Jukti-Takko-Goppo

The bird has flown.....

2006-03-15T19:02:00.000-05:00

Jatayu now considers himself some sort of an authority on wide rangin subjects. He is writing under a new name at a new site.

Not quite a whimper, but....

2005-09-12T13:40:00.000-04:00

....as Rahul commented, certainly not the nail-biting exciting finishes of the last three matches that everyone was hoping for. Australia had a chance when they had England at 199 for 7 before tea- but Kevin Pietersen simply took it away. The ending was a bit farcial with the Australian openers returning to the pavilion on account of bad lights and a bit of confusion reigning over the official announcement of a by-then forgone result.

Kudos to England for regaining the Ashes (after 18 years) - I can understand the excitement of the supporters from nation where hype and expectations have mostly trumped real achievements in the field. After the first test, England certainly had the better of the exchanges with the decisive factor being Freddie Flintoff - he provided the balance in the English team - bowling fast and reverse swinging to get cruical wickets and then coming in 4/5 down to score important runs. He is probably the best all-rounder in the game at the moment. Eventually, as another cricketing-cliche goes, it was the game that was the winner. A standard has been set for competitive test cricket. Unfortunately, the two other series (Ind-Zim and SL-Bang.) currently in progress certainly won't provide that kind of intensity.

What an ending.....

2005-09-12T07:43:00.000-04:00

(...no this is not about ending the blog)

My last post was about the first day of the second Ashes test. Haven't had time to write in between (will comment on that in another post) - but fittingly, I am coming out of hibernation to write about the last day of the last test - going on now. So much has happened since that second test, which England went on to win, followed by a draw and yet another win for England. This Ashes has lived up to all its pre-series expectations and hyperboles and even more. Sometime you wonder if someone actually scripted all this drama as an advertisement for Test cricket. And just when you thought that there could be no more twists and turns - with England, helped by the weather, seemingly in control of the last test (a draw will win them the Ashes 2-1), Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, those two old war-horses, pick up a couple of wicket's each on the last day morning, to leave the test in a tantalizing position. Can Australia get England our cheaply and chase down 200 odd runs in quick time ?
As the master of malaproprism said and has been subsequetly hackneyed by cricket commentators, 'It ain't over 'til it's over'. Looking forward to an exciting two sessions.

A prayer in the morning...

2005-08-04T10:01:00.000-04:00

Longish post over a small report I read today morning....bear with me.

~~Long time ago in a galaxy far away~~....Back in my school days in Kolkata, there would be certain mornings when I would wake up overwhelmed by thoughts of the task ahead of me. I am talking about days of the annual (or half-yearly or pre-selections, selections, board etc.) exams (or Tests/Quiz as the Americans would describe it) - particularly if it happened to involve remembering the dates of the Panipat battles and comparative notes about the art and culture of the Gupta and Maurya dynasties. Contrary to a lot of people, Mathematics was not the dreaded Exam - not that I was any good at it - but it involved very little memorization, which I was and still is pretty bad at. Additionally, anybody who has attended that directionally named 'reputed' school in Kolkata with its huddled mass of white-and-navy blue will tell you that our Mathematics teachers (especially for the 9-12 standards and while I am at it, lets include the Physics and Chemistry teachers for good measure) were certified sadists. They would throw you a few bones here and there in form of problems worked out in class or ones that more or less adhered to straightforward application of theorems and corollaries - for the rest you would squirm in your seat, look at the problems from all angles scribble a few things on paper and finally give up. Later the teachers would return the paper, strewn with big red circles (nobody in India told teachers about the soothing effects of purple on the student's psyche) with delight and unconcealed glee reducing you to feeling like the stupidest person on the planet. You knew you would get slaughtered at these exams and had nothing to lose - you would read up on the concepts and give it your best (on an immodest note, I have to admit that I never did that badly as dramatized here in the science related subjects, which is probably why I ended up where I am now).

History, on the other hand, would bring about much consternation. It's not that I hated History - in fact I loved reading about it and adding to the vast base of trivial knowledge that used to osmose into my brain and help out in quiz sessions (a note to those who might find a contradiction in my uselessness at memorizing and remembering stuff for quizzes - the latter would happen quite automatically ie I would read a piece in the newspaper about how Coca Cola was the new sponsor for the Australian cricket team replacing Benson and Hedges and that would just stick to my mind without having to put in any effort. However, I had to force myself to remember dates when Humanyun was defeated and driven out of Delhi and the date he came back).

The problem was that our School Board (West Bengal Board of Secondary Education) did not believe in brevity - for History and other 'social science' topics, we were expected to write volumes and by volumes I mean quite a lot. I used to hate writing too much, specially if I had to do it fast and especially with a pen. We would have several short notes (recommended 1/2 to 1 page), notes (recommended 1 to 2 pages) and finally a big essay (recommended 5 pages !) to write - all in 3 hours time and preferably in handwriting that would be legible to the examiner (Remember the opening examiner scene from Jana Aranya - you wouldn't want that to happen - would you ?). According to some people, however, legibility was not the big issue - rumor goes that some examiners would simply look at quantity and not quality, even suggesting that some kept a weighting scale and your mark would be proportional to the mass of written work !
Unless you are pretty prolific and the language gushes out of your pen 'like the Ganges flowing out from Gangotri' at the exam hall, you had little choice but to pre-prepare all these essays and notes, learn them by rote and (figuratively) puke it all out on the exam paper. I hated doing that - used to take all the joy I would find in actually knowing about history.

The main reason for the sense of discomfort, however, was the fact that I would almost never be able to completely study the required syllabi for History. I mean, by the time the final board exams came around - we were covering Indian history from Mohenjodaro-Harappa (3000 BC) to 1947 - Independance and partition. I remember having about ten 96-page notebooks containing all the notes. No way was I going to cover all of it. So I had to resort to a screening procedure based partly on inspired guesses, partly on going through questions set over the last few years, sometimes even gauging the political climate ! (The INA and Netaji was a hot 'sure-shot' topic that we know would be a topic of questions in the exams).

In spite of all that, I would wake up in the morning of the exam feeling queasy, having had nightmares of a question paper full of topics I had triaged earlier. As a last resort, knowing that I was woefully underprepared, I would seek divine intervention. Even though I realized it would be too late for Him (or Her, whoever He/She is) to do anything - the question papers having been printed already - I would pray that the essay/notes question would be from within those portions of Indian History I had feebly managed to cover. Whether or not due to the prayers, I thankfully survived these ordeals and other than having to forego answering few questions on a couple of instances, I emerged relatively unscatched through my 10th standard board exams - choose the science stream for +2 and lived happily ever after and all that.

The reason or the inspiration behind this post ? This little cricket-related incident that happened on the other side of the Atlantic earlier today.

Glenn McGrath was ruled out of the second Test shortly before the start of play on Thursday, after suffering a freak injury during Australia's pre-match warm-up. He is now a major doubt for next week's third Test at OId Trafford as well, having sustained a grade two tear to the lateral ligaments of his right ankle.
........

McGrath, 35, trod on a stray cricket ball during a game of touch-rugby and had to be helped into a groundsman's buggy by his team-mates.

Having been soundly beaten and thrashed in the first test, being particularly tormented by Glenn McGrath, the English side saw very little hope for the second test starting today. English batsmen must have said that little prayer in the morning. And maybe Someone listening to them placed that stray cricket ball! And boy did they make merry in the pre-lunch session in McGrath's absence.

Update - Of course, this being the English team we are talking about by the time I finished writing this post, they had managed to lose three quick wickets in the post lunch session! Another disappointing performance from Vaughn.

Welcome to the jungle....

2005-08-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

According to the State of the Blogosphere report in Technorati, a blog is being created every second !

Serendipity strikes again !

2005-07-29T09:57:00.000-04:00

As is well-known, many of the major discoveries in science have been serendipitous - most famously Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin.

A group in Britain has shown that forgeries of paper documents, plastic cards etc can be detected by using a simple laser scanner. The method, published in the latest edition of Nature, takes advantage of the fact that almost all documents 'contain a unique physical identity code formed from microscopic imperfections in the surface'. This fingerprint can be read by using the phenomenon of laser speckle (in lay terms, scattering of laser light from a surface) with an appropriate scanner. The biggest cost-saving from this technology would be not having to impart an external security tag such a hologram, watermarks, microchip etc. to important documents, currencies, credit cards etc.
So why the title ? As this report on NPR Morning Edition mentions, the researchers were actually scanning a new security chip they had developed, which fell off, exposing the paper underneath it to the laser. To their surprise they found a signal coming from the paper - further investigation led to the discovery that each piece of paper has its own unique 'roughness' and hence an unique signal !

Some excellent reviews and missing a movie...

2005-07-29T08:33:00.000-04:00

GreatBong has two excellent posts reviewing Pather Panchali and Aparajito. These are pieces that you read and go ' I wish I could write like that ...' ! And even though he claims that the reviews are intensely personal, as the comments sections to his post and my thoughts while reading them shows, the themes resonate with us all.

Jai Arjun is also doing a series of reviews on the Ray movies he watched during the Cinefan festival at New Delhi. All good stuff.

Meanwhile, Asif Kapadia's 'The Warrior' starring Irfan Khan has finally released in the US but not at a theatre near me :-( . Not even the so-called 'artsy theatres' in the triangle are are carrying the film. I have been looking forward to this for a long time - guess I have to wait for the DVD release or go to DC/Philly/NY to watch it !

Made by British-born BBC documenterian Asif Kapadia with British backing, but in Hindi, the movie was nominated by British Academy of Film and Television as the UK entry for the 'Best Foreign Language' entry at the Oscars. Strangely, the Academy in their infinite wisdom decided that since Hindi is not the native language in Britain (while tikka masala can be their national dish!), it could not qualify as a British entry ! As the trailer indicates, the images (it was shot on location in the Rajasthan deserts) should be breathtaking and then there is Irfan, who I would consider to be among the best actors in India at the moment (truth be told though, I haven't really kept up with Hindi, far less other language movies in India for the last year or so). His potrayal of the college activist (read thug) come aspiring politician Ranavijay Singh in Haasil, is one of the best I have seen since Nana Patekar in Parinda and Prahaar. He delivered a great performance in Maqbool as well. Hopefully, he will not be slotted into the dark, brooding, soft-speaking yet menacing villain stereotype by Bollywood.

Swiss chesse ......

2005-07-20T08:41:00.000-04:00

...or something else ? Go here to find out.

