ArunRocks

Atari and Gaming History

2012-01-30T18:54:02+05:30

Imagine your 8 year old cousin, who is learning to use computers, asking you about the Save icon on Microsoft Word. The image of a floppy disk is almost universally used to denote 'saving a file'. But with floppy disks gone, would the coming generation understand the symbolism?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had the same problem with the joystick icon commonly used to denote Games. Typically it is drawn as a stick pointing up, protruding from a box. Most of the consoles that I was familiar with had much more elaborate game controllers or gamepads. However this simple black-coloured gaming device remained a mystery to me.

Until I read the book 'Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System' that is. I started reading this book out of curiosity and due to a certain interest in gaming history. But soon realised that it is a must-read for anyone interested in Game design or even the roots of Gaming culture. It covers not just the historical context of the Atari VCS and its popular games but some of its nearly impossible technical constraints.

One of the most amazing thing about Atari games were that they could use only 128 bytes of RAM. Yes you read that right. It is not Megabytes or even Kilobytes, I mean Bytes. To give you a better idea, I have italicised the first 128 characters at the beginning of this blog post. Yes, it is that small.

To program an entire game with graphics, sounds and gameplay with several levels would seem impossible given such constrains. But remember that RAM refers to the working memory or the read-write area. Atari would store most of the game content in removable cartridges containing about 4 kB of ROM or Read Only Memory. Now, 4 kB is not much either. Today, even the smallest images, say an icon, would be bigger than that. Imagining packing an entire game in that space. Incredibly cool!

Constraints bring out some of the most creative solutions. There could be no better example of this than Atari games. Not only were Atari games enjoyed by millions of gamers, they also boast of many pioneering achievements. The 1979 game Adventure is considered to be the first action-adventure game. One of the great grandfathers of games like Warcraft, the game allowed the player to explore multiple rooms with the ability to pick up, carry or drop items, a first at that point in time. It was also the first game to have a widely known 'Easter Egg.'

Yar's Revenge, released in 1981, takes place in space and uses game code as game data. Taking place in space, the game screen is dominated by a striped randomly coloured neutral zone. Rather than use a random number generator, the game's creator brilliantly converted the game's own binary code into a psuedo-random pattern, saving precious ROM space. In other words, you are looking into the game's own code while playing the game. How many games have you played that can claim that?

Not all firsts mentioned in the book are technical innovations. It narrates how Atari employees broke off to start Activision, the first third party video game company. Of course, Atari's first game Pong was a cultural phenomenon. Atari is also considered as the longest living game console spanning a duration of 14 years and 2 months in US gaming history.

As a side note, if you have read Steve Job's autobiography then you must be aware that Steve Jobs was Atari's fortieth employee. He was a technician paid at $5/hour. They sent him to India to help him do 'spiritual research'. Later it was their $100 bounty for each chip removed from the design of Breakout that triggered Jobs to reach out to Steve Wozniak. Interestingly, they eventually offered Apple II to Atari and they were not interested. Imagine that, Atari could have actually bought Apple!

Today, one can still buy Atari Flashback, a successor of the original Atarai 2600. It contains two of the iconic joysticks bearing a close resemblance to the original joysticks. There are many recent accounts of parents rediscovering such legacy arcades. Small children don't seem to mind the simple graphics thanks to their active imagination. Adults also love the competitiveness of two-player games.

Sometimes to better understand the present, one needs to dive into the past. Knowing Atari's past was not only instructive but also inspiring.

The Ritual

2012-01-06T23:48:25+05:30

Father had spoken and left in a hurry. That was the final word on the matter. His callousness was more than a six year old could fathom. Why do they have to blindly follow this ancient practice of human mutilation? Why can't he be the first to stop this barbaric ritual? Most importantly, why are adults always right?

Tears almost welled up in his big eyes as it looked up for empathy in his mother's eyes. However, he found none as she had grown used to his protests. They say he had his mother's eyes. Her's seemed to tell him, 'Be calm. It will be over with quickly'. But he was far from calm. He could hear the drumbeats of his heart rising with a deafening tempo. He felt trapped.

She waited. He waited for her to leave. He knew the act of cutting off painlessly would not be easy. He was sure he would make cowardly expressions or even cry. He didn't want her to see that. He didn't want to say that, 'Chee... What's this? A Chekavar would never cry like that!'. Perhaps this is a rite of passage to become a Chekavar and join the long lineage of blood-lusty warrior menfolk. One of the hundred tests he might have to face in the future. Right now, this task seemed impossible to be true.

'Kichu, you heard what Acha said. We don't have all day'. He held the instrument tighter. The crude implement had two dull blades at the business end of it. Once he puts his tiny finger in between them, a flat lever needed to be pressed. It would hurt... definitely. He should have sharpened the blades to make it less so. But how would a six year old know how to do that?

Suddenly, a shrill whistle of the milk boiler needed her urgent attention. She turned to the kitchen. Kichu craned backward to confirm that she is gone. He fumbled with the instrument. Tried to grip its levers. It kept slipping from his sweaty palms. A sense of urgency possessed him now. He positioned his trembling finger towards the blades.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

The mother bolted out of the kitchen hearing his scream. Time froze to a glacial pace. Shocked to see Kichu lying unconcious on the floor, she knelt down and picked him up in her arms. His right hand was tightly closed. Terrified, she tried to open his hand. She was half-expected to see a nasty cut and some blood, hopefully not a lot. But there was none of that. Instead there was an angled nail-cutter and a thin crescent-shaped fingernail.

This is a Game. There are rules

2011-12-07T21:49:52+05:30

I have been recently reading a book on game design that primarily focuses on non-digital games. It is called Challenges for Game Designers. It distills the art of game design to using easily available materials like paper, dice or playing cards. They call it a non-digital approach.

We have all played such games at some point in time. Before video games, as kids, we used to play snakes and ladders or chess. In Kerala, we have several indoor games using easily available materials like pebbles, cowries (kavadi in Malayalam), circassian seeds (manjaadi in Malayalam) and irkili sticks (stiff mid-ribs of coconut leaves). The rules were simple - say, remove the smallest stick without disturbing others or align the seeds in a row. These 'eco-friendly' and 'low-cost' games used to provide hours of fun to children and adults.

Compared to modern video games these games lack high production values marked by hundreds of detailed 3d modelled characters and unfolding of several hours worth of intricate plots and storylines. These traditional games don't have any stories, they are mostly tests of skill or chance. They were fun interactive experiences fuelled by imagination.

What's wrong with my digital game?

The biggest advantage board games have is the trust factor. They exist in a familiar world - the real world. A world with familiar laws of physics and hence predictable outcomes.

Whereas a digital world is essentially a make-believe world created by the game designer. It may or may not follow the rules of the real world. If you touch this strange flower, it might wobble or it might balloon into a giant carnivorous plant. You are not quite sure. If the game designer did not leave tell-tale signs on the flower, the only way to find out is to risk touching it.

To players who are adventurous, this sounds like fun. After all, exploration in a safe world ought to be a fun experience. But you cannot leverage all the experience you had in the real world (which certainly took you several years) into this new world immediately. It is an alien environment and you must invest some time in getting familiar. Even then, there is always an element of Deus ex machina lurking the dark crevices of a digital game.

Board games on the other hand involve familiar or even everyday objects to create experiences which are much greater than sum of its parts. A token on the board will not mutate into something else if you move it to the next square on the board. Nor will it affect the real world you are playing in (unless you are playing Jumanji ).

This principle of least surprise primes you to play the actual game once you finish explaining the game's rules. Unlike a typical video game, there is no unneeded exploration to get a feel of the environment. In other words, you don't need to learn to stand up before you can start running.

Another great advantage these non-digital games have is the ease of modifying them. Changing a fundamental game rule such as whether you can use the joker in pack of cards requires just a simple consensus between players. The game rule changes and, in turn, changes the game experience.

On the other hand, a digital game is built using programming tools which in turn builds a rigid mathematical model of the game world. The rules and character behaviours are generally fixed. With the exception of a few games like SimCity or Minecraft, free-style play is discouraged in favour of a mission-oriented game design. For instance, you cannot turn a fire-breathing dragon into a pet.

Rise in popularity of the game-modding community however highlights the desire to do so. Thousands of enthusiasts who like to customise their game experiences from tweaking a game character's face to reprogramming the enemy AI behaviour enjoy playing and sharing these modifications. However, these modding tools have steep learning curves and need considerable investments in time and effort.

What's right with my digital game?

What digital games sometimes lack in content is often made up in presentation. Colorful and animated worlds are often the hallmark of digital games. The latter aspect i.e. animated movement is a key element for explaining their appeal.

Computer games and in fact TV screens appeal to the T-Rex part of our brains. This reptilian cohabitant gets easily mesmerised by rapid movements and flashy lights. It expects something essential to survival to happen when there might be none. It is simply a trick on our evolutionary instincts. However, the trick doesn't work for long as a boring game will not sustain continued interest.

