Context Switch

Cyber Physical Systems | The New Wave in Computer Systems Researc

2010-02-07T06:57:00.001-05:00

How often do we notice the fact that we live in a society that is immersed in computing systems? That smart phone in your pocket; the iPod that you use for music; elevators, escalators and moving walkways; the controls for your windshield wiper; the thermostats in your home; traffic lights at the intersection; you name it and it probably contains a computing device. If you throw a stone in a random direction in modern society, chances are that you will hit something that has processing power in it. Most of these devices are so common in everyday life that we don't think of them as computers but that is exactly what many of them are. Of course, they differ in form, function and specification from the everyday notion of a computer, i.e. the desktop or laptop that most people are used to and no, you cannot browse Facebook on such devices (though Twitter may be a whole different ball game). Such systems are often referred to as embedded systems, i.e., computer systems that are designed to perform one or more dedicated functions. Though programmable, they are not always meant for loading up different programs, but the lines are blurring these days. With the advent of smart phones that can pretty much do things that were previously only in the domain of desktop computers what is an 'embedded system' is open to interpretation (though the part of your phone that works on the voice, the DSP chip, may still considered to be an embedded system).

Now consider the anti-lock brakes (ABS) in your car (the first figure shows a schematic of a typical ABS). The point of the ABS is that when you suddenly press down hard on your brakes the ABS should prevent your wheels from locking and thus preventing the car from launching into uncontrollable skids. The point is this: the ABS should kick in and work correctly the very instant you slam down on the brake pedal or, at the very least, within a few milliseconds. If it takes longer than that, say 10-20 seconds or even five minutes, it is too late and can lead to fatal car crashes. Such systems, that have specific timing requirements, are referred to as real-time systems. They come in various shapes and sizes too: the ABS that was just described, nuclear reactor control, flight guidance systems on aircraft, electronic engines, factory controllers, controls of space shuttles, etc. Errors, particularly timing errors, in real-time systems can lead to dangerous fallouts to both, people as well as the environment. In fact, many of the real-time systems described here are also embedded systems and the overlap between these domains is quite large and boundaries on what is a real-time system and what constitutes an embedded system can be quite nebulous. Both, embedded and real-time systems though, have been around for decades now and there's a large body of work (theoretical and experimental) that has been developed over this time.

This brings us back to the topic that forms the focus of this article: cyber-physical systems. Catchy phrase, isn't it? As a friend put it, almost wants to make you wish you were one too. Well, with embedded and real-time systems morphing into all shapes and sizes these days they're interacting with the real world and other systems around them in ways that are unprecedented. Consider the new generation of cars that are available on the market these days. You can take your smartphone into the car and the two can actually recognize each other and share information, music and other data, almost automatically! You can drive up in one of these cars into a new 'smart home' and the car and the home automation system can communicate with each other. The heat is set to your comfort level and the lights are turned on, your favourite music tracks start playing and it could even start the shower for you! And all of this with absolutely no human intervention! Such systems are no longer about controlling the mechanical aspects of the world or only about executing certain programs. The 'cyber' and the 'physical' world are often so inter-twined that our existing understanding and techniques can no longer deal with this new fusion. Also, it has become obvious that any one scientific community, be it from embedded and real-time systems domains, avionics, automobiles, power systems, control theory or even mechanical engineering, does not possess the solution to this problem. New theories, new models and a lot more research and analysis is required and the field is wide open for scientists and engineers to explore. Hence, the advent of cyber-physical systems. (As the second figure shows, the overlap of embedded, real-time and cyber-physical systems is quite large, but still differences exist among the three fields)

A cyber-physical system (CPS), by definition, is a system that has a tight coupling between its computational and physical elements. One cannot talk about the computing side without reasoning about how the physical side behaves and how the latter behaves depends, quite closely, on the computations being performed. Most modern aircraft, automobiles, sensor networks and even power grids fall into this category. By very definition, the field is interdisciplinary in nature and people from diverse backgrounds, who would otherwise have never worked with each other, are forced to come together to solve the complex problems posed by this domain.

CPS has been identified by various government agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a key area for research. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) presented a formal assessment of the Federal Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD). In that report, the domain of CPS was recommended as an priority area for federal research investments. This resulted in the organization of several workshops that culminated in a new funding program in CPS from the NSF. The recent federal budget also maintains support for research in CPS, thus ensuring that the focus on the area is maintained.

The advent of CPS spells the dawn of an era of exciting research possibilities. Various research groups around the country (and even other parts of the world), from top universities to industries, are involved in this effort. The field is ripe for young researchers to stake their claims and for established scientists to apply their vast experience. It is envisioned that this effort will lead to never-before seen interdisciplinary research efforts and move forward not just the computer systems domains, but also various other fields.

Now, consider this: various power companies across the US have already, or are in the process of, upgrading their power management systems. Various sensors in individual homes (smart thermostats) can collect information that is sent via a network to the main stations (perhaps even local 'hubs') that can perform computations and apply complex power management algorithms and send control signals back to the grid (or even individual homes) to save energy, deal with catastrophic faults, or plain load balancing. Meanwhile, you, sitting at your work computer for instance, can monitor the power consumption in your home, even broken down by time of day. Thus you can decide what appliances to turn on/off and when, resulting in significant energy savings. Even Google is getting into the game with its Google Powermeter. All of this is possible, by a complex interaction of embedded devices, real-time control and interaction among the computation and the actual power management. Yup, you got that right, it is a cyber-physical system.

Google Docs | Post to Blog feature.

2010-02-01T01:30:00.001-05:00

Google Docs now has a feature where you can publish to your blog of choice. Nice I must say. I am really a big fan of platform independent tools that I don't have to install/manage, even if it is Google.

Will Shakespeare’s 25 Random Things list

2009-02-23T19:00:00.001-05:00

Well, many of us thought, analyzed and then poured our hearts out to fill a “25 random things about yourself” or “40 things you don’t know about me”, or a “gazillion things I REALLY didn’t want to know about you” type of lists. So how would it be if the bard decided to make one such list? Fret not, fair maiden (or men or whatever else), here’s just such a list. Some [of my favourite] excerpts:

13 The people that loue my Wordes the best are always the most disappointed vpon meeting me. Is thisse List ouer yet?

15 I deteste it when the Low-Comedians improuise the scenes I writ them… becavse they always make them so mvch fvnnier.

25 When I am feeling Melancholic, I console myselfe with the Knowledge that, aboue all else, I will be remembered for my Musick.

Notice the spelling, of course!

Link thanks to Amit Varma.

Technorati Tags: humour,humor,shakespeare,facebook,random

“Slumdog Millionaire”, Enough Already!

2009-01-22T19:49:00.001-05:00

[Well, I’ve been a bit lazy about writing something on here, but this movie and all the hoopla surrounding it has riled me enough to want to put my thoughts down. Be warned though, there are spoilers in this post, but then again, I don’t give a …]

There are movies about India and there are movies about India. Particularly when it comes to dealing with an iconic city like Bombay (yes, “Bombay”…most Indians refuse to use the politicized names such as Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, etc.). Bombay has long been the city of dreams in India, what with it being India’s biggest city, its financial capital, one of the largest ports in the country and of course the Hindi film industry being based there (“Bollywood” for the uninitiated). From the time movies have been made in India there have been various attempts to showcase life in Bombay and even attempts at making the city a character in the movie. There have been movies about the rich, the poor, criminals and cops, politicians and prostitutes, businessmen and ordinary people -- you name it, its been done in Bombay.

Enter, Mr. Danny Boyle and company to make a movie in India. One guess where its set – Bombay! Well, then he wants to make a movie about Indians and let’s have another guessing game what its about – slums and poverty. And let’s not forget that ultimate cliché that is common to Grandma’s bedtime stories, folklore and bad B-grade movies – it is a “rags to riches” story with a girl thrown in as well.

Well, it seems like one western filmmaker after another is out to “showcase” India to the rest of the world. First there was John Jeffcoat with his pathetic attempt at showing the software outsourcing industry in India with “Outsourced” that received “rave reviews” and what not, and now Danny Boyle has this attempt. Why is it that a movie about India is received in the west only if it is cliché-ridden and shows cows, slums and general poverty (of late it is the outsourcing and tech support angles)? And even then, why must is be made by a non-Indian? Shekhar Kapur made a really good movie known as “Bandit Queen” and the Oscar committee did not have the sense to add it to the Oscar candidates’ list, let along nominate it. Of course, at the time, they were worried someone was going to sue them for it.

Hard-hitting movies about India, that too set in Bombay, have been made in the past. Mira Nair’s “Salaam Bombay!” was a brilliant, gritty movie about a boy who lives in the streets of Bombay (sound familiar, Mr. Boyle?) and goes through more hell than what is shown in this romanticized “Slumdog…” movie. Manirathnam’s film “Bombay” was about the riots in the 90s and Anurag Kashyap’s “Black Friday” was about the 1993 serial bomb blasts in the city and the aftermath. These movies about that city stand far above the lame attempts in “Slumdog…”.

Let’s delve into the details to see why, in my opinion, this movie doesn’t deserve all the credit that it is receiving. First off, Dev Patel as the protagonist, Jamal Mallik. What can one say of a character raised in the slums of Bombay and who can barely put together a few words of broken English, when those words happen to be in a British accent! He really tries to emulate an Indian accent, but it comes off as a parody of the Apu accent, and that’s giving him credit! He is far from believable in this role and doesn’t even seem comfortable doing it. Here’s what I got from Wikipedia,

To prepare for the role, he went along with Boyle while scouting for filming locations, where he was able to observe the Dharavi slums for himself.He also reported having had a brief internship at a call centre and working in a hotel, where he spent a day washing dishes and generally observing life in Mumbai.

Well, these are the problems with casting people in such roles – for a role such as this you either need someone who is a local and can understand the nuances of the country, the culture, everyday mannerisms, etc. or a phenomenal actor who can slip into a role with conviction and get under the skin of the character. Dev Patel falls flat on both counts and before you go off with, “hey, he’s Indian” and what not, let me remind you – being of Indian origin doesn’t necessarily mean that you can understand the day-to-day issues of living in the country for a few years and not just a day washing dishes and working in a call center (that modern cliché for India).

The script. Where does one start with a storyline that feels like it has been thrown together in fits of drunkenness? The main outline is that Jamal Mallik, a boy who grew up in the slums of Bombay needs to go on the television show “Kaun Banega Crorepati?” (Indian equivalent of “Who wants to be a millionaire?”) to find the girl of his dreams. As improbable as that sounds, what’s worse is that he is actually able to answer all the questions that are thrown at him, no matter how arcane or ridiculous they are. For instance, for the question “which American politician’s picture appears on the $100 bill?” he is able to obtain the correct answer (Ben Franklin) because of the following sequence of events: he tries to scam some tourists –> the driver beats him up –> the tourists feel bad for him –> they decide to show him the “American way” (another cliché, this time on Americans) and give him a $100 bill –> he meets a blind kid who is a beggar that he hasn’t met for many years and they recognize each other –> the blind kid who has never seen a $100 bill himself, is able to feel the note and tell him Ben Franklins’ picture is on there!!! So every question that is thrown as him matches an event in his life and he is able to answer it correctly.

Of course, the plot would not be complete without…you got it, clichés! There are the usual corrupt and brutal cops, an egotistical show game host, the slums in the city, scenes with filth, people who maim kids to make them beggars, underworld dons, Hindu-Muslim riots and even a brother who only cares about number one. (How would Americans like it if every movie about the US, that is made in another country, shows cowboys and “injuns” shooting each other and shows the country as still being racially segregated?)

Adding to this whole mess, Danny Boyle tries to be “poetic”. The climax, where his brother fills a tub with money and decides to lie in wait for the don with a gun and then dies in a hail of gunfire (of course in slow motion and b&w) with the bills fluttering all around him has no words to describe the sheer lack of originality. Well, except that a Tarantino he is not…not even a John Woo, who with two guns and some slow motion could actually create visual poetry. This was such a lame attempt on the part of the director to try and show off his “talent”. This from a guy who made the likes of “Trainspotting”!

This movie has just two savings graces and one of them is an acknowledged genius who probably doesn’t need much of an introduction. I’m speaking of A. R. Rehman, the brilliant music composer. The music that he has crafted for this movie is phenomenal, like much of his work. It captures the feel of the city and the mood that the movie is supposed to set. He deserves all the awards that he gets for best score.

The second, is Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, as young Jamal Mallik. He is perfect as a child growing up in the slums of Bombay. He has the right sense of innocence, wonder (for instance, when he gets an autograph from a movie star), cheek, diction and acting abilities to make him look like a natural in the movie. He is probably the only person in the movie that looks and acts his part.

After the Golden Globe wins for this movie, I am really hoping that the Academy has enough sense to not prop this up any further at their awards. If that were to happen, one would hear no end of an “Indian” movie making it in the Oscars and would probably scar an entire industry brimming with immense talent as they has to put up with jibes based on a sub-standard movie.

All in all, definitely a forgettable venture. Hang on, not just forgettable, but lock it and up throw it away and have your memory wiped (a la “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) forgettable type of movie. In fact, thinking about it, go watch “City of God” instead which is a far better movie that seems eerily familiar (hmmm!) and made by someone who knows what making such a movie is all about.

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Technorati Tags: slumdog millionaire,danny boyle,movie review,ayush mahesh khedekar,a r rahman,arr

44!

2008-11-05T10:20:00.001-05:00

I must say that I never thought I would live to see the day. The day that someone who is not a white male gets elected as the President of the United States of America. Not that it was impossible, as recent events have obviously shown, but until a few months ago it seemed highly improbable. History was against it. The divisions within this country seemed to have increased if anything over the last couple of decades and for someone to transcend a contentious issue like race seemed like an impossibility. Yet, here Barack Obama stands, the 44th President-elect of the United States of America! And winning with a landslide (338-156) at that!

While this election (both the lead-up and the actual result) includes many firsts it also marks a change for the Democrats – winning the presidency and gaining a significant majority in Congress. This hasn’t happened since the first term of Bill Clinton’s presidency and that lasted for only a short two years. So, this could be either an incredible opportunity to bring about positive “change,” or one to lose your way in partisanship. This is a fine line the new President will have to walk.

In my opinion, some of the best decisions for a country (and society in general) have happened when the legislature and the executive are perhaps from opposite sides of the aisle. When you can put aside your pet projects rooted in ideology to meet with, and gain consensus from the other side then that process maintains a critical balance in society. Traditionally when both sides are aligned to the same ideology and level heads give way to emotion then it is possible for the government to push through legislation that could alienate a significant portion of the populace and perhaps cause long-term harm. Any doubts and one should look back to 2000-2004 period to study the reasons why this country is stuck in what seems like a never-ending war in Iraq.

Enough has been said about the challenges that the President-elect will face in office. Many campaign promises and pet projects may have to be put aside on account of the bailout, the two seemingly endless wars, etc. Perhaps the comforting thought that his party holds close to an absolute chokehold in the Congress might help in dealing with these problems. But, he must ensure that power is not abused.

Obama’s ascendancy to the White House can also help silence many critics of the US. People who complain that the Americans play the role of a big bully and pick on the little guy may have to hold their tongues, at least for a while. This election shows that the little guy, an outsider, an African-American, the son of an immigrant, can rise to the highest office in the land. Perhaps this might mean that the new President starts with some grudging respect and good-will from his peers around the world – something that he should milk to the fullest extent to improve the approval ratings for the US in the eyes of the world.

But the bottom-line is that we live in historic times and one expects that Obama goes down in history for his presidential term(s) and governance rather than for his election!

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Technorati Tags: obama,elections,44,2008,brrack,democrats,history,congress,clinton

Debate

2008-10-16T13:13:00.001-04:00

Well, this is not an article about the political debate that was on tonight, but it does have implications in that sphere as well. This is about “debate” in the generic sense – a discussion when two or more entities/people/parties disagree on a certain topic and decide to talk about it.

Seems like the majority of discussions (debates, if you will) fall into one of two categories:

1. politically correct, staid, excessively “civil”, no trace of passion

2. “your mother is a $!*&# because you don’t agree with me”

Now [1] tends to a bit boring because people are afraid to articulate their true thoughts/emotions for fear of being misjudged or labeled the wrong way. The second, while it makes for interesting television, evokes the wrong set of sentiments. How often does a discussion quickly step out of bounds because one or both parties got carried away with an unnecessary comment or judgment call?

Now, neither of these two extremes achieves the true purpose of the debate – understanding the other side(s) and achieving consensus. The first, as I mentioned, is overly civil and the true reasons and thoughts of the parties involved are not known. The whole affair is put up and made for “appearing” to do the right thing. So the public face is quite different from the private one and hence it is extremely unlikely that people will put aside their prejudices and beliefs for such a farcical process to yield results.

The problem with the second one is obvious – name-calling and personal insults do not go hand in hand with understanding, compromise or consensus. Once this route has opened up there is pretty much no going back. The statement above (about one’s mother) is akin to the corollary in Godwin’s law; once someone likens you to a Nazi/Hitler or insults your mother, then every statement that you made before, no matter how well constructed or how logically or fundamentally correct, is open to question and shaded grey. If you really believe in a cause/opinion, then the best way for someone to belittle it is to let you (yes, you, who might be the most fervent proponent of the viewpoint) hang yourself with statements such as these. Agreed that it is a logical fallacy. Just because you likened someone to Hitler doesn’t mean that the polar bears are not dying! But, unfortunately, you have handed your opponent(s) the leisure to ignore everything (yes, that’s right everything) you have ever said in that discussion. The lack of a platform to present your views or the possibility that you are not taken seriously enough is potentially more dangerous to your “cause”.

If you are thinking, “I don’t do that.” I never insult anyone that way. Let me put this across to you – even if you pass of what you think is a trivial insult (“what an idiot!”) or make a silly sarcastic comment with negative connotations (“your points of view are certainly ‘interesting’ ”), you are still guilty of taking the second path! This is because, to someone in the middle of passionately expressing their point of view or defending their faith, so as to speak, there is nothing worse than mockery, no matter how subtle. From then on, it is a free-for-all and matters can only get worse, because every exchange drags the quality of the arguments lower until [2] (or something very close) is achieved.

Is there no middle ground? Can we not have a passionate debate without falling into the gutter? How’s this as a third option:

3. each party will passionately vocalize their point(s) of view, listen to the others, bring up facts, arguments and opinions that counter the expressed views and then allow the other side to do the same. A bit like a sparring match.

Don’t get me wrong though – I’m not talking about a “clinical” approach where someone makes a point and then the other spends 5 minutes thinking about it and then responding with “logical fallacy” arguments and what not. That would approach method [1] from above and would end up becoming boring, both, to the participants and to the viewers, if any. Be passionate, go on record with those contentious thoughts and opinions, fervently argue against the points made by the opposition, all without resorting to calling into question the judgment of the other side. They have their reasons for picking a particular side (or staying impartial which is actually harder that you can imagine) and there is no reason to question their motives for picking that side or insulting them for doing so. The question I have is – so what if they don’t agree with you? Consider it time well spent, shake on it and walk off. No harm done. You don’t ever have to have a discussion with them ever again on that or any other topic if you think that you will never agree with them. Perhaps in time, they will come to realize that your point of view is correct and may start to agree with you. If you had chosen method [2] then there is very little scope that this could happen. All it takes someone who is a partial or even true believer to harden his stance, is to be belittled or insulted for holding that opinion.

Seems like we have lost the ability to have true civilized debates (not the ones mentioned in [1]) in the modern world. Television and the large propagation of media (traditional and otherwise) might be pushing people to pick [1] or [2]. The former because anything can be taken out of context and misrepresented and the latter because it sells more newspapers and increases television ratings. What must the ordinary man on the street (“Joe Plumber”) think and learn when he sees his peers, his administrators, policy makers, celebrities, commentators and even teachers and educators around him stick to one of these two extreme techniques? Where are the people who could raise a crowd to its feet with passionate speeches and counter-arguments without ever insulting the other party? Are they a dying, nay dead, breed?

