Over Weekend..

Watched Gulaal. Awesome movie. Story, performances, background score, Awesome!!

Who watches the Watchmen..

Well, I haven't watched the movie yet, but finished reading the book recently. First graphic novel I read. And I think I should read more of those. The beginning is awesome, but the book loses some steam in the middle, thankfully, picks up again towards the end. The artwork is visually striking and blends superbly well with the narration. There are many interesting subplots, the one I liked best is Rorschach and the psychoanalyst. Yes, Rorschach. If I had to name the hero of this novel, I would say Rorschach. A very carefully developed character. The authors have given ample attention to the psych profiles of other characters too. Each represents a different attitude towards life. And in the end, they leave you wondering, who is right? Is it Rorschach or Daniel? Or the Comedian? I don't think there is a straightforward answer to it.

Go ahead, give it a try. It's totally worth your time. Many memorable lines are scattered throughout the book, especially from Rorschach, here is my favorite,

"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being a comedian is the only sane thing to do."

-The Comedian

Enjoy!!

[Many thanks to Vinaya for sharing the book].

I am feeling happy.

Just a personal note. Sunil (my old roomie) uploaded some old photos on Picasa today. Includes our first Water Kingdom trip (about 1.5 yrs ago), Musa's Pune visit (about a year ago) and some photos from our Baner room (where we stayed from Jan07-Dec07). Just looking at them makes me feel happy. Thanks Sunya.

[I have uploaded some of them to my orkut profile].

hostname = amitcv

I am on a roll.
-Sheldon, TBBT S02E06

Another wonderful weekend party. This time we did not go out, planned a house party at Amit's place. Now he had to leave for Mumbai on Friday night itself, but generously, he postponed his plans (An alternative explanation would say we bullied him to do so, which is not improbable). So a big Thank You to Amit. The Friday was running cool, had lunch at Abhishek, and there was a knowledge transfer session planned in the afternoon which I planned to attend and sleep through, but at about 3PM, hell kinda broke loose. OK, it was not that bad exactly, what happened was the sudden discovery of a few critical issues. Had to skip the session and trim the snack hour, but I did not want to miss the party and I didn't (even if that means working over the weekend ;-). We left office at about 7:15pm and reached by 8 [Note to self: Try to remember the roads]. The apartment is on the fifth floor and thankfully, rest of the apartments on the floor were unoccupied (An alternative explanation would say the occupants ran away as soon as they heard us coming, which is again not improbable). We were ready with chips and colddrinks, but somebody (not me) got this nice idea of a present for Amit. Good Job guys!! We ordered pizzas, started some music and pissed off the guys on the fourth floor danced ;-). That was fun. I just hope Amit need not start looking for a new place. V and Z had to leave early, rest of us went to Aurora Towers for a coffee afterwards, nice place. Tired and sleepy, reached home by 1am.

[Time to leave for the office guys; the 'working over the weekend' thingy has no alternate definition ;-)]

Enjoy!!

Update: Read Zarin's post here.

Collected thoughts about Science

Who?
How?
And most important, Why?

[But you should also know this (go to the last panel if you are too lazy) and
this ;-)].

Enjoy!!

[Note: Some links may require a refresh or two, AG in particular].

Words

Words. One of the first things we learn in our life. And lifelong companions. They are indispensable would be a gross understatement, almost on the verge of stupidity. And here is a funny thing, they don't reveal their magic all at once, just like a master showman. Like there are words you are all too familiar with, you've heard them for like a million times, but what they truly represent, the meaning, is something that life teaches you, as you go along. They come, go and mutate and do crazy things inside your head. Surroundings play a part here, maybe you change with age, maybe your newer prejudices (some say wisdom, not very sure if that is the right word) replace older prejudices. But that's all well and good, you might say, what's my point? Nothing in particular actually. I was just amused at how these things happen. That's it. But let me end this little piece (of totally incoherent blah blah) with something I read somewhere many years ago (and think might be useful). The great Indian scholor, Panini, once said something to the effect (IIRC), "A man gets moksha if he truly understands a single word". Seems like there's some truth to that.

