The Casual Chronicle

Pennies for a dollar

2011-12-23T17:52:00.001-08:00

For a long while now, I have been inspired by amazing bloggers who are living examples of the concept of 'New Rich' . And mind you, I'm talking about 20 something guys and gals who have transformed their lifestyles by various life-hacks. Just to give you an example of what I'm talking about, imagine living a life of a millionaire with only a few hours of work every week, or managing to fly around world for free, or becoming New York Times bestseller at 26 . All these blogs have amazing tips, practical ideas and best of all proven records of them working. Now, for a lot of people all of their advice or tips may not be appropriate. But lets pick what we can and work with that.

I've also been very interested in managing my money and maximizing it. I'm always on the lookout for deals, coupons and discounts. But then who isn't. The key is to be systematic and plan in advance to make the most of the all the deals and coupons. Same goes with investing, saving and money management in general. Inspired by Tim Ferris, I'm going to take a deep dive into cutting deals and trying out these ideas and distill them to find the ones that work the best and the ones that don't. My one peeve with a lot of these tips and blogs is that a lot of the things they suggest take too much time and people have waste a lot of effort on research. One of my biggest philosophies in life is the 80/20 principle. Nothing new but its amazing how every time you have to make a decision, all you need to do is think about the Big things and the rest will take care of itself. So I want to focus on only the stuff that gives the maximum bang for your buck/effort/time whatever you deem important.

And thus my blog, 'Pennies for a dollar'

Dogtooth

2011-04-06T06:27:00.001-07:00

Dogtooth is one of those weird foreign movies which had received a lot of praise in the media and especially in the blogosphere. Almost all the critics and bloggers I admire and respect had loved the movie. So basically as you can imagine, I went in with boatloads of expectation.

Of course it had to be good! I trust my taste in blogs and critics which in turn means I share the taste in movies with my Gurus of film-buffery. And if I didn't like a movie they LOVED, that would be a contradiction of sorts, wouldn't it? Actually no, because I respect their thoughts and views to understand where they would be coming from but can still have divergent opinions. See how I slipped in a snide comment on how it's ok to have different viewpoints and yet be ok with it.

Anywho, so Dogtooth is a Greek film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and came out in 2009 amidst widespread acclaim in Greece and all of Europe in general. I guess it came out in the US somewhere in 2010 since it was nominated for a bunch of awards last year including Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film. The film is about this married couple who bring up their 3 children in a protected environment which has metamorphosed into an alternate reality. As with all great movies, the movie throws you bang in the middle of the family without any preface or backstory or any sort of explanation. Whatever you gleam about them is through the conversations they have and rest is your own guess of what might have happened. It starts of pretty innocuously like a family with regular kids but soon enough you realize something is seriously wrong. The kids are locked up in their house and are kept under a tight leash by the parents who teach them new words daily using a tape recorder. The kids are forbidden to venture out of the house by fear of dangers lurking. Things are generally dark and get increasing macabre as the movie progresses. A good example would be the games the kids play amongst each other which are disturbingly violent. At one point the father hits out at a girl, who is blindfolded and bought to the house to sexually educate and satiate the boy, for trying to morally contaminate the house. That is the one of the few direct glimpses of the parent's thought process.

The movie obviously is a wildly allegorical tale. But we are not instantly sure what the allegories are, if any. There are these themes about parents who are so fiercely protective of their kids against the 'corrupted' world, that the kids end up being bought up in an almost dystopian world. You could also extend this theme a bit into a commentary about the whole concept of home schooling. The 2 major interpretations were xenophobia and government control/manipulation of information. If we think about it, isn't xenophobia a tool used by the government to control the population. If you have seen the documentaries of North Korea, you would see a chilling real world example of a controlled society. Of course North Korea is an extreme example whereas the rest of the world revels in different levels of madness. Having said that, perhaps I'm overanalyzing here and maybe this wasn't supposed to mean anything more than being just a weird movie. But I guess I needed to do that keep distant from the actual proceedings which can revolt and repulse quite a few. A comedy, this was certainly not!

Google TV: What does it change for us as viewers?

2010-05-20T13:39:00.001-07:00

One of the major announcements that people were looking forward to from Google in the IO 2010 conference was that of Google TV. Google is attempting something which a lot of different players have aimed to achieve with varying degrees of success. The initial Google TV vendor is going to be Sony, which will launch the first Google enabled TV and in partnership with Logitech offer a Google TV box similar to one of the HD players like Roku and others. Apple which had something similar in mind must would be kicking itself for missing the bus.

The concept here isn't something radical. What Google is promising is to bring the web to the TV and enable seamless access across the 2 platforms. This might sound vaguely familiar to the experience you get currently out of your Media center connected PC, your PS3 or XBox 360. All of these devices offer some sort of web access to enable content from the internet to be streamed on your TV. But Google wants to make the experience of consuming media platform agnostic. Effectively this eliminates the need to connect to separate devices for your cable and internet needs. For this to be achieved Google has partnered with various companies including Dish Network, Comcast amongst others to provide a unified device. Android obviously fits in the role of the OS perfectly. Android was designed as an OS to operate on various devices, not just mobile. And this might be the first major use of it in a non-mobile format.

What does all this mean for an average viewer. Traditional cable systems are just too outdated to be even existent in the current era. Its amazing that TV and the broadcasting industry has seen so little change in the content delivery format over years. You still can't search for shows, look for old episodes, have any interactive capabilities or filter content based on personal choices. Media discovery is still ridiculously cumbersome. The phrase 'Skipping channels' has been in existence since more than 30 years. Google TV is the first step to changing the whole setup by offering a web like interface to discover videos from everywhere. Be it shows from your cable, or videos from youtube or even browsing the internet, its all possible through your television set now. This is definitely exciting for an average viewer because frankly no one cares where the content comes from, you should be able to consume it whenever and wherever you need it.