Here is an interesting note to end on: how often does one see a debate/discussion start with method [1] (or a brief attempt at [3]) and then invariably end up at [2]?

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Technorati Tags: opinion,debate,politics,discussion,society,arguments,speeches

Graphic Novel Review | "Doctor Who" #1

2008-03-04T19:31:00.001-05:00

"Legends tell of the planet Gallifrey, born before the dark time, home of the most powerful beings in the cosmos.

By harnessing the powers of a black hole, they traveled in time. They became benign gods of the universe.

Learned and responsible, they observed the universe, understanding causal effect, and monitoring and protecting the fragile web of time.

But there was a war. A terrible, devastating war, which they were party to...and in one second, Gallifrey, the time lords, a many planets, systems, and galaxies were consumed. Gone forever as the universe itself collapsed. "

What would you do if you were the only survivor of this great race of Time Lords from Gallifrey? What if you were The Doctor - one who can instill fear, respect, love and admiration all at once? What would you do to carry on your heritage and protect the time stream from the many demons out there?

Go on a hunt for the best chocolate milkshake in the known cosmos, that's what!

With the success of the BBC television series, Doctor Who is back in business - albeit in the color panels of a graphic novel series from IDW publishing. This series follows the escapades of the 10th doctor and his companion, the Brit Martha Jones, in the "Time and Relative Dimension in Space" (TARDIS) vehicle shaped like a London police box.

The storytelling and art are typical - tongue-in-cheek humour interspersed with some interesting gadgets, trans-dimensional villains, and of course the really tough choices: "Dark or Milk?", "Belgian or Swiss?" - milkshakes that is.

Not everything is fun and milky joy for the Doctor and his companion of course - they must face off against a villain, Sycorax, intent of collecting the Doctor to use him as prey for Sycorax's clients who like to hunt species on the verge of extinction. Sycorax himself is the paradigm of elegance, exuding class with menace, all the while mouthing lines such as, "Sycorax strong, humans weak, that is why we rock!"

This new graphic novel adaptation of the classic Doctor Who series keeps the spirit of the original television series and books alive. It has enough gadgetry, humour and thrill to keep us involved. The book ends with a bit of a cliffhanger in London. While this was the first of the series, I would definitely love to get my hands on the remaining books.

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Technorati tags: graphic novel, review, doctor who, tardis, IDW, martha jones, time lord, gallifrey

Graphic Novel Review | "Therefore Repent" by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam

2008-03-04T14:34:00.001-05:00

"The Rapture is the name given to a future event in which Jesus Christ will descend from Heaven,"

What if the rapture went from being mythology to reality? So if you were living a "saintly" life as deemed by God, you would be led into heaven by the Son of God himself. If the rapture event came to pass, and if you were one of the folks left behind, how would you feel? Would you feel like a complete schmuck for either not believing in Christianity, or worse, being a Christian and not living a "saintly" life?

"accompanied by the spirits of all the saints of God, both from the pre-incarnation period and after, who have passed on prior to this event,"

"Therefore Repent", released in the United States by IDW publishing, is set in such a world - in a time after the Rapture has taken place. Those that remain, either were not "invited" to join in, chose to remain, or worse, could not get outdoors in time to be drawn up into heaven! People left behind either spend their time in "repenting" and trying to lead good lives so that they are part of the rapture the next time around, or just watching the world go to hell.

"and then the bodily remains of these saints are transported from the Earth to meet the Lord and be rejoined with their corresponding spirits in the air."

Before you go, "not another one of those morality tales telling us that we should live good lives for the promise of heaven, etc." read on a bit. Matters are not as they seem and there is more to the rapture event than meets the eye. Munroe and Sam have some sharp wit running through the story, and particularly towards the end, where everything is revealed. They are able to twist a morality tale into one with sharp humor and witty undertones. Along the way the story takes somewhat weird turns, such as talking dogs, ravens, third eyes, commando angels, and a real kinky method for email transmissions.

"Immediately after this, all Christians alive on the earth are simultaneously transported to meet the Lord and those who have preceded them in the air. "

They all push you towards the climax that will leave you either really laughing your head off, or forcing you to think deep and do some soul searching as regards religion, life, etc. - worse, it could make you do both!

The art is in stark black and white with some great paneling. It brings out the mood for the book depending on what your mood is - dark undertones for a gloomy world, or a representation of the dark humor that is prevalent throughout the book.

" All are transformed into immortal bodies like Jesus' body, often referred to as the "resurrection body".

It is a good read - something that definitely forces a double take on organized religion and also makes for a good laugh. It is interesting that the book starts with a quote from Revelation 2:16:

"Therefore Repent! If you do not, I will come to you soon and fight against them with the sword of my mouth"

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Technorati tags: book review, graphic novel, therefore repent, IDW, jim munroe, salgood sam, revelations, rapture

In memorium...

2008-02-29T14:20:00.006-05:00

...for Netscape, which faces its last day (so as to speak) today. How interesting that it has to be Feb 29!

Rest in peace. Your progeny still carry the legacy forward:

Book Review | Graphic Novel "Unbeatable"

2008-01-11T07:58:00.001-05:00

Is a nightmare just a dream gone wrong, or does the cause lie somewhere else? What if you wake up in a padded cell and then slip into endless nightmares day after day? Nightmares that don't make sense. Nightmares that have you dying day in and day out. How do you get out of the cycle and try to make sense of what is going on? How do you stop yourself from going insane? Wait a minute...what if you are already insane?

Matthias Wolf's first effort at a Graphic novel titled "Unbeatable" starts off really well. It shows a young man in pain, waking up in a padded cell with no memories of what has transpired. Before he realizes it, he is launched into dream after dream where all he does is fight the most famous warriors in history with a predictable outcome -- his death at their hands.

The book is slick -- well crafted images, great start with the plot unwinding slowly at times but with large leaps and bounds at other times.

He remembers growing up in a small town, his first crush, his mild mannered father who guides him along the various pitfalls of life that only a high-schooler can experience, when things seem to go wrong in seemingly small ways.

His father, the epitome of non-violence breaks loose and unleashes his fury and is then immediately paid a visit by a mysterious person whom he recognizes, but our protagonist has never seen before. A "creature" is helped in his escape from a highly secure facility who then rampages across the countryside and finds our hero's girlfriend as a victim after he has been knocked unconscious. To top it all, he wakes up in a padded cell with no memories and gruesome battles and deaths to follow.

The storytelling and art are great, with styles reminiscent of manga artwork -- somewhat comic, yet deadly serious. The coloring is fantastic - invoking exactly the kind of mood and feelings that the author intended.

The only problem I had was when the plot unwinds towards the end -- it seems too sudden and too convenient. While there are no doubts in the reader's mind as to what has been happening, perhaps a couple of more pages and panels could have been dedicated to explaining the concept in a more careful manner.

All said and done, this is a great first effort and if there is a sequel (or even other titles from the same group) then I shall definitely like to get my hands on it.

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Technorati tags: Graphic novel, matthias wolf, razor wolf, review

Book Review | Complete Graphic Novel version of Clive Barkers "The Great and Secret Show"

2008-01-10T09:44:00.001-05:00

Did you ever get the feeling that there is something other than what seems "real"? A vague feeling of undercurrents in everyday life? That something lies beneath the surface, and yet cannot be seen, heard or touched? What if that something is a source of unimaginable power and yet we cannot know of its existence?

The real scary part -- what if by being at a particular point in time or place you chance upon the existence of this seemingly endless source of power and worse, misery?

Clive Barker is a master of horror. He can weave stories around you while you are busy concentrating on something else -- concentrating on something as dull as a post office clerk working in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere becomes somewhere for Randolph Jaffe the aforementioned post-office clerk. He becomes aware of something called "the art" which can help him gain access to a mystical sea known as "quiddity". To gain access to this source of supposedly infinite power, he calls upon Richard Fletcher to help him. Fletcher, through scientific (or other) means, is able to find a way through to the "art".

Here begins a battle for control of the art -- a battle that calls upon huge resources of power and energy from Jaffe on the one side and Fletcher on the other...a classic good vs evil battle.

But, is that what this book is all about? Does it come down to that overabused concept of good vs evil?

The answer: doesn't everything come down to that quintessential question? Choices must be made in life and sometimes those choices are black and white. What you choose defines you and if you are the source of great power, then it probably defines an entire generation, if not more. Barker is able to conjure up these ideas by having his chief characters fight it out over various realms of the real and unreal. But his genius is the fact that he doesn't leave the storyline at such a simplification.

Four teenage girls frolicking in a countryside are raped by the "spirits" of both Jaffe and Fletcher -- to impregnate them so that their progeny can continue the battle. Yes, that's correct -- both of them fall to the level of raping the young girls. Here's where the gray comes into the battle. No one side is "pure" anymore. They are both willing to do whatever it takes to win. Does the end justify the means? That is what both sides seem to believe in this tale...

Well, guess what - eighteen years later, their progeny answer the "call" and come out on one side or the other. Or do they? What if they don't want to take the roles chosen for them by their powerful fathers? What if they are attracted to each other?

A whole host of characters go in and out at a dizzying pace in the story. We can see that Clive Barker did not intend for us to sit still and follow single lines of thought. There are subplots within subplots. For instance, who is the woman in the desert? Who is this Kissoon character really, and how is he able to exist in a single moment over and over? What happens if Quiddity is breached?

Do not worry -- Barker and his host of characters have answers to everything in this first (and yet complete) book in the "Art Trilogy".

Adapted into the graphic novel version by Chris Ryall (who adapted "Shaun of the Dead") and Gabriel Rodriguez (who adapted "George A Romero's Land of the Dead") the storytelling reaches new heights. IDW has a history of great titles, and this is definitely one of the top graphic novels from their stable. The artwork and visual images evoked in the adaptation heightens the understanding of the original story and also makes us involved in the sequence of events. It is extremely difficult to put down and makes for fascinating reading. I now want to get my hands on the second book in the "Art Trilogy" -- "Everville", or even its graphic novel adaptation.

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Technorati tags: graphic novel, review, clive barker, great and secret show, idw, horror, fantasy, everville, quiddity, art

Customer service woes...

2007-12-14T17:29:00.001-05:00

What is it about interacting with customer service that seems to drive us over the edge? Is it the incessant lack of logic and rationality that we have to face from time to time? No matter which industry (telecom, credit cards, insurance, you name it) the same problems keep creeping up all the time.

The standard answer of "the system says so, hence, it must be true" must be intentionally designed to bring out the maximum frustration among the customers. I have often been tempted to reply, "you know I am fairly competent in Computer Science and I know that the system is only what you put into it. It does not have a life of its own," but held off from doing so, if only to avoid the metaphysical discussion that would inevitably follow about "the system" having a life of its own!

Then it seems like the first person you speak to about your problem cannot help you, because the rules don't allow them to do anything about your situation. "But for a low fee of $14.95 we can ensure that you do not receive additional penalties!"

Most people will probably hang up, pay the additional fees, seethe about how they got screwed over and then forget about it -- until their next tryst with a customer service rep, when the horror starts all over again. Some resourceful people will actually record their experiences and force the company to pay them back. Interestingly, the companies still do not learn!

I had a recent experience with AT&T customer service. Here's the history:

I was supposed to get a certain discount, every month, since July of this year
as of last month (November) they hadn't credited me with this discount
my bill was over $100

I complained. They said they would look into it but with complete skepticism, as if I was lying about it. They called the actual store I got the plan from and then came back, in an apologetic tone, stating that the credits would be applied and my bill would be reduced to what it should be. I then get a call this month stating that my cell phone service would be disconnected for not paying the $100+ bill. I called them back and asked what about my credits and guess what I heard?

"What credits?"

Imagine that. Long explanations all over again, part of which included the following statement from their rep,

"sir do you use your phone for voice service?"

My incredulous response: "can you please repeat?"

Them: "do you make or receive calls from your phone?"

Somehow I felt that this might be a parallel universe where the meaning of a cellular phone was somehow different! Anyways, after much plodding I was assured there was a mistake and that they would credit my account, etc. etc.

I ask: "should I just go ahead and pay the balance to ensure that my account will be valid?"

Response: "not required. We will fix this matter. Call us back in a couple of days and we'll see." End of call.

10 minutes later, my cellphone service has been...you guessed it -- disconnected! I call back from another phone and try to explain the situation

Response: "Sir, your phone has been disconnected due to non-payment. Unless you pay the amount in full we cannot restore the service. Of course, there is an additional charge of $36 to restore your service!"

I tried to reason with her and then got this response: "as a one time courtesy to you we will remove the $36 connection charge, but you must pay the balance in full!"

I ask to speak to manager/supervisor, who tells me more of the same but then I'm forced to pay half of the balance to get my service back. Apparently they will apply the credits in due course and everything will be adjusted.

Then comes the best part of the whole incident. As I'm waiting for the half payment to go through, the supervisor tells me,

"Sir we are not charging you the $36 fee as a one-time courtesy only! In the future, if you are disconnected, you must pay that fee"

Me: "you do realise that this happened because your people made a mistake?"

Her: "Sir, I do realise, but I am warning you that in the future this should not reoccur from your side."

Me: "but you still do realise that it wasn't my fault and that your people messed up?"

Her: "Sir I understand, but I'm just laying the ground rules and expectations for future dealings!" (who speaks like this in real life???)

Me (mixed exasperation with attempt to not laugh into the phone while trying hard and somewhat succeeding to keep my voice at an even tone): "Ok, now I am laying the groundwork hoping that your people will not screw up my bill and then charge me for it, cancel my service and attempt to charge me for reconnecting it -- while it was the fault of your personnel, all the time!"

30 seconds of silence on the phone and then,

Her: "thank you sir. your payment has been approved. Would you like to take down the confirmation number?"

Still no admission of guilt.

While it was exasperating that they had made a mistake and were continuing to do it even after I thought I had cleared it with their reps a month ago, the really annoying part is where they're condescending to me. The supervisor and the rep before acted as though they were doing me a favour! They did not really admit to something being wrong from their side, and yet were insisting that they were fixing the errors only as a "one-time courtesy." This is the whole attitude that annoys me. That and coupled with the fact that the first person you speak to is typically of no help. I think their job is to just stall and see if you go away. If you don't, then they put you on hold for a long time and then come back asking, "sir, are you still there?"

I have realized that the best way to get something worthwhile done after a couple of minutes of explaining it to the first rep, is to ask to speak to the supervisor. And failing that, ask to speak to their supervisor. Finally you do get to someone who can help and finally will. There was that one time though that one person said that I can't talk to anyone else simply because there is no one above him. I expressed surprise that I was speaking to the CEO of the company and that how nice it was that he was actually responding to customer calls! Well, sarcasm worked in that case and he transferred me to his boss who finally solved the problem.

So after many years of frustration in dealing with customer service, I finally believe that it is a cleverly designed system - a system to keep people out, where only the persistent ones get their problems resolved. So the next time, perhaps ask to speak to the supervisor directly and spare yourself the task of reducing your lifespan trying to explain the problem multiple times.

Oh and definitely record the conversations. Absolutely. You never know when it might come in handy.

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Technorati tags: customer service, at&t, verizon, frustration, cellphone, 0.2

Book Review | Graphic Novel version of Richard Matheson's "I am Legend"

2007-12-08T19:43:00.001-05:00

So who decides if you are human? Is if enough that each person holds on to the unshakeable belief that he or she is human? What if everyone else thought that you were not one of them? Does that shake your beliefs or do you hold onto them with a vice-like grip -- afraid that your last attempts to stave off insanity must mean that you must hold these beliefs closer than ever?

Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" forces us to ask the question - if everyone else on the planet is alike and you are the only one who is "different," then who is really human - you or them? What if all of them were bloodthirsty vampires out to kill you? Every single one of them! Since you are obviously in an abject minority, does it really matter that you believe that they are "freaks"? Does it give you the right to decide that their lives are not worth it and your is more important?

These questions hit home; uncomfortably so in fact in this book. When it is in the stark black and white that is the graphic novel adaptation from IDW by Steve Niles and Elman Brown, there is no question that this is not just any other "cool" vampire book.

This book will dispel any preconceived notions about graphic novels or vampire stories. The protagonist is not a muscle-bound super-smart guy who uses cool technology and martial arts moves to bring down vampires. Robert Neville is just another small town guy who has suffered the loss of his wife and daughter to the vampire manifestation (or is it a "virus"?) and has to survive being hunted down every night. He's neither good looking, nor does he have a technology expert helping him hunt vampires. He does so the old-fashioned way -- shaping wooden stakes from planks and putting up garlic cloves everywhere.

He has to constantly fight his all too human urges -- fires within his loins for instance. This is a facet that keeps him tottering on the edge. Whether he will give up all attempts at humanity and rape a female in sleep or if he can control himself -- are positions that he must constantly evaluate and painfully so. He does try to attack the problem analytically to understand the "scientific" issue of vampirism even while facing failure from time to time.

Is he right in trying to preserve his ideas of right and wrong? Does he have the right to kill vampires in their sleep? Are they now the "humans" on the planet and he an aberration? How does one man fight an entire planet?

The movie adaptation with Will Smith will have a tough time keeping up -- not just with the original book, but more so with this "visual" adaptation. They already seem to have started on a wrong note by making the protagonist "Dr." Robert Neville - trying to infuse some sort of intelligence to tackle the problem. Well, I won't prejudge the movie until I see it, but the graphic novel adaptation sure does look like a tough act to follow.

If you haven't read this book, then well, you should! And it is also a good book to show those people who believe that graphic novels are for prepubescent teenagers to salivate over hot babes/superheroes in tight costumes. This book shows that quality graphic novels can achieve a level of storytelling that is often hard to beat.

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Technorati tags: I am Legend, Richard Matheson, IDW, graphic novel, review, will smith, movie, vampire

Bill vs Bill.

2007-11-01T08:56:00.001-04:00

Bill O'Reilly vs Bill Maher that is.

No, this is not a post where I compare the two - one supposedly a battle-weary veteran holding fort for the "fair and balanced" news network and the other holding up the bastion of the liberal left against the "evil" right wingers. This is not one of those situations where I find which one is better and say that the other one should shut up.

On the contrary, I find them to be incredibly alike! Yeah, that's right, alike! Hmm...somewhere in both worlds (the liberal and the conservative ones, for clearly, they occupy different planets) heads are popping and hearts are giving out simply because I'm writing this, nay, even thinking about it!

Well, surely I'm mistaken, they say. I must mean that O'Reilly and Maher are exact opposites of each other - why look at their shows, their views, their guests, etc. They cannot be alike - it must be an error of judgement on my part. Perhaps I'm a one of those left-wing liberals trying to bring down a straight-talking, shoot from the hip TV host. Perhaps I'm a right-wing, conservative who is trying to bring down a straight-talking, shoot from the hip TV host. Hmm, now what could be common among those two statements?

Let me get rid of the subtlety and sarcasm to just get down to the point. They are both biased, stick to extremes on their own sides, push their own left-liberal/right-conservative agendas, trash talk about and talk down to people they don't agree with and bring up hypothetical situations about the attack on the right/left.

They both take pot shots are each other (well, at least of late I've seen Maher do that to O'Reilly and I'm sure the other Bill can never resist a brawl). I mean think about it - they're both preaching to the choir, and increasing the division between their respective audiences. During a time that bipartisanship is supposedly at its height, what are they doing but fanning the flames? And they each blame the other side for doing the exact same thing that they themselves do. While O'Reilly claims that the media is left-leaning and they're baby-murderers and terrorist-supporters, Maher claims that O'Reilly and his kind are right-wingers who lust for oil and are...yup, you got that right...baby-murderers and terrorist-supporters!

The more I think about this, the more similarities I find between the two. They can always bring up hypothetical situations (or get guests who will do it for them) which supposedly can put the other side in a "tight spot". Come on - they're hypothetical for a reason - they are artificially constructed examples that can probably never occur in real life! If they could and did occur, then you wouldn't have to ask these questions would you? The answers would be fairly obvious!

