KK's Personal Weblog

The airplane mode.

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:50:57 GMT

My no.1 feature on my cellphone. if it were upto me i would have a dedicated hard button for it.

Tangentially, it actually makes a lot of sense to be living under someone. to be under a constant sense of being controlled. that way, i would do things rather than actually have a lot of freedom and just stare at things all day.

Film

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:40:07 GMT

I want a film camera. Any reccomendations on which to get? Think wild.

Compulsion

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:04:53 GMT

Have this overpowering need to keep travelling. Cant think straight without moving. going somewhere. walks. buses. trains. anything!

Solder

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:00:13 GMT

Have this nice pair of headphones. The problem - the headphone jack has worn off. The music's coming out fit enough for a karaoke session. Looks like soldering is the only way out. Never thought it would come to this! And it feels like crap to realize this in the middle of the night. Crap!

Thought

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:39:31 GMT

Any good thing wont last forever. Forever as in, tomorrow. Or even the next moment. Good things are *that* notorious.

Bad Reviews

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:55:47 GMT

What is the point of a review if its going to say something is bad or what can be called no-go reviews? I mean if its just going to say something's bad, the review itself is a total waste of whatever it took to review and whatever it takes to read/understand that review. Otiose, is the word. There are situations when we are looking to form opinions when the no-go reviews seem useful. (In fact, there is a lot of material out there which only serves to form opinions.) But then such-formed opinions of go and no-go serve no purpose other than to start conversations with strangers (though they'll figure out you are a hack eventually).

So all reviews should give out alternatives. If you are going to say, X is bad, then you should also be saying, try Y instead. Replace the stars with alternatives. There. I have given my alternative.

Thought

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:15:05 GMT

The value of an income is a function of time spent spending it and earning it.

White and Dark Fluff

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:50:05 GMT

Around 5.15 today evening, took a peek outside office. Drove like a madman, to reach home. For these.

Finally some love from the clouds.

Pencil

Fri, 25 May 2007 20:42:50 GMT

Sharpening pencils is like people crying. It helps shed the ‘general bad feeling’ away. It turns out to be perceived bad feeling because a part of it is lost forever. It does make the pencil sharper. Just like a person feels much better after ‘crying’. Sharper. Focussed. And when you are sharpened, you forget that you are old. Forget all that is old. Ready to take on the world. But surely it would all become blunt again. Rinse. Repeat. One twist on the head and you’re all new.

All pencils are unique. Unbelievable? As unbelievable as saying ‘all people are unique’? Each pencil writes differently. The graphite in the pencil is like a human soul. You can see it if you look for it. And it writes itself on everything it touches.

I used to hang out at IIT-Madras a few years back. I never studied there, but had some friends in the campus. It was a great place for cricket, quizzing, college fests (shaastra/saarang), etc. One such time, I found a notebook in the cricket ground which had some notes, poems, thought, observations.. rants generally. I remembered this one distinctly. Its been heavily paraphrased so the author may please forgive me. The original was very amusing.

Thanks to spo0nman for the photo.

Black box

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:31:44 GMT

The album's inside cover features a photographic reference to the cover of The Who's Odds and Sods. In addition to this, Stadium Arcadium is also available in a limited-edition black box that includes the 28-song, two-CD set, plus a DVD with the "Dani California" video and behind-the-scenes "making of the video" footage; a one-hour band interview; a 28-page booklet; contained in an 8-panel digipak; four art cards containing original artwork by the band; a wooden spinning top; four different psychedelic templates for the spinning top; a bag containing marbles; and a notepad disguised as a matchbook.

-from Stadium Arcadium's Wikipedia entry

Whoa!

> happiness

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:09:10 GMT

Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon, talks about fuck-you money. He says,

It was not a fixed constant, however, but rather a cell in a spreadsheet linked to any number of continually fluctuating economic indicators.

Nice. Now can a machine be made to calculate happiness similarly? The indicators could include -

family variables
friend variables
economic variables
health variables
etc ( Can there be an exhaustive set of indicators, in the first place? )

But then this doesn't feel like how happiness is calculated internally. I mean, whenever I'm happy I have always been blissfully ignorant of a lot of those indicators... In fact I'm tempted to say happiness mandates such ignorance. And happiness, in turn, clouds these indicators some more. So was my assumption of happiness being a function of variables entirely wrong?

Lets consider for a moment that it is a function of a set(exhaustive or not) of variables. Nah. I know its not.

So is it not a function at all? Then why do we wake up everyday to do the things we do? Don't we all want to feel happy through them? At what point does the objective change to X and what is this X, which is >happiness?

play

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:08:00 GMT

Finally caught five point someone, the play, by madras players. The play itself was pretty good. The crowd, even better. Highly recommended. Catch it if it ever plays in your city.

evening

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:16:04 GMT

Been listening to 'The Fountain' OST all evening. mpc says i've been listening to it for the past 6 hours. I remember taking a break to watch 'Tinin et moi' - a documentary on Hergé. Clint Mansell is getting to me! It was requiem last year. and now the fountain.

maiden, here i come!

n70 for sale. cheap. real cheap. any takers?

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:54:24 GMT

me: dude

new ipods in town!

and they are phones too

shiva: yeah heard

11:21 PM now thats a phone worth changing to

me: definitely

suddenlee my n70 looks like its from a mel gibson movie

shiva: haha

11:23 PM http://reviews.cnet.com/4326-6454_7-6555585-1.html?tag=ss_prv

11:24 PM idiots coming up with concepts

me: haha some people are crazy

11:25 PM shiva: sure are

17 minutes

11:42 PM me: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

thats the real deal

11:43 PM shiva: goodness

i mean

11:44 PM OMG

me: i gasped too

that screen!!

shiva: sensational

me: 8freakin gb in a phone

shiva: i'm pre booking it

me: dude come this month end da

11:45 PM shiva: :) what?

me: how else will i even see it!