However, one must keep in mind that this is still a first step. Its like lot of those new devices which have Android on it but don't really know what to do with it. Google is just expecting us to find content through the web browser and view it on our TV. Honestly with a few modifications my PS3 should be able to the same things and so should my media center PC with Boxee on it. The more exciting aspect of all this is that the idea of media integration and platform independent viewing is finally taking ground. Hopefully with more companies jumping in and more partnerships we'll see the long overdue revolution in TV.

10 Android Apps Which I couldn’t Live Without

2010-04-25T14:37:00.001-07:00

I had been wanting to put this list out since a while, but somehow never got to it. It’s interesting because I guess about 6 months back, the lineup would have been different. It speaks volumes of the tremendous growth both in the quantity and quality of Android apps. Far from being an distant cousin to the Apple store, Android has come of age. From the freckles to the thin mustache to the roughening voice to finally the first official glass of beer, Android has finally grown up. Without any further ado, here we go:

Newsrob: It is probably the best free RSS reader in the market. And even the paid version(ad-free) is well worth the price. They have done frequent updates to keep the app bug free and up to date. For a Google reader addict like me, this app is indispensable.

Cube Music Player: Android’s default music player is one of the best examples of a bare bones product. It is not going to win any brownie points for its looks for sure. Even the features are very limited. There are a few alternatives in the market, but the Cube player is probably the most pretty among the lot. It’s still in beta, so one could expect some more improvements.

Aldiko Reader: This is my favorite Ebook reader app. Now reading books on a 3in screen is definitely not one of the best experiences in life, but for those moments when the phone is your only companion and you need to read that story of Sherlock, Aldiko serves you well. It has a nice clean interface and beautiful wooden style display of your library. It accepts a variety of formats and has an in -built search functionality to find and download publicly available books.

Advanced Task Killer: When Steve Jobs took a dig at Android during the launch of the Iphone 4g OS, one didn't feel the usual indignation at his comment. At least owners of older Android devices like the G1, myTouch, Cliq etc will agree that the Android OS does tend to get sluggish when you have multiple apps open. Although there quite a few task managers, I like this one the best. The best part about it is the widget on the home screen which lets you kill all running apps with one click.

Opera Mini 5: For a firefox like experience with tabs and speed dial on your phone, Opera is the best you can get. Opera is also blazingly fast even on 3g and edge connections. Although I haven’t found a way yet to make it the default browser. Maybe once it comes out of beta, we should be able to do it.

Google listen: This is by far the best podcast app in the market. Although it bears the Google mark of minimalistic design, it is perfectly functional. It' is easy to search for podcasts and subscribe to them. A recent allergy attack had my eyes red for a week. This led to a rediscovery of sorts of the Listen app. Just the right app for those lazy afternoons to spend listening to ‘This American life’.

Google Maps Navigation: This is definitely the crown piece of the Android ecosystem. The one app which the Iphone doesn’t have in its arsenal. Complete voice guided navigation, with turn by turn directions, text to speech and live traffic updates. Best of all, it’s completely free. Google has effectively made all existing GPS systems obsolete.

Pandora: The best internet streaming app across appstores. Pandora’s huge music database is available to you from the convenience of your handset. It runs fine even on 3g and Edge. Also you can run it at the background while doing other activities(Hint: subtle dig at Iphones)

Shopsavvy: There are a bunch of shopping apps on the market including Google’s own Shopper. The best ones have more or less the same features viz. barcode scanner, product comparisions and prices matches from nearby stores. Shopsavvy is one of the older ones and they have updated constantly to keep the product in good shape. Personally I’ve always found the cheapest prices through Shopsavvy.

Sportstap: This is a must have for any sports lover. Got all your scores covered. Instant real time updates and the ability to follow your favorite teams. Simple, elegant and highly functional.

Turtles Can Fly

2010-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

To be honest, this is the year I finally managed to catch a bunch of good international movies. Some of the really small gems which get lost. That is where Netflix comes in, gathering all of those great films in a nice HD streamable format.

‘Turtles can fly’ is the story of a Kurdish village ravaged by Saddam and his army. Its basically a refugee village with only kids and a few old men left. The kids are led by Satellite, a dynamic 12-13 year old named after his ability to install and configure satellite dishes. Satellite also leads the kids on mine clearing missions. He then sells the mines, thus providing the only source of employment. Its a relentless tragedy as one observes kids without an arm or a leg most likely from accidents during the picking of mines. However life must go on and Satellite and his group treat the missing limbs in a matter of fact fashion.

Satellite has his eyes for a pale beautiful girl who lives with her armless brother and an small kid presumably their brother. The armless boy is supposed to have some powers of clairvoyance. And the predictions he makes aren’t always pleasant. There is a lot of pain in the girl’s eyes and as the horror of her past is relived, one realizes the pain and agony that people and specially kids have to go through each day in that region. As everyone around prays for American intervention, war ironically seems to be the panacea to all their problems.

The movie starts off at a meandering pace letting us into the lives of the kids and their suffering. But pretty soon, the story grips you and one is inevitably tied in to each of the characters and they all mean something to you. The music is haunting and the children's performances are scarily natural. It helps that the kids aren't actors but mainly real children from the region. The film takes an tragicomic sort of approach, dealing with the destruction in a nonchalant sort of way. Its been directed by Bahman Ghobadi, an Kurdish Iranian filmmaker and the music is by Hossein Alizadeh. Probably one of the finest movies of the decade; one that is chilling in the effect it leaves on you.

Facebook quizzes

2010-01-16T20:45:00.001-08:00

Quizzing was one of my favorite hobbies as a kid, so imagine my pain when one sees inane and utterly ridiculous quizzes on facebook each day. A few samples for your perusal

What Greek god are you?
Really? I’m dull, non-descript with an unimpressive body and you have the nerve to call me Adonis and you show the sculpture of nude young man with flat abs(though he had a small dick). Whoever told them that Gods looked like that anyway.

