Dreams die hard..

Dreams are colorful, flighty balloons set adrift in the field of life..They`re made of sunshine and laughter , filled with sadness inside and tied with the thread of hope ... People yearn desperately for these bubbles .. They jump at them, flail desperately at them , trying to clutch at their strings of hope.. A lucky few catch their bubbles , they play with them , delighting in the laughter and euphoria.. Others keep trying until the thread of hope runs out..Ultimately, when the bubbles burst , as is their wont, only the sadness remains ..

All balloons are sized the same..What's different is how much they`ve been blown up..Some balloons are filled well blown their capacity, and they flop on the ground, unable to take off.. Some others are filled beyond their capacity, and they burst before they`re set adrift .. The bigger the balloon is blown the greater the surface area and hence the euphoria when they`re caught and the greater the volume and hence the sadness when they burst..

Dreams, like balloons ,have to be small enough not to burst and big enough to make them worth catching..
Dreams may fade away and dreams may die ,and the sadness they leave behind are best blown away by the winds of change..

New balloons may be made as long as the thread of Hope remains..

Pondering about patents..

" Betty bought some pretty patents, the patents were very petty , so Betty bought better patents to make the petty patents pretty "

Patent : "A grant made by a government that confers upon the creator of an invention the sole right to make, use, and sell that invention for a set period of time"

I never much thought about patents, until the day I attended a seminar by a medical enterprise, and got a Business card holder as a free gift. It was a normal, typical, plain, card holder, the only distinguishing factor being use of magnets for adhering a kind of detachable 'skin' to the case. Kind of like a cell phone cover, if you will . Now, what intrigued me was, written in not-so-small print underneath the case was "United states patent number blah blah blah " .

I`d always associated patents with mad scientists and nerds with oversized glasses and straw like hair producing innovations for the betterment of humanity , that this petty patent came as a mild shock . Especially because it wasn`t particularly innovative. I mean, consider u have a metal card holder and u want to change its appearance , what would you do then ? Intutively, you would think about sticking something on top, and considering the case is made of steel , a magnet would be a logical option.Bad news, you are now liable to be prosecuted for patent infringement.Shucks.

This kind of stuff could be especially more acute in the software industry, where more often than not, the best solution to a problem is the most intuitive one. I heard an interesting anecdote the other day about a patent filed by Oracle . Seems they developed a database updating program for a client, where after getting the voluminous input data, the program spent 1 hour of its time updating the records in the database. The catch was, during the one hour the database was being updated, you had no access to the older values, and a client wasn`t satisfied with that and asked the Oracle programmer to find a solution. Now, put yourself in the shoes of the programmer and think about how you would have solved that particular problem, before scrolling down to see the solution..








Seems, the programmer copied the older database onto another, and pointed database accesses to the copy during the 1 hour the updates were being made. After updation the pointer was moved back to the updated one and the older table was deleted. Simple, intuitive solution, and what is the next thing you do ? Go and file a patent for that solution !! This implies,if you have the same problem yourself, and its not that uncommon, and you come up with the same solution, you are again, liable to be prosecuted for patent infringement ! Again, Shucks.

Of course, Oracle would not want not likely want to waste their time sueing you, but consider you start a small firm, patent a simple process before any1 else gets there before you, wait till you find one of the big guys using the same thing, and voila, headlines the next day, "young computer prodigy sues Microsoft for patent infringement" .

You may not, of course, actually win the trial, but think of the massive publicity involved. For a small upcoming firm struggling for clients, publicity could mean a lot. Sure, it wouldn`t be ethically right, but hey dont tell me every firm which starts up has ethics over money in its mission statement.

I may have exaggerated a whole lot, and i most probably did, but still, few thoughts..

What are patents really worth ? Would you be more likely to go to a company with more patents that one which has none ? Going by that token, remember the medical company we talked abt? Could they advertise they have 2 patents just because they created a card holder and a cigarette case? Would you ask them what those patents they held were before entering into business with them ?

