… and made myself a list of all the things that I wanna put down in words and put up on this site’o mine.

And I scared myself. I mean, pants down, naked in public, kind of freaked out, crazy nightmare kind of scared. And this, from a random sampling of thoughts from head in a space of something like 15 minutes. And He calls them Braindumps!

Most of the stuff that I want to write about is just regular stuff that runs around in my head.

The reason why I want to write about it is that because it’s how I believe I think about regular things, only, differently than most people. It’s the way I see things.

Yes, I do believe I’m different.

Not only that, get this, I believe that each one of us, (deep down at least, if you’ve not liberated yourself enough to think about the way you think) thinks differently about all the regular stuff that runs around in our heads.

Anyway, point is, I could keep doing this forever. Putting up what I think, on this site, I mean. You see, I won’t stop thinking. I can’t. I won’t be, if I do. And so, I don’t think I’m gonna stop putting up stuff, either.

So what if no one (in spite of all the pushing I do ) actually comes here and reads anything I’ve put up? Or heaven forbid, has the courage and takes the time and makes the effort to comment! It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing this for you anyway.

I’m doing this for me.

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of, once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why, can’t I?

First heard this one at the closing of the last scene of 50 First Dates. Highly recommended movie, by the way. Really a good attempt at a make-you-think-while-still-keeping-it-light kinda movie. So, anyway, I was deep into thinking about the movie at the end of it and this song, sung by someone with a really beautiful voice started playing and it completely blew my mind. Wonder why they didn’t include it on the soundtrack, though.

Upon doing some research, I found (to my amazement) that this song is actually originally from The Wizard of Oz, where it was rendered by Judy Garland. I still don’t know who’s written it, unfortunately, so I can’t credit it.

Posted while listening to Norah Jones – I’ve Got to See You Again

This movie defies all review, categorisation.

The swordplay and fighting is exquisite and just as gratuitously grotesque as Volume 1; albeit a bit less violently though. The dialog is waaaaaay over the top. The direction is top notch.

Eminently and unforgettably watchable movie.

So go watch it.

Some spoilers and favourite parts follow:

• I loved the part where Bill describes Superman’s critique on humanity. That part left me speechless. It’s so true! I mean, Superman roams (or rather flies) around like he is, as he was born (with just a costume off course) and it’s when he’s not being a super hero (which is what he changes into, when he becomes Clark Kent) that he is trying to do what humans do, so that he blends in with the rest of us and becomes unnoticable. So, Clark Kent is what Superman perceives to be the apotheosis of all humanity, or even to the extent of (like Bill says, in the movie) being a humorous or sarcastic critique on humanity, of the way we are, the way we behave and the way we do things.
• The Pai Mei section was harrowingly grating. Just imagining what Beatrix went through to punch through that block of wood (and later, her own coffin) gives me the heebie jeebies.
• Bud’s predicament. Is he punishing himself for what he did to Beatrix by playing a lowly bouncer for a dysfunctional strip bar joint or has he just naturally fallen into bad times? Did the fight that he had with Bill (presumably over Bill’s decision to have the gang kill off Beatrix) cause him to part ways and go and live in a trailer in El Passo? Or has Bill reformed himself after the realisation of what he did to Beatrix and doesn’t take on assassination jobs anymore? Too many unanswered questions there.
• The part where Beatrix puts BB off to sleep while watching Shogun Assassin. It was simultaneously sad, happy and touching. The song that plays during this scene really hit me. Hmm…. must get hold of the soundtrack. It’s really good.

Posted while listening to Pantera – This love

Phew!

This one was a lot of hard work.

Completely redesigned the layout. Added some mucho neato graphics (and mucho needed I might add) and completely redid the color scheme (thanks Apurva, you’re the best!).

Hacked my brains out over the CSS.

Coded in a lot of changes for better UI in the codebehind, I don’t remember most of them. The ones I do remember (because they are immediately apparent) are:

• Relaid out the date links so that they appear next to each post title, along with the time
• Comment links show the number of comments that are present ina post only when there are comments; else a Post a comment link is shown
• The date beside the post title is actually a link to the page which shows the posts of the day. Added a nice tooltip to this.

Learnt a lot of Photoshop. Even though I say so myself, I can fairly get by in Photoshop now. At least enough to create a fairly good looking website. This was really a good experience. I learnt how much hard work the web designers actually have to do, every time the front-end coders and design implementorstell them to go change an image because it sucks, or just size it differently because of a miscalculation of content or layout.