How perverted are you?
After a series of images of close ups of body parts of women asking what I thought of them and then showing the full image as something else, I came to the conclusion that any straight man would have answered like me. The result, not surprisingly: '”You are really perverted! Would you like to post this result on your status?”. Why on earth would I want to put this on my status, But there was just a “Yes” button and no way to say “No” on the popup. So I clicked the cross to close it, it went out with a message saying, “Thanks! you status has been updated.” WTF!

How cool are you?
This one was an absolute bummer:
What is the capital of Peru: a) Lima b) Chile c) Peru city
Lima! I got this one

Who is known as the father of nuclear physics? a) Rutherford b) Einstein c) Chuck Norris
Not Einstein, its Rutherford. Got that one as well.

Which is the smallest country in the world? a) Bahamas b) Vatican City c) Cuba
That was easy. Vatican

I was feeling confident, years of quizzing had kept everything fresh in mind. It took a little extra time to process the results and then came the surprise: “Sorry! You are a douchebag”.

Who is your celebrity twin?
Now this one seemed to be aimed at girls, but I had no clue. It didn’t ask for my gender before I started. This was clearly the most difficult of them all, I had to think really hard. You needed have the brain the size of pea to crack this one. Anything bigger, you’re automatically disqualified.
How would you describe your character: Hmm… Obnoxious.

What do you do at a club: Do my super seduction dance. Mostly everyone goes away, unless they completely wasted; then they start to find it interesting.

Who is your favorite Disney princess? This one is a tough one man. I’ve to go with Sleeping beauty, she had the best rack in the cartoon illustrations.

What is your favorite candy? I don’t care, I eat them all

Congrats! Your celebrity twin is Paris Hilton! I passed out after that.

Top 10 Hindi songs of 2009

2010-01-10T13:36:00.001-08:00

It’s a vain activity; one indulges in near the beginning of the year looking back the year that went by. In retrospect, the impression of 2009 is that of a very weak year. Flops rained left right and center. Some of them, big high budget duds. The producers - multiplex crisis didn’t help as well.

However personally I felt it was a pretty good year in terms of the music. So without much ado, let’s get to the songs. The songs aren’t ranked in any particular order:

1. Nayan Tarse: Amit Trivedi is undoubtedly the superstar of this year, with a breakout album in DevD. 18 OSTs, all of them from different genres were sung by a bunch of new singers. Trivedi wields the megaphone himself and the song is magic right from the first second. This is THE song for the new age Devdas’.

2. Emotional Atyachaar: Amitabh Bhattacharya and Anurag Kashyap should probably get the credit for introducing a new phrase into colloquial language. This song featured majorly in the early promotions for the film. Bony Chakravarthy was a fresh new voice. It had some funky lyrics to go. I loved the Rock version as well with some great instrumentation. (Of course, the unrated X version became very popular underground and on youtube).

3. Rehna Tu: Rahman’s first album of the year, in a year where he got 2 Oscars. Delhi 6 was gold all out. Rahman generally sings at least one song in every album of his. There have been quiet mutterings that maybe Rahman reserves the best songs for himself. But if the results are anything like this song, no one’s complaining for sure. The last 2 minutes are just pure bliss.

4. Sapno se bhare:
“Sukh Hai Alag Hai Aur Chain Alag Hai
Per Yeh Jo Dekhe Woh Nain Alag Hai
Chain To Hai Apna Sukh Hai Paraye”
These lines stayed with me a long time. The visualization is so poignant and the setting so low-key (In a realistic way). The expression on Farhan Akhtar’s face after he washes his face is probably the epitome of restrained brilliance.

5. Duniya: This one is an underrated gem. Piyush Mehra composes, writes the lyrics and sings this song. Inspired by Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, the song mocks at our society and the degradation it has suffered. It’s almost poetic, almost surreal and almost depressing. But it rescues you in the end and we are saved. You know what, just forget all this and listen to the song, eyes closed.

6. Iktara: Shankar Ehsan Loy composed a decent album for Wake Up Sid with 3 nice numbers, but then from nowhere comes Amit Trivedi and composes a bummer of a song. Right from the first beat till the end, it’s a beauty. Kavita Seth renders it in a way that just makes one cozy and happy.

7. Dhan De Nan: It’s a song that just stormed the charts and refused to leave the lips. I was doing Dhan De Nan at every excuse of a surprise. And when you see the song on the big screen that is when Vishal Bharadwaj rips you with not just the music but the visualization. Psychedelic and edgy all at once.

8. Pankhon Ko: “Rocket Singh, Salesman of the year” is one of my favorite films of the year. The movie is an example how to make an honest film. This song got lost somewhere I guess as the movie itself was. Everything was just beautifully underplayed. Salim and Suleiman are probably the most underrated amongst the current music directors. They have always made good music, but somehow they never got the respect they deserve. The lyrics by Jaideep Sahni are simple and yet inspiring. One particular line which I would like to point out: “.. Ulje nahi to kaise suljhoge, bikhre nahi to kaise nikhroge..”

9. Dil Ibaadat: Tum Mile had an amazing knockout of an album. All the songs were chartbusters. Sung by KK, this Pritam composition was an instant delight. The lyrics were just average though. Emraan Hashmi just has this knack of getting great songs for all his movies.

10. Jaao Na: Whats your Rashee was a weird movie, almost 4 hours long, rambling in parts and just a plain boring yawn fest. Coming from Ashutosh Gowarikar, one definitely had better expectations. Music always has been one of the big strengths of his movies. This time he didn’t have Rahman on board and went ahead with a new comer in Suheil Sen. I thought he was unfairly compared to Rahman and panned badly. The music was definitely not bad and had a lot of interesting compositions. This one was a breezy number sung by Sen himself (What is with all these composers singing the best songs themselves). Some great strumming and an overall nice instrumentation make it a nice number.

