via youtube.com
Check out all 5 parts. The programme was aired on BBC last week.
6 hours ago
Friday, July 03, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Pixar Vs Dreamworks!
via imgur.com
Haha! Pretty much true this. Hope Up is released soon in Bangalore. Sooner than later. Before I go bankrupt!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Why are there 60 Minutes in an Hour?
We are all familiar with dividing our days into 24 hours and our hours into 60 minutes. But why do we use these particular units for measuring time?
To understand the units of time we need to investigate the number systems of ancient civilizations. How did the Sumerians count to 12 on one hand and to 60 on two? What advances did the Babylonians make and how did they use this number system for measurement? And what refinements did the Egyptians make to time measurement to give us the system we still use today?
via scienceray.com
Enchanting account of the origin of the Sexagesimal system. Never really understood how it was developed. So simple, yet so fascinating.
Click through for the detailed explanation.
Will you pass The Narcissist Test?
All of us are narcissistic! Example: I am posting this on my blog instead of directing the reader to view the comic in the original location! Which is followed by a drawling sentence or two to make it not look like blog spam. Okay! Time to turn narcissistic from masochistic!
Ringo Wants to Sing More: Parody of Octopusses Garden
via inquisitr.com
One heck of a parody on Ringo Starr and his quest for creative inputs in The Beatles album!
Hilarious stuff like the rest of them smoking pot and not sharing it with Ringo!
Ringo was an exceptional drummer and sang quite well. Case in point: With a little help from my friends.
Exotic Pet: The Fantastical Capybara
I want one! He looks so cute! Click through for the article. More pics and videos.
More about Capybara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara
Got this from Neatorama: http://www.neatorama.com/2009/06/25/interview-with-a-capybara-owner/
Movie: I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer!
Tonight group aAF released some movie with some interesting name, “I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer”. I’m sure many of you just like me, never heard of this one. So just check out the plot to see if you may want to have a try. It’s a standard 1-CD size video.
PLOT: Eleven athletes a vengeance-crazed serial killer, an arsenal of razor-fingered cricket gloves, sharpened stumps, nailed balls, a moustache! Plus the International sport of… Cricket? In the vein of the movies Shaun of the Dead, Black Sheep and Bad Taste, comes the brilliant, quirky, horror-comedy from down under. After being bullied and beaten by teammates 20 years earlier, a cricketer returns to get revenge. One by one the killer slashes his ex-teammates to ribbons. Scotland Yard is called upon to help hunt the killer that is terrorizing the team and all of Australia. Team members are relocated to a safe-house that is not too safe! You will need a score card to keep up with the body count as the shocking rampage turns the game of Cricket into a blood sport!
via rlslog.net
OMG! Gotta download this and watch! IMDB rating is quite poor. Doesn't matter!!!
Click through for download info and a cheesy snag from the movie!
Gamekeeper flees for his life from angry hippo
via dailymail.co.uk
That hippo does have a funny face!
Found this via Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/8vk5x/oh_hey_reddit_didnt_see_you_there_if_youre_bored/
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Why dumping Class X exams doesn't make sense
In fact, it's not the exam at all. It's the sheer paucity of opportunities thereafter. It's the puny scale and scope of Class XI and Class XII. It's the Size Zero scale and scope of college. Ironic as it is, it is a fact that the average Chintu went off to a Chicago uni because he didn't get through Khalsa. More and more students are going off to do all sorts of courses across the world. Melbourne beckons after Class XII because successive governments have failed them.
Sibal says, "The Indian education system is a source of trauma for both parents and children". No, sir. The education system is not the source of trauma. It's gaining access to the system at the nursery and college levels that's traumatic. It's coping with the dearth of options within the system that's traumatic. If his decision is based on the tragic instances of children committing suicide post poor results, it's not the education system, Mr Sibal. It's because their options close after that. Doors close. A child who is pushed to kill herself over low marks will blame herself for a low percentile as well. She's still left stranded.
