Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Is Being Cyrus this good?

‘Another good Saif movie..’ the phrase sounds familiar. Hum Tum and Salaam Namaste have really got Saif on the right track. He is improving and nearing perfection with every movie. I liked his work in both. I guess the turning point of Saif's career was Ek Haseena Thi. He was simply brilliant in the movie.

Being Cyrus seems to be a completely different type of cinema. I haven’t seen any trailer of the movie. I came to know about the movie from an article in Delhi Times (Boman's interview). And next Friday it was 'Being Cyrus' all around.

Starting Mr. Hirani (Munna Bhai MBBS), most of the debutant directors have been breaking grounds. The success can be attributed to parameters like freshness, the 'out-of-the-blue' approach etc.

Clearly in a market when demand changes supply has to change. This is what we see in today’s successful movies. The Saas Bahu age is over. Now it takes a bold bunch of people who are willing to risk entering an arena so far unexplored. And when so much is at risk, seldom is there a scope for a mistake. Everything is taken care of in such a nice way that the final product is bound to be good.

For instance: Kalyug, Black, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer etc stepped into a different world altogether (so far as Bollywood is concerned.) and came out winners all the way. This does not require big budgets and fancy sets etc. All it takes is creativity and boldness.

Kudos to the crew of Being Cyrus. Cant wait to see the movie!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Ray Tracing Rocks!!


You just had a look at my first ray traced image. This is what I am doing in my present assignment in my course in Computer Graphics. You can see 2 spheres, well, one of them appears as an ellipse because of perspective view from eye, which does not affect the shape of the first sphere because the line joining the eye and its centre is perpendicular to the plane of projection. Enough of technical stuff right? Ok so lets talk in layman terms. Simply put, the above scene is what you will get if you had a blue sphere and an orangish sphere suspended in mid air in a room with light purple background, and have a decently good ambient lighting in the room.

Also there is a point light source(say a torch, approximately). The surface of the blue sphere is near plastic so that a point light source spreads on it more. Had it been metallic, the spot of light would have been more concentrated. Well this is only a part of my HUGE assignment, but I am overwhelmed with the results. This is damn enjoyable!

More on the assignment later.. when I have something more amazing to show :)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Compu Corridor Cricket...

Sleepless again. But this time a weekend.. So banta hai yaar!!


Wing cricket has long been a tradition of Jwala since many years. It feels great to live it when we play wing cricket at 1 am with this cool breeze blowing and touching us as it crosses the wing from one balcony to other.

Rules of this cricket are amazing... We came up with a 'Body' rule.. It was really getting annoying when the batsman is not willing to get his bat in place and always gets his chest, or back, or legs in the line of the ball just to pass time given the fact that number of overs are unlimited. The rule says that you cannot touch a ball with your body 3 times in a row. That clearly increases the probability that the ball will meet the bat and makes the game somewhat more interesting.

But today's game was abandoned halfway. Guess why??

Yes.. HOLI!!

This hostel holi is real disgusting. I hate it. They make a mess of a good colorful festival by running after each other with a bucket of water just to make the person wet. I do not get the point. Whats the fun involved. Moreover in this cold weather you might catch fever.

Anyways.. the cricket is great fun!

The iPod dilemma


Isn’t it amazing when someone for the first time in life gets to feel: This is my hard earned money, and I'll use it as I feel like.. No obligations

To do or not to do? To buy it or not to buy? Is it worth the investment? Is it value for money? Should I wait for something better?

These are only a few of the questions my mind is busy asking itself these days. Since mind speaks on a blog, mine too got quite verbose while writing the questions above till I stopped myself and gave a line break :). So... now that the skills I have acquired in life are actually going to get me money, I cannot stop pondering about spending it to fulfill the weirdest "fancies" and "luxuries" that I ever had and wanted and did not want my parents to invest in it, simply because I did not consider them worthy enough. Now that since most my friends are getting 15K from their internships, my 20K makes me think that I actually have 5K extra for my "luxuries"!!!