Thoughts from the suburbia

2005-07-14T08:31:00.000-04:00

Living up the American Dream ?? Nah..well...kind of.....but it just made plain economic sense to buy a house (and sign away our souls during the process) and move into the 'burbs. Well...technically our zip code falls within the city limits - but lets not get into semantics - we have the rows of houses with lawns spread out, porches in the front, decks at the back and considerable backyard spaces. Fortunately, unlike a lot of suburbs I have seen in Rochester, NY - we do have quite a few street lights.

One observation - I used to believe that people moved to the suburbs to get away from the noise and hustle-bustle of the city - however so far I have found worse sound pollution here due to the constant roar of the lawn movers from one house or the other. Similar to the 'bigger is better' car syndrome - these people seem to suffer from 'louder is better' syndrome in terms of lawn mowers. Tone it down fellas !

Also, this is the first time I am having to commute by driving in my own own car - back in Rochester I walked to work, out here from my previous place I took the (free) bus service. Granted its a mixed commute right now - I only have to drive about 10 minutes to a Park and Ride lot and then take the (still free) bus to work. That 10 minutes gives me enough time to get updated on the major news through NPR.

NASA's Deep Impact alters the natural balance of the universe !

2005-07-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

So while most people around the globe are marveling at NASA's Deep Impact smashing into a coment, this Russian astrologer lady, is suing NASA for ruining ' the natural balance of forces in the universe" .

Bai is seeking damages totaling $300 million Â the approximate equivalent of the mission's cost Â for her "moral sufferings," Izvestia said, citing her lawyer Alexander Molokhov. She earlier told the paper that the experiment would "deform her horoscope."

Damn you NASA !! According to my old horoscope I was supposed to be a ~~million~~billionare by my 32nd birthday and now these guys have ruined it for me.

Now, my question is, and I am sure it will occur to other people: as an astrologer, didn't she predict this happening ?

A bit of science.

2005-06-30T14:55:00.000-04:00

Came across this blog today and found a link to this old PhysicsWeb article that talks about the 10 most beautiful experiments in Physics. I thought the article was beautifully written as well, especially while pointing out the complexity inherent in most scientific experiments no matter how elegant the interpretation.

Skew the Statistics....

2005-06-30T14:16:00.000-04:00

....or not - but take the survey - its all for a good cause !

You will get one of these cool logos:

Top Dialogues from Hindi movies

2005-06-29T08:04:00.000-04:00

Last week, I was watching American Film Institute's 100 years.....100 movie quotes (with which I have some issues with but maybe more on it later) and I started thinking about famous/classic quotes from Hindi movies - or 'dialogues' as one should say since in almost all Hindi films you will find credits for 'Dialogue' in addition to the usual 'Screenplay' and 'Story'.

However, inspite of having this dedicated person penning the dialogues, most of them are quite banal and used repeatedly in various films (e.g look here, here and here). Still some quotes like 'Kitne aadmi the' transcend the cliches and live in our memories. So I set out to compile the top 10 memorable/classic quotes from Hindi movies. Lists are always subjective and I am by no means a voracious watcher of Hindi films - hence I may have missed some - anyone reading this are welcome to come up with their own list or add to this.

(Additionally, one could argue quite persuasively that all good dialogues are either in Sholay or uttered on screen by Amitabh - but I have tried to mix things a bit).

10. Dosti ki hai - nibhani toh padegi - Maine Pyar Kiya : I know, I know - very tacky - but it had become quite famous at the time of its release. Also I had to have one 'romantic' quote.

9. Mooche ho to Nathulal jaise ho….warna na ho - Shaarabi - one of the many funny Amitabh quotes (incidentally most of them are spoken when he is drunk)

8. Sara saher mujhe lion ke naam se jaanta hai - Kaalicharan - the quote that spawned hundreds of 'Ajit jokes'.

7. Police ne tumhe charon taraf se gher liya hain - apne aap ko kannon ke haawale kar do - I know - its one of those hackneyed dialogues - but I included it since it was used so many times by this one actor Iftekar, speaking into a meagphone !

6. Paanch ruapiya bara ana - Chalti Ka Naam Gadi - the most memorable monetary transaction ?

5. Babumoshai.... - Anand

4. Ki..ki...ki...Kiran - Darr - The beginning of SRK's endless hamming.

3. Mere Paas Maa Hai - Deewar - One of the very few times perhaps when Amitabh's co-actor has run away with the better dialogue.

2. Mogambo khush hua - Mr. India - Rahul has an entire post on this.

1. Kitne aadmi the - Sholay - I am sure there will be very little arguement on this. (Btw, check this post)

Other contenders:

Chal Dhano! Aaj teri Basanti ki izzhat ka saawal hai - Sholay

Hum jaha pe khade ho jaate hein, line wahi se shuru hoti hai - Kaaliya

I can talk in english, i can walk in english, i can run in english....because english is a phunny language - Namakhalal

I am sure there are some more out there - can't remember them now.

Now in my possession...

2005-06-23T08:25:00.000-04:00

......Far Side - The Complete Collection.

(Picture link: Amazon)

Handsomely bound in leather - encased in an industrial strength cardboard box (seemed to weigh a ton - but officially 18 pounds I am told) - almost all of the Gary Larson's wonderful comics, arranged in chronological order along with an assortment of his own comments, hate/fan mail, explanation of some of the panels etc. A must have for all Far Side lovers.

Australian cricket team spooked...

2005-06-22T10:50:00.000-04:00

...not by the consecutive losses to Bangladesh and England but by real ghosts (now that's an oxymoron).

May God Flying Spaghetti Monster bless us all !

2005-06-22T10:25:00.000-04:00

An alternative to the Intelligent Design 'theory' - go read.

(via Boing Boing)

Book-tag

2005-06-15T09:30:00.000-04:00

The book-meme, which has been going around the blogosphere for quite a while, finally hit the internet backwaters of this blog ! During another bout of my all too frequent abscence from blogging, I was tagged by the GreatBong .

Since its about books I cannot resist:

Total number of books I own: It would be difficult for any book-lover to answer this question - books are one possession that you really don't keep a count (moreover, you can never own enough books). Most bloggers seem to get away by saying 'oh hundreds or thousands.....' ** - and I will take a similar refuge - except that most of the books that I left behind in Kolkata (certainly in three digits) have now been claimed by my dear sister (something about possesion being nine tenths of the law etc. ) - so that has reduced my own collection somewhat.

Last book I bought: Two books really - and they were actually bought by the aforementioned sister @ Kolkata and sent over to me here - Rahul Bhattacharya's 'Pundits from Pakistan' (an excellently written and detailed coverage of the Indian cricket team's historic visit to Pakistan in 2003-04 with perspectives from both on and off the field - click the link to read the review by Jai Arjun) and Samit Basu's 'Simoqin Prohecies'.

Last book I read: 'The Simoqin Prophecies' - Samit Basu borrows heavily from mythology, folk-tales and pop-culture (both eastern and western) to concoct a delighltful yarn that involves evil rakshasas, power-hungry banars, good-natured vamans, proud human beings (with and without magical powers), the mystical ravians, knights (that don't say 'nih'!) and a whole bewitching array of quaint characters (did that sound too book reviewer-ish ?) . Among others, there are references to Monty Python, LoTR, James Bond and (my personal favorite) a sly dig at JK Rowling. While the book sometimes satirizes the science-fiction-fantasy genre (as well as movie plots) - the overall theme is more of a homage.

The novel, however, is not just a series of in-jokes - it has a farily gripping plot-line which I do not want to get into here and would strongly recommend that you find out. The best part of the story is that there are no a clear-cut heroes and villains - which may explain why some reviews I read were disappointed by the ending. However I thought it was extrememly appropriate in the context of the shades of grey world we live in.

I am eagerly looking forward to the sequel (you can read the prologue here).

Note - the book jacket claims that it is the first Indian science fiction fantasy novel - I hope that means in English because at least in Bengali, three generations of Rays have produced some magnificient works of sff.

Five books that mean a lot to me: Hmm......that's really tough. If I make a subtle distinction between simply having enjoyed a book and those that 'mean a lot' , then the latter list would have to be include the body of work by some authors rather than particular books.

Anyway, here goes my attempt:

In no particular order ( book or sets of books):

1. Satyajit Ray's Feluda, Prof. Shanku and the short stories (Ek dajon gappo etc.) series: Ray took up writing for children in order to revive the 'Sandesh' magazine and they turned out to be so popular that he kept going at it until his major source of income used to be from the sale of books. Thank god for that - Bengali literature, especially children's literature is all the more richer for that.
The Feluda series used to be (and perhaps still is) the regular staple of not only Bengali children but many adults as well. I remember waiting with baited breath for the Puja-special edition of Desh magzine which would chronicle the latest exploits of Feluda (Prodosh Mitter) - a self-employed sleuth - of middle-class Bengali origin, a bachelor, in his late 20s-early 30s with a keen sense of observation and a thrist for knowledge and an excellent physique (uncommon for most Bongs !) - joined by his innocent and somewhat naive but faithul nephew, Topse ('good name' : Tapesh Ranjan Mitter). From the thrid novel onwards ('Sonar Kella' - later made into a film) the duo is joined by the venerable Lalmohan Ganguly, who writes pulp-thriller novels in Bengali under the pseudonym Jatayu and can always be relied on a few good laughs.

While the Feluda novels are very popular, IMHO Ray's best writings are in the short-stories. Published in quanta of a dozen (mostly with a couple of Feluda shorts at the end), they almost always dealt with ordinary people - their hopes, aspirations, fears and most of all their fantasies. More often than not the stories would also venture into a supernatural world. It would take a whole different post to deconstruct his stories but I beleive that Ray is the true succesor of Tagore in the genre of Bengali short-stories (Tagore having practically introduced short-stories to Bengali literture which had been dominated by novels and verse till then).

Okay - so now you know where the inspiration for the nomenclatures in this blog comes from ! (except for the title - which is a common enough term used to describe the typical Bengali addas and also the name of a movie made by the unsung but no less taleneted Ritwik Ghatak).

2. PG Wodehouse - would be difficult to pick any one- but I somehow enjoy the Blanding Castle stories more (just a wee little bit more though) compared to Jeeves and Wooster - especially the one that involves Psmith visiting the Castle pretending to be a poet (whoever visited Blandings without pretending to be someone else) and everyone is trying to steal a necklace ('Leave it to Psmith' is the title - thanks google!). The description of Rupert Baxter, Lord Emsworth's stern but efficient secretary throwing flower-pots in the middle of the night dressed in lemon colored pyjamas is quintessential Wodehouse - had me rolling on the floor first time I read it. A close second would be 'Right Ho! Jeeves' that contains probably the best piece ever written in humorous, if not all of, English literature - the newt-loving Gussie-Fink Nottle giving a speech at Market Snodsbury Grammar School.

