The Whiz’s Crucible

‘Economic Idiocy‘ is an interestingly downbeat post by a generally upbeat personality. It is interesting not just from the current context of the big failure being faced by the US economy. More interesting, in my opinion, was his questioning the intellect of the collective – of the masses. He has managed to pinpoint the exact issue with a decentralised system, it just takes a small critical mass to cause a wave and not all waves are necessarily well thought out or even healthy in the long run. At the same time the other end of the spectrum is to live in a gilded cage of a centralised system. I have often thought about these things. However the way Scoble put it out there and the fact that ‘he’ did (I did not expect such a cynical view from blogosphere’s and disrptive media’s biggest fanboy) – made me link him here for the 2-3 people who visit me.

P.S: Normally you would find my favourite Scoble’s posts in my shared links. You can also find the latest posts there in my sidebar.

First of all apologies for the crappy pics but I had my phone at hand and decided that better to take the pics than wait for another day.

I love my new home. My missus and I especially like out balcony. It faces away from the complex and towards a society of bungalows. As a result it is a wonderful place to laze around in our beanbags sipping tea, readying or working (well she does a lot of work there whenever the weather is fine)

Just some pics from my balcony:

1. Facing left:

Facing left - near

Facing lft - farther

2. Facing centre:

Facing centre

3. Facing right:

Facing right - nearer

Facing right - farther

The balcony faces NE and the pics were taken after noon – hence the shadows.

Cheers.

Had to post this as it reminded me of Sarat and Venky – for some reason I can picture Sarat singing this song – and Farhan’s voice reminds me of the state of Venky’s voice before any performance that he ahs given:)

Visiting Harry Potter after exactly a year (+4days:)) I thought I would write this post in a symmetrical manner to the one about getting the Half-Prince one.

Once again got it first day first show – this time around 7:30 am. And this time there was an actual queue I had to stand in unlike two years ago:)

1. Will again start of the cover. The only cover available in India is the children version:( Since I had no option I had to go ahead with it. Not yet checked the alternate covers.Will hop over to Amazon and other sites to check them out after writing this post.

My cover

Really loved the insleeve with the Stag Patronus. Funnily in India we got the UK versions(£17.99 was the price shown)

Here’s the adult version – sexy cover.

2. Once again not a very long tome. 607 pages to be exact.

3. Once again the story is flowing pretty well. Managed to finish it in one sitting. With the obvious comfort breaks I finished it in a little under 8 hours. I will reserve judgment on where it stands with respect to the other books in the series.

4. Once again I do not like the price point. INR975/- at Crossword was too steep even with the INR200/- gift coupons. Just invites the pirates according to me. But then again maybe it’s just me:) [Caveat - some shops were selling for less. However I had already pre-booked]

All in all a very enjoyable day. I was very happy I picked it up and read it before the stupid news media spoilt the ending for everyone. Too tired to write the review though. Hope to be able to do that by tomorrow.
Njoy:)

…a society where below the veneer of respectability there is crassness, intolernace and a susceptibility for violence and degrading acts. A society where women just do not get the rights and respect they deserve.

For details of the specific incident you can launch off Scoble’s article – http://scobleizer.com/2007/03/26/taking-the-week-off/

This is one reason so many of my friends, including my wife, are scared of publishing on the net. In today’s world being frank and open can make you a very easy target for intolerant idiots.

And please do not tell me that you can threaten somebody and that is all rght as long as you do not do the act. As Kathy rightly points out in her blog, the threat itself is enough to derail a person’s life – to make a person start looking over their shoulders day and night. This is no less intense than a terrorist threat and should be treated as such!!!

Got a lot of comments for my log on Dune. Thanks mates. HyperPat was especially helpful in his comments. Will be looking out for more advice from him wrt sci-fi and reading in general. Pat, will be a regular visitor of your site for sure. NULL also has an interesting site.

One obvious reference I missed was “To tame a land” – thanks to Dr. J for pointing that out. Miss hearing albums with you pal!

And finally my lazy friend Venks wants to see the movie rather than read the book. For him, here follows my review:

Dune, The Movie:

My one liner review: Watch Dumb and Dumber instead!!!

After a long long time I saw a movie I absolutely hated! The difference between the richness in the book and the stupidities in the movie were too many to ignore. Now don’t get me wrong. I am a movie buff and not a movie critic. I end up loving almost every movie I watch. I normally try to keep an open mind and try to keep a context of when a movie was made to judge the moviemakers efforts. For eg. Tron is a movie which is quite campy in today’s context but in the time it came out one can understand why it would have been cool. Movies based on ooks, one does not expect much from them, still you do like them. Hell! I even liked Hellboy-The Movie!!

So after all the background let me tell you categorically – Dune was thrash. Tremors is a much better movie, at least its honest about its B-gradeness.

Frank Herbert has written a great book, God alone knows why he supported this movie and not Iron Maiden’s song:)

So Venks watch Kal Ho Na Ho rather than watching Dune.

My pal Sujith had adviced me to read this book quite a number of years ago. For one reason or another I was not able to do it (one of the reasons could be that I did pick up one of the subsequent books but found it very boring and confusing, most probably cause I was trying to read it without any context)

The book is fascinating! I could not find any single idea which was revolutionary or shocking (to be fair, it is an old book and i might just be jaded with al the sci-fi we get today) but the way it was put together was really beautiful. It’s sci-fi part of the book is in fact quite interesting – especially in the idea of the whole galaxy depending upon a dry, almost inhabitable planet. his central idea iself makes this book really really good. However this alone would not make his book great.

