Why so serious?

His scars itched unbearably, his mirth coming out in maniacal laughter. Only the laughter was in his head, filling the emptiness inside. He craved it, his life existed as a game, a game where there would be only one winner.

The countless hordes milling around had no sense of the injustice about the prison they have trapped themselves in, with their stupid morality and even stupider rules, playing a game that came up with rules faster than they were assimilated, until there was nothing left but rules, dropping out of the sky and into you, like so many dust mites.

He licked his cracked lips, there is so much help they need, they need to know freedom, but they resist. He shrugged, perhaps there is only sport left to be made of these herds. Making their little plans and laying them out in so much array, like children from a forgotten childhood, making sand castles only for him to land on them and scatter them. Sport.

Hmmmm.... the laughter filled him up again as he thought of 'his' latest plan. Play along, play along, a hop, skip and a jump and whoopee!!

The above is a peek into the mind of the Joker as played by Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight. Completely fictional.

Chrome - the fastest browser in the West

OK, I got carried away by the title, but Chrome from Google is fast, seriously fast.

Available for download at http://www.google.com/chrome, this browser can seriously challenge IE and the timing looks suspiciously like a gauntlet thrown at Microsoft around the time Internet Explorer 8.0 beta 2 is out for public download.

I am typing this post on Blogger using Chrome and barring a few connectivity issues to the Blogger server and a small blip when it said cookies were disallowed when in fact it was, the browser is purring along just fine, thank you.

The first thing that strikes you after you do the rather quick download and install is the clean and minimalistic interface. This is what a clean browsing experience should look like IMHO. The Settings and the Page control icons are at the top right and the Google logo is visible only when you run it in default mode, maximize it and there is no logo. This is a refreshing change.

Tabbed browsing is supported by default and in a rather cool manner, thumbnails of frequently visited sites are displayed when you open a new tab. No more trying to figure out the site you visited from the history folder.

Another option which I found interesting is the incognito window, which allows you to launch the browser in a mode that prevents any history from being maintained of your visit. Now what would I do with that. Hmm.

The settings page is clean and uncluttered with minimal options and the ability to change the settings and view of just the tab your browsing and not of the entire browser experience, neat.

The language encoding is extensive with support being offered for languages like Thai and Cyrllic. I'd rather use Auto-Detect.

The most stand out feature for me so far has been the speed at which pages load, I have seen reviews on ZDNet and a few other sites which compare various browsers, but I'd take those with a pinch of salt. Developers have been optimizing for browsers for a long time now and a new browser is going to take time to gain acceptance.

Microsoft is the undisputed leader in the browser space, commanding a huge share simply by virtue of being the default on the most popularly distributed operating system. It remains to be seen if Google can catch up and overtake FireFox and then take on Internet Explorer.

The lines are drawn and the battle for the control of your interface with the Web begins in earnest.

The Thumper

When I was much younger, which feels like a long while ago, I was fascinated by the thump and presence of the Bullet, that venerable old warhorse that came out of the World Wars in England. The 350 cc Bullet started life in 1939 made its way to India around 1949 and started being made in India around 1955. Why the history lesson? Just that there appears to have been precious little changes in this baby since about then. The basic seems to be around the same.

Coming back to moi, after pottering around on a 50 cc moped and then a 125 cc experimental engine, I finally got my hands on a 350cc beast. That was the start of my love affair with this bike. There is something so distinctive about each bike, a character, if you may call it so. 

You develop an attachment that is difficult to describe except that when you are on the bike and riding, a calm settles in and the miles begin to melt. Not to mention, the tinkering with the parts and the whole involvement thing of getting your hands greasy and wondering where that darned nut went.

I now face a question that I must answer, do I buy another Bullet or succumb to the fiber body, digital speedometer, the supposedly insane speed, handling and the various blandishments (gorgeous women dropping out of the sky or swooning when macho stud boy pulls a stoppie) that project a certain image to the bike and by association the rider.

Methinks I will think on that while I go for a ride on my borrowed thumper.

Bluetooth

The other day I was swapping pictures with someone using my phone. I switched on the Bluetooth and hey presto! I could see her phone and receive pictures and send pictures to my laptop. All this thanks to Bluetooth.

To put in simplistically, Bluetooth is a wireless standard that allows different devices (phone, laptop etc.) that are Bluetooth enabled to send data across short distances. That is both the advantage and the disadvantage of the technology. 

The short range makes it ideal to set up PAN (Personal Area Networks) comprising of a few devices connected together in a peer to peer fashion. There is no overhead of a central server needed to manage this network. The cost of using a Bluetooth device is lesser compared to the cost of a a WiFi network or the inconvenience of a fixed point network like a LAN (Local Area Network).

The disadvantage is that the range itself proves to be a determining factor with connectivity fading rapidly as distance increases. The amount of data that you can transmit is also less as the device/software has to chunk the data into smaller bits and frequency hop using a secure, unlicensed bandwidth called ISM 2.4 GHz (Industrial, Scientific and Medical). There are efforts underway to improve this on many fronts and has led to several versions of Bluetooth, up to Bluetooth 3.0 standard. 

The other rather cute factor with Bluetooth is that its a standard decided by a consortium of companies called the Special Interest Group (SIG) involved in various sectors like IBM and Motorola. The gain for them is that they achieve interoperability which in today's networked world means the key to survival.

SHAM - is it for real?

Read excerpts from a book called 'Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless' by Steve Salerno. Very disturbing insights into what is now an $8 bn a year industry. Who would have known. BTW .. SHAM apparently stands for the Self Help and Actualization Movement - quite helpful for an acronym - is this for real?

