Apple ... the next generation

Apple is getting ahead ... the most interesting announcement among all the new iPods, iTunes 7 etc. is the launch of the iTV.

Convergence is the name of the game and Apple has thrown its hat in the ring.
Due to be out in early 2007, its a box the size of a small DVD player that 'you can just hook directly to your big flat-screen TV, or more likely, hook it to your set-top box.' It can wirelessly send the movies and music you download from the Internet to your television. Of course the content comes from the iTunes website which you buy. Apple is already offering DVD quality highights of NFL games on iTunes.
Lets see what MS does next.

Travelogue ... Travel Blog

Well I'm in Aix-en-Provence now... and I'll blog my experiences here ...
euro-diaries.blogspot.com

So some times i'll blog here ... mostly on the other one :)

Enjoy ... and keep the comments coming in ...

Dating can get you a PhD!

What do get when you cross absolutely jobless doctoral students with a top notch School and finding love?
Well ... a PhD in dating.
So? Its the business of love.
This work carried out @ MIT Media Labs by a doctoral student and profs at MIT and HBS tries to optimise dating sites... and apparently its working
Read on

Online Match-Making with Virtual Dates

More on peace...

This one is from the Vietnam conflict.
Amnesty got it modified slightly and this is what we have...

Peace!

For all my admiration for Israel ...
I think we need some peace in the world for now.



This man seems to agree to some extent

Floyd's different music

Floyd Landis wins the Tour De France.
Would have been unremarkable at the start of the tour. But after the 16th?
Lance won it after being cured of his cancer. Floyd won it with a rapidly degenerating hip. On the 16th stage he crashed from 1st to 11th place, a stunning 8 minutes, 8 seconds behind the leader.
And this is what people said
And then he crafted a miracle on the 17th. The same author had no words to describe it.
Some statistics here.
And a behind the scenes view here.
With a third place on the 19th, he took the yellow back.

Marvellous.

Or so I thought. But apparently I was proved wrong. Sport today isn't all about winning. Its about stretching the limit. Legally and illegally. Now the burden of proof is on the accused. And it has taught me not to jump to conclusions, as far as sport is concerned.

The Sailor

I'm a random wayfarer
Looking for the next wave
Trolling the deep sea
Resolute and grave

There is no respite
It demands too much
For a slow learner
No beginners luck as such

I take the tiller with hesitation
There is no guide
Trial and error
Its a rough ride

Storms there are many
But the sails seem to hold
But the rain its too much
And it makes me cold

Denizens of the deep
They just wait to pounce
You are just a tasty morsel
To be devoured to the last ounce

And when I've seen it all
And survived with scars intact
I begin a another journey
For that is a fact

If I do better
I get a new set of tools
And to pilot yet again
Another ship of fools

Term 4 is here ... and I am back.

Some posts in a long time.

Class A

Its apparently a beautiful morning
Whose beauty is lost on me
Instead of sleeping it out
This lecture I've come to see

Pickled brains and confused minds
They present ideas so crazy
They make you pull out your hair
For most its all too hazy

Having borne the torture
All through the night
I try hard not to listen
To stay awake, I put up a fight

I've missed some good matches
On twerps having spent my time
To throttle them for their deeds
My mind, it turns to crime

But finally realisation dawns
The halo of light shines on me
The path to eternal wisdom
Is just to be


Class B

'Twas early morning
When we came to class
To have a peek at investments
Through the looking glass

A roller coaster ride
Along the yield curve
There was oncoming traffic
And I had to swerve

There were bonds coming my way
And some capital gains
There were coupons in the baggage too
I faced learning pains

My sleepy brain is drugged with caffeine
Trying to make sense of the mess
And as I looked on
The interest rate became less

Those shapely curves yet
I must learn to admire
Bonds they say are risky
My fate seems dire


Music for my mood: "Somewhere over the rainbow"
I just feel like going to some dreamland.

