Random Music Musings III - Reruns of the Floyd

I always wonder why, if a song that I've heard scores of times before (on CD/ tape) plays on radio, it makes me happy. There's a sudden sense of discovery associated with it, especially if the song is slightly off the beaten track. (needn't be, but it helps.) I feel the same way when a good song I know plays in the background of a movie. (Also see: Cameron Crowe). I also sing along to songs playing in restaurants while I'm supposed to be eating food, but that's just me.

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Book on the top of my "to-acquire" list:"Music Lust" by Nic Harcourt. KCRW impresario and break-giver to acts like Norah Jones and Coldplay, Harcourt lays out his favorite artistes and albums. The book is organized in an interesting manner using different themes. A theme includes "twins" because he is a father to twins. This book promises the world and more. With a title like that and his pedigree and taste, he can't go very wrong.

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Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon" rocks. And how! The more I listen, the more I learn why it is a seminal work. Sonically and lyrically, a masterpiece to top all masterpieces.

The superimposition with Wizard of Oz? Over-rated and over-hyped by conspiracy theorists. Some mind-altering substances may definitely have been part of the hype machine.

Watch the laser show at your closest laser dome though. Seattle and Pittsburgh (my two major US domiciles) both have laser domes attached to their science centers with shows based on DSOTM.

Previous music musings: I , II

You haven't lived till

you've...

1. Heard Eric Clapton/Blind Faith's "In the presence of the Lord" at full blast.
2. Tasted the tiramisu at Dilettante's
3. Taken a curve on a road at at least twice the rated limit.

More in this series on the way...

Stylusing

I’ve been looking with some interest and bemusement at the way the Tablet PC is evolving. The idea is to have an interface that is as human-friendly and intuitive as possible. The pen paradigm used in the Tablet makes a lot of sense in that way – for Gen X, brought up on pen and paper, the stylus works great to take quick notes. Good handwriting recognition software is already available, and any quirks in interpretation can be ironed out.

However, I (and many other people I know) fall in the category of people who can actually type faster than write. Growing up on computers (since age 10) has resulted in a comfort level with computers that grows more with every new generation of children entering schools. This is a set of people more comfortable not only with QWERTY keyboards, but also with the seriously limited keyboards of cellphones – where you have to press a key thrice to get to ‘C’ or to ‘F’.

There is obvious value in the stylus, of course. Diagramming is one obvious use. Doodling to get your creative juices flowing is another one that pops to mind.

I don't own one myself, but I'm curious to see ways in which using a Tablet may be better. One thing about good design is that you realize its power as you use it more and more. Case in point: GMail. Another case in point: The new Office 2007 Beta 2.

Unless I can get my hands on a Tablet to use for an extended period of time, I guess I really won't know either way.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Dinner-time conversation with a friend got me thinking – very deeply. The topic was related to work/ compensation. He said( I paraphrase) - when I was a student just a while back, the prospect of earning this much money seemed great. I wondered what my friends (who were already working) did with the money they earned. Now that we’re here, it’s obviously not enough. Everyone wants more. But I’m not unhappy with what I’m earning. Bonuses, stocks, pay raise, it’s no big deal.

It was refreshing - a relief to hear someone with a real sense of perspective on what matters and what doesn’t. Work matters – doing it well is worship in some ways. Excelling and getting due credit for it isn’t a bad thing. I really believe that the satisfaction you get from a job well-done is pretty good motivation for keeping at it.

But there’s more to life. Money is a means, not an end. A German car for the love of driving is one thing, but a German car as a status symbol is completely something else ( there’s a reason I put the 3-series right next to the Camry and the Accord – it’s such a clichéd thing to own). So are ridiculous McMansions with space for 10 while being occupied by two people and a dog.

Money is over-rated I say. While I'm at it, for the record, I also say that I want a Bose sound system, an SLK and a condo overlooking the Sound.

Net neutrality

Two things that I have reasonably strong opinions on are colliding strongly in the net neutrality argument.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5063072.stm

First a bit of history.

Net neutrality means that the network service providers get no control over how data flows over their network. They are dumb carriers of whatever bits the end-points (us customers’ computers, servers, mobile devices) put on the network.

This is based on the classic End-to-End Arguments paper by Saltzer, Reed and Clark. (a personal favorite for its elegance, simplicity and the complete awesomeness of the idea).

To explain, a telephone network is a smart network where the intelligence is all in the network, while the end-points only work as originators and terminators. In the case of the Internet, it is the other way around - all the smartness is in the end-points, while the network only routes packets from point to point.

However, the network providers wish to change this. Pay more, get higher quality of service. The question is: can these providers be trusted?

My economic opinion is: let the market take care of itself. But, as a customer and a technology professional, I am very skeptical of the network providers playing it fair here. The network provider business is hardly a free market, with the entrenched telco and cable providers holding an unfair advantage over newer entrants. There is no way for a new upstart to come in and make a great business out of promising net neutrality. For many tech-unsavvy customers, this concept is unknown and they'll have the problem of having to choose between options they really don't know much about. Which is if they get a choice in the first place. The ridiculous amounts of money we pay for the joke we call broadband in the US bears testimony to a lot of things, including the fact that we don't really have a choice when it comes to our high-speed access.

This "smart network" leads us down a slippery slope. If the providers say that they can give better quality of service to certain kinds of traffic, this means that they can distinguish between traffic. Can these people then hide behind the common carrier argument for Peer-to-Peer traffic? They'll have to clamp down on illegal filesharing since they've just proved that they can know this kind of traffic. They may be loath to do this, because, admit it, it is one of the reasons many people get broadband in the first place.

What is to stop a provider from discriminating against independent service providers? If Comcast makes sure its video site runs superfast while Google Video runs, well, a tad slowly, on the Comcast network, Comcast makes a lot of money, while Google will be forced to pay money to Comcast (which will earn money for no reason but the fact that it is the only cable broadband provider in my area). Vonage has already complained in places of their service being sabotaged by service providers with their own VoIP offerings.

As I said, the devious mind can think of a number of ways in which this net non-neutrality is a bad thing. That being said, I'm still trying to figure out if free market economics, with technology may actually result in a positive outcome for this. Lets see where this leads.

Fortune is carrying a special section on team-work and what makes great teams click. The most fascinating article by far is the article on the peloton, the pack of cyclists that make up the bulk of the contingent doing the Tour dé France. It is a story evocative of the Godfather, omérta, and "all for one, one for all" semantics.

And if you thought Lance Armstrong was only about very low heart rates, the stamina of ten men and the mental toughness of a hundred, think again.

Check it out here.

The Tune in My Head

I'm amazed by how evocative music is for me personally. A couple of weekends back, a friend riding shotgun with me was rummaging through the pile of CDs in my car. He put in this CD compilation I'd burnt maybe a year and a half back. The title was "Assorted Mix".

Fat lot of help that title is. This was before I started labeling my CDs more seriously. I now have titles like "September '05" or "San Diego - Las Vegas road trip". That is much more helpful.

This compilation "Assorted Mix" is very random. It crosses genres (Eminem to Blondie to Linkin Park) and time-zones ( though the music's mostly from the '90s).

However, even as I was driving down WA-520 and I-5, there were times I'd see myself at different places in different states of mind. There I was, in my room in C-block, worrying over my word-lists on a lazy sunday afternoon, and probably wasting too much time chatting with Alhad. Then I was in grad school, sitting in a lab by myself, wrapping my head around some esoteric networking concept, thinking if Eminem meant me when he said "Success is my only motherf*$%ing option, failure's not". Linkin Park's "In the End" was another favorite in those maddening and frustrating times.

I've mellowed down since the times when only rock music was an outlet. I've been listening to a wide variety of music over the past year now - electronica, world music. I've taken a stab at trying listening to *gasp* Indian classical music (the gasp is because it's me doing this attempt).

Time to burn a few more mix CDs.

One shot. One moment.

"One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection."
-Chuck Palahniuk.

