Post 1 am happenings.

Placebo-ok?

2011-07-11T10:54:00.001-07:00

Accepted wisdom has told us to develop the capacity to mould ourselves to the environmental demands. Acquired wisdom has summoned us to rise above Apple. That the tablet you envisaged is going to be pitted against Apple pad is inevitable, ‘creating a niche of its own’ becomes the mainspring of the creators’ ideas. So how do you create something, which makes it seem less like itself while retaining the most of it. If you do it successfully, well, the mass-contempt for apple products is going to come by as a windfall along with the profit you raked.

Enter Samsung Galaxy tab I. It aspired to supplant the iPad dominion, and stopped at nothing to thrust itself everywhere. However, as was foreseen, the Galaxy effect died down without a cry. Then there was Motorola Xoom, Acer’s blah, Blah’s bleh operated by Android’s meh version. So on and so forth.

All right, so in the world of sitcoms when Barney Stinson constituted the term Playbook, he’d set some standards for it. So when RIM decided to name its own tablet ‘Playbook’, I am sure they must have known they couldn’t dabble with this constitution.

Let me be honest upfront, Blackberry’s Playbook is impressive. And while I say that, I disregard the existence of iPad entirely.

You know the popular adage, “Its not what you have that counts, its what you do with what you have that counts.” Since Blackberry had nothing to begin with, they rubber coated the posterior of a small ‘Dell streak’ like thing, multi-crystal-coated the frontal part, bezel bordered it and idiot-proofed it with the smart placement of the buttons by taking them off its face entirely, making it well nigh like a tablet, and a portable one at that.

The rigidity and toughness of the device surprises you. You may get a feeling that this playful little 425g device would even survive a javelin throw. The 7.6 inches by 5.1 inches face dwindles inside to give only 7” of actual display, which may puncture your movie-viewing enthusiasm. However, it comes with the HDMI-out to connect itself to a television so everything can be watched at 1080p full HD resolution. There are two speakers on the front designed to make themselves heard, unlike the poor iPad speakers experience which were designed exclusively for Bats, probably.

However, the actual potencies of the device come from its innards and playbook genuinely impresses us with its dual core 1Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM and 16, 32 or 64 Gb storage space. Since it doesn’t come with home screen button, they have come up with new UI convention that needs you to swipe the frame from the bottom end to the upper end every time you want to go back to the home screen. Just to be different I guess. The touch sensitivity of the capacitive display is good, but far from ‘telepathic’ sort of connection you find in those Apple displays. And when your camera is on, when you tilt the device the landscape to portrait transition isn’t nearly as fluid as you find in an iPad. User-interface is some departure from the banal cluttered-icon-oriented sight from Apple and Android, but it doesn’t fascinate you still. Google ‘Building Windows 8’ now.

Inclusion of Adobe flash is a prominent enhancement. The 5mp back and 3mp front cameras don’t disappoint but come without flash. RIM has also brought multitasking to this QNX based Blackberry tablet OS. With this you can play their favorite slide on the connected projector in that conference room while playing Angry birds without anyone noticing it. Except that they don’t really have Angry birds for Playbook yet. Wait till it arrives.

Exclusion of Angry birds reminds me that BB has managed to gorge down just 3000 apps for this OS, which is a downer in this age of fetishization of the number of apps. This would turn over the Android and the Apple hippies in their graves who willfully mate with the devices that have maximum applications, however superfluous they may be.

Mating reminds me that you can mate this Playbook with your favorite fashion accessory. Your Blackberry phone of course. Thus, suddenly giving some meaning to its existence. (My apologies to all those corporate honchos who make actual use of BB for emailing.)

All in all, the Playbook is fun, spry and an elfin little funky tablet that you can actually carry around in your pocket or your little purse. While Apple doesn’t really seek for your regard, it compels us to have that unremitting respect for its products. Blackberry wouldn’t garner such respect with Playbook. But it surprises you with its dainty structure and a different user-interface. Don’t expect anything transcendental, nothing ‘avant-garde’ about it. But it doesn’t disappoint either. Priced same as the Apple and Android tabs, one can hardly tell if this device will salvage RIM from its current crisis in Canada.

Big, big brother.

2011-03-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

The most folkloric image of a science professor is some savant–ish man having that anemic appearance, sporting a shaggy beard, tatty clothes and enthusiasm that of a ruminating cow in premises other than his own subject. We stereotype him as a pedant who’d give away his marital obligations in bed, niggling over that fourier’s problem which rankled in his head all throughout the day. Never mind the querulous wife.