The author follows the money trail laid down by several of the popular evangelists of the self help commune and I think it is so because you typically see these blurbs written by other 'gurus' on a new book that it changed his/her life and will transform you into whatever you wish to be. But, on the whole the industry thrives on selling a rather simple home-spun truth wrapped in a couple of hundred pages of mumbo jumbo and workbooks and action plans.

The business apparently thrives on the books and the ancillaries - the workshops,  the seminars, the personal coaching, the productivity assets, mugs, t-shirts, fridge magnets..phew, the list goes on. Why then do we buy this stuff?

The industry taps into the confused nature that is prevalent today, no one wants to be branded as not with it, kind of like the metrosexual male thing doing the rounds these days. Someday when I have a bit of time I want to dig into the etymology of the word.

Coming back to the book, it read in portions like a rant but there is no disputing certain facts that there is no single book that claims to have it all, once your in your hooked on it. I recognize that I am one of these too, but I feel that if I get a single usable idea out of the book then its worth it. 

No ancillaries for me please, thanks!

When two minutes is too long!

Breezed through 'the one minute manager' by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. A very interesting book, written on the premise that the common management functions of goal setting, getting team buy in, monitoring and the reward/reprimand activities can be performed in a minute or less.

In our daily work lives we come across many situations where we dawdle so long that the point gets lost. We are often verbose and end up confusing all parties concerned. This book details how to get around this problem and maximise our productivity (the magic word!) and deliver that manna.. more time to spend on things that are really important in our lives like family and investing time on ourselves.

My beef with this is that the solutions offered are too simplistic, it does not take into account the dynamics of the communication between the manager and the report and also does not deal with personality types. Another gap is that it does not take into account the priority of the situation or the inevitable conflicts and their resolution.

My 2 paise - start off with this technique and play it by ear.

Running shoes?

I despair to find a single running store in Hyderabad, India. Why do Nike, Reebok, Adidas et all open showrooms and staff them with people who cannot determine what shoe would be best for one's foot type and stride?

I tried running in my regular sneakers and ended up with a bad case of shin splints, orthotics is a far cry methinks. R & D on the internet at places like Runners World yields up names but its no substitute for an expert fitting you real-time.

Wonder if there are any running stores in Bangalore.. hmm

Argumentative .. me?

Started reading The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen, this calls for a rather different approach to reading. I find myself debating quite a few of the assumptions the author works from. I know he is supposed to be a Nobel Laureate and a Harvard professor etc, but something does not ring right with the logic propounded in the book.

Will post a more detailed critique once I am done.

Time to inject some GTD juice into my life

Trying to implement a GTD (David Allen's Getting Things Done) implementation in my life. I need to get more organized and as is said in the book, if I can leverage a couple of tricks from this book then it would help. Maintaining a complete GTD system seems time consuming, even though the author claims it will help with the chaos.

I intend to use Microsoft OneNote 2007 for my implementation and if it works will post some learnings.

Wish me luck! 

Who was the Dark Knight actually?

How often does the villain manage to upstage the hero in a movie named after the hero. Heath Ledger's Joker does so and how!. Easily the best Batman villain in a long time and I do remember Jack Nicholson as the Joker. What I would give to know what was his inspiration for this character.

Every facial expression had a meaning, the tics and the angles loaded with menace, improbable humor and the impression of a feral beast restrained only by a thin thread every second. Mind blowing.

Christian Bale was a poor rodent pitted against the villains and the supporting crew. Michael Caine as Albert and Morgan Freeman as a rather subdued Lucius Fox strolled through their parts effortlessly. The thespians managing to convey meaning with subtle expressions and smiles. Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent felt like a pain in the wrong place though.

Defenitely DVD worthy.

Kung Fu Panda - A Jackie chan movie in animation

Ingredients:
- 1 Jackie Chan Kung Fu movie
- dollop of extra humor
- clean cut animation

Add the humor to the movie, layer on the animation to make sure that it appears an animated flick, add the secret ingredient - Angelina Jolie, albeit voice only. Repackage and release with cute merchandise and you get Kung Fu Panda.

I was a bit disappointed to be honest after getting to watch the movie. Granted the comedy was good, but the makers should have realized that serving an audience a Jackie Chan movie would reduce the innovation factor.

Incompetent hero gets put in a position where he has to save the world/village/school..etc. No one gives him a chance until some words of wisdom or some experience knocks the desire into him. Then there is the mandatory training and the eventual face off in which the hapless hero is thrown into, his colleagues/teachers/random passer-bys beaten into submission by the unbeatable villian. The hero nearly meets his end but pulls himself together to deliver the knockout blow.

Story in 77 words.

Ripples

Clear water, touched by the wings of a dainty butterfly speckled with myriad colours. Ripples across the surface startling. A beat of wings. Calm returns.

Red Light

He sat on the pavement, watching the cars whiz past. The smoke stung his eyes and he used the dirty sleeve of his shirt to wipe his face. The throng eases and he steps forward, cautious not to appear too eager. His eyes scan the occupants rapidly before alighting on the one he wants.

She does not seem to notice his existence, her eyes fixated on the compact mirror she is looking at. He loves the startled look that his insistent tapping on the window generates, he watches as she takes in his appearance.

The lights turn green and the car moves away as in slow motion, leaving him with a vacant smile on his face.

She definitely looks better on screen, he decides and walks away slowly.

My new home

My road back to blogging