If all this sounds greek to you - do not waste a moment and get your hands on this.

3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull - I read this at a rather impressionalble age of 16 - the desire to do something outside the flock still remains.

4. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A trigoly of five novels - 'nuff said.

5. Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman - It's tough not to be attracted by Feynman's unconventional, idiosyncratic and often irreverent way of approaching life, science and everything else.

Surely someday Ron Howard will be compelled to make a movie out of this - wouldn't that be a tragedy !

As I said, it was a difficult choice so here goes some honorable mentions: Padma Nadir Majhi by Manik Bandopadhay, books by Asimov (particularly his short-stories), Clarke (the Rama series more than the 2001 Odyssey), LoTR, and the collected works of Sukumar Ray.

For a more wholesome list of books I thoroughly enjoyed reading (and re-reading in many cases) check out my profile.

I am supposed to tag other bloggers - almost all the blogs I read have already been tagged - so I guess I will tag Rahul Tyagi (who may have been tagged already but is presently enjoying himself in India at the moment and may not realise it) and a certain Mr Barat who does not have a blog as such (am I breaking any rules here ?) - but I hope this will help in dragging him out (Mr B: if you are reading this - come over to the dark side). He has one helluva collection of books and I would be extremely interested in his meme.

Jedi Master Poltu-da

2005-05-28T01:28:00.000-04:00

Samit Basu, the author of Simoqin Prophcies (an 'Indian' science fiction fantasy book that I recently read and absolutely adored and about which I will *ahem* try to write in a future post) - has an absolutely hilarious take on the upcoming movies 'Revenge of the Sith' and 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' (which due to ~~space-time warps~~ distributions rights etc. are being released only this week in Kolkata). I can really relate to his 'Adaptation Anxiety' which has prevented me from watching H2G2 so far.

Update: A Jedi master named Poltu !! Apparently, even a man who controls the force cannot shake the unfortunate curse that must befall all Bengali men - the assigment of a humiliating nick-name.

Another great comeback.

2005-05-27T23:00:00.000-04:00

Not talking about my return to blogging - but this. A bit late posting this - but it was one hell of a game ! I was planning to watch the match, since, to my pleasant surprise, ESPN2 actually decided that the UEFA Champions Trophy Finals is more important than the World poker series, cheerleading competitions or fly-fishing !
Unfortunately, slipping away during the day (the game was at 2.30pm EST) to watch sports for a few hours is much more difficult in the real world as opposed to the graduate student world. So one had to be satisfied following written commentary on the internet - which I must say, does not really work out that well in soccer as compared to cricket.
Not in my wildest imagination did I think that Liverpool would make a comeback following their showing in the first half - three goals against an Italian defense ? That's not just done. Kudos to Steven Gerrard and Benitez for not getting bogged down and mounting an impressive counter attack in the second half, although one might uncharitably suggest that there was very little else they could have done.
I have talked about two major comeback in cricket and baseball in a previous post. While comparison between different sports and situations might be entirely superfluous, I kind of believe Liverpool might have had more of a challenge to overcome. In case of the Red Sox against the Yankees, they had the luxury of playing over several days, taking each game at a time; in the memorable second innings comeback against Australia, the Indians were playing over several hours with breaks in between, in a familiar environment with the opponents slightly disadvantaged by the heat and humidity. Not that I am trying to belittle the sensational nature of the comebacks posted by these teams - but Liverpool had only 10 minutes break - then a stretch of 45 minutes of continuous play, on a neutral ground (ok their supporters took up 75% of the stadium and the neutral were cheering them on in the second half) and against a defense lead by no less of a figure than Paolo Maldini. Call it a fluke, call it inspired leadership by Gerrard, they extracted themselves from one hell of a hole and then held their nerves during the penalty shootouts !!

Photoshop 007

2005-05-09T14:41:00.000-04:00

If you aren't satisfied with the actor chosen to play the next Bond - here is the chance to check out who would fit into the role. Cinematical (a great site for movie lovers btw) is hosting a James Bond photoshop contest. I might have tried my hand at the $100 reward if I had the time. Check out some of the hilarious entries so far here and here.

H2G2 watch

2005-05-09T14:27:00.000-04:00

Haven't had a chance to watch H2G2 at the theatres yet...but have heard good things about the opening sequence involving a musical number performed by the dolphins. This sequence is now available in Flash format at the Hitchhicker's web-site.
(From Cinematical)

Tax dollars at work....

2005-05-09T09:07:00.000-04:00

....as Sheriff issues a ticket for jaywalkiing - to a chicken !

RIDGECREST, Calif. A Kern County couple may have finally learned the answer to that age-old question: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because the chicken doesn't know jaywalking is illegal.One of Linc and Helena Moore's chickens was issued a ticket last month for impeding traffic on a road in Johannesburg, a rural mining community southeast of Ridgecrest.

PS - Have been really busy with various things - both on the personal and professional front. Got to finish three fantastic books in the last couple of weeks - will blog about them very soon.

This and that

2005-04-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

Took a short trip to Steinbeck country last weekend. This was my second visit to the area and it was as beautiful as I had remembered it. Enjoyed a very scenic drive from San Jose to Marina on US101 and US 1. Strolled on a private beach in Marina, enjoyed Ghirardelli ice-cream while watching the Pacific Ocean in Monterrey, had an extremely hearty dinner meal at this place and a lovely outdoor brunch at this place in Carmel (ok enough with the food!).
The highlight of the trip was going out for whale watching on a cold, rainy and grey Saturday morning.Got to see a hump-back whale from pretty close quarters. More amazing was the literarily thousands of pacific white sided dolphins that surrounded our boat, when we had chanced upon a feeding area. This is the closest I have seen dolphins in the wild. They were swimming alongside and below the boat (called bow-riding) - there were several in the distance that were doing aerial jumps and flips. (I might have caught it on my camcorder too. Will try to post pictures later). Pretty amazing sight.

All in all - a very satisfying mini-vacation - except for some rather tiresome experiences at the San Jose airport. For an airport located in the heart of Silicon Valley and hence quite heavily used, it is quite poorly designed and lacking in some basic infastructures. After renting a car, I had to drive around for about 2-3 miles through all the terminals before I could actually exit the airport area and find my way to the freeway ! The terminal was small, had very few choices for eating - half of the joints had closed by 9pm and the gate area was cramped and stuffy. Combine that with the very large number of desis hanging around (it is Silicon Valley after all) - for a moment I had a feeling I was back in India.

In other news, it is exploding amphibians in Hamburg, Germany ! Well, at least its not raining frogs.

Finally, check out this post (and this) in the Indianwriting blog on pavement bookshops near Churchgate in Mumbai. I fondly remember spending hours browsing these shops while I was in Mumbai (that is whenever I could overcome my inertia and make the almost hourlong KanjurMarg-VT trip). This was where I first found Dirk Gentry !
College Street in Kolkata has a similar book bazar - unfortunately all you can get there now (or at least when I went there last in 2004) are IIT and other such engineering and medical 'joint entrance examination' prep guides.

The cult of the Mac....

2005-04-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

Interesting story from BBC about how Apple's product-line (epecially iPod) has almost spawned a new religion.

While, I am not about to perform an aarti on my iPod, I have to admit that it is a very good product and it came in a goovily packed black cube-shaped box (it looks so good that I haven't been able to throw it away - even when I moved). However, this is yet to happen to me:

During his regular evening walk, software executive Steve Crandall often nods a polite greeting to other iPod users he passes: He easily spots the distinctive white earbuds threaded from pocket to ears.

But while quietly enjoying some chamber music one evening in August, Crandall's polite nodding protocol was rudely shattered.

Crandall was boldly approached by another iPod user, a 30ish woman bopping enthusiastically to some high-energy tune.

"She walked right up to me and got within my comfort field," Crandall stammered. "I was taken aback. She pulled out the earbuds on her iPod and indicated the jack with her eyes."

Warily unplugging his own earbuds, Crandall gingerly plugged them into the woman's iPod, and was greeted by a rush of techno.

"We listened for about 30 seconds," Crandall said. "No words were exchanged. We nodded and walked off."

This blog refers to it and late last year there was a story on NY-Post how an Apple store in Manhattan are replacing bars as dating and pick-up joints:

"People in here glance at each other just like they do in a bar," Frederick Pina, a writer and Apple Store regular, told the New York Post. "It's not a problem to open a conversation because you know everyone has similar interests." Actress Nina Rutsch agreed. "When you're checking your e-mail online, you're really near your neighbor, so its an easy place to strike up conversation," she said. "And if you talk to a guy in the Apple Store, you already know he's going to be modern and up-to-date and sober. It's healthier than picking up someone in a bar."

H2G2 early reviews

2005-04-20T09:58:00.000-04:00

The movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is to be released in the US (worldwide as well ?) next week. It has been eagerly anticipated by H2G2 enthusiasts like me. A few early reviews are out mainly based on pre-screenings inEngland. The reactions were mixed. While this review by a Douglas Adams fan pretty much says the movie sucks, BBC gives it a middling review, while The Telegraph gives it a thumbs up. I guess we will have to wait and find out for ourselves.

Earlier posts here and here. Also see this !

Attack of the Nerds II

2005-04-16T16:32:00.000-04:00

The hackers from MIT strike - not against Caltech in retaliation - but to make a point about worthless scientific conferences.

....the graduate students involved were sick and tired of receiving computer generated spam soliciting entries to what they felt were questionable academic conferences.

Jeremy Stribling, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said yesterday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with nonsensical text, charts and diagrams.

(Blogger News Network)

Scientific conference spams ?? - you better beleive it - I keep receiveing about 2-3 such invitations every week to Biotech related conferences. Read more about it here.

Swades and thoughts on Rahman

2005-04-16T15:04:00.000-04:00

Finally watched Swades last night and I was pretty much disappointed. Frankly, it is a half-baked product. Ashutosh Gowariker takes an interesting plot, weaves an extremely ordinary story around it, shoots some scenes at NASA and Washington DC, throws in a few songs (in all the wrong places except perhaps for Yeh Jo Desh......) and somehow expects everything to work out. Much of the movie is undone by extremely poor acting. Did shooting in the US and paying Shah Rukh Khan drain all the budget so that the producer could not afford any half-decent actors ? Maybe I am being harsh on the actors - it could be the director's fault too - but then Gowariker did quite a good job on Lagaan. That gripping intensity of Lagaan is sadly absent in Swades. You can understand that the director is trying to make a statement here and trying it subtly enough, but poor execution makes the effort fall flat.

