Jonathan Strange and Mr. Yawwwwn!

Kottke, like countless others before him, has read and reviewed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. (emphasis mine)

...but the plot kept me in "I can't put it down" mode until I had finished. A surprise was how clever and funny Clarke's writing was...I found myself laughing out loud several times at the book's cutting deadpan wit. The book weighs in at ~780 pages, but my only disappointment upon finishing was that the story was over...

Wow.. good for all of them. I must be the only person who actually fell for all the hype, bought the hardcover book (Call me cheap, but I never never buy a fiction book in hardcover unless it is available in the bargain section. Maybe if it is Harry Potter.. uh..er..) and proceeded to read it with all hopes of a great 1000 page read - only to put it down after the sheer frustration of struggling with boring page after boring page. Maybe the book is like a work of abstract art - if you say you don't like it, you risk being called a fool.

Or mebbe me needs to relearn the alpha betts.

Tags: books, fiction

iPod - car stereo hookup

I always thought I had a crappy car stereo since the radio always sounded so bad. My iPod sounds better when I hook it up to the stereo using a cassette adapter, but it's terribly inconvenient to plug the cassette adapter to the audio jack on the top, the power adapter to the port on the bottom, place it all on the TuneDok and undo the whole process whenever I park. Here's salvation at last - I got a Belkin Auto Kit that has an audio jack on the power adapter itself, so that you end up with only one cable coming out of the iPod. The best thing about it is that it includes an amplifier that works on the digital output from the iPod, so the volume level is always constant irrespective of the settings on your iPod, and it sounds amazing, even on my car stereo! Now I can't wait to go on another long drive!

[Sidenote: Hover your mouse over the auto-kit image to zoom it. This uses a css technique suggested by Vivek who also found a nice hack to make it work on IE. The work required to get such a simple thing working on IE is as easy as getting your tooth pulled out. Now would it hurt MS so bad to support CSS2?]

[Tip: look for a new auto kit on eBay - it's much cheaper than the $39.99 you have to pay at the Apple store.]

Tags: apple, ipod, car stereo

The cat that sired a paper

I swear this is exactly how papers get published in IEEE! If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em! [via JD]

That's no funnier than the true story of the cat that co-authored a paper in the prestigious Physical Review Letters:

“I had prepared the paper, now called Hetherington and Willard, and was rather proud of the work, considering it suitable for rapid publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. Before I submitted it I asked a colleague to read it over and he said “It’s a fine paper but they will send it right back”. He explained that this is because of the Editor’s rule that the word “we” should not be used in a paper with only a single author. Changing the paper to the impersonal seemed to difficult now that it was all written and typed; therefore, after an evening’s thought I simply asked the secretary to change the title page to include the name of the family cat, a Siamese called Chester, sired one summer by Willard (one of the few unfixed male Siamese cats in Aspen, Colorado). I added the initials F D in front of the name to stand for Felix Domesticus and thus created F D C Willard” (Weber, Robert. Droll Science, p.110).

That should teach me not to gloat when my paper finally makes it through the painful peer-review process at PRL. Even cats have done it!

Tags: humor, research

Jon as a hacker fence

'DVD' Jon bypasses the DRM in iTunes - Apple fixes the hole - Jon opens up the hole again with his pyMusique software and everyone either bashes Jon for attacking the 'least restrictive DRM' available, or worships him for once again taking on the MPAA/RIAA and being bold enough to title his blog 'So Sue Me'. Except that in this case pyMystique was not entirely created by Jon. It was mainly the work of a 17-year old Cody Brocious with mostly GUI work from Jon and another coder Travis Watkins. Not to take away from Jon's other exploits, but since he has stood up to the industry and survived two major lawsuits, he is now a front for anyone who wants to release any hack that risks a lawsuit.

On a related note, even though pyMusique violates the TOS of iTunes, it makes an important point - Users are willing to pay for music if it does not contain any DRM. It is the recording industry's fantasy that DRM prevents music/movie piracy. All it does is restrict the options of the person who actually paid for the content. Those who want to pirate a song/movie can rip a CD/DVD anyway.