Nevertheless, this initial impression gives digital games an edge over traditional games. A well designed digital game might be more appealing than a well designed board game, especially to young adults.

Digital games also enjoy the advantage of easy distribution. Even within the PC game industry, digital distribution by online purchases is overtaking retail sales of boxed games.

Once made available on the internet, a digital game becomes universally available and ready to play once setup. On the other hand, even if a board game is made free to print-and-play, it takes a lot of cutting and setting up to start playing.

In addition, non-digital games with extensive rules requires someone to read and understand all the rules even before the play begins. Even then, some of the rules might be missed or misinterpreted by an inexperienced player.

The rigidness of the digital game's world avoids all these pitfalls. The game world is setup as soon as you begin playing and the rules being inviolable can be learnt by exploration. This lowers the barrier of entry to start enjoying the game.

This is a crucial advantage to a causal player who would like to start playing the game as soon as possible rather than get involved in the formalities of learning the game.

Can we have the best of both worlds?

We can certainly imagine a marriage of both worlds - digital and non-digital games. The digital avatars of typical board game like Chess or Cluedo attempt to do just that.

They offer the convenience and packaging of a digital game, yet they use familiar game objects like dice or tokens. However, the end result might not always be well executed. The entire user interface needs to be as intuitive as a board game. Often touch screens like iPads are a good platform for such hybrid games. However, the flexibility of a board game inevitably loses when it enters the rigid world of digital games.

In conclusion, board games are an invaluable legacy that imparts a lot of fun with familiar objects. But would the legacy survive the onslaught of digital revolution in its present form? Or will it evolve into a hybrid variation of both? Only a throw of the dice can tell :)

PS: The headline is paraphrased from a dialog in the cult-classic film The Big Lebowski (1998), "Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."

The Jobs Biography

2011-11-15T03:04:35+05:30

After I finished reading the last page of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography yesterday, I heaved a sigh of relief. The experience of reading was like getting intimate with an extraordinary genius who had a highly abrasive personality. We get to meet a young billionaire who either insulted people on their face or highly praised them. This arrogance has less to do with his wealth and more with the rebellious and artistic side of his personality.

The extraordinary thing about his life is that despite several close calls with death, he never mellowed down and accepted status quo. Wherever he saw imperfections, be it badly designed products or inefficiently run businesses, he tried to change them, often radically. When most people would try to shrug off saying 'Well, nobody seems to have a better way of doing this', Jobs turned the question around and reduced it to simplistic solution, making you wonder, 'That is so obvious. Why didn't I think of it first?'.

Though we don't get much insight into Job's process of simplification, it certainly took several rounds of iterations and rework till he was satisfied. He would rather abandon months of effort than ship something that was not intuitively perfect as in the case of completely redesigning the iPhone's glass face. He believed in producing products that met his high personal standards and led to his personal satisfaction. In contrast, while other CEOs were trying to please the market by somehow meeting customer expectations, Jobs completely ignored what they think they want and followed his instinct. This explains the tremendous passion he invested in building them and defending them no matter what the circumstances. Unlike any CEO, he could talk about his products at the highest level and quickly zoom into the minutest detail without batting an eyelid.

We also get to know Apple and Pixar - two great companies that are not just innovative but have had tremendous cultural impact. Some of the interesting characteristics that explains their success are:

Collaboration: Pixar's building is marked by a large central atrium that facilitates collaboration by literally bumping into people. At Apple, various business unit heads have long meetings every week and take decisions by discussing every detail even at early stages.
Questioning: Jobs loved to argue and obsess over every detail with everyone. It was not just a matter of convincing him as much as demonstrating that you have really explored the problem from every angle.
Passion: Like its customers, Apple's employees truly believed in building something 'world changing' and this made them stretch themselves to limits, unlike other companies.

In short, the book is a great read as it doesn't try to glorify Jobs. It tries to give an objective and well-researched account of a technology legend. Highly recommended.

Sony Bravia CX 420 and a Guide to Flat-panel TVs

2011-10-16T14:53:00+05:30

It is Diwali time and the retail shopping excitement in India is comparable to Christmas season in the West. Everyone seems to be praying for their old and fat CRT TV to stop working, so that they have an excuse to buy a brand new flat screen TV.

We were on the lookout for a flat screen LCD TV sometime back and deliberated various brands for a while. Actually, for me every gadget purchase takes 'a while' due to the amount of research I generally do. Since, I do not watch TV regularly, I had to practically learn all the TV jargon from scratch to understand the sales-speak.

After a month of 'superficial research', some of the elementary findings were:

The old CRT TV is completely out of the market. You might be able to find, at best, a 21" CRT TV.
There are no plasma TVs in the 32" category. They only come in bigger sizes and guzzle a lot of power.
The market leader in Indian TV market is Samsung followed by LG. The Koreans also dominate the world market this way with low cost yet high quality TV sets.
LED screens today are a gimmick. It's just LED backlighting and true LED TVs are a few years away from an average consumer's reach. Their saturated colors in the showroom is just clever tweaking.
32" is a reasonably large screen for our apartment living room. Any bigger and you will feel you are literally inside the screen. (This is subjective, of course)
The higher end TVs have higher frame rates for sports action. This is called by different manufacturers by different names such as Tru Motion or Flo motion. This is very annoying while watching movies as it makes them look like TV serials. This might not be perceptible to many, but personally I couldn't watch my favourite movies being 'interpolated' this way
HD Ready (720p) would be cheaper than Full HD (1080p), but they will be obsolete soon. Interestingly for screens smaller than 36", the difference in picture quality is not quite evident but to the trained eye.
In most modern TVs, there is no need for a DVD or bluray player if you prefer to keep movies in your pen drive or hard disk. You can simply plug in the device directly to your TV set. The TV presents a file browser and you can play the video if the file format is supported.
No comments on 3D TV as it was not a requirement for us.

All these facts were gathered after multiple visits to various showrooms and from the Internet. Initially I had visited a couple of stores in April this year and found out that, among the leading brands, only LG offered IPS displays at that point in time. Now, I know a thing or two about IPS displays because it is the same display technology used on Apple Cinema displays and even the iPhones.

IPS displays have the widest viewing angles and excellent color reproduction. In fact, I was so impressed by IPS displays that I bought a 23" DELL IPS monitor specifically for desktop use. Hence, I was almost certain to buy an LG.

Around May, LG and most leading brands did a refresh of their lineup of TV screens (i.e. 2011 models). LG no longer offered IPS displays for their 32 inch screens. This was extremely disappointing as this meant that I have to visit the stores again to view and reevaluate the sets.

Visits to the nearest Samsung and LG showrooms resulted in quite a bit of disappointment. Their 32" LCD models were a shadow of their predecessors. The color reproduction was weak or dull. The sound appeared to come out of a closed box. The sales representatives were not very clear in explaining these "improvements" such as why LG decided to abandon the IPS display. I was even tempted to buy an older CRT instead!

We then visited the Girias outlet near our apartment, from where we have made most of our purchases. The sales representative was quite patient and knowledgeable. He explained that the non-IPS displays like Twisted nematic (TN) have been improving in the past couple of years and the color reproduction was almost at par. We were able to visually compare the viewing angles and experience this for ourselves.

When I explained to him that I found the LG and Samsung audio and video quality as being not satisfactory, he demoed a Sony Bravia model - CX 420. Now, personally, I detest the Sony brand due to their tendency to create their own standards like the Memory stick, Betamax and UMD. Also, they charge premium rates for the same feature set simply due their brand name (in laptops, for instance). Besides the number 420 does ring a bell in India :)

But I was genuinely surprised when the model actually had significantly better picture quality, color reproduction and excellent sound (with bass) for a price premium of 3K compared to other brands. However, the most impressive feature was the wide variety of video and audio formats that was supported out of the box. Even today there are TVs that can support pen drives but not harddisks; or ones that can play .avi but cannot open .mkv videos. But the 420 could play virtually any type of file lying in my harddisk except for videos with 5.1 channel audio tracks (because, duh, it had only 2 speakers).

So we finally settled on a Sony. Once home, we wall-mounted the unit and now its almost like a colourful window in the living room :).

Sony Bravia CX 420 - a Post-purchase review

What follows is a review of the TV written after 5 months of use. It goes into greater detail regarding some of the aspects covered earlier.

Unpacking / Appearance

Unlike the good old dabba TVs, today's TV boxes can be carried by one person. The box contains a stand if you are mounting on a flat surface. The assembly takes about 10 mins and the printed instructions are quite clear. Wall mounting would need additional screws so it's best that you ask the Sony personnel to wall-mount at no additional cost.