Fuel to the fire

A few days ago
It was all quiet and calm
Just a few stray bullets
Causing no harm

Then this fat old man
He threw his hat in the ring
This he thought
To him would fame bring

So he went to the people
And spoke with passion
To inflame and excite
The heart of the nation

They need it he said
No they don't said we
He went red in the face
As if stung by a bee

And slowly from the smoke
The fire emerged
To protest and march
The people converged

Yet there were some
Who "believed" in him
And the cause they "fought" for
Their cup filled to the brim

They too marched
To places random
For the man in charge
They had a memorandum

Where their train was headed
No one knew
It was a matter of faith
The coming of "hope" anew

Politics of vote-banks
And people in misery
We're talking of reservations
To control the treasury

Lining their pockets
From the first round of doles
The beneficiaries few
Sitting cozy like moles

Having dug their holes
In the soul of the land
Now they stick in their heads
Like ostriches in the sand

Fifty years past
They couldn't throw off the yoke
to bring about "change"
They wait for one man's "masterstroke"
.

It will end soon, won't it?

Something I wrote to while away the time as I was waiting for breakfast.

Just a mundane life
and lots of work to do
Odd hours at work
And no socialisation too

I feel like a fish out of water
To use the cliched old phrase
But this has to be the summer of content
If I have to get out of the maze

Mornings are for sleeping
No time to get inspired
Work the evening out
And come back home tired

Then trying to wake up
Just in time to eat
The merry morning breakfast
That's a mean feat

My body clock is adjusting
It makes me throw tantrums
Freed of my company
Glad must be my chums

And all those mails keep coming
Promising parties wild
Just like mirages in the desert
You feel like a deprived child

And what to talk of the sun
All of us its going to roast
I feel burnt to a crisp
Just like my morning toast

So I'm counting the days
Till college begins again
Now come to think of it
A month ago 'twas our bane
.

The Man of Many Talents

This post is inspired by the many people asking me about this man.

One of the most influential people in the music industry ... Ambient pioneer, glam rocker, hit producer, multimedia artist, technological innovator, worldbeat proponent, and self-described non-musician, a man who wears many hats with elan, Brian Eno has seen many phases in his life.

Rising to fame with the garish glam rock band, Roxy Music, which he left after conflict with Bryan Ferry, the frontman. Then he began his long journey into electronica beginning with the Frippertronic system, a tape delay system for Robert Fripp, of the seminal prog. rock band King Crimson. Here Come the Warm Jets, with some guesting by Fripp was his first solo effort. I recommend Baby's on Fire for the Fripp guitar solo.

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) was the next, a freeform collection of abstract pop. The most significant turn in his life occured in 1975 when he was hospitalised after a car accident. As the liner notes on Discreet Music (1975) say:

In January this year I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music - as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience.

And thus was born ambient music.

This is what he says on the notes to Music for Airports / Ambient 1

An ambience is defined as an atmosphere, or a surrounding influence: a tint. My intention is to produce original pieces ostensibly (but not exclusively) for particular times and situations with a view to building up a small but versatile catalogue of environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres.
Whereas the extant canned music companies proceed from the basis of regularizing environments by blanketing their acoustic and atmospheric idiosyncracies, Ambient Music is intended to enhance these. Whereas conventional background music is produced by stripping away all sense of doubt and uncertainty (and thus all genuine interest) from the music, Ambient Music retains these qualities. And whereas their intention is to `brighten' the environment by adding stimulus to it (thus supposedly alleviating the tedium of routine tasks and levelling out the natural ups and downs of the body rhythms) Ambient Music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.
Ambient Music must be able to accomodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Discreet Music was the first in the series of a ten volume work in similar experimental music. The above mentioned 1978's Music for Airports was a record designed to calm air passengers against fears of flying and the threat of crashes.

Then he reinvented hinself as a successful producer working on David Bowie's landmark trilogy, Low, Heroes and Lodger. Then came the Talking Heads with whom he worked on African Polyrhythms which peaked with 1980's Remain in Light. Teaming up with Daniel Lanois producing the super successful albums, among others, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby for U2.