The quest for that minute continues. Raise the bar. Push harder. Make life hard for yourself. Harder than it really needs to be. Try to be everything you ever wanted to be. Then some more . And some more after that. Wear three different hats at a time. Juggle half-a-dozen balls while wearing them.

When you drop the ball, and all of this comes crashing down around you? Start over. Again.

One minute is enough, Tyler says.

Blurry

The past few weeks have gone by in a flurry of activity. There's only so many simultaneous demands on your time and mindshare that one can tolerate. I learn every year that this number is flexible and keeps on increasing.

Every such crunch time, I decide, "This is it. After this, it's all smooth sailing. I'll kick back and relax for a bit." Glutton for punishment that I am, that is never the case.

*Sigh*. This, too, shall pass...

A Fortune cookie

I'd sounded off a while back on paid news sites, and how shifting to a different model of some sort would make more sense for them.

I'm no business expert, but the fine folks over at Time-Life (who bring us Fortune and Business 2.0) have seen the light. Let the link goodness begin.

Tragic irony is when you hear a prodigy call another phenomenon by the name of an icon. All three of whom died young.

Bravery is him then going on to sing a cover version of Yeh Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai. In Urdu with only his guitar for accompaniment.

Genius is the fact that he actually pulls it off.

“Nusrat?– He’s My Elvis.” – Jeff Buckley, Live at Sin-e.

Word to Blog

So, Word in the new Office 2007 supports blog publishing. Being on an internal-only beta, I’ve decided to give this a shot.

Testing – 1,2,4 ..Mike leak ho raha hai kya?

 

A clean break

Clean breaks from the past are good. Bad habits are let go of, unpleasant memories left behind and an attempt is made to start anew. New places, new place of living, new job all afford this opportunities. I've made a few of these in the past year or so to varying degrees of success.

All this is fine and dandy. But it seems my laptop got the wrong signals. I meant excising bad habits, not my entire music collection, photographs and sundry other data that I may deem important a few years down the line. Efforts with partition tables, boot records and live CDs have all been pointless. My data is hosed and I've been condemned to digital hell.

Re-building a system, installing software. So much time wasted that could have been used more productively.

Moral of the Story: Always back up your data. Frequently. And frequently is not once a year.

It's happening...

Roger Waters to play Seattle's Key Arena. It has been heard the entire Dark Side of the Moon is on the program.

So you thought you might like to,
Go to the show
To feel the warm thrill of confusion,
That space cadet glow...

In the interim, Joe Satriani's next week. There are no other acts that I'm super-keen on seeing this summer (except Dave Matthews Band). Sasquatch has some interesting acts lined up, but they are on different days, and I'm wary of driving all the way to watch just one act.

On the movie front though, things are definitely more interesting. X-Men III, M:I-3, Spiderman 3 and Superman are all hitting the marquee this summer. Fun comes.

Ideas, or the lack thereof

My site-meters gone crazy over the past few weeks. I wish I had a clue what was so interesting about my October 2005 Archives that people seem so attracted to it. October was one of the crazier months in my life in the past year (work and otherwise). But it was not the craziest. No sirree . Not by a stretch. Does the October archive have some special pixie dust that has given it all this page-views? I wish I had a clue. No, Technorati hasn't been very helpful either.

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What is it with Pakistan and the mass production of:

1. Squash players?

2. Fast-Medium bowlers?
3. Good pop/rock bands?

First there was Junoon, then Strings redux, and now Jaal/Jal. I heard a cover of Woh Lamhe at a CRY fundraiser concert last week. I got the CD of the album from a friend this week and have been hooked. The same things about Strings that appeal to me make their appearance here. More rock-sy and less pop, surely. Definitely better lyrics, especially on Aadat, filched shamelessly on some Mahesh Bhatt production. So was Lamhe, I hear.

Musically, there is a lot of influence from rock bands, but the sound is original. I think the original singer Atif had a slightly better voice, but the new vocalist manages to do a good job. I recommend Aadat, Bikhra/Aadat, Woh Lamhe, Rangon Mein and Panchhi. There are low bitrate MP3s on the band site so check them out!

This CD's been playing in my car, at home and on my work headphones all day(and night) long.

Where are the good Indian pop/rock bands? I haven't heard any new ones in a while.

A dash dashed

"Life's a journey, not a destination" , said Steve Tyler in Amazin'. After a rollercoaster ride with many gut-wrenching lows and a few really awesome highs, here I stand.

At the age 0f 26, I could say I'm not too unhappy with what I have. There are things that I wanted to do when I was 22. Less than 5 years later, a very important one has come to fruition.

Well, I blabber too much. Changes have occurred on the job front. To the outside world, these are cosmetic. For me, they matter. A lot.

The world's my oyster.

There she goes...

P1000619, originally uploaded by ajayvb.

My baby. My city.

American Gods

A review of Neil Gaiman's American Gods on the lit blog.

I'd say it's less of a review and more of a reaction to a reading of the book. If it makes some people curious about the book, mission accomplished.

Ubiquity

Where: Chicago O'Hare Airport. Concourse L.
When: An hour before departure. 15 minutes after check-in. 5 minutes into a realization of general fatigue after three days of catching up with friends and family.

So, there I am, looking for a shot of caffeine which might do me a world of good, prime me up for the wait for boarding and set me up for reading a book that has been middling so far. The Seattle-ite in me looks for the familiar - the same brand that comforts millions worldwide. From waking up in the morning to staying up at night - the long-tressed lady framed by a green circle is the oasis for this desert-trapped traveler.

Wait. Something's wrong. I've walked through the entire concourse. Passing my gate, down to the end, there's no sign of the place. Nor of any other place that would provide succour, except a sports bar that doesn't look like it serves my favorite poison. I pass a Hudson News, noticing that "The Da Vinci Code" is out in paperback. Mental note to buy the book later is made.

I re-trace my steps to the mouth of the spoke, wondering if Howard Schulz missed a trick somewhere. Is is possible that a whole concourse with 12 gates does not have a Starbucks? How could this happen? What happened to the Starbucks Coffee Company I knew in NYC, the one where I could cross a street to go from one of those to another? What is this world coming to, if you cannot have a cup of not-so-great (but not-too-bad) latte while waiting for your flight, which incidentally is now 20 minutes late?

Ah. There it is. Some construction work obscured my view, causing me to not notice the place the first time around. Sanity is restored. Caffeine shot (only my 3rd of the week,mind you. I'm no junkie. Maybe I'm still in denial) is ingested. With renewed vigor , the trials of Elizabeth and Darcy are returned to. As another acquaintance would've said - "Starbucks is everywhere. I'm going home and buying a few shares right away."

Young faces - unscarred by that rampaging beast called time. The young lean bodies sustained on bad mess food, unfattened yet by junk food and too much coffee.

Importantly, the easy smiles. Enthusiasm all over - the comfort of being with friends you can let your hair down with. Where mundane considerations like life, jobs and a career still seemed far away. Where a tough life meant things that were laughably smaller in comparison. Where fights were over things so ridiculously petty that they seemed like life-and-death back then.

Yes, an accidental viewing of old college photos brings back a flood of memories. The word, I believe, is "evocative". It's amazing how much can change in 6-7 years.

Doing nothing...

never felt so good.

Hold that place

I'm sure I'm not the only person reading more than one book at a time. This kind of attention division to females would cause me being labelled a casanova. If I were a kid, I'd more likely than not be put on Ritalin.

All this book-philia leads to problems. I found this really nice used-book place while driving through Redmond. On a lazy saturday afternoon, I decided to check it out. The next thing I know, I am walking out with three books, $15 lighter in my wallet(you should buy used books - great for your pocketbook) . I found a few more books there, but common sense prevailed, and I decided that scaling my ambitions wouldn't be such a bad thing.

The books were:

1. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. October Sky - based on Saket's glowing review and a movie viewing three years back.
3. Effective C++ by Scott Myers

The challenge here is keeping track of page numbers. If it's a book or two, remembering page numbers is easy. But when you get to a level of insanity like mine (sometimes I read four books at a time), you tend to use bookmarks.