I think such "media-types" are more to blame for the problems and "fear psychosis" in today's society - at least definitely more than their targets, the politicians they like to slam. While politicians and other people in the news are expressing their private opinions, whatever they may be, such talk show hosts are the ones who are pushing these views onto the public, in what is probably a pathetic attempt to boost their ratings. And I believe that this is the worst thing to do - take side and play divisive politics without real convictions - just for increased ad revenues!

Here is a good example (and probably a rare one) of the two having a conversation...the interesting thing to note is that they still take pot-shots at each other. O'Reilly starts of by claiming that Maher has all these left-wing nut jobs on his show and then gets a good response about O'Reilly being the one who supposedly "plays it down the middle". Towards the end, Maher takes a shot at Guilliani for being a "cross-dresser" and O'Reilly takes him down, and rightly so, by asking him about what the clothes have anything to do with it.

Hmm, am I beginning to sound like them? Am I doing to them what I claim they do to others? Perhaps, but at least I'm doing it to both sides and to be honest, I have yet to see some ad revenue, and now that I've managed to piss off both sides, I doubt if I will see any.

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Technorati tags: O'Reilly, Maher, media, divisive, fear pychosis, guilliani

Movie Review | Transformers doesn't disappoint...all that much

2007-07-03T06:40:00.001-04:00

I have, of late been reading the webcomic, "Least I Could Do" by Ryan Sohmer and Lar DeSouza. It is quite funny and really hits the spot especially if you are a twenty-something who has grown up in an urban environment. I had particular reason to think back about one recent strip as I was heading off to watch the "Transformers" movie by Michael Bay...

My thoughts exactly! Having watched a lot of the Transformers cartoon series when I was young, I was really apprehensive about the movie, especially since the trailers didn't seem to be really very interesting. And the part that I was most worried about - it's being directed by Michael Bay! Come on, he has Armageddon and Pearl Harbor to his credit! Even though the former was a huge hit and collected millions in the box office, I found it to be a dismal joke. So while expectations were not very high, I was hoping that my pre-analysis would prove to be wrong and that the movie would blow me out of my seat, and luckily for me, that did turn out to be the case.

First off, let me say that the movie is an out and out action blockbuster - the action hardly ever lets up and makes for one thrilling joy ride after another. It starts with a bang and then keeps up a fast breakneck pace. So, the only reason you would get bored, is if your idea of a night at the movies is sitting at home watching a Freddie Prince Jr. movie marathon in your pink pajamas with a batch of tissue paper!

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie because it has all the ingredients for a great summer blockbuster -- great action, fantastic special effects, fast storytelling, nostalgic memories of weekends spent watching the Transformers cartoons in our childhood, hot women, great cars and a bit of wit! Yes, that's right - they have some intentionally funny moments, at least in the first half of the movie. Most of the funny incidents and one-liners come from the unwilling protagonist played by Shia LaBeouf. He's a bumbling idiot who is always picked on by the jocks and can't seem to make women notice him, even if he spent many years studying in the same classroom with them. He gains centerstage attention because he unwittingly obtains the directions to a source of great power - something that two robot armies, who have been waging war for millennia, have been seeking for a long time.

The "Automatons" and the "Decepticons" are the good and bad guys, respectively. The former are trying to prevent the latter from achieving their goals - of taking over the Universe, presumably. Earth becomes the staging point for their battle, because "Megatron", the leader of the Decepticons has crashed here thousands of years ago and him and a vital instrument are missing and are the central objects of an intense struggle and search by the others. They have the ability to transform themselves at will and take on the looks and behaviour of any machinery -- from cars to stereos to army vehicles to aircraft to even cell phones. Some of these robots have been on Earth for many years, trying to understand the nuances of human civilization all the while searching for their objective. One, "Bumblebee" in particular, has the mission of protecting our hero.

So this is the perfect setup for Robot armies to invade the Earth and then start pounding each other without any regard for human life or property. What results is a carnage of intense violence and breathtaking action and special effects sequences. The camera work is also a delight to watch and some of the slow-motion sequences add a nice touch to the movie. There is one particular scene, shot in slow motion, of a car transforming itself into a robot while jumping over a shocked woman and at the same time trying to avoid missiles being fired at it. The scream of the woman, slowed down while still retaining a high pitch brings in a touch of humour to the entire situation.

The second half of the movie starts to become a bit cliched though - while the action still remains at a top level, the storyline and dialogues seem to take a serious nosedive, often times bordering on the nonsensical. The dialogues between "Optimums Prime" (the leader of the good guys, Automatons) and "Megatron" (the leader of the Decepticons) become cheesier and cheesier as the action seems to get hotter. Its look as though the scriptwriters and directors got caught up in planning and writing up all the action sequences that they seemed to have forgotten that a movies must also have dialogues and at the last minute patched in cliched, typical dialogues from various disaster movies. Lines akin to "these fragile humans do not deserve to exist", and "they must make their own choice", or even the spiel about how we are a "young race" who must "find our own way" and "our way of life needs protecting", etc. are uttered far too often.

Then there seems to be the whole idea of all the bad guys disguising themselves as authoritarian vehicles - either police cars of military vehicles (helicopters, tanks, military trucks, etc.) while the good guys get to be cool sports cars, road trucks, pickups, etc. In fact, most of the bad guys are military vehicles. Is Michael Bay trying to send "subliminal" messages about the current war and political situation? Is he trying to state that the military and the government are bad? Is this a dig on the military-industrial complex, perhaps? Oh, the subtlety! Surely no one noticed this as it was not thrown on their face a few hundred times! While directing good action sequences seems to be Bay's forte, subtlety and smartness surely doesn't seem to be.

Of course, the cast and their so-called acting wasn't very great either. Except for Labeouf, everyone else seemed to be labouring through their roles and acting in a bemused sort of way - since they must now act with non-existent actors all around them (the special effects, robots, etc.), they seem to be finding it difficult to adjust eye and body movements to obtain a natural effect. What results is a loss of sync between the live actors and the CGI. While Megan Fox was the eye-candy for the movie, she did have a decent role and performed admirably well. Rachel Taylor, with her thick Australian accent, was a bit irritating as the "special advisor" to the defense secretary. She doesn't seem to know anything about the tech stuff that she was talking about, which kind of lets her off the hot seat a bit, as much of the tech stuff didn't make sense anyways! Ok, ok, I agree - in a movie about self-transforming robotic aliens waging war on Earth, technical correctness may not always be the thing to look for -- but lines like, "can you hotwire this computer to connect it to that ancient morse code generator so that it could send morse code" and then pointing to and picking up the computer monitor was not even funny - it was plain pathetic!

There were also definite gaps in the storyline and it seemed like they were in some sort of a rush to get the movie done and out this summer. Seems like they couldn't "transform" a bad script into a good one.

Of course, the most glaring point of the movie was the garish product placement - from the Panasonic SD card to all of the GM vehicles. Phew! It was in-your-face and hard to ignore. I'm not against product placement if it is done in style. Hey, they need money to make the movies and if companies will shell out money so that they get a couple of seconds of showtime, then let that be the case. But there must be some limits -- in once scene, Rachel Taylor's character removes the SD card from a computer and holds it for a second while showing it to the camera instead of doing whatever she intended to do with it. Oh, then there was the over-abundance of GM vehicles. One would think that the only vehicles that the world ever had were made by GM! But the plus side of this was all the cool cars that were shown - especially the new Chevy Camaro and the Pontiac Solstice. Both transform into some really cool robots, and the transformations are as much fun to watch as the action sequences.

Well, I could say that this movie is worth a watch and it does provide sheer entertainment - at least for the guys and geeks everywhere. If you were a fan of the original cartoon series and action figures, then it is a must watch, but be prepared to switch your brains off for a while, and ignore the bad acting. Apart from that, you might enjoy it, thoroughly.

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Technorati tags: transformers, automatons, decepticons, michael bay, armageddon, pearl harbor, shia labeouf, rachel taylor, megan fox, chevy, camaro, pontiac, solstice, general motors, action, summer blockbuster, movie review

Gone Marbles.

2007-06-22T16:39:00.001-04:00

Matthias Wandel has created a binary adder that uses marbles! Here is a video demonstrating how it works.

If nothing else, it look real cool.

Original link via Makezine.

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Technorati tags: marble, adder, binary, wood work

Mugger to "muggee"

2007-06-19T18:22:00.001-04:00

A would-be thief in the western German town of Aldhenhoven found the tables turning on him, when he tried to mug a cab driver.

Excerpts...

After the 20-year-old stole the driver's wallet, a scuffle broke out between the two, in which the cabbie not only recovered his property but also took his attacker's wallet

...

The driver then locked himself in his taxi and called the police, who were amazed to find the mugger waiting patiently for them on the curb next to the vehicle when they arrived.

"He wanted his wallet back," a police spokesman said.

Well, the next time you decide to steal from someone, make sure he's not a German cabbie.

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Technorati tags: humour, odd, mugger, german, cab driver, Aldenhoven, reuters

What am I?

2007-06-04T20:03:00.001-04:00

I found myself in a really odd position the other night, when a long-time friend informed someone else, in a matter of fact way, that he knows for a fact that I am a Republican! I guess surprise and shock was evident on my face as he stopped speaking and then stated, "oh! you're not?"

"Of course not!" was my reply.

Then you MUST be a democrat!

"No!"

Green Party? Communist ?

No and NO!

Some confusion reigned at the table as I tried to explain my position...I do not believe in aligning myself to a particular political agenda. My opinions will always be issue-based. I will think about the issue at hand and then decide which candidate or political party or group has similar thoughts and ideas. If I find one, then I might back them, for that issue alone.

Well, the reason for this post wasn't to clarify my political affiliations, or lack of one thereof. I was intrigued by the vagaries of human nature. Just because you propose a different opinion from the person whom you engage in a dialogue with, you are automatically classified as belonging to the "other" side! For most people, affiliations and opinions are either black or white. There is no place for shades of grey that is usually abundant in life. I mean, I have been categorized by different people as being a democrat, right-winger, republican, liberal and various other unprintable types! For instance, some of the folks that I hang out with, decidedly swing to the right (or more promptly to the Republican party agenda), When I disagree with some of the views that they express, I am immediately classified as being a "liberal". When I argue with the aforementioned friend (who is decidedly a believer in left-wing ideas), I am classified as being a Republican!

It seems like the thought, "if you are not my friend, you are my enemy" holds true among most human beings. Most people look for some sort of affirmation and when they don't get it, they suspect a hidden agenda - in fact, along the lines of opposition! I mean, we're humans - we're opinionated, self-obsessed, egotistic and short-tempered. We can't all be expected to hold the same views and opinions (a la "1984") - I mean, most of us have disagreements on where to go for lunch, and how can one expect a rational human being to align himself or herself perfectly with everything that one person believes in? In fact, dissidents abound in every major political party the world over. Hey, if the party leaders can rarely agree on what is a "correct" course of action (is there such a thing?), then why must someone from the general populace pick just one side and agree with all the baggage that comes along?

I mean, you might pick the Democrats because they are more "liberal", but may not like their socialistic ideas of medicare or increased taxes. Perhaps the Republican party's ideals of fiscal responsibility may be your thing, but you may like their ties to the oil industry. The Green party's ideas that everyone should do what they want perhaps makes sense in the larger scheme of things, but you may not like fact that people could get easy access to pot and cocaine!

This "being the enemy" phenomenon is not limited to US politics. In India, for instance, the Congress party's sole reason for existence seems to be to stay in power, but they say they are pro-poor. The communist left claims that the Congress party is a bunch of elitist rich squeezing the blood of the poor labourer. They both dislike the BJP, which is supposed to be "right-wing". If you disagree with even a single policy that any of these three political parties may have, then they classify you as being "disloyal" and belonging to the other side!

Perhaps if people stop jumping to extremes when they face something different, and understand the idea that something different doesn't necessarily mean something "wrong", then maybe half the problems in politics wouldn't exist. But then again, politics itself wouldn't exist!

So, coming back to the discussion which started this entire thought process, I was asked, "so, who do you vote for - Republicans or Democrats?". My response was - well, I can't vote in the US since I'm not a citizen, so my "affiliation" probably doesn't count!

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Technorati tags: politics, beliefs, republican, democrat, green party, congress, bjp, communist, human nature, vagaries

Movie Review | Spiderman 3 sucks!

2007-05-04T03:38:00.001-04:00

Well, it was bound to happen. After the first two movies made over 1.6 billion dollars at the box office, one would expect that the egos of the director, the stars, and even the writers would spin out of control. It did and it resulted in a sub-standard movie that seems to have been created by committee.

I am big fan of the Spiderman comic books and really like the way the characters are presented, especially the protagonist. He is nerdy, dorky and with awesome super-powers, but with a biting sarcasm which he uses really well to frustrate his opponents as well as a defense mechanism when things start to go wrong - both in his "professional" as well as personal life. That sarcasm and humour, the quintessential traits that sets Spiderman apart from the rest of the comic universe is completely lacking in the movie versions - all three of them. And that tarnishes the character quite a bit. But to be completely honest, its just as well. Considering the acting abilities (or lack of it thereof) of Toby Maguire, one must understand that there is no way that he can carry of a "funny" Spiderman.

Anyways, that apart, I went into the movie with a lot of expectations. I even believed that I will go back and watch it in a day or two at the local IMAX theater, simply, to see the obvious, awesome graphics. Yes, that's right obvious! In a world where CGI has progressed to being indistinguishable from reality, one can see what is real and what isn't in this movie. Sometimes the graphics are tardy and overdone. The action sequences are too fast and all over the place for ordinary humans to follow, make sense, or even be in awe. Things rush by so fast that one can easily get bored. Hey, if I can't follow what's going on with the fast blurry stuff zig-zagging on screen, then I might as well concentrate on the pop-corn at hand and the pretty girl sitting next to me.

And to think that they spent close to a half a billion dollars on this movie! Most expensive movie on the planet and all of it down the drain. Well if they spent even a small fraction of that money and expensive graphics to fix Tobey Maguire's complete lack of talent at emoting, then well, this movie would have been ten times as good. Let's get this straight - the only expression he can put on is one of a dopey, goofy character. Anything more complicated seems to be well out of his bag of tricks. By the way, there are two attributes that he should never attempt and he seems to overdose on them in this movie - one is trying to be emotional/sad while the other is trying to be "cool"/suave. And not surprisingly, he fails miserably on both counts.

We see a sad Peter Parker on two occasions : first, when Mary Jane claims to break up with him and again when his friend Harry Osborne has been critically injured. On both occasions he is in tears and let me warn you - it is not a pretty sight. Its like watching something horrible but being unable to turn your eyes away. In fact the audience was gasping in horror at the pathetic exhibition of emotion from Tobey Maguire.

The other disturbing aspect of the movie is when Venom takes over Peter Parker/Spiderman. Venom, an alien parasite, is supposed to bring out the worst characteristics in its host with the dark side taking over the host's personality. In Peter Parker it is supposed to make him more angry, more of a womaniser, more deadly, more powerful, less moral, etc. Well the problem is that in this movie, the character of Peter Parker is played by Tobey Maguire and angry, immoral and suave he is not. He is supposed to walk with an air about himself, make random passes at women, dress in a more dark, more stylish way, wear his hair differently and cut the rug in a mean way with some stylish dance moves at a jazz club. To be very polite, Tobey Maguire is not a John Travolta or a Patrick Swayze. He completely lacks the panache required to exhibit a "dark side" and it comes off as being extremely funny and comical. Unfortunately that effect was not intentional.

Topher Grace (of "The 70s show" fame) plays his rival for a job at the Daily Bugle and subsequently becomes infected by Venom. Suffice to say that acting was never his strong point. He seems to be just another Tobey Maguire - able to play the dorky goof-off in the sitcom but not quite making the cut for the big screen especially in action flicks. Well, at least he is better at humour that Tobey Maguire. Hmmm...maybe Topher Grace as Spiderman would have been an interesting experiment - at least he can carry off that sarcasm part well.

Of course, my biggest gripe with any big-screen adaptation (which wasn't as evident in the first two movies) is a distinct divergence from the comic book (Spiderman universe) storyline. For example, the reason Peter Parker meets Gwen Stacy (in the books at least) is because she studies with him and then is taken in my Aunt May when her father is killed in the line of duty. Both Gwen Stacy and her father receive about 5 minutes of footage and might as well have never been in the movie to begin with - their roles are pointless as far as Spiderman 3 goes.

Of yeah, I almost forgot - the overdose of drama and soap-opera'ish storylines. This movie has just too much of it, and considering that this is an action movie that is unacceptable. In fact, if someone had walked in to the movie about 15 minutes of its start and then watched the next half an hour, he would be puzzled and would think, "did I walk into the the wrong movie? I thought this was an action blockbuster. This looks and feels like a chick flick?" This is especially relevant, because as I mentioned above, most of the actors in the movie fell flat while trying to carry off the serious "acting" stuff that they're supposed to do when they are in front of a camera.

One other big problem with this movie - the direction and screenplay. There is no flow between the various events and scenes. A lot of unrelated and unnecessary parts made the cut. It seems like the entire package was put together in a hurry. Not hard to believe considering the enormous budget - I guess it must have been ballooning at an alarming rate and the studio must have put its foot down and forced Sam Raimi's hand to finish it in a hurry. Or, perhaps he was just bored with the entire thing. As a friend put it - maybe the actors, the director and crew were so tired of the entire thing that they decided to kill the movie franchise by doing a bad job!

Perhaps the guy who made (and markets) the Dyson vacuum cleaners might sell more of them if he changed his tagline to - "Dyson: sucks as much as Spiderman 3"!

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Technorati tags: Spiderman, 3, Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, Venom, Mary Jane, comics, Peter Parker, Gwen Stacy, most expensive movie, Dyson, budget

Book Review | The Red Anthology

2007-05-01T01:45:00.001-04:00

The cover immediately appeals to me. Being a cricket fan, the sight of teenagers playing cricket by the roadside brings back fond memories. Memories of growing up, of playing the game on various grounds, fields and the roadside even. It is no stretch of imagination that the picture was taken in a South Asian country - probably India (the motorcycle in the background is suspiciously similar to the one I owned through my high school and undergrad years).

I am also a fan of short stories, having devoured Roald Dahl, Jeffrey Archer, Guy de Mauppasant, Chekov, Saki, O. Henry, Gerald Durrell, Ruskin Bond, and a whole host of others all through my life. I occasionally dabble in writing short stories myself.

Hence, it is with nostalgia and fond memories that I pick up "The Red Anthology of hitherto unpublished writers". Everything led me to believe that this book would be a worthwhile read, and it did not disappoint.

Ok. This is a book of short stories. If you are not a fan of short stories or anthologies of short stories, well, then you should be. Given that an idea, a storyline, a feeling a, an emotion, a chill or a philosophy must be presented to the audience without the luxury of length or the chance to have an intricate build up of events that usually surrounds novels, the short story brings out the best in an author. While almost all of the above authors have written excellent novels and longer books, their real skill and craft is evident in their short stories.

This anthology starts well - the first story is titled "A Christmas Letter" and it is written by one J T Townley. It is a humourous, well-written satirical take on Christmas letters that families usually send out to their family and friends. Written by a suburban housewife who suspects her husband to be cheating on her and who wins a contest for a date with a soap-opera heartthrob, it manages to make you chuckle as you read her machinations and schemes to get her husband to admit to cheating.

From Christmas letters to train rides in a snow-covered countryside, from death, self doubt and suicide to a grown woman trying to revisit her childhood, from lakes in the head to farmers growing muscles (yes, that's right, muscles!), and many many more places and ideas, the stories abound with imagination, crazy ideas, self-pity, sadness, delight and even fantasy. We are taken through a roller-coaster ride which sometimes dips into slaughter houses, sometimes into an Orwellian future, while sometimes showing you how someone can calculate and plan to fall in love.

