Driving Safely

 

They really mean it. Stop, or they'll ticket you. Alfred, NY is a no-tolerance zone for aggressive drivers.

CNN: The Cheesiest dudes in the News

In the service of Customer, the king

"We wanted to provide one more opportunity for moviegoers to experience it on the big screen as it was meant to be seen," said Dan Fellman, president of Warner Brothers' domestic distribution in the US.

--BBC

Obviously Warner Bothers are filled with concerns for the passionate moviegoers. Why else would they go through all the pain of re-releasing a movie which most of moviegoers have already seen, (some of us more than once)?

This is why,

Batman film The Dark Knight is to be re-released in US cinemas in January, upping its chances of its box-office takings crossing the $1 billion mark.

-- Same Story on BBC

US Elections: An Alien's View

Americans are going to elect leader of the free-world in few days. It is not very clear to me, why only Americans? I would like to consider myself a citizen of the free-world. But there exists a great deal of confusion over its boundaries. Some experts believe India to be a part of the free-world, while others do not. My ambivalence over my status however is not an obstacle to my keen and scholarly interest in unfolding events. Who knows one day things become clear and we end up on the right side of freedom. I want to be ready.

Every four years, future of the human civilization hangs in balance. The middle class families who are struggling to put their kids in college, nurses, teachers, firefighters and plumbers, especially plumbers from Ohio and Florida must ponder over the future of humanity. They are the keepers of the way of life. They must choose between baby-killer communists, who can put safety of the country, by extension the free-world at risk, but at the same time can put bread on table and medicine in bottle; and warmongering zealots, who work for corporations but can also guarantee the freedoms granted by the constitution and founding fathers. Does anyone know what those freedoms really are? A huge burden indeed for a plumber.

Regardless of all these superficial ideological differences, these middle class families who are struggling to put their kids in collage, nurses, teachers, firefighters and plumbers, especially plumbers know precisely what qualifications a presidential candidate must have. As a keen and scholarly observer I have tried to list them for future citizens of the free-world.

A presidential candidate:

• Must look presidential. I still don't clearly understand the presidential look but I'll get there.
  
• Must not be fat. It is acceptable if he can run a 5K, but not a marathon runner. Scoring a three-pointer almost landed Obama into suspicions of being overly athletic.
  
  
• Must be church going and good christian. But he should not be a every Sunday regular. That is bordering religious fundamentalism.
  
  
• Must be knowledgeable but not scholarly. A PhD is a definite rejection. Scholars are out of touch old-farts who don't know anything about the problems of hard-working middle class families who are struggling to send their kids to college.
  
  
• Must love baseball, but should come from a place with losing team.
  
  
• Must distinguish between the Wall street and the main street. I think that is the easiest of all. Wall street is where all the greedy people work and main street is where all the honest, hard-working Americans, who don't want to pay taxes, work.
  
  
• Must not raise taxes. Can a candidate taxes? I don't think he can, but I'll double check.
  
  
• Sarah Palin has raised the bar by adding "six-pack" to the list. I am still trying to figure out whether she was talking about beer or abdominal muscles. Given the appalling quality of American beer, I'm leaning towards abdominal muscles.
  

However the presidents themselves are exempt from all the above listed requirements.

Salmon for lunch

 

Saturday afternoons can be boring. After few phone calls ennui sets in. There is work to be done, but it can wait few more hours. There is nothing in the fridge, almost nothing. A nice and fresh cup of coffee is what I need. But what about the food. Definitely need to eat something. So here is an easy recipe for lazy bums stranded in boredom and hunger. I assume you have some frozen salmon, Cajun seasoning and rice at hand.

Thaw frozen salmon fillets to room temperature. Rub some Cajun seasoning and let it sit while capsicum are cooking. Fry cut capsicum on a low flame till it's tender. Add some salt and pepper and cook some more. Take out capsicum and put it on the plate. In the same pan, add some butter ( or oil ) and shallow fry salmon fillets, turning them on sides, till they are dark. That is it. As the picture suggests, serve with some rice and a 2-3 fresh cups for coffee. If you need directions to prepare rice and coffee, I suggest don't try this recipe. Ask someone generous enough to do it for you.