11. Behti Hawa: Alright, wasn’t this supposed to be a top 10 list? Yeah, but I decided to add a couple of bonuses. Coming right at the end of the year in the biggest hit of all time; the music underwhelmed many who wanted a Rahman – Aamir combo again. But Shantanu Moitra has a quiet confidence in his work, and somehow his songs always seem to work well when seen with the movie itself. Spectacularly shot on a road trip to Shimla and then Ladakh, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears together.

12. Arziyan: I remember reading at Moifightclub about this song being probably a part of Rahman’s conversion process coming in the lines of Khwaja and Piya haji ali. Funny as it might be, one has begun to start waiting for that next soulful melody coming from the master. Javed Ali has had such a good year he is just so brilliant in each of his efforts.

There were a few other good songs:

Pardesi, Payaliya from DevD,
‘Masakalli’, ‘Dilli hai mere yaar’ from Delhi-6
Couple of great songs from Raaz and Jashn,
Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani had a super album with 5 great songs
‘Give me some sunshine’ from 3 Idiots
All songs from Gulal
A nice all round album in Love aaj kal
Couple of good songs in Radio (Himesh baba is still not done yet)

Random Conversation

2010-01-06T08:27:00.001-08:00

Me: (calling a long lost friend) Hey happy new year!
Other side: (Weird accent) Happy new year!
Me: Kaisa hai saale ?
Other side: (Still weird) Do I know you sir?
Me: bahut ho gaya nautanki
Other side: I don't understand your language
Me: Alright , ass****, stop f***ing around. You never called as well.
Other side: ----(profanities ensue)----
Me: (apologizing profusely) ---hang up---

Stuffed Mushroom With Cheese

2010-01-02T21:55:00.001-08:00

I technically cheated on this one, since I made it on the 31st, but I was just trying to help….. myself. Anyways, the original recipe comes from the Pioneer Woman.(Awesome blog, addictive read).

As always when making new recipes you improvise, intentionally or otherwise. Here is the recipe from pioneer woman. I couldn't find any brie at Walmart, so had to make do with some cottage cheese. I completely forgot about the white wine, since it was optional. The finishing was bad, since I didn’t wait to dress it up but just started devouring it. Thankfully I managed to grab one picture with my cell phone to show for my efforts.

It didn’t taste too bad and the 3 people who tasted it other than me are still alive. So I’m counting it as a success. The secret of happiness is not to go for perfection, but to just go for it.

Munnabhai B.tech ..anyone?

2009-12-29T22:36:00.000-08:00

3 Idiots is arguably the most awaited movie of the year. Ever since it was announced that Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan were going to get together to make a movie on the education system, the interest of every movie lover (including the author) was piqued. To start with, 3 Idiots is probably the most entertaining movie of the year. And that is saying something, specially in a year which has had a bunch of high profile duds. At the time of writing, according to some reports, the movie has already garnered close to 93 cr in the opening weekend itself. This is an all time high record for any Indian movie. Not that anyone had any doubts on whether the movie was going to recover money or make profits.

But coming from a team which has movies like the Munnabhai series, TZP, RDB, Lagaan and DCH under its belt, the expectations were for something special, a probable classic. Hirani’s greatest asset is his ability to create humor in every situation. And he isn’t someone just content to milk laughs. Lage Raho Munnabhai was perhaps the bravest movie of the decade. Coming after its insanely funny predecessor, Hirani could have just replicated the formula by sending Munna to do either Law or MSc or MBA. But instead he completely forsake the structure of the previous movie and went ahead with the masterstroke of using Gandhi as a key character. In both his movies, there were messages laced subtly in the midst of all the jokes.

Coming to 3 Idiots, it is the story of 3 students viz. Rancho(Aamir Khan), Farhan(Madhavan) and Raju(Sharman Joshi) who study engineering at a college run by Viru Sahastrbuddhe (Boman Irani). Essentially Rancho seems to have to come to college only to point out the problems with the education system and rebel against it along with his faithful sidekicks. The point gets overstated a bit, but it is doused in generous doses of humor to keep it light and enjoyable

The movie employs a bunch of set pieces and turns them on their head with hilarious twists. As an example: the scene where Chatur(played by new face Omi, it is a significant character in the movie) addresses the entire college in chaste hindi without understanding the meaning of what he is saying. But where Hirani sets the movie aside from a mindless comedy is evident in the very next scene when Chatur comes back drunk and questions Rancho on why was he humiliated. In a way even the character of Chatur, who is otherwise one dimensional and irritating, gets a chance to redeem himself.

Hirani keeps it realistic only when he wants it to be, taking a lot of things for granted. But then you are willing to be a part of the joyride which enables you to suspend you disbelief. The second half is definitely more melodramatic, which gives the characters and the viewers a chance to introspect on the issues, the movie highlights. However this is when the problems with the script start to get discomforting. You feel a sense of manipulation, in the way your emotional responses are tickled. There are scenes which virtually beg to you laugh, followed by some real tearjerkers and one painfully long cringe worthy scene. The so called pertinent questions about the education system start to seem like an afterthought in a movie which basically wants to be a blockbuster.

3 Idiots in spite of all its brilliance is a lazy script. For all practical purposes this could have been virtually Munnabhai Btech, with Rancho replacing Munna and Circuit replaced by 2 sidekicks. The rest is the same, an autocratic head of institution and his daughter who falls in love with the protagonist. Even more, the whole scene of Jimmy Shergill having an heart to heart with his father in Lage Raho is replicated in 3 Idiots. And guess what, the father is the same in both: Parikshit Sahni.

As far as performances go, its primarily an Aamir Khan movie, more so than his other multi starrers like RDB or DCH. He rises to the occasion and plays the role with a great deal of conviction. However the effort to play a character half his age shows. In the early part he goes a little overboard with the wide eyed grin, lip smacking and droopy shoulders. However he eases into the role and seems more natural, as the film progresses . Madhavan is adequate in his role; its not really a difficult one for him. Sharman has a couple of scenes, where he shows why he is one of the most underrated actors in Hindi cinema. Boman Irani’s character didn’t seem well etched, and therefore he hams it up a bit to make up. Kareena’s role is a minor one and she is pleasant throughout. The chemistry between Aamir and her was non existent though.