Problem: Headache
Solution: Cut your head off!
This seems to be the approach taken by Kapil Sibal!
Click through to read an excellent post by Nandita Sengupta.
Do we really want to dumb down things? Create better opportunities for higher education instead of proposing silliest of solutions. Most students are not scared of board exams because they are board exams. They are scared to think what lies ahead.
The Girl Who Does Not Age
At 16 years of age and weighing only 16 pounds, Brooke Greenberg has a previously-undescribed condition which in many aspects seems to show an absence of aging of the body.
She is infantile in size, but she does not have ordinary dwarfism. She still has her baby teeth. Her cognition is that of a child. Her bone age is only that of a 10-year old.
via neatorama.com
Curious! I hope they don't research fountain of youth based on her. Though death is a painful affair, being alive for a really long time is equivalent to a curse. Unless you are an elf! Wait a minute! Is she an elf!
Click through for the entire article.
The Indian soap opera that's taken Brazil by storm!
In related news Ekkkta KKKapooorrr (how many k's are there anyway?) was seen near the Brazilian embassy in New Delhi.
20 Games That Changed Gaming Forever - PC World
via pcworld.com
The whole list:
#20: Portal
#19: Street Fighter II
#18: Dance Dance Revolution
#17: Resident Evil
#16: BioShock
#15: Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
#14: Final Fantasy VII
#13: The Sims
#12: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
#11: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
#10: Super Mario 64
#9: Half-Life
#8: Wii Sports
#7: Halo: Combat Evolved
#6: LittleBigPlanet
#5: Metal Gear Solid
#4: Shadow of the Colossus
#3: World of Warcraft
#2: Grand Theft Auto III
#1: Doom
I don't play console games. My top three would be Halflife, Warcraft, and Doom. One game I wished made a lasting impact is Deus Ex. Never played a game with such a deep story.
The Best Movie Sequels of the Year from 1989 to 2009
The full list:
1989 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1990 - Gremlins 2: The New Batch
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1992 - Batman Returns
1993 - Addams Family Values
1994 - Star Trek: Generations
1995 - Die Hard: With A Vengeance
1996 - Star Trek: First Contact
1997 - Batman and Robin
1998 - Lethal Weapon 4
1999 - Toy Story 2
2000 - Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
2001 - The Mummy Returns
2002 - The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2006 - Mission: Impossible III
2007 - The Bourne Ultimatum
2008 - The Dark Knight
2009 - ???????
I don't agree with the LOTR movies. If they can disqualify Kill Bill 2, they should do the same to LOTR. Its one frigging 9 hour long movie!
For me Toy Story 2 and Dark Knight ranks high in this list.
North Korea Threatens to “Wipe United States off the Map”
via inquisitr.com
Three decades later...
Wastelands to the north of United Korea have been deemed habitable at last. But People's Repiblic of China have raised a claim over the area. According to a PRC spokesperson, the wasteland was previously communist and the Chinese people are the rightful heirs to the hitherto communist land.
Turtle Eats Pigeon!!!
via youtube.com
Found this on Reddit ( http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/8vedj/ultimate_predator_animated_gif_repost_to_imgur/ )
Food for thought! (No pun intended!) Especially for you stupid wabbits trying to race turtles.
India 2039 - An affluent society in one generation
via scribd.com
Found this Trak.in ( http://trak.in/tags/business/2009/06/25/india-2039-affluent-society-generation-economic-growth )
Haven't had the time to peruse. The optimist in me feels this is pretty much possible. The skeptic in me says, "Yeah! Right!"
From my little experience, I have learnt that trickle down economics does work. The best way forward for India would be rapid progression in manufacturing and service industries with ramped up use of technology in agriculture. Right now, the money made from the sunrise sector is peed away into very suspicious welfare programmes.
Microsoft rips off Kayak?
