Don't Tase me Sis!

The next time you see a woman on the street who seems to be lost -- you may want to resist the urge to go and offer help. Sure, in the current times, you can get pepper-sprayed by mistake, but how about an electric shock for 30 seconds? and again? and again?

NPR reports on Taser parties being thrown by company reps to peddle these "personal safety devices". Of course, the safety issues are brushed aside.

Shafman addresses the safety issue head-on. "It is not a lethal weapon," she says. "It's never been proven that the Taser causes death."

In fact, the issue is complicated — and far from settled. More than 200 people have died after being hit by Tasers or similar electro-shock weapons. The Justice Department is studying what role Tasers might have had in some deaths.
...
Police Tasers shock for five seconds. These Tasers deliver an electrical shock for 30 seconds straight. Both can deliver repeated shocks — just press the trigger over and over. Shafman says the idea is to be able to stun a bad guy several times and run away.

So dear ladies, go get your Tasers, but please be careful. With great power comes great responsibliBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT!

gah! not again!BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT!

SNL-Obama :)

SNL had a cute sketch to showcase how some journalists are so obviously enamored by Obama.



Now I am an Obama supporter too, but I like SNL's take on the obsession :).

Who handles the dogs when they are out?

NPR had an interesting post about animal wranglers in hollywood. Check it out here.

From the article:

Forbes was most surprised by the porcupines. He expected them to be really slow — and kind of dumb. Turns out they have a lot of personality.

"They learned to go to a mark," Forbes says, meaning they'd walk to a designated spot and stop. "They'd come up and put their front paws on your legs."

He didn't touch the porcupines much, however.

"We certainly didn't pet them backwards."

Funny how the segment starts with "If you are someone who stays until all the credits of a movie run out...", and indeed, I am one :).

The article also lets out another secret of the trade:

Sometimes there will be three or four identical cats for a single role. There's the Holding Cat, who can stay still. There's the A-to-B cat, who can run from one point to another. There's the Action Cat, who can do the tricks. It all depends on the animal's personality.

I wonder if animals make documentaries of us, and cannot distinguish between two of "those hairless ape creatures" :-).

Peas and Carrots

Came across this cute short. FYI.

Jodhaa Akbar -- go watch it

As some of you know, I was excited about this one, and indeed, when I came to know that the movie is playing less than a mile from where I live, I figured, why not go there and take in some cinematography?

This post, much like my other movie posts, is not really a review -- I am sure there are various others talking abut it [though Grover's commentary is still missing].

Is the movie too long? Is a majority of it fiction rather than history? Are Akbar's problems solved a bit too easily? Do some songs end up being boring? Is the movie predictable? Does the final fight make you wonder where those swords keep coming from? I perhaps agree to most, if not all of the above.

But is the movie worth watching? Do all the actors match their characters? Has the "period movie" genre come of age in India? Hell yeah! I personally loved the looks, and some of the songs too, not to mention the seamless special effects. And most importantly, I hope this acts as a good example for others to follow. First Mangal Panday, and then now JA -- my hopes with desi moviemakers being able to make convincing-looking period movies are high.

So go and watch Jodhaa Akbar in a theatre near you. It will be worth the $8/200 minutes.
-A
P.S. Those who know me well know how tough it is for me to say this, but I kinda liked Aishwarya's acting in this one. There, I said it. Happy?
P.P.S. Check out Sonu Sood's acting in this one. I think he should get more opportunities.

Raised Maps and some Bhangra

NPR's morning editions are always interesting, and today's was no different. Among the several interesting segments was this one about raised maps for the blind. I strongly recommend a listen.

As an extra, check out this piece about DJ Rekha. You can also listen to three cool foot-tapping numbers from her new album.

YES ??!

OK, so after my V-day post, I got this in the email today:



Now, I knew that someone loves me, but this is interesting.

So, anonymous-gifter-who-is-interested-in-PhDs-returning-to-India, since you have exhausted your free gift quota on the facebook, want to post a comment?

No red roses, no hearts in the air

Yeah, you read it right -- I am celebrating the singles-awareness-day today :), writing research-related stuff on my new tablet.

But my lack-of-time does not mean you all should not enjoy. For your reading pleasure, I provide the following:

1. A NYTimes article [via JD] of love and diet, aptly titled "I Love You, but You Love Meat". I know I will feel sad if I dated someone who does not eat meat, and I had to endure my chicken-curry all by myself :-|.

2. Abi's V-day links. Edition One and Two.

3. Customary anti-V-day propaganda from our conservative hindu friends back home. My suggestion -- follow Indian culture, ban Valentine's day, celebrate Vatsyayana day instead :-).

-A
P.S. So, any women interested in someone with a PhD who wants to go back to Indian academia? :P

Travelling to the US with a laptop? Be prepared to be searched

Check out this article [ref: /.] about how U.S. Agents can inspect and confiscate your digital media. From the article:

The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.

Funny, since I am sure the US Govt. does not do racial profiling.
/sarcasm

To protect your corporate [and personal] secrets, check out this slashdot comment, and maybe think of using truecrypt :-). Then again, maybe if we do not give them the password, we end up living in an airport.

