UnGROOMED proGRAMMERS

(The guy in the left was responsible for my arrear in the first sem --- by developing C. I hate preogramming. Looks like a frigging psycho, doesn't he?)

Hi ... just like the previous post im again posting a link which i thoroughly enjoyed browsing through... It lists a whole lot of programming greats, or gods, maybe... ranging from the guy who invented C++ to the ubuntu founder, and believe it or not, most of them look like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.... in short, they may perfectly fit the profile of a money-making godman in India.

The links are here : Part1 .. and Part2. Does being so clever mean you don't have time to shave even?? Or being unshaved make you extremely brainy?? Ahem... We all hope the latter was true .. don't we?? :) :)

Calvin and Hobbes v/s Fight Club

For all those of you who, like me have seen the Brad Pitt starring Fight Club, and who are big fans of the 'greatest newspaper comic strip of the modern era' Calvin and Hobbes: Can you imagine a grown-up Calvin?? Ed Norton(his movie character's name is not known) and Calvin are argued as being the same people here.




Please post your comments on this blog after going through it; i thought it was an awesome write-up, could be classified from being downright stupid to very clever. But mainly i would attribute it to being a very good tribute to two awesome things - Calvin & Hobbes, and Fight Club.

For all you Calvin and Hobbes fans ... these are some sites u can check out ::
1. Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on paper

2. Subscribe for daily c&h strip

3. Calvin and Hobbes collection

4. Entire collection of strips datewise(can be viewed one by one only)

5. One more entire collection - great site

You can find hundreds of other fan-sites like these ... just some patient searching would do!! I will sirely compile some of my favourite strips shortly and post them :))

Marhaba ... o ... Marhaba

The theatrical trailer came out long ago, i think two or three weeks back ... but today for the first time i got to see it in proper quality(esp the sound); and just one word to describe it ... AWESOME. I'm a kind of Ashutosh Gowarikar fan; everyone liked Lagaan, obviously, but a lot of people did not like Swades. Well, it was critically acclaimed, as the Jodha Akbar trailer points out, but common people mostly did not get to appreciate its beauty, mainly because they expected another lagaan. That is one main characteristic of the Indian(mainly Tamil) audience; they go to the cinemas always with their minds expecting one more dose of the director's/hero's previous offering. This feature of theirs has been the cause for many a movie undeservedly flopping at the BO.
The single most impressive feature of Swades is its Soundtrack(both the songs and background) by the god. The songs are all of tremendous potential, but the ones always mentioned are either Yeh Tara Woh Tara or Yun Hi Chala, made popular by the music channels. My favourite song in the album, of course is Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera, which never fails to give me goosebumps when Rahman goes Chahe to kis disha me jaye vahi des........ Rahman, of course rocks in the BGM department, with totally awesome meaning and elegance to otherwise unimportant or unnoticed scenes(like the chorus that goes aaaayyyoooo re when SRK enters the village; or the modifies version of Dekho Na when Geeta's marriage is cancelled). The concept of the movie is pretty simple and some sets that supposedly depict NASA may be ridiculed, but in all... SRK puts in a good performance, far away from his sentiments-family theme song-crying in the climax routine; new heroine manages to look beautiul(she's thin, but hey...she lives in a drought-struck village); it does manage to stir up some patriotism in you, and wonder why people go to the US and never return(though you are also planning to do the same). We may find a lot of negatives with careful scrutiny aimed at finding negatives, but my point is just this: The movie did not get the recognition and profits it deserved, nor did the music.

Focussing on Jodha-Akbar, it is said to be a period film about the mughal emperor Akbar focussing primarily on his romance with a Rajput princess, Jodha. I do not like Aishwarya Rai or Hrithik, but am eagerly waiting right now for the audio release, which has been frustratingly postponed a lot of times, with the present release date fixed at Dec 18. The song playing in the background of the trailer i.e. the one previewed by ARR in his Delhi concert - Azeem-O-Shah-Shehenshah (roughly estimated by me to mean O mighty unthwartable Emperor!) is just AWESOME from whatever i have heard till now; the drum beats and the trumpet, the chorus of marhaba and the part that goes theem thom thananana are keeping me on my toes, waiting to grab the CD when it releases; i have very very very very very high expectations on this album, like three times what i usually feel when an ARR album is about to release.

Until then, i might as well go ...Marhabba....o ... Marhabba ....