What makes this book great is the analogies with older stories and histories. Most iconic sci-fi books are iconic because of the way they weave in the myths and histories of human life into fantastic departures from the real world. This makes them topical given any time context. Well in this case that this book is truly iconic!!!

There was not one chapter i read which did not remind me of something else. The two main things it reminded me of was:
one) The story of Lawrence of Arabia. Unmissable in the latter parts. However this was the more tivial of analogies

two) the way the protaganist’s story feels very close to Prophet Mohammed’s story is the real kicker. Unluckly I have ot read the koran or the story of Prophet Mohammed’s life. So the analogy to the beginnings of Islam is just what I know from pop history but it is an uncanny feeling one has while reading the book. And it’s great how that messanic tale has been given a new outlook here.

There were other connections I saw but these where after Dune was published. For example in Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of The World series you have the similar organisations like the Bene Gesserits. Then there is Tatooine – like Dune a desert planet.

Hopping over to the Wikipedia site for Dune I see even more connections which did not click earlier. Primary among them the allusions to the East India Company and foretelling, in a way, a powerful organisation like OPEC. And I completely missed the Aiel reference which can be found in the page “Dune in popular culture“.

Well seems I have come to the end of my page with nary a critical view of the novel. Guess you will have to live with that:D

But before going I will quote these lines which I read here:
“Frank Herbert’s 1963 Dune is to science fiction what The Lord of The Rings is to fantasy: the most popular, most influential and most critically-acclaimed novel in the genre. Herbert’s novel was a revelation: before Dune, even the most well-written science fiction had been mostly “wonderful gadget” stories, or political commentary expressed through exaggeration. It had never occurred to anyone that science fiction could offer the literary depth of Dostoevsky, the intricate “wheels within wheels” intrigues of Shakespeare or so deeply fulfill the heroic epic form behind Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Le Morte D’Arthur, The Mahabharata, and Beowulf.”
That sums it all – the ability to use science fiction to create myth!
Thanks Sujith!

The times indeed beat down a man. Even before he can properly mourn his friend’s passage he has to put back his smile and live the life he does.

The only private part of me which I had total control over was this blog. That’s the reason I closed it around a month – as a mark of respect – at least in my mind.

Apologies to visitors.

The fall is approaching and I too need to shed my old leaves and bare my soul.

I am back.

Intrigued by Raoul’s post I hopped over to the My Heritage site. Since I had no pics of myself i took a quick and dirty one using my webcam – you know the grainy CNN-war-time-coverage-reporter-talking-through-satellite-phone style. I thought maybe I look like Alfred Hitchcock now. The matches that came up quite surprised me.

David Seaman – 63% (Not Bad)
Tiger Woods – 63% (Yah Baby;))
Jawaharlal Nehru – 58% (That’s cool)
William Randolph Hearst – 56%
Sani Abacha – 56% (this seemed to be a good match)
Malcolm McDowell – 56%(Cool)
Sigmund Freud – 55% (Psych me this;))
and the kicker-
Rani Mukherjee -54%

And if we you are wondering what the photo I uploaded looked like:

I was forwarded a “Dear Terrorist” mail where, for the umpteenth time, it was reiterated that cowardly acts of terrorism will not break the back of Bombay.

As usual there were the usual secular statements:

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis and Marathis or Punjabis and Bengalis. Nor do we distinguish ourselves as owners or workers, government employees or private employees. WE ARE Indians.

To be frank I have not seen this in evidence after the Babri Masjid riots. It has always been made clear where a person stands with respect to caste and religion. Granted that speaking in a purely business sense the only relation for a Mumbaikar is that of a supplier and a customer. However that does not mean that everything is calm in the depths.

Personal incidents to make me worry:
Many people (unamed of course) have pointed out time and again that all Muslims are Pakistani lovers. How can a city be secular if this is the feeling of the common man?
Many people have commented about the birth rate of the poorer Muslims in Bombay. I always thought that this was unfortunate as it made their life even more difficult. However these people who make such comments are trying to prove that if we do not fight for Hindutva we will be overcome by numbers.
Every community and religious group in the city is looking out for itself. Any piece of work which offends either a Muslim group, a Hindu group or a Catholic group (how much ever small these groups may be) is sure to be banned.
Fanatical groups like SiMI, the Shiv Sena, VHP etc. all have big followings in the city
I walked down East Byculla during Shivaji Jayanthi. Nothing happened – just a normal walk. However when I spoke about it later the reactions I got made it seem as if I had done something really brave by walking in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood during Shivaji Jayanti.
The minute there is any matter which has a religious overtone Mumbai is sure that it will be brought to a halt by one group or the other.

To sum it, in the past decade I have always felt that I am a Malayali Hindu in Bombay. Furthermore there is a feeling of being safe because we make a sizeable majority. It is constricting. At no time do I remotely feel Indian – ever.

This is not to take away from the many who really do not acre. However it is really not as hunky-dory as people make it out to be. The divisions of caste, community and religion run deep in Bombay. The only saving grace is that in times of natural or manmade disasters the human side does come out.