Ultimately 3 Idiots is a movie that will still achieve all of its stated goals, viz make money for all those involved, entertain most people and be another feather in the cap of Aamir and Hirani. But with the kind of resources at their disposal, they could have aimed for something higher.

Rock ON!

2009-12-28T16:06:00.001-08:00

My engineering college had a rich tradition of cultural festivals and Rock music. ‘Horizons’ was our annual fest for which the entire college longed for and started working for from the around the middle of the year. Committees were formed, leaders elected, budgets drawn and plans drawn to organize an event which was grander than the previous year. Students worked feverishly as the days got closer, classes were bunked royally and studying became optional.

The event ran for 3 days. The first day’s main event was the fashion show which was like in no other college. Of course we were just interested in gawking at the girls on the stage and hooting at their every pose and pout. The second day’s attraction was ‘Pro-Nite’, my favorite event. This was a concert by a leading singer or famous musician. This was the big draw which was used in posters and promotional material to draw sponsors.

But the third day was what a big section of the college waited for, ‘The Rock Show’. This involved one of the indie rock bands or a bunch of local rock bands performing a few originals and mostly classic rock. People stayed in college all 3 days and final night was the culmination of months of hard work. The music provided a sense of exhilaration. Booze flowed like water, the air thick with smoke and people were just starting to scale the heights. I missed the Rock night all 3 years.

I love my music; be it film, pop or classical, but I wasn’t exposed to Rock while growing up. And by the time I came to college, there were others who were already in masters in Rock Fandom. I had to start at kindergarten and everyone knows older boys don’t like to play with kids. So I pretended to dislike Rock to get through. When my friends fawned over Pink Floyd and Metallica, I claimed they gave me headaches. Over years, whenever people talk about rock bands like Nirvana, Aerosmith, Queens or Dire Straits, I could only imagine that I was missing an entire universe of music. Somehow I’ve never been able to just get started. I randomly started listening to some of all time hits, but wasn’t able to appreciate it completely. Maybe the history was lost on me or maybe I needed to start with something else.

So this is my attempt to start a journey, to learn about rock music, understand its history and experience the greatest creations from the Masters of Rock. In the course of this journey, I hope to create a collection of articles, links, videos and songs to which I can go back and keep revisiting. And hopefully this might help someone else who starts blank like me.

Lalu’s solution for drought: Eat less – WTF!!

2009-08-20T21:43:00.001-07:00

Finally we have a WTF statement from one of India’s finest comedians, Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav, former chief minister of Bihar, former husband of chief minister of Bihar ….oops..I’m sorry…husband of former chief minister of Bihar and former union railways minister. He has come up with this unique solution to avoid the impending food crisis due to a bad monsoon.

Prasad goes on further in the same article asking everyone to eat just one meal a day and that way the food stock can be made to last for 13 months. This statement has confirmed it at least for me that this guy could have no way been responsible for the supposed turnaround in Indian railways. As it is there are claims that he inflated the profits and many railway insiders claim that he reaped the benefits of his predecessors hard works (one Mr. Nitish Kumar in particular is counted by top Railway honchos as one of the best Ministers the railways has had in many years). If these are the kind of innovative ideas Mr. Prasad can think off, I can wonder what a tough time railways officials might have had in managing his whims and brainwaves during this tenure. I still remember the scheme to introduce matke ka cups in trains to promote local potters and remember exclaiming to myself WTF!

Technorati Tags: WTF,Laloo Prasad Yadav,Indian Railways

Blogging tips from Amit Verma

2009-08-20T11:21:00.001-07:00

Now Amit is one of the preeminent Indian bloggers with a loyal readership. He recently had his first novel published as well. The tips are many and one would have read them somewhere, but I thought it was a nice compilation of points to keep in your mind while writing.

One of the things which came to my mind was when he says, “Writing should be for fun”, was how true it is like an new age proverb. Many people write as an extension of their selfish gene. The innate nature of humans is to propagate their presence, leave signs of their uniqueness, imprint their genome on the sands of time. Blogs by their ease of use have become a very convenient tool, but not necessarily the most effective. That’s where the ‘fun’ part comes. Unless writing is fun, one can’t produce good stuff, instead one will churn out banal and labored articles.
LINK

Technorati Tags: selfish gene,india uncut,amit verma

How To Split A Huge CSV Excel Workbook Into Separate Files

2009-08-14T07:55:00.000-07:00

Linked from Makeuseof.com

How To Split A Huge CSV Excel Workbook Into Separate Files:
I recently started working with a company that does HUGE mailing lists. I deal with a lot of records everyday but this really is a lot of data.
They have an opt-in mailing list that they blast to once or twice a month. When I say huge I am talking about between 7 and 8 million email addresses.

Now if you have ever tried to open a file like this in excel you would see something that looks like this:

The reason you get this error is simple.
Excel can only handle 65,536 lines per sheet. It cannot display the rest of it and will truncate it. This is not good if you need to cut your list into smaller pieces. In my case I need to have less than 1 million records in my csv file to be able to import it into my mailing list program.
I tried using Base from Open Office with the same results. Now I could open this as a text file and chop it up manually or import it into an access database and try and manipulate it there as well. But hey let’s check out a free and EASY alternative to split an Excel workbook into seperate files. It is called FXFisherman’s CSV Splitter v1.1 by Sopheap LY.
We came across it here but I was able to trace it’s origins to the actual post on a forum it was created for and that is here. The original purpose of the app was to work with stock data in smaller chunks from a huge dump.
But hey I guess it will work on ANY csv file. Simply download the application and run it – no install required.
That will bring you to this screen:

Now this program has two simple options : you can split the csv file by the number of lines and specify the maximum number of files. Simply type in the number of lines you want to split each file into, and/or make the maximum pieces that you would want to see.
Next browse for your file by hitting the Browse file button and then hit the Split Now! Button.
When the program is complete you should see something that looks like this:

This tells me that my file of approximately 100,000 records was split successfully into a few even files. If they were more than 25 pieces with 50,000 lines in each it would have changed the algorithm to make each one slightly larger. Either which way this saved the day! I was able to import almost 4 million addresses at the end of the day into smaller chunks! (Thank god for interns!)
Do you know of a better, easier and / or faster way to accomplish the same thing?

