...because the future isn't Orange, it's Hutch.
Yes, I can see the cute doggy staring at me from those billboards. "Hutch is here." Hutch is also pink now. According to Naveen Chopra, VP-group marketing, in today's DNA, "We went through the whole colour palette but there were colours associated with other companies, so those were rejected. Through elimination we came to pink." Oh wow, morsels to a starving man?
Here's an article from the Hindu Business Line on the launch.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Thursday, November 17, 2005
3.5 crorse for this??
According to reports, Ford paid Abhishek Bachchan 3.5 crores to endorse the Ford Fiesta. That's a heckuva lot of money.
And for that amount, this is the best they could come up with??
And for that amount, this is the best they could come up with??
Agency - JWT
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
The Economic Times campaign..
Here's a really well done campaign for the Economic Times. Great visuals and minimal yet effective usage of text.
Ps. these are newspaper scans, hence the low quality. And the last one was bigger than my scanner could handle, so the copy is missing. It's the same as the others.
Ps. these are newspaper scans, hence the low quality. And the last one was bigger than my scanner could handle, so the copy is missing. It's the same as the others.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
20 Days In Kochi... Footprints Recapped...
I spent a month in Kerala, doing this -
FOOTPRINTS - This is an annual series of media seminars that the students of SIMC organise. It usually happens in 10 cities around the country, and is conducted entirely by us. Event themes, speakers, sponsorship, and all that jazz. The college doesn't help (they're more of a hinderance really). And we have to do this, it's a module worth 50 marks. If you flunk, you don't get a diploma. We chose to go to Kochi.
IN KOCHI - 7 of us went to Kochi, all first timers, the only footprints team this year to not have any, well, natives, for lack of a better word. Three of them knew malayalam, so we could communicate around. We stayed in a rundown hotel, for free, friend's contact. Kochi is a very cheap city. Printing, travelling, eating. Ofcourse, everything shuts down by 9:30, so that suxx. But the city is fun. It's quite clean, relatively open, no over-population.
The buses are great, huge windows and canvas shutters, so it's never claustrophobic inside. It's a joyride really. These drivers apparantly use brakes only at the stops, and drive like maniacs at breakneck speed. Narain Karthikeyan fastest Indian my ass.
THE EVENT - Our theme was "Sailing On The Banana Boat - Where's the Malayali Media Headed?" Sounds a bit corny, but we came up with it in a crunch, and never got around to changing it. We covered -
AFTER THE EVENT - Went to Roshan's aunt place, 4 hours from Kochi, forgot the name. Then went to Idukki, heheh, and proceeded on to the Periyar sanctuary. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, place. So green and lush!!
FInally, came back to bombay on the 31st night.
FOOTPRINTS - This is an annual series of media seminars that the students of SIMC organise. It usually happens in 10 cities around the country, and is conducted entirely by us. Event themes, speakers, sponsorship, and all that jazz. The college doesn't help (they're more of a hinderance really). And we have to do this, it's a module worth 50 marks. If you flunk, you don't get a diploma. We chose to go to Kochi.
IN KOCHI - 7 of us went to Kochi, all first timers, the only footprints team this year to not have any, well, natives, for lack of a better word. Three of them knew malayalam, so we could communicate around. We stayed in a rundown hotel, for free, friend's contact. Kochi is a very cheap city. Printing, travelling, eating. Ofcourse, everything shuts down by 9:30, so that suxx. But the city is fun. It's quite clean, relatively open, no over-population.
The buses are great, huge windows and canvas shutters, so it's never claustrophobic inside. It's a joyride really. These drivers apparantly use brakes only at the stops, and drive like maniacs at breakneck speed. Narain Karthikeyan fastest Indian my ass.
THE EVENT - Our theme was "Sailing On The Banana Boat - Where's the Malayali Media Headed?" Sounds a bit corny, but we came up with it in a crunch, and never got around to changing it. We covered -
- The current status of the media in Kerala
- Expansion across regional and national boundaries
- What they see in their future
- Upcoming career opportunities
- R. Pillai, News Director AIR Thiruvananthapuram
- Kamal - National Award winning film director
- T. N. Gopakumar - Host of Asianet's "Kannadi"
- Sebastian Paul - Journalist turned M. P.