End of elitism?

While procrastinating I came across this piece about some poor guy who got virtually mobbed for writing undesirable lines about "the Dark Knight". I do feel bad for the victim for getting some rough treatment. He wrote a rebuttal, which probably didn't change any opinion, but hopefully soothed some of his ruffled feathers. I recognize his right to freedom of speech. I also respect his prowesses to get considerable space in NY Times, twice. I liked the first edition, Batman Begins, but I can't say I'm a fan. Thus I certainly have no reservations to his unpopular critique. What stimulated me to pick-up the pen metaphorically speaking, yet another metaphor, was his faith in eternity and usefulness of his profession. While it is certainly not an undesirable trait to have, but the one which can blind you from the brutal realities of the harsh unforgiving world.

I do not accept the assertion that spread of internet has given rise to semi-literate, rowdy bunch with the mob mentality. They always existed, it has just given them a voice. So far it has been a one-way street. Roger Ebert will write something in Chicago Sun Time and move on with his life. It did not matter if readers accepted his dissection of the movie. It was cumbersome to express the dissent. It is not just about film critics; book reviewers, sports columnists and political commentators also join the list. With no apparent dissent, the preferences of elite became the standards to which every movie, book or any other work of art must live up to. So much that critics became celebrated artists and their opinions, the work of art. Rise of internet has democratized the process. People are not only choosing the opinion they like, they are openly disagreeing and expressing their own. Suddenly revered critics are finding that the last word is not theirs'. It is definitely a painfully awakening, more so when it comes with a promise of reducing the rare to common.

The problem with opinions is, they can not be cast into mathematical equations. Hence it can't be proved that right one exists, even with some audacious assumptions. Unless one is a judge in the Supreme Court, one's opinion is hardly enforceable. I too have my own opinions about arts, sports and life in general. So long I have differed with pre-mid-post game analysis of Harasha Bhogle and Peter Shilton. Theoretically one can ignore rants of the chosen few and go about one's merry life. But then how can one ignore the matters which are so close one's heart. There is not enough in world one can get of them. To this very day, I look at every sort of explanation on why Roberto Baggio missed the penalty in USA'94 final. Nothing for me has demystified yet, what happened to mighty Indian batting lineup in 2003 World Cup final. I read anything that remotely concerns such events, historic if I may call them. It doesn't matter if it was written by a bald man or the god himself. I always had the mechanics to tell former, how badly his opinion sucked. Internet has provided me a way to tell latter, the same.

An uncomfortable visit

"How would you like it?", she asks.

"Short", I said.

"Anything I'll do is going to make them short". You can tell she had a sense of humor. "So tell me, how you want it?", she was persistent nevertheless.

"Can you cut them from sides and take off little bit from the top?", I made a valiant effort.

"What?", she was clearly not satisfied.

"Do whatever you like".

"Ok! I can do that", she finally relented. I am sure she would have enjoyed my misery longer, but in the battle of pleasure to humiliate versus tip, money had the final say.

This was the brief conversation I had with a girl at Aveda Institute, who was going to cut my hair. I am a reasonably neat guy. I have visited barber shops quite regularly for the past 30 years, yet I find the question of how I want my haircut, extremely difficult one to answer.

Back in India life was so good. The barber would ask the question dutifully yet nonchalantly. I'd confidently shoot back "short". That would settle everything. The guy would proceed to do, what was required to be done. If there existed some degree of familiarity among both the parties, formalities were often dropped. Good old days when barbers were barbers, gentle and understanding. My geographical shift to west and coincidental rise of customer is the king philosophers, things will never be the same. One can no more ignore the important questions like how they want it.

