amarnus.blog

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

amarnustwo — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:10:09 +0800

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

- Parkinson. Stumbled upon this one here. Very true.

Nike+ Milestone - Just completed a 100K in 21 runs spread over...

amarnustwo — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:36:35 +0800

Nike+ Milestone - Just completed a 100K in 21 runs spread over four months. Also, my resolution seems to be on track. All is well. Incidentally, I haven’t seen Nanban yet.

Things I'd want to do in 2012

amarnustwo — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:26:00 +0800

Resolution is a scary word in my book.

These are the things I hope I’ll be able to do this year:

Write more (blog, tweet, a story) & read more (blogs, books).
Whine less. Do more.
Plan. I have been telling anyone who has cared to listen that over the course of the last few months I have finally understood the deep wisdom behind Vadivelu’s punch line from Pokkiri. Need to get into the habit of planning well in advance.
Take piano lessons again. I have been a Grade 1 graduate for long enough now, I think.
Make bolder decisions.

(Draft)

"Happy New Year!"

amarnustwo — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:01:00 +0800

“Happy New Year!”

Thamizh Songs Notes

amarnustwo — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:45:00 +0800

1. The first thought that comes across anyone’s mind when they listen to Anjana Anjana from Vandhaan Vendraan for the first time is:

Surely, that is by Harris. No?

2. There is a lyric in the song Govinda from Engeyum Epodhum which goes like this:

..kappal vaanga vandhirrupalo, chappal vaanga vandhirrupalo..

Now, was that a subtle dig at Mayawati? :)

Sitcomvasion

amarnustwo — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 22:54:21 +0800

Every time I am at a snack vending machine and the item doesn’t fall (gets stuck) after I had already put the money in, this plays in my head. Don’t know why. Just does.

Dodge scores a century before Sachin

amarnustwo — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 02:03:00 +0800

It is quite possible that by the time you are reading this, the count would have dropped back again but as of right now - 2am SGT (April 2), a hundred people from around the world have Dodge installed on their Chrome browsers. Not impressive? Probably not but I’ll take it, I think. I have never had an excess of ten users for anything I had written before. So, yay!

In the spirit of the occasion, I thought I will share a little back-story to the making of Dodge. I wrote the first version of the game in June last year when I was working at PayPal. I had been exposed to the HTML5 buzz for a bit and was tinkering with the canvas before I eventually decided to write the game (a clone of BlockDodge of which I was a big fan). Learnt quite a bit from the experience.

Here is the interesting part. Soon, the final day of my internship arrived and I wanted to leave behind something to thank the team and to basically show that I had been there. So, I hosted the game on the intranet, shared the link with the entire office through an email and silently slipped out. I am sure it would have gone when they would have deleted my account after me. Still, I hope they had fun while it lasted.

In December, when Google announced their Webstore, I was curious to find out the reach and the potential benefits of adding an app to their store. So, I ported the app as a Chrome extension, redid the UI and published it. And that’s that.

"I think it is unwise to profess your love for documentation when you are in the company of a bunch..."

amarnustwo — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:56:00 +0800

“I think it is unwise to profess your love for documentation when you are in the company of a bunch of programmers for you are automatically assumed to be less smart (which could be the case but still, unfair no?)”

"I think it is only in a Philosophy class that you can just stare fixedly at space throughout and..."

amarnustwo — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:51:02 +0800

“I think it is only in a Philosophy class that you can just stare fixedly at space throughout and still get away with it.”

"On retrospect, making a parody is easier and relatively risk-free. Your audience will either laugh..."

amarnustwo — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:37:58 +0800

“On retrospect, making a parody is easier and relatively risk-free. Your audience will either laugh with you or not laugh at all. But there is very small chance that they will laugh at you quite unlike an original work.”

"Managed to sidestep fever but am now stuck with a cold just like how Dr K is stuck with Spectrum..."

amarnustwo — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:16:00 +0800

“Managed to sidestep fever but am now stuck with a cold just like how Dr K is stuck with Spectrum Raja (Lame? Remember, one step at a time. We are getting there albeit slowly)”

"This Sachin frenzy on Facebook is getting way out of hand and yes, I put this here because I was..."

amarnustwo — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 01:41:00 +0800

“This Sachin frenzy on Facebook is getting way out of hand and yes, I put this here because I was afraid to put it there!”