[related: Apple and Sosumi / Sosumi creator sets the record straight / Geeky Mom's take on DRM]

Tags: mpaa, riaa, piracy, apple, itunes, drm

The Office on NBC

The American version of 'The Office' is all set to premiere on NBC this Thursday. The original BBC comedy with Ricky Gervais as the excruciatingly insufferable boss of the dullest office you can imagine became insanely popular, winning Gervais a Golden Globe for best actor. The sly humor, absence of a laughtrack and amazing performances from the entire cast have given it a cult following, so naturally there are fears that the American version may bungle it. (Remember what a dud the remake of 'Coupling' turned out to be!)

Initial reviews are not very flattering, but you can judge for yourself since the first episode is available online. (Check out btefnet for the torrent after Thursday night.) Steve Carell is no Ricky Gervais (who was endearing in a certain way even when he was acting like a jerk) and the 'Gareth' character, well isn't quite the naturally weird Gareth we know. The 'Tim' guy is quite a copy of the original Tim, down to the small mannerisms. Whether you like this version or not, get the DVD of the original and I assure you that you will be hooked!

Tags: the office, television, comedy

No more cheap drugs?

India is the world's fourth largest producer of drugs by volume and this is largely due to the fact that almost any drug available in the western world is also produced in India for a fraction of the cost. Till now, this was aided by the liberal patent regime in India where you could legally recreate a patented drug as long as you did not copy the original method i.e. the patent was for the process, not the final product. (The process-patent regime existed from 1970-1994. India signed the TRIPS in 1995 which gave it a 10-year grace period to usher in the new patent regime. Since 1995 drug companies have been allowed to apply for product patents.)

One might argue that the high cost of drugs in the US is due to the high cost of R&D and the costs of getting FDA approval, but we are talking about life saving drugs such as AIDS drug cocktails, not botox. If these drugs were to be sold at the same price in India and other countries, very few people would actually be able to afford them (there is no widespread system of insurance to pay for overpriced drugs - most people pay for medicines using cash), so we are not really talking about lost sales, but lost lives here.

In order to comply with the WTO, the Indian parliament has now approved a bill that changes the patent regime to outlaw such generic copies of drugs. There are some redeeming features, such as the ability to override patents during national emergencies, the ability to challenge patents before they are granted and disallowing new patents for minor molecular changes to existing drugs, but this is probably a backward move for people in India (and many other countries who depend on drugs manufactured in India) who will not have access to new drug inventions. Yes, as a signatory to the WTO India has obligations, but how severe could the repercussions of not amending the patent system be? More severe than reducing the life-expectancy of millions?

On the bright side, this may lead to more R&D in the Indian pharma labs so that drugs do not have to be copied in the first place.

[elsewhere: Indian Patent Laws / Ranbaxy takes on 'Goliath' Pfizer / Africa rallies against Indian patent law changes / Pharma industry denies price hikes in the future ]

Tags: patents, wto, trips, pharma, drugs, ip, india

Where are the other Googles?

Why is Google able to take old and tired stuff and give it a twist that no one even thought was possible, while other companies with equal or better resources (Mi*cough*soft) scramble to play catch-up? David Mendels, general manager of platform products for Macromedia gives a reason:

"It is really, really, really hard to build something like Gmail and Google Maps," [...] "Google hired rocket scientists--they hired Adam Bosworth, who invented DHTML when he was at Microsoft. Most companies can't go and repeat what Google has done."

It has to be more than just hiring the right people though. It probably has more to do with the freedom they have to innovate where the engineers can create cool stuff first and let someone worry about how to make money off it later. This approach has made Google insanely successful, so why aren't people ripping off The Complete Google Approach instead of just apeing the final product?

Tags: google, business, technology

A one-finger salute to Modi

Whether the United States really believes in human rights abroad may be a matter of opinion, but today it made a bold statement by denying Narendra 'Newton' Modi, the butcher of Gujarat, entry to the US by revoking his tourist visa and denying him a diplomatic visa. The way he could remain active in politics and be so brazen about his involvement in the death of over 2000 people is matter of shame for us Indians. He now joins the club of Kurt Waldheim and Ernesto Samper who were denied entry to the US for war crimes and narcotics trafficking respectively. Modi can crib all he wants but the people have a voice after all!

[more: on Sepia Mutiny]

Tags: politics, human rights

Heartless bitches rule!

