Thursday, November 30, 2006

Running out on technology

Here's a headline that caught my eye recently: ipod + nike = surveillance.
I thought, "who cares?". Apparently, a few people do care, fairly deeply, and get funded for their paranoia as well. Why? Because a thief could use the set-up to case several houses at once, figuring out when Nike-wearing owners are at home and when they aren't. Seriously, can one laugh and cry simultaneously?


From left: 1. The Nike+ iPod consists of a small sensor (right) that fits under the pads of your Nike sneaker, and a receiver (left) that plugs into the iPod Nano. 2. The University of Washington researchers broke open the Nike+ iPod receiver and wired it up to a PC. 3. The tiny iMote receives data from the Nike+ iPod sensor, and then it can pass that data along to a Microsoft SPOT watch for easy and convenient stalking. 4. This is the gumstix-based Nike+ iPod surveillance device, with a wifistix antenna attached (left) and the Nike+ iPod receiver attached (right). It can broadcast surveillance data back to a computer network.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

always a pleasure

... to watch you act. Anthony Hopkins.





a still from Bobby

Friday, November 24, 2006

Thursday, November 23, 2006

DDD

Daring Director [Robert Altman] Died [today].

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Ashes upon us!#2

A few hours into the cricket and Geoff Boycott is already pulling out a few punches at the English selectors for picking Giles over Monty Panesar (in more serene times Boycott spends his time comparing his mum and grand-mum's cricketing abiliies vis-a-vis the current crop of players).
Meanwhile, another Ashes ritual - people commenting endlessly on the Eng/Aus time difference: "I keep hearing references to how late it is in the UK, things like 'I'm sure you're all stifling yawns'. The thing is, for myself and many other students, this sort of hour is when we're most in our element. My sleeping patterns last week were ridiculous; usually I got to bed at about 9am and then woke up at 5pm..." Ned Pendleton of Leamington Spa. Chink, do you know of this night crawler???

Ashes upon us! #1

I seem to love starting series-posts that go nowhere. Here's one more - after 15 months of preludes to "the definitive battle" between the "old enemies", it's HERE! Tomorrow. The Ashes, that is. For me it also means a chance to read endless miles of Brit and Aussie reports, opinions, bravados, bettings, whimperings, bitchings, yellings, whinings, screechings for the next two months. Once again we will hear that England "can't bat, can't bowl, can't field". And once more we will hear of those bullish Aussie players, huffing and puffing and blowing England's defenses down. Oh, joy!
In recent times, no contest has begun before McGrath has had a pass at some prophesizing. 'We'll smash 'em', Mcgrath said earlier in the week at a press conference. 'They come out here and piss on about how strong they are and how they aren't scared of Brett Lee* throwing a little red ball 150 km/h** at their heads or Adam Gilchrist*** walking after being given not out. What they're really saying is holy shit we have to play Australia again!' Mcgrath also brought up how, with the help from the rest of the pace attack, put half of the New Zealand team**** into phsycological wards. 'We had been working really hard on the phsycological aspect of our game. There have been more pranks and insults beeing thrown around the dressing rooms now and i believe, not only has it made us stronger mentally, but also gives us the ability to read people's minds.' When asked why he thinks he can read people's minds, he simply replied, 'Coz Warnie***** said so.' When asked whether he thinks he's back to 100%, he got up, picked a cameraman up, and threw him across the room, 'does that answer your question?' he was then escorted out of the room by John Buchanan****** and sent to bed early with some warm milk.
*Aussie very-fast bowler. Has apparently gone through some life altering transformation to become a senior member of the team, as against a young pin-up boy that he was, like, yesterday.
**93.21 mph
***Aussie Vice-Captain, legendary ball-whacker and ball-keeper
****A forever underdog team from the land of the Ring
*****Famous spinner - of the ball and the tabloids
******Periodically offers Philosophy 101 to the Aussie team
...and finally, McGrath: Aussie medium-fast metronymic bowler - who always perdicts the Ashes to end 5-0, Australia.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

economy

feel free to click on the photo

perfection

the one that got away #1


Every once in a while one comes across a project that one not only thinks one could have so easlily done oneself, but should have done before anyone else. This then is a series in celebration of those acts that makes one flinch and grin simultaneously.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

tragedy in art and soliloquy: part II

Inspired by this post, I hereby dedicate a portion of my day-to-day posts to the great Shakespearean tragedies. This section will time-travel into the minds of the valiants who refused to die "many times" before their death, through pre-raphaelite and neoclassicist images that sought "refuge" in tragedies.
Please listen to
Henry Mancini's "Romeo & Juliet" while going at it, to heighten your sense of sadness.
[tragedy in art and soliloquy: part I]