Lots of questions, and if any1 can answer, i`d be patently pleased :)

Bliss

Subdued yellow lighting.. Chilly climate.. A comfy couch , preferably in a corner .. A thick rug.. fishes flitting around in an tank across the room.. Hum of the heater in the background.. A nice readable book, Harry Potter or Agatha Christie preferably..A mug of hot cholocate ..No phones nearby.. A German Sheperd curled near the couch..Snug as a bug in a rug.. sheer bliss.. My idea of paradise..

Microsoft musings.

Read this article on how the Masachusets (know i spelt (or is it spelled ? ) that wrong but cant bother looking it up ) government is planning to ditch MS office for open-office in all their offices. And this on how Indonesian government is ditching Windows for Linux. Things aint too rosy for MS these days. Note : I`m not a Microsoft fan, but definitely a Bill Gates man.

For the non-technogeeks, what this means is , documents and presentations are no longer synonymous with .docs and ppts . Open office reads Microsofts formats but not vice versa. In essence, that means you can no longer open the documents you find on the web ( or least a good fraction of them ) with Word or Powerpoint.

This article is especially interesting because, it comes months before the release of Offfice 12. 'Interesting' , considering Office 12`s major USP is that it uses license-free open XML formats for storage. Read more here . Seems they could have at least waited to give MS a try . Kinda reminds me of the GC - SG saga in cricket . Common opinion is GC is good because SG is bad. :)

But i digress, getting back the Office , check out this blog by one of the Office development team guys, naturally biased, to get a view of the other side of the coin. But couldn`t resist smiling over the "The default format for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in Office 12 will be completely open, meaning you aren't tied into Microsoft software to access your files" line. The points not being able to open MS files in OO but vice versa, i wud think.

Anyway, my 2 cents on what I think MS would do if push comes to shove? Bundle Office with windows and price it slightly higer . Lets face it, for all Linux`s growing popularity, it wont get too much welcome on the home user front for the next 3 years, at least. So, if you already have a office suite bult into your computer, and a pretty good one at that, why would you bother downloading another one ? Just as IE has got to be one of the shittiest browsers around ( aw come on, putting in tabbed browsing can`t be that tough !! ) , but i still use it more often than firefox for the simple reason that it starts up an whole second faster than firefox !

But then , remains to be seen how much MS got scalded over the DoJ suit over IE to try the same stunt again . Not much, in my opinion . For those of you who still think Microsoft got the bad part of the bargain , all i have to say is , When was the last time you used a certain "Netscape Navigator"?..

Harsha`s mighty pen..

Came across this from one of my favorite cricket writers, or favorite writer even , and this definitely has to go down as a classic for one of the most politely worded dressing downs ever coined .. hats off Harsha :)

The Editor
The Afternoon Despatch and Courier
Mumbai

Oct 01,2005

Sometimes the truth is boring, sometimes fantasy is alluring. Sadly you succumbed to fantasy for the truth in your lead story today is boring; very boring.
On the third day of the test match we were to do a normal post match interview with Sourav Ganguly who had scored a century that day. While we were getting ready for it, our reporter Gautam Bhimani was in the press conference, his role being to bring Ganguly to where our camera was. And so, purely by accident, he heard Ganguly being asked at the press conference about whether he had been asked to step down.
On hearing Ganguly’s answer, Gautam told the producer and me about it and so when Ganguly came along to our interview I merely asked him a question that had already been asked and which he had already answered. I knew nothing about what had transpired between him and Greg Chappell at the time.
Sadly, that is all there is to it. I am sorry to disappoint you and the writer but that is it. There is no plot, no subterfuge. I can see why fantasy was the more interesting option.
“Pawn” therefore was an unfortunate word to use for it suggests moral weakness. And the headline, given all this is untrue and a bit rude.
So can we all be decent people, learn to differentiate between truth and fantasy, ignore those that cannot and apologise if we have made a mistake? On the very page on which the suggestion was made? Suitably bold so that people can see?

Sd/-Harsha Bhogle

Winds of change..

Wasted the week end working on this essay for the home page of my groups..It came out pretty well, so i consider it time well spent, even if i do have a hard time convincing my professors of that, considering my reviews were due 2 hrs ago :) oh well, let it never be said narendran ranjit was a slave to the establishment ;)

We are the batch of 2001-05, Department of tech, SNCE. The importunate first few victims of the Anna university hall of shame.