"Organ Donation" by Miles Newbold Clark is an interesting story that has a first-person narrative from organs harvested from an accident victim. It intertwines storylines and has an way of surprising you - if organs could think, perhaps this might be how they do it. Andy Darley's "I'm here to make you smile" shows an English suburban newspaper columnist trying to come to terms with the sordid nature of youngsters and what might be the future of humanity. Most of the stories make you reflect, at least a little bit.

One interesting feature of the book is the imagery. The book is filled with images and photographs that may or may not have anything to do with the story at hand, but it does change the way you read the story. In a subliminal way, the images seem to fashion your responses to the stories that you read. This is the first short-story anthology that I have read which uses seemingly unrelated images to shape your moods while the text does its work at furthering the event-line.

Commendable of course, is the attempt to present unpublished authors a chance at breaking into the mysterious world of publishing. Hopefully this will inspire them and bring them into the limelight and they will go on to great success in the publishing world.

A good read, all round.

Contents:

A Christmas Letter by J T Townley
The Brevity of Snow by Jared Roscoe
From the Fear of Contagion by Carl James Grindley
Helen and the Wolf by Ross Lehman
Seventy-Eight Days in the City by Sarah Todd
The Farmer's Story by Abby McMillen
Flesh by Christopher ole
Organ Donation by Miles Newbold Clark
Snow by Emily Isovitsch
From Song Book by Richard Tock
A Piece of Mind by Cassandra Taylor
Love by the Numbers by Cynthia Closkey
From I'm Here to Make You Smile by Andy Darley
Contingency-Design Part B by Charlotte Paladine

Update: I just received word that the version of this review posted on blogcritics has been selected for syndication! It will be a part of syndication in Advance.net and Boston.com.

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Technorati tags: short story, anthology, red anthology, unpublished, roald dahl, ruskin bond

Today...

2007-04-10T22:28:00.001-04:00

Today, I was reminded of the intransigence of life. Today, I lost faith in the positives of life, pondered over the loss, was angered by the unfairness of it all, called into question the weird sense of humour that the Gods seem to exhibit, but ended the day in a bemused state, having gathered that life goes on, regardless of anything that is thrown at it.

Today I asked myself as to what the purpose of life is...even going to the core of the question of what life is. I asked if this whole mess that we are hurtling through is really worth it, and came up short. I wanted to know if anything is real, and even what "real" means!

Today, I asked if God exists, and if he was a benevolent being that cares for the well-being of all. Or is there some higher being that toys with the rest of us for its amusement? Or is the universe a large mess of randomness and chaos?

Today I wanted to know if there is a way to move on in life after a tragedy, what a tragedy is, and if it means anything in the grand scheme of things. Is it deeper than just a plain interaction of chemicals in our brain? Is there meaning to it? Is there a point to remembrance or are we better off ignoring it altogether?

Today I wondered if memories exist or are they figments of our imagination? Does time reflect anything or is it just a human condition? Does the passage of time and growth of memories mean anything? Are we holding on to slender threads for our comfort or because they mean something?

Today I saw that life must move on, and while it may be someone's dream, it is probably the only thing that is real for us, and it is worth holding on to. Only in the loss of life and its absence do we realize its value, it existence even. We must face our own mortality to realise our immortality - albeit not in the physical realm but in someone's memories and thoughts

Today I saw the black, white and grey reflections of the colourful world...reflections within my own eyes in the mirror...

Today I was woken up with some sad news - of the passing away of a child in an accident. While the news of anyone passing is sad, that it was a child was what triggered most of the emotions and thoughts mentioned.

Today even my smile is shadowed by melancholy thoughts...

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Technorati tags: Today, life, sadness, reflections, intransigence, memories, melancholy

I'm famous...

2007-04-05T14:12:00.001-04:00

I was interviewed by the Voice of America folks.

The article.

The video:

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Technorati tags: Sibin Mohan, Voice of America, NC State, Karen Hughes, India.

Heartbreak for NC State in the ACC tournament

2007-03-11T16:01:00.001-04:00

They came here as underdogs, they played their hearts out, they took down the mightiest names in college basketball and reached the finals of the ACC tournament, where exhaustion finally seemed to take over. I'm talking about NC State's run in the ACC basketball tournament. UNC just won the ACC basketball tournament, beating NC State 89-80.

While Tyler Hansbrough was taken down by the State defense, Brandan Wright stepped up and kept the scoreboard ticking. In the first half though, NC State was able to keep up, mainly due to the pyrotechnics of Brandon Costner. He set the scoreboard on fire with his three-point shooting and great moves on the paint. Engin Atsur, State's point guard seemed to be struggling at times - perhaps his hamstring injury and fatigue finally caught up with him.

But with two minutes remaining in the first half, and the teams tied at 32 points apiece Carolina seemed to blaze away with a 14-2 run by the time the half-time break came around. When the second half started, they seemed to continue their run and extended the lead to 16 points. State was written off and if anyone expected them to roll over and play dead, they were wrong. State came back strong and even tied the score at 69, but then almost immediately went down by 3 and then never really recovered after that. The closest they came after that was within 3 points of Carolina.

I think what State was missing in the second half was a complete lack of three-point shooting. Considering that they had three good three-point shooters in Atsur, Costner and Grant (with Fells and Nieman also able to chip in admirably in the past) it was puzzling that they didn't try to shoot more from behind the arc. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, they didn't have a single three-point basket in the second half! This effect became important in the last two minutes of the game where with state being down by two plays, shooting three-pointers seemed like the logical thing to do to close up the gap in a hurry.

There was some poor decision-making in the crucial last couple of minutes, as NC State seemed to be taking too much time to cross the floor, especially when they're trailing by 5! Then there were costly misses when they did get to the other end, all of which probably contributed to their loss after playing hard and coming close.

But that is not taking away from the way this team played in this tournament. Sidney Lowe's team seems to have grown this season and they carry themselves much better than most NC State teams have done in the recent past. With some good recruits that have been picked up this year, next year's season will be a mouth-watering wait for Wolfpack fans.

Even Roy Williams, the UNC head coach, had to stop and admire the State team when he was talking to reporters immediately after receiving the trophy. He said that they have come far and Wolfpack fans everywhere must be proud of how they performed this year. Being a Wolfpack fan myself, I must say I completely agree - they went further than anyone, their own fans included, expected and unfortunately couldn't win the final one - not because they didn't play well, but because they were matched up against a slightly better team. I say slightly, because if NC State had bench strength, then they would have definitely better than UNC today.

Now we'll just have to wait and see if the powers-that-be that make up he NCAA will fee like they have made enough of a point to grant them a spot in the NCAA tournament. Wishful thinking, you say? Well, three days ago, no one would have even considered the idea that NC State could beat Duke, Virginia and V-Tech and make it to the finals of the ACC tournament.

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Technorati tags: ncsu, acc, basketball, unc, cosnter, sidney lowe, roy williams, atsur.

Movie Review : "300" is a visual treat.

2007-03-10T04:17:00.001-05:00

Frank Miller is a genius. I guess that fact is obvious to those of us who have read his graphic novels over the years. He created what is arguably the best Batman series ever (The Dark Knight Returns).

The rest of the world came to know of his genius when Sin City hit the big screen a couple of years ago and became an instant hit. The dark storylines and the imagery conjured up precise ideas and feelings - probably the ones that Frank Miller wanted everyone to conjure up in the first place with his Sin City graphic novels. Coupled with Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller crossed that hallowed line - adapting a great graphic novel into an even better movie while still retaining that essential touch which made the books special.

While not directly involved in the direction of "300", Miller's hands are visible all over the movie version of his graphic novel, which he created in collaboration with Lynn Varley. Although the movie version has been directed by Zack Snyder, the visual imagery, the story-telling and the composition of sequences tell a story that was exquisitely framed by Miller and Varley.

The movie is visually stunning and that is an understatement. As Sin City used color prodigiously, so does 300, but to the other extreme. While Sin City had just one or two colors embossed on an otherwise black and white canvas, 300 shows a riot of colors, but in a dim, blurred sort of way - almost apologetic that color seems to exist. Yet, the dimness and the grainy camera work shows sweeping scenes that capture your imagination like none other and forces you to gape at the screen like a 5-year old on his first outing to the movie hall.

Based loosely on the events surrounding and leading up to the battle of Thermopylae, Miller presents the brave sacrifice of 300 Spartans, led by their king Leonidas I, who faced the million-plus Persian army of Xerxes (as the movie and book puts it, "the collected armies of over a thousand nations") on their way to conquer Greece, and through it the rest of Europe. Resting solely on their grit, determination, bravery (what some might even call stupidity) and superior military tactics, they fought to the last man and were able to hold off the vast hordes of Asia until the rest of Greece united and decided to take on Xerxes's might.

Miller has crafted in politics, corruption, greed, anger, fear, mysticism, sex, hubris, endurance, violence and war in ways that don't do anything but mesh in well with each other. The storyline presents the Spartans in a special, noble light - almost godlike in their adherence to their ideals and belief in their abilities. But it is Xerxes who believes himself to be a God among humans while the Spartans just consider themselves to be supremely conditioned, but humans nonetheless and holding on to their highest ideals of freedom and liberty.

The battle sequences - if you thought the rest of the movie was spectacular and stylish, then wait till you see the battle sequences. They grab your attention and not since The Matrix Revolutions or Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has a battle sequence been this good, and in my honest opinion, this tops them all!

While there is blood and gore all round, you cannot turn your eyes away,, for fear that you might miss the tiniest of detail of the work of art which is being painted in front of you. Every single sequence in the battle sequences looks like it has been choreographed, but has that complete unscripted feel to it - like a real battle would have.

I do believe that the actors were chosen for (a) being over 6 feet tall and having sculpted bodies and (b) being able to maintain a stoic facial expression. There is no other reason to explain the lack of expression and sometimes dull acting that is visible in some parts of the movie. Gerald Butler seems to have some sort of multiple personality disorder, as different Gerald Butlers turn up in different parts of the movie - in some he is plain ordinary, while in others, he is able to carry his own.

Lenda Headley as the queen and Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes were superb - they acted like they belonged to their characters and showed that in an epic like what 300 is, there is a significant place for good acting.

On the flip side, some sequences from the book were missing in the movie, like the raiding party that the Spartans undertake to burn the encampments of the Persians, but that does not matter - for whatever reason, the movie had a shorter script and sometimes one has to live with that.

All in all, a fantastic movie and being a comic book fan, I am thrilled at the (more or less) faithful adaptation of the book and this is a movie which I would be proud to own on DVD. But before that happens, I forsee myself watching it multiple times on the big screen.

[Please Note : The images from the movie are courtesy of IMDB.]

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Technorati tags: 300, Frank Miller, Lynn Varley, graphic novel, movie review, spartans, thermopylae, visual extravaganza, persians, xerxes, gerald butler, dark knight, batman, sin city

ACC Basketball : NC State blazes in the year of the underdogs.

2007-03-10T02:49:00.001-05:00

NC State's basketball team is having a dream run in the ACC tournament so far. Coming into the tournament with an all-time low seeding (10), no one even took them seriously. This, considering that they had beaten the fabled UNC once and Virginia Tech twice (yes, home and away) during the regular season.

Suddenly they are in the spotlight, and that too as giant-killers! They made the unthinkable happen by beating Duke in the first round, and now have taken down Virginia in the quarter finals. And these were teams which had comprehensively beaten NC State during the regular season. They are also both in the top 25 in the Coaches poll, with Duke being at 21 and Virginia being at 24. Now, there is a possibility that both of these teams could drop out of the top 25 as a result of these losses.

Sidney Lowe's NBA-style offense seems to be paying off, and the team is led well by point-guard Engin Atsur. The team seems to be completely different every time he is on the court. He handles the ball well and makes great plays, making use of good finishers like Brendan Coster, Ben McCaulay and Gavin Grant. Today relative unknown Bryan Nieman also stepped up and shot a couple of three-pointers to bring the Wolfpack back into the game.

The Wolfpack have been derided all season long for lacking bench strength, leading to exhaustion among the starters. They have often been called the "sixpack" due to having only 6 players playing the entire game. This has resulted in player fatigue surfacing at key moments, such as the loss to UNC in the away game during the regular season. Today was only the third time, all season, that Lowe used 7 or more players in a game.

In the first half it seemed like too much experimentation was going on (what with close to 9 players being rotated in and out), and NC State went into the break trailing by 14 points. It would be great to know what Sidney Lowe told his wards or fed them during the break, because the regular starters came out and played like they were possessed - they soon cut the lead to 7 points, but then saw it stretch to 11 again. Nieman, Costner and Atsur soon pulled Virginia back and State were leading with around 8 minutes of the game left. They never relinquished the lead, and the game ended at 79-71 in favor of the Wolfpack.

Some key elements of the game - Costner's 20 points (this following his 30 point showing in the Duke game), McCaulay's penetration of the Cavaliers' defense, Atsur's ball-handling and play calling, and the unselfish attitude of the State players. One instance was when McCaulay was fed the ball, into the paint, by Atsur, and he immediately sent it to the corner where Courtney Fells was waiting to nail a 3-pointer. This in spite of the fact McCaulay himself might have been able to put in a 2-point basket without much difficulty. This shows that the players are placing the team ahead of themselves and is a great attitude that Sidney Lowe is cultivating.

Also, the defense was exemplary, and this in spite of the fact that the Cavaliers have Sean Singletary and J P Reynolds in their team, who can run rings around (and occasionally did in this game) most defenses in the country.

There is one worrying point for State, and that is the large number of turnovers. There were 13 in the game, with 8 in the first half, and Gavin Grant seems to be responsible for a few of these. Turnovers have been a constant problem for Grant throughout the season, and he must work hard on improving this aspect of the game. Many a game has been lost by State during the regular season, because of this issue.

Next year's NC State team will be worth watching, considering that the current team, with its lack of bench strength is performing well, and since Sidney Lowe has some promising recruits lined up for fall '07.

All in all, this ACC tournament seems to be the year of the underdogs, with all four games on Thursday being upsets (in that they were won by lower-ranked teams). Only UNC seems to be living up to its seeding, by beating Florida State in today's game.

Even if NC State doesn't make it to the NCAA tournament (which seems highly unlikely considering their lackluster regular season performance), they have retrieved their pound of flesh by beating UNC and VTech during the regular season and now Duke and Virginia in the ACC tournament. Who knows, they may have even spoiled the Blue Devils' and Cavaliers' shots at the NCAA tournament, and that is no small consolation.

Most importantly though, they have gained respect by how they have performed admirably and entire season with their handicap of a short V-Tech, again, in the semi-finals and UNC in the finals.

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Technorati tags: basketball, ncsu, nc state, acc, sidney lowe, virginia, duke, unc, vtech, atsur, costner, grant, fells, ncaa, march madness

US lacking in cross-Atlantic trade wars.

2007-03-04T12:11:00.001-05:00

Yes, the title is exactly as I meant it to be. There seems to be a subtle trade war, of the underhanded kind, and the United States doesn't seem to be doing too much about it.

I'm not sure if the Europeans are following an agenda, but they seem to be systematically targeting some of the biggest players in the tech industry (basically American corporations).

The first in line, was of course Microsoft. But then, they were pulled up in the US for unfair trade practices as well, so one could say that well, they deserved it. If they used unfair methods to get ahead, then well, it is obvious that the Europeans would go after them as well. But what was interesting, was that the Europeans kept at it. The legal battles and fines went on for much longer in Europe than it did in the US. In fact, the Windows versions released in Europe were very different from what was released worldwide.

The extent to which the Europeans seemed to be taking Microsoft to task was obvious by the way American corporations like Google and Adobe would run to the European Union to complain about their impending Vista release and not to the American government/courts! They felt they had a better chance of being heard there than in their own country.

Well, considering that Microsoft was being dragged about everywhere by the European Union, the American government did not intervene and throw their support behind the company -- but then again, since they had also gone after the same company, it would seem odd if the government now changed its stance and helped Microsoft.

Of late, Google has been in the news, again in Europe, losing court battles that almost seem nonsensical - people laying claim to the local language site like gmail.pl, others complaining that Google cannot use the name "gmail" or something even more nonsensical like they don't want their articles to appear on Google News. In the latter instance Google was initially being fined close to a million dollars a day unless they stopped their search engines from indexing certain Belgian newspapers. Apparently they didn't like the free links from Google!

Then there's Apple. Apple is supposed to be everything that Microsoft is not - cool, revolutionary, hip, and rebellious. They supposedly are in a league of their own and are responsible for over 70% of online music sales and also own the player market with their iPods.

First, the French decided to take a shot at Apple. They passed a law, (mind you that's a constitutional change), that says that companies (like Apple) that sell digital music in France must open up their systems so that the music can be downloaded onto any device. This means that Apple will have to make their music available on any mp3 player.

The rest of Europe seems to be following suit -- various countries that form the European Union are now pursuing Apple to open up their iTunes store.

I'm not taking side in the DRM vs non-DRM argument. I'm not even backing the record companies in this case. The socialist nature of the European Union seems to be driving them into taking periodic potshots at companies (companies that are global players, but US-based nonetheless) and maybe hurting them seriously.

I'm not a big fan of the governments stepping in and trying to crush free competition, especially when they're driven by a particular socialist agenda. The only reason these lawmakers are even considering these legislations, is because they know that the iPod/Google/Windows is very popular and the voting public will see them as taking on these software giants to help their everyday lives. Add to it, they will also have given "evil" Americans a snub in the face.

I do believe that the US government has to step in and back their corporations to the hilt. These issues should be a part of trade negotiations with the Europeans, because these problems have a serious side effect - the losses/drop in share values could affect American economy in a big way. Add to it the idea that any company, just because it is big and successful, can be a target of malicious governments the world over should not be tolerated.

This is not limited to the personal tech sector. There is the classic case of Airbus vs Boeing. The European aircraft manufacturer has been getting away with a lot of "profit" and price cutting due to subsidies it obtains from the European Union, while Boeing has been feeling the ill effects of having to compete with Airbus on unfair terms.

Then there was the hushkit issue a while ago. While all Airbus-manufactured aircraft had these installed, the European Union found a way to go after Boeing for not having this installed, which would cost the American aircraft manufacturer billions of dollars - to retrofit every aircraft that flies over European airspace!

But the aircraft industry was an instance where the US government decided to step in and support Boeing and file WTO complaints against the EU. During the hushkit fiasco, they also came down hard on Airbus on aircraft flying into the US. I guess the visible losses in income and blue-collar jobs woke up the Washington DC politicians and made them spring into action. Sadly, no such action seems forthcoming in the software/personal tech sector. The losses are not visible yet, or are in the unforseen future, and hence they needn't worry about it. Reminds me of the ostrich-in-the-sand scenario (or even the global warming issue to be honest).

The US government seems to be sleeping while their industry is facing serious problems in Europe. Perhaps it is time that the government (surprisingly an industry-friendly government in this case) wakes up and decides to do something about it.

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Technorati tags: Trade, United States, European Union, Microsoft, Google, Apple, iTunes, France, DRM, legislation, socialist, Windows, Airbus, Boeing, subsidies, hushkit, WTO, politicians

Oscars 2007 | Al Gore's strategy...

2007-02-26T12:38:00.001-05:00

Al Gore is one smart guy...he ensured yesterday that the playing field (the 20+ field of presidential wannabes) was drastically reduced to maybe like five. Yeah, only those of strong heart remain(and Obama, 'cos he believes that he is virtually untouchable due to Geffen's support...ah! for the naivete of the inexperienced), thus making it a more-or-less obstacle-free run for Gore to enter the white house! The others probably went down in a foaming-at-the-mouth, hand-clutched-to-the-heart, eyes-bulging-out kind of way...