I was particularly irked by the female protagonist played by Gayatri Joshi - it seems her only role was to look nice, show up in the scene with just a handful of expressions, (a stern face, a playful smile or on verge of tears) and pretty much not do anything else. She could have been intelligently used as the 'conscience' of the movie - but with her painted face, pristinely clean and colorful attires, she simply sticks out like a sore thumb in every frame. And I will not even go into the logical and factual errors strewn throughout the movie.

While the movie overall was a let-down, I did like some of the cinematography and the songs, which I had heard before, I must say were very good - especially Yeh Jo Desh....you cannot help but feel a twinge of homesickness and patriotism on listening to it - Rahman at his best.

On a slightly different note, does A R Rahman produce his best music when it is a patriotic or India-related theme ? Recently, I was listening to the music of Bose (a Shyam Benegal movie on the life of Subhas Chandra Bose, whose release has unfortunately been held up for a long time), where once again, Rahman is in top form. A few compositions from Bose stand out

- Apne Desh ki Mitti, like Yeh Jo Desh, is an evocative number and you cannot help but conjure nostalgic images in your mind while listening to it. In particular, I was touched by the following two lines: "Beete pal chhoone lage hain dil ko aise... Dost rakkhe haath - kandhe pe jaise"

- brilliant use of the orchestra and millitary drums to enhance the patriotic effect in Kadam Kadam Barhay Ja (the unofficial anthem of Bose's Indian National Army originally composed by Ram Singh) and Hum Dilli Dilli Jayenge (based on Bose's famous call 'Delhi-chalo').

- the orchestral version of Jana Gana Mana in Bose is perhaps one of the most soulful and heartfelt rendering of our national anthem.

While I did not start out this post with the idea of a detailed commentary on the music of Bose as well, I must mention that there are two drawbacks in the sountrack - first is the composition called Durga Puja - it sounded more like a 'Ganpati-bappa' procession in Bombay than any Durga puja I have been to. In fact, the drums ('dhaak') played during Durga puja is one of the most melodious rhythms you can hear - why Rahman chose to destroy it with a high pitched shehnai is beyond me. Secondly, the use of the lines 'jodi tor daak shune keu' written by Tagore in freedom-fighting era Hindi movies has become cliched. It is used in Bose during the song "Tanha Rahee" - but I have to say it blended in nicely with the rest of the song. What irked me though was the use of Nachiketa for singing those lines - was he the only one they could find among vast number of Bengali singers, most with much better voice than this guy ? I would have thought that someone like Srikanta Acharya or Suman would have suited the song much better. Well, thats two Bong-related nitpicking from an otherwise brilliant album for you.

Getting back to my original point, if you consider the songs in the album VandeMataram along with Swades and especially Bose - it does seem that patriotism or perhaps a love for the country inspires Rahman produce great music.

Attack of the Nerds

2005-04-11T14:09:00.000-04:00

So how do the uber intelligent kids at Caltech and MIT relieve their stress from the daily grind of maths and physics problems ? They play pranks of course ! Both Caltech and MIT have traditions of students performing oftentimes elaborate, but usually innovative and amusing mischief. At MIT, they call it 'hacking', a term that apparently originated in their campus prior to its association with computers.

Now the worlds are colliding with some students from Caltech traveling cross-country to pull off a variety of pranks at MIT during the latter's prefrosh weekend. The pranks included handing out T-shirts that say 'MIT' on the front and '...because not everyone can go to Caltech', floating Caltech balloons and inflatable palm trees and (my personal favorite) placing a banner over "MASSACHVSETTS" to read 'The Other Institute of Technology". MIT students responded by placing their own banner to read "The Only Institute of Technology". Read all the details at this website.
(Via Slashdot)

On a related note, the most famous 'hacker' at MIT would have to be Richard P . Feynman - those who have read "Surely You are Joking Mr. Feynman" will remember the 'removing the door' episode (there is an online account here).

Bond

2005-04-06T18:34:00.000-04:00

....James Bond. British actor Daniel Craig is supposed to be the new face of James Bond:

I dunno - I would have preferred this guy, having watched Sin City recently (more on it soon):

Apparently, Owen turned it down.

Resuming...

2005-04-01T10:43:00.000-05:00

..blogging activity - hopefully I will be able to maintian my semi-regular schedule. Of course, today is April 1st....

Speaking of April Fool jokes - Google, as usual, has the best gag - with their new product Google Gulp (Beta version of course and can be had through invitation only!). Google also ups the ante in the e-mail storage-space war by offering 2GB capacity on Gmail on the occassion of its first anniversary (Yahoo! announced it was going to offer 1GB) and true to the spirit of the day, takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the ever-exapanding storage options.

Also, check this out - a hilarious spoof of the popular Boing Boing site.

Bucknor up to his old tricks

2005-03-18T11:11:00.000-05:00

From Cricinfo:

The twilight twist
With gloom settling in and bad light almost certain to be offered, enter India's favourite umpire, celebrating his 100th test. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid were in the midst of a rescue act, quickly transforming into a match-turning one. Tendulkar had just completed his half-century, with a rasping square-drive off Abdul Razzaq.

Razzaq, in the middle of a disciplined and varied spell, started testing Tendulkar with short balls. In his next over, the first ball was again short, it went past Tendulkar's outside edge and swung away after going past his bat. As replays confirmed, the ball missed the outside edge by some distance. Kamran Akmal dived to take the catch and appealed meekly, as did Razzaq, protractedly. Nothing came from Steve Bucknor, Tendulkar moved away from the crease and as Razzaq's appeal withered, Bucknor suddenly raised his finger. Tendulkar jumped as if facing another short ball, stunned, Pakistan went ecstatic and the match took, on a day of twists, one final controversial one. A case perhaps for offering light to the umpire?

When an umpire makes a honest mistake, it can somehow be tolerated - but when someone standing in on his 100th test and supposedly one of the better ones around commits such a major blooper - it is unforgivable. And this is not really the first time Bucknor has done the Indians in, particularly Tendulkar. While it is difficult to subscribe to conspiracy theories suggesting Bucknor has a special dislike against the Indians, I cannot remember any other umpire since the days neutral unpiring who has given as many questionable decisions against this team. I have seen Shepherd, Aleem Dar, Ashoka deSilva, Venkat etc all getting it wrong sometimes ('afterall they are humans' - so goes the overused cliche) - but not consistenstly against a single team. Additionally, I have noticed he is often petulant in his behaviour against the Indians - I remember he was outright scolding Parthiv Patel in Australia (to be fair Patel was appealing rather too loudly for something that was obviously not out - but I am not sure losing temper is good sign for an umpire). As some of the match-reports and comments by people who actually saw the game suggests, he was again irritated today with Tendulkar and Dravid when they complained about the light conditions. One of the regular contributors at rec.sports.cricket, Sadiq Yusuf aka Cricketwallah - a person who has a keen understanding of the game and does not generally blow off steam in a partisan manner, - writes:

In this match, I think Bucknor has done a very fine job
before now - he has made the odd error (the no-ball etc), but basically he has also made some excellent decisions.
This decision today however was awful - but not just because
it was a poor decision IMHO. He just seemed annoyed by
the appealing for bad-light, and seemed to be more and more
unwilling to even consider the appeals out of annoyance
(as the light was getting worse). The Indians didnt help
by appealing repeatedly - maybe just a quiet word would have
worked better. But still, that isnt how one should react as
umpire - Hair seemed much more amenable even with the appealing.
I really do think, give how long he waited to make the
decision (again, long even by his standards) that he might
not have gotten a great look at the ball - and that was probably
*because* the light had faded so much. But, almost on
instinct, he gave it anyway. I dont think he's biased - he
has made basically fair and pretty good decisions for 3 days
so far other than this one. But it seemed almost that he
was just pissed off at the Indians for their appeals against
the light, and it felt as if he let it cloud his judgement
on the caught-behind appeal. Which, IMHO, is worse than
actually just making a poor decision to give it out.
Relations were deteriorating even more after that happened -
Tendulkar looked unhappy as he walked off, but first I thought
it was just frustration due to the light-issue, it was as he
neared the boundary that he clearly seemed upset by the decision
itself (and replays confirmed it wasnt close). Ganguly obviously
thought so too - he came in shaking his head and asking about
the light before he played a ball, and continued to ask for
it almost every ball. After being turned down a couple more
times (almost lost a bouncer directed at him once, taking
his eyes off and hooking/fending), he smacked a ball thru
cover for four almost out of spite, and then still shook his
head as if he couldnt believe he wasnt being given the
light :-) He talked to Hair about it too, at square-leg
IIRC. Finally it was in the middle of next over that Hair
walked over to Bucknor again, and they decided to offer
the light.

Even if this decision was not due to some hidden spite against the Indian team or Tendulkar, the ICC should sreiously consider if Bucknor is up to scratch in terms of the physical and mental fitness required while umpiring the modern game. Unfortunately, once you are in the Elite umpiring panel, it is apparently like a job in the Indian public sector, no matter how much you suck, you still hold on to your job. Srinivas Venkataraghavan, who was considered one of the premier umpires retired last year when he thought when he decided he was getting too old to handle the pressures of umpiring. It was a good decision, since, Venkat was starting to make glaring in the few tests (although nothing on this level) before his retirement. Will Bucknor and maybe even Shepherd learn from him ?

Reading the various reports for the third day's play, it seems like Tendulakar was in sublime form - the so called 'Tendulkar of the old' (I have problems with this description - but may another post to tackle that issue). This report by Dileep Premachandran, was particularly eloquent:

Tendulkar, though, will have no part to play in what promises to be an intriguing penultimate day. A few weeks from now, jealous mediocrity will crawl out of the woodwork and nibble at his reputation, citing that inability to apply the finishing touches. In a democracy, that must be tolerated, as were the Philistines who mocked and persecuted Galileo. Only those who sat and watched a gorgeous sunrise obscured by a man-made storm can appreciate how close a supreme batting artist came to painting in the one blank space in an otherwise breathtaking canvas.

In praise of Firefox (again!)

2005-03-15T12:19:00.000-05:00

I have posted on the superiority of Firefox over Internet Explorer (IE) as a browser before. Much has happened since then, particularly, the official release of Firefox last Novemeber. I have become an even greater fan of this browser (in fact, I donated a small amount of money to help them take out the full-page ad in New York Times at the time of the official release - if you look hard enough you can find my name somewhere on this page). I have been crusading to get people around me to convert as well. I am not really an anti-Microsoft person, even though I have enough peeves against some features of the MS-Office programs. However, with the market domination of IE - its development had become stagnated. Ironically, it was the failure of Netscape (or Netscape-AOL) to innovate vis-a-vis IE (helped by MS's bundling of its IE browser with windows), which spawned the whole open-source, non-profit Mozilla Foundation that was responsible for Firefox. Being an open-source software, hundreds of people are working on development and testing of the plug-ins and extensions which makes the browser really user friendly and helpful.

