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Mirch Masala: A tale of Sonbai

2009-09-23T12:45:00.008-04:00

This post was first published on PFC. You can check the comments it got on the website itself.

Sonbai walks in the lanes of an unnamed village with a ghada (metal matka, water container) on her head. She is in the middle of her hen-party, with all members skillfully balancing the ghadas on their heads, and you know that Sonbai is a leader.

As the group of these exotically dressed women pass through a gang of by-sitters loitering around the quintessential banyan-tree-chowraha combination, they are welcomed with derogatory remarks. One of the men calls her a diamond yet unpolished. Sonbai pretends to ignore and avoids a retort, but not without uttering a few disapproving obscenities to her friends and followers. The leader knows how to handle those men whose idea of contempt of a woman comes from low self-respect and a pretense of strong masculinity.

As the group of women disperses to walk towards their ‘destiny’ation. Sonbai has business to attend to, and she walks up to the baniya store to buy some oil. The baniya demands money for the goods purchased; in an undertone, he probably insinuates acceptance of other favors in the absence of currency . Sonbai dodges any implied meanings, cajoles him with purpose and walks off with the desired quantity of oil with a smirk on her face. She cannot tell the baniya off, as he employs her and her husband. As the boss sees the luscious back of Sonbai walking away, he can’t help but yell out his frustration with a risque remark; “Sasuri puri raat jagati hogi marad ko” – reason why once again her husband didn’t show up for work. Yes, she can do that. She has the beauty and attraction capable of doing that, but they are reserved for but one man.

And she meets the man sleeping outside what’s almost a hut. Sonbai gets playful, and teases the husband. The husband is grumpy over the hopeless working conditions in this hopeless land. He wants to go to a city to find a good job. Sonbai is clearly unhappy with his dream, and pleads, shows love and plays about every card available up the sleeve of a woman in love.

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A gang of sepoys pass by an insect-infested scarecrow standing in the middle of a farm. The scarecrow has just been beheaded by a farmer’s stone. It doesn’t mind it, as it is not a living organism.

There are women at the lake feeling water in their ghadas. The sepoys, now visibly lead by someone arrive at the lake and all women scatter, expectedly. Un-expectedly one maintains her ground, looks in the eye of the leader. The leader, a lanky figure with commanding eye stares back. His eyes hold more bewilderment which turns into lust quickly, still not just letting it out. Both the alpha male and female exchange dialogues; – the male wants to quench his thirst and the woman wants him to behave properly, not like an animal. The woman gives him water when he promises to comply, but when he is done drinking, we know the woman played nicely and won. The leader, called Subedar, was not able to get what he wanted. Not yet.

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The Subedar would not live without having Sonbai. He promises destruction that no one could afford. Sonbai would not give away her pride, and the man who is supposed to protect her is not around. The men who are supposed to protect her have given in to the will of the man who holds the gun. Some woman who are aged, mature and with a knowledge of the schemes of the world also try to persuade Sonbai to give herself in to the Subedar, for the greater good of the village and its people. No, is the answer. Always. Firm. What happens after that, is the clash between only the power and the seemingly weak, but also between the conventional wisdom and someone who have just found their way of doing things.

The 1980’s saw a very consistent and continued rise of parallel films in Hindi film industry. On one hand we had films that still linger in our memory as Torture series, on the other hand a fistful of directors fresh out of film institutes, full of attitude and josh to change the world were giving a new voice to their dreams, hopes, frustrations and struggles.

One from the crop of those directors was Ketan Mehta. His first film, Bhav ni Bhavai and second film Holi (with Aamir Khan) were two different subjects completely unrelated in nature, with the central theme of rebel. While the rebel had a form of subdued frustration in the first one, the second took it to another level of aggression.

His third film, Mirch Masala had a different class raising its head against the societal norms. This is a story which can be described as a microcosm of India at any time in the history. The women in the film have been conveniently denied their rights, and not only by men but by conventions. There are male characters who do not quite agree with the stronger members of the society, but their voice is oppressed. How they find their own voice against the society is a theme Ketan Mehta once again tries to explore with. The original story is written by Chunilal Madia and screenplay by Ketan Mehta and Shafi Hakim. There is a Zaverchand Meghani flavor to the subject matter, but to do justice to writers they maintain their own style.

At times you feel that all the characters are a little bit too obvious. A villain is a villain and he is supposed to be bad. So he is bad, with a wicked mustache. Often the “Men bad, women good” is not so subtle. An educated men is like one in the frogs’ party. He is ridiculed for his unconventional views, harassed and he also wears spectacles. So we are to understand that the villagers do not value education or anything that challenges their existing thought process. But Sonbai is one character that makes up for any nitpicking flaws.

The cast includes Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Supriya, Deena, Ratna Pathak, Raju Panchal, Om Puri, Raj Babbar (in a cameo), Suresh Oberoi, Ben Gilani, Paresh Rawal and Mohan Gokhle. There is Amole Gupte in a small role, and he is also AD of the film. The acting is adequate from the supporting lot. Naseeruddin Shah acts well but his character is sort of uni-dimensional. Om Puri acts as a character of an age that he even today does not look, but very convincingly. Deepti Naval is good, and so are sisters Supriya and Ratna in their bubbly, naive villager act.

Show stealer is without any doubt Smita Patil. Here she looks so sensuous you wish why she didn’t do a few more ‘Jaane Kaise Kab Kahan’. She looks so strong in her character as a woman who after all her village life knows her ways, you wish why she did not go for politics as a parallel career. And you realize what we are missing in the roles of women today, and the actresses that depict them. Watch it for Sonbai and Smita Patil.

Next: Further analysis of other characters. I was so 'smit'ten by Smita Patil that this post got dedicated to her, and one of the strongest female characters in Hindi cinema. Next post will try to dissect the character of Deepti Naval as opposed to Sonbai's, as well as the metaphors in them.

Blue Music (A R Rahman) Review: And an analysis of Chiggy Wiggy

2009-09-17T05:46:00.053-04:00

Blue is an ambitious project. It is not only a very expensive project, possibly most expensive so far, but aims to combine mass appeal with classiness. So you have some of the best of the business roped in to ensure the best end result. What is contradictory is that the director and the writer, Anthony D'souza and Bryan Sullivan are newer names in the credit list that boasts of some of the biggies of not only Bollywood but also from that other tiny industry in LA that tries to come out of Bollywood's shadow.

So you have Oscar winner A R Rahman at the helm of the music department. We have all read a number of times how he was under pressure (not that he went scuba-diving) to deliver a soundtrack right after a new-found Oscar glory. Now that he has had his appearances with Pussycat Dolls, Akon and who's who of the world, he has to match up the expectations of possibly a very larger base of fans. Everyone has gone and heard Dil Se, Roja, Thiruda Thiruda now, and only expects more from him. He also has the best technicians at his service and we know that.