I learnt some more CSS. As usual.

One of the key things I learnt from this experience was something I was missing for a long time in my repertoire. Colors! I could never get how one figured out that this color would go well with this design, or that this color on this link would provide a nice contrast. The reason for this, I think is that I was not using the correct tools! I would take hours (well, actually I would give up before that) to figure out a color to be used; when I can now figure out a color in seconds thanks to Photoshop’s amazingly usable color picker. The color picker is extremely intuitive and IMHO unparallelled in picking out a relative color based on an existing one.

And as is usual with most hard, laborious work I’ve done in my life, I am happy with the outcome. If you’ve got any suggestions for the site or any questions about how I did a particular thing, do please post a comment, that way I can answer it for all visitors in one go.

Oh, if you wanna see the actual photograph where the top banner came from, you should head over to my gallery and get the full picture.

Posted while listening to Bruce Springsteen – Human Touch

A lot of times, my AutoCop car security system has given me problems. Especially when I’m trying to sneak in/out of my building without waking up the neighbours, at night. One big relief is that I’ve got a switch that cuts off the reversing siren, which I most conveniently use when I’m reversing out of my building in these situations.

However, there is one sound the security system makes which until now defied any sort of control. Every time I lock or unlock the car, the security stem makes a loud single or double beep, respectively. I’ve finally figured out how to stop this sound from occurring. Read on.

The point is, that the security system circuitry (like a lot of end-consumer appliance electronics) is single threaded. Let me illustrate this with an example. When I turn on the engine of the car, after a short delay the security system auto-locks all the doors. Point is, if I turn on the engine and immediately start to reverse, the reversing siren sounds off. Now while the reverse siren is sounding, the short delay timeout of the AutoCop system expires and the doors lock. However, just at the time that the doors lock, the reverse siren skips a beat, because the siren can’t sound during the short period of time that the doors are being locked. Like I said, single threaded.

Now, I just need to use this fact to my advantage to halt the lock/unlock sound in it’s tracks. The AutoCop system has a button on it’s remote labelled ‘C’ for check. When you hit the ‘C’heck button, the lights of the car start to blink in a rhythm; the idea is that you can find your car in a parking lot full of cars of every variety; or if you don’t remember where you parked it.

Just like I illustrated with my earlier example, when the AutoCop system is in blinking the car lights, if I hit the lock/unlock buttons during a blink, the operation happens without any sound.

Problem solved.

Next unsolved problem? How to get the AutoCop security system to not auto lock the car after a timeout when it’s in an unlocked state. This is actually a security hazard because one can easily get locked out of the car with the keys inside!

A lot of times, my AutoCop car security system has given me problems. Especially when I’m trying to sneak in/out of my building without waking up the neighbours, at night. One big relief is that I’ve got a switch that cuts off the reversing siren, which I most conveniently use when I’m reversing out of my building in these situations.

However, there is one sound the security system makes which until now defied any sort of control. Every time I lock or unlock the car, the security stem makes a loud single or double beep, respectively. I’ve finally figured out how to stop this sound from occurring. Read on.

The point is, that the security system circuitry (like a lot of end-consumer appliance electronics) is single threaded. Let me illustrate this with an example. When I turn on the engine of the car, after a short delay the security system auto-locks all the doors. Point is, if I turn on the engine and immediately start to reverse, the reversing siren sounds off. Now while the reverse siren is sounding, the short delay timeout of the AutoCop system expires and the doors lock. However, just at the time that the doors lock, the reverse siren skips a beat, because the siren can’t sound during the short period of time that the doors are being locked. Like I said, single threaded.

Now, I just need to use this fact to my advantage to halt the lock/unlock sound in it’s tracks. The AutoCop system has a button on it’s remote labelled ‘C’ for check. When you hit the ‘C’heck button, the lights of the car start to blink in a rhythm; the idea is that you can find your car in a parking lot full of cars of every variety; or if you don’t remember where you parked it.

Just like I illustrated with my earlier example, when the AutoCop system is in blinking the car lights, if I hit the lock/unlock buttons during a blink, the operation happens without any sound.

Problem solved.

Next unsolved problem? How to get the AutoCop security system to not auto lock the car after a timeout when it’s in an unlocked state. This is actually a security hazard because one can easily get locked out of the car with the keys inside!

Ever thought about doors? You know. The everyday ones you walk through. Doors. Think about them for a second.

Specifically, think about the fact that you walk through several doors everyday. About the fact that out of a lot of these doors that you walk through, you have to open and close.