If I am so uneducated in the matters of hair, why would I go to MIT of haircutting? Why not choose something more appropriate? That is a question every intelligent reader would like to ask. This time I can conveniently point finger towards my wife. Her unwavering faith in my latent beauty is only matched by my father's confidence in my uselessness. Such high expectations usually lead to disappointments.

Cult of Vi

New Item

Watched Jhoom Barabar Jhoom . We have a new item-girl on the block, Aby Baby.

AB is new SRK

There has been a lot of debate about who is king and who is baadshah of Bollywood. Doesn't that translate to same thing? I guess there might be etymological differences, but are they really that different (or important for that matter)?

Aby Baby's fan following is incredible. He was BBC's star of the millennium, thanks to India's ever growing populous. Had this post some real readership, I would have been in trouble just for the title itself. These are the times when you are thankful for your lack of success. No disrespect to SRK, I simply find him intolerable. While making that proclamation, I am in safe territory. Many will join my, I hate SRK, cult. After all I've a right to opinion and freedom of expression.

This where things get blasphemous; I find AB intolerable too. I find him overrated, overpaid actor who has overacted hugely in much of his career. Not only he got away with it, he is revered for it. In India, criticizing AB is a issue more sensitive than the issue of gay marriages in Vatican. Whenever I tried to express my opinion, usually after watching a movie, I was snubbed. My freedom of expression was stripped then and there. I was subdued into appreciating his mannerism as marvel of acting. My heart would despise all the crap I was served, while my lips would utter: tremendous! Such tormented was the life I led.

If Ramjane is considered zenith of SRK's overacting talents, what can one say about Khakhi, KANK, Nishabd and Cheeni Kum. Are they just directorial blunders? hein! Aren't those heavy dialogs delivered with same modulations again and again and again. Or repetitive is not boring anymore. Of course Aby can't be boring. It been really long since I watched anything from SRK. I reacall my problem with him was, he played for the crowds. Then what is the old man doing, in above listed (and many others not listed) movies? Isn't he batting for the seven-fifty lungee crowds?

I couldn't have written all this stuff and felt safe. But my wife's recent disenchantment with AB has given me some courage. Her objections are quite different from mine. She doesn't like his romantic pairing with 20sh-30sh females. I myself don't have too many problems with that. I too think despite all media blabbering, Rekha is quite opposite of hot now.

seven-fifty lungee crowd: The phrase is viewed as derogatory and has become politically incorrect to say over the period of time. But I couldn't find another phrase which conveys the meaning with same force. I apologize in advance if it hurts some feelings. Although that is exactly the whole purpose of this blog, but author does not believe in by all means necessary. By the way 7:50 was the amount of cash you paid for a ticket in lower stalls and lungee was the general dress code.

The American Way

The following excerpt is from a tribute to former US president Gerald Ford, by GEORGE F.WILL :

Watergate and a presidential resignation were only two of the nation's problems that August. The mid-'70s were years when everyday things could no longer be counted on - inflation was undermining the currency as a store of value, and lines at gasoline pumps testified to the power of foreigners to get between Americans and their automobiles. Ford was a political sedative for a nation with jangled nerves.

Is it moral responsibility of rest of the humanity to provide Americans with their daily luxuries?

A bit of Melancholy

Orkut is a great thing. I found lot of friends, with whom I had lost touch over the years. It brought back lot of memories. But after few exchanges of who is what and where, I find myself at loss of words. That is quite uncharacteristic of me. I am a kind of person who loves to talk. I never had the problem of being in odd company. It is really strange that now things never move past some failed bonfire we had then. There are some people in my Orkut directory, which never were friends. They are there for sudden rush of "hey man whats up? long time no see", and courtesy that follows. Our sole connection is mutual information of existence. But there are people who were friends, qualifying the true definition of the word and all that jazz. I still have vivid recollections of our night long discussions, about Azhar's backfoot, Tahira'a ankles, KVS's annoyingly stupid presence and what not. Those were certainly good times. But it really makes me sad that we have to revive that nostalgia, in a hope it will lead to something more interesting. It is not we are trying to be polite. It would rather be polite, if we do not call on at all. The problem is we all have changed. For good? Only wise can tell.