Which brings me to a rather unsung hero, Resul Pookutty. Technicians by their mere definition do not get the kind of fame India they deserve. The scenario has however been changing with a veriety of subject matters demanding the best technology. Love Story 2050 (a future classic, got released way before its time, precisely 42 years), Kaminey and some other films - appointed phoren technicians to achieve desired effects. Fortunately now we have Resul so we don't have to outsource that one job to foreigners. But then the action directors are the ones who choreographed for the Fast and the Furious. And there is one more foreigner involved (coming up). Yikes!

The music of Blue, well isn't that what the post is all about!!

The album opens with a weird sound which is like a shrill through the cold night. Well may be that was the case with our next outsourcing agency, err...singer, Kylie Minogue. I have known Kylie only from her two Billboard Number One dance songs, which worked as a comeback for her - Can't Get You Out of My Head and Come into My World. I am no fan of her pop sound but these two songs had quite that bye-bye-90's club feel to it.

Coming back to the Blue song, Chiggy Wiggy, is how it's called. Kylie calls 'I wanna Chiggy Wiggy ¹ with you boy' at high pitch, a characteristic seen in male birds to woo females. The lyrics by Abbas Tyrewala is good with subtle layers displaying Kylie's commitment phobia and the music has a Britney feel to it. Quite an evidence that Rahman can produce like that Timbaland. Mid-way the song something unexpected happens, and no it isn't Akshay Kumar hanging high from the rope to slide down to the stage. He has done that a million times before in every award function. It is Sonu Nigaam (trivia question: how many 'a's in Nigam? answer: two) answering Kylie's call. He wants to 'chiggy wiggy' too with this 'soniye', 'hiriye' (revenge for the outsourced jobs on his mind may be) damsel, but not before he has displayed his knowledge of Urdu for better job prospects. The song is addictive, but then 60% of it is typical in how international female pop- singer would sing and what India's answer to international pop would be - bhangra.

Next is 'Aaj Dil Gustakh hai' sung by floral Shreya Ghoshal and macho-floral Sukhwinder Singh. The song takes the scenic route and involves terrific modern jazz piano play and a high energy, fast paced rhythm. Shreya takes the song to another level by infusing passion into the song, while Sukhwinder restrains the mood a bit (hear him sing 'Waqt ko itni jaldi hai kyon'). This seesaw effect works quite well between the two, and you can visualize a young woman breaking free, and an older (which rules out Zayed Khan) and mature (which rules out both Zayed and AK) man who can't run. 10 Brownie points if you guess who features in the song.

'Fiqrana' is a song that advises its listeners to live without worry and 'kham-a-kha' (full of immaturity, useless, in vain ²) in behakate gulzaaro, chamakte sitaaron and dehakate angaaro mein. The song has a good structure with round-shaped dhun, with a devil-may-care attitude of carefreeness in both its music and tune. It is in the league of Masti ki Paathshaala where the tune itself is free-flowing. Before you hear the lyrics you know this is going to be a song with fultoo attitude (I so wanted to use this phrase!). The singers are Vijay Prakash and Shreya Ghoshal.

'Bhoola Tujhe' gets the least footage in this post. It is a good song, or so I hear from others. I don't like it as much as others for two reasons - one it sounds much like Kahin to from JTYJN, a very cheesy soft-ballad'ish track from 80's, and I hate 80's cheesy romantic songs. Two, well there is no other reason. It sometimes sounds good but I will reserve my opinion for later.

But the 'Blue Theme' or 'Ba-loo theme' or 'Ballu theme' or 'Bi-loo theme' - whatever you want to call it - makes up for its low-energy precedent. Sung by a motley crew of singers (Blaaze - I bet he would rap even in ARR's bhajan songs, Raqeeb Alam, Sonu Kakkar, Jaspreet Singh, Neha Kakkar, Dilshad), it has the required degree of enthusiasm and punch for an action-thriller movie. I caught a glimpse of this on TV and they were messing with underwater creatures during the song. You get the idea.

That brings us to Rehnuma - a track that has already become famous as a James Bond theme-like song. I hear the haunting crooning by Shreya Ghoshal, I hear the dark chorus. What rather affirms my belief in viral spread of 'tags' in this small blogosphere on Indian films is that almost each review of Blue soundtrack I've read, and I read quite a few of them, mentions this James Bond thing. Why? Are there not other haunting tracks in English or Hindi or Tamil pop? Ever heard the Doom metal genre? Gothic metal? Atmospheric and ambient? Is the song resembling to any particular JB theme song? Is it The World is Not Enough song? No one ever noticed the oh-so-famous Kashmir guitar riff re-dux? Strange.

Rehnuma is a super-cool song nevertheless and demonstrates both the singers' - Sonu Nigaam and Shreya - versatility. The song starts on a slow passionate note by Shreya, which Sonu Nigaam takes to a pinnacle. It is quite remarkable how they sing the song.

Yaar Mila Tha Saiya is the dehaati chhed chhad song. Rahman re-visits this genre after Delhi-6 and fuses hip-hop beats and background vocals in it. The lyrics are quite fun and if properly played it can become a floor scorcher. Udit Narayan and Madhusree sing it quite well.

Blue belongs more to the music director and singers than its lyricists. Although the lyrics are good, I was unable to see a how even English pop-listening Indian audience would connect to 'Summer Barbecue' phrases in Chiggy Wiggy! This is vintage Rahman in a way that the overpower the lyricists (the PK Mishra and Mehboob-dubbed soundtrack days). Also unlike Jodhhaa Akbar and JTYJN, the album takes longer to register. Rahman experiments with the songs on surface by using modern jazz fusion and hip-hop and haunting melodies, and keeping them routine at the core. For example, the sad song is a ballad as one would expect, the Chiggy Wiggy song does not have any innovative beats and has the baap-of-cliches bhangra, but things take a novel turn with Urdu lyrics. Although I have written a rather long point of view, this album is best enjoyed with the true ambiance and without a baggage of analysis.

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Footnote: 1 - alternate meaning of Chiggy Wiggy
2 - deeper spiritual meaning - at ease, with self; (ref: the secret spiritual dictionary of a certain Chopra)

NFL for Networking

2009-08-18T06:57:00.010-04:00

National Football League is one of the biggest event in USA. Americans love football, and how. It occupies their 'beer and chips' Sundays. While the recession may make NFL lose some of its sheen, it will still be a great event to cheer up people in a time that has not been so good otherwise.

However, with the economy beginning to recover, it will be interesting to see how people can capitalize on this event to help them land with a new job, a new contract or a new business opportunity. This can become a gigantic networking event spanning over the course of six months.

How can you utilize this time to network with your prospective client or employer?

Sports events open people up. Since most of these events are on Sundays or Thursdays, when people are at their casual best, they do not have their guards up. You can always find a fan in your prospective employer, or the other way around. Specially people from similar geographical regions tend to follow same teams and you can easily connect with people on this.