"Has the Internet made us ostentatious? Yes and I plead guilty on that count."

amarnustwo — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:50:00 +0800

“Has the Internet made us ostentatious? Yes and I plead guilty on that count.”

"What motivates us to give? The immense satisfaction that comes with the act itself through the..."

amarnustwo — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:45:00 +0800

“What motivates us to give? The immense satisfaction that comes with the act itself through the realization of the difference I will hopefully be making in the life of someone else or is it just ‘I gv bcuz I haz’?”

Thamizh Cinema and Children

amarnustwo — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 09:28:00 +0800

This has been something about which I have been ranting to a few unfortunate people repeatedly for sometime now. Though unfailingly they give me both a patient hearing and a positive validation of my views everytime, I understood (in time, I hope) that they had probably heard enough of it already (from me, at least).

Nevertheless, I felt it was important to record the problem somewhere; especially considering that the off chance of my directly contributing to a positive change in this direction has virtually nullified over the years. Okay, basically the thing is this - Does Thamizh Cinema really care about our children? Personally, from the array of films that have been presented to me over the years, I really dont think so.

What really grinds my gears is the fact we have grown to adjust or compromise with this fact. It is also really sad to note that not many consider this to be a problem even.

Let me take an example - Now if I come up to someone and tell them that I felt Enthiran was probably not a film appropriate for kids and didn’t deserve a U (for universal viewing) certificate, I would be laughed at.

The film had robots, talking mosquitoes, the Superstar, breathtaking action sequences and to top it all, an adorable Chitti as the lead. Kids loved it.

The argument is sound. I am not going to deny it. A lot of kids must have had fun watching the film. True. Even my twelve year old sister did.

Now let us recollect and consider a few sequences from the film: (a) A recurring innuendo around the chief reason for man’s superiority over a robot (b) The discussion where both the scientist and Sana try to convince the robot as to why he cannot be in love with a woman (c) Sana’s seduction of the evil android at the end. In my experience again, I’d expect you to respond in two ways:

(a) Bah, Humbug! You are just narrow minded.
(b) Okay, maybe these sequences aren’t that appropriate for children but at least it is not as bad as … from …. Plus it has got these wonderful things (see above) for children which is just great.

To (a) - Yes, probably I am a Buzz Killington. But one thing to note is that I am not really against these sequences. No. I think all of them are quintessential for the plot and deserve to be there. I would be the last person who would have wanted them to be cut out. I just didn’t think the film qualified for a U with those scenes in it. As for (b), it seems that we think that the film is entirely suitable for children only in comparison and that is exactly the problem.

I can even take the liberty in saying that there are no Thamizh movies being made for children at all. Well, save a few. Pasanga was promising. Radhamohan’s films are always wonderfully packaged for the family but never specific to children - which is okay, I think. At least, there are no awkward moments at the theatre or in the living room.

I really find it horrifying though to see the kind of films that are being sold as films for the family today. Okay, I am not sure what their idea of a family is. Doesn’t the family include the kids? It seems like they gauge a film’s suitability for children just by the number of vulgar/intimate sequences in it. This is both absurd and disturbing. So, exchanges with a sexual undertone, innuendos that are assumed to be cleverly crafted, themes completely unsuitable for children and more simply go unnoticed. Just think of some random family film and see if it can be put in any of these buckets. Very few will survive. And this explanation justifies our dear SJ Suryah’s statement in 2006 when he said and I paraphrase -

Children would love New. Especially the Spiderman song in it.

Obviously, this was before the film released. No elucidation required.

The core of the problem is very simple. We neither have gutsy producers nor producers who actually care. All that most ball(s)-less jerks with deep pockets in Kollywood seem to direct their efforts at is to find and prove an inexistant formulae to make a successful film. So it was definitely heartening to see Sasikumar work hard to get a Pasanga on screen.