I started out with random pieces of paper - library checkout slips, receipts, but now I have a full-fledged new interest - bookmarks. Not of the del.icio.us variety but the colored, laminated paper variety.

I have an interesting collection now:

1. A purchased one from the Museum of Flight called "Celestial Fireworks". This is the only one I've actually purchased.
2. A CRY brochure that came in the mail.
3. A promotion for a Shakespeare production in Pittsburgh. (Picked up at the Craig Street Coffee House over two years back)
4. A thick card with the year's top books (picked up at the local library).
5. An advertisement for a new production of The Little Prince. (Picked up at the local Starbucks)
6. A promotion for the Princeton Review. Better SAT/GRE/GMAT scores guaranteed!

It's becoming a bit of a hobby now. Except for the first one, which I actually bought, the others are all picked up for free. The most hilarious one I remember seeing was by the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction Institute) in CMU. They had one which said something to the effect - "User Studies show that using this bookmarks helps improve memory of current page numbers among subjects." I'd love to get my hands on that now.

Questions. Answers. Life.

Self-belief, like self-doubt feeds on itself. When everything's going well, the small things you do wrong are glossed over and looked at as aberrations. When things are not going well, every small move you make is analyzed with excruciating detail.

What if I hadn't done this in that particular way? What if that had fallen in place the way I'd expected it to? What if...(No. Not the Coldplay song.)

Maybe it wouldn't have been such a waste of effort. (It never is a waste, incidentally. You always learn). Life would have been different today, wouldn't it?.

Especially when you get this feeling of déjà vu, you can't just say "Ah, there's a glitch in the Matrix" and move on.

If you are scared of making the same mistakes again and doing something completely stupid, you will. You never learnt your lessons, did you? (When they were handing out sanity, you were sleeping at the back of the class).

Maybe you won't, but you will never know unless you take that giant leap of faith. Maybe things will go the way you would like them to. Maybe they won't. Maybe you don't even know how you'd like things to go.

Maybe I worry too much.

Landmarks et al

"The ability to be patient is rare and praiseworthy for it means a player is willing to let a moment pass aware that he can own the next."

My favorite cricket journalist - Harsha Bhogle on my favorite cricketer, Rahul Dravid on my favorite (and IMO under-rated) virtue here.

India's main man hits a landmark 100 tests. Cricinfo has a good section on him.

On a personal note:

The 17th of March is a defining day in yours truly's life. It redefined the way people look at me, and this embarrasses, infuriates and pleases me in equal measures. The 'pleases' part has gone down in recent years as this mortal tries to find something that he really wants to go on his epitaph.

On Strings' Dhaani

One quality that I admire in music is integrity. There are times when the music may only be average, the lyrics though not pedestrian may only be above average, but what lifts an album is the honesty that shines through. An artist trying really hard to make something worthwhile very rarely bombs completely, and it is tough not to appreciate that effort. In an era where pocketbooks and not talent determines what albums are made and who gets the big contracts, being true to your craft is increasingly an anachronism in mainstream music - be it rock, pop, Bollywood or the genre derisively called Indi-pop.

Notable exceptions abound, and one of my favorites in the past season has to be Strings. Strings will be remembered fondly by early MTV veterans as the young Pakistani band who crooned Sar Kiye Yeh Pahar on some scraggly mountain-top outside Lahore or Karachi. The silken-voiced Bilal and the clowning guitarist Faisal re-grouped many years later to give us the U2-esque Duur - one of the best pop/rock singles to come out of the pop-rock firmament in the sub-continent.

I haven't heard the album Duur in a while, but a chance listening to Dhaani left me wanting more. The CD was duly purchased.

As I said earlier, a certain lack of guile permeating through the album makes it very attractive for me. The duo don't seem out to try any manipulation. None of the songs except Hai Koi.. have any kind of annoying DJ rapping nonsense or arbitrary English choruses having no relation to any of the lyrics. This is an album by a duo intent on doing their own thing and they pull it off very well.

The more serious songs have Faisal's heaver, classical-style voice adding a touch of gravitas to the proceedings. Dhaani, Najaane Kyun, and Kahani Mohabbat Ki fit well in this mould. The other songs in the album including the playful Sohniyae and the pensive Mera Bichhra Yaar benefit from Bilal's lighter touch, and Chhaye Chhaye is a lovely combination of their singing styles, playing off their distinctively different voices.

There are two notable collaborations on the album - Bolo bolo with Hariharan which left me cold for some reason, while Pal with Sagarika, which was part of the Channel V Jammin' series suffers from a "Duur" hangover - though the violin and Sagarika's dreamy vocals still make it eminently listenable.

The album ends on a bit of a limp note with both Jadoo and Hai Koi Hum Jaisa (apparently the Pakistan World Cup theme song) failing to impress.

The songwriting doesn't quite take off, but except for the last song, it's never abysmally bad. The Urdu makes it arguably sound better than it deserves to, but some of the songs - notably Kahani Mohabbat Ki and Najaane Kyon do stand by themselves as reasonably good pieces of song-writing.

All in all, it is a good advertisement for non-Bollywood Hindi music. It's Indi-pop (or rather Pak-pop, if there's such a term) as it should be. As I understand it, Strings have enjoyed success either side of the border, and deservedly so.

Update: At the Indian store here yesterday, I saw Najaane Kyon interspersed with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst mooning over each other. Turns out the track was on the Spiderman 2 soundtrack when the movie was dubbed in Hindi. The visuals and the song were so jarringly incongruous that it threw me off for a while.

Biding his time

There's only so much head-shaking you can do in sympathy for Kimi Raikkonen. The man seems to have the most rotten luck ever in Formula1 racing. What still impresses me about him is how much he accomplishes in spite of that. Unlike Juan Pablo Montoya (I am a big fan, BTW) who has this habit of messing up and wasting that incredible talent, Raikkonen almost always suffers because of mechanical failures through no fault of his own.

So, let me go out on a limb and make a prediction. In some time (not so soon, maybe a year or two), his luck will turn around. His car will be reliable and then there'll be no looking back. When he finally hangs up his helmet, he'll have beaten most or all of Schumacher's racing records. He does have age on his side.

Re-factoring

Warning: Nerdy post on programming. If you're not into it, avoid please.

Refactoring means re-writing code keeping the external interfaces intact. There are many reasons to do this. You may be adding new features to your product/module, and the existing architecture may not allow these. So re-architecting the innards of the code, keeping your external APIs identical may be a good way to go about this.

Then there is performance. There may be parts of your code that may be tweaked to run quicker or more efficiently, and you may want to take advantage of that. Circumstances change and you may realize that the complicated bit of code you wrote as a one-off thing needs its own function call, since there may be other callers for that function and re-using the code is now important.

There is of course the possibility that what you wrote say a year back may simply not have been the best way to write that code then. You are a better programmer now, understand some of the trade-offs better and can write better code now.

Refctoring is something that one learns to look at while examining old code. Most programmers in this industry don't get the luxury of starting from a fresh code base. All of us work with existing code, and seeing things that may need refactoring is now de rigeur for me. Not necessarily because it needs to be, but as I said, new requirements and scenarios mean that there is potential for writing commonly used tasks as new functions, etc. What I write is mostly for internal consumption which makes things like application compatibility (app-compat in internal lingo) less of a challenge.

But it's difficult. One of the biggest challenges that I always have is figuring out a better way to do things. There are modules I've seen which beg for refactoring. There's something inelegant about them, something hack-ey. The key to great design (software or otherwise) is simplicity. And elegance. The solution has to look simple. And it has to look good. If it doesn't, that means you are (or the person before you has been) doing something wrong.

So, you know it's wrong, but since you've seen it being done that way, you get used to it. The classic problem I face is "That looks horribly complicated. I'm sure there's a simpler way of doing it." and I get around to figuring out a way to do it. I even take out pencil and paper (if I take out pencil and paper to work out things, that generally means it has to be pretty complicated. I generally work out many tasks in my head - more than is arguably good for me).