Second venue that becomes available during NFL season is 'draft pool' groups. If you are one of the great fans, you can meet lot of other like-minded fans and who knows! The more people you are connected with, the more your chances of landing with that new opportunity.

Possibly people who you meet at these events will not likely be interested in even talking about job scenarios or economy. But some high-level managers and executives have a good ear for things. Your enthusiasm for the sport will definitely get you noticed more for your attention to details. You can show your knowledge if you champion the game. If you don't know the sport so well yourself, just pay close attention to what they talk about and show that you are a good listener (specially because they are more willing to talk about this sort of casual topics) and willing to learn new things.

During the time of NFL season, every Monday morning starts with discussions about last night's games. It works as a great ice-breaker. I have personally used this technique to gel with more people at different work sites. And I know of a certain ex-colleague who was immensely popular among even higher execs for his enthusiasm and knowledge of different sports.

Utilize this big event for your networking. If nothing else, you would make some new acquaintances who know someone else who has got your next job, or next assignment. Promote yourself as someone with knowledge on a variety of things, a good listening ability. Exchange your Twitter handles after such casual sports bar meetings (mine is @Tejas_Bhatt). Send a casual message after you've met for the first time, and if possible meet for another games. You know the deal.

PS: This post could have been just as much true about FIFA, European Football Cups or English Premier League. Heck even IPL or ICC-WC. It just made sense for the time to concentrate on NFL as it is definitely a huge event starting next month itself.

Whitehatsweb.com goes live!!

2009-08-07T17:54:00.002-04:00

Finally we have landed on a good resolution about whitehatsweb site. That is to use a Wordpress account for now, and give it a better look than what our first static html page was. We can take care of the better looking site later when we actually have time to do so.

And it honestly feels like having a baby! Although I have been a part of lot of web development projects before, this has been my first ever involvement from picking up a domain name to choosing a theme (and eventually designing a logo someday)!

It feels great. I know there is a lot that can be done better. We look forward to your suggestions. We need to do lot better. For instance, I want to make the footer richer with content. I will install social media buttons there, but what more can we do?

We want to continue with Wordpress for now. It gives a distinct experience to the user to go through blog posts on Web Development and SEO first and then to the other fine details like About Us, and Contact Us. May be I will do something to add that to all pages.

Technorati Tags: web development,web design,whitehatsweb,seo

A thought bubble..

2009-07-22T03:29:00.003-04:00

If you develop websites, always do a good job. Your client may or may not have that many people to refer you to. But, You never know who might see it.

(From my personal experience - I see so many websites all day to get ideas about my upcoming website www.whitehatsweb.com . I come to appreciate a lot of them which are not even directly referred to me by someone.)

An observation on the Evolution of Personal Branding?

2009-07-21T01:28:00.000-04:00

I remember having a confrontation with someone on an online forums because I partially revealed his real identity. All I said was that he was my housemate, but he didn't take it too liberally and that lead to an online duel between us, while we very well could have solved it in real life as well.

But I digress.

The point I want to make is that in those days people tried their very best to hide their identity. People hid themselves behind avatars of Homer Simpson, and l337 sp34k names! (I admit myself being one of them)

While this practice still continues for those posting in online forums, personal blogs have changed the entire face of online posting. Add to that the juggernaut of social media and social networking. No one is hidden anymore, internet is a big playground where you remove your helmet and just join the fun. Recession has added fuel to the fire, social networking has become one of the better tools to promote yourself. Everyone has jumped on the wagon to build a better brand for self, and put their best foot forward by adding the best of the information on the web, spreading it to the vastest of the audience, and adding the most dapper looking photograph along with it.

Web 2.0 has and will continue to change how we present ourselves online. Job hunters and self-promoters have already gone beyond the traditional ways to make their brand stronger - while blog posts started it all, Twitter, video blogging, podcasting and heavy networking through FaceBook, LinkedIn has only taken it a few steps further. Some entrepreneurs have realized the impact this all can have on how things work in future, and made a career out of advising others on how best to utilize the available online tools to build a better online self.

Probably the least happy with all this happening is Homer Simpson's headshot.

Astrology - a science or fiction? Or a bluff? From a rationalist's perspective

2009-06-13T14:57:00.001-04:00

I am reading Dr Abraham Kovoor's radical book 'Begone Godmen' currently. It has changed my beliefs on a lot of things. I never believed in spirits possessing human body and such stuff. But I definitely believed in the concept of God, and astrology. Although the book did not crash my faith in God (to whichever extent it was - that's another story), what it really did was to shake my belief system in astrology. From what I read in the book, it is awfully stupid to think that stars 4 or 5 million light years away from us can affect our lives. A lot of the astrological constellations such as Aries does not exist. Some constellations change according to our geographical perspective. And the stars that form the constellation are often a few million light years away from the earth. How does that make astrology a science, as is favored by lot of astrologers and even scientists?

The book makes for an interesting read. To see that Dr Kovoor threw a 100000 Rs. challenge in 1960's for anyone to prove the concrete-ness of astrology with 100% accuracy in prediction - and it still remains open is an achievement in itself for rationalists all around the world.

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Now playing: The Clash - In The Pouring Rain
via FoxyTunes

Kahan...chali gayee hai saali khushi!!

2009-01-10T18:29:00.001-05:00

I am going to places I don't have to. I just keep driving. I am revisiting lots of painful moments, that didn't even happen to me. I feel pissed off with things existence of which I am not even aware of. What has this music done to me!! This is something that plays with your emotions, manipulates them and leaves a long-lasting effect! What songs!! Kahan..chali gayee hai saali khushi!, Nayan Tarse, Ankh Micholi khele Zindagi, and Duniya. Anything and everything that screws up a man - happiness, expectations, life, and the world!

Amit Trivedi..see what you've done!!!

Blogging gone public!!

2008-06-03T16:38:00.000-04:00

Few of those matter, more of those who do not - everyone is doing it!

Source: http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/

Roman Ball Games!!

2007-11-12T14:19:00.000-05:00

Recently I was browsing to read about Medieval Civilizations of the World, and an interesting link came across while reading about the Great Roman empire.

Roman Ball Games

From the website and evidences illustrated there, it seems Romans played quite a few games popular today!! If what's seen is to be believed, roots of Hockey, Football, Soccer, Baseball and even Cricket (!!!) go as back as Roman Empire!!!!

A lot of these games are prevalent in different parts of world today. While Soccer gained the most popularity around the world, Cricket found its place only in 10-15 countries which are wide-spread. Baseball became popular only in US and so did (American) Football. It is safe to assume that, however, Rugby was an offspring of Greek-Roman times, it being first cousin of football.

{BTW, I am not posting reason for being on a hiatus as I am trying to be less self-indulgent now. :)}

Turbo Tagger

A Public Clarification!

2007-08-13T23:47:00.001-04:00

Friends and Well-wishers..