There are two particular features I want to draw attention to here.

Those who already use Firefox as their browser (did I ever mention it is just AWESOME ?!), know about the Search Box feature located on the top right hand corner of the browser window. This allows you to keyword-search across a spectrum of sites ranging from conventional search engines (Google, Yahoo!), online stores or auctions (Amazon, eBay), dictionaries (dictionary.com, Webster) etc. When I had first installed Firefox, the number of search preferences were limited. However, I noticed recently that they have added many more search plug-ins such as IMDB, Wikipedia, Epinions, even university directories (UNC has one) among several hundred others. Check out all the search engines here.

For folks in the biological fields, I would also recommend downloading the Biobar extension - it is similar to Googlebar, but allows you to set different kinds of bio-related search engines e.g. NCBI Pubmed, Structure etc, plant or animal genomes and a lot more.

IMHO, the most useful feature of Firefox is the tabbed browsing - I realise how handy this is when I have to occassionally use IE on other computers and keep middle-clicking on a link, only to find it opening either in a the same page or in a new window, instead of a new tab in the same window. The tonnes of useful extentions helps as well. My favorites are: Tabbrowser Preferences, Google bar, ForecastFox, IEview (enables you to open on IE, any web-page or link that does not show up properly on Firefox !!).

Open-source Zindabad !!

World of cricket 2: Despair and non-MSM cricket coverage

2005-03-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

I was planning to follow-up my previous cricket-related post (why else would I name it #1?) with one about the rec.sport.cricket usenet group and a couple of cricket related blogs, mixed in with some gloating over India's victory, which was more than a distinct possibility back on Friday. Unfortunately, equilibrium has been restored in the world of cricket - Australia came back to beat the Black Caps - pretty convincingly in the end and the Indians lost their plot on the final day and let Pakistan draw the test, though to be honestly appreciative, it was some fine rearguard action by the #7 and #8 batsmen of the latter. All this threw me into the depths of despair and depression. On top of that, UNC lost the ACC semi-finals against Gerogia Tech on Saturday afternoon (no I have not been converted into a college basketball nut - but living in the Research Triangle area it is difficult, as a general sports fan, not to get sucked into this - besides when you are sinking - you want to clutch onto something).

I guess I have somewhat recovered now. Going back to the original ideas for this post, I was going to recommend reading Amit Varma (India Uncut) and Anand Vasu's (Not Circinfo) cricket-related blogs. Both are regular contributors to Cricinfo - but their blogs provide a refreshingly different perspective on the cricketing world. Although India Uncut is more about India in general rather than being cricket-centric (Varma has another blog, 23 yards, devoted to cricket, but it has not been updated for sometime), he has been blogging regularly on cricket as he covers the India-Pakistan series for The Guardian. In fact, he was blogging from the press-box as the game progressed during the first test (probably a first), covering a variety of topics from 'cricketing cliches' to the difference in how cricket is covered by the English versus vernacular language journalists.

One of the ways to maximize the enjoyment of following a cricket series while in the US is to read the posts from a motley group of enthusiastic (sometimes to the level of being fanatic), key-board tapping cricket 'experts' on the usenet newsgroup, rec.sport.cricket. Usually, during a test or ODI series, the posting rate on the group is quite prolific (close to over by over if not ball by ball updates). This time around, however, things seems to have mellowed down a bit. Of course, with Agarkar not present and no shouts of Aag! Fire !.....I guess that cuts down the number of posts by a quarter. But where is Nikhil Shah's detailed pre-match analysis of how the local soil, humidity and weather conditions should affect team composition and the end of the day wrapup by R Bharat Rao ? An old troller by the name of 'squarecut' is still espousing the virtues of South Indian cricketers versus their northern counterparts and how the former are overlooked in the team. Also, cries for Ganguly's head still ring out loud - but overall much more muted . Are people losing interest in cricket or do these people finally have some life ? (considering that I spend way to much time in a day reading those posts, I should get a life too !!)

World of cricket 1: Topsy-turvy

2005-03-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

An Indian team, playing at home with three fast bowlers and only one specialist spinner (that too in name only). An Australian captain winning the toss, putting the opposition in to bat, conceding 433 runs and behind by 300-odd runs at the end of day 2. This the same opposition that was pulverized by the Aussies 5-0 in a ODI series barely a week ago and that could barely manage to field a team after losing players to injuries and sex-scandals.

.....yeh kya ho raha hain ?? I guess that's why people talk about cricket being a 'game of glorious uncertainties' (for maximum enjoyment imagine Ravi Shashtri or even better Navjot Sidhu's intonation...)

Get your towels ready....

2005-03-10T18:18:00.000-05:00

As Rahul has posted on his blog, there are a couple of more trailers of the upcoming H2G2 movie on the net here and here. Check all the related links from the movie's main web-site, especially this inteview with the filmmakers. Apparently, they are already planning a lot of DVD extras and have a big suprise in the form of the planet factory.

I wonder if the studio will be selling H2G2 merchandise as the movie releases ? I guess they might try to use its cult status and hype it enough to bring in new fans like in LOTR. Possible merchandizing items - towels, copies of bad Vogon poetry ?

On a somewhat related note - Monty Python (or the remaining members of Monty Python) are coming out (okay Eric Idle is the only original Python associated with this project - others just gave their blessings) with a Boradway musical based on their movie The Holy Grail, called 'Spamalot'. Among the merchandize they are planning to sell are coconut halve shells (not carried by either African or European sparrows) ! Those who have not seen the movie would not appreciate this - so my advice to them while waiting for H2G2 to be realeased is to go out and get (or order on Netflix) the Holy Grail DVD.

You can also listen to the coverage of 'Spamalot' by NPR on All Things Considered here (some of the new songs incorporated in Spamalot can be heard).

You can't please everybody.

2005-03-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

Story from CNN-money.

The Norwegian Prime Minister has accused IKEA - the Swedish company famous for selling furniture in flat boxes, which subsequently need to be assembled, following oftentimes a complicated instruction manual, - of sexual discrimination since they show only men assembling the furniture on such manuals. If that is not absurd enough, here is the reason why IKEA supposedly does not depict women:

IKEA, which has more than 200 stores in 32 nations, fears it might offend Muslims by depicting women assembling everything from cupboards to beds. Its manuals show only men or cartoon figures whose sex is unclear.

Will someone please tell me what the hell are 'cartoon figures whose sex is unclear' ? Will its going to lead to another Spongebob-type controversy in the US ?
Anyway, coming back to the story -apparently IKEA's explanation fails to satisfy our Norwegian PM.

"This isn't good enough," Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was quoted Thursday as telling the daily Verdens Gang. "It's important to promote attitudes for sexual equality, not least in Muslim nations."

So he wants IKEA to be the emancipator of women in Muslim countries! Going through the story, however, we come to the real reason for his vitriol against IKEA:

Bondevik added: "I myself have great problems with screwing together such furniture."

Come on man - doesn't the Norwegian PM have some other fish to fry - like increasing taxes or trying to broker peace in far off lands.

Btw, both my wife and I are fans of Ikea furniture and home-accessories. We have not had any trouble assembling the sofa, the love-seat, the coffee tables, sides tables of various sizes or the entertainment center/bookcase set that we have purchased from there.

Sardar ka Saloon

2005-03-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

I was telling an Indian lab mate the story of Bhajji's saloon (see previous post), and we both started laughing out loud, conjuring the image of a pugdi-clad sardarji cutting other people's hair !

Then I began to wonder - what could have motivated Bhajji to open a saloon of all things. I am sure it was partly peer pressure - Kumble has his computer game, Sachin and Saurav have their restuarants - so what is our poor Bhajji to do ? He could perhaps open a dhaba - but being the wily spinner that he is, he unleashed a 'doosra' and went for the hair-cutting saloon !!
Sounds pretty lame in writing - but it was pretty funny as we were discussing it....

Bhajji da Beauty Parlour

2005-03-07T13:57:00.000-05:00

Bhajji writing a newspaper column in English (although its probably ghostwritten for him) is funny enough, but somehow, a Sardar owning a hair-cutting saloon sounds so ironic.

Incidentally, I have decided that Pakistani fans are welcome to my saloon, and the staff will be happy to spruce them up free of cost. All they have to do is produce proof of their nationality and they are welcome to a free pedicure, hair cut, manicure, the works.

Look forward to some dapper Pakistani fans at Mohali from tomorrow.

For all the grad students out there....

2005-03-04T08:48:00.000-05:00

....check out this site:

http://www.phdcomics.com/

A conference, a wedding and 60 flying hours in 20 days...

2005-03-02T10:31:00.000-05:00

...adds up to an incredibly tired body and mind. Got back into Carrboro late last night and into the lab pretty early today morning - but I still feel pretty dazed. Will blog about the trip, Kolkata, and the wedding once I resurface.

Blogging from the airport

2005-02-11T11:32:00.000-05:00

Using the wireless internet at Minneapolis airport - on my way to Orange County, where as if on cue, its raining cats and dogs. Somehow, whenever I am there, it gets cloudier or rainier than usual (ans it's almost never cloudy or raining out there).

I will be busy with the Biophysical Society meeting at Long Beach over the next five days and then its a whirlwind trip to India - which should all be very fun. So probably no blogging for the next two week. Not that I am an avid blogger even on my normal schedule. Additionally, there are hardly any 'original' opinions on this blog. I have been pretty much culling materials from other blogs and web-sites and posting them with minimal comments. Need to change all that - as Arup once mentioned - 'need a cause to rebel against ...'. Unfortunately, we are a priviledged generation - the lowest point in our collective life was perhaps when Javed Miandad hit that last ball six !! Anyway, more later.....

The most beautiful woman in the world on Letterman

2005-02-03T13:45:00.000-05:00

After the 60-minutes segment, our Julia-Roberts-ceritified-most-beautiful-woman (Rahul however begs to differ), Aishwarya Rai, is set to appear on David Letterman on 9th Feb (David Hyde Pierce will be the other guest on that day).

Personally, irrespective of the exposure Ash is getting and the two thumbs up from Ebert & Roper*, I am not so sure that Bride and Prejudice will do as well as Bend it Like Beckam, especially seeing how Bombay Dreams had to fold up after a year and Mira Nair's Indianized treatment of Vanity Fair did not do too well.

* link to a Sepia Mutiny article.