New Seven Wonders and the Taj Mahal

In the last few weeks, there have been campaigns all over India that have focussed mainly on pushing people to vote in favour of selecting the Taj Mahal as one of the 'New Seven Wonders'. Ok, for poeple who do not know what the old seven wonders are; but infact i'm myself confused as to what the Seven wonders of the world really refer to...There are

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Modern Wonders of the world
Underwater wonders
Natural wonders
Tourist travel wonders

I'm not going to list out each of the 'Wonder lists' .. u can check them out here.
Well, anyways, i guess the New seven wonders refers to the tourist wonder list; and the only candidate most of the people in India would know about, and some people would've actually seen, is, of course, our very own supposed 'monument of love', that which Shahjahan built in the memory of, and as a tomb for, his dead wife Mumtaz. Supposing i ask some average guy in Tamil Nadu what Shahjahan and Mumtaz were, they would probably tell me about the Vijay movie and the glam actress. Anyways. Mumtaz Begum was not the only wife of Shahjahan either. There was no shortage of wives amongst the 17th century emperors, i guess.

Ok, so what comes to ur mind first when thinking of the Taj Mahal? Many would say they feel love, but that is just bull-shit. I, for one, think of another Taj Mahal, the stupid movie with the pig-like hero and lizard-like heroine, and the father-pig for director, but absolutely mind-blowing and evergreen music by the GOD of music ARR.

Incidentally, A.R.Rahman played a part in getting the Taj into the new seven wonders list. He created a song for motivating Indians to understand that 'Teri aur meri Mohabbat Ek hai', or 'Un kadhalum endhan kadhalum ondrallava', and hence vote for the Taj. I personally feel that the theme shouldn't have been the universal nature of love across many barriers, but rather the spirit that the Taj Mahal belongs to us Indians, and we should not let down something that our country is so closely associated with on the world stage. I voted for this reason, and also cos it was a cause promoted by ARR. EMI and Virgin music have brought out an album titled 'One Love', containing versions of the Ek mohabbat song in six languages.

I'm personally very glad that the Taj has made it to the final list, but am sure terribly discombobulated by the fact that Bipasha Basu has represented India in this supposedly grand function unveiling the new list, for reasons i'm quite sure most of you know and will agree whole-heartedly with.

The New Seven Wonders are : Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Pyramids Of Giza, Petra in Jordan, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Machu Pichchu in Peru, Chichen Itza in Mexico, and The Colloseum in Rome. Check out more details over here and here.

Si-Va-Ji ... Summa Adirudhule!!!!

My semester holidays are drawing to a close, i'm leaving Chennai in two days, and am feeling a mixture of emotions. The whole of almost 60 days were spent in an exceedingly jobless way; and i can say with confidence that there were mainly one person who kept me occupied in the holidays: The B.O.S.S (Box Office SuperStar) Rajini. Sivaji released on June 15th, and i have watched it six times as of now; the last time being 6th July. A lot of people think i'm crazy for this, and i would like to clarify it right now... when i don't have a problem spending cash on the ticket each time, and enjoy the movie no matter how many times i see it...what the **** is others' problem? Only a true Rajini fan would understand the thrill of seeing Thalaivar on the big screen; waiting for those punch-scenes, the style-scenes; impatiently sitting through the parts Thalaivar does not appear. Heck, a Rajini movie comes once in two or three years, I don't even know where i will be (I would've probably finished college) when the next festival hits the screens. That is one of the reasons i was quite bent upon seeing this movie somehow on the first day. And see it I did. Once on 14th June at 10.30 PM in Rohini theatre, next on 15th June at 6.15PM in Santham, next on 18th June at 10.45AM in Santham, then on 23rd June at 11AM in Albert, next on 29th June at 11.30AM in Abirami, and lastly in Santham again on 6th July at 2.45PM. I never felt bored even for a moment in these 23-odd hours i have spent in the theatre.
Post 15th June, if it was watching Sivaji that kept me occupied and excited and going, before that it was the Soundtrack, the trailer that came out on June 15th and quite plainly, the imminent air of expectations and excitement that surrounds a Rajini movie release. Apart from Rajini, A.R.Rahman was the man who single handedly made me spend all those morning hours at home without any boredom; he so casually left me spell-bound and swaying with the magic he creates. If you ask me to single out an A.R.Rahman favourite, i would probably give you a list of 500 songs at the minimum. Jhoom Jhoom thananana Jhoom thananana went my speakers most of the time, my current favourite is the Ek Mohabbat song. Along with this and my other all-time favourites, time-pass became exceedingly easy.

Sivaji has broken records all over the world, has already grossed far in excess of 100 crore rupees; this is reason enough for me to celebrate ... By watching Sivaji again!!! Adios, my friends, I now am faced with the difficult task of trying to book a Sivaji ticket...believe me, it is still very difficult to do so, though its been past three weeks since the movie released.