Why is it that when guys think like girls they are called sensitive, but when girls think like guys they are dubbed heartless bitches? When I read the heartless manifesto, all I could think was 'whoa, now there's some girls who can think straight!' How can you disagree with this:

• Do really sappy, insipid, "always and forever" love poems make you want to puke?
• Are you sick of lazy women who use emotional and sexual manipulation to get what they want instead of using their own brains and muscles?
• Do you want to SMACK women who play "helpless" just to gain male attention and stroke male egos?
• Do the words "If you REALLY loved me...." turn your heart to ice??!!!
• Do you retch in response to "The Rules", and laugh uproariously at "The Code"?
• Do you wish you had a button that said: "Thank you for sharing, now SHUT UP and quit Whining!" ????

Attaboy! (Uh oh, duck!)

[PS: Kiran Bedi has been nominated as an honorary HB!]

Smelling the paint online

I have been glued to the artpad at art.com for the past couple of hours trying to make some wicked paintings. It feels so real that I can literally smell the water colors with each brush stroke. It brings back fond memories of drawing class in school when every 'scenery' of mine would consist of a mountain (two triangles would be adequate) with a radiant sun in the middle, a meandering road emerging from the base of a mountain with a tiny house on the side. I must have drawn a few hundred versions of the same drawing before I grew out of it. Hmm.. Time to check if I have really progressed beyond those childish drawings..
[My superlative work of art]

Tags: painting, art, artpad

Now that's self-documenting

Another great moment from the daily wtf about the seemingly easy to understand language Haskell. (emphasis mine)

Functional programs are often easier to understand. You should be able to understand the program without any previous knowledge of either Haskell or quicksort. The same certainly cannot be said of the C program. It takes quite a while to understand, and even when you do understand it, it is extremely easy to make a small slip and end up with an incorrect program. Here is a detailed explanation of the Haskell quicksort:

qsort [] = []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort elts_lt_x ++ [x] ++ qsort elts_greq_x
where
elts_lt_x = [y | y <- xs, y < x]
elts_greq_x = [y | y <- xs, y >= x]

If you are still unconvinced that Haskell is easy to understand, check out their code comparison with C. You now know the programmers' obfuscation motto: If it's frickin' hard to write, it should be frickin' hard to read!

Tags: programming, haskell, obfuscation, code, wtf

Photos and Videos

I've put a couple of videos and some photos I took during the trip from Phoenix to San Antonio. Sorry folks, only wmv for you. (These videos have sound too.)

[photos | video1 | video2]

Two cents for Sony

While Sony plays catch-up yet again in the personal entertainment industry that it once helped create, it has been taking drastic steps including appointing a foreigner as the CEO. To the list of suggestions for Sony, let me add one of my own. Please, please learn something about branding. Do you recognize products such as DCR-HC21, VGN-T140P/L and NW-HD3? (that's a digital camcorder, a notebook computer and an mp3 player respectively) If that isn't enough, you can choose between a dozen variations of the same product with almost no obvious differences. For heaven's sake, you are selling to people, not the government! A VGC-RB31P would have been cool in the 80's but I wouldn't place my bet on it being popular today.

Tags: branding, sony, consumer electronics

Driving on three wheels (and other tales)

When I planned on having an adventure during the drive from Phoenix to San Antonio, I never knew exactly how much I was bargaining for. Every successful trip begins with careful planning and preparation - piled books into trunk? check.. packed boxes into trunk until it barely shut? check.. put oversize painting into back seat? check.. Weather forecast - thundershowers all along the way. 5 minutes after I started out, I remembered that I didn't have the printout of the route (real engineers need no routes.. we have the sun and the stars to guide us!), so I had to stop at a gas station and dig through my suitcases to find the route.

I also had my iPod filled with rock to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. Unfortunately I also had a bunch of slow songs in there, so even in shuffle mode I would end up getting a slow one every two or three songs. It felt somewhat like driving a manual transmission - one hand on the steering and one hand on the iPod sitting in the cup holder. A few minutes after I got on the I-10, I thought I heard a sound and suddenly my car felt very noisy on the road. It could have been a flat, but isn't your car supposed to wobble and do funny stuff when you have a flat? So I kept driving until I reached Tucson where the front tire seemed to be a bit low on air, but I let it pass since it didn't look too bad. A few hundred miles later (umm.. like 400..) there was a federal checkpoint that brought back some good memories.