Gandhi on a webcam

2005-02-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

(From the CFS blog)

A Telecom Italia's TV spot (directed by Spike Lee no less) shows a 'what-if' scenario where Gandhi is delivering his message to the whole world (from Times square to Red Square) via web-cam.

(To see a Quicktime version of the ad - check the story link. A Macromedia Flash version is here).

Btw, CSF is also hosting the latest Bharateeya Blogmela.

Pre-emptive searches from Google

2005-02-01T22:47:00.000-05:00

Yet another tool (in its beta form of course) from the Google stable - Google Suggest. Similar to a Google search - but a drop-down menu of suggested terms appear as you start typing. Found this via Gizmodo.

Science Made Stupid

2005-01-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

Hilarious web-site. I loved this one:

iPodcurrent:

Self Discovery

2005-01-28T01:11:00.000-05:00

Which character from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are Marvin the Android. Deeply depressed and cynical, you are the result of an experiment by the Sirius Cybernetics corporation. This explains a lot about you. Life... errr sorry...Existence is tough.

Which Forgotten 80s Cartoon Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are He-Man from Masters of the Universe! You take life very seriously, and you should,

considering you are the keeper of all that is good and right in the universe! However, your

nonstop suspicion of Skeletor and his henchman can start your friends wondering why you don't loosen up once in awhile.

Which random noise are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are Bahiii, Speciality of the Simpson's Professor J Fink. Not the most conventional of sounds, but uniquely scientific.

Alternate history being taught in Kolkata schools

2005-01-27T13:29:00.000-05:00

I am not sure if I should really trust a story coming from Sify - but its kind of funny. Apparently students in ritzy Kolkata schools aren't being taught history properly. It's funny - but kind of sad if true.

The British were not true to their word. Even though they granted formal Independence to India on August 15, 1947, they shilly-shallied over the withdrawal process, which brought Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army into the scene. And, finally forced Lord Curzon to jump into the sea at Gateway of India on January 26 of the following year. Hence India has two 'very auspicious days of national importance': First Independence Day and second, the Republic Day.

Oscars again: the desi connections

2005-01-25T23:06:00.000-05:00

Shwaas, the Indian entry for Foreign Language Film failed to get a nomination for Oscars.

However, another desi filmmaker did get nominated - Ashvin Kumar - for his short film 'Little Terrorist' in the Short Film (Live Action) category. Also, 'Born into Brothels', a documentary about children of prostitutes in Kolkata's red light area got nominated in the Documentary Features section. Here is a link to a NPR story on "Kids with Cameras".

The Best and Worst of.....

2005-01-25T11:04:00.000-05:00

...the movies for last year ?

Oscar Nominations: Ever since 'Titanic' and 'Shakespear in Love' won the best film category, I have lost faith in the Oscars. Still, it probably has the best brand name as far as film awards go. I haven't had a chance to see any of the movies (except Eternal Sunshine - Kate Winslet got a Best Actress nod) that got nominated - so can't really comment.

Something I have much more faith in: The Razzies.

Interestingly, Farenheit 9/11 got shut-out from the Oscars (here is the right-wing take on it !)- but has as many as 5 nominations for the Razzies !!

What NASA will not show you about Mars.....

2005-01-25T10:55:00.000-05:00

From a really funny series of photoshopped Mars pix. at Fark.

No signs please - we are Dutch.

2005-01-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

Found this interesting NYT article via the Althouse blog, about a traffic engineer from Netherlands who has supposedly revolutionalized road designs in some Dutch towns by stripping intersections of all road signs, markings, traffic lightts etc.

To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people, that driving becomes safer.

Huh ! As Samrat and I often used to discuss, people in the west keep stealing our ideas and presenting it as their own. You see Kolkata Municipal Corp. were far ahead of their time:

They even included open construction sites to keep things interesting.

On an somewhat related note, while writing this blog, I was reminded of the episode from Sienfeld - Jerry and George are at Monk's, both sporting moustaches:

George: What is Holland?

Jerry: What do you mean, 'what is it?' It's a

country right next to Belgium.

George: No, that's the Netherlands.

Jerry: Holland *is* the Netherlands.

George: Then who are the Dutch?

Probably not as funny in writing - but worth a chuckle when you actually see the episode.

The 'Inch of snow' strikes again....

2005-01-21T09:59:00.000-05:00

....this time affecting the nation's security.

Raleigh closed down by an inch of snow.....

2005-01-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

Coming from Rochester, NY, where an inch of snow during winter is considered a great day weather-wise, I cannot help but be amused at the what happened in the Raleigh-Chapel Hill area, the day before. Before I came here, I had heard about people in this area panicking at the mere mention of a forecast for an inch or two of snow or even a few flurries. Now I have seen it.

The problem was that metereologists forecasted snow for late evening on Wednesday- the winds and the snow-band did not comply and it started snowing from late morning itself. Consequently, everyone panicked and started returning home before the roads could be salted. Plunging temperatures had iced the roads meanwhile - add to that some shaky drivers who have no clue how to handle their cars on snow and ice, you have >1000 fender-bender + skidding off the road accidents.

Sounds like we in for some more snow and sleet tommorrow - better do my groceries before everything closes down.

Life still goes on.....

2005-01-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

A long absence from blogging. So many things have changed since the last time I made an entry - a new title, new car (see last post), new job, new place......but same old procrastinating habits.

Anyway, Tom Friedman's op-ed from last weekend's NYT is, as usual, a balanced, nicely written article about anti-Americanism in the Islamic world. Interestingly, he contrasts the sentiments in other developing non-Muslim countires:

I am sure that young Taiwanese, young Koreans, young Japanese, young Poles and young Indians have their views on America, but they are not an obsession. They want our jobs, not our lives. They live in societies that empower their young people to realize their full potential and to express any opinion - pro-American, anti-American or neutral.

I first read Thomas Friedman more than 12 years ago - while I was still in school and for some reason, most probably due to the coverage by Prannoy Roy and co on the 'World this Week' (see below), passionately interested in the history of the creation of Israel and contemporary politics in the Middle-East. His book 'From Beirut to Jerusalem' (purchased at the 1992 Calcutta Book Fair) , though perhaps a little dated today, should still provide a compelling reading about the psyche of the different nations in the middle-east and the genesis of the Arab-Israeli conflicts. In my opinion, the book was written in a fairly objective manner - although in today's world it may be construed as somewhat left-leaning.

Update: It turns out that the WTW program was restarted back in late 2003 when NDTV launched its 24/7 news channel. Not suprising that I missed it when I was in India last January - number of channels during WTW's first run: 2 ; number of channels now: >100 maybe - with at least 5-6 completel;y news channels.

2004-12-24T19:43:00.000-05:00

new car

Stephen Hawking's interview

2004-12-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

An interesting interview with Stephen Hawkings in NYT.

Some excerpts:

Are you always this cheerful?

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

Seriously, how do you keep your spirits up?

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.

Do you think people will ever live on a planet besides Earth?

Yes, if we don't self-destruct first.

What do you and your academic friends make of the debate over embryonic-stem-cell research in this country?

In Britain, like most of the developed world, stem-cell research is regarded as a great opportunity. America will be left behind if it doesn't change policy.

Could stem-cell research help you at all?

Like Christopher Reeve, I'm very much in favor, but unlike he did, I don't expect to benefit personally.

iPodcurrent:

Vijay Singh - PGA Tour Player of 2004

2004-12-07T08:41:00.000-05:00

Hats off to Vijay Singh who was voted the PGA Tour Player of the Year. He has been a study in what someone can achieve through determination, strong will and hard work. Even at the relatively late age of 41.

Almost everyone felt he deserved the honor last year - but lost to Tiger Woods, reportedly in a close race. Undaunted, he motivated himself by setting a goal of surpassing Tiger's #1 ranking and put himself through a strenuous work-out and training regiment that has been the talk of the tour (it includes hitting 1000 balls a day !!!). His goal was achieved in less than half that time at Boston this year.

Via Sepia Mutiny :

This is scary.

2004-12-06T15:22:00.000-05:00

I have pretty much steered clear of hotly debatable political, social and religous issues on this blog so far, in order to avoid injustice to a serious topic through superficial coverage. However, this piece of news from Andrew Sullivan, had me really alarmed:

THEOCRACY WATCH II: I missed this quote from Alabama state rep Gerald Allen, who wants to ban public funds for any books "that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." What of existing books by, say, Whitman or Auden or Proust, and other degenerates? We have the answer:
Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.
Why not burn them instead? Among the books Allen wants to "bury" are "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisited." Public schools would be barred from performing "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I used to read these kinds of stories and dismiss them. But in Karl Rove's Republican party, how is this in any way out of place?

Obviously, it would be very difficult to pass this kind of legislature (although I might not really be suprised if it did) and this guy is trying to get some political mileage by making this an issue. But the fact that an elected official could even suggest something on the lines of one of the most despicable acts of the last century is quite scary.

More on this and suggested forms of protest here.

iPodcurrent:

The cheesiest movie lines.......

2004-12-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

The outcome of a survey of 2000 movie-goers by the British foodmaker Warburton as a part of their upcoming cheese campaign. Click on the title for the full story. Here are the top ten:

1. "Titanic": Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world!"

2. "Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

3. "Four Weddings And A Funeral": Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."

3. "Ghost": Demi Moore's "Ditto." to Patrick Swayze's "I love you."

5. "Top Gun": Val Kilmer to Tom Cruise : "You can be my wingman anytime"

6. "Notting Hill": Julia Roberts' "I'm just a girl... standing in front of a boy... asking him to love her."

7. "Independence Day": Bill Pullman's "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"

8. "Braveheart": Mel Gibson's "They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!"

9. "Jerry Maguire": Renee Zellweger to Tom Cruise: "You had me at hello."

10. "The Postman": A blind woman says to Kevin Costner : "You're a godsend, a savior." He replies: "No, I'm a postman."

iPodcurrent:

Answers to Life, Universe and Everything else.....

2004-12-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

....coming soon to a theatre near you.

Don't forget your towels !!!

iPodcurrent:

After a long time.....

2004-12-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

With finishing up the thesis and the post-thesis decompression in sunny (but unusally cold) southern California and Las Vegas - its been a longish break from blogging.

The last bit of thesis writing was 'fun' - especially trying to figure out and turning off all the auto-formatting actions in Microsoft Words (that too at 2am in the morning !!). Then, it was even more fun explaining to the people at Kinkos, a simple task of printing some of the thesis pages in color and the rest in b/w and then putting the colored pages where they belong to get the final document. Lessons learnt: (1) use LATEX for writing papers/thesis etc (2) don't take your print jobs to Kinko's.