The most important thing is to be able to get your head out of the rut it's in because of seeing the existing solution. If you are able to throw away existing assumptions when you try to re-factor, and start from scratch to work out something better than what has gone before, that is an achievement by itself.

Rock-alicious

Bon Jovi rocked Key Arena on the 6th. Old favorites coupled with some surprisingly thoughtful songwriting on the new album made for a fun show. Then of course, there were the screaming women. I had ringing ears long after I came out, and the number of people singing along to "I'll be there for you" was enough to make you cringe.

I realized that the songs of Bon Jovi I like are different from the ones that are the most popular. The most loved ones are the "power ballads" - what I'd call the sappy love songs - "Always", "Bed of Roses" and "I'll be there for you". I prefer their "young rebel" ones ("Blaze of Glory", "Dead or Alive", "Keep the Faith") - keeping with the age I started listening to them.

I'm not complaining since they did sing the songs I wanted to listen to.

So, here goes the list of big acts I've seen live so far:

Mark Knopfler
Bryan Adams
Def Leppard
Coldplay
Bon Jovi

If I see U2, Eric Clapton and Pink Floyd (fat chance eh?) perform live, I can die satisfied.

Sci-Fi scare

A question to Sci-Fi fans...is a post-apocalyptic scenario a necessity for every major sci-fi book that is written? Why does there have to be a world war, or a war of the worlds for life to change so drastically that things get scarily out of our control and in the hands of the Thought Police or the robots?

This fact was driven home when I was reading Philip K Dick's The Minority Report and Other Stories a few months back. Dick is one of the most well-known and respected authors in this genre, and I have been fairly impressed with what I've read so far. However, in many of his stories (The Minority Report being a notable exception) , it is inevitably some apocalyptic incident, a world war of sorts which brings things to a head, causing major issues with authority over-reaching itself, and some sort of sinister, all-pervasive government/corporate body taking over. Mercifully, Mr. Dick uses this premise sparingly.

But he is influential. Influential enough to have a major science fiction writing prize named after him. Which doesn't help aspiring wannabes any. All of whom seem to looove the idea of a apocalyptic war ending Life As We Know It.

An interesting thought I read somewhere was that Japanese culture (especially anime) is obsessed with this, because it is the only true post-apocalyptic society in the world today. Interesting thought to chew on, but it doesn't explain the rest of the world being obsessed with this.

IM(Very H)O, nuclear weaponry has made it difficult for countried to go to war easily. The détente produced between countries possessing nuclear weapons makes it impossible for them to go head-to-head. The real danger is going to come from the so-called Clashes of Civilization. This rise of terrorism has been unexpected (at least to the general junta), and it is something that may affect how we see life over the next 50 years unless something drastic happens (unlikely).

Technology as a disruptor

Disclosure: I hold no shares or interest in any of the companies I talk about here. This is an amateur's opinion. Hang yourself on it - I am not responsible.

In the past few years, the commercialization and corporatization of all entertainment forms has led to a drastic reduction in standards of mass entertainment all around. After the Telecommunications Act of 1996 , many radio stations in the US are controlled by one of two big conglomerates - ClearChannel or Infinity. (There are places where they own all the FM stations in the market between them).

This means that music heard from coast to coast is identical with no variations. Playlists change very infrequently. In fact, if you are in an interior small town, there is a good likelihood that the local DJ who you think lives up on Walnut Street may be living in the Upper East Side in Manhattan. They have taken you for a ride, localizing the DJ without hiring a local DJ. In addition, they have been found guilty of accepting money and other considerations for playing music. Tie it in with venues owned by sister companies, ticketing by another group company, and we have the dreaded 'c' word - cartel.

The music companies themselves have merged and married among themselves, and there are only four major record labels left. They control the majority of what goes on in the mainstream industry. MTV and VH1 are no better (Viacom owns Infinity, MTV and VH1), turning into celebrity reality channels with gems like "Laguna Beach" and "Celebreality", losing the reason they became such phenomena in the first place. It isn't about the music anymore, is it? Do you remember the time when MTV was cool because of its music? Heck, I cut my teeth on MTV India in the early 90s.

As always, in a free market, the solution should present itself, right? The problem is, when there is an oligopoly of this kind, with no real enforcement of laws and wink-wink,nudge-nudge considerations, there is nothing of that sort. These people have a stranglehold on the airwaves.

Technology and free markets however make for a formidable combination. Enter satellite radio. Satellite radio has over 10 million subscribers in the US. We know this number because these people pay around $10 a month to either one of the two major providers, Sirus or XM. At an average of 2.5 people per family, it means satellite radio reaches 8% of the US population. Not a bad number, come to think of it.

I personally feel that technology at times may provide a left-field facilitator for opening up markets in such situations. Maybe satellite radio is not significant enough. However if the affluent demographic shifts to satellite radio, they will take advertisers with them, forcing terrestrial radio to get better at their programming. With digital radio having the potential of doubling the number of local stations, there may still be hope.

Another classic case where technology and old-fashioned infrastructure (the kind we sorely need in India) has brought about a real revolution is movie rentals. Netflix presents an all-you-can-rent option for DVDs ranging from $10 a month (1 DVD out at a time) to $17 a month (3 DVDs out a time). DVDs are delivered to your home, and you choose movies and put them on your queue online. The great thing about this is, Netflix is likely to carry that obscure movie you desperately wanted to watch, while your local Blockbuster will not. In fact, Netflix made its cachet off stocking Spanish and Hindi movies for immigrants who did not have easy local access to these movies. It gives you a chance to pick up a rare movie that may not be in circulation. Of course, Netflix has taken this a step further with its ratings and recommendations system. There's a whole community it has generated - people who keep getting great movies in the mail simply because they were recommended by people with similar tastes. The Long Tail is put to work really well here.

This has forced Blockbuster to drop late fees, at one time a big revenue-earner for the company. They've started their own all-you-can-rent service, both in-store and mail-order. With the kind of DVDs available increasing, there is now a much better market for documentaries or off-beat TV shows.

IMO, in the popular arena, things are going to go downhill or remain stagnant in terms of quality. No business is going to spend $150 million on an experimental movie idea unless it had some hope that it could recover its money. Which explains the antiseptic cookie-cutter summer blockbuster. LoTR or some exceptional superhero capers notwithstanding, most films fall in this category.

The challenge for governments and lawmakers as always is to do the right things (get a great postal, road and connectivity system in place, for instance, or facilitate the happening of that). Remove obstacles. Watch the entrepreneurial spirit take over. For excitement, add a dash of tech bravado. For sizzle, add an IPO. Serve with a side of media hoopla, and soak in the praise. (Egads. Mixed metaphors going overboard here.)

Sox-y Adventures

I'm not given to Seinfeld-esque observations because I'm simply not as funny as the man. However, there are quirky everyday mysteries that make you really wonder about the laws of physics and suchlike phenomenon.

One of them involves my laundry.

I saw this advertisement within my office building for an internal company campaign of some sort. It shows a washing machine and a single sock. The theme of the advertisement was: "Some things will always remain a mystery."

Tell me about it. One of the most mysterious (and infuriating) things about doing your laundry is sorting all your clothes once you are done. If you have clothes in the load which are prone to attracting static, heaven help you. By the time the dryer's done, many of your static-y clothes are filled with enough electricity to power a small bulb (I'm sure Mohan Bhargava could have put this idea to some use) and they are all sticking to each other. The worst culprits, of course are the socks. Invariably, one sock (or three, or five. It has to be an odd number) will go missing. After sorting all your laundry, you are left with that mysterious odd one out.

More than once in the past few months, I've had this wonderful mystery. All my laundry's put away, making for a successful weekend (or rather, a peaceful week ahead) and the next thing I know, there's a single sock left. It sits there, in the corner of my bedroom, in silent admonishment of a job badly done. I look at it before I go to sleep most nights, wondering if I should get up and turn my wardrobe upside down to search for it. Invariably, sleep is too tempting.