In 1983 came Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, a collection of space-themed work, which included the song Deep Blue Day, which also appeared on the soundtrack of the cult hit
Trainspotting. I recommend that song and another, Weightless from this album.

In 1990, Eno collaborated with John Cale on Wrong Way Up where he also featured on vocals. Several solo efforts followed: The Shutov Assembly (1992), Nerve Net (1992), Neroli (1993) and Glitterbug (1994).

Eno also frequently ventured into other realms of media, beginning in 1980 with the vertical-format video Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan; along with designing a 1989 art installation to help inaugurate a Shinto shrine in Japan and 1995's Self-Storage, a multimedia work created with Laurie Anderson, he also published a diary, 1996's A Year with Swollen Appendices, and formulated Generative Music I, a series of audio screen savers for home computer software. In August of 1999, Sonora Portraits, a collection of Eno's previous ambient tracks and a 93-page companion booklet, was published. Around 1998, Eno was working heavily in the world of art installations and a series of his installation soundtracks started to appear, most in extremely limited editions (making them instant collectors items). In 2000 he teamed with German DJ Jan Peter Schwalm for the Japanese-only release Music for Onmyo-Ji.

His last release was in 2005 with Another Day on Earth, with Eno vocals after 15 years. This
is more of ambient music album, with elements of pop/electronica notably in the tracks This, Just Another Day, Under and Bone Bomb. A good listen. Recommended tracks: And Then So Clear, This, Bottomliners.

Currently listening to Another Day on Earth. Had to be inspired

Of Exams and Men

There goes the last exam for the academic year ...

Oh these exams they're so boring
All there is to it is some scoring
To be done for god knows what
To this i've never applied any thought

There they come closer and closer
Why we worry, to me its a poser
Two a day and pop they go
And in passing they lay you low

Corridors deserted, no music playing
'Tis time to pull out the books decaying
Trying hard to recall what the prof said
And making sure that everything's read

Of midnight sessions in the mess
Each hoping the crowd'd be a little less
All gathered round the focal point
Just like addicts waiting for their joint

At night no time to sleep
In the mornings like owls they peep
and tumble into the exam hall
And that is where they stall

'Coz the questions have them befuddled
And the path to the answers looks so muddled
Left and right they all look around
To see if someone is gaining ground

The question is who'll be the ace
Among all us little rats in a race
Running around in a golden cage
Just a line on somebody's page

MML period.

Its a philosophy in itself. And today I "saw"how profound it is.
Thank you Times of India.
We shall discuss it some day. Or maybe we could get the founder to say a few lines on it.
Do read the fine print in the picture :)

A new discovery.

If you have been in a Mumbai local train you may have noticed those ubiquitious posters advertising the miraculous services of those great saints also known as Baba Bangalis.

And I thought that up here in the north we never needed them. But like cockroaches, they are everywhere. Only a different name.

Genus: Baba
Species: Sufi Shah.




He even specialises in some arcane art.
Nice business model. Anyone for setting up a metaphysical treatment chain?

Rang or Bhang?

At morning break the sky is clear
A day to enjoy, of rain no fear
A sleepy hostel gradually wakes
As them the 'dhol', out of sleep shakes

Breakfast it is and thandai then
The Bhang effect materialises later when
You feel the highs and lows
But right now the enthusiasm grows

To paint everyone in various hues
Then naturally a water-fight ensues
On to high places to have sweets
With renewd vigour the battle heats

More colours now to go around
And new victims have to be found
Then they start dropping one by one
Seems they are tired of having fun

Full of colour, there come messy baths
Try as hard, you're still painted in swathes
For a few days yet, they will last
A reminder of this colourful day past


And here are some pictures.

The calm before the storm

This is how we rouse the rabble

Nooo... I don't wanna wake up.

Its Holi day is it?

Hello, where am I?