Kayak, the popular multi-airline airfare search engine, thinks Microsoft Bing’s new travel search engine looks so much like its own that it’s confusing Kayak users. The travel search company sent Microsoft a legal letter last week telling them to cut it out, Wired.com has learned.
Microsoft heralded its travel search as one of the key ways that its revamped search engine Bing bested Google by helping users make decisions, rather than just finding information.
Its search results for an itinerary presents users with sliders and check boxes on the left that let searchers change times and specify airlines. Search results reload instantly as boxes are clicked and sliders slid.
via wired.com
I visualise an 800 pound Gorilla and a cute little Monkey. Gorilla shakes down the little Monkey's bananas and starts eating them. The little Monkey screeches and howls. Will the Gorilla start thumping its chest or simply ignore the little one?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Surprised?
Don't tell me you are not! Absconding for a month and back with several posts in a single day? Lack of updates is owing to a mixture of lazy and busy. Umm...this is a moot point if there is no one reading this! Anyways, I am very much active on Twitter and discovered Posterous through Twitter.
Posterous is the simplest blogging platform I have ever seen. Recently, I have been posting a lot of short stuff there, like I used to do an year back here. Since Posterous auto-posts to Twitter, I get a reasonable amount of user feedback and comments on the fly.
This got me thinking and the final nail was the import facility from Blogger. I imported all my posts to Posterous (Comments are not yet done, but they say its coming!). Posterous also auto-posts to Blogger (and a large number of other services). From now on, my posts will be appearing here as usual. But I will be posting through Posterous. There will be a lot of activity owing to my penchant of posting the small stuff I find in my daily routine. There will be longer posts as usual. But these will intermittent, much like my current level of updates.
Now, what does it mean for you, the faithful "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" reader? Nothing much! You can read it from here or from my current RSS feed. But I would prefer you to subscriber to my Posterous RSS feed, since it would contain galleries and stuff like that.
This blog has seen my blood, sweat, and tears over the last 4 years. It will continue to be! One day, I may just merge the blogs and move it over to a single domain with the Posterous engine.
So, without further ado say hello to Pain on the Posterior!
Posterous is the simplest blogging platform I have ever seen. Recently, I have been posting a lot of short stuff there, like I used to do an year back here. Since Posterous auto-posts to Twitter, I get a reasonable amount of user feedback and comments on the fly.
This got me thinking and the final nail was the import facility from Blogger. I imported all my posts to Posterous (Comments are not yet done, but they say its coming!). Posterous also auto-posts to Blogger (and a large number of other services). From now on, my posts will be appearing here as usual. But I will be posting through Posterous. There will be a lot of activity owing to my penchant of posting the small stuff I find in my daily routine. There will be longer posts as usual. But these will intermittent, much like my current level of updates.
Now, what does it mean for you, the faithful "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" reader? Nothing much! You can read it from here or from my current RSS feed. But I would prefer you to subscriber to my Posterous RSS feed, since it would contain galleries and stuff like that.
This blog has seen my blood, sweat, and tears over the last 4 years. It will continue to be! One day, I may just merge the blogs and move it over to a single domain with the Posterous engine.
So, without further ado say hello to Pain on the Posterior!
Bhramaram: Upcoming Mohanlal-Blessy movie
Picture gallery from The Complete Actor.
Great premise. Two supremely talented people.
I sincerely hope this movie will erase the nightmares provided by Sagar Alias Jacky and to a much lesser extent Calcutta News. SAJ always smelled a rat given the involvement of Antony Perumbavoor, Mohanlal's closest confidant and self proclaimed biggest fan. Calcutta news was a far bigger disappointment due to Blessy's brilliant earlier ventures. Mohanlal looks rugged for the role and looks like he is playing someone closer to his age. Even though the same cannot be said about Bhoomika Chawla, she looks smoking hot!