So what did Al Gore do? For those of you who were living in a cave and did not watch the Oscars last night, Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio came on stage to announce that this Oscar presentation was the first one which was completely green - i.e., it has been produced with techniques and considerations for making it environment-friendly. Then DiCaprio asked him, "do you think there is any other maaaaaajor announcement that you want to make today?" In response, Gore goes teary-eyed and says something to the effect of, "considering the overwhelming response and support I have received, I would like to make an announcement", (takes a piece of paper out of his pocket), "My fellow Americans...". Suddenly the Oscar music starts playing and the mike is withdrawn - an obvious gesture that he is out of time...Gore looks up into the sky and smiles sadly...a humourous take on all the fuss that has been about him announcing his candidacy for the presidency...

So, Al Gore's near announcement with DiCaprio on Oscar night was a smart move...every politician who has the slightest of misguided hope that he or she can become the next American president probably saw their worst fears come true...Al Gore, about to announce to the world, in front of billions of people (on TV), with the Hollywood glitteratti backing and cheering him to the hilt, that he might run for president! Then they proceeded to have a heart attack, in a foaming-at-the-mouth, hand-clutched-to-the-heart, eyes-bulging-out kind of way, and die! And for the unlucky ones that didn't die the first time, the second time he said "my fellow Americans" after winning the Oscar for best documentary ("An Inconvenient Truth"), coupled with the Oscar win, probably did the trick!

I mean he has Leonardo DiCaprio egging him on, on national (nay, international TV) for godsakes! That alone would ensure that women and the gay community would vote for Gore! Which gives him a majority. How? see if women make up close to 50% of the population and the openly gay community makes up say even 5% of the remaining male population, then Gore gets close to 55% of the vote...add to that 10% from the remaining 45% of men who are secretly gay, and also 10% from the remaining who think they are liberal and helping the environment (these guys are also gay probably, but don't want to even start thinking about it, heh, heh!). So, 50 + 5 + 10 + 10 = some ridiculous number of people that will vote as long as it is above 50 (ok, ok, it is 75%).

Now to be honest, this is not 75% of the total population of America...that would be blasphemous...what, in a total democracy, you wouldn't expect more than 5% of the population to actually want to have anything to do with the election process would you (the remaining 95% of the people leave their choice-making to the courts)? So that's like 75% of 5%, which is like, err...ummm...ahem... 3.75 % of the total population voting for Gore - which makes him the next president of the US.

I mean how many politicians, other than Gore in this case, have a sense of humour? We know that Hillary certainly doesn't...Bill Clinton was probably the last one to seem to have one and he used to it to rake up the brownie points with the ladies and "make sexy-time" (as Borat would put it). Even he seems to have lost it now considering his blow-up on TV recently. So, all the remaining candidates were dropping dead at the sight of Gore starting to announce his candidacy, thus ensuring that when he does make the real announcement, he would be left with no real competition.

But spare a thought for these poor candidates...I mean, when their souls do turn up in Hell, and they catch the remaining parts of the Oscar telecast and then read this post about how it was all an elaborate set up, they would continue the foaming-at-the-mouth, hand-clutched-to-the-heart, eyes-bulging-out dance that got them to Hell in the first place...in fact, if I was Satan, I would ensure that they are shown reruns of the Gore-DiCaprio fake ad-infinitum, and then force them to read this post during the short breaks that they get (in fact, I have a sneaky feeling that Satan uses my blog posts as a torture mechanism anyways!).

So, considering that Gore gets the 3.75% and that the remaining candidates are in the field only 'cos they never really mattered in the first place, perhaps Leonardo DiCaprio should have addressed him as Mr. President! (But I guess that would have been a mistake 'cos Spielberg might take offence!)

Update : Here is the video...

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Technorati tags: Satire, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Oscars, 2007, environment, inconvenient truth, hillary, clinton, obama, election, satan, borat, humour, sarcasm

Book Review : Beowulf graphic novel

2007-02-25T09:47:00.001-05:00

"Take warning by him O Beowulf.

Wondrous it seems when Almighty God gives a man fortune and fame and a wide dominion - power over great parts of the earth, an empire so ample that he can comprehend no end to it. But it ever comes that the frame of the body fragile yields, fated falls, and there follows another who joyously thy jewel divides, the royal riches, and cares not for his predecessor.

Take thou, therefore, good head, O Beowulf, against pride and arrogance. choose the better path; profit eternal. Now, indeed, thou art in the pride of they strength and the power of they youth; but there will come of surety, sooner or later, either sickness or the sword; fire shall consume thee or the floods swallow thee up. Be it bite of the blade or brandished spear, or odious age, or the eyes' clear beam grown dull and laden.

Come in what shape it may, death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war."

This is the friendly advice given to Beowulf by King Hrothgar of Denmark. Grim though it may be, it is sound.

Gareth Hinds graphic novel adapts the classic Norse myth of the legendary warrior named "Beowulf". Originally self-published by Gareth Hinds as a series, it has been released again, by Candlewick press, as a single graphic novel, albeit with a new text which is based on a 1904 translation by A J Church.

The book follows a poetic approach rather than the use of prose and on a first glance, the text may not seem to be directly linked to the images around it. On careful inspection though, one realizes that the images tell a story by themselves, often times embellishing details that the poetic text glosses over; the details of battle, for instance. Hinds does not intrude on his visual story-telling by putting in unnecessary words - words that may take away from a reader's own comprehension of events.

Beowulf is initially shown to be god-like almost, in his stature, strength, reserve and ability to take down mighty monsters. The first part of the book builds on the legend that was the mythical Beowulf in his youth. On conquering Grendel and his troll-mother, Beowulf is showered with gifts by King Hrothgar of the Danes. Perhaps the most important "gift" given, is the advice quoted above.

Until this point, one might be led to believe that this is another story of an all-conquering hero, who with his great abilities and strength is able to perform many great deeds, but this is where Hinds' vision comes into play. We see Beowulf again, but in old age! He possesses a similar stature, but his visage is that of an old man - one who has seen a lot in his life. He is almost resigned to impending death while he sets out, again, to take on a monster/dragon that has been tormenting his people.

Interestingly, the book traces Beowulf's life in just two events, both of which are about how he deals with monsters that are troubling his friends or his people. In the first half, he is full of vigor, confidence and agility and is able to easily take on monsters at will. In the second half, though regal, he is old and doubts if he will return alive from the dragon's lair. Interestingly, while the first half is resplendent in color, the second is illustrated in grim, gray tones. Compare these images of Beowulf from the two stages of his life in the book...

The story comes full cycle with the death of Beowulf and the homage paid to him by his people. On a grim note, the story-teller who has been reciting the saga of Beowulf also forsees the end of Beowulf's people - the Geats. The Geats were people who supposedly occupied the lower half of Sweden and were either killed or driven from their homeland by the Swedes. Many claim that the Wuffing dynasty of Denmark was set up by fleeing Geats, but nothing is known for sure.

Hind storytelling style is really interesting...he is able to make us aware of the fickle nature of life using the stories of the rise and fall of even great, mythical warriors. He evokes wonder and pity for the same character by judicious use of imagery that will stay with us long after we have put down the book.

The story of Beowulf has seen numerous adaptations and is supposedly set to appear on film to be directed by Robert Zemeckis. Then there was Michael Crichton's "Eaters of the Dead"/"the 13th Warrior" which was a farcical take on the Beowulf mythology. But I find Hinds' graphic novel adaptation to be one of the best so far...

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Technorati tags: Beowulf, gareth hinds, graphic novel, book review, norse, mythology, grendel, hrothgar, geats, a j church, candlewick, death

Science Trek | Feb 22, 2007

2007-02-22T06:26:00.001-05:00

Scientists have shown that chimpanzees may have had their own "stone age"! Evidence shows that they were using stone tools and implements to crack open nuts around 4,300 years ago.

From chimpanzees to dolphins, animals seems to be in the news everywhere...the US Navy announced that dozens of dolphins and sea-lions could be used to patrol a military base which is vulnerable to attack from terrorist swimmers and scuba divers.

Johns Hopkins university researchers recently announced that they have disproved the long-standing theory that the spinal cord cannot repair itself. Human nerve stem cells transplanted into damaged spinal cords of rats have survived, grown and in some cases connected with the rats' own spinal cord.

In one of the biggest announcements in the world of computing, D-Wave announced that they have created quantum computer. Named "Orion", it is a 16 bit superconducting adiabatic quantum computer. For now, the computer seems to be performing slower than a single fast PC solving the same problem, but that won't remain the case for much longer if the company's ambitions plans pan out.

A lot happened on the information technology stage involving some of the biggest players in the field. Microsoft blasted IBM in an open letter, accusing the latter of deliberately blocking Microsoft's interoperability attempts in the open document format world.

Google was at the losing end of a legal battle in Belgium. A group of disgruntled Belgian newspapers who, oddly enough, did not like the free publicity from links in Google News, sued and won a case against Google for copyright infringement in their Google News service. Google now cannot link to news articles by the group or cache any of their articles.

Apple and Cisco have finally reached an agreement where they will share the use of the iPhone name. Cisco has held the copyright over the name since they bought Infogear in 2000 and had filed copyright infringement cases against Apple earlier this year when Apple released its iPhone.

In a blow to romantics and Shakespeare loyalists the world over, recent discoveries have shown that Cleopatra was no beauty! A coin dating from around 32 BC shows her with a pointed chin, thin lips and a sharp nose. Cleopatra has often been the benchmark for beauty the world over, even since Shakespeare wrote that she "beggr'd all description".

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Technorati tags: chimpanzees, stone age, tools, dolphins, sea-lions, antiterror, spinal cord, d-wave, quantum computer, orion, 16, qubit, microsoft, ibm, open document format, google, belgian newspapers, apple, cisco, iphone, copyright, cleopatra, shakespeare

The fall of the Australian empire ?

2007-02-19T02:16:00.001-05:00

Australia has dominated world cricket since the mid to late 90s. They have captured consecutive world cups in 1999 and 2003 and until recently, seemed to be on the verge of capturing the next one (March-April 2007) as well. They have been able to crush all opposition, home, or away. With one of the most feared batting lineups led by Ricky Ponting - a skipper who leads from the front, and an accurate and hungry bowling attack to back them up, they seemed indomitable. Until now, that is...

They have fallen from the top spot - the number one ranking in one-day international cricket now belongs to South Africa. This is the first time in five years that the top spot is held by a team other than Australia! Australia have lost the last four games they have played and have lost a total of five of the last six games they have played - both unimaginable until a year ago or so ago.

So why is it a big deal that just slipping from the number one spot portends doom for the Australians ? If there exist competing teams, then one would expect this sort of situation to arise time and again, right ?

Well, for one, they have held the top spot since the rankings were introduced five years ago. Second, the current Australian team seems far less confident than the one that won the world cup four years ago. They are able to post large totals but their bowling department has become very weak and other teams are able to score and make up the runs required to achieve a victory. A case in point being the massive 437 that South Africa chased down last year and the 336 that New Zealand just chased successfully. Also, this is the second consecutive loss to New Zealand - the previous match they lost in the current series was a loss by 10 wickets! This was the first time that Australia lost a match by 10 wickets!

They also lost to the minnows of international cricket, Bangladesh, a while ago, and this was a full-strength Australian team!

There is, of course, the argument being proffered that they are not playing their complete team with Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne missing. But time and again, Australia have shown that they have depth in batting and it was not uncommon to hear the following sentiment...

"if Australia were to field two teams in the world cup, they would both meet in the finals!"

This much-vaunted depth seems to be lacking these days and even when the team plays with full strength, they are being overtaken by others.

In my opinion, it was the bowling that used to set them apart - while the batsmen were more than capable of posting large totals or even chasing them down with ease, the bowling attack would render opposition attempts useless. And the person most responsible was Glenn McGrath.

McGrath in top form would tie down and ultimately decimate some of the best batting attacks from around the world. His tactic of bowling a niggling line outside the off-stump would frustrate most players and then his beautiful outswingers used to hypnotize them into fishing outside the off-stump, leading to their downfall.

He was well supported by Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee, who though wayward, could tear apart the lower order of a batting line up with ease. Led by McGrath, this trio of bowlers could strike fear into the heart of opponents. Now consider the added pressure when their batsmen have posted huge totals which an opposing team must chase...

There is of course, Shane Warne - many consider him to be the best spinner of his generation! He has been effective against teams that are not from the subcontinent, but as I wrote earlier, he does not really deserve the title of the best. But he is a force to contend with, at least for some of the test-playing nations.

Glenn McGrath is still playing, but has announced his retirement, post World Cup. Shane Warne has already retired. Also, their much-vaunted batting lineup seems to be dissolving as well. Justin Langer and Damien Martyn have retired. With age creeping up on Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, it is only a matter of time before they put up their pads, which would leave the top order, barring Ricky Ponting, completely devoid of experience.

I predict that the Australian team will not be the dominant force that they once were by the end of this year. In fact, I have predicted for a while now that it was an in-form Glenn McGrath who has been the difference between a good team and a great one. With McGrath's prowess waning and with his announcement of retirement will make the Australians easier to beat and level the playing field for the rest of the world.

Well, knowing their fighting spirit, one has to wait and see if they are able to kick into gear and do well in the world cup, but somehow (I'm sticking my neck out a bit here) I don't see them qualifying for the finals...and this is great news for teams like India, who are finding a bit of good form. We shall have to wait and watch though, for when on a song, the Australians are a treat to watch.

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Technorati tags: Australia, cricket, one-day international, ranking, new zealand, glenn mcgrath, dominance, waning influence, world cup

Rahul Dravid : "The Wall" passes a milestone...

2007-02-14T06:26:00.001-05:00

I'm watching the 3rd ODI between India and Sri Lanka, and noticed that Rahul Dravid went past 10,000 runs in ODI cricket! He celebrated in classic style by scoring three consecutive boundaries - all in his impeccable, technically correct fashion! (He also scored the only six of the Indian innings - a massive shot down the ground which went high up into the stands!) He is the sixth person to score over 10,000 runs in one-day cricket, after Sachin Tendulkar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Sanath Jayasuriya, Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara.

While watching him steer the match India's way, I couldn't help but sit back and smile (and applaud of course) on him crossing the 10,000 run mark in one-day cricket! Oh, the innumerable arguments and "discussions" I have been involved in while trying to defend Dravid's abilities over the years!

I remember watching his test debut at Lords and was impressed with his class and attention to technique. While Sourav Ganguly was making splashes for his gifted offside play, everyone who watched Dravid would come away remembering his technique. Of course, invariably, the same people would also comment that he was just a "test match player" and that he was too slow and the fact that only "technique" gets you nowhere in the fast-paced world which is one-day cricket. Look at Sanjay Manjrekar, they say - a batsman gifted with "technique" but not really cut out to be in the Indian team's long-term plan.

What most people fail to realise is that the very technique that they used to deride Dravid for is what keeps him going - and of course the fact that he is a fantastic student of the game...always looking to improve his batting and eliminating any minor niggle or flaw that might remain while not allowing any more to creep in. When he was criticised for being too slow in one-day matches, he became the ultimate finisher - honing an exquisite ability to accurately plan out a run-chase (such as today's game). When he was criticised for not being able to take singles and rotate the strike, he went back and practiced dropping the ball short and playing with soft hands to sneak in quick singles. When there was a problem with him being only a specialist batsman in a world of all-rounders, he took on the role of wicket-keeper, where he did very well and carved out a place as a wicket-keeping all-rounder! (How many teams in world cricket could claim to have a wicket-keeper with a test average of over 57 and 23 centuries?)

His discipline and search for perfection led him to take over the reigns of captaincy from Sourav Ganguly; a role in which he has flourished! Considering his career, he seems to be performing better as captain than otherwise. Here are his stats from before the current match:

                       Mat      Runs           HS          atAv       100     50
total                308       9978          153         39.91       12       76

as Captain        60       2102          105         42.04         2       20

Very few players in the history of cricket (especially Indian cricket) have been able to soak in the pressures of captaincy and not let it affect their personal form - it even affected the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly! Captaincy was probably the best thing that happened to Dravid.

While his wicket, along with Ricky Ponting's, has become one of the most prized wickets in Test cricket he has carved out a niche in one-day cricket as well. Dravid is now able to adapt his batting style to any position in the order - depending on the situation and team requirements. The very fact that people (cricketers, journalists and even the general public) find it odd when Dravid fails to make an impact in even a single game just goes to show the fact that we have gotten used to consistent, match-winning performances on his part.

Dravid also has a completely selfless streak about himself - while he is capable of steering an innings, he is only too happy to revert to encouraging batsmen at the other end, no matter how young/junior they are. If they are performing well, he can stay back and play the supporting role to perfection. This just goes to his convictions of putting the team ahead of himself.

With a few years of international left in him, it is only a matter of time before we see him breaking more records - both in test as well as one-day cricket. The "wall" has learnt not just to defend well, but also to strike back and take the the battle to the opposition. We should see some more magical innings from him in the not too distant future.

[As an important side note about today's match - Dhoni was fantastic! He showed that he has a mature cricketing brain and is not just a club-weaving Neanderthal who only hits the big shots...he played for a long time scoring only singles and rotating the strike with Dravid and then cut loose when the time was just right.]

With the world cup almost on us, may we dare ask - is it time for the second coming for India, with Dravid leading the way?

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Technorati tags: Rahul Dravid, Cricket, 10, 000, Cricket World Cup, one-day cricket, technique, Dhoni, India, Sri Lanka

Are we (bloggers) giving ourselves an unnecessary air of importance ?

2007-02-10T04:55:00.001-05:00

Bloggers are everywhere - they seem to be coming out of the woodwork, literally! With millions of blogs out there, and with the mainstream media playing catch up, bloggers at times are at the forefront of information dispersal. A blogger was the first to break the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, another was the first to find evidence of air-brushing in Reuters photos, and so on. Some even credit themselves with being instrumental in Joe Lieberman's loss to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primaries.

It looks like the politicians are also taking note. John Edwards and family have been actively blogging and trying to cultivate bloggers for their cause; McCain and Hillary have bloggers on their payroll, and each activity, speech and personal history of the candidates is a serious topic of discussion on the blogosphere.

And this is an international phenomenon - we see Chinese bloggers writing under the guise of anonymity, Indian bloggers writing about everything the failures of the cricket team to raising funds for tsunami victims and British bloggers criticizing the Blair administration for the mess that is the Iraq War.

Over a period of time, we (bloggers, i.e.) have come to believe that our opinions really count and that we are making a difference, especially when it comes to politics - I mean, isn't that the best way to ensure that we're making the world a better place? We can make sure that "good" candidates win and hence solve the world's problems.

I sometimes wonder...are we giving ourselves too much importance as bloggers ? Do our opinions matter as much as we'd like them to, especially in the real world ?

A classic case in point, is that of the Lieberman-Lamont Senate race. "Liberal bloggers" (as they were termed by the media) were influential in ensuring that Lieberman lost the democratic primary. This was hailed as a great success; it is as though the following message was sent out to the world - "Beware : we're bloggers and we have arrived!" But then, what happened in the actual election ? Lamont loses to Lieberman, and now the Democrats are short of an experienced senator!

I have a feeling that while many people out there read a large variety of blogs and form opinions or gain knowledge from them, come election day, the main stream media (msm) will still rule the roost. Honestly, the reach of television, radio or newspapers is far greater than that of the blogosphere - admittedly many urban households have computers and internet access, but how many people really log on and gain political know-how from the internet ? Most people would stick to email, music, videos, chatting and of course, searching for porn.

Television and radio, on the other hand, are far more pervasive - some of the poorest people have access to televisions and radios and often gain information about their elected representatives from these traditional media. The msm may pick up occasional stories from the blogosphere, thus giving that particular blog/writer his/her 15 minutes of fame, but present their own views and opinions about candidates that the nation generally listens to.

They choose which facts to present and which ones to leave out. While tech-savvy people will go online and look around for the remaining details, chances are that they are an insignificant minority.

Not that the politicians will acknowledge this of course - if there exists any possibility of damage to their image, then they will work on appeasing bloggers, just as much as they work on forming good "relationships" with the msm. So we see John Edwards and co. scrambling to fix problems with bloggers on their payroll.