I appreciate your concern for my last post. I want to assure you that it was just a temporary fling, a one night stand with sadness and foul mood. I am perfectly fine, working hard and healthy. I have been doing a lot of introspection and have figured out some areas where I need to improve to avoid such down-times of my mind. And I feel I am doing good there.

Thanks again all...don't worry..I am still the rock star!! ;)

I'm so Lonesome, I could cry!

2007-07-26T01:48:00.000-04:00

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
Like me he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry

-Hank Williams

I am little sad...I know why. But I am not sure when I will be able to come out of this.

Yahoo! sent me a gift!!!

2007-07-04T02:28:00.001-04:00

Yahoo! sent me a gift today. My room-mate brought the mail and he thought that white packet bearing Yahoo! Answers logo was some sort of freebie from Yahoo, rightly so. I first thought it was a T-shirt as a reward for my 'Best Answers!' on Y! Answers. But lo!! I opened up and there was a cute cloth bag....

It is a gift for my partaking in Yahoo! Green Planet project. I pledged to contribute to make this planet a better place, read 'Yahoo! Green - Let's make a Better Planet'.

Well...so next time when I go for shopping...I can use this one instead of polythene bags. You all also can take the pledge on Yahoo! to help save the planet, and get your goodies!!! :)

The Fountainhead Quotes..an ode to Ayn Rand!

2007-05-30T20:54:00.003-04:00

The Fountainhead quotes - an ode to Ayn Rand!

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"My dear fellow, who will let you?"

"That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"

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"Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail."

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"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one."

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"If you want my advice, Peter," he said at last, "you've made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

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"What do you want? Perfection?"
"--or nothing. So, you see, I take the nothing."

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"I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom."
"You call that freedom?"
"To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing."

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"Argument, Mrs. Gillespie," he said, "is one of the things that has neither use nor charm. Leave it to the men of brains. Brains, of course, are a dangerous confession of weakness. It has been said that men develop brains when they have failed in everything else."

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"Whatever made you think that I aspired to be dangerous, Mrs. Gillespie? I'm merely--well, shall we say? that mildest of all things, a conscience. Your own conscience, conveniently personified in the body of another person and attending to your concern for the less fortunate of this world, thus leaving you free not to attend to."
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"But a desire to choose the hardest might be a confession of weakness in itself."

(Anti-quote)
"It's a secret, Howard. A rare one. I'll give it to you free of charge with my compliments: always be what people want you to be. Then you've got them where you want them. I'm giving it free because you'll never make use of it.

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"The style of a soul. Do you remember the famous philosopher who spoke of the style of a civilization? He called it 'style.' He said it was the nearest word he could find for it. He said that every civilization has its one basic principle, one single, supreme, determining conception, and every endeavor of men within that civilization is true, unconsciously and irrevocably, to that one principle....I think, Kiki, that every human soul has a style of its own, also. Its one basic theme. You'll see it reflected in every thought, every act, every wish of that person. The one absolute, the one imperative in that living creature. Years of studying a man won't show it to you. His face will. You'd have to write volumes to describe a person. Think of his face. You need nothing else."

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"You know, Ellsworth, I think the man who designed this should have committed suicide. A man who can conceive a thing as beautiful as this should never allow it to be erected. He should not want to exist. But he will let it be built, so that women will hang out diapers on his terraces, so that men will spit on his stairways and draw dirty pictures on his walls. He's given it to them and he's made it part of them, part of everything. He shouldn't have offered it for men like you to look at. For men like you to talk about. He's defiled his own work by the first word you'll utter about it. He's made himself worse than you are. You'll be committing only a mean little indecency, but he's committed a sacrilege. A man who knows what he must have known to produce this should not have been able to remain alive."

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The gist of entire story sums up in this quote. It is not written from the correct point of view, but yet represents the perspective of Ayn Rand and the words are put in the mouth of the antagonist.

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"But to be beaten by the man who has always stood as the particular example of mediocrity in his eyes, to start by the side of this mediocrity and to watch it shoot up, while he struggles and gets nothing but a boot in his face, to see the mediocrity snatch from him, one after another, the chances he'd give his life for, to see the mediocrity worshipped, to miss the place he wants and to see the mediocrity enshrined upon it, to lose, to be sacrificed, to be ignored, to be beaten, beaten, beaten--not by a greater genius, not by a god, but by a Peter Keating--well, my little amateur, do you think the Spanish Inquisition ever thought of a torture to equal this?"

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You're much worse than a bitch. You're a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable."

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This is one of the best expressions of double meaning, or pun. The quote can be read both ways – in a positive or a negative meaning.

"I have visited the Enright construction site. I wish that in some future air raid a bomb would blast this house out of existence. It would be a worthy ending. So much better than to see it growing old and soot-stained, degraded by the family photographs, the dirty socks, the cocktail shakers and the grapefruit rinds of its inhabitants. There is not a person in New York City who should be allowed to live in this building."

**************************************

"When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I'll ever understand. However, that's how it's done. You see, reasons require scales to weigh them. And scales are not made of cotton. And cotton is what the human spirit is made of--you know, the stuff that keeps no shape and offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward and into a pretzel. You could tell them why they should hire you so very much better than I could. But they won't listen to you and they'll listen to me. Because I'm the middleman. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line--it's a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a pretzel."

**************************************

"Why are you a good architect? Because you have certain standards of what is good, and they're your own, and you stand by them. I want a good hotel, and I have certain standards of what is good, and they're my own, and you're the one who can give me what I want. And when I fight for you, I'm doing--on my side of it--just what you're doing when you design a building. Do you think integrity is the monopoly of the artist? And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn. And yet, if I were asked to choose a symbol for humanity as we know it, I wouldn't choose a cross nor an eagle nor a lion and unicorn. I'd choose three gilded balls."

**************************************

And as Roark looked at him, he added: "Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do."

**************************************
"You're a God-damn fool. You have no right to care what I think of your work, what I am or why I'm here. You're too good for that. But if you want to know it--I think you're the best sculptor we've got. I think it, because your figures are not what men are, but what men could be--and should be. Because you've gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I've ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man. And so I didn't come here to do you a favor or because I felt sorry for you or because you need a job pretty badly. I came for a simple, selfish reason--the same reason that makes a man choose the cleanest food he can find. It's a law of survival, isn't it?--to seek the best. I didn't come for your sake. I came for mine."

**************************************
"You said something yesterday about a first law. A law demanding that man seek the best....It was funny....The unrecognized genius--that's an old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one--the genius recognized too well?...That a great many men are poor fools who can't see the best--that's nothing. One can't get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don't want it?"

**************************************

"Probably. But not quite. I'm not afraid any more. But I know that the terror exists. I know the kind of terror it is. You can't conceive of that kind. Listen, what's the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me--it's being left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who's had some disease that's eaten his brain out. You'd have nothing then but your voice--your voice and your thought. You'd scream to that creature why it should not touch you, you'd have the most eloquent words, the unanswerable words, you'd become the vessel of the absolute truth. And you'd see living eyes watching you and you'd know that the thing can't hear you, that it can't be reached, not reached, not in any way, yet it's breathing and moving there before you with a purpose of its own. That's horror. Well, that's what's hanging over the world, prowling somewhere through mankind, that same thing, something closed, mindless, utterly wanton, but something with an aim and a cunning of its own. I don't think I'm a coward, but I'm afraid of it. And that's all I know--only that it exists. I don't know its purpose, I don't know its nature."