I dread the day when I'll wear a sweatshirt to work, and some pretty girl (the kind I absolutely don't want to be embarrassed in front of) will say "What's that sticking out of your sweatshirt"? and it'll turn out to be that pesky sock stuck to the inside of my fleecewear.

Thanks for all the views...

This blog started out and continues as a personal exercise, a place to flesh out thoughts, to tame those whirling dervishes that dance in this head, and to bring a semblance of sanity to a mind that is “A Greyhound station, where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations”

Writing for me was catharsis, a way to lay those demons in my head to rest. It was a way to retain my sanity as the world about me fell apart, me the Nero, writing as my Rome burnt.

Well, I exaggerate. My world was/is fine, the sky isn’t falling on our heads, but yes, I’m probably a bit wack in the head, as you may have concluded from some of the stuff I post here. That some of you think it’s worth their while to come here and give my wild thoughts their time is touching.
When I meet or talk to people in meatspace, and these people tell me that “I read your blog. You write well.” I wonder what this world has come to. I look at my sitemeter. Though it doesn’t move like the meters on the rickshaws in most Indian metros, it has shown a steady trickle. I look at the hits and where they come from. I wonder, “Why are these people here? Is any of my writing this interesting? The purpose of this exercise was that – to better my writing. Is it working?”

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But thanks for keeping the faith. Keep coming back. Especially if you think any of this is worth it. The best analogy to personal blogs like this one is the one Michael Higgins uses – some of these blog posts are chocolates – the quick taste gives you a few seconds of pleasure. Some may be gold coins – genuinely valuable nuggets that you may want to pass around in perma-link form. Be it for chocolates that you come here, or for gold coins or maybe just for vela time-pass, thanks.

No, there are no anniversaries or landmarks coming for this blog (It’s almost eighteen months and over 200 posts old). This is just one of those “from the bottom of my heart” posts that I’m putting out because I feel it from the bottom of my left ventricle.

On Rocky And the Underdog

*Spoiler alert* for someone who's not seen the movie and cares to not know the ending to a non-thriller with a non-Shyamalanesque twist.

Rocky is one of cinema's big cliché movies. The story of the underdog who overcame the odds to become something bigger than himself. The backstory of the movie itself is similar, with Stallone pushing the script door-to-door, refusing to make the movie unless he got to be Rocky as well. The story to trump all stories, the movie won multiple Oscars, including Oscars for Best Film and Director, and nominations for Stallone for the screenplay and (gulp) for his acting. Rocky got so crazy that there were eventually five Rocky movies. Stallone went on to become a billionaire, giving us other classics like the Rambo series and some really bad acting too.

When I first saw the movie, I was underwhelmed. There was a bit to the tale, but I didn't see much. One of the explanations that me and my friend (whom I saw the movie with) could muster for the success and resonance of the movie was that it was arguably a function of the times. The late 70s with a bad economy and the movie symbolized hope for the underdog in some ways. Maybe in the more prosperous '0s, that wasn't so true anymore, and we couldn't (and could never) 'get' the movie.

I was wrong. Even as I think back to the movie now, it (the movie) makes more and more sense. Part of it is arguably that I've grown older and seen more of life since then. The character-building itself is one thing, but what holds the key to the film is the last, actual boxing match. The night before the match, Rocky says to Adrian, "Cause all I wanna do is go the distance."

Then of course, there's the fight. Even as Apollo pummels Rocky, he just keeps coming back, doesn't he? He really shows no sign of giving up. He does go the full distance to lose on points. What matters there is the fact that he goes the distance. Every blow that he gets, he manages to get up again, ready to fight.

Like Simon and Garfunkel sing poignantly,(not about Rocky, though this could apply)

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
’til he cried out in his anger and his shame
I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains
Yes he still remains

Hell, yeah. Rocky's my hero. Now, if only they hadn't made those sequels...

Economics and Us

Two books that in the media recently have caught my attention and are going up high on the list of books I wish to read.

One of them is The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen ( a good review on the BBC )and the other is The Undercover Economist. The Undercover Economist seems like an interesting read. Freakonomics has caught attention all over, thanks to the accessibility of its content, and the popstar-styled title. I've read that, but as this review states (via India Uncut) , The Undercover... probably has more in terms of learning value. It definitely seems to have some interesting points to make.

In a related thought, there was a great joint interview with the two richest men in the world in Fortune a few months back. One of the most pertinent points Bill Gates made in the interview was (I'm paraphrasing here) that normal people were genuinely lacking in economic education, which made debates related to jobs, outsourcing and the economy emotional and not well thought-out.

I personally find this extremely relevant. While one course does not an armchair economist make, I've seen my thinking on many aspects of business and the economy shaped considerably by the one "Managerial Economics" course I was required to take during my Masters. The concentration of the course was on demand-supply and pricing related theories (mainly macro-economic theory as it were), but it opened up a fresh insight into a whole new area of thought.

In the US, a common complaint is about the scientific temper being lost. With strident protests against teaching evolution in schools, and an impressively insidious campaign raising skepticism about global warming, there is definitely a greater need for debate to take place in scientific terms, and for these to be accepted by the mainstream.

India, of course has a greater challenge of educating a large proportion of people who are still uneducated. However, even among educated people in India, there is a genuine need for a greater economic temper as well.

What's in it for me?

One of Business 2.0's themes for successful businesses in 2004 was that they were businesses that allow other people to make money as well. The web affiliate system has made it a lucrative way for genuinely savvy people to make money without really bothering other people (unlike some of the more unsavory incidents related to 'independent ventures' that we hear of). This has been an important trend over the past couple of years.

There are infinite variants on this scheme, with more ingenious ones coming out all the time. The first major one, of course, was AdSense from Google. Other services like Overture existed before this, but this was the first one to really take off. Then there are other ones like Amazon's affiliate system where you click on a link to buy a product, and some part of the proceeds go to the seller.

An interesting new job site called Refhounds got forwarded to me recently which is to an extent looking to tap into the same 'entrepreneurial' spirit among people. If you refer a person to the site and he gets hired, they pay you. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other similar services, but this is the first one I've seen of this kind.

Ben of Ben's Bargains apparently makes a cool $20,000 a month only on the basis of his site. I'm sure there could be some kind of entrepreneurial model built around all of this.

Hiatus

General ennui and busy-ness in general has led to this unprecedented 10 day gap in blogging. Apologies. Beethoven, I'll be. hmm.

Commenting on the Grammys cannot be done without though. U2 are the media, industry and crowd favorites at the Grammys. I don't mind them winning, but there is something about double-dipping. They won a number of awards last year, and exactly how they won again this year isn't something I understood. I wish they'd keep the rules simpler.

More names have been added to the list of artistes to listen to. Books have been read and discussed, and posts will be made when this phase passes.

Till then, sample this fine video from SNL to keep you entertained.

Color Me Good

Rang De Basanti will have its share of critics - people who didn't like the film for a million different reasons. I could pick a few faults in it myself, but my advice to anyone who actually reads this blog is: go out and watch it.

I liked the movie. Because there are a million small reasons to like it - small nuances to appreciate about the way the movie is set up. Apart from that, there is an intangible 'it' factor a movie has. There are movies for the head and the heart. However, this movie hit me straight in the gut (and I mean that in an entirely good way). Admittedly, everyone won't feel the same way. But, heck, that was one $10 ticket well-spent. (I see more viewings in my immediate future)

No spoilers here - just go out and experience the (filmi) 'awakening of a generation'.

Can't still get "Roobaroo" out of my head...

Munich

Munich is a film that seems to be in two minds. It seems like Spielberg, the accomplished director, was out to make a spare, intimate film about killing and vendetta and the human toll it takes. Entwined in it is a grand tale of Israel, the PLO and the 1972 massacre at the Olympics. Telling this second tale is Spielberg, the biggest blockbuster director of our era. They collide in uncomfortable ways, sometimes making you scratch your head.