We were a motley group of individuals brought under a common classroom.
The only thing we agreed on was to disagree, be it mass bunks or hostel stays, movie plans or temple forays, year books or college tours, symposiums or get-togethers
We, were a myriad mixture of the jocks and the nerds, the kadalais and the misogynists, The Bacardi Boys and the Enchanting Eves.

But still, through the cheers and boos, through the nagging and the ragging, through the birthday bumps and semester slumps, through the Project reviews and campus interviews,
as we slept through KKTs diatribes and smarted under Vasuki`s jibes,
as we laughed through MGK`s punch dialogues , cursed CB`s scowling visage,
as we waded through Gayatri`s spit and sat through Seshu`s Sanskrit,
as we smiled over Sivamurugans ‘fefore’s and moaned over Vel`s uproars
as we continued on our merry way from being capricious juveniles to sensible adults,
Characters were built. Careers were chosen. Proposals were made. Lessons were learnt.
Some of us learnt to work. Some of us learnt to play.
Some of us learnt to think before we spoke. Some of us learnt to speak what we thought.
Some of us learnt to laugh more in life. Some of us learnt all is not laughter in life.
Hurdles were overcome. Milestones were reached.
Particularly, differences were forgotten and Friendships were forged.
Within the miniscule span of 4 short years, we laughed and we cried and we fought and we rallied and at the end of it all we emerged undaunted by Anna University’s generous arrears and on our way to become true Engineers…

United, as we once were through the common bond of SSN, separated as we now are through the vagaries of time, as each of us traverse different paths towards the same seductive goal of success, we’re bound together through this one group electronically bridging our geographical diversity. We are, and we will remain, The FreakyTechies...

Of ears and pierces..

What is it with gals and peircings ?? (ok, so i do know a coupla guys with their ears peirced, but hey , me`s a guy and this is MY blog so i`m entitled to the prejudice :D ) ..Now , why would any1 in their right mind actually want to punch a hole thru their body, or any part of it thereof ?? and actually pay for it , for crying out loud ! hell, i know people who`ve been to jail for punching holes thru bodies ..

Ok, so tradition decrees u got to have 2 piercing for ur ear-rings, that much is fine..what better way to attract a predatory male than send out light signals by the sun reflecting off your dangling dongles ( note: i talking abt ear rings, nothing else).. But why in gods name, wud u want any more??I actually know a gal with 6 holes on each ear, and the assortment of ornaments adorning each one makes it look like she has barbed wire running over them..mabye its her idea of symbolically saying "keep out , u words ! i`m not letting u in my ear" :D..
But i digress, getting back to holes in heads, now what could possibly drive this strange species called females to it ? Something tells me it couldnt possibly be in the interests of comfort .. hmm, let me ponder.. I wud have said these things were a means for the catty bi- , um, girls, to show off ( dont get it ? more holes => more sockets for gold trinkets => "ha ha, i got more jewels than u do" syndrome) , but considering the fad these days seems to be revoltingly colored bits of plastic rather than expensive gold ( parents would be heaving sighs of relief at that no doubt), thats one theory down, and i can think of any other, so my guy magnet theory holds ( until the unlikely event of any specimen of the feminine breed perchance happening upon this blog and deigning to let me in on one of their trade secrets)..so until then, let me smirk and amuse myself observing how far these demure desperate females go to attract us desirable males .. ;)

4 Adults, 1 Child Killed in Wis. Bus Crash - Yahoo! News

4 Adults, 1 Child Killed in Wis. Bus Crash - Yahoo! News

this news item, the lead story from yahoo headlines, and in many other tv new channels around this yankee land i bet.. To someone accostomed to making monthly sojourns thru ECR, all this headline does is make u pause a sec, and wait for the next line.. ok,4 people died..so ? And whats funny, for want of a more appropriate term , is that there IS no next line.. An accident with 4 casualities is deemed worthy of a news item in itself..

Another part of the same story says "The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating " ..All for a van crash, the driver of which, incidentally ,was 78 years old !