However, the modern day teacher’s delight isn’t just in pedagogy. He is timeless as Anil Kapoor. He need not sport a moustache even. Although, he’d swagger around the campus with his pot belly drawing more attention than the fat book he carries. He’s a fop, loves to groom and has singularly carved a niche for himself by the means of pronouncing ‘illinois’ in the most ludicrous fashion. His shrill ringtone, whose mood is quite incongruent with subject at hand, rouses guffaws in the classroom amongst the other things such as his open fly. You cannot make this shit up. His humor doesn’t merit an attention. The spasmodic coughing of the dude sitting next to you is perhaps, more entertaining. Then there’s this moment wherein you genuinely begin to understand what’s being taught and the next moment you know you’re are picked on to answer a question which was taught in the previous lecture. This discredits you further since you never sit for lectures back to back. Now you know better than to look at the professor in the eye, or to look up at all. You’re being laughed at, chewed up and spit out ‘cause you couldn’t give pertinent answers. So unless you are endued with the shamelessness of Rakhi Sawant, you feel like an imbecile and get further discouraged. And professor gloats over it. You eat up your pride and oblige and continue feeding his ego some more because you know he controls you. He genuinely has more control over you than your own self. Unlike Mobarak and Gaddaffi, he will not call air-strikes on you or bomb you with tanks. But they say ‘Pen is mightier than sword and bullets and bombs.’ He is vindictive and he will take it out in your ‘term-work’ scores.

So you cower in fear.

Lady professors are more often than not, resembling lady boys. Or they are cute old wizened hags. The entire idea of ‘pretty’ female teachers is too chimerical, or just a figment of porn-star-director’s imagination. There is no such confluence in the real world, so there is no incentive to attend her class. I have never been able to understand their squeamish demeanor. They get more than enough perquisites for their position, have limited working hours, have same stock syllabus that they repeat for years at length. They are quite literally revered by some vapid fan or the other. Its like being Suzanne khan.

If only they could just guide and not domineer, empathize and not incite fear! It will cost them nothing, but it will keep us coming back. In its stead, I sit here, writing blogs.

Blasphemy?

2010-12-09T07:55:00.001-08:00

When it comes to Bollywood music, having no talent whatsoever is never a problem, ever.

All you got to know is 'how to make music samples that would sound seemingly original, use of keyboards/synths as a substitute for almost all the instruments under the sun, pick up the winners of TV reality shows for singing the latest numbers in Bollywood (Or at least assure them to do so, while the camera is on and the TV viewer’s sentiments are at stake).
Current Bollywood music scene, is such a striking contrast to the old-school Bollywood, where music was merely manifestation of emotions and nothing else. There is still no movie-album, which stirs us with same poignancy as forlorn tunes from ‘Safar’ & ‘Anand’ (The Rajesh khanna era) or even the Ghazals from ‘Arth’ or ‘Kaash’. All this with much fewer resources & no reality shows. So this has led me to believe that with the advent of 'electronic-ization', the music is getting more and more regressive & talentless.
All we need to think upon is, Is it really worth our while to lash out at music industry in public, upfront?
(One way to address the issue, sending letters to the PM, for that is the latest trend)
But then, our thoughts and efforts are rendered meaningless when the epiphany strikes and we realize that the music (like the film-industry & the political scene) is mere reflection of our society. Even the extremely talented like ‘Dhruv Ghanekar’, ‘Vishal dadlani’, ‘Suraj jagan’ have to pander to the lowly tastes of the masses. “Joh bikta hai who chalta hai”. It is our passive encouragement or rather a form of connivance, which gives them the impetus to make such crap out of their vivid imagination. I personally, am an ardent supporter of ‘Indie’ music. I believe they make the best music because they are still in their pursuit of fame. They do well simply, ‘cause they are underrated. They don’t have an option but to create ‘magik’ (Ludicrous pun intended) in their music.
One of the patrolling-measures would be dislodging the useless censor-board from the Bollywood industry which goes about ‘A’ rating any movie with the slightest sexual connotations (Yes, the pre-pubescent movies with 40+ looking Saif-ali-khan as the lead, too) and deploying it for the much-deserved music scene which continues to go unnoticed.
This is the country where ‘Shekhar suman’ had the audacity to release his own music album, and Himesh reshammiya as the ‘action-hero’, the merger of ‘Brett lee and Asha bhosale’ was cited as ‘Global music’. This clearly signifies how ‘conceit’ and ‘self-love’ prevails over ‘talent’ and ‘substance’ & evinces how dreadful lack of self-awareness can get. (Self-actualization is a completely different trajectory, 'Jake shimabukuro' would know). This further paves the path for some more inane, wannabe artists. Have you seen Nikhil dwivedi or for that matter this dude from 'Band baaja baraat'. In fact the term ‘art’ is mercilessly played around with.
If Pakistan can be so intolerant as to hang ‘Aasia bibi’ for blasphemy, shouldn’t we guillotine the modern Indian “artists”?