But in the larger scheme of things, will blogs and bloggers be influential in the '08 presidential race ? Can we make/break candidates based on what we write ? We would like to think so, but I believe that the blogosphere is far from being that influential...unless we are able to reach a large majority of the citizens that matters - i.e. the ones that vote on election day, we will lag considerably behind traditional media...

Meanwhile, one is left to ask about the fact that conservative bloggers do not like John McCain - who cares ?

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Technorati tags: blogs, blogosphere, Lieberman, lamont, McCain, Edwards, 08, influence, opinions, mainstream media, msm, television, radio, newspapers

Science Trek | Feb 10, 2007

2007-02-10T02:17:00.001-05:00

[I am planning on changing the formatting of this "column" so that I can publish it more often...instead of elaborating on each story, I shall post short one to two line entries with links to the actual story. This way I get more stories in as well...Also, since I haven't published one in close to two months, this first story will be a roundup of interesting stories in the last month or so...]

We lead off with an MSNBC article which details China's planned space programme, which eventually will have humans landing on the moon. This apparently is not just about national pride - it involves the utilization of a limitless supply of a clean, safe, energy source, Helium 3 (3He), which is available in abundant quantities on the Moon's surface. To put it in perspective, a mere 40 tonnes of this material can handle the energy needs of the United States for a year!

The next big thing in physics, according to the New York Times, is a machine 20 miles long which will be used to recreate conditions when the universe was only a trillionth of a second old! The "International Linear Collider", as it will be known, will cost $6.7 billion and will slam together electrons and positrons. It will be later extended to a length of 31 miles!

In the semiconductor/microprocessor industries, Intel led with the announcement of the 45 nm processor technology. This would ensure that the self-fulfilling prophecy that is Moore's Law will still be true. IBM was not far behind with their own 45 nm announcement.

Climate was in the news, what with Richard Branson announcing a $25 million prize for the technology that removes the most Carbon from the atmosphere. But on a more ominous note, experts who regularly assess dangers to human civilization have added climate change as one of the greatest threats to mankind! As a result, the group moved the famous "doomsday clock" two minutes closer to midnight! Here are the changes the doomsday clock has undergone in the past:

British scientists have created genetically modified chickens, which can lay eggs which can be used to create cancer-fighting drugs! The eggs will have useful proteins which can be used to produce cheap drugs to fight cancer ! Incidentally, this was the same group that cloned the sheep, Dolly.

While the world was going ga-ga about Apple's iPhone, the OQO UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) model 02 launch flew under the radar. The OQO mode 02 claims to be the smallest Vista-capable PC. Take a look at the images to see for yourself!

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Technorati tags: Science Trek, China, space, Helium 3, 3He, International Linear Collider, electron, proton, 45nm, Intel, IBM, transistor, Climate, Richard Branson, Al Gore, 25 million, Doomsday clock, chicken, egg, cancer, protein, OQO, model 02, UMPC, iPhone.

Peyton Manning gets the monkey off his back...

2007-02-05T03:29:00.001-05:00

Peyton Manning has often been compared to Dan Marino - they were both considered to be the best players in their position (as quarterbacks), to have never won the Superbowl. To hear the Chicago Bears fans and sports commentators go on about it for the last week or so, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the comparisons would continue...

Tom Brady was considered as being an insurmountable hurdle for Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, having always lost to Brady's Patriots in post-season playoff games.

Manning was known as the choker who could not handle big games...he would do exceptionally well during the regular season, often throwing as many as a record 49 touchdowns but was then considered to be unable to go the final mile - winning the AFC championship and the NFL Superbowl title...

All that changed, today, in what can be considered to be a historic Superbowl XLI! Manning and colts razed the Chicago Bears team in the first rainy Superbowl ever...a Superbowl that gave a deserving coach the honour of being the first African-American to coach a Superbowl-winning team!

It was, at times, hard to back a quarterback who has been regularly breaking all NFL records in his nine year career as a pro, while not being able to win the big one. Most people who follow football agree, without a doubt, that Manning is a contender for the the football Hall of Fame. He would be the next Dan Marino and the best quarterback till date, but...

Some detractors would claim that the rain, or Rex Grossman, or the failure of the vaunted Chicago defense were the reasons why the Colts won the championship. While some of these factors might have contributed, there are a few points worth considering...

The rain was falling equally on the Colts as it did on the Bears. Rex Grossman did make many costly mistakes, but that was after the Colts came back from a 14-6 deficit to take the lead at 16-14, all based on the brilliance and planning of Manning. The Chicago defense did not get a chance to crush their opponents as easily as they have done over the course of the season because Manning, with his ability to decipher defensive strategies, was able to take advantage of holes in their defense. Those meager holes grew in size as the game progressed, and were letting in water at an alarming rate.

Football is a team game, and both Manning and the Colts' head coach, Tony Dungee, paid homage to the idea.

Each time the question was repeated, Manning's answer was the same: team.

"It was a wonderful team game," he said. "Everyone did their job."
[...]
But then, like Manning, he slipped into the Colts' mantra.
"This may not have been our best team in five years," Dungy said, "but it was the closest and the most connected -- and it showed in the way we played.

The game has its stars, but a large number of factors must fall into place to be able to win the Superbowl. While Manning led from the front, the Colts' coaching strategies and the way the defense pulled up their collars were important factors in the win. Not to mention the rest of their tremendous offense. The Colts are a fantastic example of how a team can come together, in every aspect, to crush even the most favoured opponents.

But Manning's contributions in passing and leading the team got him the well deserved MVP award for the game, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!

On a personal note, this was a great week for sports, what with India beating the West Indies, NC State trouncing the favourites UNC, and Manning & co. winning the Superbowl...

Now, I only wish that another gentleman would be able to shut his critics up by performing well in the cricket world cup.

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Technorati tags: Peyton Manning, Colts, Indianapolis, Superbowl, Tom Brady, Football, NFL, records, XLI, MVP, India, West Indies, NC State, UNC, Cricket World Cup, Sachin Tendulkar.

Microsoft constantly under a microscope...

2007-02-01T21:13:00.001-05:00

I found the recent controversy about Microsoft paying Rick Jeliffe, an independent writer, to correct some Wikipedia entries to be much ado about nothing.

So they paid someone to take a look at the entries and see if they're correct...that person was given complete freedom to make whatever choices he felt right in the process, and not necessarily toe the Microsoft line...so what...is it such a serious problem that everyone has to constantly criticise them ?

In Rick Jeliffe's own words...

I think I’ll accept it: FUD enrages me and MS certainly are not hiring me to add any pro-MS FUD, just to correct any errors I see. If anyone sees any examples of incorrect statements on Wikipedia or other similar forums in the next few weeks, please let me know: whether anti-OOXML or anti-ODF. In fact, I already had added some material to Wikipedia several months ago, so it is not something new, so I’ll spend a couple of days mythbusting and adding more information.

Just scanning quickly the Wikipedia entry for OOXML, I see one example straight away: The OOXML specification requires conforming implementations to accept and understand various legacy office applications .
...
So that entry is simply wrong. The same myth comes up in the form “You have to implement all 6000 pages or Microsoft will sue you.” Are we idiots?

I don't understand why everyone, the Wikipedia folks included, is making such a big fuss about this topic. I mean, in Microsoft's defense, here's what their rep had to say...

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Catherine Brooker, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM Corp., which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Now I'm don't care anything about who created what entry and who's updating what, but I can completely agree with the following sentiment...

Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert

...

Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be key in getting the changes to stick - that is, to not have them just overruled by other Wikipedia writers.

I personally have tried to add some articles to Wikipedia (no, they're not about me or stating that I'm god's gift to mankind...although that would be a good addition) and they have been turned down by the editors...I mean, these guys are just volunteers who deem to judge everyone ! They summarily reject most articles and then flag those topics to avoid them from being updated in the future, even if it is in the public domain. I tried to update an article about science blogs to include some more collections of science blogs that were around, they were turned down by the Wikipedia editors...something that I found odd as it wasn't about anything related to me personally, or something that had an opinion - its was supposed to be just a list.

So I can understand Microsoft's frustration at not being able to fix any inaccuracies that might exist. Sometimes Wikipedia does not check to verify the credentials of the people editing their content, but when someone has been misrepresented, they cannot change the entry as they are a "concerned party". The odd part is that the OO XML format is Microsoft's baby, and I think they should be concerned when anyone tries to put up information which is inaccurate.

A side issue is that of the problems that Microsoft faces when they try to do anything...and I mean anything - whether right or wrong...or even just doing that they do regularly, like say, releasing software. I mean, some of the biggest names in the software world were running scared to the European Union to complain about the then impending release of Vista ! Now the press is hounding them for something that shouldn't even be an issue in the first case...someone needs to let up and relax on this taking on the big corporation bit...I mean, they have shown some remarkable insights while creating interesting products from time to time - products which have made life a lot easier for users, from programmers to bloggers (by the way, they even have a Linux lab...yes, hell hasn't frozen over, it's true.) And from what I hear, post-release, Vista is looking pretty good too, but I guess it will take some time to get to know of its real capabilities and problems.

Previous related articles : 1.

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Technorati tags: Microsoft, Wikipedia, OOXML, Open document format, IBM, controversy, Vista, European Union

The Gods of Chance in Bangalore ?

2007-01-24T00:43:00.001-05:00

Bangalore is known for its urbane, hip, technologically literate crowds, for its stability, for a flourishing economy, beer, real-estate booms and inflation...not much fazes Bangaloreans even when things are going out of control elsewhere in the state, country or even the world. I mean, this is the city which barely noticed the problems associated with the Babri masjid fiasco, the Cauvery water dispute and even the fiasco that was the kidnapping of Rajkumar - the iconic hero of Kannada movies.

I remember all these events, because while they were blasted across the media 24x7, Bangalore went about its business...ok, there were a few skirmishes here and there, but on the whole, life got back to normal real quick...

Not that people from Bangalore are cold-hearted or don't care...it's just that most of us who grew up there got used to the lovely, laidback approach of the city...where people always thought before jumping the gun, especially on matters like religion. People were cultured, well-read, educated and simply put - sensible.

Unfortunately, it isn't true anymore...the Bangalore that I remember is no more...too much has changed in the recent years, the least of which is a large influx of people, almost on a daily basis, with just one thought in mind - money ! People are now getting involved in riots on trivial matters. Gone are the days when we would all wonder as to why anyone would put their loved ones in danger and run amok among the streets...we only hoped that we would never face such a problem - Bangalore was always the steadiest city that I've seen in India...now that seems to have undergone a cataclysmic shift...alas, that Bangalore is no more. Even the name doesn't exist...officially that is.

I read about the recent riots in Bangalore, and thought - well, it will probably subside very quickly, and no one will be hurt...and with the typical Indian thick skin, and lack of sensitivity, I believed "well, at least no one I know!"

When my parents called me the same day - I asked them how matters were, and they said, well...it has improved a bit, but problems might reoccur, and then my mother went on to other mundane matters of how the car has some battery problems and it ran out when they were driving back from a wedding and they had to walk and find a garage, etc. I tuned out for a while, just making the required "ahem", "uh-huh" and "ok" noises from time to time, before I said I had other things to do, promised I would call back and hung up...

Today it hit me...the car broke down, and they had to find a garage to get it fixed...they were on foot trying to find a mechanic, whom they did find and then decided to leave the car in the workshop...hence, they got home much later than they would otherwise have...all the while the riots had started and were going on, on the very route they had taken if not for the fact that their car broke down ! By the way, the autorikshaw they called to get home, took them along a different route altogether...

So, if all was fine with the car, and they had proceeded on the normal route, they would have gone in to the area where the riots were at their peak and possibly run into the thick of it all! Who knows what could have happened ?

So was it intervention by a divine entity, random chance, preordained fate ? Who knows ? This is not a post about any of these topics...it is about realising that innocence and strongly held beliefs are lost...forever...the belief that Bangalore is a safe city capable of taking on all adversities; the Bangalore that I grew up in, the Bangalore that I left behind four years ago...has vanished...it is but a ghost of itself; in the mad scramble for technological superiority and heartless economics and wily politicians...

Also lost is that sense of security when one hears of bad events and people getting hurt - the cold, selfish security that nothing can happen to oneself or the people that you are close to...the bullets are hitting closer to home now and there isn't much that I or anyone else I know can do about it...now a constant niggle has crept in to my thoughts...and it seems bent on growing into an all out sense of dread and fear...

Alas, my simple beliefs in my favourite city and in many of the important matters in life, is no more...I shall mourn this loss for a long time to come...

Previous posts related to Bangalore : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

[Note : I do not wish to propagate the myth that the entire city was up in riots...it wasn't...it was apparently restricted to certain areas...but those were the exact areas through which my parents would have taken had their car not broken down.]

Cross posted on Desicritics.

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Technorati tags: Personal, beliefs, loss off innocence, Bangalore, riots, laidback, random chance, fate

Indyscienceblogs.org launch...

2007-01-22T17:09:00.001-05:00

Announcing the launch of IndyScienceBlogs.org - a grassroots set up launched by people with diverse backgrounds and interests - with the only common threads being an interest in science and in blogging.

But do not be alarmed...we will not stick only to science...we will present thoughts, facts and opinions about any and all topics under the sun.

Here is the press release of the launch...

INDEPENDENT BLOGGERS AIM TO UNVEIL THE SECRETS OF SCIENCE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scientific research is the latest area of public life to draw the interest of bloggers hoping to shed light on under-reported stories.

IndyScienceBlogs.org, a grassroots coalition of academics, scientists and science nuts, is the latest, officially launching Jan. 22. It joins Seed Media's Scienceblogs.com, ScienceBlog.com and ScienceNewsBlog in this burgeoning category.

Some science bloggers, whether professional or amateur scientists, are driven by intense interest in topics that may be too niche for major magazines. Others have a point of view that's at odds with the mainstream scientific media. Like all bloggers, they enjoy the freedom to express their opinions that blogging allows.

The IndyScienceblogs crew is indicative. They include:

Emily DeVoto, a healthcare consultant who covers policy and news

Aleksandr Kavokin, a Russian M.D. with a special interest in unusual medical conditions

Susan Kuchinskas, who tracks research on the hormone oxytocin

Barry Leiba, an IBM researcher who cherry-picks ideas from many disciplines

Ed Minchau, an engineer with a fascination for robots

Sibin Mohan, a computer science doctoral student who blogs about everything from movies to philosophy to gadgets

Mike White, who brings his expertise in genomics and molecular biology to his posts about cutting-edge research

Trisha, who writes about the research involved in women's health issues.

And The Beauty Brains, two anonymous cosmetic chemists who decode the mysteries of beauty products

The science blogs trend is good news for the general reader: Bloggers pore through journals, translate arcane scientific data and explain what it means for the rest of us. Full contact information and background for a story on this trend are available, and interviews can be facilitated at your convenience.

You can either visit the webpage regularly or subscribe to the RSS feed. Along the way we hope to amaze you, to make you question, confuse you, simplify matters, have discussions with you or just disseminate some tidbits of knowledge...stay with us on this journey...

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Technorati tags: indyscienceblogs, independent, science, blogs, press release, launch

John McCain can do no wrong.

2007-01-19T13:42:00.001-05:00

US Senator John McCain (Wikipedia entry) has been a darling of the media for a while now. He has been touted as the next President of the United States, savvy, witty, smart, charming yet with a volatile temper - a classic touch that makes him "human". The media loves him...he can get along with all media personnel, trade jokes with them, take shots at Dick Cheney and seem like a rebel fighting alone to reel in the right-wing, conservative Republic Party to the center...

Some of the biggest names in the journalistic profession seem to back him up and extol his virtues, as seen in this Joe Klein article in Time where a comparison is made between McCain and Obama's handling of their "Face the Nation" appearance. Excerpts...

From where I was sitting, McCain got the better of it--not because he had the better argument (he didn't), but because he was clear, concise and confident.

...

He also threw down the gauntlet to the Democrats--if you're really against the war, don't mess around with non-binding resolutions, cut off the funding.

And about Obama, he had this to say in conclusion...

but he sure seemed less assured, less presidential, than McCain

Well, that settles it doesn't it ? Obama is definitely less presidential that McCain! Note that he doesn't "disapprove" of Obama's message, just that he didn't say it right...that must mean that McCain is more "presidential"! Now this article is a classic example of how the media has propped up John McCain to this saintly status and the next presidential candidate. Not that I am supporting Obama here -- I do not know much about him (his background, policies, etc.) to be able to form an honest opinion, yet. Its just that no matter what his opponents have to say, whether right or wrong, and no matter what he himself has to say, John McCain can do no wrong...if he makes a statement that agrees with their ideas, the media will extol him as if he were the next messiah; if not, well, he said it better than the other guy and he's more dignified and "presidential".

Seems like the jury has cast its votes on him becoming the next President!

For everyone who believes that that John McCain is a moderate in the Republican party and someone who steers to the center, here is a piece of information for you -- you're wrong! Here is an analysis of his voting record among the senators of the Republican party:

109th Senate : Second most conservative!

108th Senate : Fourth most conservative!

107th Senate : Sixth more liberal !

The above numbers show a disturbing trend - his voting records are becoming more and more conservative as the years go by ! Anyone with half an ounce for a brain can see that if he has the second most conservative voting record in the Republican party, then he definitely cannot be a "moderate" !

In fact, the American Conservative Union gives him an 83% lifelong rating. In their rating of presidential hopefuls, his rating is far above that of the Democrat with the highest rating on the list - Senator Evan Bayh, with a rating of 21. How can McCain be considered, even remotely, as a moderate ?

What people forget, in the media blitz, is that McCain has toed quite a bit of the Bush administration line, especially regarding the War in Iraq. He has always voted in favour of the war and for troop increases, including the latest one. Even when the war is being acknowledged as a mistake by the very folks who initially wanted it, McCain refuses to backtrack on this issue - this can only bring him unpopularity, unless of course, the media finds a way to gloss over it.

And McCain is yet to seriously announce his Presidential ambitions for 2008(yes, yes, he has announced the creations of campaign and finance exploratory committees, but that is still not official). If and when he does do so, then the smear campaigns will probably start. When the dirt starts to fly, we shall see the skeletons in McCain's closet and see if he can handle that kind of intense media pressure. He lost the 2000 Presidential nomination, largely due to a smear campaign, in South Carolina, led by his opposition. Of course his famous temper might be more of a liability than an asset and rumours and news articles abound with stories of his extra-marital affairs and his racist slurs against Asians (he reportedly used the phrase "gook" to refer to South Asians, even during recent times. He defends himself saying that it was refers only to his Vietnamese captors during the Vietnam war, where he was a POW).

He was also a serious player in the Keating Five scandal.

It's still early days yet for the key players in the 2008 race to be finalised, but we shall have to see how the media scrutiny of John McCain changes, if at all, when he becomes "official". Don't get me wrong - I am not really against John McCain as such (he is probably just as good/bad as the next person) for being who he is. I'm placing a large part of the blame on the mainstream media for extolling his virtues while neglecting his faults. Whatever happened to the idea of an objective viewpoint ? This next election will decide whether a media-propped favourite will win become the President even if he is against the popular ideas on important issues.

As an interesting footnote, an article by David Leonhart in the New York Times, once talked about how Internet searches might predicted the future, which I had written about previously. Google Trends is a good tool to use for this purpose. you can compare the interest in two people side by side, simply by observing the amount of searches against their name and the amount of media coverage they receive.

[ Key : Blue = McCain, Red = Other person ]

Here is a comparison of McCain vs Obama:

Interestingly they're neck and neck as far as Google searches go, but McCain leads, most of the time in news coverage. Of course, certain announcements by Obama makes his popularity spike.

Here's another comparison - McCain vs Hillary Clinton:

Well, seems like the Arizona senator has a clear lead in this race. But I guess a few of her results are lost here due to the last name being the same as her husband's.

But here's when it gets really interesting - McCain vs Gore:

Interesting don't you think ? This seems to indicate that Al Gore is more popular in Internet searches, and is slightly more popular in news coverage. Does this mean that Al Gore might just about win this time round if he is the Democratic nominee ? I have a gut feeling that he might, but that is a post for another day.