I love yellow journalism

Please join us in mourning. We are heart broken at the sad demise of George Clooney's Max .

FORTRAN on Windows : A heady mixture

I have lot of friends in software and IT industry. They've been there long before I learned to write a C header file. Most of them had taken Fortran to a be dead language. It was something you learn in collage for Numerical Anaylsis and Computer Programming (NACP) course and then forget its existence for rest of your life. Something you will never see again in your lifetime (like a good Hindi movie). But there are few things you just can't kill (like Darth Vader). It lives in the hearts of its fans (short for fanatics). They may not be many, but they are ferocious. To make it worse, many of them are in love with Microsoft Windows.

I took up a job at a grid computing company. I was hired for my mechanical engineering skills (surprise!!!) and Fortran skills (about which I didn't know till recently). No surprises, I was handed a project in badly written Fortran. Then they told me that most of the expected customers are going to be Windows users. WOW!!! How do you program in a language that every programmer thinks is dead, on an operating system where nothing really works.

One of my guardian angles told me: Get CMake and cygwin. Do what ever you want do, on Linux. When you think you have done enough to survive, bring it on Windows and CMake will do the rest for you.
Only if the life was that simple? IFC will break your VS 7 installation. Command line cmake won't work for Fortran. IFC log function will give different results for same number, when called from multithread-supporting library. WTF?

I survived, but barely.

A program is defined badly written when, the guy who wrote it originally is dead and current releases only have bug-fixes from the previous releases.

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Thanks to BALD MONKEY. Now I know I have chosen a career path on which paycheques will never come close to 1/100^th what "I could have well deservedly earned" without writing 1/100000^th of FORTRAN.

Wedding Chronicles II

First of all, my apologies to my vast and diverse readership for little delay in the current post. Reason! I had no internet until 5th of June. And we all know, life is such a bitch without internet. Let us continue from where we left. Hence follow the events of day minus two.

Ramayan Paath is integral part in our family's important celebrations. So much so that Durga Poojan too starts with Ramayan Paath. I don't know how well Goddess Durga takes it. Although Ram Chrit Manas is majorly written in Hindi, but it is not in everyone to read it. On lesser occasions like birthdays, holidays or Sundays, my mother can perform the job to reasonable satisfaction levels, but weddings are really important. Experts were called in, from as close as next street to as far as next state. Experts are experts, they come with their eccentricities and microphones and loud speakers. Even for the experts, the job takes somewhere around 36-40 hrs. As the occasion demanded absolute continuity was required, and it was delivered.

While experts carried out their job with intensity and tenacity, for which they have come be known as experts, others were not sitting and watching. There were things like batna (5 times) to carry out. As one would assume, a wedding is a get-together occasion for family, extended family, relatives, relatives of relatives and also some friends. While my mother took care of religious aspects, my father tended the organizational part of it, helped by my auntie. Most of which involved putting guests into their places. Like all regular houses, our house is not designed for such a deluge of mankind. With some tact and reason, all were given a place to lay. Well! Not all. I had this notion that in a wedding, bridegroom is one of the most important persons, if not the most important. But no, what I had were mere assumptions, not based on any kind of scientific findings. My dear friends, such baseless assumptions leads to downfall. So was my case. After a long day, in which I was subjected to various ordeals by pundit ji, and chores from which I was exempt from, I found out, in their great scheme of things my father and my loving auntie has fixed my resting place to the hall where Ramayan experts were soldering on. On top of that, there were no pillows. Dynamics of demand and supply and fruits the efforts of early birds bring around are very well known. But its not in habit of jawan to fret about a comfy bed or a pillow or lights burning in eyes or loud speakers, neither did I.