The TV is a classy all-black model with a slightly glossy bevel. However the screen is, thankfully, matte. So a mirror-like reflection will not be present from various light sources in your living room. The steroe speakers are located at the bottom. The remote is quite long and slender. It is quite easy to hold and the button are well spaced out.

Picture Quality

The Bravia series models use Live Color technology which makes pictures more vivid without making them unnaturally over saturated. This combined with various noise reduction techniques makes watching non-HD content such as Cable TV channels quite enjoyable. The picture is also intelligently resized to stetch the entire HD screen without letterboxing.

The color reproduction of HD videos is similarly quite superior to comparable brands (we did spend a lot of time in the showroom comparing this aspect alone :) ). However, Sony leaves very little room for tweaking by giving you only 4-5 preset modes like Theatre, Sports etc. Other brands might give you more parameters to fiddle with.

The viewing angle was quite good considering that it is not an IPS display. However, the difference in vertical viewing angles seemed to vary quite a bit. Hence, it might be a factor to consider while determining the height to wall mount the set.

There is a noticeable blur while taking photographs of the videos being played back. Hence it may or may not be the best choice for watching sports. I don't watch much sports anyways.

Sound Quality

As mentioned earlier, I was not interested in connecting an external sound system like a home theatre system to the set. Hence, I was keen on a model that had good built-in sound. Compared to LG or Samsung, Sony sets seemed to have good sound reproduction even at high volumes without distortion.

The bass enhancing technology was not very effective but it did give sufficient bass to enjoy action movies. The stereo separation is not that great considering that both speakers fire downward, but it is definitely there!

Summary

Overall, we are quite happy with the purchase, though we realise that our needs were quite limited to start off with. Interestingly, we found ourselves spending more time watching movies from the hard-disks (yes plural, I have quite a collection :) ) rather than watching boring television programmes. I am yet to connect my Android phone which has a mini-HDMI output to the TV yet, but I hear that it's an excellent idea.

Couldn't be happier!

Rockstar Soundtrack - First Impressions

2011-10-12T19:46:21+05:30

Warning: May contain traces of satire and humour

This is, unfortunately, an unpaid review. Hence, most of what's written here is not made up. This can be very disappointing to some of you who read mainstream media, so please take it slowly. Media is after all a business and a source of bread and butter for many people. And bread and butter is definitely expensive, especially in India.

Don't get me wrong, I am not the unbiased vigilante blogger. In fact, I tried my best to get paid for this music review. Apparently, Rockstar's PR was not in a mood to humor a small-time blogger like me. Completely unfair, since being fond of Rehman's music I would have written a pretty nice review anyways!

So, this review wouldn't be too nice. Because it is written for free. So Mr. Cheapstakes, you can wipe that mocking smirk off your face. Let's have a look at Rockstar's playlist:

Jo Bhi Mein - Mohit Chauhan

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah... I can this one sing too. Have to appreciate the sense of humour of the lyricist Irshad Kamil (even better than me in this regard). The album starts with the 'Rockstar' yelling 'Oh yeah, yeah' and the audience, accepting the challenge, yells it back. This goes back and forth till you can guess who wins in the end (Hint: it's the guy with the mic).

The song is heavily set on guitar strings and the mimicry abilities of the singer (cost-cutting measures?), while it introduces you to the apparently always-misunderstood-protagonist. You cannot imagine someone better than Mohit rendering this rock-pop composition. The song immerses yourself into a rock concert minus the sweaty t-shirts.

Kateya Karun - Harshdeep Kaur & Sapna Awasthi

Can music tickle your ears till you smile? Yes it can. Listen to this one. Not sure what vodoo music engineering that Rehman employs but the opening of this track is a quirky yet hilarious stereo experience. It is great for testing your new 200 buck earphones and be unjustifiably happy about it too. How do I know that you have cheap earphones? You are reading a free review, aren't you?

Countless Punjabi Bollywood numbers have been created filled with 'Ahuns', 'Oyes' and 'Brrrrraaahs'. So what makes this one different? Glad that you are wondering the same thing as I did. Funny, how that works. I guess it has to do with the innocent naughtiness in the lyrics and an equally fun rendering by Harshdeep.

This song made me wonder why I like Rehman's music. I realised that it's because I understand what he is trying to convey through his music. To my musically untrained ears, when he foreshadows the ending of the track with deescalating string chords I anticipate that we are slipping into a dream. Ending on that dreamy note, I believe that the entire song is a roller-coaster ride suited for a coming-of-age situation.

Phir Se Ud Chala - Mohit Chauhan

There he goes up again... well, that's what the song's title literally means. I am not sure what he does up there but I guess it's an occupational hazard with rockstars. They are high up there all the time. So probably that's what this trippy, trancy song is all about. Not bad for, emmm... those meditative moments.

Saadda Haq - Mohit Chauhan

This the song that screamed from the top of our set-top boxes. The lines that were intentionally strong to create that intentionally strong effect. The song that was set to be the youth anthem. Except it didn't.

Saadda turned too saada in the wake of dozens of oh-so-anguished-wanna-be rock songs preceded it. Every producer wanted to cash in on the rock-craze, I guess. Hence to the DK-Bose generation the impassioned lyrics might sound a bit... tame? However, it does stand apart from the recent rock ballads with Mohit's raw energy. Oh yes, there is that signature "Oh yeah" all over again.

Kun Fayakun - A.R.Rahman, Javed Ali & Mohit Chauhan

How many hit sufi-style devotional songs can Rehman create? Unlimited, apparently. Like a crazy fan, we fall completely in love with the soulful music and philosophical lines sung by Rehman and team. BTW, why is Mohit in every song? Is Mohit - the 'Rockstar'?

Sheher Mein - Mohit Chauhan, Karthik

Enjoyed this parody of a typical dhink-chak Bollywood number complete with a sleazy producer interrupting from time to time. It's a literal slap in the face by Imtiaz's team on the crass commercialisation of the music industry that adds masala catering to every demographic, suggestive lyrics for the controversy factor and catchy jingles for higher ringtone sales.

Thoroughly enjoyed the entire track where you can hear a toned-down mushy Mohit, who breaks out in the interludes to his wild raw form. This song would probably show the inner turmoil of a rebel artist bending backwards just to pay his bills. The result is fantastically comical.

Hava Hava - Mohit Chauhan, Viviane, Tanvi, Suvi Suresh, Shalini

Ever happened that you had to listen to a foot-tapping Middle-eastern number with all the cheering and clapping, but never managed to understand a word of why or what they are so happy about? Ever tried to fill-in the words with an imaginary storyline of why they are so happy? Come on, you must definitely have. That's exactly what is happening in this track.

Beware though, the enthusiasm in this track in highly infectious. When you set to listen to this on your 5.1 home theatre speaker, it's likely that you would have gotten up and started dancing in Turkish folk steps. Possibly, your neighbour would be also doing the exact same thing.

Aur Ho - Mohit Chauhan, Alma Ferovic

This is a song that takes itself too seriously. It talks of breakups and sadness. Apparently, there is a certain following for such songs. They love the 'depth of emotions' in such numbers. Sorry folks, this isn't really my cuppa here.

Tango For Taj - Theme

Reminding you of the background scores of late-seventies movies like Bobby or even tamil movies like Mouna Raagam, this instrumental score carries an endearing nostalgia about it. However the Turkish dance troupe (whom we met a few songs back) gate-crashes into the party. From then on, as you can guess, it's all clapping and cheering. Gotta hate their cheeky enthusiasm for that.

Tum Ko - Kavita Subamaniam

Finally! A song without Mohit! I was beginning to wonder if there is one. This is one of those so beautifully rendered female numbers that draws you in completely. Rehman has done this before, most recently, with Sherya's Mannipaya. In that song, the apology rendered by her is so touching that you end up weeping at her feet, pleading forgiveness. Ok, who was apologising again?

The Dichotomy of Fame - Ft.Balesh on Shehnai, Kabuli on Guitars

A fusion of Indian shehnai, middle-eastern strings and western violins is all I can say. Yes, I am beginning to get lazy with this review thing. Did I mention that I wasn't paid?

Naadaan Parindey - A.R.Rahman, Mohit Chauhan

A mellowed down rock song where Rehman's voice is surprisingly soothing.

Tum Ho - Mohit Chauhan, Suzanne D Mello

The male version of Kavitha's song. Not as exceptionally good, but great for long-drives nonetheless!

The Meeting Place - Ranbir Kapoor

Ok, this is not even a song. I am definitely not reviewing this one!

It's risky to write about first impressions for Rehman's creations. His music tends to grow on you on repeated hearings. Time to stop the tape and rewind. Maybe I will change my mind and be nicer.

BTW, you are welcome.

Growing up as a programmer

2011-10-09T23:26:18+05:30

Whether to build or to reuse is a classic dilemma for most programmers. If you choose build, then you would have to spend a lot of effort designing, coding, testing and debugging your creation. If you choose to reuse, then you would have to pour over all the documentation which would be typically outdated or inadequate in many places.