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Excel Tips

2009-08-12T07:17:00.001-07:00

This is kind of a ready reckoner for myself and hopefully useful to anyone who visits this blog. There are so many tips and tricks to achieve some not so easy tasks in excel. Over a period of time one gains sufficient experience and learns how to get some stuff done.
I have been working on Excel since almost 8 years now and it still amazes me that there is so much more to the software. Every person will have his or her own little nugget about some hidden feature of Excel. Most of these stuff are available on the internet and you can find them pretty quickly with some intelligent searching. But often it takes up quite a while to find the exact solution and sometimes even stuff you have previously seen before is hard to find again. So I thought of coming up with a section on my blog to consolidate all these small stuff in a easy to find manner (hopefully).
To start with, this link contains stuff on how to crack an excel password and the same website also has stuff on how password protect an excel sheet. This is something I always keep needing whenever you find an excel sheet without a password sometimes created by ex-employees who have left the company but you need to access their stuff.

Technorati Tags: How to crack an excel password,how to password protect excel,excel tips

MonaLisa in MS Paint

2009-07-29T10:26:00.001-07:00

I’m sure many of you must have already seen these video, but this is the first time I saw it and was stunned beyond words. As if creating something so brilliant with a mouse itself is not amazing enough(though I have a feeling the artist used a tablet), the whole thing was done using Microsoft’s much maligned and abused MS Paint.
Yes all you Photoshoppers and Gimpers, this is for real. Now I’m no painter, but the way the artist went about creating the framework and then building the basic structures of the painting and then proceeding to shade the different regions was enlightening. The interesting part is that the basic structure is done in half the time. It’s the nuances and the finer details that take the rest of the time. Kinda true about life in general, its the finer things in life that differentiate the best from the rest.
Enjoy the video

Just in case, if you are still having any doubts about MS Paint’s capability, check out this image created entirely out of - you know what (The image is from DeviantArt). Adios for now

Technorati Tags: DeviantArt,MS Paint,Photoshop,Gimp,Painting,Monalisa in MS Paint

Google fusion tables: is it from Gapminder?

2009-07-22T09:59:00.001-07:00

Quite some time back, I had come across this talk by Hans Rosling at ted.com. Ted is one site, which I frequently visit to listen to great speakers, tech leaders and futuristic ideas. Hans is a Swedish professor, who built a tool to present data in a visual format using multiple dimensions rather than the usual 2 dimensional graphs.
The presentation is one of the most popular ones at Ted, partly due to the fact that the tool is amazing. But a large part of it was due to Hans’ great enthusiasm. His passion for data and pedagogy is naturally evident in the video as his shows off his tool. He plays with the audience with great anecdotes and his natural humor is just endearing. I’m posting that video from Ted (its a must watch):

Hans’ website is Gapminder.org, where he talks more about his project, with more examples and datasets. Then an interesting news came up. Gapminder had been acquired by Google. Now it became even more intriguing to imagine what Google might do with it. The way Google generally works with their acquisitions is use parts from it in lot of other services and integrate the product itself in the Google ecosystem. So Google Public Data was one of the products to use some of the technology in visualizing the tons of data available on government databases. This was precisely one of Hans’ goals in unearthing data from public systems.
Finally I came across Google tables in Google Labs, which seems to be the first legitimate version of Gapminder under Google’s parentage. Now Google tables is still fairly limited in features and is more like an early beta. But already, one can see the where Google is headed to. For starters you can use one of the datasets which Google provides to create graphs and visualize data. The same principle of using multiple dimensions which Hans demoed is visible in the graphs in Google tables and the ease of doing something as potentially complicated as that is just amazing. I tried one of those visualizations on a map. This one maps the GDPs of countries of the world. In the map, the higher ranked countries are marked in a lighter shade, whereas the poorer countries are marked in darker shades. I made this up in less than 2 minutes. Although the data leant itself to such visualizations to enable the quick producing of the this chart, the tool is beautiful in itself.

Technorati Tags: Google tables,ted.com,hans rosling,google labs,google public data

How to make $37mn: the #squarespace way

2009-06-09T15:27:00.001-07:00

If you saw your twitter account today, you might have noticed a bunch of posts with ‘#squarespaces’ tag in them. Some of the tweets were totally irrelevant, while others at least bothered to enlightened you to squarespace.com which is giving out free Iphone 3GS it seems.

Now suddenly it all makes sense. Squarespace is a web hosting service, nothing unique about that. But they obviously have a smart marketing team which thought of this innovative way to get themselves some buzz. So squarespace is indeed giving out free Iphones. Well actually they are giving out $199 Apple gift certificates, thus you have pay for your on own data plan and stuff. So its not even an unlocked phone. Now doing the math, Squarespace is investing $5970 for a 30 day campaign.
And what are they getting in return: almost 15mn unique impressions each day for 30 days. Assuming a cost of 1 cent per impression, they are getting $4.5mn worth of eyeballs. Considering a 3% click through rate and a rate of 50 cents per click, that is equivalent to $6.75mn worth equivalent campaign on Google Adwords. Now assuming they have a 3% conversion rate, they would have already signed up over 400,000 accounts. Their cheapest plan is worth $8/month, so let us assume everyone takes only that the basic plan. Now considering a profit margin of $2/month and retention of 1 year, we are looking at customer value of $91, leading to profits to the tune of $37mn!!!
That is an estimated ROI of over 617326% !!!
My head is spinning already, This has got to be one of most amazing breakthroughs in marketing history. I know there are lot of assumptions in my calculations, but I’ve tried to be conservative and err on the lower side in every assumption. No matter how you choose to look at it, it is still a mind boggling number in profits and ROI for a single campaign. Hats off to Squarespace, you guys rock, and as a tribute, I’m gonna tweet about them. Who knows, heck I might actually snag one of those Iphones.