For once, a movie gives hope of being a shade of the brilliance provided by our movies of 80's and early 90's. Even if its a very little shade, a lot of people will be happy.
Great premise. Two supremely talented people.
I sincerely hope this movie will erase the nightmares provided by Sagar Alias Jacky and to a much lesser extent Calcutta News. SAJ always smelled a rat given the involvement of Antony Perumbavoor, Mohanlal's closest confidant and self proclaimed biggest fan. Calcutta news was a far bigger disappointment due to Blessy's brilliant earlier ventures. Mohanlal looks rugged for the role and looks like he is playing someone closer to his age. Even though the same cannot be said about Bhoomika Chawla, she looks smoking hot!
For once, a movie gives hope of being a shade of the brilliance provided by our movies of 80's and early 90's. Even if its a very little shade, a lot of people will be happy.
See and download the full gallery on posterous
Posted via email from Pain on the posterior
Auto-Heal 2009 (via @brainstuck)
via brainstuck.com
Trust me! There is a market even for this! After all, people buy some useless Macs for a premium! Before fanboys attack: 'Some' stands for certain Mac models and a section of consumers who have no need for a Mac!
Faking News: Indian origin boy wins cat coloring contest in USA!
Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor was called up around 500 times by various news organizations to react, following which he finally sent a congratulatory message. Mr. Tharoor remained non-committal over awarding Sameer a paid trip to India. He also refused to comment if a similar contest in Australia could help stop attack on students there.
A television news anchor also asked Mr. Tharoor to congratulate Sameer though his twitter update. The phone line was disconnected and the views of Mr. Tharoor couldn’t be heard. The television channel has asked people to send SMS if they thought the minister should update his twitter status. The channel claims that majority of Indians want Mr. Tharoor to twit about Sameer’s victory.
via fakingnews.com
Click through for the entire article!
Though sarcastic, this is an accurate assessment of the Indian media. Fourth estate "mafia" has become worse than the real estate "mafia."
Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo
via io9.com
Damn! I totally missed this one! Hayao Miyazaki is the Director of several wonderful animations. Not your run of the mill Hollywood ones. These are deeper and depicts the gray shades instead of black and white. This is the English language version trailer. The best thing to do is get hold of the Japanese movie with subtitles. Hollywood tends to modify the script to dumb down little things. For example, Children drinking Tea changed to drinking juice. Highly recommended movies: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Grave of the Fireflies.
Roger Erbert's scathing review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."
The first movie was sort of meh. Watchable. But I sort of nodded off during the intense action towards the end. A little bland to be frank. But, I never expected the sequel to be this bad as Roger Erbert has written.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
My Friend Sancho
All generalizations are false. Including this one.
-Albert Einstein
Yesterday, a colleague was mentioning about a poster in our office with this quote. At midnight it was proved by Amit Varma. I finished reading the book My Friend Sancho. Autographed by him and you can read the tale of that misadventure here. I was fairly cynical when I read over and over in Amit's blog about the book being a love story. I for one didn't associate his writing with love. I was expecting a lot of humour (there is lots and the book contains several laugh out loud moments) and a lot of libertarian view points (a smattering of it and pretty well meshed into the story). What I got in the end after reading the book was a strong empathy for Abir, the protagonist. I was in his position and tensed which of the three endings he imagined would happen.
The protagonist is someone I can deeply associate with. I suspect many other 24 year olds would do the same. He is single. Confident. Loafs around at work. Reads blogs and specifically Inda Uncut. Very cynical. Uses sense of humour as his defense. Writes to make a living. Eats out and loves going to exotic restaurants. Starts drinking beer and graduates to vodka (in the same sitting mind you!).
Small caveat: Too many references to India Uncut. Made me squirm a little.