Initially, most programmers start out as cowboys. They are fearless and fiercely independent. They believe that they can build anything and need not waste time struggling to understand somebody else's horrible piece of code. It works for a while because they have the skill of programming and we all can program our way out of anything, right? Wrong.

There are many things a beginner programmer cannot do because of the sheer lack of understanding of the domain. Notice that I did not use the word 'Experience'. You might be able to write a search engine from scratch but it would takes years to return even remotely relevant results for all use-cases (say, something like Google does). You might be able to create a Sudoku solver but a Chess solver is out of the league even for the most experienced programmers.

As you gain experience, you realise that reading code is a skill as important or rather more important than the skill to write it. Similar to any work of literature, you need to understand the classics and read works of legends to become a better practitioner. Extending the analogy a bit further, it would take quite some time before you assimilate all these 'influences' and become ready to write in your own distinctive 'style'. This might take several years.

Even though the industry is slowing recognising the fact that it might take longer to become an experienced programmer, the career path they offer for successful programmers is indeed unfortunate. A successful programmer is generally required to become a manager in order to pursue a successful career. Even if he/she chooses to become an architect, they would be far removed from being a practioner and would be asked to make plans or designs in thin air instead.

In the extremely rare case of a programmer continuing to pursue this domain and excel in it, he/she rediscovers the art of building simpler code. The simplicity aspect must be emphasised here. Great programmers identify simplicity and minimalism with beauty and continue to focus on it.

This explains the almost cult following of LISP among experienced hackers. The lure of Apple products among geeks is not in its shininess but rather in its simplicity. Most software geeks love to tinker with simple microprocessor boards like Arduino or PIC as a hobby project. Possibly with the highest number of computer scientists in its payroll, Google is virtually an ecosystem of multiple small and large projects, each mostly focussed on a singular functionality.

The experienced programmer is not trying to built an impressively complex system that solves many problems here. Instead he is trying to solve a simple problem with simple tools. Why would someone with so much experience do something so counter-intuitive? Younger programmers often use much more complicated tools (such as graphical IDEs) or languages (such as Java or Perl) to attack a problem.

This is not (just) because they are lazy. This has to do mostly with the fact that their goals have changed. They do not find the task of creating something as an end to itself. They would like their creations become a means to achieve some purpose or solve a unique problem. The more simpler the tool they use, the more focussed they are at trying different approaches.

Rather than learning several tools to attack the problem, they employ the most elementary tool possible and try approaches that have never been tried before. Indeed, the solution might be underwhelmingly simple and it might even be obvious. But only when the problem was reduced to its core that such an innovative solution was possible. It might have been obvious all along but the answer was hidden in all those multiple layers of abstraction.

So here is a piece of advice, in case you are looking for one, to anyone who is embarking on a simple project - Choose the simplest possible implementation and build it yourself. If you fail, you can alteast iterate quickly. If you succeed early on, you haven't tried hard enough ;)

Lured to Bengaluru

2011-04-14T11:37:36+05:30

As of last week, I have completed my move to the technology mecca of India - Bangalore. I have had a lovely 3 year stint in Mangalore. Have so many wonderful memories with the place that the decision to move seemed impossible. But finally we took the plunge.

My waking hours have been shifted to ensure that I experience less peak time traffic. So this means early mornings and early evenings. Not sure how this would impact my Blogging. Hopefully for the best.

First Impressions

I have worked in Bangalore in 2004 and have visited the city several times before and after that. An easy observation to make would be the explosion in population of people/vehicles and the deteriorating weather. Certain areas which were considered "outskirts" like Bannerghatta Road are now prime locations with every major retail outlet you can think of. I am currently staying in Bannerghatta Road.

The traffic jams have somewhat reduced thanks to projects like the Silk Board Elevated Tollway and NICE road. The commuting time at around 8 in the morning is just thirty minutes by office bus via NICE. This is quite reasonable compared to many horror stories of two to three hours of commuting time in certain areas. I would say that shorter commuting times significantly improve one's work-life satisfaction.

Out of curiousity, I enquired with a lot of people on how they spend their commuting times. Even if it's one hour one-way, it adds up to around 40 hours of lost time. Most people replied that they either sleep or listen to music. A few catchup on the daily newspaper or rarely a book.

I have opted to take my Infibeam Pi along. It makes the mundane bus journeys a lot more interesting. There is a huge, huge backlog of books that I have always wanted to read. With many free ePubs being available, its always a pleasure to have several million pages of literature and technology at one's finger tips. I was not a big fan of reading in a moving vehicle (sometimes causes motion sickness). But thanks to good roads, I don't find reading in the office bus to be much of an inconvenience.

Any move is hardly a pleasant experience. We are still in the process of settling down. The nice thing is that Bangaloreans are quite active in many online communities and it is quite easy to get tips and essential information online. This makes the settling down process a lot easier.

There are my early impressions, but I'm pretty sure that they will change over time.

Learning OOP Programming in C++ - A Horror Story

2011-03-27T23:18:41+05:30

During my school days, we had a subject called Computer Science in our +1 syllabus. The CBSE syllabus had been just updated that year to teach people to programming in C++ as their first language. This was a horrible decision in many respects:

OOP is not the best approach for all types of problems: I know that most of the readers would be surprised by this statement. It's not very hard to prove that OOP was originated to model certain kinds of problem spaces resembling Simulation. The granddaddy of all OOP languages is a self-descriptively named language called SIMULA. But in the nineties people began to take up OOP as a religion. Every problem seemed to best modelled only in Object Dis-oriented Programming.

Back to my school where most people were learning to program, they had to tackle the dual challenges of - understanding a programming language and learning to model problems in OOP. So, a simple 5 line calculator program would turn out be pages of class definitions like Calculator, Operator etc. A recent article shows why New Programmers get distracted with OOP.
C++ is a nightmarish language: I presume that the curriculum board must have assumed that C is a widespread language and C++ being its successor, it would a suitable choice for students. However, a quick look at the language reference would prove them wrong. The canonical guide to C is the slim K&R book having 272 pages, while the C++ Annotated Reference spreadout in cryptic 480 pages is a monstrosity.

C++ was the language even experts couldn't fully master then and the situation has barely improved now. Many organisations use only a subset of the language (including Google) due to the immense complexity of the entire language. My advice to newcomers, unless you are the rare exception, is definitely to: Stay clear of C++ or get bogged down.
Interactivity: For learning a language, nothing works better than a fast write-run cycle. We used Turbo C++ compiler on Windows 3.1 back then (most Indian colleges still use them *shudder*) and it had a pretty decent turnaround time for small programs. But as the programs grew, the compilation time used to take several seconds. This puts off the impatient learner quickly. An interpreter is a much better choice for students. Not only the feedback is instantaneous, you can examine or modify state at any point in time.

I learnt programming in BASIC. Though the language was not the fastest or the most expressive, it responded nearly instantly when you entered commands. It was almost as if you had a machine that you can instruct to fetch something or do some trivial task like that and it would immediately do it. As long as you can tell it enough smaller such tasks to accomplish bigger tasks, it can happily keep doing exactly what you want it to do. This, in many ways, is exactly the essence of the act of programming.

Most of the time, I miss the interactive experience in a compiled language as it seems that the feedback loop is unnaturally long. I can only imagine how boring it might have been to learn programming in them.

My advice to people who want to learn or teach programming would be to pick either Python or Processing. These languages have been specifically designed for pedagogy and hence, will ensure a smoother learning curve. Don't focus on OOP from the start, encourage them to solve problems with the least amount of code. Even going forward, they would realise that less code often translates to less errors.

OOPs I did it again!

Actually I had written this rant about OOP a few weeks back. I am not sure how ~~MIT~~ CMU folks caught the wind of it (must be those damn Paparazzis :)), but they have completely removed Object Oriented Programming from the introductory ~~MIT~~ CMU curriculum. I am sure some of the best minds in Computer Science are at work here and I am glad that they have taken the right step.

Surely concepts of OOP would be useful to their students in the future and they would need to learn it at some point in time. But, as I have realised, it is too much of an overhead to use OOP while learning programming. There is nothing better than typing in a few line of terse code and watching it immediately turn into something magical . In that respect, OOP is neither terse nor magical.

PS: Even when MIT switched from Scheme to Python for their freshman courses, I remember having made a post about Python a few days before the announcement. The timing of these announcements are getting freaky now :)

PPS: Thanks to the sharp readers for pointing out that the curriculum change was in CMU rather than MIT

She is my... umm...

2011-02-18T12:58:40+05:30

The earliest memory I have of Facebook, the social-networking phenomenon, was its innovative relationship status of "It's complicated". What did it mean exactly, I used to wonder. Is it committed? No. Is it available? Not really.