**************************************

"Men like you and me would not survive beyond their first fifteen years if they did not acquire the patience of a Chinese executioner. And the hide of a battleship."

**************************************

"When you see a man casting pearls without getting even a pork chop in return--it is not against the swine that you feel indignation. It is against the man who valued his pearls so little that he was willing to fling them into the muck and to let them become the occasion for a whole concert of grunting, transcribed by the court stenographer."

**************************************

"But I'm afraid. Because you've changed something in me, ever since our wedding, since I said yes to you--even if I were to lose you now, I couldn't go back to what I was before--you took something I had..."

"No. I took something you never had. I grant you that's worse."

**************************************

"It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it."

**************************************

"That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. But they don't know it. Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it--the total passion for the total height--you're incapable of anything less."

**************************************

"Thank you--Dominique." His voice was soft and amused. "But we weren't talking about you or me. We were talking about other people." He leaned with both forearms on the rail, he spoke watching the sparks in the water. "It's interesting to speculate on the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves. As in that idea of feeling small before nature. It's not a bromide, it's practically an institution. Have you noticed how self-righteous a man sounds when he tells you about it? Look, he seems to say, I'm so glad to be a pygmy, that's how virtuous I am. Have you heard with what delight people quote some great celebrity who's proclaimed that he's not so great when he looks at Niagara Falls? It's as if they were smacking their lips in sheer glee that their best is dust before the brute force of an earthquake. As if they were sprawling on all fours, rubbing their foreheads in the mud to the majesty of a hurricane. But that's not the spirit that leashed fire, steam, electricity, that crossed oceans in sailing sloops, that built airplanes and dams...and skyscrapers. What is it they fear? What is they hate so much, those who love to crawl? And why?"

**************************************

"I often think that he's the only one of us who's achieved immortality. I don't mean in the sense of fame and I don't mean that he won't die some day. But he's living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict-- and they call it growth. At the end there's nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him existing forever."

**************************************

"I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival...I've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need..."

**************************************

Men have not found the words for it nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music. Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers--show me yours--show me that it is possible--show me your achievement--and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.

**************************************

Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I mean--for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they've come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once--and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters."

**************************************

"if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you."

**************************************

howard roark
objectivism
complete collection of the fountainhead quotes
Turbo Tagger

Disclaimer: All the quotes, as an intellectual property, belong to its creator Ayn Rand. This is only a humble effort to put together the best of them from the book. This should serve as a very quick reference for those who love the book, and looking for a single or more quotes use. I am not trying to reproduce from the original work, the blog is not intended or used for professional activities. I don't want anyone on my ass like some issues in the world between JK Rowling and some die-hard Potter fan. Thanks.

Do you love your Mac..or PC..or Linux..!! :P

2007-05-19T06:03:00.001-04:00

New array of Mac-Windows-Linux-BSD spoofs...they are hilarious!!
Courtesy: YouTube and TrueNuff.

Category:videos, funny videos, comedy videos

World's Smartest Man competition

2007-05-16T03:47:00.000-04:00

I am not only the World's Smartest Blogger, but the World's Smartest Man too. Well..there are a few others who are trying to match my caliber, but they will fall short. Always. :-P

Below is the list of other candidates. If you knew me, you would realize that they don't even qualify to become candidates in the race, umm..there is no competition at all.

LET ME SHOUT OUT LOUD FOR THE WORLD TO HEAR..

I AM THE WORLD'S SMARTEST MAN.

Competitors who wished their name be published here..

Goldy World
Baja Energy Blog
Charles Sheehan-Miles
Tasty Booze
Money Blog Site
Bobbarama
Dirt Exposed
Cultural Subterfuge
The Thinking Blog
A Frog to Kiss
Thought for the Day
2Perfect
Filtered Design News
Rich Gentleman Hide
Mattress Police
Bob Meets World
Hammer Uncut
The Psychic Guy
Decipher Wealth
Market to the Mobile Masses
The Rain in Spain
Horndog
What a Wheenie
Greg's Brain
Speedcat Hollydale
The Rag Box
Barstow Mama
Blog Slut
Monster Truck Man
World's Smartest Man

Your Site here

Disclaimer: The post to be taken light heartedly. My evil twin sometimes takes control of the blog and then posts some weird things. He does think that I am the world's smartest man. However, this is just a test for the page to get ranked in Google. Check Hammer's page as he came up with the idea of declaring me with the title. He is also one of the world's smartest mans.

Yahoo! Green - Let's make a Better Planet

2007-05-14T03:41:00.001-04:00

Dedicated humbly to Zalak or Zee as we fondly call her, a terrific friend. I am proud to say that she practices all the steps described in this article herself, and has been making me aware of them for a long time. Also, I would like to mention the same amount of gratitude towards Hardik, my one of the oldest buddies, and a true environmentalist I have known. Zee writes regularly on her blog We will donate about various ways of charity and saving environment. Hardik is my co-author on this blog.

*****************************************************

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi

I appreciate Yahoo! as an innovator. It's not long ago that they came up with an idea of Yahoo! Time Capsule. And this time their project is well..much more important. Yahoo! has come up with a serious issue on hand this time. It concerns our dear Planet Earth. Please check more details about the plan at http://better.yahoo.com/planet/

In this plan, you can register and 'pledge' for making earth a greener place. As you sign in, and take the pledge, you are presented with a list of steps you could take in order to reduce emission of CO2, saving energy, water and recycled items, based on your willingness of degree of effort and impact. And many steps Yahoo! proposes are very simple to follow. You can employ them without additional expenses, and all it needs is some carefulness and proactive actions on an individual's side.

One can customize plan according to different criteria such as

Family plan, Individual plan, Office plan, Student plan.
Energy saving, Water saving, Recycling and Travel.
Easy, Medium, Hard effort.
Small, Medium, Big Impact.

Some of the very basic steps I have added to my plan:

Air-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer.
Drive less aggressively -- don't accelerate and brake rapidly.
Get off junk mail lists. Read More on Zalak's blog ..
Take shorter showers instead of baths.
Carpool. Read More on Zalak's blog..
Bring your own canvas bags to the store instead of using plastic or paper. Read More on Zalak's blog..
Using darker colors on computer screen, hence the design of my blog. Read More..

The plan itself suggests more ways of saving energy for each step you add to your plan. I am the proud 364th member who has taken the pledge to keep planet green. I am going to save approx. 1.75 tons of CO2 a year by sticking to this plan. So....how much are you going to save this year?! :)

Additional Link:
www.green.yahoo.com
http://wewilldonate.blogspot.com
http://www.microtech.doe.gov/EnergyStar/info.htm#display
http://www.googleshadow.com/

Turbo Tagger

Meet my co-author, and my best friend..