Even more specifically, out of the doors that you walk through everyday and the ones you have to open and close, think about the fact that you have memorized, subconciously, how hard to pull or push the door everytime you walk through it and execute the action, nearly the same way, everytime.

Don’t believe me? Ok. Do this. The next time you walk through a door that you do everyday, think about how you opened it and closed it. Think about the familiarity with which you do it. You know which door creaks, which door will close with a loud bang (if you let it), which door requires you to give a really hard push to make it open.

The point is, you for some reason, know how to open and close each and every door that you have in your everyday life, such that

1. It is the most optimum way you can open and close that door
2. You always open and close that particular door in the exact, same way

Don’t believe me? Fine. Try it out. Conciously.

And you know what’s even more freaked out? Door knockers.

Did you know, that every person in this world has a slightly different (and unique !?) way of their own of knocking on a door? Did you know that you can and sometimes do figure out who is knocking on your door (sometimes even ringing your door bell) even before you open that door (or the person walks in) ?

Ever thought about how this happens? My only guess is that the mind not only remembers how each door should be open and closed, but also how each person has their own, individual way of knocking on doors.

Think about it.

Just finished updating dhigu.com for the following:

• Logout now works (good for me, not for you)
• Short Circuited a timezone issue. New blog entries (like this one) should come up with the proper time.
• The rightbar links for categories will now show the descriptions of the category when you hover over them. Finally. Yes.
• If an RSS feed is availabe for a category, a blue XML link image should now show against it, instead of the normal (RSS) link

Phew! That was a lot of work, mind you!

Ever felt intimidated by a machine? Happens very rarely to me.

But this baby pretty much did it for me.

This is just another gem that I dug up out of the collection of photos I’ve got from Bangkok.

Well, Apurva and I were roaming around in the Suan Lum night market and having a fabulous time. It’s really a gem of a place, this market. They’ve got a huge central food court where you can self serve yourself from any of the food stalls with coupons purchased from a counter. And the stalls… are all over the place. The whole market is just a huge bunch of alleys that look the same with all sorts of shops with all sorts of stuff being sold in them. You could get lost in there. I did. I didn’t mind it much, what with all the stuff I found, but lost I did get.

Anyway….. after that all too necessary digression, I guess I’ll come back to the machine. Well, as we were strolling around, Apurva and I, lo and behold! What did we see? This hayabusa. And it was just standing there parked on it’s stand. Well we couldn’t just stare at it so we snapped off a few photos with us strategically posing around it, without actually touching it. That’s when the owner who was running a shop just ahead, saw us and came over. Well we got chatting and…. well that’s how I got to actually sit on it. And seriously, when you sit on one of those babies…. you know that you could just ride. And ride. And ride on just for the heck of …… riding.

And for those of you who didn’t know it…. the Hayabusa is the fastest street legal commercially available production bike in the world. And as this fan site claims, maybe even in the solar system.

I saw The Mexican.

What can I say? It’s got Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts.

It’s got top acting from all the characters.

Over the top story line.

Over the top direction.

Over the top cinematography.

Don’t know what to make of it.

Yes, yes, I saw I, Robot. And, yes, unfortunately, I must be only human, cause I liked it.

I, Robot, the short version: Take the three laws of robotics, chop finely. Take one Bad Boys, peel unnecessary sidekick Martin Lawrence, and bake with a liberal dose of Artificial Intelligence: AI. Apply a smooth layer of buttered, Minority Report and serve when cooled.

And now, the slightly longer version: Will Smith plays a homicide detective with a basic mistrusting of robots, who after years of suspicion finally does manage to catch up with a robot who doesn’t really seem to be obeying the three laws properly. And in doing so, seems to unleash a whole canfull (read: trucks and containers full) of them. Then said robot, after running our protagonist around a complete red herring made of breadcrumbs straight out of Hansel and Gretel, turns right around and starts to help them to a nice, happy, conclusion in the end.

Why I like the movie: Great Artwork: I was totally immersed throughout the movie; the light and magic department cut no corners in this $120 million movie. Good action, fight sequences: The action choreography is really good. Will Smith: He carries off the funny copy act really well – he’s had lot of practice in this role. And most importantly, the critical goosebump ending; one that makes you think, in the end – “What if?”.

I liked it. Your mileage may vary. Especially if you are a die hard fan of Isaac Asimov. Like the movie says, in the end, “Suggested by the Isaac Asimov book”.