Now, i dont want to sound like one of those uppity nit picking nris turning up their noses and picking up nits at India, but i do wonder, whats so drastically different between ECR and and the US higways? The ECRS in great comdition, as far as indian roads go, so nuthing much different on that front..could it be the cars? more second hand cars ply on the roads here than first hand ones, so i dont think thats it either..so is it the drivers? blame it on the corrupt license officials , as is the norm ? the greater traffic on the roads? or a sheer disregard for traffic sense ? Or on a wackier note, is it just mother natures way of maintaining balance in the ecosystem , ie offsetting the ever growing indian population :D?

Anniyan- Et tu Shankar?.

Anniyan is the story of sickeningly sweet, Mr. too-nice-to-be-true guy, Ramanujam who transforms into the blood curling bass voiced avenger, Anniyan, and finds time to be a cloying, annoying, supposed-to-be-romantic-but-plain-silly-playboy, Remo inbetween.

The director, Shankar, seems to have got his facts mixed up. Someone seems to have told him getting affected with multiple person disorder is the equivalent of landing on a small rocket from the distant planet of Krypton. Before the movie released, there was a sms doing the rounds that Anniyan is the story of a scientist who finds Vikram lying in a ditch and implants a microchip in his brain which gives him magical powers. “Hyuk, hyuk, yeah right ", we went when we read it, “not Shankar “....Sadly, post-movie, the second story sounds much more appealing and hugely more believable...

The movie starts off with the sickening-sweet Ramanujam doing goody-goody deeds and lamenting the lokam that doesn’t help him. “Aha”, u goes, “so that’s the story. So this is a tale of him taking a straw too much on his back, and taking out the bad guys, a la Indian”. Well, almost right. Then, the crying ('bawling', actually), comes across a flyer promoting "anniyan.com" where u supposedly have to give the details of the villains and the anniyan will take `em out. Well, our hero logs on, finds a totally incredible website complete with CGing and 3 dimensional graphics, oasting of a darn good Artificial intelligence engine too. Macromedia, go hide in shame !

Well, our Ramanujam reports, the snarling Anniyan takes out the bad guys in a variety of different ways, and pretty gruesome ways too, I might add. Prakash raj, in 1 of his more meaningless appearances, does his best to add color to the 2 dimensional police man investigating the crime .Vivek plays his crony and vikrams buddy..

Though, every1 and his aunt is an expert on MPD these days (courtesy ‘Tell me ur dreams ‘ for the erudite few and Cmukhi for the rest), “hold on “, u think, “this is Shankar, maybe we’re being subtly deceived and the real story line is bound to be something original and unexpected”. Nope, just wishful thinking. The director thoughtful relieves us of that misconception, even before the interval, showing Ramanujam rise up as anniyan, leaving no option to explain it other than MPD. So much for the suspense..

The third gruesome murder comes and goes, and then comes the much awaited portion of the movie. The interval..

Post interval, we’re introduced to the supposed-to-be-romantic-but-plain-silly-playboy , Remo ( guess that’s supposed to be a ahem, clever take on 'Romeo') . To Shankars credit, he has imbued all the Vikram characters with at least one common trait. Total unbelievability ! ..This Remo guy takes away the roof tiles from a house and manages to place them back in 4 seconds flat, makes roses droop by telepathy, makes the very stars move away and hide! Beat that Superman!

Now we get to the turning point of the plot. The heroine, Nandhini, commits a faux pas by suggesting she register her land for less than the market value, and Ramanujam expresses his profound regret. And of course, she becomes the latest target for Anniyan. The viewer may be forgiven for being reminded of shades of Indian, where oldie kamal takes a knife to young wastrel kamal. But from the same director who imbued that scene with such credibility that we were in a quandary about which kamal to support, sadly misses the mark by a country mile this time. After Anniyan chases her down the road (in broad daylight no less) she enters a karate (or whatever) school, and this is where the fun begins .The viewers credibility which had been stretched as humanely possible till this point, now reaches its apex..

Enter: the hero, dark locks astray.

Heroine: covering in fear behind a monkish dude.