2007-05-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

Allow me the pleasure to introduce to you, my co-author - Cantfindagoodname! :D

I have known Harry, our new contributor, for almost 15 years. I hold utmost respect for him as my best friend, my philosopher, my guide and my partner in many fun times since childhood. He is very educated, well learned, well-read. I am sure his contribution to this blog will bring many useful, knowledgeable posts. I can see him posting on his favorite subject - environment.

Wishing him the best of luck in this blogging world..hopefully next post will be from him. :)

Beautiful Poem...

2007-05-10T14:51:00.000-04:00

In the midst of tons of meaningful posts, (!!!???!?!? :D), I thought of shooting this beautiful little poem a friend sent me 3 years back, when I came to the US. It holds its true meaning for me, and I am sure you will be able to connect to it more or less.

**********************************************

I was thinking of old friends today
And how many of them have slipped away.
Moved, got married, or stopped calling so much,
Found new friends, got busy, and just lost touch.

It reminded me of falling leaves.

Every autumn the leaves fall from the trees.
Some stay longer than others, but eventually -
Each leaf must fall, I'm told,
Leaving the tree alone to face the cold.

Why is it that in the time of utmost need
The leaves would seek to leave the tree?
And when we need our friends around
We look and they can not be found?

Of course these friendships come and go
And in the spring new leaves will grow.
But I prefer autumn friends of old
With crackling laughter and colors bold.

It saddens me now I must admit
How somehow, someway, I did forget
Laughing with old friends of mine
During summers when the sun would shine.

And then I thought of you

**********************************************

I am sure many of you might have read it, as it has been circling on Interweb for long time. But I just started feeling my association with the poem surging once again in my life, and hence the post.

Disclaimer: I take no credit for the poem. I tried finding its real author but in vain. Whoever it is, props to him for such a nice little thing.

'FREE' and Legal Music Torrents!!

2007-05-08T04:51:00.001-04:00

It's a little stale news that American industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails released their new album 'Year Zero' on ThePirateBay, the world's biggest BitTorrent and P2P network. Well, when the world is already 'sharing' the music and movies through broadband and high-speed internet, it seems only a new idea that Nine Inch Nail is following to promote their album. 'Year Zero' debuted at #2 on Billboard charts.

When the government and RIAA battle to protect the copyrighted music and stop its sharing over the internet, there are many sites which let users download music for FREE, and legally. You can download bootlegs, live gigs, promo material of many artists from these sites.

Here's a link to a site where all such legal music torrent download sites are listed:
http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/romeria/music.htm
http://bt.etree.org/ - This is one more very nice collection of bootlegs that I have been using.
ZOMB torrents - Another very good site. However, they are somewhat bitchy about the upload and download ratios.

You can always download the music as FLAC files, which is the best audio quality. If you have to convert it to high quality mp3, you can always convert it to WMV format first using FLAC and then encoding it as mp3 using WinLAME. I just downloaded a couple of Pink Floyd gigs, and boy..they rock!!!

Support Music. Support and Save Net Radio. Sample the tracks of your favorite artists on online radio services like www.launch.com, www.last.fm and www.pandora.com.

Free Music
Free Torrents
Nine Inch Nails
Year Zero

The Technorati Fav Train is coming...Hop in!!

2007-05-07T05:02:00.000-04:00

Original Post where I borrowed the idea from: EverydayWeekender. A very nice blog, and a must see.

So, basically the idea is simple. It's going to be a win-win situation, and all of us can see our ranks going sky-high on Technorati in no time. All we have to do is add the following list of sites to your favorite and they will do the same. So, what are we waiting for? Happy Journey of this new train, and Happy Blogging. :)

Copy and Paste the following rules and they are very simple to follow.

*~*~Start Copying Here*~*~

Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

3) Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.

4) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com)

5) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves

Where is that Money - Fave the Site

www.Rahulsood.com - Fave the Site

Quartz Mountain Weblog - Fave the Site

The Original Faves

Everyday Weekender - Fave the Site
Bobs [ReformatThis] - Fave the Site
Armen’s Blog - Fave the Site
Gary Lee - Fave the Site
Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site
Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site
Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site
Jeff Kee - Fave the Site
Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site
Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site
Jon Lee - Fave the Site
Samanathon - Fave the Site
Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site
The Man of Silver - Fave the Site
Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site
My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site
Nathan Drach - Fave the Site
SiteLogic - Fave the Site
Julies Journal - Fave the Site
Stephen Fung - Fave the Site
Ed Lau - Fave the Site
QMusings - Fave the Site
Net Business Blog - Fave the Site
Career Ramblings - Fave the Site
Ramblings from the Marginalized - Fave the Site
We will Donate - Fave the Site
LifeHacker -Fave the Site
43Folders - Fave the Site
Discover Something...Everyday! - Fave the Site

*~*~End Copying Here*~*~

Post this list to your site as well.

Goliath vs David!!! ;)

2007-05-06T21:09:00.000-04:00

SUCKER GOOGLE DISABLED MY ADSENSE ACCOUNT!!!!

But that shouldn't stop me from posting at present. It's farewell to all those ads I have had on the page. It looks nicer anyways. :p

Now is the time to post more content, more appealing, more interesting!! I will at least not stop till I have not posted all 7 drafts. ;)

Catch you guys. Google might be a big fish in the pond, but there is space for everybody. They won't be able to stop the mission. NO F$%#^& WAY!!! :D

Videos that Rock the world...!!!

2007-05-02T04:57:00.000-04:00

After last week's serious discussion titled 'Don't waste food. Period.', we switch gears to something lighter. So let's watch nice videos I have found. Not all of them are funny or comedy but are very famous videos for one or another weird reason.

Crazy frog brothers!! They shot to fame just after this video became popular. They were named as one of the biggest internet phenomenons of the year '05-'06.

Chinese backstreet boys...one more internet phenomena:

The Numa Numa Kid (I could do a video like this..believe me!)

OK Go! Guys

Noah Kalina took one picture of himself everyday....for SIX YEARS!

Reference: VH1 Internet Superstars
Comedy
Turbo Tagger

Don't waste Food. Period.

2007-04-26T17:43:00.000-04:00

Well, I don't have a nice topic right now to discuss about. But I cannot stop noticing one thing, particularly in US - 'WASTE OF FOOD'.