The novel has several moments about things we would like to do but never actually does. For instance, breaking the bosses spine so that he never has sex again in life. At hindsight, I could say that such instances may be one too many in the first half of the book. There are so many laugh out moments which just comes out of the blue. I was laughing my ass off in the portion where heart beats the shit out of brain, climbs the rope ala WWE, and lands a diving elbow drop on brain. A lot of such goofy anecdotes are scattered in the book, which makes reading very pleasurable.
The book could have imploded due to the magnitude of issues that are present. Amit does well in focusing on the protagonist, his world, and most importantly his relationship with Sancho, his love interest. All the other things are happening in the background with some said and some unsaid, left to the readers imagination.
One could argue that the plot is a bit implausible. But this is certainly not a bollywoodish fare, where the most incredulous things happen. Unexpected turns in life often changes ones destiny. There is even an interesting discussion on the interpretation of such unexpected turns.
A disappointing aspect. Too little of the lizard. I was hoping for much more.
Superb effort. Highly recommended book. Even if you don't (m)any books, I think everyone would enjoy it. At different levels. It beats Keep off the Grass for the top spot in my list of best new generation Indian novels.
I am still laughing at the following part and pretty certain this would happen to me:
Sancho and Abir are spending a romantic evening at home. Music is flowing. Sancho asks Abir, "Can't you play something softer?" Abir is shocked. "What! You don't like Metallica?"
P.S: The links of the books are to Flipkart. You can get a good discount there. The delivery is also prompt and trouble free. The place I usually buy books from.
-Albert Einstein
Yesterday, a colleague was mentioning about a poster in our office with this quote. At midnight it was proved by Amit Varma. I finished reading the book My Friend Sancho. Autographed by him and you can read the tale of that misadventure here. I was fairly cynical when I read over and over in Amit's blog about the book being a love story. I for one didn't associate his writing with love. I was expecting a lot of humour (there is lots and the book contains several laugh out loud moments) and a lot of libertarian view points (a smattering of it and pretty well meshed into the story). What I got in the end after reading the book was a strong empathy for Abir, the protagonist. I was in his position and tensed which of the three endings he imagined would happen.
The protagonist is someone I can deeply associate with. I suspect many other 24 year olds would do the same. He is single. Confident. Loafs around at work. Reads blogs and specifically Inda Uncut. Very cynical. Uses sense of humour as his defense. Writes to make a living. Eats out and loves going to exotic restaurants. Starts drinking beer and graduates to vodka (in the same sitting mind you!).
Small caveat: Too many references to India Uncut. Made me squirm a little.
The novel has several moments about things we would like to do but never actually does. For instance, breaking the bosses spine so that he never has sex again in life. At hindsight, I could say that such instances may be one too many in the first half of the book. There are so many laugh out moments which just comes out of the blue. I was laughing my ass off in the portion where heart beats the shit out of brain, climbs the rope ala WWE, and lands a diving elbow drop on brain. A lot of such goofy anecdotes are scattered in the book, which makes reading very pleasurable.
The book could have imploded due to the magnitude of issues that are present. Amit does well in focusing on the protagonist, his world, and most importantly his relationship with Sancho, his love interest. All the other things are happening in the background with some said and some unsaid, left to the readers imagination.
One could argue that the plot is a bit implausible. But this is certainly not a bollywoodish fare, where the most incredulous things happen. Unexpected turns in life often changes ones destiny. There is even an interesting discussion on the interpretation of such unexpected turns.
A disappointing aspect. Too little of the lizard. I was hoping for much more.
Superb effort. Highly recommended book. Even if you don't (m)any books, I think everyone would enjoy it. At different levels. It beats Keep off the Grass for the top spot in my list of best new generation Indian novels.
I am still laughing at the following part and pretty certain this would happen to me:
Sancho and Abir are spending a romantic evening at home. Music is flowing. Sancho asks Abir, "Can't you play something softer?" Abir is shocked. "What! You don't like Metallica?"
P.S: The links of the books are to Flipkart. You can get a good discount there. The delivery is also prompt and trouble free. The place I usually buy books from.
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