AFTER THE EVENT - Went to Roshan's aunt place, 4 hours from Kochi, forgot the name. Then went to Idukki, heheh, and proceeded on to the Periyar sanctuary. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, place. So green and lush!!
FInally, came back to bombay on the 31st night.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Spidey 3 - The Sandman it is!!
Hah, this is great, some concrete casting news!! And now, Topher Grace, Electro, or Venom? Definetely not Ned Leeds, I hope.
But seriously, if they have Venom and Sandman in the same movie, i can't see how they could possibly play off each other. Unless the Sandman is just gonna be there just for a minor pre-credits fight. Or if they screw his character up like they screwed up the Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
But seriously, if they have Venom and Sandman in the same movie, i can't see how they could possibly play off each other. Unless the Sandman is just gonna be there just for a minor pre-credits fight. Or if they screw his character up like they screwed up the Scarecrow in Batman Begins.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Friday, November 04, 2005
Don't Quit Your Day Job Yet...
Hah! While doing a bit of ego-surfing (google: bottlehed), I stumbled upon one of my forum convos with good 'ol Jorgo. An aborted attempt to write a short story, it's pretty funny.
Hah, an abrupt end. No doubt Jorgo was flabbergasted...
JORGO
Today I came back from a walk and the wind was sweeping a piece of paper by my feet. On one side two lines of text were written. I picked up the paper, dirty from the dusty ground to read what was written on it.
Curiously, the lines read:
I love you, I love you. I promise, I will never play chess again
Doesn't that fuel your imagination somehow? I invite you to make up a little story around those facts... let's see what you come up with!
ME
K, first line...
He could never remember - did the horse thing jump in the l-shape, or was it the elephant?
JORGO
In the words of Sage: "Don't quit your dayjob yet." Somehow I wasn't imagining this as a comedy although I never let a good pun pass by myself (or a bad one, for that matter). Well, fair enough.
My story would start like this:
He had everything thought out until the last move. He had calculated all the possibilities, all the logical reactions and all the consequences. Yet there was one thing that he hadn't taken into account and that would prove his undoing: He was not only the player, but also a piece...
ME
You're supposed to continue from my line...
Anywez, i'll take off on your start
..unfortunately, he couldn't figure out which piece he was. The agility of the horse intrigued him, but a childhood trauma left him scarred, and forever vary of the L-shape (but that's a story for another day).
Ofcourse, he identified his love for peanuts as a sub-conscious desire to be the elephant, but the pachyderms never forgot, and he could barely remember his head if it wasn't screwed on...
JORGO
Elephant? Horse? He had come to a point where he couldn't tell game and reality apart. This damned addiction to eating peanut butter sandwhiches! One day his clogged arteries would put an end to his career as a chess master.
ME
But till that day, he'd treat life like a black-and-white chessboard...
JORGO
And now it was time to check the queen...
Hah, an abrupt end. No doubt Jorgo was flabbergasted...
Friday, August 12, 2005
Pune to Mumbai.. I watched Coolie
Yup, this is so much like old times. It's 3 in the morning and i'm surfing the net, and it's just an hour since i got home.
Did i have a good bus journey? Depends upon what you consider good. See, i had some cheese pav bhaji for dinner before boarding the bus. I could have easily left off the cheese, as i got more than an overdose on the bus. They played Coolie. Atrocious. Appalling. Aggravating. Absolutely lousy. This crap showcases everything that's wrong with bollywood. Insanely bad acting (everyone's hamming it up like there's no tomorrow), cringe-worthy innanities passing off for dialogues, and a plot so contrived, it's incredulous that anyone could actually have watched this without laughing their guts out atleast once.
And bollywood's trademark middle-finger to sense, sensibility and logic. One case in point - Amitabh's character uses the hawk as his election symbol. When he's on stage giving his speech, the bloody backdrop is that of a bald eagle. A bald fucking eagle. Does nobody in bollywood know the difference between a bloody hawk and a fucking eagle?
I swear, if this kind of stuff was played in our screening, i'm willing to bet some of would actually take the effort to stay awake.