The Bozone Layer: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
(from an old Larson Far-side strip)

Meanwhile India won the the second test and thereby the series againts South Africa. After the attacking 3+ rpo of the matches against Australia, this series featured really dull but to some extent solid defensive batting by South Africa. Indians were guilty of that too in the first innings of the second test when they were unable to force the pace on the third day. But Harbhajan turned it around yet again at Eden Gardens.

Check out the Google scholar. It is a really neat tool that ' enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research '.

Unlike Pubmed which sorts the results chronologically, the results are ranked in terms of relevance that takes into account the number of citations for a particular paper. I typed in a few searches for luminescence energy transfer, single molecule fret and it worked pretty well.

iPodcurrent:

Yet another MODI

2004-11-13T20:44:00.000-05:00

...that's meaningless ODIs...why play a one-off ODI against just before an important test series against South Africa? ....and then lose it too ? :-(

Of course if the BCCI made any sense...then...

iPodcurrent: These are the day's of our lives - Queen

Advertisement......

2004-11-13T20:36:00.000-05:00

My better half has now bought into the blogging fad. For the phantom readers of this blog - please visit this blog

iPodcurrent:

Let it snow.....

2004-11-09T09:13:00.000-05:00

No blog updates for a longish time - that's how busy I am writing my thesis. The vast coterie of readers of this blog ;-) must remain dissapointed till on or near November 22nd.

Meanwhile, it has started snowing in Rochester. It snowed a few inches last evening and right now the white stuff is coming down in sackfulls. Always looks pretty after the first snow in the season.

iPodcurrent:

No worry for Kerry

2004-10-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

Supporters of Kerry rejoice and relax. An Indian astrologer has predicted victory ;-)

Haven't had a chance to post in the last couple of days. The Red Soxs actually won against the Yankees completing the cricket-baseball metaphor I referred to earlier.

iPodcurrent: Tomari Pathipane Chahi - Shyamal Mitra

;-)

2004-10-20T19:32:00.000-04:00

During the course of writing my thesis, I was reminded (by my advisor) of this wonderful quote by Mark Twain:

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Grinding through my data - it sounds so true.

(Perhaps the first mention of something remotely related to science on this blog.)

And while we are at it - rephrasing Ernest Rutherford :

"All science is either biophysics or stamp collecting."

iPodcurrent:

Lamest sporting excuses

2004-10-20T18:26:00.000-04:00

10 of the lamest excuses used for explaining why they lost. #5 and 6 relate to cricket. #1 is absolutely hilarious !!

The 10 lamest sporting excuses

Sunday October 3, 2004
The Observer

1 Lighton Ndefwayl The Zambian tennis player responded to his 1992 defeat in a local tournament by compatriot Musumba Bwayla with a mature, considered critique of his rival's skills: 'Bwayla is a stupid man and a hopeless player. He has a huge nose and is cross-eyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves he farts, and that made me lose my concentration, for which I am famous throughout Zambia.' A co-commentator's job on Eurosport surely awaits.
2 Mervyn King Blamed his 2003 defeat to Raymond Barneveld in the world darts championship semi-final on the air conditioning. 'I asked for it to be turned off before I went up there and it wasn't. I asked for it to be turned off at the break - it wasn't. The air conditioning doesn't affect Raymond because he throws a heavier dart and a very flat dart.' Hmmm. The organisers insisted the air conditioning had been switched off for the entire match. Mervyn, you require... a better excuse.

3 Carol Gaudie The Australian netball player tested positive for the male hormone testosterone in 2002, claiming her drink was spiked at a nightclub. Spiked with testosterone, Ms Gaudie? Presumably by one of those men who prowl nightclubs seeking out a woman with a hairy back, huge muscles and a Harry Secombe-style baritone. She was given a two-year suspension - and a 'must-try-harder' note.

4 Ronnie O'Sullivan O'Sullivan had forged an 8-3 lead against Steve Davis in the best-of-19 Masters final at Wembley in 1997 when a female streaker entered the arena. The Rocket promptly lost the next seven frames - and the match - later claiming that the shock interruption had, er, broken his concentration. Funny, we had always assumed by the way Ronnie carried himself that he had seen a naked woman before. The Nugget, naturally, was unmoved by such fleshy delights.

5 Sri Lanka The cricketers blamed their defeat against Pakistan in the 2001 ICC Champions Trophy final on their intolerably tight clothes, which they claimed were too small and restricted movement and mobility. 'We had to add extensions to the trousers and the shirts looked more like tight-fitting women's blouses,' complained skipper Sanath Jayasuriya. Their tailor was later instructed to make kits one size larger. Shane Warne's kitman had the same problem for 10 years. Talking of which...

6 Shane Warne The Australian leg spinner took no prisoners when he tested positive for a banned substance in 2003, leaving the World Cup in disgrace. He simply blamed his mum. 'My mother gave me a diet tablet,' he said, stopping just short of handing out her photofit and address as he did so. 'I'm shocked and absolutely devastated.' Warne claimed he took the Moduretic pill to make him look less fat on TV. He was given a 12-month ban.

7 Rupert Lowe The gammon-cheeked Southampton chairman blamed the sacking of Paul Sturrock on a 'constant stream of negative and unfair media coverage. Those people responsible for perpetrating this unsatisfactory situation, often in return for financial reward, should take a long hard look at themselves.' We presume Lowe possesses a mirror. Only a couple of weeks earlier he had stated: 'Paul has to deliver results, that is what he is paid for. The honeymoon period is over.' Best of British, Sir Clive.

8 Jose Cardenal The Chicago Cubs baseball star is credited with two of the all-time great excuses for shirking duty. He told his manager on the opening day of the 1974 season that he couldn't play because his eyelid was stuck open. Apparently, he'd 'slept funny and couldn't blink'. Easily done. Two seasons earlier, Cardenal had declared himself unfit to play because crickets in his hotel room had kept him awake all night. What a pro.

9 Manchester United The Theatre of Excuses' lasting triumph was the famous fable of the grey away kit, which was blamed for a 3-0 half-time deficit at Southampton in 1996. 'The players couldnae pick each other out,' moaned Fergie. Must have been all that grey grass. United changed to white shirts at the break, but still lost 3-1. The grey kit was swiftly pensioned off. Fergie's evasive genius transcends sport: he was cleared of speeding in 1999 after entering the rarely heard plea of 'diarrhoea'. 'I had to go somewhere quickly,' he told the ashen-faced judge.

10 Finland After a terrible Athens Olympics, Finnish daily newspaper Aamulehti concluded: 'We dominated one event: finding excuses.' Javelin thrower Paula Huhtaniemi led the pack. 'The big stadium surprised me,' she said. 'I could not direct the javelin right.' Meanwhile, women's 5,000metres runner Kirsi Valasti blamed her performance on an unfamiliar masseuse. Sailor Sari Multala put her abject slowness down to a bag that got caught in the back of her boat. Wonderful.

Rationale

This month's 10 was selected by Graeme Thomson. Here he justifies his choice:

I could have gone on and on. Sport - as life - is littered with self-delusionists. When Newcastle drew at lowly Stevenage in the FA Cup, in 1998, Kenny Dalglish proclaimed that the 'balls were too bouncy'; while Rotherham goalie Chris Mooney once blamed a howler on the blinding glare created by his centre-half's bald head. So I decided I wanted a combination of the serious and the seriously stupid, the high-profile and low-key: hence Shane Warne and Carol Gaudie sitting cheek by jowl with Lighton Ndefwayl, Mervyn King and Rocket Ronnie.

Most cases are recent, because the desperate art of excuse-making is a relatively new phenomenon. Some initially seductive candidates ebbed away. I dismissed Becks's Euro 2004 penalty miss because - his scowl at the spot notwithstanding - primarily, it was others making excuses on his behalf. And I left Rio Ferdinand on the bench, because his sorry Harvey Nichols shopping tale about why he forgot to take a drugs test actually had the mundane ring of truth about it.

Rupert Lowe is here simply because the chance to make a public mockery of odious, ignorant hypocrisy should always be seized, while there are few things more amusing than a whole team concocting a tall tale: Finland, Sri Lanka and Manchester United offer corking examples of the collective excuse. Anyway, if you don't agree with this list, don't blame me: the dog ate my first draft.

Disagree with our selection?
We thought so. Write and tell us who or what should be there instead, justifying your choice in no more than 50 words. Send your cards to: 10 Lamest Excuses OSM, 119 Farringdon Rd, London EC1R 3ER or email us: osm@observer.co.uk

iPodcurrent:

Greatest comeback ? Some cricketing perpective on MLB

2004-10-20T01:00:00.000-04:00

Red Sox beat Yankees 4-2 and tie series at 3 all.

Okay, I am not becoming a Baseball nut overnight - but what a comeback by the Red Sox!! The commentators in the third and fourth game I was watching kept saying that no team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit to win (In all of the american major professional sports, it has been done only two times in NHL). That still may not happen in this series - but then no one was seriously expecting a game 7 !! When the Red Sox won game 4 though, I did have a feeling that they might somehow claw back.

I do not claim any expertise in the nuances of baseball, so I am not sure how pitch rotation and other stuff will affect game 7. But from a purely sporting point of view, the Red Sox should have an advantage in that game. They are carrying the momentum and by going even from a 0-3 deficit their confidence should be sky high. Yankees on the other hand must be thinking 'what if...' particularly in game 4 when Riviera failed to close the game at the bottom of the 9th.

Although any comparisons will be extremely superficial - but in cricketing terms this is almost like India's comeback against Australia at Calcutta in 2001. Of course , that was a single test match - while this is a series. But one could draw a (somewhat tenous) parallel between each day in a 5 day cricket test match and each game in a baseball series. Indians were really down and out on the first two days of that match - they fought back somewhat on the 3rd day - but still behind the Australian single innings total. Day 4 - the Asutralians bring champagne to the ground - hoping to celebrate by the end of the day - but an amazing stand by Dravid and Laxman and by the end of the fifth day its the Indians who are celebrating.

In a broader philosophical context, I always beleive that no matter what kind of a hole you are in or how bleak things look, when you take each day/hour/game etc. at a time - it is possible not only to break even, but come actually come out on top. (okay - maybe it is time to go to sleep !! - its been a hard day's night)

iPodcurrent: Its been a Hard Day's Night ;-)

Gmail and Google Desktop

2004-10-19T10:06:00.000-04:00

Finally got my Gmail invite, courtesy of SFX, who are promoting the Mozilla Firefox browser. The invite was in response to placing a Firefox banner on my web-site. For those who have been living in a cave for the past year - Gmail is Google's new e-mail service - launched earlier this year with an awesome 1GB storage space ("never ever having to delete you e-mail" !!). But the service is at the beta stage, so you can get an account only if you are invited. I beleive initial invitations were given out to regular bloggers @ Bolgspot. Those using the e-mail service in turn got a chance to send out invitations. This has, of course, created a cyberspace class-division of the g-mail haves and have nots. G-mail invites have been a hot commodity and have been bartered (there is web-site dedicated to gmail swapping), 'e-bay'-ed or given away in promotions (as in my case). A look at this site will show how desperate some people are for an invite (one guys needs it to impress his girlfriend). Of course all this buzz is really great for Google (as if they needed any more publicity).