... For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Romeo and Juliet. Aaah... young love! And how it torments!
For the very young, very naive and very beautiful Juliet, "It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden..." and for the young, passionate Romeo, "all this is but a dream". The two young lovers get trapped and torn between two warring families in Verona, Montague and Capulet. "My only love sprung from my only hate", mentions Juliet.
This saga of Shakespeare's 'Lyrical Period' is merciless, and the two love-birds are doomed from the beginning. "Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye..." The impending tragedy is obvious.
ACT III, Scene V: images by Dicksee [top-left] and Brown [top-right]

ACT IV, Scene IV left image by John Opie

No happy endings. Everyone dies at the end. Mercutio dies, 'accidentally and dramatically', in a duel between Romeo [a Montague] and Tybalt [a Capulet and Juliet's cousin], but had enough time to wish A plague o' both your houses! right before he passed away. Romeo slays Tybalt, and as a punishment, goes into exile. Juliet refuses to marry Paris, as she is secretly betrothed to her Romeo already, and goes into mourning. Herbal medicines and potions come to the rescue. Juliet gulps down some to go into a comma, so she can escape away with Romeo after she is taken to the family crypt. Misinformed about the staged death, a grief-stricken Romeo haggles with the Apothecary [There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls] to buy some poison, kills Paris on the way, and drinks the poison to die on Juliet's lap. O true Apocotheary! Thy drugs are quick! Thus with a kiss I die. Juliet wakes up, sees the dead, and stabs herself with his dagger. Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die. And the two lovers lie dead together.

Surprisingly, it is not considered one of Shakepeare's 'great tragedies' like Macbeth or Hamlet. The tragedy stems more from mistiming, or misfortune, than individual flaws of the two lovers. The long-running feud ends at the price of the two lovers' lives.

ACT V, Scene III: Romeo at Juliet's Deathbed by Füssli ;





The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets by Leighton ; Death of Romeo and Juliet
by Millais;

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

We are the Aliens



...when alien-ness is so dramatically incorporated, our location mysteriously shifts from the western hemisphere to Kerala! (Finally: outsourcing locations for outer sources.)
Meanwhile, humanoids still hold on to their caucasian-woman-in-the-red-dress source location. The few incursions by non-caucasians have met with eventual victimization.

happy grazing

its moo-time once again !! and so is A&T Balconism.




A Moo Sonnet

Your absent heart's the image of my need
Your hollow eyes I fill with my desire
These vacancies are all that I require
For food on which my fantasies can feed.
The hands that hold you here are undefined
The lips that kiss you now you must invent
My touch transformed into an argument
That finds its major premise in your mind.
We make of soundless tunes new harmonies
Embrace each other's fancies in the night
And find in these uncertainties delight--
We share, not selves, but possibilities.
I make myself your dreams though we're apart
Come fill the empty spaces of my heart.
[disclaimer: poem source unknown]

Monday, November 13, 2006

utter betrayal!!!


picture courtesy ToyFare
...and look who's decided to make some extra dough for the holidays....behind our backs!!!
Lies!Lies!Lies!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

where are the numbers?

To lighten the day of nailbiting countdowns:

Stewart on taking political satire too far: “Here’s the way I look at it. Bush has uranium bunker busters, and I have puns. I think he’ll be okay.”
Colbert on meeting Bill O’Reilly: “He was very nice. He said, ‘I like you. You know why? You’re not mean-spirited like most of ‘em.’ And I thought, ‘Take me now, Jesus.’ I was so thrilled.”

Amen!

Saturday, November 04, 2006

vaguely familiar...

"...they considered themselves uniquely positioned to lecture everyone on a variety of topics: accounting professors on accounting, Vermonters on the fall foilage, Indians on America, Americans on India, Indians on India, Americans on America. They were poised; they were impressive; in the United States, where luckily it was still assumedthat Indian women were downtrodden, they were lauded as extraordinary - which had the unfortunate result of making them even more of what they already were".
Kiran Desai. "Inheritance of Loss". Penguin Books 2006. pg. 50.


Thursday, November 02, 2006

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Are you THE ONE? [real world part - I ]


“Look at us...I'm frozen, you're dead...and I love you.”

Some dude wants me to believe that I have a Second Life waiting for me in some cyber world, far more real, far far more interesting than the one I have right now. It is just a click away. Hide away into a world of avatars, fountains, birds and live with people that you can pick and choose.
Fembots are in. So, are cosmic narcissism, eternal youth, ’Beautiful People’ fantasy, and extraordinarily narcissistic vanity projects.

"the [real] world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." It’s a choice between two pills, as Morpheus has warned Neo. One blue, which would enable him to wake up safe in his bed but never learn the truth about the Matrix. "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.” The other is the red, which would allow him to "see how deep the rabbit-hole goes".


And finally, it is believed that if one's mind cannot adjust to the implanted reality that results in a Schizoid Embolus, a lobotomy is the only solution.