Did i have a good bus journey? Depends upon what you consider good. See, i had some cheese pav bhaji for dinner before boarding the bus. I could have easily left off the cheese, as i got more than an overdose on the bus. They played Coolie. Atrocious. Appalling. Aggravating. Absolutely lousy. This crap showcases everything that's wrong with bollywood. Insanely bad acting (everyone's hamming it up like there's no tomorrow), cringe-worthy innanities passing off for dialogues, and a plot so contrived, it's incredulous that anyone could actually have watched this without laughing their guts out atleast once.
And bollywood's trademark middle-finger to sense, sensibility and logic. One case in point - Amitabh's character uses the hawk as his election symbol. When he's on stage giving his speech, the bloody backdrop is that of a bald eagle. A bald fucking eagle. Does nobody in bollywood know the difference between a bloody hawk and a fucking eagle?
I swear, if this kind of stuff was played in our screening, i'm willing to bet some of would actually take the effort to stay awake.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
The Island
It was a Michael Bay movie alrite. But for a moment there, i actually had hope. An interesting enough plot, competent acting from all involved, and well, no faults in diection.
It's actually half a Michael Bay movie, because things start blowing up only in the second half. That's also probably when he lost all interest in what he was filming, and let it all go to hell.
See, because throughout the movie, there was this constant sense of Deja Vu, if, that is, you've seen the Matrix, or Minority Report. It's the treatment, i suppose, or maybe the story. I can't figure it out. But whatever it is, movie manages to engage you in the first hour.
Supposedly set in the future, one that doesn't really seem all that futuristic, the story (SPOILERS) is about a corporation that's raising made-to-order clones to be used as organ donors and replacements. All this while, the clones are being led to believe that they're the only survivors of some kind of holocaust - contamination, i believe, was the term used. However, Ewan MacGegor's Lincoln Six Echo (yes, his name in the movie, there's a reason for it) begins to question his existance in their perfect, sanitised world.
As for the movie title, it's not really all that relevant. It's just a snappy, catchy title for the movie to have.
There are some logical loopholes in the movie alright, and a lot of times when suspension of disbelief is needed, but if you ask me, the only major conceptual fault lay in the fact that it's hard to believe the corporation's method were anywhere near cost-effective. Just to sell a single organ, an entire underground complex was created, incredibly huge holographic shields were used to hide that fact that they were underground, and the clones had every kind of facility needed at their disposal; the health clubs and swimming pools. I find it very hard to believe that some rich people would pay such a lot for some organs, enough to keep the entire corporation afloat.
That apart, Scarlett Johansen is pretty much wasted in this movie, but you don't hear me complaining.
P.s. Steve Buscemi is still da man!!
It's actually half a Michael Bay movie, because things start blowing up only in the second half. That's also probably when he lost all interest in what he was filming, and let it all go to hell.
See, because throughout the movie, there was this constant sense of Deja Vu, if, that is, you've seen the Matrix, or Minority Report. It's the treatment, i suppose, or maybe the story. I can't figure it out. But whatever it is, movie manages to engage you in the first hour.
Supposedly set in the future, one that doesn't really seem all that futuristic, the story (SPOILERS) is about a corporation that's raising made-to-order clones to be used as organ donors and replacements. All this while, the clones are being led to believe that they're the only survivors of some kind of holocaust - contamination, i believe, was the term used. However, Ewan MacGegor's Lincoln Six Echo (yes, his name in the movie, there's a reason for it) begins to question his existance in their perfect, sanitised world.
As for the movie title, it's not really all that relevant. It's just a snappy, catchy title for the movie to have.
There are some logical loopholes in the movie alright, and a lot of times when suspension of disbelief is needed, but if you ask me, the only major conceptual fault lay in the fact that it's hard to believe the corporation's method were anywhere near cost-effective. Just to sell a single organ, an entire underground complex was created, incredibly huge holographic shields were used to hide that fact that they were underground, and the clones had every kind of facility needed at their disposal; the health clubs and swimming pools. I find it very hard to believe that some rich people would pay such a lot for some organs, enough to keep the entire corporation afloat.
That apart, Scarlett Johansen is pretty much wasted in this movie, but you don't hear me complaining.