Despite the seeming ambiguity, it perfectly described the relationship status of thousands of folks in the current generation. As this transition happened quite rapidly within our friend's circles, it was bound to happen that someone or the other was not fully in tune with the times.

"Hey, what did you guys do this weekend? Me and Tina went to Kaup beach and it was awesome!"
"Cool! Well, not everybody has a girlfriend like you, man"
"What are you talking about? Tina is not my girlfriend!"

Such conversations alway end in long embarrassing blocks of silence with nobody looking at each other directly. In fact, this guy and Tina have been seeing each other for the past 15 years!

Well, since the terms "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" have been relegated to the late eighteenth century, people have been looking for better terms to describe their complicated-relationship-counterparts.

Sometime during late 2005, the word partner was quite common. "I have phoned my partner that I'll be late for dinner, so it's fine", sounded perfectly fine, then. However the term was felt to be too generic. There are business partners, dancing partner, partners-in-crime etc.

The term went quickly out of fashion due to too many unrelated connotations (nothing to do with 2007 Bollywood film of the same name, however :)). Towards early 2009, the word Significant Other or SO, in short, became more common. This seemed to be a quite satisfactory alternative as it covers any kind of relationship.

So, I guess that's where we are at now. So don't be surprised when you ask a couple "How are you guys doing?" and get the answer "We are SO-SO" :)

One-Handed Browsing

2011-02-15T17:02:18+05:30

There are some productivity tips, that are so simple, yet they'd have lived forever under your nose just waiting to be discovered. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed that I (and I speak for most of us) spend a majority of my computer time on the browser. So any means to improve my browsing experience directly translates into a significant improvement in my productivity.

The biggest slowdown any experienced computer user faces is the constant switch between the keyboard and the mouse, or in the case of laptops - the trackpad. So my first attempt was to eliminate the mouse from the equation. This turned out to be a false start. While coding or writing, one can be significantly faster by solely relying on the keyboard. However, the act of browsing is more of a two-dimensional activity.

Allow me to explain - the relevant hyperlinks are scattered across a page which might be tedious to navigate with a keyboard. Firefox allows one to perform an incremental search on the link text using the "'" (quote) keyboard shortcut. But most of the time, one spends tabbing through the links while browsing with just the keyboard.

The mouse is a much better option as I have recently found out. On my desktop and my laptop, I use a mouse with a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel vastly improves one's browsing speed by allowing one to quickly skim through the page and dive into the interesting parts.

But what surprised me was that the scroll wheel, in fact, performs another function. It is the third mouse button! Yes, the scroll wheel is in fact an improved reincarnation of the middle-button common in older mices. So, how is this useful for browsing?

Apparently, middle clicking a link, in other words depressing the scroll wheel, opens the page in a new tab in the background. The page you are currently reading would be intact. Earlier, I used to perform this action by pressing control key with one hand and clicking on the link with the other. Middle clicking is much more convenient to use.

Right after opening a link in a new tab, the second most common activity on a browser would be closing tabs. Middle button again comes to the rescue. Just middle-click on the tab title on the browser and viola, it closes*.

I found these tips to greatly improve my browsing experience. So when it comes to browsing, it's best to skip the keyboard and grab a mouse!

*- Yes, I know we can click on the close button on the tab. But this is much faster. Try it yourself!

Avatars - How we did it

2011-01-24T22:26:19+05:30

"Avatars" is our ~~nomination~~ multiple award-winning short film to a movie making contest within our organisation on the theme "Digital Consumers". Rather than make a boring mockumentary about mobile computing and social networking, I thought we should do something more ambitious. We wanted to make a decent short movie about technology that had characters, dialogues, storyline etc. Basically you know, all the works.

If you haven't seen the movie yet, play the embedded video below or click on the vimeo link to see it in high-quality HD:

How it all started

I have been part of a handful of skits and short films. The process inevitably starts with a core idea. A skeleton plot is built on top of it and later a script fleshes out the details. The initial script goes through numerous iterations before and during the realisation. In other words, the script is a key working manuscript for the entire team. Most of the time, it's a simple Word document with the dialogs in an free-flowing manner.

In the case of "Avatars", I wanted the script to be more visual-oriented and less on dialogues. In other words, we wanted the script to mention scenes, locations etc. After a lot of research, I found the standard screenplay template extensively used in Hollywood. Despite being slightly cryptic to write, it proved to be quite presentable and handy while shooting.

When I got the invitation for the movie making contest, I had dropped a mail to my old movie club pals, Manu and Nithya. I shared my outline script with them and they liked my elevator pitch of "one guy waking up in the morning to find a stranger in the apartment who turns out to be his avatar".

Once I finished the draft screenplay titled "Doppelgangers" and shared it with them, they were already visualising the movie in terms of how it would look and how the treatment of the subject should be.

Next we were hunting the actors and planning out the logistics. We had only four days in our hands and practically zero budgets. A number of factors helped us and we were very lucky to find some good acting talent and superb locations. We made a few modifications to the script and retitled it to "Avatars", corresponding to the meaning of "online identity". Now is perhaps a good time to delve into the concept behind "Avatars".

Symbolisms in Avatars

The entire narrative of Avatars can be divided into three parts - The Dream, The Avatars and Catching the Taxi. This is a conventional three part narrative arc used in majority of films and even books with a - beginning, middle and end. The dream establishes the characters - Ranjan and Jo.

The dream also tries to convey their flagging relationship through several hints - the meeting at sun-set, Jo's uncertainity by plucking the petals in a he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not fashion, her looking away when Ranjan comes etc.

There are also various hints to convey that we are in a dream. Being late is a common motif in dreams. Dreams have incoherence in location and words (hence the shaky shots and abrupt edits). They have elements of the real world just before you wake up. "Train station" was a deliberate crossover from real-life (Jo's message was probably being played while he was asleep) to dreams. It also added a certain humour element to the script.

The symbolism of having Avatars is probably the most obvious. After considerable thought, each Avatar was given a different personality. One was geeky, another was chatty etc. This was based on the fact that each Avatar represented an identity within an online service or a social networking site. We may manifest ourselves in different ways in each of these sites, perhaps forming distinct individual personalities. After all, our Avatars will not be an exact mirror of the real you. Conversely they might collectively represent you.

All in all, the visual treatment of the script will reward you well in repeat viewings. Considering the four minute limit of a short film, a lot can be said through images. However, to the casual audience, we needed to have something jazzy. That's where the effects come into picture.

Special Effects

Perhaps you came directly to this section. Wouldn't blame you, as we intended "Avatars" to be effects-laden to highlight the use of modern and even futuristic technology. When we realised that the showing multiple avatars in the same frame, being key to the believability of the story, we realised that we needed to perfect those scenes.

Being completely new to special effects, we did what most software engineers do - Prototype! I did a test shot of being in two places in two different shots. Manu took these shots and blended them on Adobe Premiere using masking tools. The result looked much more "believable" than the Green screen effect. In fact, Green/Blue screens needed a lot more effort and correcting the interplay of light and shadow would have been a nightmare.

Given the limited time, we decided to opt for masking for these trick shots. There was considerable effort in getting the lighting correct in these shots so that the videos would blend correctly without noticeable artifacts. One three-second shot needing the three Ranjans in one frame, took seven extremely long retakes across two days.

A major time-saving step was testing these trick shots immediately on the laptop at location. By this approach, we could quickly check if the shots matched correctly. This helped us avoid disappointment and saved a lot of time potentially lost in post processing corrections.

Most of effects were simplified due to careful planning before shooting. So by the time we shot the scenes with the overlay effects we knew that the camera angles had to leave some room for showing the dynamic menu selections.

Movie Making 101

Given the competition deadline, we had to finish a lot of things in the extremely short deadline. There are a lot of good resources on the web about short film making. But from our personal experience, here are some of the elements that went into "Avatars":

Storyboarding 101: Avatars' storyboard was pretty much about the camera angles and how the relative positions of the characters were maintained especially in conversation.
Camera-work 101: The widescreen frames helped a lot especially when 3 characters came together in the triangle seating for the trick shot. Some of the funny angles we tried were camera-in-the-bag and running-with-the-actor shots. Realised time and time again that hiding the camera from all the reflections is a big pain!
Screenplay 101: Shooting happened out of order and its very difficult to keep track of what's not covered without a screenplay. Sometimes continuity-errors would crop up in editing (such as the bouquet in the final shot) and the scene would be reshot.
Acting 101: The more the number of actors, the more retakes is a good rule of thumb. Sometimes simple shots like opening eyes and waking up took an incredible amount of time to look "natural".
Directing 101: A simple line like "OSCON went bust" can be said in a zillion different ways - comical, matter-of-fact or even condescendingly. A director needs to imbibe the spirit of the script and apply his imagination in these areas.
Lighting 101: Proper lighting will take 60% of your time. Avatars predominantly used bounce lights supplemented by free hanging fluorescent lamps and incandescent bulbs. Fluorescent lamps have a noticeable flicker.
BGM 101: The background music defines the mood and the tempo of a movie. The rock music in appropriate parts really helped.
Editing 101: Editing probably took way more time than I thought leading to all-nighters towards the end. It was entirely done in KDEnlive, a fantastic open source editor. Throughout the workflow, care was taken to keep in the intermediates in high quality HD.
Effects 101: There is an entire section on Effects above. Later, Manu got really good with the animated overlays and soon he couldn't stop making them enough! :)
Titles 101: The titles were a 3D rendering of Google maps with cloned Google-pointers floating over a map of Mangalore. The entire modelling and compositing was done in Blender. Took 3 hours to render.
Compositing 101: We did minimal compositing for Avatars. Some color correction was added from Kdenlive to give the appearance of a film rather than a digital camera.
Marketing 101: The posters were done in GIMP overlaying the title renders on the film frames.