Technorati Tags: #Squarespace,Iphone 3gs,ROI,Adwords

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Iphone 3GS: What is the fuss all about?

2009-06-08T15:25:00.001-07:00

Apple launched the new Iphone 3gs at the WWDC today. Rumors had been circulating around the tech world over what are the features that the new Iphone will carry. Some of the rumors and leaked pics actually turned out to be true. As was expected, the new iphone carries a new 3.0 mp camera, with VGA shooting video support.

The new Iphone will also support 7.2 mbps HSPDA speeds with AT&T’s 3G network. Added to that is an unrevealed faster processor and Apple promises magic, and at least 2x times faster operation and browsing experience.
Voice controls are a big new feature, although many other smart phones already carry that in some form or the other. A inbuilt magnetometer will aid compass apps and direction indication on maps. But all of these leaves me kind of disappointed. Specially after looking at the feature list of Palm Pre. Sure Iphone should be faster and have a better browsing speed. It has a better camera and has video, but there is no multitasking yet. Push is still not supported in the truest sense.
What is exciting though is that the new Iphone will available at the same price which is $199 for the 16 GB model and $299 for the 32 GB one as compared to Sprint’s $199(after a really lame $100 rebate). And the current Iphone 3G be will available for $99. Now that is a real smart move. Not only does that bring Apple in the lower segment, but it also matches Pre’s price with a newer phone and 50,000 strong app world.
My early reaction was underwhelming leading me to dub it as Ifail, but I take my words back, its a good update on the existing Iphone and one which will satisfy all its fans.

Technorati Tags: Iphone 3gs,Palm pre,AT&T,Sprint,Apple,WWDC

3 Reasons why Bing won’t become another Cuil

2009-06-04T16:16:00.001-07:00

So Microsoft has launched Bing after months of secrecy and hype. Is it just another over hyped Cuil? In case you forgot, Cuil was supposed to be the big Google killer created by ex-googlers themselves. My belief is that Microsoft has played a good hand and Bing is here to stay. Here are my reasons:

Unlike previous times, MS this time actually had a good product and did not make the usual implementation faux pas, which we are so used to from the Redmond giant. Bing was launched carefully throughout the world and it wasn’t an half baked product. It replaced Live.com which was MS’s current search product so all the browser extensions and bookmarks were automatically updated. The UI was nice and the whole engine site pretty snappy.
Bing was covered by nearly the entire online media and as if that was no enough, MS has launched a rumored $80mn campaign which includes TV and online marketing. Cuil didn’t have the financial muscle in spite of its huge venture funding. For a search engine to compete against Google, a sustained campaign is absolutely critical to capture the mindshare from the masses. For eg. the chart here shows Cuil’s big start at the time when all the buzz about was there, but as you can see for yourself it sharply fell down due to lack of interest and backing.
Bing has a number of unique features of the board which give it a unique selling proposition against Google. The travel search is excellent and combines features from Kayak and other leading travel sites. It integrates with Farecast, which MS acquired last year. I can already see myself going to Bing for all my future search as a first choice since it integrates all existing travel sites. The Video preview feature is a nice touch and even image search with the infinite scroll makes it easy to look images without having keep hitting back button each time.

In conclusion, even though I love Google as a company and all their products, I’m happy to see a strong competitor to their bread and butter product which is search. It will bring out the more innovations for us consumers from both Google and Microsoft. With Wolfram Alpha already out there creating its own niche, these are exciting times for users.

Technorati Tags: Googe,bing,wolfram,cuil

Microsoft opens Bing travel: looks Kayakish

2009-06-04T10:36:00.001-07:00

Bing.com’s long promised travel search launched today over here. At first sight it looks a lot like Kayak’s interface. But that is not to say that it isn’t good. Copying isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Bing has put into use the Farecast feature as well which lets you know if the price is expected to go up or not with a tip similar to stock buying. Maybe someone could start an Ebay.com for flight tickets and start options trading on them. Ideas… Ideas…

Technorati Tags: Bing.com,Microsoft,kayak,farecast

All about profile pics.... Enough said!!

2009-06-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

Didn't I just say! "All about profile pics.... Enough said!!". Its just awesome, covers all the possible combinations. Hilarious

Naan Kadavul!! Disturbing

2009-05-27T12:57:00.001-07:00

Caught Naan Kadavul yesterday finally after a long long wait. Bala has always been known to explore the fringe elements and potray the stark reality in them. Naan Kadavul is no different. Its hard hitting to say the least. But there were a few flaws. A detailed review will come soon

Got a new phone: nokia 5800

2009-05-25T09:39:00.001-07:00

I finally managed to order a nokia 5800 after days of pondering whether to buy it or not. I suffer from compulsive buyer’s remorse disorder. This manifests itself in the way that I keep searching and analyzing before buying anything. For eg. when I decided that I had to get a smartphone, the process became one long time wasting avenue.