I've been reading about the film, and though I've tried to avoid the reviews, methinks the coverage carried by Time and elsewhere is reading too much into a film, that, of course, has to have a lot of reading between the lines done to it. After all, it has all the characteristics of a zeitgeist-defining film.

1. Oscar-winning director with top box-office appeal? Check.
2. Middle-Eastern context? Check.
3. Moral Dilemma? Check.
4. Applicability to current political context? Check.
5. Gratuitous shot of the WTC? Check.

Except for the last bit, which would probably have been more surprising for its exclusion (see: The Gangs of New York*), the film itself isn't manipulative in any straightforward way. Spielberg sticks to his best skill: that of the story-teller. Albeit a stricter editor could've done something about the pace, this story of a bunch of Mossad spooks on a vengeance mission is although uneven, definitely worth a watch.

The film succeeds in its primary intent. We are drawn into the conflict faced by the agents with a license to kill. The quest to not cause collateral damage of the human kind starts off as an important part of the mission, but the blood-letting and the blood-let-ters grow increasingly nonchalant and even callous as the film progresses.

IMO, the film does put across well what it sets out to say- an eye for an eye, however hated or 'evil' the enemy is, takes its toll on the executors. Anyone but the most hard-boiled of ideologues would find it difficult to digest the kind of deaths the protagonists see and engineer. An uneasy encounter with people from the 'other' side (this scene is too pat IMO) adds to this discomfort, and the retaliations that ensue mean that the cycle is endless. The film offers no easy solutions, and I'd be loath to demand any.

The film is best watched without reading too much into anything, as that gives too much weight to what is ultimately a story of individuals. But as I mentioned earlier, the film is too important not to be minutely analyzed, every phrase parsed for nuances.

A thing that works for the film is the lack of serious box-office star power. Geoffrey Rush as the team's liasion with the government is (as expected) to the manner born. Eric Bana is surprisingly competent (except for an uneven accent) as the upright, no-questions-asked agent who starts having doubts down the line. The support cast is again competent with the future Bond (Daniel Craig) making an appearance too. With no couch-jumping antics, the focus of coverage on this film has been on the film and related issues, a welcome relief.

It's been a pleasant surprise - two good movies over two weekends, (Syriana and now this), with well-known stars/directors doing their serious turn.

* The ending credits of Gangs of NY showed a CG-created animation of the NYC skyline (as seen from the Brooklyn side) evolving over the years. It stops with a shot of the WTC. The film was released in 2002. Scorsese chickening out? Not really, further research reveals.

GMail Problem

Boy, I'd have loved to see the reaction this would have evoked if it had been a Microsoft offering.

Linky here. Fun stuff.

Insightful

Ari makes an eloquent point over at his blog that I'm still trying to digest for the clarity with which it explains the erosion of civil liberties in the US with the Patriot Act, unauthorized phone-tapping, fear-mongering et al.

"It seems to me to be that the fundamental position of the right in response to 9/11 is to be as much like our enemy as possible; torture as a tactic, drive religion into the public square, and a super powerful executive branch. Their message to the troops who defend us is that they are not defending the US anymore but just the collection of people who are (legally) sitting between Canada and Mexico."

I think that for me as an immigrant, the idea of the US as a haven of freedom (yes, I know it sounds clichéd, but admit it, it's true) and as the Land of Opportunity is something that makes more sense than the "Us Against Them" mindset the far Right brings into the argument. The US is losing part of what makes its democracy great by these unwelcome intrusions into personal lives in the name of "The War on Terror".

Me Against the Music

Ars Technica (a fine site for the compute technophile) has this nice opinion piece on growing apathy towards music.

Quote from the original study:

"The degree of accessibility and choice has arguably led to a rather passive attitude towards music heard in everyday life.

"In short, our relationship to music in everyday life may well be complex and sophisticated, but it is not necessarily characterised by deep emotional investment."

Ars Technica refutes:

"In the end, it was people like Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson who turned music from an emotional human experience into a mass-market commodity, not the advent of music downloading and MP3 players. If anything, Internet downloading has offered alternative music a better chance at reaching new audiences than it ever had before."

I'd agree with the second piece. It's not downloading, or too much easy access to music that is causing this apathy. Music on most popular stations on radio and TV is bad. It's as simple as that. There are other factors, like the fact that this generation has many more distractions (computers, the Internet, games, cellphones...), but music media has to do some serious hard work to ensure that it stays relevant to the set of people other than the airhead set who'll lap up anything the mass media throws at them. The discerning people are the ones who are passionate enough to spend on buying CDs, and going to concerts, which is where the real money is.

My morning drive (when I'm not listening to a CD) is punctuated by repeating cycling through local radio stations in the hope of finding a half-decent song to listen to. The same standard set of songs repeat through with hardly any changes. If I hear "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day or "Somebody Told Me" by The Killers a few more times, somebody (or something) is gonna get hurt real bad...

There are amazing songs I've heard out there. They are generally by bands with the weirdest of names like Gorillaz, Death Cab For Cutie, and My Morning Jacket. They pop up on one of the "Alternative" stations or on listener-supported 'eclectic' stations like KCRW or KEXP. These stations surprise you with the sheer variety of music they have on offer.

To paraphrase an (in)famous management institute, Dare to look beyond MTV and popular radio stations?

In the case of Hindi music, dare to look beyond Jatin-Lalit and Anu Malik (or is it Annu Malleeek for numerological purposes now?). Try Indian Ocean or Strings. There are pleasant surprises out there. You may just get passionate about music again.

* The title of this post is the name of a Britney Spears - Madonna single. Exactly my point, it's them against the music. I choose music.

Et Tu

U2 is the world's biggest rock band. Period. Wannabe upstarts like Linkin Park and Coldplay will have to wait before they can prise the cup. In all likelihood, it will be from the cold, clammy fingers of Bono on his deathbed. Incredibly enough, the band has gone from strength to strength in its 25+ years of existence.

You may think Bono's politics are too strident or that their melodies sound too jaded now (I disagree), but one thing you cannot deny is their success. The scalpers in Seattle had a happy smirk on their face as they sold tickets for thrice the already steep list price on craigslist. This for a concert in Portland - a 3 hour drive from here. The Seattle concert took place just before I moved here, and I can only imagine the frenzy then. I didn't even try this time, unlike my scrambling for Mark Knopfler tickets. I knew the exercise would be futile.

U2's career, as anyone reasonably interested in them knows, spans four distinct phases. (These are unscientific and of my own making, so bear with me).The first was as a small but highly visible and rising Irish band with anthems like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day". They were always strident, with a point to make and the world was theirs to change.

The second phase was when they exploded on the world stage. This was when they released the monster success "The Joshua Tree", spawning classics with very long-winded-names like "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" , "With or Without You" and "Where The Streets Have No Name". I'm sure the inlay designers had a hard time with that album.

The third, and IMO most interesting phase of their career came with Achtung Baby, Pop and Zooropa. Bono famously pronounced that "Rock is dead" and they went through this experimentation phase. Bono tried some serious multiple-personality business with alter-egos called "The Fly" and "Mephisto". The distinctive, soaring rock sound took on an electronic tinge, and the music was fit for a late-night lounge rendezvous more than the arenas that U2 filled with lighter-bearing fans.

Achtung Baby was either lauded or reviled with very few opinions in between. Pop on the other hand was almost universally panned and did not do too well in the commercial sweepstakes either. (I loved both albums to varying degrees, though)

IMO, this phase, though the most derided of their career,is what saved the band. After participating in Live Aid, and doing The Joshua Tree, U2 were in danger of becoming too strident, too serious and too full of themselves. There was a good likelihood of them becoming insufferable. (There are people who'll say they are insufferable enough as it is)

This New Age phase, if you will, helped them learn to let their hair down. U2 fans, try and remember a fun U2 song before this time. Except Rattle and Hum, which had "Helter Skelter" and "Desire", there isn't a single U2 song I can recall which wasn't a call to arms of some sort, or a lament of some other sort.

