see changes as new businesses take a fresh approach on how to monetize copyrighted materials. For instance, there are now flat rate monthly subscription services that allow customers to listen to as much music as they would like. There are also new bands whose business model is to distribute music online for free and derive revenues through paraphernalia and live events. Perhaps the most interesting model was when the band Radiohead made their latest album available online and let fans name their price prior to downloading it. Interestingly, the average price paid for the album was the same as what consumers would have paid in stores – in this case however, all the revenues went directly to the artists.

Proponents of copyright law reform are taking a one sided approach and wish to go back in time. They wish to restrict the flow of digital goods and impose unto them the same constrains as physical goods in order to return to a bygone era. Instead there are new businesses that are embracing consumer behaviours and adapting to new ways of doing things. This new approach not only opens up the landscape for new artists and gives consumers an access to a larger variety of intellectual goods. It is best that governments do not hamper this natural evolution of technology and business through legislation.

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