Background: About a 100 people trying out their martial art moves

And wonder of wonders, our hero single handedly rips through them!! (Captain, are u watching?), in a totally shameless rip-off of the matrix scene where Keanu fights off the army of clones. In fact, rip-off is an understatement, for everything right from the camera angles to the scene where he’s buried under a 100 people and gets up throwing them all off, has been a carbon copy of the original. But while we watched the original version spellbound, this one has neither the originality behind it nor the credibility lent by the knowledge that this happens in a virtual reality land, to inspire anything like the same reactions. Shame on u Shankar!

Anyway, back to the action. He busts up the martial arts people, and captures Nandhini.

He lights a fire and is just about to throw Nandhini in. He carries her with effortless ease, brutal eyes fixed firmly on the fire in front, she a huddling, whining ,pleading bundle, covering her face, and then…..

Would have been interesting if he did throw her in, vikram would then have had enough scope to show his acting prowess to win a national award (mind u, he still might), but sadly, once again the predictable occurs. He has a sudden change of mind (literally ;) ), becomes ramanujam, and wonders what he’s doing with her in his hands. Normally that would be enough to make u roll your eyes, but this far into the movie, you are just glad he didn’t say “I love u”...

In more mindlessness, the heroine, now aware that she has a serial killer with her takes him to a hospital instead of a police station for some unfathomable reason. Nasser, the consummate actor and vikram then walk through the scene replicated from “Tell me your dreams” with ease. Childs play. Turns out, the multiple personality was because vikram`s sister died in a roadside accident due to some negligence on the part of the authorities, when he was 10.Begs the question, has he been murdering people ever since?? Nasser then asks “did u commit the murders?”... The intelligence of the question almost deserves the famous “athu naan than..aana naa ella” line thrown back at him, and brickbats don’t get any harder than that comparison.

Nasser tops nandhini in mindless acts and releases the murderer to the public, helpfully adding that he is nor curable. The hero then promptly organizes a public press conference in the jawarhal lal Nehru stadium, no less. Beat that for nerve. The police get a formal invitation too, duly attend and wait with bated breath patiently sitting through our hero’s lengthy monologue. Lest the murderer loses his victims attention, he thoughtfully provides a video clipping of one of his vendetta acts where he murders a guy for the heinous crime of sleeping on a park bench instead of working. He better not come near a “principles of communication” class! The public, all press in full attendance, compound it by cheering him on. Give as a break Mr.Shankar, we aren’t that dumb (readers who applauded that scene kindly exempted”)

The show gets over, prakash raj duly gives the obligatory “surround all exits” command ,rushes forward and gets with arms reach of the hero, and wonder of wonders , Anniyans no longer there !! and the director doesn’t even deign to tell us how he managed that particular piece of impossibility.

The rest of the movie is about how prakash raj arrests him, tortures him, he faces trial and how Ramanujam is cured. That forms the only interesting part of the movie so I’ll do people who haven’t watched it a favor and desist from mentioning it here.

The movie does have its strong points though. Vikram does a commendable job of acting. The background score is awesome and the songs rock. Satha doesn’t have much to do but looks good doing it. And the last half hour of the movie almost makes up for the rest of it. In fact, like having a good sweet after a bland lunch, the climax does make u almost forget the rest of the movie and leave a good taste in your mouth. But somehow you expect more from Shankar.

So that, is Anniyan in a nut shell. Well, maybe a bit more than a nutshellJ. Shankar, who got scalded with his earlier release ‘Boyz’ seems to have got a bit cynical. He seems to have stopped trying to be original, and made a masala mix-max of all that the public loves and thrown it at the public`s face with a derisive smirk , without even bothering to smoothen the edges or cover the cracks. The saddest part is that Anniyan does rock the box office, putting one up for commercialism over originality…

hum di humm humm..

Me`s finally been bitten by the blogging bug.. though goto admit , me 'brilliant mind' hasnt really grasped the purpose behind this blogging thing.. ok, i type stuff and put it up..then what??..anyway, collleges out ( wah :(( ) so guess i dont have too much better things to do :) .. nuthing much going on in my life right now.. been trying to instill some enthu into my insipid class mates abt doing an year book.. been heads and brick walls till now :( .. sheesh, any1 wud think they were glad to get outa coll..and to top it off they go and take a group snap without me :(( i miss coll :(