Ramayan Paath: Recitation of Ram Chrit Manas, in part or whole
Batna: Bridegroom is applied a paste of turmeric, gram-flour, mustard-oil and some other stuff, by sisters and sister-in-laws and other females. It is supposed to make one fairer, if it is rubbed on one's skin thoroughly. Sisters and sister-in-laws do take it very seriously.
pundit ji The most important person in the whole ceremony, contrary to the popular beliefs. My relation with him went a full cricle, from resistance to truce, from truce to total defeat and from hatred of lost soldier to total admiration.

Wedding Chronicles

A great deal of literature has been written about the institution of marriage. The topic has been, and still is, a matter of continual research amongst social analysts, movie-makers, gloss magazines, graduate students and not to forget Oprah Winfery. But we hear much less, almost nothing about the big ceremony itself. I must mention a recent post by one of my friends, whose keen observation powers are second only to Isaac Newton watching the fall of apple, has made an invaluable contribution. In our lifetime we get more than one opportunity to attend wedding ceremonies (numbers may vary depending one's KVS-Gedwal factor. I always had happy opinions about these eternal unions, until I went through my own. Its no regular dress up, dance and photo sessions followed by free-food and back to warmth of one's sack thing. Well, for everyone else it still is, just not for the bridegroom.

Let us begin from the very beginning. My grandmother used to tell me stories about days when weddings lasted 3-4 days. Those days might have been pushed away from the social scene as an era gone by, but they do come back to haunt you privately atleast once. My dear friends, trust me, weddings still last 3-4 days, and painfully so. No wonder divorce rates are so low among Hindus. No sane person would want go through that kind of ordeal twice. I am a Hindu with lot of pride for the great traditions and all that. But when it comes to weddings, I must admit we got the worst deal of all. Even atheists beat us hands down. In the following few posts I will do my best to provide the reader with honest and down-to-every-detail memoirs of the proceedings of the occasion I remember as my wedding ceremony.

KVS-Gedwal factor was independently evaluated by Mr. KVS and Mr. Gedwal, hence the name. The topic deserves independent review with some joint effort, and is beyond the scope current work.

Humans are peaceful and benevolent by nature

We have beeen killing each other no one knows since when. The list here is certainly not exhaustive

• 17^th and 18^th century: Spanish and Portuguese, wiped out natives from South-America, killing nearly 150 million Incas and others in the process. Much of the work was carried out using axes and hatchets. Americans, British and French join the party and add 50 million of their own [1]
  

• Americans took the trend to next century, North-America is free of natives at a price of $1/Indian head

• Germans under Hitler butchered 6 million (mostly Jews) in 5-6 years. Japaneses ransacked Korea and China, 35,000 were killed in Nanking only.
  

• 6^th and 9^th Aug, 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• Tutsi-Hutu riots flare up in Rwanda, Hutu kill some 800,000 Tutsi, taking out a big proportion of the Tutsi population, later Tutsi make scales even by butchering 200,000 Hutu [2], taking the tally close to (or past) 1 million

• Self-proclaimed non-violent Indians joins the ranks, and murder 10 million unborn girls, in a never seen before, kind of ethnic cleansing

None of them died in a battle. They were helpless people, without any kind of protection, most notebaly the unborn babies. Some of them are remembered, others are not. Remembrance is not because of some sudden flash of regret or repentance. Mostly because tables were turned and victims got the chance to write log books.

References:
[1] : The Barbarian Invasions, the Movie
[2] : Could not find reference for this, but I will put in one soon

Intel (no more) Inside

What happens when MBAs take over from engineers?
With sincere apologies to my MBA friends, you have no idea which way earth is spinning, and you imagine you can organize a clone war. Because of you, Intel at top of the marketing food chain, pops up a crappy "leap ahead" campaign, in place of something like "Intel Inside". It is not disappointing, it is nauseatic. "Leap Ahead !", give me a break. You even had to take away the dropped "e". I am not a big Intel fan. They make good processors and they make bad processors along with lot of good money. But Intel Inside was cool. Alright, nothing goes on forever. But Leap Ahead? Its not just unimaginative, it is impossibly unimaginative. Sometime I wonder why you guys pay insane amounts of money to business schools. I haven't seen anything good coming out of them. So much trouble to learn MS Excel. Bad education apart, how can someone be so braindead. Leap Ahead! gosh !!