I must have spent hours and hours on tech review sites, going through phone after phone. I had called multiple vendors, my service provider, alternative services asking for the best plans and then still not decided. Every time I did that, I felt pangs of guilt that I was wasting so much time on looking and maybe I would be better of not buying anything.
Finally I decided to buy one of Ebay: a unlocked G1 for about 290 bucks. It was a good deal and I was happy that I had put an end to my search. But that was not to be. No sooner had placed by bid and won it, I realized that the seller had only 2 reviews and that from the same person. It was an overseas vendor. Then started the next process, scourging for ways to spot scamsters on ebay. I was satisfied with the protection Paypal was providing. I went through their T&Cs and saw quite a few omissions and loopholes which could have left me in the red. After a day of reading up stuff on Ebay frauds, I decided that all signs pointed towards my seller being a fraud and I decided not to go ahead with the purchase.
Back again to the search, after a couple of weeks I saw a deal on dell.com for Nokia 5800 for 250 bucks after rebate. I decided to go ahead with it immediately primarily because I was frustrated with myself for whiling away so much time. Anyways it was done and yesterday I finally got my phone. First impressions look good, as I already knew what to expect thanks to my endless online review reading. My own detailed review should come pretty soon and till then adios!

Technorati Tags: Nokia 5800,G1,Ebay,Paypal

Appam C Proves he's an Idiot!

2009-05-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Appam Chuthiya(name made famous by Fakeiplplayer) hurled a few abuses to Hayden after the latter smashed him for 3 sixes in one over. Appam wanted to let him know that he had the last laugh. But the whole of India was laughing at him. Hayden didn't bother though, neither did Dhoni on the other side. Chennai won the match eventually by 12 runs. Maybe if Appam had given 2 less sixes away, his side might have won.

I was never a big fan of Sreesanth and felt his antics made him look like a fool. I wish someone calls Harbhajan and asks him to slap him again. Anyways here is the link of the article where Hayden stated that he frankly didn't think much Sreesanth as a bowler.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/highpl/storypage.aspx?id=71428ce7-6371-449a-8fa6-c779a7a6aede&category=Chunk-HT-UI-IPLSectionPage-TopStories

IPL matches live

2009-04-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

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My First Comic Strip

2009-04-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Check out this site : stripgenerator.com
You can create your own comic strips for fun and its easy to embed them in your blog as well. I created a sample strip in 10 minutes. Check it out

Grand Canyon Panaromic

2009-04-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

This is a video I took at the Grand Canyon. I did some editing on Win Movie maker. Suddenly the director in me has got awake and wants to script a full fledged movie. Ok! That might more difficult than any of my other daydreams. But here's what I could do: write a script with all the weirdo characters in my mind and then put it out. A script is after all half the movie. So I at least can claim to be half a movie maker. In the meanwhile, will keep playing with the camera to make small fun videos(no porn!).

Grand Canyon Panoramic from Vinod Iyengar on Vimeo.

Maqbool Fida Husain ... take 2...eh?

2009-04-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

Weekend saw me bring out my painting skills. I first got a painting booklet and some tubes and brushes from walmart to start with my new vanity hobby. I couldn't find a palette at walmart so had to use a makeshift one using a polished wooden board. With all the equipments set up I started on the mission to create my Mona Lisa. So how did it turn out ?

It was a disaster on all fronts. My hand felt as wooden as my makeshift palette. I couldn't get any free flowing strokes going, the colours were uneven, there were smudges all around. All in all it was a pathetic start, but strangely enough, I was feeling excited. The closest analogy to it would be bathroom singing. With the shower providing the sur and taal, we become Kishore Kumars in the those 15 minutes. Truth is even a donkey braying would be more bearable. But who the hell cares, its fun. The amazing thing for me was that I was able to sit and concentrate on something for 2 hours. I must admit I'm a fickle minded lazy bum, who can't stand still for a moment yet do nothing worthwhile. Sounds oxymoronic?

Let me elaborate: after lot and lot of self analysis and contemplation I have realized that I get bored with stuff easily and keep moving around without concentrating on anything. I lack focus and application. The laziness comes in when I realize I need to to do something new, when I've had enough, when the urge to do something in life is at its peak. I just let the urge pass and relax. Anyways more on me later (since this is my blog, you'll be subjected to my syava puranam off and then)

So for anyone still interested in my painting effort, here it goes:

This one is titled Dis"Unity" in Diversity . It is kind of my take on the current state of the world.

The next one is more near and less lofty in its abstractness or whatever (Why am I writing like Indian authors...gosh!)

And this one is titled Brickbats for Bankers, in context of the current recession triggered by the sub prime crisis. Or maybe due to their greediness or maybe due to the excessive nature of capitalism.(I've started blabbering again...please excuse me, its time to stop...Goodbye)

Boosting your willpower

2009-04-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

Check out this article on NY times. What is basically involves is doing routine things in a different manner. For eg. brushing your teeth with the wrong hand, stirring your coffee with wrong hand and in reverse direction and so on. Good fun to keep oneself motivated. As long as they don't hurt :)

New attempt

2008-10-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Chanakya Writes is new blog started by Gayatri, Divya and me. Now the question begets, "Why do we need another blog". To be frank, we might have as well worked on our current blogs or simply revived them. But the total lackadaisical attitude towards blogging and failure to make a significant impact hasn't dampened our enthusiasm towards starting a new blog.

The success of this attempt can only be seen as time passes. Personally, I give it a 0.05% chance of surviving beyond the first few posts(if any). But what the heck, blogging sites are still free and even if it fails, we don't have anything to lose and we still haven't reached the stage in life where our time is so invaluable that we have to keep count of it.

Now what do we propose to write in this blog is definitely a matter of speculation ( not for the non- existent readers, but for us authors). The initial plan is to give our worldly views and take on different topics of interest and news. Its kind of our 2 paise worth of comments and viewpoints on various happenings. We do plan to touch multiple domains, not out of any misplaced compassion towards readers by way of providing succint advices, but just a lame excuse to potray ourselves as self appointed experts on all topics under the sun( wow! we think such highly of ourselves).

If you wondering after all this, what is the purpose of this blog and if I'm actually recommending you to read this blog regularly or not; I would leave that to your own discretion. I can assure you one thing for sure; even if you dont find anything worthwhile from a informative standpoint, you would atleast be amused by our attempts to be knowledgeable