P.s. Steve Buscemi is still da man!!
Friday, July 29, 2005
Fargo on GTA San Andreas!!
Hah!
This is a hilarious and highly sarcastic view at the GTA Hot Coffee patch controversy. It's true, what the article implies. Larceny, robbery, and cold-blooded brutal executions with a variety of materials is all ok for teens, but the moment nudity hits the scene, it all goes for a toss. So the game is now AO. Adults Only. Hehehhe...
This is a hilarious and highly sarcastic view at the GTA Hot Coffee patch controversy. It's true, what the article implies. Larceny, robbery, and cold-blooded brutal executions with a variety of materials is all ok for teens, but the moment nudity hits the scene, it all goes for a toss. So the game is now AO. Adults Only. Hehehhe...
Friday, July 22, 2005
Not A Bad Day At All..
So it wasn't the best of starts. Kohinoor vs Kamasutra didn't get us the kind of response we expected, but we did learn we were arrogant and cheaters. Right, let nothing be a waste, always learn.
I got my conflict presentation done too. Saudi Arabia - Yemen border conflict of 1994. Crisp, short, and to the point. Not because I was concerned about audience reaction, but because I thought I was prepared, when I actually wasn't. So all I was doing was reading off the slides, and trying to find my way through the hard copy.
And the play. I slept through every alternate line in the first half. In the second half, I was eating some chinese in the mess. But I liked what little I saw nevertheless.
So another day, another lesson...
I got my conflict presentation done too. Saudi Arabia - Yemen border conflict of 1994. Crisp, short, and to the point. Not because I was concerned about audience reaction, but because I thought I was prepared, when I actually wasn't. So all I was doing was reading off the slides, and trying to find my way through the hard copy.
And the play. I slept through every alternate line in the first half. In the second half, I was eating some chinese in the mess. But I liked what little I saw nevertheless.
So another day, another lesson...
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Faux Pass?
"Faux Pass" is apparantly "Fau Paa" ??
Redneck dad to son, "How many legs dat dawg haf sonny?"
Redneck son to dad, "Fau, Paa!!"
Yup, I still got it.
Redneck dad to son, "How many legs dat dawg haf sonny?"
Redneck son to dad, "Fau, Paa!!"
Yup, I still got it.
Friday, July 01, 2005
Screenings at SIMC
We have screenings three times a week at SIMC.
So far,
SERIALS
Chanakya ep 1-3, progressively better
Mirza Ghalib ep 1-3, ditto
MOVIES
Ankur - decent
Nishant - fell asleep after the opening credits
Charandas Chor - Damn funny for the first 20 minutes, then degraded and put me to sleep. Then saw the last 30 minutes.
DOCUMENTARIES
Jack The Ripper
Search For Atlantis
The Leopard Son
ROCKUMENTARIES
A Hard Day's Night - Unfortunately, fell asleep midway. Saw the beginning and ending.
OTHERS
U2 - Live - forgot where (actually it was a free lecture, not a screening really)
All these are in the afternoon, after food, in a room without a/c or proper ventilation. No wonder most of us fall asleep. Atleast, I do.
So far,
SERIALS
Chanakya ep 1-3, progressively better
Mirza Ghalib ep 1-3, ditto
MOVIES
Ankur - decent
Nishant - fell asleep after the opening credits
Charandas Chor - Damn funny for the first 20 minutes, then degraded and put me to sleep. Then saw the last 30 minutes.
DOCUMENTARIES
Jack The Ripper
Search For Atlantis
The Leopard Son
ROCKUMENTARIES
A Hard Day's Night - Unfortunately, fell asleep midway. Saw the beginning and ending.
OTHERS
U2 - Live - forgot where (actually it was a free lecture, not a screening really)
All these are in the afternoon, after food, in a room without a/c or proper ventilation. No wonder most of us fall asleep. Atleast, I do.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Week 1 - SIMC
Wow. It's not college, it's a bloody boot camp. No earings or tattoos for guys (I was the only one with an earing), my roomie got yelled at in front of the entire class and had to cut off his pigtail, plus, get this, no shirts or kurtas with any any kind of slogans/symbols/messages are allowed. I kid you not, these are official rules.