Why do it? I have discussed this thing often with my friend Zalak, and it's annoying when you know how many countries (not just people) suffer from hunger and famine. It has been continued for so long that the units of measurement have changed. We don't say 1 million people are starving, because as a matter of fact, a couple of countries face this calamity. And not for some months, or one or two seasons - for YEARS. Our units are getting bigger and bigger. It may sound sarcastic to most, and funny to a few, but it remains one of the most painful and harsh realities of our time. An official report shows that: "World-wide around 852 million men, women and children are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty; while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty. (Source: FAO, 2003)." [Wikipedia: Food Security]

And that's not all. We have again one entire COUNTRY, devoted to obesity. Not just being fat, note the unit - OBESE. I go around in cafes and fast-food joints, there are overly huge people everywhere indulging in cheesy and greasy stuff. Lots of people throw away half their food in trash bins. The restaurants advertise 'value meals', where they give lot of food, for very less money. The amount of food is more than one person can, or should eat. So, the person buying it, either throws away or eats it all - causing harm to the world in one case, to one's self in other.

Why can't the food joints offer small chunks of food for lesser value! If someone has to eat more, he can just buy it twice. In that case, if he cannot finish it all, he has untouched food which he can eat later. Or just give away to someone who needs it. Can we think of a concept of 'Shared meals' just like shared cabs/carpool?! Well...I personally do that. Me and Z always used to buy meals among two of us, because we knew neither of us could eat it all.

Due to restrictions and regulations related to health, catering services and restaurants cannot use the leftover food for any other purpose. One very nice thing I have noticed is that they offer the take-away service and people happily and willingly take advantage of it. But, if the same catering services and restaurants can arrange for a better utilization of leftover food, such as giving to asylums, orphan houses or homeless shelters, it can serve a very good purpose. I very well remember back in India, my mother and grandmother used to take leftover food after any huge party and give it to people in slums.

A lot of people don't eat previous night's left-overs. Without being a guru to such people I would try to summarize my philosophy: 'Millions more people die of getting less food or no food at all, than people dying because of eating stale food.' That's all.

Some eye-opening facts:

India has highest number of under-nourished people in the world: 198 millions. Next are China, Bangladesh, Congo and Pakistan – respectively 150, 43, 37 and 35 million people. [Malnutrition is political term used for ‘Hunger’ to a certain extent.]
A continued condition of malnutrition can cause reduced intelligence, putting those countries in an infinite loop of poverty.

What WE can do:

Don't waste Food. Find a mean to use it, without overeating.
Help feed the Hungry - all you have to do is click on the buttons and ads on site. The organization claims of feeding hungry children from revenues earned.
Government is concerned and has instruments of taking action in such issues. Please visit: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/reduce/food/food.htm
Another very nice opinion on the topic: http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/archives/02/0927/opinions/03.html
www.Bhookh.com

PS: And we haven't even touched the effects to environment, yet.

charity
feed the hungry
feed children
shared meal
Turbo Tagger

Wordplay, Puzzles and Ambigrams!

2007-04-21T06:20:00.001-04:00

I just came across something truly amazing. I have read about Ambigrams before. To acknowledge the contribution - in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, although Brown's previous work of fiction, Angels and Demons, was more focussed on ambigrams and literally brought this art back to popular attention.

Ambigram is an art of writing words such that they can be read in more than one way.

In the above image, the word 'ambigram' can be read from left-to-right and then turn it upside-down and still you read the same word.

John Langdon is known as god of ambigram art. His work has been influential throughout the years. Another masters of this art include Scott Kim, Punya Mishra and numerous enthusiastic all around the world. :) John Langdon's work is world-famous and his credits include Angel and Demons novel itself. Not only that, it also influenced the director of The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard so much that Langdon was requested to do title credits for the movie. He also designed quite a few symbols in the movie.

Well, ambigrams form a very small portion in the world of wordplay. In the world of puzzles, different forms of twisted and deformed wordplay is known as Flats. And there are many many types of Flats, some famous one's being Anagram, Antigram, Deletion, Enigma etc. You can read more about wordplay and Enigma puzzles at National Puzzlers' League's website.

The craze for ambigrams and wordplay puzzles is not new. Noted writers such as Shakespeare, James Joyce have used wordplay in their creations for long time. The new messiahs of the genre are making it more world-wide popular. The spread of internet also contributes to that. It does require lot of dedication and practice to become an ambigrammatist.

Here's a nice link where you can create simple ambigrams of any words of your choice. It can also mix 2 words so that it can read one word in one direction and 2nd in another - Ambigram Generator.

References:
Punya Mishra's Home Page
John Langdon's Home Page
Scott Kim
Planet Perplex
http://balaambigrams.blogspot.com/2007/04/pink-floyd.html

ambigram
wordplay
puzzles
Turbo Tagger

A Wonderful Online Radio for Indian Rock Music!

2007-04-19T01:11:00.000-04:00

Today's blog is about my discovery of this new streaming audio site. Known as Radio-verve, this site specializes in Indian Rock music. So many of Indian bands, that I used to listen to but were missed due to my transition, were found today. Pentragram, Pin Drop Violence!!! I can also keep myself updated on upcoming Desi bands, such as Extinct Reflection, Demonic Resurrection, IIIrd Sovereign, Joint Family, MyndSnare, Narsil, Bhayanak Maut, Black Hole theory...the list goes on and on. Some of the best things to happen in life were these bands. Despite living in a relatively rock-dry city of Ahmedabad, I almost grew up listening to or about bands such as Pentagram and Indus Creed. And now all of them come to me!

Also a Google search on the bands got me some free clips of some of them. God..it's a beautiful life!!

Portable Apps - Part 2

2007-04-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

As a second part of the original post Portable Apps - All you need is a USB, I am trying to summarize few more applications that can help you in your day-to-day chores. And I cannot emphasize more on having a portable email client that suits all your needs!

John Haller loves to build portable applications. His next gift to us is Portable Thunderbird. Mozilla's original ThurnderBird is a wonderful open-source cum freeware application, a great alternative to Microsoft's Outlook. The portable version works like a charm.

Feel like having a calender to keep yourself scheduled?! No worries fellas! Portable Sunbird is right here. I thought the Sunbird project was long dead. But it was a pleasant surprise to see this application.

How can you imagine a computer without virus...errr...anti-virus application?! Clamwin Portable is there to rescue. Sweet part is that although it's portable installation, it updates virus definitions everytime you use it.

I would be worried about spywares-adwares more than virus today. I have tried and succesfully used Spybot from a USB stick. It is a simple trick, where I installed both on a USB stick instead of a local program file folder on the hard drive. Next time I had to use it, all I had to do was click the .exe on the stick. There are few more such applications available like X-RayPC but I have never used it before.

FloppyFW is a portable firewall application you might want to consider.

For an alternative web browser, you can always try Portable Opera. Many many people consider Opera far better browser in the universe.

Putty is a freeware SSH client. It is a tiny .exe file that you can run to connect to a remote server. It is really cool toy.

Along with GAIM, you can use Portable Google Talk as a chat client. I found this 20 MB CrazyPack, which included many cool small apps that you can use on USB. Most of them are listed here already.

I think you can also use uTorrent as a portable application. But I am not too sure about it.

Purplenova is a very good web server you can run off your USB.