Cross posted on Desicritics.

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Technorati tags: Opinion, John McCain, media hype, voting record, conservative, moderate, Presidential hopeful, Republican party, Iraq war, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Google, trends, Time, politics, Keating five, South Carolina, Evan Bayh, American Conservative Union, Joe Klein

Tesla back in popular imagination...

2007-01-18T18:16:00.001-05:00

Nikola Tesla is everywhere...and no, this does not refer to the late 1800's/early 1900's, but right now! He is appearing in movies, books, blogs...you name it. Eccentric, inventor, genius, far ahead of his time, scientist, mystic...all of these attributes and qualities make him interesting even in the modern era, 60 odd years after his death.

Consider Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day". Here is a brief extract from the synopsis...

"The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx."

Many events in the book happen during or around Tesla's experiments in Colorado Springs. Tesla himself does appear. although in a brief cameo. Pynchon is smart in the way he weaves a web of mystery around the famed inventor.

The second popular appearance is in the movie, "The Prestige". Tesla is played by none other than David Bowie. Here there is more of the mysticism as well as the mention of the financial troubles Tesla faced during his experiments. Also present are references to his feud with Edison, dubbed as the War of Currents. In the movie he works on creating a device capable of teleportation, but has unintended consequences.

Nicola Tesla has also appeared in a graphic novel named the "Five Fists in Science", where he teams up with Mark Twain to bring about peace by fighting off the dastardly forces ruled by Thomas Edison!

Some of his ideas were right off the chart, and we are just coming to terms with them, for eg., wireless electricity, directed energy/particle weapons, a flying machine that could run without use of an engine, wings, ailerons, propellers or onboard fuel source.

Rumour has it that the Tunguska event was caused by a directed particle beam from Tesla's experiments!

Of course we know that his ideas on AC current were right in spite of being maligned by Edison and his cohorts...and it is no surprise that he has often been dubbed as "the man who invented the twentieth century" and the "patron saint of electricity".

Cross-posted on Desicritics.

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Technorati tags: Nicola Tesla, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, The Prestige, Edison, Mark Twain, War of Currents, Five Fists in Science, wireless electricity, directed particle weapons, AC Current, Tunguska event, Teleportation

Grad Students, world over, grieve...

2007-01-16T14:39:00.001-05:00

...at the recent death of Momofuku Ando. He was the inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles, known popularly as Ramen noodles (for which he founded the Nissin Foods company).

PhD comics pays tribute to him...

Call it coincidence, irony, a sad example of typical grad student life, or what you will...I was eating a cup of noodles when I read the news and the cartoon and I am eating one now when I write this post...

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Technorati tags: Momofuku Ando, instant noodles, cup noodles, Ramen, Nissin Foods, grad students, phd comics, Jorge Cham, procrastinator

Stem Cell cartoon.

2007-01-11T14:59:00.001-05:00

An interesting series of cartoons on Slate regarding Stem Cell research and the Bush veto. Although they tend to lean more in the direction for stem-cell research. I found the the following cartoon the most interesting one, showing the dichotomy of thought prevalent in the world about stem-cell research...and also the ethical problems...one that might really hard to resolve...

These are both valid concerns, mind you...but don't ask me to take sides...you may not like what I have to say ! Although if you push me to take a stance, I would say that Stem cell research should be allowed, as long as we do not have to sacrifice embryos for the cause. There is research on using stem cells from placentas that do not harm embryos which apparently obtain similar results. Now, that might be an acceptable compromise...

All this of course, while the House votes for increasing the scope of stem-cell research.

Previous posts on Stem Cell research : 1, 2.

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Technorati tags: Stem Cells, Slate, cartoon, research, Bush, veto, controversy, ethics, placenta, congress

Apple's iPhone is here...

2007-01-09T16:32:00.001-05:00

...announced by Steve Jobs in his keynote address at Macworld.

Here are some pictures of Jobs showing off the iPhone:

Wow ! I must say...wow ! This seems like the next must-have gadget ! Well, it's priced at $499 for the basic (4GB version) and $599 for the upper end one(8GB). Here's Jobs' reasoning:

"Our most popular iPod is $199 -- what's a smartphone cost? Somewhere around $299 with a two year contract."

"What should we charge for the iPhone? We should charge more for this stuff!... "

"So how much more than $499 should we price it? We thought long and hard about it... it does so much stuff..."

"What should we price it at? For a 4GB model we're pricing it at $499 -- no premium whatsoever.
"We're going to have an 8GB model for just $599."

It's going to the available on the Cingular network (or AT&T as its known now) in the United States.

Well, here's an early commercial that was released in March 2006...that gives us some ideas on this phone...

Original link via PajamasMedia.

Update: ArsTechnica article on why the iPhone won't be the next "killer app" for Apple.

Update 2 : Cisco sues Apple for trademark infringement...they have a trademark on the iPhone name. I was wondering what happened to the Cisco trademark, after Apple announced their product. They had released a web-phone/skype phone late in December.

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Technorati tags: iPhone, Apple, Steve Jobs, Macworld, Cingular, AT&T, smartphone, iPod, Cisco, trademark infrngement

Hype.

2007-01-06T14:41:00.001-05:00

Shane Warne is retiring. Well, considering his record, he's getting a lot of accolades, after taking more than 700 wickets in test cricket - more than any other person on the planet, to date. Many consider him to be the best spin bowler of all time...perhaps a reason why the Australians have dominated cricket over the last decade or so. I personally think its all hype.

For one, to be the best spinner in the world, you have to have been successful, consistently, against what is arguably the best spin playing nation on the planet - India. He hasn't performed against the Indian team...in fact, every time he has come down to India, his bowling figures have been set back considerably what with the thrashing he has received from the likes of Sidhu, Kambli, Sachin, Laxman and Dravid. So much so, that he has often refused to come down to play in India in the last 6-7 years, until he came by for the 2004 series. And considering that the Indian subcontinent pitches are a paradise for spinners, it seems a bit suspicious. He also had excuses like the baked beans fiasco in 1998.

Here is Shane Warne's overall record in test cricket:

Matches Wickets Best Average 5Wkt Hauls

145 708 8/71 25.41 37

Now here is his record against India:

Matches Wickets Best Average 5Wkt Hauls

14 43 6/125 47.18 1

The numbers speak for themselves...his bowling average is twice against India, as compared to the numbers for this overall career. I mean, considering that Australia and England play each other so often and that Warne has racked up most of his wickets against teams that traditionally do not play spin.

Then there's talk about the magic ball/ball of the century where Shane Warne gets Mike Gatting out by bowling him between his legs. Now, consider this, Indian bowlers like BS Chandrasekhar, L Sivaramakrishnan and Venkataraghavan have bowled myriad such "balls of the century" in their day. Here is a video of their first test win in England, with these two spinners weaving magic against the confused English batsmen:

I think Anil Kumble deserves a lot more respect, simply because he has taken wickets in all test-playing countries, under all sorts of conditions. For that fact, I believe that Saqlain Mushtaq deserves great respect because he would consistently take wickets against the India team. In fact, he has a better average against India than that for his entire career ! That speaks volumes about his talent.

While Shane Warne is a good cricketer, one must be careful before dubbing him the best spinner in the world. He has won multiple matches for Australia, but then again, they were opponents who were clueless against spin bowling. Also, anyone can be deadly when one has Glenn McGrath tying things down from the other end. In my opinion, McGrath will be the difference between a great Australian team and an ordinary one (well, that is a post for another time).

And before you ask, no Muralitharan doesn't quite qualify as well...while his record is better than Warne's (well, maybe not in number of wickets, but I doubt if that will last) overall as well as against India, we have all seen him being soundly thrashed by Indian batsmen over the years...and for some reason, they used protect him against Sachin Tendulkar...but I guess he does deserve far more respect than Warne, but then there's always going to be a footnote about this "chucking" and other related controversies.

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Technorati tags: Cricket, Spin Bowling, Shane Warne, Magic Ball, Ball of the Century, best spinner in the world, India

Happy New Year !

2007-01-02T20:33:00.001-05:00

2007!

"The Year" *

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of a year.

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Well, another year gone down...2006 was a very interesting year, but eventful nonetheless...

A list of scheduled events for the current year.

* Poem received via The Wondering Minstrels mailing list.

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Technorati tags: 2007, New Year, Happy New Year, 2006

Non-Newtonian liquid is...corn starch & water ???

2006-12-20T02:34:00.001-05:00

Some students in Spain mixed corn starch and water, to create a non-Newtonian liquid - it exhibits the properties of a solid when pressure/stress is applied, but is a liquid otherwise.

Original link via Digg.

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Technorati tags: Science, Non-Newtonian liquid, Non-Newtonian fluid, corn starch, pressure, stress, liquid, solid.

Science Trek | Dec. 13, 2006

2006-12-14T01:02:00.001-05:00

Smaller memories ?

IBM, Qimonda and Macronix have announced that they have jointly developed a new kind of material that holds promise for new computer memory chips being available for the mass market. They created a new semiconductor alloy derived from materials currently used in optical storage devices like CDs and DVDs. This falls into the category of non-volatile memories, which IBM believes could enhance the speed of microprocessors. It could also be used for a vast array of devices like mp3 players, video, etc.

Ancient "Luna-tic" machine.

Scientists recently announced that they have been able to understand the delicate workings of a 2000 year old computer used by ancient Greeks to calculate lunar cycles. Named the "Antikythera mechanism", it was discovered over a 100 years ago in a Roman shipwreck. It could also track solar and planetary positions. It could have been used to time agricultural and religious festivals.

Welcome to the "Dark" side

Scientists have discovered anti-gravity...not, not the one from science fiction lore, but dark energy. Apparently, after the big bang, the cosmos behaved like there was was serious anti-gravity at work that forced it to expand -- this was known as dark energy. A group of astronomers, using the Hubble space telescope, have found that billions of years before this antigravity overcame the cosmic gravity, it was already present and was shaping the evolution of the universe.

A Large lens

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has approved the construction of what will be the world's largest telescope, the European extremely large telescope (E-ELT). Costing Euros 57 million, it will have a mirror with a diameter of 42 meters, and is composed of 906 hexagonal segments, each 1.45m in size! Now if only they could use some of their intelligence to think of an original name !

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Technorati tags: IBM, Qimonda, Macronix, semiconductor memory, non-volatile memory, ancient computer, Greek, Antikythera, lunar cycles, Dark Energy, anti-gravity, big bang, Hubble, European Southern Observatory, ESO, world's largest telescope, European Extremely Large Telescope, E-ELT

Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2006-12-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

Recently, Diversity@NC State decided to create a video in commemoration of the adoption of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" by the United Nations. The Chancellor proclaimed Dec. 10, 2006 as International Human Rights day at NC State.

Yours truly was invited to participate...

The video (in parts), has been uploaded in parts onto the Diversity Website:

I appear in the two sections marked with a * above, i.e. Articles 1-4 and Articles 5-10.

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Technorati tags: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, NCSU, Dec. 10, video, Sibin Mohan

"The Problem with Programming" - Bjarne Stroustrup.

2006-12-05T03:21:00.000-05:00

In an interview with MIT's Technology Review, Bjarne Stroustrup talks about "his legacy and examines what's wrong with most software code."

For the uninitiated, Stroustrup is the creator of the C++ programming language, and author of, in my honest opinion, the definitive C++ book.

For the various folks out there who diss C++, I found this bit interesting...

I'm sure that for every programmer that dislikes C++, there is one who likes it. However, a friend of mine went to a conference where the keynote speaker asked the audience to indicate by show of hands, one, how many people disliked C++, and two, how many people had written a C++ program. There were twice as many people in the first group than the second. Expressing dislike of something you don't know is usually known as prejudice. Also, complainers are always louder and more certain than proponents--reasonable people acknowledge flaws. I think I know more about the problems with C++ than just about anyone, but I also know how to avoid them and how to use C++'s strengths.

And then, of course, you don't expect proponents of languages that lost out in competition with C++ to be polite about it. Software development doesn't have that degree of professionalism--though I hope it eventually will. Science is different in this respect: when a new tool, technique, or theory wins out, people see that as progress. In software, contributions by competitors and predecessors are not widely acknowledged, appreciated, or even understood.

Original link via Slashdot.

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Technorati tags: C++, Bjarne Stroustrup, Programming Languages, software development

Movie Review : American Dreamz.

2006-12-02T20:40:00.000-05:00

[Spoiler Warning : I might discuss details of the plotline, including parts of the climax...so if you don't wanna know, do not read the rest!]

One would think that a movie with a cheesy title like "American Dreamz" wouldn't necessarily be an interesting watch, or worse, turn out to be a "chick flick"! Or considering that it was directed by Paul Weitz, who in the past has perpetrated such rib-tickling comedies like "American Pie" as director and "American Pie 2" and "American Wedding" in his roles as executive producer, it might be another one in a long series of frat-boy, under-sexed teen-comedies...but every once in a while, something flies under the radar and takes you by surprise...

I happened to bring home the DVD and watched it on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Weitz's take on current American culture and politics with beautiful sarcastic undercurrents makes this movie a real delight to watch - the best part of course, is that the movie is neither obnoxious nor over the top about the topics that it deals with...American strategies in the middle east, the obsession of everyday people with television and reality shows, the lengths that folks will go to for achieving stardom, how the chief executive is perfect only if he is a puppet, etc.

The movie is centered around three different stories, all intertwined around a popular television show, a la American Idol, and aptly named "American Dreamz" (and this is made painfully obvious in the cloying title song - "American dreamz...that's dreamz with a Z"). There is the President of the United States, Joseph Stanton, (leader of the free world as some would like to think) played by Dennis Quaid, and no one is left with the impression that it is anyone but you-know-who (of course if you have any doubts, it is soon dispelled by his wife who seems to be a copy of Laura Bush and his advisor who is modelled after Karl Rove.). After winning his second term, he seems to develop a conscience and a need to get real news from an apocryphal source, such as newspapers (his advisors would rather that he get it from daily news briefings that talk about Dr. Octopus and Magneto being the bad guys).

The second character is Omar Abidi (played by Sam Golzari), an Iraqi orphan, who lost his parents in an American bombing raid and has decided to join a terrorist training camp and infiltrate the United States as a "sleeper agent". Oddly enough, for a terrorist, he seems to love music, especially the Broadway type.

The third story is about Sally Kendoo (portrayed by Mandy Moore) a mid-western, middle class American girl, who has been constantly pushed by her mother to become a television star. She hopes to win the American Dreamz competition to achieve this aim, and will go to any lengths to ensure her victory, even taking back a boyfriend she heartlessly dumped once she knew she was in the competition, just because he was injured in Iraq, and it makes for "good television".

Cast in the role of Master puppeteer, is Hugh Grant as the obnoxious, self-centered, Martin Tweed (molded along the lines of Simon Cowell). He is the producer, host and judge of the American Dreamz show...and it is the absurd, the pathetic and weird that catches his eye...it can be seen when he asks his assistants to find him an Arab and a Jew on the same show...when asked about if they should get an Arab-Jew, he says, "don't be absurd"! He wants the basest types on his show, to maintain the popularity records for the show and himself.

From the time that the president decides to show up as a guest judge on the show, to the terrorists forcing Omar to participate in the show so that he gets a chance to attempt a suicide mission to kill the president, to Sally dumping and then "re-uniting" with her boyfriend, the movie moves along showing how ridiculous turns life can take for seemingly ordinary people. The sad part is that any of this is actually possible in real life, as the tag line for the movie states,

"Imagine a country where the President never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons, and more people vote for a pop idol than their next President."

We get great one-liners, situations, and interestingly, political statements, insightful thoughts, and satire along the way, which, again, sadly, could be true, such as,

"I think my mother wanted me to become president just to prove to my dad that any idiot could become president."

...

"Why are you reading Canadian newspapers?

"They are our neighbours"

"Who cares?"

...

"I think the middle east will never improve from its current position...never...never. And I'm sorry."

You know the movie is not going to end well, when Sally's boyfriend finds her and Martin making out in her dressing room, and he finds the bomb that Omar has discarded. He appears on stage threatening to blow everyone up, and while the audience screams and runs, Martin finds a camera to continue to telecast the situation, and ends up killing himself and the boyfriend, when the camera inadvertently presses the button to set off the bomb...the satirical take on the American media and the public is emphasized, when immediately afterwards a note appears on television screens asking people to vote, and the dead boyfriend wins the contest due to the popular vote! Of course, his outburst is termed as "a post-traumatic stress syndrome", and Sally ends up taking Martin's role as the host of the show...

This movies leaves you with an vague feeling of uneasiness because it seems so reminiscent of reality...

The soundtrack by Stephen Trask also has a vague, haunting feel to it, and this just emphasizes the mood while watching the movie...

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Technorati tags: American Dreamz, Movie Review, politics, satire, television, reality show, American Idol, Hugh Grant, President, Karl Rowe, Iraq, Paul Weitz

Weapons of Math Instruction!

2006-12-01T03:50:00.000-05:00

One of the funniest pieces I have read in a long time...I came across this piece on the door of a Computer Science professor at NC State. The parts in bold are exceptionally funny, in my humble opinion.

At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a protractor, a T-square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. The man is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search for absolute value. They use secret code names like x and y and refer to themselves as unknowns, but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared.
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes. I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are willing to dis-integrate us with calculus disregard. Murky statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence," the President said, adding: "Under the circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our point, and draw the line."
President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex."
Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."

I do believe that the originator of this joke was Brian Leiter.

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Technorati tags: Humour, humor, math, weapons of math instruction, al-gebra, algebra, john ashcroft, george bush, isosceles, slide rule, protractor, compass

JPGmag photo submission.

2006-11-29T04:02:00.000-05:00

I submitted a photo to JPG photo magazine - a cool concept where anyone can submit photos and then the public gets to vote on which ones are best...the good ones get published in their next issue.

Here is my submission...the deadline for voting is : Dec. 08, 2006. Check it out and vote for me if you like it...

The theme under which this submission has been filed is : Embrace the Blur. Here is a synopsis...

We photographers spend our lives avoiding blur. We shoot fast, hold our breath, and pray for stillness. But blur is part of life, and this theme is all embracing blur: using it to draw the eye, create a sense of motion, and show life more for how it feels than how it looks.

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Technorati tags: Photography, JPG, photo magazine, voting

Human brain cells in humpback whales !

2006-11-28T01:15:00.000-05:00

Researchers from the Mount Sinai school of medicine have reported that they have found human brain cells in humpback whales ! These brain cells are seen only in humans, apes and other cetaceans such as dolphins.

Some excerpts...

this might mean such whales are more intelligent than they have been given credit for, and suggests the basis for complex brains either evolved more than once, or has gone unused by most species of animals

...

The finding may help explain some of the behaviors seen in whales, such as intricate communication skills, the formation of alliances, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage

...

Although the function of spindle neurons is not well understood, they may be involved in cognition -- learning, remembering and recognizing the world around oneself. Spindle cells may be affected by Alzheimer's disease and other debilitating brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Hmm...this might show distinctive links between humans and these aquatic mammals.

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Technorati tags: human brain cells, humpback whales, mount sinai school of medicine, cetaceans, apes, communication, tool usage, spindle neurons, alzheimers

Irrational Stock Market.

2006-11-27T05:16:00.000-05:00

The stock market has often been cited as being the the shining example of how capitalism works - apparently the free trade and the constant change and flow of wealth and materials the world over means that everything works according to the best examples of capitalism. Supply, demand, financial deals, etc. can chase each other across the world multiple times over, without a single physical transaction taking place.

But all is not perfect in this virtual world -- apparently the stock market and the ideals that lie beneath its operations are quite the anti-thesis of capitalism, and give rise to irrational concepts, such as "private equity". Some excerpts from the Slate article...