Roads and people

People in Chennai, well, most of them, think that the public roads, right from the ECR or Mount Road to the smallest kurukku sandhu are their family property. Hence, these honourable citizens take them for granted, not unlike the way they would treat their living room or porch. They do everything except maybe sleeping in the middle of the road. As a regular rider on Chennai roads, i have come to experience a whole lot of such people; and instead of just using the choicest of expletives at that time, i decided to blog on it. Just yesterday, there was this old man along with his wife on a Max 100R, stalling himself in the middle of the road, undecided on whether he was going straight or right; well, for about ten seconds. I was around 100 metres away, was not going very fast, believe me, and he just stayed there without making a move. There was a pit as wide as a really huge manhole, and deep enough to swallow half my front tire on the remaining bit of the road, which meant i couldn't go that way either. Someone who didn't notice the old man or the pit would've surely crashed. This brings into prominence not only the lack of road sense of the users, but the conditions some roads are in.

There's this main arterial road where they recently removed the median for reasons perhaps not known to them also; they have not properly levelled the area of the road where the median stood once, the result being a slight elevation, and a whole lot of small stones and sand there. This could catch a motorist unawares, leading to a skid, and a major accident if it's his unlucky day.

Coming to the people. I have encountered umpteen people speaking on cellphones while crossing the road, especially women(of all ages). They do not realise that it is extremely hazardous not only for their own self, but also to every motorist passing by. The motorist may cause injury to himself while trying to avoid these poeple. Forget those on cellphones. What about those jaywalkers who cross the road after the signal turns green, those men enriched by TASMAC, people holding out a stop signal for the purpose of their crossing the road or those who absolutely do not have the slightest judgment of the speed an approaching vehicle is coming at.

There can be no hope of any of the above changing even the slightest bit, they are part of our very own lovable Singara Chennai.

Kalaignar TV??

The just-begun war between the Marans and the DMK has now assumed a new form. All these days it was taken for granted that Sun TV was a part of the various types of access the DMK had to the common man's living room; be it attacking Jayalalitha's government(when it was in power), or broadcasting images of KK being arrested in his lungi and being dragged all the way for one whole day non-stop, or daily updates(?) on the various good things (from the ludicrous TV distribution to the Rs 2 per Kg rice) being done by the DMK government. Jaya is owned by the AIADMK, but unfortunately, Sun TV was only assumed to provide never-ending support to the DMK. Now, with the removal of Dayanidhi Maran from the cabinet and growing animosity between the once 'grandson-grandfather' pair, the DMK seems to have realised that it no longer has Sun TV to promote its ideas in a totally cockeyed manner. What happens next?? KK is in power, man ... he can do anything he likes ... He immediately calls Rajendran, CEO of Raj TV and says ... Dude, i need to start a channel owned purely by the party ... something on which my pictures or videos will be aired 24/7 till i die (and perhaps for 100 years after that, mourning his loss) ... heard you had two transponders left unused on your satellite, how about lending me one?? Either Rajendran agrees, or
1. His office gets bashed up by 'faithfuls' just like the Dinakaran office for allegedly 'disrespectful' behavior killing 2 or 3 more people
2. KK uses his power to somehow block Raj TV from Tamil Nadu.
Maybe he was forced into it, or he was truly a DMK follower, or was just plain-dumb, its now official; Kalaignar TV will come into existence on August 15th. What a disgrace to the very importance of the independence day! On that day will debut a totally biased TV channel that will be even more lavish in its praise of the government than Sun TV ever was, surely influencing the mind of scores of people, I mean the uninformed and illiterate ones.
We are supposed to be living in a democracy offering freedom of just about everything to its citizens, a democracy in which such channels come into being, where a newspaper is vandalised in broad daylight in the presence of scores of smiling policemen and a mayor(seen posing with a burning copy of the newspaper); not to forget the explicit communalist ideas and thoughts woven into the CD given by a prominent party as part of its 'campaign', showing the open slaughter of cows and having potential enough for a riot as vast in magnitude as the Gujarat pogrom of 2002.

UPDATE ::

Kalaignar TV has bought the satellite rights of the yet-to-be released Superstar movie Sivaji. This makes me feel real bad... well, AVM is just doing good business, but i'm sure this is the first time a movie's rights has been sold to a channel that is yet to be formed.

Rendezvous with boredom

How boring is boring?? Or, rather...how boring can boring be?? Guess both questions are the same thing differently phrased. Then why have i typed both of them in this seemingly unwanted and unyielding exrecise to my fingers running across the electronic device used to input such useless blogs into the computer, the keyboard? The answer to this question can be summarised thus: The boring mind is completely aimless and does everything it sees as something to waste, or while away time with. I'm bored, so i'm blogging about boring, and maybe this blog is also boring. Boring, boring, boring. You browse the net for a while, after which it becomes boring. You listen to music, or watch TV for while, maybe more than just awhile, after which it too inevitably becomes boring. I'm bound to get bored after typing a few paragraphs about how boring boring is. Is there a difference between you being bored of something and something boring you?
I'm now bored of thinking something up to write in this post. So i shall stop boring you with nothing other than boring. Bye.