Submission

2010-10-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Nature has made you a buffoon. Your inability to discern well from what you’ve learnt so far in life has turned you into a complete conformist. You are sunken in ‘prudence’ and are at the mercy of your life. Notwithstanding the brutality of your path, notwithstanding the hackneyed journey, your belief in certitude of your success keeps you moving. You have genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. You are averse to the precarious mode of life.
To escape the tedium, you listen to the most banal music, you take pleasure in participating in social gatherings, you watch popular movies and pass them off as ‘Awesome’ or ‘boring’. No in-between. Albeit all the odds, you go to college everyday. You are very sorted out. You have sincere belief in their pedagogy. You are a god-fearing person, possibly pious too. You are morally upright and quite scrupulous. You are bonded by the social values. The ‘ordered happiness’ it offers. You lack the excitement of the unforeseen. You lack the ‘kink’ in your nature. You lack having strong opinions, your opinions are often borrowed, your actions mannered. You are imperceptible to the finer emotions in life. You aren’t too ponderous. You aren’t frivolous. You may be flippant but you aren’t too amusing. You are after the measured success life has to offer, proportionate to your well-meaning efforts. You sacrifice your beliefs for the fulfillment of society. You are the product of your environment. There is nothing inscrutable about you. There is nothing ‘amiss’. There is hardly anything in you, out of ordinary.

Is there any meaning to your existence?

What's in a name?

2010-02-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

Since time immemorial, people in our country with rational views, people who have NOT lost their touch with ground realities and code of ethics, people who act as elitists, people without opinions,people attending kitty parties, people who 'chill' or simply, people who are gifted with the act of 'breathing' have all looked upon (or rather looked down on) Shiv-sena as an ogreish, ethnocentric, regionalist, vandalistic party expressing its political dissent and a party horny for limelight or simply a party rebelling without a cause. Anyone with perceptible senses can deduce that. You don't have to put it up as your fb status update. Recently, the party has been suffering from severe existential crisis, consequently making efforts to take on its rival counterpart. They call it stealing the 'thunder'. Most of the issues raised by them are cited as "radical", stirring a'sense of belonging' in jobless marathi youth. Agreed. But for once, the party lashed out at our nation's 'dude-with-the-dimples' for him wanting to include some obnoxious looking players. No, this time they were not being racist, nor do they dread watching unsightly beard-faces in IPL. For once, their stand seemed solicitous about the nation. The issue they've put up is important! Of course, their ways of conveying it is objectionable. For they lack a 'leader' to be reckoned with and thus resorting to vandalism. Forget about a nationalist party, any citizen of India who gives a fuck should find it objectionable.
"SO WHAT? Everyone has right to freedom of speech and he has a right to chose the best for his team.", reasons a friend of mine. Well, he might as well call our PM's close aide a demented whore. Freedom of speech.
However, its very much likely that the hermaphrodite maker of MNIK (you know who) might have conjured this whole thing up, for what they call it as a 'publicity stunt'. For he gets a wonderful cunnilingus from the 'dude-with-dimples' who further gets it from our CM. Its a chain. In an idolatry-India, cricketers and filmstars are blowjobbed more by the media than by their own girls. People with such notions fail to see through the 'petty politics', invent social groups like 'Do hell with Politics... I will watch "My Name is Khan" any freakin how!!'
(Dont believe me? follow the link http://www.facebook.com/pages/Do-hell-with-Politics-I-will-watch-My-Name-is-Khan-any-freakin-how/332089487845?ref=mf)
Citizens,further, show "solidarity" for the 'movie' and exhibit their "spirit of mumbai" to the world by braving through the Z security outside the movie theatres! These are not my quotes. Those are by our country's mainstream english media, who also seek opinions of pretty bimbos, page3-iites, fat punjabi aunties and chicks who'd drop their panties at the drop of a hat for 'the-dude-with-dimples'. Some of cliche-ridden comments are 'Sena has lost it!.. Srk is so cute ya... I <3 MNIK'.
Then there are people with support-tees.

So much of political apathy. So next time you wanna speak up for MNIK, DONT.