What Worked What Didn't

Now that the movie is completed, it is probably a good time to do a post-mortem of what worked and what didn't

What Worked

Having a full screenplay: Great communication tool and sometimes a management tool
Having a team: Having your friends to collaborate makes the process more fun and focused at the same time. Late night mailers on gmail does keep you focused!
Prototype: Checking the double-effect shot first
Natural Lighting: We didn't spend anything on lighting. We chose locations that were brightly lit. The living room and bedroom actually belong to different houses :)

What Didn't Work

Sound recording: I have always found dubbing to be an issue in indie film making. We used a good mic and decent noise cancellation software, yet it was always unnatural sounding
Learning Curve: When you have a deadline, its not always the best time to learning a new piece of software like KDEnlive. But Windows Movie Maker wouldn't have cut it (pun intended).

Conclusion

All in all, it was a fantastic experience doing something creative with such a brilliant team. Avatars is a work that we are all proud of. Hope you enjoyed watching it as well!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Which camera did you use? A. We used a Panasonic Lumix DMC-Z3. This is an inexpensive point-and-shoot with HD video recording capabilities. We also used a tripod in some shots.

Q. What software did you use? A. We used mostly open source tools like KDEnlive, Blender 2.56 and Audacity. It was completely edited on Ubuntu 10.10.

Q. How long did you take to make the film? A. It took one day to make the screenplay, followed by 2.5 days of shooting and finally, 2 days for editing and dubbing.

Q. Where all did you shoot? A. The entire movie is shot in Mangalore. The exterior shots were taken at Bondel Road and near Infosys. The interior shots were shot in Binary Homes and at my residence.

Q. Is there a bloopers video showing all the mistakes? A. You bet there is. The bloopers and some behind the scenes stuff is here: http://www.vimeo.com/18817334

Q. What was your budget? A. We filmed on nearly zero budget. We reused as much stuff as we could. The only things we bought for the movie were props like the bouquet and the coffee cups.

Q. Where did you get the name 'Oskon'? A. I had named the poor target of the Chinese mega-corp as OSKON without much thought. Later, I noticed that the toilet flushing system sensor at office had the letters ASKON engraved on it. So subliminal, huh?

Strongest People Are The Ones With Passion

2010-12-24T11:42:18+05:30

"What is the most resilient parasite?", the protagonist of 'Inception' teases us with this question. It is an Idea, he finally concludes. Once planted, he points out, it is almost impossible to completely eradicate a fully formed idea. The titular character of 'V for Vendetta' declared with a steady voice facing almost certain death "Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof".

Yes. We are all driven by ideas. We are not talking about just about any idea. We are talking about ideas that tease us, inspires us, drives us and ultimately consume us. Yes, we are talking about passion here. There is no better word to describe the best in a human than the word 'Passion'.

Yet, Passion sounds animalistic and almost debasingly primitive to the casual observer. Perhaps, that's why writers and even Hollywood scriptwriters choose the more higher abstraction of an idea. We may be influenced by various ideas, but the ones that instill passion are the truly dangerous ones.

When I say dangerous, I mean in a positive, world-changing way that everyone of us should aspire. We often measure success by various yardsticks - Wealth, Fame or Power. Yet, time and time again, History has told us that the truly successful men and women are the ones who has left a lasting impression i.e. a legacy behind.

There is perhaps nothing to living an ordinary life, for it is mere existence. We spend a good part of our early life learning skills that enable us to earn a livelihood. Once we start earning, what do we do with that money? We acquire various goodies from new clothes to a new vehicle. We are happy until we compare ourselves with our peers and chase even bigger goodies - a car, an apartment and so on.

We chase ephemeral happiness and in the process realise that we no longer feel the joys of this 'leveling up' exercise. This is when you realise that the means had become an end to itself. The rat race that you got sucked into has inevitably turned you into nothing but a rat.

This is a place that I sincerely hope that you don't find yourself into. Once we realise that there is a finite time that we live and to make a legacy, one's world view changes. You don't get consumed by envy when you see your peers basking in their new shiny toys. You realise that that's not your rat race. You choose the race you want to be in. That choice will define your passion.

Be it trivial or profound, it doesn't really matter. Your life is too precious to be wasted on a treadmill of Consumption. Go find what excites you. Excitement is infectious. If something genuinely excites you, there is no way that it can be contained. You might turn out to be an inspiration to others. Even if you change the life of one person, that is an enduring legacy.

So, look around you. Look into the mirror. Do you see passion with a capital 'P'? If not, it's probably time that you've found the courage to seek those burning embers within you.

Leaving you with these wonderful lines from Norah Jones' latest "Young Blood", a track I highly recommend:

Watch is ticking like a heartbeat gone berserk
Lost the chance to wind the key
Roosters are nothing but clucking clockwork
Our fears are only what we tell them to be
Our fears are only what we tell them to be

Delicious.com Shutdown: Perils of Cloud Apps

2010-12-17T10:15:37+05:30

First it was Geocities shutdown by Yahoo! without enough warning, now it's Delicious.com and a bunch of others like Altavista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Picks going the way of the Dodo.

I have been a long time user of Delicious with more than 2000 bookmarks. It might be the only Yahoo service I use with the exception of Flickr. Its idea was simple yet powerful - Make your bookmarks public and find like-minded people.

This was a key service for people researching on a particular field or simply hobbyists who spend an unhealthy amount of time obsessing over board games or gardening. Perhaps, Yahoo has been unable to monetise it well. But it has not even tried, as evident from the neglect it has been getting ever since it was acquisition.

As it might happen, Yahoo might open source the Delicious source code. I have heard that it's written in Erlang. Perhaps this is the reason it has been difficult to modify or maintain. Nevertheless they could have open sourced the code earlier as Reddit has done and might have still monetized it.

Personally, this raises grave concerns for cloud apps that I use. Recently Stallman warned that "Google's ChromeOS means losing control of data". What happens if one morning you hear than gmail, facebook, orkut or flickr will be shutdown? What happens to all your data? What about the implicit interconnections you had formed and the communities that you had been participating in?

The clouds are getting ominously dark!

UPDATE: Yahoo! has clarified that they are planning to sell Delicious and not shut it down. However, the concerns raised about cloud apps still holds good.

The Real Endhiran Review

2010-10-08T04:49:42+05:30

This review has spoilers

Saw Endhiran yesterday in a theatre full of people many of whom didn't even understand Tamil (you know, when they laugh only at the jokes in English!) It was a wonderful experience, minus all the wolf whistles and dancing seen in a typical Rajini starrer film. Partially due to the fact that it is a relatively tame multiplex audience in Karnataka and partially because it was not a typical Rajini movie with cliched punchlines and mannerism. Instead, it was a good Indian sci-fi movie.

Even though the theme is as old as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Endhiran shows the complexities that a sentient android robot, if ever built, brings in a form understandable even to the masses. It is a genuine attempt at bringing the moral issues of advancing AI technologies and how it can possibly impact our lives. The story or plot is rather an excuse to put together various engaging scenes and brings nothing entirely novel.

To say that Shankar has left enough interesting bits and pieces for the above-average audience would be an understatement. More on that later. I was expecting to a visual effects driven blockbuster movie and was instead surprised by the science fiction aspects of it. There is a lot of detail in the manner the robot manoeuvres i.e. magnetic attraction rather than dumb jet-packs.

The rest of the review has even more spoilers

The Geeky bits

As alluded previously, the movie is sprinkled with plenty of geeky stuff. The problems posed are really hard problems from the fields of machine learning and AI research rather than gimmicky questions. This shows the kind of homework that Shankar (or is it Sujatha?) has done for the movie.

Here is a sample of what the "Robot" can deftly handle and some other geek trivia:

Hard AI and machine learning problems

Hard Robotics problems

Bi-pedal motion
Accurate speech synthesis

Hard Math problems

Largest prime number
Determining if a large number is Fibonacci

Computer Programming

Hello World!
Worms for infiltration of a network rather than a Virus (Take that Hollywood!)