The result was that when they returned to basics (Phase 4, if you were paying attention) with "All That You Can't Leave Behind" (please, what's with the long titles?), they had learned the fine art of restraint. Their sound, though essentially the same, has evolved over the time, and this album showcased it off to great effect. There was the unusual beauty and grace in songs like "Beautiful Day", the cause-embracing "Walk On" (that stands on its own as a completely awesome song), but there was the bit of tongue-in-cheek with "New York", and the robust, uplifting "Elevation".

"How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" repeats the formula in some ways (including the long names), with "Vertigo" providing the sass to the solemnity of "Sometimes you can't make it on your own".

Bono gets a lot of attention, but U2 is an incredibly tight band. The Edge (lead guitar), Adam Clayton (Bass) and Larry Mullen (drums) have had a big hand to play in the success of the band. (OK, it's one of the few bands other than the Beatles where I know the name of every band member) I cannot think of "Where The Streets Have No Name" without the wall of sound the guitars and bass create, or "Sunday Bloody Sunday" without the marching band drums. Stroke of genius, that.

Media mavens, charlatans, showmen, business gurus, call them what you may. U2 is the world's biggest rock band. Period.

Roshambo, anyone?

Wordsmith is the best. They send you a new word in the email everyday. This is one of those things that would have been really big among many of us preparing for either the GRE or management entrance exams. Of course, back in the day, email was a weekly affair since paying Rs.25 an hour for just checking email or surfing while at the hostel seemed a bit much. Our source of difficult words was the Times of India editorial.

However, I subscribed to 'A Word A Day' recently because I thought it'd be interesting. It's been fun mostly, and you learn new things on the list all the time.

There are additional meanings to words though, that Wordsmith will not elaborate. Roshambo is probably one of these words. For a full treatise on this French word, read this.

For the pop-culture summary (much more interesting), read this.

As for the 'inviting' title, no thanks. I'd rather watch.

"Bad, bad server. No donut for you". Orkut, the bottom-scraping dog of all the online services out there. Yes, it is owned by Google, my favorite online company.

"Please excuse us while our server is having a massage." - Flickr, the media darling photo site. Owned by Yahoo!

Cute, yes. But am I the only one who is so so pissed off? (In Eric Cartman's words). 'Free' services by these notable service providers means that we have to put up with sub-standard services. Instead of raising the bar on service and availability, why do I see that the bar is being lowered? Of course, Google is introducing new services quicker than people can say "We are not evil", but at what price? I remember reading and being impressed by the number of servers they ran, with their legendary clustering software and the GFS, but they can't keep a puny social networking site going? Or is it that 'Beta' means you get away with it?

I remember how in the early 0's I used to be impressed by Yahoo!'s uptime figures - they apparently had servers which had not been switched off for more than a year at a time. Now, every other time I log on to some online service, there's a cutesy message, asking me to twiddle my thumbs while the server gets a spanking or a massage or whatever the perverts at the data center can think up for it.

In the past two weeks, my favorite email app, GMail died on me once for no reason (I press the send button, and there is an error message from the server), and did not send out an important attachment on a different occasion.

There are some very maddening aspects to this attitude:

1. I'm not paying for the service. I am expected to be grateful that they are providing this service. I am also expected to be grateful that I am giving them eyeballs and the opportunity to make their billions off the ads I click on. I'd like to see Amazon have such a down-time. Because they stand to lose millions in lost transactions for every error, employees are on pager duty to ensure things go well. Things like diagnostics and support are taken seriously.

2. It's 'Beta'. So, STFU and play nice. Wasn't beta something you did for a few months while you ironed out kinks? Isn't 'software as a service' at least partly about the fact that you could fix things quickly on the server end? I won't even go into the time I was locked out of GMail for a whole day for no reason.

Orkut is apparently run by a three-person team within Google (Some business magazine I was reading talked of this as being a good thing. They obviously own or want to own Google stock and have never used Orkut) I am not surprised. With the quality of the site, it is obvious that three people with an IQ of 200+ cannot handle all of this.

There are unsexy things associated with running a website that the alpha-nerds at Google and Yahoo! need to learn. Things like uptime, maintenance, tech. support. When they learn this, maybe we can talk of Web 2.0.

Note: I am not panning any MSN services here because I don't use any other than MSN messenger. I am a fairly tolerant customer. These services have really raised my hackles, which is some achievement by itself.

1024 * 768

Until I get a new computer, that is.

I fall in the category of not making New Year's Resolutions. Actually, I fall in the unique category of not making just NYRs. A New Year is a reasonable time to evaluate where life is going and if you like the direction it's taking. (Many people seem to like doing it).

But I find it more useful to take stock every once in a while, especially after what the insurance companies call a "life-changing event" or something thereabouts. So, most of my good intentions have been intended at the beginning of semesters, changing of jobs or cities, or on a Friday night when sleeping early seems too wasteful. Like tonight.

Resolutions for this epoch? Watch more movies. Good ones. Read more books. Good ones. Make more friends. The kind worth keeping.Fall in love.*

Be kind to people. Be hard on yourself. Expect less of other people. Expect more of yourself.

And, always wear sunscreen.

* The day this has to be planned for is the day it freezes over you-know-where.
** The title of this post is pure genius, spouting from the fount of wisdom that is Alhad.

In-joo-nity

Leavenworth is an interesting tourist spot. Situated in the Cascade mountains close to the Stevens Pass ski resort, it is a Bavarian-themed village where everything from the local Starbucks to Bank of America have Bavarian/German-themed signs and architecture. The village is full of shops and restaurants with the same theme. Summer sees Bavarian-themed dances in the village square, and Winter sees elaborate lighting for Christmas with a full choir accompanying a town crier on a full-fledged "Lighting the Christmas Lights" ceremony.

So, what's with the Bavarian theme? Is it that a group of people moved here from Bavaria some generations back and decided to re-create their homeland here?

Actually, no. From the official history of the town...

"For more than thirty years, Leavenworth lived on the brink of extinction.

But in the early 1960’s, everything changed. In a last-chance effort to turn their precarious situation around, the leaders of the community decided to change Leavenworth’s appearance, hoping to bring tourism into the area. Using the beautiful backdrop of the surrounding Alpine hills to their advantage, the town agreed to remodel their hamlet in the form of a Bavarian village.

Hoping to create more than a mere facelift, the entire community rallied to create the illusion of Bavaria in the middle of Washington state. Besides the complete renovation of the downtown area, community members worked to begin a series of festivals. The Autumn Leaf Festival, Maifest and the extremely popular Christmas Lighting Ceremony were the first of many attractions Leavenworth offered to passers-by.

It worked. Since the change to a Bavarian motif, Leavenworth has become a pillar of the tourism industry in the Pacific Northwest. Today, more than a million tourists come to Leavenworth each year, each visitor finding their own individual love affair with the community. The story is a landmark case of the human spirit: Not only did the people of Leavenworth survive their most critical hour, but they endured."

I doff my hat to the ingenuity and chutzpah of the fine folks of this town. What amazes me is not just their spirit, but the fact that they are able to pull this off without having *any* historical links to the German province. While the food items and such may be authentic (as is the architecture), I did not find many things in the souvenir stores with serious German provenance. In a restaurant, a few friends interested in trying German beer found that they had only one variety in stock.

I think more than the place itself, the idea of such a place was more interesting. I must say there is something to this American spirit that so many people keep talking about. More than in rhetoric and jingoistic country songs, this is where the never-say-die spirit of the American settlers shows itself.

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

- Eminem, "Lose Yourself"

TOI RSS Goodness

Lalit IMed me about the re-layout of the TOI a few months back. The feature I gravitated to immediately was the RSS feeds section. I must say I'm impressed. Some of the things on my wishlist have been granted - a feed dedicated to columns, and one dedicated to the editorial page.

Some grouses remain which I hope will be addressed in future re-iterations.

1. The columnist section feed still does not indicate who the author is. For instance, I'd be interested in any article by Swaminathan Aiyar or Gurcharan Das. Jug Suraiya, occasionally. I still have to go through each article to see the author. The name of the author in the feed itself would be so much more useful and time-saving. That's the point of RSS, isn't it?