In other US Govt. news, check out this Daily Show Video [warning: mildly adult content]




And finally, a sad fact about the number 1411.

A sweet tablet

Finally, I purchased a tablet PC! It is a gateway and I love it so far. Sadly, firefox does not come with tablet PC support natively. However, the great GeckoTIP extension brings tablet functionality to it and other Mozilla tools.

Yes, this post has been prepared using only the stylus - no keyboard used. I guess it will help me even more, esp. since I can write faster than I can type, and somehow this thing has amazing handwriting recognition skills!

Looking forward to a tabletized future...
-A
P.S. A HUGE thanks to H for pointing one to this deal, as well as driving with me to make the purchase.

In a lighter vein...

Wanna get some laughs? then come see me and my buddies in our first desi improv comedy show of the semester. Saturday at 4pm on USC campus, between THH and Bovard.

More details at the Vidushak Blog.

In other comedy news, it gives me great pleasure to recommend The Daily Tamasha to you all. It is in the spirit of the Onion, but with a desi chutney :-). And I am proud to say that it is written by none other than my dear Varun Grover of the GAP Nautanki Company fame from our ITBHU days :-). It has been placed in the blogroll for permanence. Funny thing, I just checked the blog, and he has blogrolled me :-). I, sir, am honored.

Protesting against protestors

Can someone please start a riot against rioters? I mean, seriously, how much more do we, as citizens have to endure before we get serious about the publicity-hungry mobs who will protest at the drop of a hat?

Why this outrage Animesh, you say. Well, it is because the best tennis player in Asia has decided to not play in her home country. And this is obviously because the powers-that-be do not have the ****s to step up and say "enough BS, leave her alone or we will send you to jail". It was Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty some time ago, and now it is Sania Mirza.

Now, I am all for free speech, but threatening speech is not done. There should also be court-imposed fines over frivolous PILs, so celebrities do not need to watch out for a national flag wherever they go.

outraged,
-A

TZP and the origins of talent

I finally watched the amazing Taare Zameen Par today. Great movie. Please go and watch it if you have not watched it yet.

This post is not about the greatness of the movie, which many people have talked about already. This is also not about pointing out the faults in the movie, because I am sure people have talked about that too.

This post is to get your opinions on a question that we friends started discussing about while watching the movie. The question we discussed was:

"Talking about abstract skills such as art, are some kids just born with it? or can anyone be trained in them?"

Some PoVs:
1. Of course, abstract things like art are skills that the brain either has or does not have. You cannot "train" someone to paint.
2. The human brain is immensely malleable. Anyone can be trained to be a master painter.
3. At higher levels, abstract concepts such as painting and more "concrete" skills such as math are not much different. Thinking up of ways to turn a sphere inside out is as "arty" as painting a masterpiece. And yes, some brains might be better suited for a particular skill. However, anyone, with proper and appropriately-paced training, can become good at a skill, whether it is painting or solving partial differential equations. However, only a few can become true masters. What happens most often, especially in Indian scenarios, is that underpaid and uninterested teachers are not willing to make learning exciting. As a result, only the kids with "aptitude" excel, since the ones without it are not being trained properly.

There is more I have to say... but I shall wait for what you think about this topic. Is "talent" an inborn trait? How much of talent is inborn? [question changed to make it clearer]

Another Day in Grad School

The PhD comics are always funny, but sometimes, they get very, very close to reality.

See this one to know what I am talking about :).

and now, back to real work.
-A
P.S. Check out Elements of Style. Looks like a must-have-in-office book.

A rising ocean lifts all ... houses?

What do you do when the ocean levels rise, or the predictions say that there will be a flood once in 12 years?

Well, you can choose to migrate, or choose to change how you live, factoring the water in the picture.

No, I am not talking about waterworld. I am talking about the houses built over water by a dutch architect.

"This is underwater," she says when we get there. We are in an enclosed basement with a low ceiling, and the Maas River is all around us. I mean, you poke a hole, and you're going to have water come in.

You see, Smits' foundation actually sits on the river bottom. If the river level rises to flood stage, the house and the foundation float up with the water level. Flexible pipes keep the house connected to electrical and sewer lines.

Talk about human resilience! But wait, there's more:

"The next step: we not only make the house floating, but we make the complete garden floating," Olthuis says.

Why not? Why lose all those pretty Dutch tulips just because it floods? After all, Olthuis says, building floating foundations is a snap. Just fill a concrete box with some kind of plastic foam, flip it over, and you've got a stable platform that's ready to float. And the more of these platforms you join together, the more stable they are. So Olthuis doesn't plan to stop at single family homes.

"You see a floating foundation, with a garden on top of it, a swimming pool on top of it, and a house on top of it. And you can fix those floating gardens to each other, and make a floating village of it," he says.

We should really start making some of these in India soon.

Looking forward to Jodhaa Akbar

I had seen the teaser for Jodhaa Akbar while watching the atrocious Bhool Bhulaiya, and have been looking forward to it since.

