Sunday, July 29, 2007

Day 2 @ Barcamp Bangalore 4

A few pictures (courtesy my N73) from Day2 of Barcamp Bangalore...












A session on - 'Podcasting Techniques For Your Blog' by Swaminathan. Quite interesting, which was then followed by a session called - "Protecting The Pictures In Your Blog". Though the interaction and comments from the audience was very entertaining, I can't say Vikram Aggarwal provided new insight in this direction.



And there was this session on Mo-Blog or Mobile Blogging by Arun Ram. Very interesting and it did ignite an interest in me to start my mo-blog. Watch out for that.




And then there was Thejesh who co-presented and continued the MoBlog sesssion from where Arun left. While Arun spoke on the technique of using GPRS for updating the blog, Thejesh showed how EMail & MMS are the other viable alternatives.

In all, it was a sunday well spent.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Why Only "Balle Balle" Always?

The other day I had lined out for myself to watch (as I always do when I am depressed) an awful sappy, mindless Bollywood caper. I might have surfed four to five channels watching bits and pieces of movies – Kal Ho Na Ho, DDLJ, Pyar Kiya Tho Darna Kya, etc and none of which managed to hold my interest completely. More sadly, something kept hankering me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, and eventually ruined my enjoyment of the films entirely.

There has been an overdose of Punjabi in Bollywood, and it's been that way for quite some time now. So long that it's making me retch. No offense, my dear Punjabi friends. Punjabi is a fine language and with an equally mesmerizing culture to back it. But there are surely more cultures and languages in India that can be showcased?

Heck! We are the most diverse country ever in the world with a shocking number of 415 living languages spoken in India and an equal number of distinctly different cultures to showcase. But no, we are going to be stuck on just Punjabi.

Think DDLJ, Kal Ho Na Ho, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham ..If you're saying that these are just the Chopras and Johars, how about Namastey London..Bhagban, Muhjse Shaadi Karoge, Bride and Prejudice, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom….The list is simply endless.

And it doesn’t stop simply at films; go on to music and almost all the popular songs are set to the Bhangra beat or the usual Balle Balle (read dhol) background score. Try and see songs from any movie in the last decade, you will realize what I mean. How about giving us a taste of rustic Bihari folk or Rajasthani panihari music or the local flavour of the pahadis, Bollywood? As Bollywood is capturing audiences all across the country, it has the responsibility to be more inclusive of languages and regional cultures.  

And on top of this, they want Bollywood to be called the ‘Indian Film Industry '. Not yet, until you grow to be better. Include more actors from other industries and not just female actors who meet certain criteria. And ya sure, first try and identify the four South Indian states correctly, will you? 

But who cares if a Madrasi female sitting in the audience is disappointed by the end of a film? We’re too sensitive, and we don’t matter anyway. And oh, everyone knows this doesn't fall under any category of racism. 

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

I Love Bangalore...

There are not many such days with little or no traffic on Bangalore roads these days. So took them for posterity..







Can you identify any of these roads?

Monday, July 23, 2007

The Illustrated Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is considered by scholars across the world to be among the greatest spiritual books the world has ever known. Through Bhagvad Gita or the Divine Song, Lord Krishna explains the science of self realization and the simple steps to attain an eternal relationship with Him.

Many great thinkers from our times such as Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Schweizer as well as Madhvacarya, Sankara and Ramanuja from bygone ages have all contemplated and deliberated upon its timeless message. The spiritual knowledge and the intrinsic beauty of the Bhagavad Gita is incomparable as it applies to one and all irrespective the realms of other religions.

The Bhagavad Gita has never required any sort of marketing but Inspire Media, New Delhi have come up with this interesting Illustrated Bhagavad Gita, by A.P.M Raj Urs. I think its a brilliant idea as illustrations bring the story to life and can help the reader visualise a lot better.

Wish there are more such initiatives, for the wealth that our scriptures carry can be paralleled by none.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Humor: India 2020

Polar Bears and Business Intelligence

A wildlife organization has launched a project that combines business intelligence software and ancient tracking techniques of the Inuit people to study polar bear footprints. The organization's goal is to document a declining polar bear population, considered by environmentalists to be a sign of global warming.
More on that over here

So Is The Threat of Global Warming for Real?

Notwithstanding the hoopla over the Global Warming threat that supposedly looms large in front of us, there are few voices with a little more than plain skepticism to counter this theory.

We have heard a lot of the '8 years to apocalypse' story..so lets hear the other side who are crying this who issue as hogwash.

And this is what they are saying -

- The notion of 'man made' global warming is absolute unequivocal myth, led by agendas, lies and media propaganda...says Channel 4, UK in its documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle

- Sir Nicholas Stern report on the economics of climate change is "Completely divorced from scientific reality" says Prof.Richard Lindzen in a DailyMail article.
He says, "He (Stern) is guilty of misreading the data, of distorting the evidence to suit his political masters' dogma, of throwing numbers about with reckless abandon, of promoting alarmism in place of rational discussion, and of reinventing climate history"

- According to a host of historical accounts, Europe was far warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today, or that the 17th century was much colder, prompting what was known as 'The Little Ice Age', when the Thames was often frozen over for months at a time.

- Stern also refers to 'significant melting of and an acceleration of ice floes' near the coast of Greenland because of global warming.
Several reputable scientific studies have shown that the mass of the Greenland ice sheet is actually expanding, while Stern also fails to note that the temperature of Greenland is now lower than it was in 1940 and little changed from the first measurements in the 1780s.

- Environmentalists are fond of jerking heartstrings with pictures of polar bears struggling on supposedly melting icebergs, but it is estimated that there are now 22,000 polar bears compared with 5,000 in 1940.

To quote him again -

"What is so tragic is the way that this dubious ideology has achieved such dominance in our public life.
Politicians love the green agenda, of course, because it means more control, more regulation, more taxes, more summits, and more opportunities for displays of self-important zeal.
The tragedy is that the likes of Sir Nicholas Stern are using bogus science to push forward this agenda."

- Richard Lindzen is Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. * Source

My 2 cents:
Are there political units of power & control being formed which transcend national boundaries, who are unelected and undemocratic, and who might hold nations (and their people) to further their own specific agenda?

Well, I dont know. It could well be a possiblityOr, is this a smoke screen created by US and other countries who have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol since Kyoto can be ”devastating” to economic growth, because limiting emissions means limiting energy consumption, economic activity and technological progress

I’m not saying either of them is right. What I can say is that neither side could possibly know the real truth

I am reminded of the bumper sticker that says, "If you don't believe in HELL, you'd better be right" Just substitute "Global Warming" for "Hell."

Even if climate change isn’t an issue, acting on it will atleast solve other problems. By not acting on it, aren’t we taking quite a risk?

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Deathly Hallows Leaked!

Pottermania reaches a never-before cresendo with the release of the final book hardly few days away. But looks like Potter fans can't seem to await any longer for the latest news is that the last installment - Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows has already been leaked on the internet.

Google around a little bit and one can find few thousand "Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows" book in an array of formats - .rar, .pdf, .doc etc. Sadly none of them seem to me the original. It looks more like the work of wannabe Rowlings.

However I found these pics from one of the popular photosharing sites. Still not sure about their authenticity. Have a look..


The Cover Page


Table of Contents


Chapter 1


Chapter 16



The Epilogue - Nineteen Years Later.















Are they for real? I have no idea!