To: Fellow Twitterers

My Twitter use is increasing by the day, but this article raises some valid points.
[I like Fail Whale (everybody does ;-), find out how it came to be here].
And meet the creators here. The name is fundoo, I must say.

Another beautiful passage

A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine". We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if was look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they came to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts- physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on- remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!!

[From Six Easy Pieces]

Happening weekend (a lot happened)

Made my first trip to a pub/disc (I hear there is a difference) on Friday. Was not very sure if I wanted to go, had suspected I would just get bored, but glad I did go. We had our dinner at E street cafe, again, was visiting it for the first time, a nice place anyway. Then came the dancing part. Surprisingly enough, I was not thrown out even after four hours on the dance floor ;-) . Learned a couple of new things too, like innovative uses of tissue paper and using clocks to locate objects. But again, wonderful time is less about the place and more about the people. Thank You Guys..

Reached my room at about 3:30 AM, and next 13 hours were spent in a sleep-wake cycle. Rajesh came to meet in the evening, meeting your old college buddies is a great great refresher. Went for a long walk on the road behind my house later in the evening, wide, not very crowded (and hence less noisy), ideal for gappa-tappa. Made a short visit to Nashir who was leaving for Belgium late in the night (and gulped a glass of Durga Cold coffee, my favorite).

Meanwhile got my phone in a saner state, which had become a constant source of irritation for me (and for my friends, only more so). There was some issue with the phone memory, so I could not send/receive messages, not even look up missed calls and stuff. A software reset solved (or seems to have solved) the problem. I had imagined that taking the phone to a repair shop would be necessary, but exactly one Google query gave us the solution. Yes, Google Rulez!!

Abhishek (my roomie) gave me a great news later in the evening, we were getting a TV. Not a TV tuner card TV, but an actual, proper, respectable TV. As it happens, one of Abhishek's friends happened to have an extra one. Don't ask me how can somebody have an extra TV, I am amused myself. It's almost as amusing as someone having an extra toothbrush ;-). But yes, now we have it. Not operational yet, the Tata Sky guy hasn't given darshan yet, but hopefully that will happen soon. Suggestions on what to watch (and what not to; I suspect there would me more of these) are welcome.

AND did some random reading (H2G2 and PuLa), reconfigured my phone (like tuning in the radio stations and setting the ringtone), had to make room for the TV, in the process cleaned my room (OK, part of it) and restored some order to the swirling vortex of entropy (to use Sheldon's words) that I currently call home, all over a single weekend.. huh... :p

So how was your weekend?


P.S. Happy Pi Day. Enjoy.

Segal's law

A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.

A beautiful passage

If we stand on the shore and look at the sea, we see the water, the waves breaking, the foam, the sloshing motion of the water, the sound, the air, the winds and the clouds, the sun and the blue sky, and light; there is sand and there are rocks of various hardness and permanence, colour and texture. There are animals and seaweed, hunger and disease, and the observer on the beach; there may be even happiness and thought. Any other spot in nature has a similar variety of things and influences. It is always as complicated as that, no matter where it is.

[From Six Easy Pieces]

Trick or Treatment

I was not very confident of my decision when I picked Trick or Treatment on my last trip to Crosswords. The subtitle said 'Alternative Medicine on Trial' and frankly I had not given the topic a single thought before. I bought it nonetheless, mainly because Simon Singh is a co-author and I am fan of his books. The book covers four main alternative therapies, Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Chiropractic theory and Herbal medicine. The authors analyze the scientific evidence available for the efficacy of these. The book is really well written (but that is to be expected from Mr.Singh), with interesting digressions into topics such as history of clinical trials and placebo effect. I have one axe to grind though, the authors often repeat themselves, something which takes away from the readability. And here is the grand conclusion, none of the alternative therapies mentioned above is worth the hype it generates. Marginal benifits have been shown under specific conditions, but cure-all claims are largely baseless. But such information is not widely available, and with the size of the global Alternative Medicine industry crossing $40bn, we really need that info.

Weekdays

Non Friday

Friday

[OK, it's not exactly Beer, insert cadB / coffee(fokat ki) / chai(fokat ki) / fokat ka anything else ;-)]