What's my point of view?

I stumbled on to this nice piece by Duncan, and a follow up by bbum, about taking a different point of view while photographing something. Made me dig up my photos to see how many of them employ a somewhat unusual line of sight. And I have to say there weren't many.

Cross Coders

This one is dedicated to ND, researcher and former Pascal enthusiast. :D

car/bike

(Of course, it's somewhat of a thoughtlift from xkcd - it has that written all over it.)

What do I call these? Eggheads? Humpty Dumpty?

The good and bad thing about blogs is that I can blog irrespective of the crappiness quotient of what I blog. So here goes I, taking a bit of inspiration from the awesome xkcd and the sometimes funny Gearheads.

Tidy Tie Tying

Well, we had this concept of a Formal Friday sometime last May at TI. It was fun seeing well-pressed blazers on people who'd been seldom seen on anything better than only slightly tattered jeans. But as a light side-effect, this video tutorial on how-to-tie-a-tie happened. Meant for dummies. Turned out to be by a dummy too (due apologies to Varun).

The Gameworld Trilogy [4/5]

Take a book, Sambo, a blank book. Yes, any book will do, as long as it's empty. Now make up a good fantasy plot, with the grandioseness of, if not the complexity of, say the Lord of the Rings - a nice good true-to-fantasy Good versus Evil plot. It's all up to you, however, to decide who's good and who's not, and when, but the plot has to be flawless. Then you create some lovely characters. Humans and human-forms first, if you really ask me. You can make the monsters and the aliens any way you like, but the humans should be well-formed characters. Characters one can identify with. Then you create a lot more characters, but this time, making them delightfully absurd. How, you ask? Well, for example, you can have a three-headed bartender, for one. How about a frog swathing in self-pity. Or maybe a James-Bond-ish dwarf. Anything sufficiently absurd or counterpointish would do. Now, think of all the fantasy books you've read. I know you haven't read many, but the few you have, will have to do. Mull them all over and plant tiny tantalizing references in your story. Adopt a playful narrative style if you can. Now, now, what've you got?

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யாமறிந்த சுஜாதா

Science Fiction-உம் நானும் அறிமுகமானபோது நான் எட்டாம் வகுப்பில் இருந்தேன் (இல்லை ஏழாவதோ?). என் சித்தி தயவில் பைண்டு புத்தகங்களாய் உருவெடுத்திருந்த பல ஆனந்த விகடன்/குமுதம் தொடர்கதைகளில் ஒன்றுதான் நான் படித்த முதல் விஞ்ஞானக் கதை: மீண்டும் ஜீனோ. எதிர்கால சமுதாய-அரசியல் அலசல்களை (sociopolitical:)) விட அதில் அப்பொது என்னைக் கவர்ந்தது வருங்கால உலகின் வருணனைகளும், ரோபோ நாய்க்குட்டிகளும், ' நிலா' போன்ற அழகான தமிழ்ப்பெயர்களும், சற்றே சிந்திக்க வைக்கும் எழுத்து நடையும் தான். நான் படித்த முதல் சுஜாதாவும் அதுவே. அதன்பின் அப்போது படித்த சுஜாதா கதைகள் எவையும் ஏனோ அவ்வளவாய் பிடிக்கவில்லை, நினைவிலுமில்லை (ஆ, என் இனிய இயந்திரா, ...).

Weekly for week ending 15/Feb/2008

One week. We're on our way now. The safety of the harbour is behind us. We'd intended to give ourselves a month to finalize what we're going to be doing. But the first item we picked looks so really like a low hanging fruit that we plan to build that product first, in the first month, and then proceed on. (It's probably also because, you know, it somehow feels more comfortable to be doing work than planning what to be working on.)

Started up

I'm out of job, guys, and am in the process of starting a startup (as yet unnamed) with Girish. Wish us luck, will you?

The Ex-Road Trip

I ushered in the new year in the middle of a jungle, with the sky for a roof, in the good company of a good many creaky trees, lots of undergrowth, two smoldering campfires, and a bunch of slightly-scared-and-totally-exhausted comrades, with no clue how far from civilization we all were.

The plan was to trek from Kodaikanal (or Berijam, about 25km from Kodaikanal) to Munnar (or Top Station, about 30km from Munnar), a total distance of about 50km, over two days. We were to take the Escape Road, the road that the British built during the Second World War, as a means to get to Calicut and sail away in case the Japanese invaded India from the east (oddly enough, the only place I could find this gem of a tidbit on the net (and more on Kodai) was, of all places, the transcript of a WorldSpace radio programme on Sai Baba). This road is no longer maintained and though overgrown with undergrowth (hee hee), we thought we should be able to follow it coolly. I'd poked around on the net and found one blog that had an excruciatingly detailed appendix describing the route to be followed for this trek.