If people are still worried that children movies might not hold adult viewer interest, they should probably look at Disney for example. (Just dont lift scripts okay?)

In summary, I just think that we simply need more Thamizh movies made just for children. No, our kids dont have to live with what they get. They deserve more. And our Censor Board could, instead of chipping away frames worth several hours of work and effort unnecessarily, think more about appropriately rating films based on content.

I am pretty sure you would not have been convinced when you reach this part. So, who else can I call but Kamal Hassan to give a summary of this whole post and the rationale behind it.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to..."

amarnustwo — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:22:29 +0800

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Mad Cats

amarnustwo — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:19:00 +0800

I refuse to believe that cats are harmless. That they are follows from the practice of attaching rationale to their actions or even to their will to act.

But what about mood swings? For all you know, a cat, unhappy with the poor weather, could attack you just to give vent to its frustration or to amuse itself. No?

To respect or to pamper

amarnustwo — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 02:57:00 +0800

So when you are designing your product, how should you look at your user? Should you respect her or should you pamper her? It is only fair I mention now that I haven’t found a solution to this problem as yet and in this post, I just present two use cases -

Chrome v Firefox

Allow me to take the trivial case of updates for comparing the two browsers.

Now, Chrome has this autoupdate feature turned on by default which I still haven’t found a straightforward way to turn off on my Mac. Even if we assume that Chrome has an option in there somewhere, it still only makes it opt-out. Although it does feel good to not be frequently bothered by update reminders, let us try to understand the scenario better by drawing an analogy.

On the eve of your exam, you ask your friend who is awake to wake you up in an hour and go to sleep. After an hour, he finds you deep in sleep and after considering that you had already spent a good part of the night studying, he sympathizes for you, and decides to allow you to sleep for an extra hour. So, what has happened here is that your friend has made a decision on your behalf using your trust probably for your own good. But does he know that you haven’t read a chapter and were counting on using that extra hour for that? Probably not.

Chrome works in the same way and the worse part is that it assumes your trust by default. While Firefox on the one hand allows you to decide if you want to upgrade and respects your judgement, Chrome pampers you by abstracting you from the process itself.

Personally, I would take Firefox’s side. But even in its case, the job is not correctly done. I feel the question to be asked must be at a different level - User Interface. How can I make the updating process seamless and still make the user fully aware of what it means to her and her software?

Charity v Social Lending

There are slew of startups out there that lets you donate to an event or a cause. Some have even made it easier for you. Like a Facebook page, Follow a Twitter account and that is all. Advertisers will pay for some charity on your behalf. What draws you to these services, I feel, are two things - 1) You don’t need to do much but can still 2) Get that gratifying feeling that accompanies a social contribution. Again, the user is pampered.

And on the other hand, we have Milaap. Its active user base, I believe, will be a set of people to whom social contribution is not a one-off thing but a process in which they are proactively involved. I think this is great and hope a company like this will breed a new wave of social consciousness in the third world where people have a clearer understanding of the social problems facing the country instead of living in a false sense of reality. Again, this company puts control in the hands of its user and respects her sense of judgement.

I don’t wish to compare the two approaches by using success as a metric. I am just trying to find out the right way.

Actually, this question can be extended to any product. Even movies. That is why I hold Christopher Nolan in high regard. Does he respect your intelligence by testing it or does he pamper you by writing run-of-the-mill stories that you are used to but will like anyway? cough Avatar cough

An Architect's Joy

amarnustwo — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:47:13 +0800

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s numerous shortcomings, I thought he made a very valid point in this interview. When asked about the Social Network, he said and I paraphrase -

They have made it seem as though the whole motivation behind starting Facebook was for me to get girls or to get into some social institution. The thing that amazes me is how they cannot wrap their heads around the idea that someone can build something just because they like building stuff.

Of Fonts

amarnustwo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:26:00 +0800

Despite knowing answers for less than half of the questions, my major grievance with the mid term paper has to be the lecturer’s choice of using Verdana as the font type.