"Are you a US citizen", the guard asked.
"No"
"Do you know that you are driving with a flat tire?", he asked incredulously.
I shot him an equally incredulous look and said "What!!!!" I think my eyes popped out too when I saw that the tire was indeed flat.. very flat..

I think the combined shock was enough to make him forget to even ask me for my ID. I drove off trying to find a place to change the tire but after a mile or so, I just parked on the shoulder. I had just passed a very friendly looking sign:

Prison nearby: do not stop or pick up hitchhikers

This was Texas and it was getting dark too, so I was half expecting Leatherface to show up with a chainsaw. Never having changed a tire before, I didn't even know where to place the jack and needless to say, I did a horrible job of it. It was quite windy too with each speeding Semi threatening to blow me away. Finally I took Holly's advice and called 911 (the lady who answered the call didn't seem to be too happy about a flat-tire being an emergency, but I don't care.. I'm not marrying her, am I?) and they sent a mechanic from a nearby town.

Lesson #1: When people advise you to take a AAA membership,listen to them.

When I was packing stuff into the boot, the tire-repair stuff (jack, spanner) ended up being pushed behind everything else. What is the probability that after driving this car for almost a year, I will get a flat tire in the next two days, I thought. (Faint 'mwaaahahahaha' sounds from far above)

Lesson #2: Shit happens. Be prepared.

I kept singing at the top of my voice during the remaining journey and every time the music stopped I would be treated to my out-of-tune voice. I think that's what really kept me awake, not the coffee. Driving blindly through the rain also helped, I guess.

Footnote: Someone forgot to tell me that the spare tire is only supposed to be used for driving a few miles, and never over 50 miles an hour. I drove the remaining 600 odd miles at 80mph and managed to drive into San Antonio with no trouble at all, so I guess you just have to test it to know how much your car can handle. (I drive a supercar!)

Lesson #3: Three tires are all your car really needs. I have driven 400 miles on 3 tires and 550 miles on 3.5 tires, in the rain, so I know what I am talking about!

I have the videos and pictures which I will put up as soon as I get my cable connection working. Stay logged on for more weird tales from Texas!

[UPDATE: photos | video1 | video2]

"Find a job you love, and you'll never have to work again"

I have spent much of my time during the past couple of months researching companies, applying for jobs and attending interviews. I know that finding a job that fits your skills is not an easy thing to do, but since I have already graduated and completed my research work there is no real reason for me to stay on in Tempe. I will continue blogging from San Antonio, TX where I have family, and I daresay it will be a whole new adventure out there. I do hope to get some nice photographs out of my long drive from Phoenix to San Antonio, so if I disappear from these pages, it's just because I am on the road.

I know I should be more worried about finding a job, but I realize that in the bigger scheme of things, finding a job straight out of college is probably just a small part of life. Most people who are in the middle of their careers do not even remember the struggle they had to go through to find a job when they graduated. So why should I agonize over the whole process instead of having fun since this is a time when I have no responsibilities save finding a job! I know that I can do a damn good job of anything I put my heart into, and I am prepared to wait patiently and work towards finding a job that I really want to do, but until then I will rock on! Muchas gracias to everyone in Tempe for a wonderful two-and-a-half years. I will be back!

[For anyone who may be looking for a signal processing/telecommunications engineer: email me if my profile fits your needs. I would love to discuss what I can do for you!]

Kids with Cameras (and an Oscar each)

The Academy Award for best documentary picture is not something that is usually talked about, but this year's winner is a movie that started with a unique project 'Kids with Cameras'. Director Zana Briski taught the basics of photography to children in Calcutta's red light district and equipped them with 35 mm cameras - which the kids used to create an incredible snapshot of their daily life. The movie 'Born into Brothels' tells the story of this project that gave these kids a chance to go to school and also the confidence to dream about a world beyond the brothels. Some of the kids are now planning a career in photography! There is a sweet surprise in store for the kids - on NPR news, the director mentioned that her team had ordered an Oscar statuette for each of the kids with 'Best Photographer' engraved on it. This is one of the most innovative social projects ever!

[UPDATE 04/21/2005: They are now setting up a school in Kolkata for these children.

Tags: oscar, documentary, photography, society