The internet in India

That the internet is so rapidly growing is evident from the innumerable headlines that cyber-crimes, copyright infringement, Web 2.0, social networking websites and the like are making in both print editions and the online versions of newspapers, or should i say ... e-papers?? Well, that term itself is debateable because paper is strictly something solid you can write on, not a html or php or whatever file you can read from and not scribble on or use to wrap something up in an emergency(other uses include being something you can spill your morning coffee on). India, we should accept is a bit...er no far behind the west and some other parts of the globe in adapting to this internet-revolutionised world, that which can be inferred from the following things we, as Indians, would most grudgingly accept : : As of now the present upper limit of broadband speeds in homes is 512kbps, a mere fraction of the speeds offered in other countries(remember the way your jaws dropped open when your friend in the US told you about his connection speed and his monthly download limit??); Individual blogs are not yet being sued for lifting articled from online magazines(though that might be because not many people really care to read blogs, let alone take them seriously, or perhaps because of a deep distrust in the Indian judiciary, or the fact that most of our constitution is fifty years behind time and needs a whole lot of amendments in line woth the presently, and very magnanimously changing world); For the rare few who own an ipod, paying 99 cents for downloading a single song onto their player is so funny they ridicule the people of other countries who do so as being ignorant of those 'free download' sites; Our law-makers - the er.. 'respectable' members of the parliament and the ministers are totally internet-illiterate; We do not want to pay for anything that we download from the internet, the same way we are totally and blissfully ignorant of internet-shopping ........ To list a few. I'm not going to say anything about how all this can be changed ... I don't know, or rather, I'm not bothered .. By the way its time for me to check on my torrent client downloading the latest movies free illegally ... so bye.

L-I-F-E

Life : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body. Ok...that's the dictionary defenition. Let's now ask ourselves .. rather, i've been asking myself for quite sometime now ... What is life?? Why do we live? What's it's purpose? What's the whole point, dammit???
People will immediately launch into all kinds of philosophical explanations the moment you ask this question on their face. Ah, philosophy ... anyone can speak philosophy, be philosophical. It's the easiest thing to do. No offence meant on the supposedly "great" philosophers, but still, i can't restrain myself from asking this questions .. Does philosophy really answer the questions most of us ask ourselves at one point or another in life??
Fine, we may provide ourselves with a momentary explanation as to what the purpose of our life is .. momentary in the sense related to whatever our main responsibility is, at that time ... Maybe a student in the 10th standard may say the purpose of his life is to study well and come up in life, or in more detail, to first pass his 10th boards. Ask a person who is about to get married, and he will say the main motive of his life is to remain committed to keeping his bride happy for life. Ok, i can go on giving such examples. In the same context, we can keep asking questions. Why should a person study? Why marriage? And on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until ........... Why was the first human being born? Where did life originate from at all, and why? How was the earth created? What existed before the universe came into existence?
Chuck it. Back to...the purpose of life. I remember a cartoon i saw long back (Dexter's lab) wherein DD supposedly is the father of all things in possession of the page-long Purpose of life "formula" dexter craves for. Humouring. Just came to my mind.

L-I-F-E. Endless discussions will not provide a pathway to it's intricacies, neither will science breakthrough to give us a thorough understandable explanation of it's exact origin.
Science. Explains exactly, in bits and pieces, what happened after the supposed "Big Bang". But before that? A single concentrated point mass that concealed an unimaginable amount of enormous energy by virtue of it's again unimaginable density is supposed to have 'banged' itself to create the entire universe. Unconvincing, but imaginable. But where did all that energy come from? God?? Wow. There's the solution, some would say. Some maniacs would even say that God was the one who created the universe, every particle of it, big-bang or no big-bang. Angels and Demons says that this holds the key to the unification of religion and science.

I'm an agnostic. I believe in reality, not in the supernatural. That does'nt necessarily stop me from pondering over these questions. As some suppossedly 'great' person said, the mind has reached it's full maturity when it asks itself the question "What is the purpose of life?" (I came to know of this only after my own admirable matured brilliant (ahem...) mind came up aith the question, i'm not merely trying to prove that i'm matured, you see .. believe it or not). Again. Philosophy.

Let me end this post with a self-concocted philosophy of mine (you need not necessarily follow your own philosophy) : Always pray for the welfare of your fellow-beings, and welfare will come knocking on your door. As you might have realised, this has been expressed in different forms in different languages. No, I did not copy. That's the problem with philosophies. Whatever you create, it has always been created.