And today I found the theatrical trailer for it on IndiaFM. And I like what I see :-).



I like how the desis are making good period movies that _look_ the part. Looking forward to more.

For more info, including how perhaps the name Jodhaa was a historian's mistake, check the wikipedia article.

For listening to the songs, check out Dhingana. My favorite is "Azeem-o-shan Shehanshah".

On a different note, give the controversy-creating nature of our media, and the rise of religious nutjobs in India, it will be interesting to see how this muslim-hindu love story is received :-).

Happy Birthday, Dear Consitution!

... and a happy republic day to you all too.

The above page has the parade video, and if you want a patriotic song, I give you two:

The classic one:


and the modern one:


Aap sabko Shubh Gantantra Diwas !

and now... must go to the flag hoisting.

Telecommuting Construction Workers?

Imagine a future where robots do our work [the kind currently done by under-paid illegal immigrants], but need human to control them.

What if that manpower came from across the border, not in trucks, but over communication lines?

That is the premise of the movie Sleep Dealer. Wired has an interesting post on it.

Sleep Dealer tells the story of a young campensino named Memo whose DIY radio draws unwanted attention from a U.S. military contractor. Fleeing to Tijuana, Memo has implants placed in his body in order to become a "node worker" -- a Mexican laborer who, from south of the border, taps into a vast network that operates robots located in the United States.

Memo's robot welds girders on a skyscraper. Other node workers perform housework, watch the kids and keep the yard neat. The film's title refers to the node workers' exhaustion as they work 12-hour shifts to build, clean and maintain cities they'll never visit.

Given that it will be some time before robots become smart enough [and we trust them enough] with jobs, the premise of the movie may come to be true. Definitely worth thinking about.

In other news, did you know that there are 9 million bcycles in Beijing? [great music video - must watch]

Shoppers without Borders

In case you don't know yet, Palestine is currently divided into two administrative regions, with Gaza being ruled by the democratically-elected Hamas organization [who, btw, believe in shooting rockets periodically into Israel :-( ].

Since Israel controls the borders of Gaza, it has blocked all supplies into it, causing a severe shortage of food, medicine and fuel. In fact, Gaza had a blackout yesterday since their fuel ran out, after which the Israelis allowed some fuel to cross into Gaza.

Of course, the leaders of both sides remain stuck on their PoVs, GWB and his "peace-attempts" notwithstanding. But what about the people? What is a person to do when the price of things like rice go to three times the price.

Well, if you cause such a pressure, science tells us that walls might break.

And break they did. Well, one wall - the one on the border between Gaza and Egypt - has been broken.

So, what kind of violent demons infiltrated Egypt from Gaza?

Jubilant men and women crossed unhindered by border controls over toppled corrugated metal along sections of the barrier, carrying goats, chickens and crates of Coca-Cola. Some brought back televisions, car tires and cigarettes and one man even bought a motorcycle. Vendors sold soft drinks and baked goods to the crowds.

They were stocking up on goods made scarce by the Israeli blockade and within hours, shops on the Egyptian side of Rafah had run out of most of their wares. The border fence had divided the Rafah into two halves, one on the Egyptian side and one in southern Gazan.

Ibrahim Abu Taha, 45, a Palestinian father of seven, was in the Egyptian section of Rafah with his two brothers and $185 in his pocket.

"We want to buy food. We want to buy rice and sugar, milk and wheat and some cheese," Abu Taha said, adding that he would also get some cheap Egyptian cigarettes. He said he could get the food in Gaza, but at three times the price.

The Egyptian president, a big-time US ally, has said that he does not mind if the Palestinians walk into Egypt, shop, and go back - as long as they are unarmed.

I think this incident puts a human face to the crisis. Leaders from both sides, please take note, and start working to alleviate the stress. Otherwise, more frequent and more severe wall breaches might occur.

Command-line Life Partner

R pointed me [via /.] to this craigslist personal ad for a g33ky girl.

Some glimpses:

I am part of a dying breed of people known as "shell users." We are an old-fashioned bunch, preferring the warm glow of a green screen full of text over the cold blockiness of a graphical interface. We use ssh, scp, and even occassionally ftp.
[...]
Because there are fewer and fewer of us, I must help keep our lineage alive. I am looking for someone to help me do this. I need a woman (obviously) who is willing to raise a child with me in the method of Unix. Our child will be introduced to computers at a young age, and will be setting emacs mode before any other child can even read. I earn a sufficient income to support a family in modest comfort. Other than the fact our child will be bright, text-based and sarcastic, we will otherwise be a normal family. We will even go to Disney World and see Mickey Mouse.)
[...]
on the issue of relocation. I live in a place where my income/expense ratio is proper (i.e., greater than 2:1). I'm willing to live anywhere in the world where this remains true.

All in all, an interesting take on the personals ad. I am sure that if the girl uses command-line like him and responds to him, they will also share a lot of other interests.

Now to find someone like above ... who also happens to love the Ganges ;).