Oh, and we have no day off. Sure. we have no lectures on thursday, but on that day, we have to do our social communication project. Meaning, working with an NGO for atleast 8 hours.
Daily timings are 7 to 7. Yup, an hour of yoga/aerobics/gym in the morning, followed by lectures starting at 9, each for an hour and a half. Half an hour break between each and an hour for lunch.
Kinda saving grace - class strength is about 96, with only some 25 boys.
But what the heck, if it makes a better man out of me, shucks, i'm game.
Oh, and we have no day off. Sure. we have no lectures on thursday, but on that day, we have to do our social communication project. Meaning, working with an NGO for atleast 8 hours.
Daily timings are 7 to 7. Yup, an hour of yoga/aerobics/gym in the morning, followed by lectures starting at 9, each for an hour and a half. Half an hour break between each and an hour for lunch.
Kinda saving grace - class strength is about 96, with only some 25 boys.
But what the heck, if it makes a better man out of me, shucks, i'm game.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Off To Pune!!
I'm leaving in two hours.
Two years @ SIMC, Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Management (Advertising).
I'm gone!!
Two years @ SIMC, Post Graduate Diploma in Communication Management (Advertising).
I'm gone!!
Monday, May 30, 2005
Star Wars ep III - Revenge of the Filth
Saw the movie a few days back. I didn't enjoy it. Too much. Sure, I was only interested in the fx, but good lord!! The dialogues!! They are appaling, embarrasingly cheesy. Just. Plain. Bad. I can't believe the actors didn't choke on their vomit while mouthing these inane atrocities.
The Padme-Anakin romance, it's as bad, if not worse than what we saw in Attack Of The Clones.
Plus that persistant "stupid" vibe that the movie has to it. Gaping plotholes. Droids just standing around not shooting, stormtroopers in heavy armor taken out by one lousy shot, so called Jedi Masters killed like blind ducks in a barrel, and incredulous leaps oflogic like Obi Wan leaving Anakin alive.
However, the main reason I dislike this trilogy, is because it take away from the mystique of Darth Vader. While I intensely dislike the Star Wars series, Darth Vader himself is immensely cool. However, by giving him a back story, and justifying his slide into the Dark Side, his capacity as a being of pure evil seems diminished. After all, he really embraced the dark side just to save his wife, a very noble cause indeed.
Moral of the story, stay away from girls. They lead to destruction and chaos.
For a more biting review, check out Ep III on Ruthless Reviews.
They also love The Phantom Menace.
And they have a link to Star Wars dorks in costume.
Orson Scott Card, whom I know as the writer on Marvel Comics's Ultimate Iron Man, has his own take on the Jedis. I quote - "Memo to would-be Jedis: in the new movie, the knights are elitist, dictatorial, and unconvinced that good is an absolute."
Read it - Under the Influence by Orson Scott Card : No Faith in This Force.
Enjoy. The ripping apart of.
The Padme-Anakin romance, it's as bad, if not worse than what we saw in Attack Of The Clones.
Plus that persistant "stupid" vibe that the movie has to it. Gaping plotholes. Droids just standing around not shooting, stormtroopers in heavy armor taken out by one lousy shot, so called Jedi Masters killed like blind ducks in a barrel, and incredulous leaps oflogic like Obi Wan leaving Anakin alive.
However, the main reason I dislike this trilogy, is because it take away from the mystique of Darth Vader. While I intensely dislike the Star Wars series, Darth Vader himself is immensely cool. However, by giving him a back story, and justifying his slide into the Dark Side, his capacity as a being of pure evil seems diminished. After all, he really embraced the dark side just to save his wife, a very noble cause indeed.
Moral of the story, stay away from girls. They lead to destruction and chaos.
For a more biting review, check out Ep III on Ruthless Reviews.
They also love The Phantom Menace.
And they have a link to Star Wars dorks in costume.
Orson Scott Card, whom I know as the writer on Marvel Comics's Ultimate Iron Man, has his own take on the Jedis. I quote - "Memo to would-be Jedis: in the new movie, the knights are elitist, dictatorial, and unconvinced that good is an absolute."
Read it - Under the Influence by Orson Scott Card : No Faith in This Force.