If downloading and installing each application separately is a pain for you, you can also download another package called Pensuite. It comes in different varieties as per the usage and size.

If you intend to rely this much on USB sticks, you must read PCStat's USB Data Recovery Guide. Things can go wrong anytime as USBs are flash drives. You should be prepared for a rainy day anytime.

Here is a nice article I found about setting up all these portable apps. Hope it is helpful.

More Links:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php
Check out this list as well: http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/20213

Category:
portable applications
USB
spyware
computers
browsers
Turbo Tagger

Lord Hanuman sending Spams!!

2007-04-16T17:52:00.001-04:00

Spams are becoming a bigger nuisance than beggars and hawkers these days. Mails claiming to help you with mortgages, recovered treasures are fun in a sense, while the other type: extending a 'hand' to increase size of a person's organs are highly unwelcome, disturbing, frustrating and embarrassing. :-D

Rediffmail is one of the earlier email provider services in India. It was no wonder that I had an account on that site, being one of the early users of internet. [Smell the self-satisfying ego here. ;-) ] The service in the past and even now, earn their revenues from 100 spam per day policy, I am sure. When an old friend from my rediff using days told me that she sent an important email to my rediff account, I was reluctant to go open the mail. I had to recall password, and like my most other online accounts, I used the Forgot password technique. ;)

And lo!! I had some 1500 spams waiting for me. Thank God, they had a new search feature by which I could find my friend's mail. But one particular spam caught my eye.

I had this one spam, from someone named Hanuman, urging me to buy a 3 CD set of a popular and epic mythology series Ramayan at discounted rates. Well, it did make much sense because Hanuman was a leading character of that mythology!!! Hanuman is a God, one of the many metaphorical divine entities of Indian culture.

Before this I was getting daily spams from Jenny, Cassandra and Julie - requesting if I was available for a date. They interest in me was overwhelming, and gave me an ego-boost. I could never make it to the date because of my busy schedule. What a pity!!

But this was probably first time in the history of my life I received a spam from God himself! I must be not very religious. If this was God's way of reaching to me, it was very eye-opening. I cannot afford those CDs even at discounted rates. But here I am, off to my torrent sites. I am sure God is not interested in my money, but only wants me to turn to my roots, heritage and culture. Thanks God, for lifting my spirits in times like these. When I am out, I will sure buy some CDs!! ;)

Fold to cure, and save lives!

2006-07-25T04:25:00.000-04:00

You can help save lives. And it doesn't even require that you get up from your couch. You can continue reading this blog, your online newspaper, chat with your friends or simply surf on MySpace - all the time unfolding those mysterious proteins that cause abnormalities and serious diseases like cancer.

The project is known as Folding at Home. Started by Stanford professor Vijay Pande, it utilizes a computer's spare CPU cycles to compute and simulate complex protein structures. Anomalities in protein structure can result in diseases such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

Folding at Home is a distributed computing application, which is a tiny program you run on your computer. People all around the world download the folding client, let it run and the results of simulation are sent back to Stanford server. To encourage a healthy competition, each work unit one folds is benchmarked and awarded points.

Hardware enthusiastic all around the globe fold for the cure of cancer. This process also helps them burn in their systems, and is a good benchmarking tool for many. There are thousands of teams formed by such zealots and they contribute to the cause day and night.

There are some downsides to this activity. And I don't want to keep the readers in dark by not educating them about those drawbacks. However, rest assured there are solutions and reasons to all of them.

100% CPU usage causes wear and tear on processors. However, if a processor is not utilized fully, it will become outdated after 3-4 years anyways. So, that can be called its life time. This life time is not reduced by running a folding client.
In case of laptops, heat and battery usage - folding client is configurable. You can set it to use only 25-50% of the total CPU cycles. Also, it only uses spare CPU cycles. If any other process uses 90% CPU power, only 10% is dedicated to folding client. Plus, it can be set to shutdown if laptop switches to battery, or is at a certain percentage of your battery power.

So, there actually is no reason why you shouldn't be folding. If you are worried about having to start it every time you turn it your system, or feeling lazy about it, you can set it as a service, and forget about it. There are tons of things you can do to monitor it as well.

If so far you have been interested in what I said, please go and visit their site. There are couple of more guides I am listing here.

Ultimate Folding Guide, Folding FAQs, Folding Tweaks, Official Stanford FAQ page.

I request anyone who reads this blog, to at least visit these links. Give it a shot, we can make a huge difference.

Category:
cancer
distributed computer network
folding at home
Turbo Tagger

Portable applications - all you need is a USB! - Part I

2006-07-23T07:04:00.000-04:00

So, was it obvious I would never post again! ;)

Anyways...good to be back. And I want to talk about those tons of portable apps I have been googling on. I think and I have come to realize that, you can almost run a PC from an external hard drive, or better yet from a 1Gb large USB thumb drive.

First of all, let's start with the heart of a computer - Operating system. Hope you all have heard about Damn Small Linux. It's a Linux LiveCD distribution. Also, it sizes only ~50Mb. Another good distribution was Flonix which seems offline these days. Puppy Linux is only ~60Mb and is claimed to be a very good alternative as well. These distros come bundled with tons of portable applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice. There are also projects to create Windows on USB and Mac on Stick, but both include price of operating system thus making discussion worthless here. :)

Next thing you would need on a computer system is an office suite. On a local machine where you have huge space, you actually install an application like that. If you have huge pockets, you can go for a paid, complete suite such as Microsoft Office. Otherwise, OpenOffice or Star Office would do just fine. The good news is - OpenOffice is available in portable version. You can thank John Haller, and get his Portable OpenOffice. It's a terrific application. A must have for that USB stick..

I can't think of myself using any browser other than Firefox now. I get frustrated when I have to use some other's computer and FF isn't installed on it. There is a cure to that. And it comes in the form of Portable Firefox, again from the same developer, John Haller. So, now you can carry around your extensions, bookmarks, saved forms - just about everything you have on your computer!!

I think this much information is good enough to get you started. Get your USB stick loaded. All you need is 256Mb. I hope to add some more utilities in next edition of my blog, whenever I get a chance. I just need to dig out through my bookmarks. Expect details on portable anti-virus, firewall, media players, chat clients, photo editors, CD burners, compression apps....oomph..it's a long list...in next blog!!! :)

Main agenda of the blog

2006-07-13T02:05:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't need one more blog for no reason. I already have subscriptions on one or two different blogging services, a few social networking sites, a few forums etc. Adding more to my internet life would be absolutely unmanageable.

However, this blog aims at serving a purpose. I have heard that clicking on ads and various links in a blog on Blogger.com earns the blog-owner some money. Along with a few other friends, I sincerely intend to do some charity with those money. However small the amount, will go to some kind of charity. I don't have exact plan where, but trust me, it will be used for a good purpose.

Please click on the links. I will try to keep content of the blog interesting as well. You can expect different blogs on computer hardwares and music from me. Or traveling, which I maintain to do every weekend. ;)