2. What is it with the multi-page layout? We scared of reading more than two paragraphs on a page now? Our attention-deficit-addled minds not capable of much more? It's time they give the reader a bit more respect. Clicking 'next' after reading so less text is irritating, as is the fact that even short articles have something like 5 pages dedicated to them.

3.Nice font color. I like the subdued grey used for the text. However, on-screen real estate shows exactly where the priorities of the newspaper lie. A total of less than 25% of the page layour is dedicated to actual newspaper text.

The RSS feed is a blessing. I haven't read the TOI for over a year. Didn't miss it a single bit. I did miss some of the columnists I enjoyed earlier - unless they were linked to by other blogs. This gives me a chance to keep up with the better editorials.

Some of the rest is pure drivel, but some choice is better than the joke that other Indian newspapers (except the Indian Express, which is slightly better) call 'websites'. No RSS feeds, no concept of permanent links, nonexistent cross-browser compliance.

I sometimes wonder about whether it is really worth it for a site to go into the effort of adding RSS to their site. It is likely to be a lot of expense for them to do it, and the number of readers added may not be huge. But Robert Scoble makes a point for RSS in his usual in-your-face style.

The surprising fact is that even though I work among early adopters in terms of technology, I know very few people who actually use RSS. The number of people who have tunnel vision in terms of the work they do is disturbingly high. I remember a conversation where someone didn't know what Wikipedia was, and I've had more than one conversation with people to explain to them what RSS is (and this is among tech professionals) .

But maybe it's also that I am nerdier than is good for me.

If you listen to people too much, your thoughts are colored by their perceptions.

Seattle is fairly notorious among non-Seattle vasis for being a rainy and depressing place. Right. This is my first winter here, and it isn’t half as bad as people say it is. Of course, there are the days when it is very cloudy and dull, and there is light, incessant rain. But that happens maybe 10 days out of 30 in a month. The rest of the time, it is tolerable (think of Pune in August, only much colder and with 4 PM sunsets).

However, the few days when the sun does come out (like it did most of last week, and part of yesterday), are the most gorgeous days of the year. There’s of course the cold, but the sight of the snow-covered Cascades (or the Olympics, depending on where you are and which direction you are looking) make for the most awe-inspiring sight.

I've never lived this close to tall mountains, and it gets a tad overwhelming at times. For some reason, turning on to 51st street during my morning drive, when I get this awesome view of the Cascades, U2's "Beautiful day" runs through my mind.

"See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out "

Yeah, it's a beautiful day.

Growing on me...like a fungus

There's no escaping "Kajra re", is there? Two different music shows by amateur musical groups and a dandiya later, the results are in. Kajra re is a phenomenon. Even among en-aar-aai people who don't watch many Hindi films or are clued in to what the latest and greatest in Bollywood is.

Bunty to me is still a friend from back in COEP, and Babli was the nickname of a neighbor's daughter (yes, real people do have that nickname) but Kajra re has completely taken over. Infectious, catchy...words fail to describe the viral nature of the song. Gulzar's actually done a pretty good job with the lyrics as well.

So, sing it...

Mera chain vain sab ujra...

Kafi ho gaya yeh abhi!

I chanced upon this post which kind of epitomizes what is wrong with corporate America, and what is wrong with the attitude of 'bleeding-heart-liberals' (in Sumeet's words) all around.

http://nyc.metblogs.com/archives/2005/12/strike_out_for.phtml

The problems I have with this post:

1. Like complete idiots, the fine folks over at Starbucks decided to sue a mom-and-pop coffee store for a name sounding similar to theirs, though the logo is different, and it is legitimately based on the name of the proprietor. So much for the warm and fuzzy image they try to convey. Lawsuit-happy companies are making a mockery of copyright and other laws. Suing each other out of existence was never easier, was it? "Poor Sam Bucks" is all I can say.

2. This blogger says that "Starbucks has been known to enter into neighborhoods, and destroy mom and pop coffeeshops, all over the country. The coffee is priced at the higher end of the spectrum and at the end of the day, you get the same few flavours everywhere you go."

It's not like Starbucks points guns at people's heads asking them to drink their coffee. Standardized flavors, higher prices and yet higher sales? Where do I sign up for that business model?

So, they serve average coffee in a comforting yet bland ambience. Which means that they do a limited set of things and they do it well. They are pricey, but they are comforting to people who aren't up for a change in the coffee they drink anywhere in the US. I drink Starbucks fairly often - especially since it is the brew of choice in the company café, and it's present at most airports.

The funny thing is, I don't want to.

Nothing against the "corporate soul-sucking machine", but I like the ambience provided by local, non-chain coffee-shops a lot. Sometimes they are proprietor-owned, and many of these places have a quirky style all their own. The servers are hospitable in a non-sanitized, non-corporate kind of way with less plastic smiles. The coffee is different, and better most of the time.

However, it isn't easy to find one open late. I sometimes like taking a book after dinner and sit in a corner of a coffee-shop, reading and observing people around. Sometimes, I'm with friends and we need to find a place to hang out and chat. (No, I'm not really into the pub scene all that much).

Slight problem: the only coffee shop open in my area after 8 PM is the local Starbucks (open till 11, drive-through is open 24/7). On Fridays and Saturdays, Victor's is, but they have a nice sign saying that people with laptops and such shouldn't linger for more than an hour in the case of it being crowded. Thanks for being so nice to your customers.

See, Starbucks is trying to serve a need. Your friendly neighborhood coffee shop will definitely get people coming in, but they need to figure out a way to differentiate themselves. Better and more varieties of coffee is one thing. Live music, like at Kiva Han in Pittsburgh or Victor's here is another. Craig Street Coffee in Pittsburgh IMO was the best. They had a great deli with amazing sandwiches, and you should have seen the rush there at lunch-time. The hot chocolate there was to die for.

Of course, longer hours for night-owls like me will help.

Lessons In Geography...

are obviously lost on the wonderful bunch of so-called administrators at the BCCI. Even your average fifth-grader could have told you that the North-Easterly winds which blow over the south of India this season of the year cause rains as they pick up moisture over the Bay of Bengal. Even though this isn’t as stupid as having a match in Mumbai in August, it comes close. After losing the final day of an exciting test against Australia (maybe the Final Frontier wouldn’t have fallen…sigh), and an ODI (which would have decided the series either way), it is time for another match in a nice ground to go (literally) down the drain. When will they learn…

Silent Killer

In commemoration of World AIDS Day.

XBox 360 And the Digital Hub

The Xbox 360 is out to much hype. Gamers the world over are probably drooling at the prospect of HD-resolution games, and the additional computational power providing for superior game processing, resulting in a better experience. (I’ve seen better performance in iterations of Halo – Halo 2 makes use of the Xbox’s architecture much better than the built-for-PC-ported-later first version).

Personally, though, the aspect of the Xbox 360 that has interested me most in the Media Center Extender (MCX) part of it. The Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) with the extender is a solution to a problem that’s been begging to be solved for a generation of PC-users now – how do you get content from your computer to your TV? The PC is a much richer source of content. With newer online on-demand services coming, and cable IMO not really up to scratch in terms of niche content (no cricket on US cable yet, for instance), the TV as a display device for your computer makes a lot of sense. The problem of course is moving the computer from the study/home office to the living room/den where the TV resides.

Custom solutions are nice, but with the Media Center providing great platform support for this, Microsoft can look to being an important part of the digital hub.

The key thing here is really advertising. There has to be better advertising of these features so that people know of the awesome capabilities a MCE with a MCX can provide. How neat is playing all your songs on your computer, streaming it through your speaker system and controlling all this via a remote, using the TV as the display? This while your computer is in the study, and you are in the den/hall. Add movies on demand, Apple’s video downloads, and (for us cricket fanatics) streaming video, and there is a new, compelling reason to spend on some really useful hardware - not just wow factor 'stuff'.

I feel this is an important part of the future of the company. If MSFT can play its cards right, that is.