I assume Something like this might have happened:

Mr. H is head of human resources. Mr. H is having tough time justifying his big paycheque. Being an HR head is a tough job too. One has to pass those 8 hours minute by minute. So Mr H comes up with this brilliant idea of new campaign and new company logo. Great idea indeed. Not only it will keep him busy for few months, he will have a sense of accomplishment too.

Mr. M is chief of Marketing and Sales. He has a tough job too. His returns are not expanding. When 90% of the world already has P4, and P5 is not coming out any soon (damn, these stupid engineers), doubling sales this year seems impossible. Idea of new outlook seems quite promising to Mr. M too. Mr. M agrees with Mr. H and facelift is ordered.

Mr. E is there too, He leads engineering. He is under tremendous pressure to cook up something, so that people who just bought HT, might be convinced again to upgrade it, for $10,000. But dual-core wasn't convincing enough. He too needs an escape route. Logo must be easier than P5, thinks Mr. E.

Mr. F from finance is sure about his running the house. He has rather unamusing attitude about petty things like campaigns and logos. But if he lets all those lesser morons decide anything, company is going to be in deep shit and he'll have to live with guilty-feeling for his inactions, for rest of his life. Mr. F, despite being very busy, as he works 24/7, squeezes in sometime for new venture.

But problem is, Mr. F doesn't like Mr. M. While Mr. H is not so bad with Mr. F but has huge complications with Mr. M and Mr. E. Mr. E is bitter with life, in general. He has complains about never getting what he deserves. But its time to bury the hatchet for the sake of company. After a month long brain-storming, they are sitting in conference room. No one is satisfied with others idea. Mr. E thinks quanta pro is great, but Mr. H knows its not E's turn this time. Mr. H presented what his wife suggested, but everyone inside the room (and outside as well) knows that. Its a stalemate, as everyone wields a veto. Pops up Mr. BG. He has majority voting rights. Mr. BG is man of simple tastes, has always maintained that dropped "e" was gaudy and inside was obscene. Mr. BG's has a lifelong unfulfilled desire too. He had presented leap ahead as slogan, for his primary school football team, which teacher decided was lame. This was his chance to prove her wrong. Mr. E thinks its lame too, but its not his choice this time.

The Syrian Bride

Being a movie fan is a tough job. Which movie to go for which not, is a difficult question. Method of elimination comes handy, but its expensive. Then there is availability. Not many theatres have to guts to show independent movies. Luckily I found this one. This is an old style theatre where you have to stand outside in freezing cold till very minutes before the show commences. They have very few seats too. But the end result was well rewarding.

I find independent movies, generally shot at actual locations, without studios and animations more captivating than King Kongs and Starwars. I like those too. The Syrian bride is set in Golan Heights, which is claimed by both Israel and Syria. As the name suggests movie is about a wedding. The bride is marrying a TV star in Syria. Since Golan heights is controlled by Israel, the bride will have to cross the border and none of her family members can. Imagery is fantastic. Golan Heights is certainly a very beautiful place.

Beauty of the direction is that, it never stops telling the story, though not always with words. Political loyalties (willing/unwilling), social obligations, unfair influences exerted by village elders, helplessness of UN, insensitive beaurocracy, struggle of fair sex, its all there but told subtly, very subtly. The movie remains like an observer, never taking sides or passing judgments. It manages to be funny at times.

There is a bit of drama towards the end (1-2 minutes where son saves the father), but I can live with it. I recommend it hugely.

images courtsey of:
1. http://www.syrianbride.com/english.html
2. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4511808