Science Fiction References

Asimov's Laws of Robotics - The scientist has a clever explanation why it doesn't follow them. Otherwise this would have ruined the plot.(Thanks Rindo!)
Various Star Wars droids - R2-D2 anyone?

Kudos to the Endhiran team for the laudable attempt.

PS: I wasn't too far off :)

Endhiran (Robot) Spoilers

2010-09-23T01:57:19+05:30

I have some semi-informed notions of the Endhiran storyline and even the climax. Don't worry, the boot-leg copies of the film are not yet out and these are just speculations. However, I have more than 2 decades of film-watching and popcorn-munching experience to back on. My guesses are:

Rajini's dual roles will be as a scientist and the robot which he will build in his own image.
The robot become 'self aware' and will download and assimilate entire Indian history post independence in a scene with jazzy graphics and the camera rotating around the robot Rajini's face. It will develop stronger moral absolutes compared to the scientist. It will understand through it's AI brain that the root of India's problem is... wait for it... Corruption
The scientist realises that his creation has created enemies out of his corporate sponsors who want it to be shut down. He turns 'villian'.
Meanwhile, Aish the evergreen teeny-bopper develops a crush on the scientist Rajini. However, the scientist being a 'nerd' doesn't have any such feelings towards her.
One fine morning, Aish meets the Robot and mistakes him to be the scientist himself. The robot too develops a special 'emotional' attachment towards her. Soon, sparks start flying (... literally).
The robot's vigilante actions soon attracts national attention and he is feared and praised for his actions. This leads to climax where a major boss-battle with blinding computer graphics take place.
The real climax - Aish later finds out that she was also a robot, which explains her wooden expression throughout (the movie or her entire acting career? ;) ). The mechanical pair live happily ever after.

I can't wait to see how right/wrong I am ;)

Disclaimer: This post was written purely for humorous purposes. This may or may not reflect the actual plot or storyline. No offence meant to anyone real or imaginary :)

** I have seen the movie now and here is the real review

Mario Touches Silver Jubilee

2010-09-15T01:40:39+05:30

You were merrily hopping through a lush green garden when you notice a giant grey pipe sticking out of the ground. Always ready for some action, you leap into the pipe without a second thought. You fall into a dimly lit underground passage. As you look up, you notice the sparkling gold coins hanging in the air. You realise there are probably hundreds of them. You can barely contain your excitement as you jump to pluck as many coins from the air.

Dreams in our childhood were sometimes made of episodes such as these. All thanks to extended bouts of playing Mario on our TV screens. The adorable plump plumber turns 25 this week. However, he is as fit as ever as one would notice from his acrobatics in his latest game 'Super Mario Galaxy 2'. Mario and his sidekicks like Wario, Lugi and Pauline have appeared in over 200 titles over these years. This is a testament to Nintendo's vision and innovation in creating the game industry's first Superstar.

There have been various funny variations of one of the world's most popular game title - Super Mario Bros (240 million in lifetime sales and still selling!). One game designer's resignation letter was a Mario game titled 'A Message for 2K Australia' (his employer)! A geek proposed to girlfriend inside a Mario-like video game by spelling out the words "Lisa Will You Marry Me?" using gold coins. There are several other instances of Mario fans creating a 8-bit wedding invitation game to an entire room designed after Mario's colourful world.

There are no signs of Mario retiring atleast for the immediate future. Whatever be tomorrow's technology be it 3D or full body motion sensors, you can expect Mario to be there and kicking some posteriors! :)

Disclaimer: Mario and all related characters and elements are copyrighted to Nintendo

Infibeam Pi - My experiences with an Ebook Reader

2010-09-11T07:33:47+05:30

Early adopter: An early adopter is a person who embraces new technology before most other people do. Early adopters tend to buy or try out new hardware items and programs, and new versions of existing programs, sooner than most of their peers. According to a theory called Diffusion of Innovations (DoI) formulated by Everett Rogers, early adopters make up 13.5 percent of the population -- Johns Hopkins Inst.

I am not an early adopter when it comes to gadgets. But ever since Kindle was introduced, it was pretty clear to me that I am going to buy an Ebook reader. For me, moving around books has been always a problem. Moreover, I am allergetic to old print.

Three months back, close to my birthday, I ordered an Infibeam Pi ebook reader. At that point of time, for ten thousand rupees, it was considerably cheaper than Kindle in India. Also, I did not like the idea of Amazon playing "Big Brother" where your book collection was stored in the "cloud" and subject to the mercy of their deletion policies. Pi didn't have features that I didn't need and it had some which I felt were missing in Kindle. More on this later.

Three months later, I would make the bold assertion that Ebook readers are the future. For a voracious reader, it is a must-have and with falling prices, it will replace paper books almost completely. I would expect students to be the most evident benefactors making it unnecessary to carry heavy textbooks and allowing even remote locations to have a wider collection of books than ever before.

In case you are interested in a detailed review of Pi reader, read on...

First Impressions

The package arrived in two weeks with several friendly calls reminding me that the package is "on its way". When it arrived, I was happy to find that Infibeam has invested quite some time and effort to make the packaging attractive and safe for transit.

What surprised me upon opening was that the Pi logo on the screen. At first I assumed that it's a decal or a sticker. But it seems the screen is always 'on' in a standby state! This shows how little power it consumes while displaying a static image/text. The only power consumption that happens is when the display changes. The display change takes around half a second of flicker. But this is not as annoying as it sounds and one quickly gets used to it, like turning the pages of a book.

In terms of appearance, the closest I can say is that Pi is like holding a piece of unwrapped white Milky Bar. Except that it is one giant booksized flat smooth chunk. It is thinner than most phones and being light quite easy to hold. There is a silver four way directional pad at the bottom right, which is similar those found in most phones. Most of the other keys are on the left leaving the bottom part mostly vacant and underutilized.

Interface

The user interface is excellent with big bold icons. You don't need a manual to understand most of its functions. Again, this was real surprise for me for an Indian product.

In terms of features, it has a music player and a sudoku game built in. Playing music can reduce the battery life considerably. It supports the EPUB format which is an open ebook format popularly used for the iPad. It also recognises Kindle's (.mobi) book format, PDF, RTF, HTML and even most images. The latter makes it really a great option for reading comics (with smaller page sizes) even thought it will appear in greyscale.

The most common question I hear is - How good is it for PDFs? The answer is - it depends. If the PDF is mostly text, then it can reflow the text and handle the zooming of text pretty well. If the PDF is mostly images or scanned text (without OCR), then it would not look that great when you zoom. This is a deal breaker if you are going to read a lot of technical books for e.g. programming books or mathematical works. It is perfectly fine for general reading and comics.

Use cases

I have found myself reading a lot more due to the Pi reader. In fact there are many situations where Pi's long battery life and portability came handy. Here are some such scenarios I could think of:

Extended Power cuts: The reader can last you days not just hours on a single charge
Documentation: Learning a lot of project docs
Students: As mentioned earlier this an excellent device for a student with lots of ebooks.
Clean Desks: You can keep reading multiple papers without the mess on your desk
Travel Companion: A lightweight companion in your laptop bag carrying thousands of must-reads
Comic Geek: Reading comic series compilations at a stretch

Ebook formats

There has been quite a bit of discussion around ebook formats like ePub or Kindle's mobi. If you are a normal user who would directly download books from Infibeam/Amazon, read them and forget about it, then you can skip this section. On the other hand if you are a geek, who prefers ogg over mp3 or vice versa, then you might have many questions. Like which is ebook format is the most open, whether these formats are easily interconvertable etc.

EPUB is the likely future standard than mobi. Kindles cannot open EPUBs, which has resulted in many holding back their buy decision. EPUB is the most open format; it's basically a zip file with xhtml and images. Just unzip and read with a browser! Even Google has recently offered over a million free e-books in EPUB format.

EPUB supports features like table of contents which is very useful for longer texts. EPUB allows for "richer" formatting. You can, for example, have things like "drop caps", pictures with text that "flows" around them, or embedded fonts, none of which Mobi supports.

Personally, I have converted most of my ebooks into EPUBs. Using a tool called Calibre it is quite easy to convert from and to ebook formats.

PROs and CONs

Of course, the Pi reader could be better, a lot better. Here is a quick list of things that I feel are its pros and cons:

Pros

EPUBs: Supports EPUB quite well. In fact, the reading experience of EPUBs is the best compared to all other formats on Pi (even better than .TXT!).
Pages Numbering: Page numbers are maintained as in a real book. Good for teaching
Screen: The screen is the same Eink technology as the Kindle. For people who are lusting after iPads need to see this screen- you cannot make out the pixels. It is really gorgeous!
SD Card Support: Infibeam has both internal memory as well as swappable SD card support. SD cards are cheap and keep getting cheaper. You'd never run out of space.
Indian Languages: Lots of Indian language books at Infibeam bookstore
Battery life: Once charged, thanks to my occasional use of 1-2 hrs per day, it lasted two months! The lack of WiFi probably helps in this case.