So while all these things are running in the mind, it starts to ponder over the question: "Why should I go for an iPod and why shouldn't I?" The following answers come instantly.

Why should I: Whenever I am traveling alone, I feel extremely bored in mid-journey time. In such a situation I so wish I had an iPod! Another reason is the cool gadget it is. So much in so small a thing! Amazing!

Why shouldn't I: Maybe there are more things that I need to have before I have an iPod. Take for example a digicam. I would consider it more useful than an iPod which can do nothing more than playing music videos. Absolutely no creativity involved. The real bad thing is that it is so limited is its functionality. One can get real creative with a digicam.

Tough decision this!

Friday, March 10, 2006

Sleepless after long...

This used to be a usual state I would find myself in after midnight upto last semester. But it has happened for the first time in this semester. And I am liking it! Its always fun to explore the night and feel it, how long it is, feeling that you actually have 24 hours in a day, feeling that you havent been more creative and productive throughout the day....

But all this comes at a cost. The next day becomes quite a challenge. Given that its a normal weekday, I need to be in the same state of mind tomorrow(I should say today as its already past midnight) as I am on other weekdays. This did not matter till the last semester, but this semester I have explored another joy - the joy of being normal. Being normal feels good.. real good. By being normal I mean having around 6-7 hours of sleep like 'normal' human beings do.

So its essentially a trade-off.. Either explore the night or feel good the next day. Choosing the first one is a preferred option on weekends.

The normal state of affairs with me is : Being nocturnal feels great at night but next day you curse yourself for spoiling the day. Lets hope for the best and a good day tomorrow(today)

And by the way, I am reminded.. Today is my mom's birthday..
Happy Birthday Mom!

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Does it converge anywhere?

This post addresses an issue I had in mind since quite a few days now. Recently my sis forwarded me a mail containing zodiac based personality descriptions having around 300 words devoted to each zodiac sign. I was perplexed by the accuracy of the descriptions! I found myself matching to around 80-85% of the stuff written under my zodiac.

Few days back, a friend of mine told me about a person nearby who boasts of making quite accurate predictions by observing just the thumbprint of a person, and he is quite famous in his area to make quite accurate predictions. Now that was unbelievable. This made me to ponder over the deepness of astrology.

I have very less idea of astrology but whatever it is, I feel that future cannot be this deterministic. If this were so, I do not see much purpose in human life. One cannot (and should not!) be able to know his/her future to this certainty. In fact, the idea is much more involved. Imagine that you are being told your future by someone who claims to be very very accurate. Will not that effect your decisions and what you planned to do the next day or in that week? It sure would.. Wont it?

So the very thought that knowing about your future can change your present(which was future a few minutes back) makes one doubt whether predictions can be "accurate" to this level. So what we notice is that astrology gives a very blurred idea of what your future looks like, and intuitively that is the only thing it should be able to do. It doesn’t and cant tell anything accurately.

Another point of view goes like - These days it costs to know how your future looks like, unless you are an astrologer yourself. Since we look for "value for money" everywhere, this department is no exception. We are not satisfied unless we feel our money has fetched us enough knowledge about our future. What we need to understand is that these are just generalizations and there is a limit to the level up to which they can be accurate.

Some people believe in astrology to the length that they won’t start their day without looking into the "Daily Horoscope" column in their favorite newspaper and wont do anything before they wear their "Lucky Color" of the day.

Some are of the opinion that "I am not crazy about it, but just out of curiosity I may have a look at it if possible". Being well aware that this cannot be accurate, they just try to take precautions. For instance, if the horoscope says you may have a quarrel with someone today, they will try to be calm and cheerful the whole day. This is a precaution and it may work, just because horoscope can’t be accurate. So you did not have a quarrel not because you were cautious, but because the horoscope was wrong.

Some think it is shit and do not believe in astrology.

I come under the second category.

So back to the issue, I wanted to give a thought to where exactly is your future hidden? In the position of planets, in your thumb impression, in your palm, in tarots, or in the card that a parrot picks up for you? Or somewhere else?

Does it converge anywhere?