All of this depends, though, on the assumption that the stock market sets the right price for shares of big companies. But a whole separate part of corporate finance is based on the assumption that those prices are wrong. These special deals used to be called leveraged buyouts. Now they're called "private equity." The details are different, but the principle is the same. Private investors buy a company from its public stockholders. They have a letter from an investment bank saying the price is a fair one. They usually have the support of management, or they actually are the management. The public stockholders have little choice. But time and again—surprise, surprise — the investment bank turns out to be wrong. The company is actually far more valuable! (And any bank that can't be counted on to get this wrong will not be in this profitable line of work for long.) Soon, the company is sold at a large profit, either to another company or back to the public.

So, free-market capitalism has decreed three different values for this company. One is set by the stock market: the value of all the company's outstanding shares or "market capitalization." One is what the private investors are offering—usually a bit more than the market cap. And one is what the private investors sell the company for a blink of an eye later—which is usually a lot more than the other two. Which of these numbers is the true capitalist price? Which one represents the most sublime interaction of supply and demand?

Hmm...so the "free-market" idea is actually swindling the general public ? Here is the counter argument stating that it is not a swindle...

Defenders of this procedure say it's not that the stockholders have been swindled. It's that the company is actually far more valuable in private hands because managers—even the same managers as before—can manage far better without the constraints of public ownership, with its meddlesome stockholders and nettlesome regulations.

Well, but if the deals are fine and perfectly legal, then what is the whole point of having a stock market in the first place ? The public that has invested in it does not necessarily get the best possible price for their investment, and it seems as if companies are getting a better deal than what is publicly possible on the stock market. Doesn't this make the whole concept of the stock market a farce ?

But the big question is this: Either the stock market is a fraud on the public, or these deals that dominate the business pages are a fraud on the public. Which is it?

Well, we shall have to see how far this whole concept of the stock market and "free trade" will go...perhaps if the general public were to realise the true consequences of these "trades" then the whole system might collapse, taking with it a large number of world economies that are often reliant only on the deals that happen through various stock markets.

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Technorati tags: stock market, capitalism, private equity, free market, Slate, leveraged buyouts, investment, irrational

Waves in spherical water...

2006-11-27T04:40:00.000-05:00

An amazing NASA video from the International Space station, showing waves in a sphere of water in zero-g...the alka-seltzer effect towards the end is also fantastic...

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Technorati tags: NASA, International Space Station, spherical water, waves, space, zero-g, alka-seltzer

Sushi Police on their way...

2006-11-27T04:26:00.000-05:00

Apparently when Japan's Agriculture minister, Toshikatsu MATSUOKA, visited Colorado on a business visit, he stepped into a well-known Japanese restaurant to get a taste of what he was missing back home - sushi. He was horrified when he saw the menu, for he found...

...something he considered a high culinary crime -- sushi served on the same menu as Korean-style barbecued beef.

"Such a thing is unthinkable," he said. "Call it what you will, but it is not a Japanese restaurant."

Apparently restaurants around the world that advertise themselves as being Japanese, are more along the lines of "Asian Fusion". To counter this, the Japanese government has launched a programme to offer official seals of approval on restaurants that are deemed to be "pure Japanese".

Italy and Thailand are also going along similar lines, to "purify" what they consider an insult to their national pride.

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Technorati tags: Sushi, Japan, Japanese Restaurant, Asian Fusion, Italy, Thailand

Another Holy Grail for electrical engineers!

2006-11-22T04:18:00.000-05:00

Wireless electricity ! Researchers from MIT have announced that they have a simple system that could deliver power to laptops, map3 players, etc. without cables!

Some excerpts...

The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.
...
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.

Interestingly, this uses existing and old technology...

a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.

And of course, Nikola Tesla had similar ideas, but had to stop his project as he ran out of funding.

Hopefully we will now be able to avoid carrying the klunky power cords/bricks for our laptops and other devices ! Here is a graphic from the BBC article on how it works...

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Technorati tags: Wireless electricity, MIT, holy grail, electrical engineering, cables, physics, resonance, Nikola Tesla, antenna, power

Legends to some...embarrassment to others...

2006-11-22T03:53:00.000-05:00

This might seem like a scripted movie comedy, but it turns out that a herd of wild elephants have destroyed and cornered rebels belonging to the Ulfa outfit !

Some excerpts...

Police officials in Jorhat district, one of the strongholds of the outlawed Ulfa, today confirmed that elephants had destroyed several makeshift camps of the militant group on the chaporis — Assamese for sandbank — off Neamati. “We had information about the rebels setting up camps on these small islands and were planning to take action. But the elephants did the job for us,” a senior police officer said.

...

He said the marauding herds had not only demolished Ulfa camps but also forced the militants to change their travel plans.

“Militants prefer to cross the river by night but no boatman wants to take the risk now for fear of running into wild elephants on the sandbanks,”

Perhaps it was some sort of revenge thingy...

Elephants have been troubling militants even in the mainland. An elephant was gunned down by militants near Champang Basti in Mokokchung district of neighbouring Nagaland a few days ago after a herd destroyed several huts in the area. A joint team of militants from Assam and Nagaland had been hiding in those huts.

Hmm...this seems like a whole great thriller movie in the making! Wonder which outfit will win out in the end - "Jumbos vs Ulfa"...has a nice ring to it, wouldn't you say ?

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Technorati tags: elephants, jumbo, ulfa, terrorist, assam, nagaland, thriller, humour, irony

Science Trek | Nov. 09, 2006

2006-11-11T04:36:00.000-05:00

World's largest desert reason for existence of world's largest rainforest!

Scientists recently showed that a significant link exists between the Sahara and the Amazon rain forests! The reason for existence of the Amazonian rain forests, is the dust from one tiny area of the Saharan desert, to restock its soil with nutrients and soil! Scientists used analysis from NASA's MODIS satellite. Apparently, Bodélé, a region not far from Lake Chad, is the source of more than half the material that fertilizes the Amazonian rainforest. Scientists have calculated that the area provides up to 0.7 million tons of dust each day, which is swept into the atmosphere by the Saharan winds.

Monster Digital Picture.

A company named Hal9000, has created what might be the world's largest digital picture - a monstrous 8.6 GigaPixels !

Look at the amazing details that you can see by zooming in...and the scale bar on the top left should give you a great idea about the size of the image...

Research bush-whacked!

Federal agencies are investigating possibilities of whether the current Bush administration tried to censor research by government scientists, especially about important issues like global warming. The commerce department and NASA are conducting sweeping investigations on the topic. The white house have denied that scientists have been offered anything but transparency. A report in last month's scientific journal journal, Nature, suggested that the commerce department's National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's administrators blocked the release of reports the link hurricane strength to the frequency of global warming. Apparently the total US emissions (more than 7 billion tons a year), are projected to rise 14 percent from 2002 to 2012!

Losing it - at the tight time...

Researchers recently announced (in the British medial journal Lancet) came up with some surprising results about global trends related to sex - results that would seem to be counter-intuitive to ideas in the modern day and age. Here are some of them...

monogamy is the dominant sexual pattern globally
married people have the most sex
men report in having had more partners than women in a single year
kids aren't losing it earlier as we had initially thought - sexual activity starts from the ages of 15-19!
married women are more likely to have unhealthy sexual practices - they find it harder to convince their partners to use condoms than single women.

Diamonds are forever...well..not quite !

Scientists at the Sandia National labs have melted the hardest known natural substance - a diamond; they melted it into a puddle! They used Sandia's Z-machine, the world's largest X-ray machine. It was used to subject tiny diamond squares, only a few nanometers thick, to pressures more than 10 million times the normal sea-level atmospheric pressure. To create the pressure, the the machine's magnetic field hurled small plates at the diamond at 34 kms per second, or faster than the earth's orbital speed of the sun! The idea was to see how diamonds would react to a range of extreme pressures, to see if they may be uses to encase fuel pellets needed to drive a nuclear fusion reactor! Here is a picture of the Z-machine...

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Technorati tags: Sahara, Amazon, rain forest, dust, soil, NASA, MODIS satellite, Bodele, Lake Chad, largest digital picture, 8 gigapixels, HAL9000, Bush administration, global warming, censor, Nature, commerce department, white house, research blocked, sex survey, monogamous, married couples, losing virginity, diamonds, melting, Sandia labs, z-machine, x-ray, nuclear machine

Hypocrisy

2006-11-09T00:29:00.000-05:00

Google, Symantec and McAfee have all been to the European Union of late...now what would these corporations want with the political body ? Perhaps they were summoned, you say ? Not really...they went of their own accord...anti-trust hearings, perhaps ? Well, that's kind of right. "What ?", you say...these three corporations are being charged with anti-trust suits by the EU ? How come I haven't heard of it ? Well, they aren't and you haven't as a result...they are not being charged, and hence the reason for it not being in the news. The reason for these companies voluntarily going up to the EU is Microsoft's impending release of Vista!

Google recently joined the list of companies, Symantec and McAfee included, who have "expressed concerns" about Windows Vista, even before it has been released ! Some excerpts...

The company recently sent a top executive to Brussels to let the EC know that Google is concerned about "choice" in future Microsoft products.

David Drummond, a Google VP in charge of corporate development, told reporters, "It's been our view that any new version of Microsoft products that include search, that that be done in a way that preserves user choice for search and other applications,"

And here it where it gets better - Adobe has also joined the bandwagon...

Adobe has also gone public with its objections to Microsoft's new XML Paper Specification, which will provide built-in PDF-style functionality.

Now I find the entire taking-Microsoft-to-task-for-monopoly thing stupid in a capitalistic economy! First of all, if they give away free stuff, how is that harmful to the customers ? so, they gave away IE for free...isn't that a good thing for the customers ? So, if Ford gives away free leather seating with its cars to get better business, I don't see them being taken to task...

About the search issue - almost every other browser around (including Firefox, the fast-growing browser) has Google as its default search engine! No one seems to be making a fuss about that ! And I have test-driven IE a little bit to know that changing the default search engine is as easy as doing the same for Firefox...now, don't get me wrong...I like Firefox, and its variants, especially, Flock. And its not that I am a die-hard Microsoft fan (well, except in the case of Visual Studio and MSDN - they're the best products ever by Microsoft and the best in their categories...of course, now there is Live Writer), but I believe in individual choice - if Microsoft and their products work for you, then use them...if on the other hand, there are other products (perhaps open source) that work for you, then feel free to use them...no one should be pressurized into using something or not using something, especially due to ideology!

I find it especially odd that companies like Google and Adobe, which are market leaders in their own respective areas, to be running like frightened children due to an impending operating system release by Microsoft! I mean, wasn't Google the one prophetizing about the death of the desktop, and that everything will be online ? Now they are worried about the epitome of a desktop - an operating system, being a threat to their business...is their business (and related products) based on such weak foundations ?

As for Adobe's worries about the XML Paper Specification (XPS) - surely they're not worried about a bit of a competition ? So, they don't mind competition as long as its from a smaller entity and not someone who can stand up to them and take them on, like Microsoft ? They can ride roughshod over the entire portable document format, but they don't like it when someone provides them with real competition. Isn't it good for consumers when multiple formats compete with each other, especially when they are backed by companies that can put in resources to make the products better ?

I took a look at the XPS and related software and found the idea interesting...ok, it has various bugs that need to be ironed out, but Microsoft has some interesting ideas for its developement...they have based it on XML, an open idea, and they welcome developers to make better products that make use of the idea!

I think the hypocrisy has to stop...either these folks put up with it or shut up...if they are so insecure about something that hasn't been released yet (Windows Vista), then imagine what will happen when someone comes along and snatches away their prized products with better quality ideas/products ?

This is the rare case though where I have to give credit to the EU for being sensible...their response to the entire deal...

The Commission has been willing to listen to all complainants, but has publicly made clear that it will not comment upon or attempt to regulate products which have not yet appeared.

But here is where the hypocrisy really comes in - to quote from the ArsTechnica article...

Google is doing quite well when it comes to making its search engine easy to find and use from within Microsoft products. With Windows, for instance, Google has had success in signing deals with OEMs like Dell that will prominently feature links to Google properties on new desktops

So if a customer purchases a Dell computer, then Google products come integrated with it, and its not easy to get rid off! Now, that is what I call an intrusion of privacy and taking away customer choice...so what they claim Microsoft did/will do, is what they are precisely doing, except that they are doing so in conjunction with the hardware manufacturer, Dell!

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Technorati tags: Microsoft, Vista, Windows, Google, McAfee, Symantec, Adobe, XML Paper Specifications, XPS, European Union, Dell, hypocrisy, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer

Phantasmic furniture...

2006-11-07T04:29:00.000-05:00

A Swedish design group, FRONT, has created the next generation technology for designing and manufacturing furniture, almost out of thin air ! People use their fingers to trace invisible strokes in the air to create models of furniture. These strokes and designs are captured by motion sensory equipment and then "manufactured" in liquid plastic by rapid prototyping technology!

Watch the video...

Of course, the video is more interesting to watch what with the designers being pretty Swedish women...

Original link via Wired Blogs.

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Technorati tags: Rapid Prototyping, Liquid Furniture, Swedish design group, FRONT, phantasmic, motion sensory equipment

Ek/Anek video...down memory lane...

2006-11-06T18:13:00.000-05:00

Those of us who grew up watching Doordarshan in the eighties, will definitely remember the following video with sharp pangs of nostalgia...

Enjoy..."ek chidiya...anek chidiaya...ek...anek...". My my...it is definitely catchy !

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Technorati tags: India, Doordarshan, Ek Anek, nostalgia, 80s

NASA's take on Sanskrit!

2006-11-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, that has been the mother of a variety of modern day langauges, as well as a rich source of information in the form of the vedas/upanishads, etc. has been given a new task...that of knowledge representation for Artificial Intelligence, according to Rick Briggs, who is a part of the NASA research center.

Some excerpts...

there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor.

...

But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence.

Here is an example of the grammar of Sanskrit..

An in-depth explanation of the use of Sanskrit for knowledge representation has been provided in this article...of course, some other wonderful accomplishments of Indian philosphers, thinkers and mathematicians have also been enumerated, such as the zero and the binary system...

Well, this is a great phenomenon...if we can throw some light on the discoveries from the Indian past and put them to use in the present day world.

Technorati tags : [India, Sanskrit, NASA, knowledge representation, artficial intelligence, zero, binary, Indian mathematical systems, vedas, upanishads, semantic nets, NASA research center]

Microsoft supporting Linux !

2006-11-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

Well, hell has frozen over, it seems...as if news about the existence of Microsoft's Linux lab wasn't enough of a surprise, Microsoft and Novell announced recently that they will support Suse Linux !

Some excerpts...

The deal effectively makes Microsoft a reseller of Suse Linux, Novell's version of the operating system, and kicks off a broad technology collaboration between the two companies. At the heart of the deal is a"patent covenant" under which Microsoft agreed not to file patent-infringement charges against users of Suse Linux, and Novell agreed not to sue users of Windows. Businesses that use Linux have long worried that Microsoft would one day file patent-infringement suits against them, thereby hindering their use of and investment in the rival software.

This comes as a blow to Redhat, the leader in Linux and open-source software...especially on the support side. This came soon after Oracle's announcement that they will provide support for Redhat products, at half the cost of Redhat. Redhat shares fell after both announcements, around 4% in the former case and about 25% in the latter case!

The two software giants openly supporting Linux might be a death-blow to Redhat-type companies, which until now relied on being the sole providers of open-source software and support. They also rode the wave of anti-proprietary software that both Microsoft and Oracle are famous for...but it seems that the majors have decided to weigh in and get out of their previous one-track views of the changing face of the computing industry...they have both accepted that alternatives exist, and once that was done, it was only a matter of jumping on the bandwagon and cashing in...one just has to wait and see as to how Redhat and others in the open-source industry will react.

There is, of course, an off-chance that the dedicated open-source community might shun Suse and Novell, because of their involvement with Microsoft...but the businesses should lap it all up, that is precisely what Microsoft and Novel are probably looking for.

Previous posts on "the times they area changin'" series : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Original link via Slashdot.

Technorati tags : [Microsoft Linux Novell Suse hell the times they are a changin Redhat open source support proprietary software Microsoft's Linux lab patent covenant]

India's changing face...Bangalore/Bengaluru...

2006-11-03T03:21:00.000-05:00

Well, Nov 01, 2006 has come and gone and Bangalore no longer exists ! What ? Surely no disaster has befallen the darling of technologists, pensioners, scientists and good ol' Bangaloreans ? Well, it has...sort of. The government of the state of Karnataka has decided to change its name from Bangalore to "Bengaluru" ! This is how it is referred to in one of the local languages, Kannada! Apparently it is a hare-brained scheme hatched by U R Ananthamurthy, a Kannada writer and poet, to "empower" the local people!

Now, let me get a few thoughts off my chest about this topic..

Bangalore was never Bengaluru! Its original name was "Bendakaluru" which literally means "boiled beans" ! The legend goes that Veera Ballala II, a Hoysala king, was lost and wandering in a nearby forest. In a famished state he happened upon a solitary hut, where an elderly lady fed him boiled beans. As a result when he re-established the city that existed there, he named it "Benda-kaluru" meaning "boiled beans". [An even older name (set sometime in the 9th century AD), is "Benga-val-uru" when the city and region were parts of the Ganga dynasty.]

It was when the Brits came along and decided to set up a cantonment there (the lovely weather was a definite factor along with the fact that it was a tactical location, being on seven small hills, as well as having mountain ranges nearby for cover) that "Bendakaluru" became "Bangalore".

Over the years, the Bangalore became localized into "Bengaluru" in the local language Kannada. So, this case is different from that of say, Kolkatta or Chennai - their English names were anglicizations of their local names (Calcutta and Madras), whereas it was the other way round for Bangalore.

Bangalore is a cosmopolitan city (one of possibly only two in India - the other being Bombay). It is no longer (actually never did) belong to Kannadigas! It doesn't even belong to Tamilians, Malayalis, Gujaratis, Anglo-Indians, or any other sect or community on the face of the earth. On the other hand, it belongs to everyone who resides there...every single person or group who was born there or has come in and set up residence (even for a short duration) owns a part of Bangalore and contributes to its rich culture and heritage (for eg.: did you know that Bangalore has great Jazz/Blues/carnatic/rock/theatre/bharatnatyam/million-other-things traditions?!!). To say that it has to be renamed in Kannada, is a personal affront to everyone who loves the city for its seemingly endless capacity to embrace folks from all cultures and background! An insult to all of us who where were born and raised there, who came to love this city, but are not Kannadigas !

The city manages to mix the old with the new - the British architecture and traditions with the modern technological lifestyles, with hints of Indian culture and traditions mixed in...

Bangalore has become a brand name for India as well...it has become recognizable on a global scale, and a focal point for the scientific and technology communities all over the world...I am constantly amazed at how many people, in North Carolina of all places, recognize Bangalore! To change its name is to tarnish that image - maybe by a bit, but tarnish nonetheless.

What is gained by renaming Bangalore ? How does a Kannadiga become more proud because we have decided to shun our heritage ? Does he/she feel more secure now that the city has been renamed ? What about the millions of people living there who are not of Kannada origin, but have helped bring this city to its current status ? The folks who toil day and night, who dream and build, in the process moving everyone, Kannadigas and non-Kannadigas alike, forward. Are we ashamed of our rich background which over the centuries has been a melting point of thoughts, ideas and cultures ?

How about the enormous amounts of money that is wasted in changing signs, name-plates, forms, letterheads and so on ? Wouldn't it have been better off if the government had used this money to say, alleviate the traffic problems in the city?

I do believe that anyone who has ever been in the city will always call it Bangalore...at least know I will...and I'm waiting for the day when this ridiculous attitude among politicians of pandering to the masses is done away with...

Previous posts on Bangalore/Bengaluru : 1.

[An interesting footnote : Apparently stone tools, as old as 4000 BC were found near Bangalore ! It has a rich tradition, dating back from 890 AD !]

Technorati tags : [Bangalore Bengaluru India Karnataka Kannada politics history cosmopolitan culture dynasty Hoysala Ganga Dynasty]

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