Cons

Need for PC: It's not a standalone device. You need your PC to add books or a friendly neighbourhood geek.
Illumination: Recommended to use under plenty of light. Opposed to iPad's or Laptop's glossy surface which works best in the dark. This one is best read near a window or under a tubelight, just like a book.
Button Placement: Back button made more accessible, say upper right would have avoided a lot of fumbling around. It's awkwardly placed at the side.
Headphones Incompatible 3 mm earphone jack is not compatible with your favourite headphones
No Dictionary
No net browsing With a screen that takes half a second to refresh I am not sure if its the best device for browsing. Kindle comes with an experimental browser. But with spotty wifi in India, I'm not sure how much you would miss this feature.
Contrast: The contrast could be slightly better. The grey background reminds you of a filter-paper-like texture of a paperback, but the gorgeous typefaces conveys its classy pedigree.
Auto rotate - No auto-rotate based on gyroscope like iPad. Won't this be annoying? I'm not sure.
Lack of Color or Touch Display - This is a limitation of all ebook readers. I miss color only while reading comics. Touch screen is a nice to have.
No full keyboard - A full keyboard is useful if you want to make notes, annotations or searches. Personally, I won't find much use for it.
Oversmart .txt Handling: If you open text files esp from Gutenberg.org, the reader tries to identify headings and quotations. This sometimes goes wayward resulting in multiple sized fonts. There should be an option to disable this "intelligence".
Cheap Cover: The Infibeam comes with a faux leather cover that is sturdy but uses a cheaper felt on the inside. The reader often slides out while reading within the cover. But it can be easily secured with a double sided tape :)

Summary

Ebook readers are great devices. Infibeam Pi is an excellent device for its stated features. If the prices came down like the Kindle, there would be a lot more adoption in India.

Gallery

Here are some photos of Pi reader (visit the Flickr page for higher resolution shots with captions):

To Believers of "Don't Talk but Act"

2010-08-15T01:25:55+05:30

These days whenever the topic of corruption or malpractices within our political system is discussed, some strange retorts have come into vogue even after half a century of gaining independence. It is not the anger of blind patriotism or even resigned feeling of helplessness. It is pithy remark, 'Why don't you change the system, then?". This comment is perhaps based on the dwindling voting turnout by the upper middle class and declining participation of the youth in politics.

This is a very broad generalisation perpetuated by popular literature and Bollywood films. The so-called educated and socially responsible citizens do exist in our country. But they form a minority of our population and do not win any elections in our "democratic" system.

In a democracy, numbers matter. A well-educated English speaking youth wearing western formals will not appeal to the uneducated masses. The political appeal of a khadar wearing vernacular speaking shrewd and manipulative politician will continue to exist until the majority the Indian population enjoys education and cannot identify with such people anymore. The vast majority of the politicians are merely selling pipe-dreams to the naive population while exploiting their regional differences claiming better representation. The legitimacy of such claims are rarely questioned or debated by majority of the masses.

Till that transformation in the society as a whole will happen, we cannot blame the middle class for not taking steps to become more involved in the political process. In fact, there have been several independent parties by students from prestigious colleges like IITs who have never won elections. Everyday, the average middle class person protests against corruption and nepotism which falls into deaf ears and eventually have to succumb to it grudgingly.

I strongly believe messages like "Don't Talk, But Act" are over-simplistic and even harmful. The people who voice their opinions are genuinely interested in improving the system and expose issues present in the society. Their voices are needed to stimulate change and must not be suppressed. Awareness for greater involvement in the political process is necessary and often justified. But their means of expression must not be ridiculed and taken as weaker substitutes to action. Political will is often influenced by greater citizen awareness rather than by direct vigilante action.

Here the so-called perpetrators are also the most severe critics of the political system but feel helpless. They are victims of a system which purely believes in the opinion of the bigger numbers. Unless the illiterate and underprivileged who form majority of our population have better living conditions and education, the system will continue to elect perpetrators of such a decadent political system. This vicious cycle can be broken not by standing in elections and asking to vote for yourself, but by helping in creating a social change. The real change lies in improving the living conditions of an average Indian. Our real and possibly only hope lies there.

Happy Independence Day to all Indians!

The Dying Art of Reading Properly

2010-07-27T09:41:38+05:30

How many times have someone forgotten an important line in your email despite it being bold, highlighted and underlined? How many times have you come across a mail that the sender himself has not read even once? How many programmers you have seen in online forums who ask the same basic questions that were earlier answered again and again?

The geeks have a word for this apparently inability of the end-users to read a manual - RTFM or Read the Fine Manual. The impatience of getting to use a brand new gadget quickly wears off once you cannot get it to work despite several attempts. The immediate reaction seems to be to reach out for the phone than to read the manual. You begin to raise queries to Tech support when the instructions have been clearly given in the manual. This is where the problem starts. The waste of your time and the Tech support's time is exactly what the user manual tries to avoid. We will try to explore why this happens.

Why don't we just read?

It is not the technology users or programmers who are guilty of committing the "Ask before you check" crime. This a common malaise and can be seen everyday while mailing or sending documents for review. It seems there is hardly anyone who does a thorough job of "Reading" these days. In fact, if you know someone who actually reads every line that's send to him/her, I am sure that person is a quite valuable asset to your team for that particular "skill".

The vast majority of us are either skimmers or ADHDs (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The former prefer to gloss over the details and absorb the high level details from 30,000 feet. Once their 5 minute power-read of a document is complete, they bask in the satisfaction of having completed an arduous task of understanding the document in a fraction of the normal time. These superhuman feats are often fraught with the hazard of missing significant detail, but often skimmers are influential enough to disregards such minor details completely. The ADHDs are the ones with coffee coursing through their veins. They often try to start reading and few seconds later, completely give up hope. They procrastinate endlessly about the pile of documents waiting for them at their table. They might eventually turn to skimming but even then it turns boring pretty quickly.

These specimens of our species have been evolved by the forces of nature at work in the last few decades. Call it "Information Overload" or the "Twitter Effect", there are simply too many streams of information competing for our attention at any given time. The email pop-up on your mail program, the tweet from a celebrity, an SMS from your friend and your phone rings at the same time on a particularly crazy moment. This multitasking is immensely taxing for your brain and in a desperate attempt to cope up, your brain tries to focus on the high-level details rather than the smaller details. The smaller details sometimes get overlapped with each other or completely forgotten and lead to embarrassing situations. Nonetheless we seem to be trapped in this multiple-thread hell as a necessary evil of modern life.

Can we ever truly multitask?

We often think that we are good or bad at multitasking depending on our assessment of ourselves. But the question remains as to if we are even capable of multitasking? This might sound like a silly question at first. Surely we can eat while talking over the phone. Or even listen to a radio show while driving. But have you ever taxed your brain for activities that involve thinking simultaneously? Have you tried writing something while talking over the phone? By writing, I don't mean a routine chore like signing a cheque. I mean writing a prose or a report which is independent from the telephonic conversation. It might be extremely hard or even impossible to focus on both at the same time.

This leads to an interesting school of thought that our brain works best when there is a single thread of thought. To explain it in analogous terms to computer geeks, our brain is a single processor ^single. The only way we can multitask is by time sharing. We convert each activity into tiny slices which require our attention and quickly juggle through each slice like a skilled juggler. But at any given point of time there is only one slice on your mind, one ball in your hand. The rest are, so to speak, in the air and waiting for their turn.

Many Indian and oriental meditation techniques try to train your mind to develop focus on one particular activity at hand. There might be several other activities but treat them temporarily as distractions and try to train your mind to take the current activity to a logical end-point. The distrations can be blocked mentally, however it is best to actually prevent such distractions in the first place.

Next time you try to read a long document, turn off all the potential distractions. Most mail programs can be disabled to supress pop-ups. You can also turn off your twitter client and put your phone on silent/vibrate. Resisting the temptation to switch to a new activity is the key. Even at an early stage, the rewards of such focussed sessions are easy for one to see. The clarity it brings to your communications is also quite noticeable.

TL;DR

There is prevalent practice in most online forums to write a short summary of a long passage or comment for impatient readers called TL;DR i.e. Too Long; Didn't Read. I might say that the TL;DR for this writeup is that one's reading comprehension can be vastly improved if you can focus solely on the task of reading. But that would defeat the purpose, as you would miss the exploration of the problem, classification of the worst offenders or even the analogy of a juggler to the brain elaborated in this writeup.

But then, if you have reached this far, you are not the one who should be reading this!