11:46 PM shiva: hehe

wonder when it hits the stores

11:47 PM and i'm gonna be real sorry for chika when I book this

he's gonna be so outta the race

me: ROFL!

i am gonna losee my n70

shiva: :)

11:48 PM screw nokia

we're talking real DESIGN here

me: freaking wifi

shiva: proximity sensor

woohoo

11:49 PM me: last used in matrix movies

shiva: poor poor srikanth R

me: or shld i say zion

shiva: and his middle east N70

me: haha

ROFL

shiva: steve jobs just flipped him the bird

11:50 PM loll

me: dude with this design-gasm it mite cost a ton

shiva: who cares??

11:51 PM me: true

shiva: more meaningful than my education, dude

me: lol

11:52 PM i'll buy it for that fish screen alone

11:53 PM the UI is outta this world

11:54 PM shiva: u said it

11:56 PM me: look at sms.. its like chat

11:58 PM tabbed browsing!!

shiva: that phone keypad... gosh

11:59 PM holy mother of god

12:00 AM me: UI experts of the world - jus give up!!

shiva: haha..

wonder how they do it

over and over again

12:01 AM me: exactly

they r like gods

one miracle after another

zune anyone?! windowsCE anyone!?

12:02 AM shiva: ZUNE

HAHA

WHATTA JOKE

me: u know what phone mfrs. couldnt even add a 3.5mm jack all these days

bastards

iphone is worth for that alone - i could connect my altec lansings to it

12:03 AM shiva: i call em phony bastards

me: properiatry bastards

shiva: pun intended

me: haha

shiva: hehe

12:04 AM me: everytime this guy does something... it looks like he comes from the future not dusty crappy star-warsy future but a real beautiful future

12:05 AM shiva: yeah

me: do these guys ship to under-developed countries

12:06 AM shiva: haha

12:08 AM me: i mite even buy apple shares from now on

12:09 AM applegoo!!

shiva: :)

All night

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:07:13 GMT

Its been a long long time since I had an all-nighter with a book. Thanks to Alan Moore's From Hell, yesterday was such a night. Starting to read Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver right now. Can't wait to finish it tonight. Will probably skip work tomorrow.

Also, Dan Brown is a ripoff of Alan Moore. Definitely.

Bangalore

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 19:49:05 GMT

Went for a short trip to Bangalore after exactly 5 months. The movie alone was worth the trip. Got to meet like a dozen friends in two days including nag_nag . There is so much happening in that goddamn place that I want to go back!

On Art

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:28:48 GMT

What is life without art? A man can live without food or water. But not without art. It will eat him away. Like the T-Rex did to the artless ones in Jurassic Park. Ever notice that the worst actors get eaten and eaten as the first meal for the dinosaurs. If you noticed that, you probably are one of them. If you are artless, you deserve to be eaten. Its nature's, society's and studios' unspecified well-used just-released rules. The well-hidden tough-to-find message in creature movies. Which leads me to the bigger point, erm I mean a plane. But a plane is same throughout. Drat! Let me take a geodesic in a plane. The bigger geodesic in my plane of argument is that 'all movies are self-expression'. Which leads me to this bigger geodesic erm, I actually mean a square. A side bigger than a triangle. The bigger square of what I am saying is, 'and if you are artless then you will be eaten'. Do beautiful butterflies with colors that make you gasp as if God French-kissed you breathless, ever get manufactured in fluorescent-lighted aluminum-crated poultry farms? Hardly. If you can be manufactured, you simply are artless. If they have kebab sticks that fit your organs, you WILL be eaten. If they have dresses that fiT you, you are artless. If you like your McDonald burger tasting the same in Boston and Bangalore, you are artless. If when you make mistakes, there are procedures to correct them readily, you are artless. ...

If you, your brother, you niece, your kids, your friend, your neighbours, your wife - all dress in white, eat the same food, wear the same expression, say the same things over and over, smell the same, lay eggs and have two legs

you are next in somebody's plate.

Damn

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 04:50:05 GMT

I was looking forward to visit Bangalore for a long time since I moved to Chennai in July. And FOSS was the perfect excuse. But yesterday morning, I looked into the wrong eye (though the rest of it was pretty beautiful). Got conjunctivitis. Madras Eye. Can't go now. Like Victor Mancini in Choke,
"F**k" isn't the right word but its the first word that comes to mind.
See also: Crap
See also: Damn
See also: Stuck at home

Hooked

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 19:51:10 GMT

To Hindu's cryptic crossword. Its the only thing I do at 'work' - take a printout and slack all day with it. Here's a good one from um, yesterdays' - Forest official shows beginning of righteous wrath. 6 letters.

BTW, Benjarong serves the best lobsters in town. So does Cornucopia, the best Italian food. But Jukebox at Bengalooru(did I get that right?) makes the best lasagna. Nothing can top that.

I want

Sat, 14 Oct 2006 03:19:19 GMT

I want you to hit me as hard as you can. OK?

XGL, Compiz

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 06:49:18 GMT

XGL, Compiz is the answer to life and everything... er, not quite but probably the answer to eye-candy, desktop-goodness, cant-afford-a-mac-but-still-wanna-see-windows-jumping-around-ness. Here's a screenshot of the alt-tab feature.

Quiet Weekend

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:10:18 GMT

Tried to pass off a boring evening by doing this. Ended up making this GDM theme. This is what you get for restraining yourself from going to crap movies, humid beaches and boring pubs.

Thought

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 10:23:20 GMT

The Software engineer is simply a medium of transferring wealth from one rich company to another. The keyword is 'medium'. Like ether, like a channel.

Started living here!

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:54:47 GMT

first post at livejournal!