Anyway, there is the privacy issue with respect to G-mail. In very lay terms, Google is going to scan every incoming and outgoing mail for the message 'context' and delivers ads based on that. Privacy and civil rights groups are of course outraged. But there are others who are not so worried.
I have not made up my mind yet. To some extent, simply knowing how hyper the privacy and civil liberty unions are and how they often have knee-jerk reactions, perhaps the issue is kind of overblown (some more thoughts on that here). I would not really want someone out there to be building a 'profile' of myself based on what I am writing in private mails - but the question is whether Google is making up such profiles. Google says 'no' - but privacy groups are contending that there is nothing to stop Google from doing so in the future. Either way, gmail is not going to be my main e-mail right away - so I will just wait and watch.

My other google related activity yesterday was to download the Google desktop. This is a search engine that will run on your desktop and can search keywords in your computer within files (Words, Power Point, Excel.), mails, cached web-pages etc. Unfortunately, the web and e-mail search features work only with IE and Outlook programs and not Firefox and Thunderbird. But people are trying to get google to add this feature. If you are a Firefox or Thuunderbird user - send in your request. So far, I have not really needed to use the search program - but I have tried out some obscure words and they returned resonable searches.
Beware though, the program requires a whopping 1GB storage !!

iPodcurrent:

aaargh!!!

2004-10-18T11:53:00.000-04:00

Why doesn't it rain when India needs it - like the last day at the Bangalore test. Anyway, the match was a draw after washed out the final day's play. Should have have put some money down on that draw option - odds were 1:15 !!

More later today....

iPodcurrent:

Final Day Showdown

2004-10-17T21:27:00.000-04:00

210 needed in 90 overs with 10 wickets in hand. Can they do it ? Answer in another 8-9 hours. Odds @ Bet365.com:

Ind  1.28

Aus  3.75

Draw 15

3-1 in favor of India. Go desis !!

Meanwhile, I watched a pretty entertaining baseball match yesterday with the Yankees thrashing the Red Sox 19-8. While I am still learning the nuances of baseball - it seemed like a pretty shoddy effort by the pitchers on either side. It's like a 350+ runs ODI innings in cricket. Moreover, as I write, the Yankees are leading 2-0 at the top of the 5th innings. As possible 4-0 drubbuing !!

iPodcurrent:

Middle order still dissapointing

2004-10-15T10:18:00.000-04:00

The Indians are now 56 runs ahead with 4 wickets in hand. Could have been much better but the middle order had yet another disappointing day. Dravid 26, Laxman - the supposed terror for the Aussies, 4, Gang 9 - what's up with these folks. I am getting the feeling that Sachin's prescence makes some difference to the Indian middle order. The other players probably feel a little less pressure with Sachin around and play their natural game, even when he does not contribute. We really missed him today - Chennai is his happy hunting ground and the game could really have been taken away from the Aussies today itself.

Still its not too bad - Kaif and Patel needs to settle themselves and make sure that we get another 100 runs at least - if not 150. That would be a good lead on a detiriorating pitch. Remember that India has to bat last. Last time in Chennai we made heavy weather of a 155 run chase.
Congrats to Sehwag on a good 155 - otherwise we would have been in real trouble. I won't say that he has returned to form - with his attitude while batting, he can really get going anyday - a few chances here and there does help ;-)
Congrats to Warne on being the highest wicket-taker. Just a small statistics here:
Warne v/s India: 33 wkts @ 54 avg
v/s England: 132 @ 23 avg.

Go desis !!

iPodcurrent: PPenny Lane

Politics

2004-10-14T11:59:00.000-04:00

I have made a consious decision not to write too much about politics, especially the current US politics on my blog. There are literarily thousands of blogs out there covering the topic. However, I will jot down some thoughts as soon as I get the time. Right now, I am just too busy finishing up and submitting three papers at the same time.

I did see the beginning of the Bush-Kerry debate last night. There was a kind of funny moment - Kerry was quoting Bush having mentioned that he did not think much about Osama Bin Laden. Bush responded, in an obviously rehearsed non-chalant manner: "I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations." As expected, Bush pronounced the word 'exaggeration' with some effort - but then he got it right and there was a marked satisfaction and thrill on his face. It was like a small child being able to open the wrapper on his cancy for the first time on his own !!

iPodcurrent: Start me Up - Rolling Stones

Good news in the morning.....

2004-10-14T09:17:00.000-04:00

...on the cricket front. Australia bundled out for 235 runs. Actually it is pretty impressive considering that they were 136 for no loss sometime after lunch. This has an eery similiarity to the last Ind-Aus series in India - when Aus would pile up runs in the morning and then gradually lose wickets and the momentum in the afternoon sessions. That time it was Harbhajan Singh doing the damage - today it was Anil Kumble - the old war-horse. Unfortunately, Yuvi got out to Shane Warne towards the end of the day. Hopefully, we can build a solid innings tomorrow.

iPodcurrent: Helter Skelter - U2

Heard on TV......

2004-10-13T13:56:00.000-04:00

" Marriages are like flowers..............the fake ones last longer " !!!
- Jay Leno on the Tonight Show (talking about Bill and Hillary Clinton's anniversary)

iPodcurrent: Me and BobbyMcGee - Janis Joplin

Mental disintegration from within

2004-10-13T13:24:00.000-04:00

Finally some sensible perspective on Indian cricket team.
Mental disintegration from within

Australia will come hard at India in this game, black armbands and all. And they won't resort to much mental disintegration – Steve Waugh's watchword has been largely ignored by the current outfit – either, at least not overtly. Not that they need to, when sections of the Indian media are sledging their own team far more than a McGrath or Warne ever did.

Another copy?

2004-10-12T19:53:00.000-04:00

'Vaastu Shashtra' - directed by some Saurabh Narang is being touted a lot these days. From the storyline, it sounds eerily like a rip-off on The Shining .
Hopefully, a movie backed by Ram Gopal Verma will be slightly different.

iPodcurrent: Positively 4th Street - Bob Dylan

Cool Ads from Apple

2004-10-12T14:24:00.000-04:00

Some really cool ads for Apple products:

http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/movies.html

More knee-jerk reactions about India's defeat

2004-10-12T11:19:00.000-04:00

(click on the title for the article)
I wonder who gives these imbeciles the job to write in a national newspaper? Do they even understand anything about sports or even about the practical matters in life? Can't believe how low the standards of TOI have fallen.

Sure the Indian team played badly - but sacking half the team and the coach in the middle of a series does not get problems solved. If we followed this moron's advice last time Australia visited India - the whole team would have been sacked after the first test and we would have never had the amazing comeback.

According to this insightfull article, Chopra's loss of form is due to Ganguly's comment about wanting Yuvi as the opener along with Sehwag. Firstly, I think too much is being made out that one comment made a long time ago. Secondly, shouldn't Chopra, now been given a chance by Tendulkar's absence (assuming that Ganguly would have gone for Yuvi in place of Chopra if T'kar was playing), grab it, play some good knocks and make sure that he is indispensible for the team? Besides he seems to have been unlucky in at leats one of the innings.

However, of all the inance comments in the article - this one takes the cake -
"Loyalty is commendable, but there is too little thick and too much thin now."

Bugger....

2004-10-12T10:51:00.000-04:00

Seems like I am destined to just miss out on the latest cool gagdet !! Last year, I purchased my DELL just a few months too early and missed out on Centrino.
When Soma gave me the 40GB Click-wheel iPod, a month ago, I had the absoluetly latest 'thing'. Not for long as it turns out:
Think Secret - EXCLUSIVE: 60GB iPod to pack photo-viewing features

The irony of it !!

2004-10-11T17:15:00.000-04:00

An Australian (that too Glenn McGrath) complaining about sledging !

Bhajji got scot free despite abusing: McGrath - Sify.com

Unsolicited Advice 1

2004-10-11T15:29:00.000-04:00

I love giving advice to people. In my native tongue, Bengali, people like us are called 'gyani', 'paka' etc., most often in a playful derogatory sense. But that does not discourage our creed, who know that most people in the world are just lost and need someone to show them the direction.

Also since this is my blog in my corner of the vast cyberspace - I will dish out advice, both of practical nature as well as philosophical, from time to time ;-).

Here is something practical: for those few out there who do not know about it, start using the Mozilla Firefox browser in place of IE. It's got some really cool features and you can actually import most of your settings and all your links and bookmarks from IE. You can still use the googlebar and in addition there is a general box that can be used for google/yahoo/amazon/dictionary or any other engines of your choice. Check it out for yourself from the link below.If any of the reasons I gave is not convincing enough, here is the clincher - it's not from Microsoft.

Nobel in Economics

2004-10-11T13:15:00.000-04:00

...was awarded today to Finn E. Kydland and Edward C. Prescott.

The Economic Nobel is technically called the 'The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel' .

Alfred Nobel in his will did not specify a prize for Economics in his bequest. It was instituted by the Bank of Sweden at its 300th anniversary. Apparently the Nobel family is contesting the use of the word "Nobel Prize" for this award. Fair enough.

Now read this article in the TOI.

Seems like people back home have too much time on their hands !

Procrastination......

2004-10-10T18:42:00.000-04:00

....yep I am pretty good at it. Blog was created about a month ago and I am finally finding time for the first (second) post. Since this apology of a blog is now linked from my apology of a web-site, I had to add some stuff here.

Anyway, still busy with writing my thesis.

Meanwhile India lost the first test against Australia by 217 runs. The margin could have much smaller without some horrendous umpiring decisions. I dont want to sound too whining but lets face it, Steve Bucknor is long past his use-by date - this is not the first time he has made mistakes. Billy 'crooked finger' Bowden on the hand seems to consider himself a star in his own right. Someone needs to remind him - no matter how funny his gestures are on the field, people come actually come to watch the Tendulkar cover drive or the Warne googly. He needs to concentrate on getting his on-field decisions correct rather crusading against the use of technology in umpiring.
Interestingly, this is the same umpiring team that more or less denied the Indian team a chance at history earlier this year in Australia.

first post....

2004-09-05T00:37:00.000-04:00

....will come soon - technically though it will be the second post.