Enjoy. The ripping apart of.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Viva La Indian Railways
So my mom wanted to book train tickets for some of our relatives, from Chennai to Bombay. She calls up the Indian Railways helpline, but their servers are down and a recorded message asks you to check back later.
Never fear, the internet is here. Or so we thought. Mom wants to check ticket availability. Since I'm not sure of their URL, I do a quick google search. I take the nearest link, the FAQs at IndianRail.gov.in (which incidentally has this helpful suggestion for optimum viewing - "Best viewed at 1024X768 resolution with Internet Explorer (default settings) and Other browsers"). They have a link to internet ticket reservations, which takes me to the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation site. Sure enough, they have an option to check availability. I click on it, looking forward to quick check, when a login page opens up. Must have clicked the wrong link, I think. I try again. Same page. Damn, so i have to register just to check for ticket availability. Nevermind, i say, it'll take me about five minutes. So i go through the motions, fill up a standard form, and submit it. There, that's done. Let me check the ticket availability now. I click on the link, and it takes me to a different website.
Let me recap that. I register on the site by filling out a form, login again, and when i try to check availability, it TAKES ME TO A WHOLE NEW SITE ACCESSIBLE DIRECTLY BY IT'S URL! SO WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID I NEED TO REGISTER FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE??
So onto this suckass new site, I enter the train number. Then the page reloads and i have to select the exact train, from a list containing all of one choices. And then when it refreshes again, i have a wide choice of three days to check, today, tomorrow and the day after. Great, I wanted to check for next month.
God bless the Indian railways, cuz I sure as hell aint gonna.
Never fear, the internet is here. Or so we thought. Mom wants to check ticket availability. Since I'm not sure of their URL, I do a quick google search. I take the nearest link, the FAQs at IndianRail.gov.in (which incidentally has this helpful suggestion for optimum viewing - "Best viewed at 1024X768 resolution with Internet Explorer (default settings) and Other browsers"). They have a link to internet ticket reservations, which takes me to the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation site. Sure enough, they have an option to check availability. I click on it, looking forward to quick check, when a login page opens up. Must have clicked the wrong link, I think. I try again. Same page. Damn, so i have to register just to check for ticket availability. Nevermind, i say, it'll take me about five minutes. So i go through the motions, fill up a standard form, and submit it. There, that's done. Let me check the ticket availability now. I click on the link, and it takes me to a different website.
Let me recap that. I register on the site by filling out a form, login again, and when i try to check availability, it TAKES ME TO A WHOLE NEW SITE ACCESSIBLE DIRECTLY BY IT'S URL! SO WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DID I NEED TO REGISTER FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE??
So onto this suckass new site, I enter the train number. Then the page reloads and i have to select the exact train, from a list containing all of one choices. And then when it refreshes again, i have a wide choice of three days to check, today, tomorrow and the day after. Great, I wanted to check for next month.
God bless the Indian railways, cuz I sure as hell aint gonna.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
They Screwed Bret!
Wow. I had no idea Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels were such manipulating arseholes. I'm a big Bret Hart fan, and I hated the fact that he'd left the WWF, even though i never knew why. Plus, I missed most of his WCW stuff. So it came as a real shocker to me that the two previously mentioned conniving pieces of shit screwed Bret Hart out of his WWF Championship Belt and effective gave him the middle finger for all his years of work.
Here's the shorter version, to be read first...
..and the longer version.
Here's the shorter version, to be read first...
..and the longer version.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Sodomy is a bigger sin than Pedophilia?
Today's Times Of India had a report on a lecturer at a Lamington Road coaching class, Vipul Bhatt, who was arrested for attempting anal sex on a 15 year old kid. Those were the charges, sodomy, not pedophilia.
Reading that report, I was highly disturbed by the fact that the law looks at sodomy as a bigger crime that having sex with an underage kid, a minor. Infact, we must be the only country in the world to have such backward ass laws. This is just, sad. Extremely disturbing, and sad.
Reading that report, I was highly disturbed by the fact that the law looks at sodomy as a bigger crime that having sex with an underage kid, a minor. Infact, we must be the only country in the world to have such backward ass laws. This is just, sad. Extremely disturbing, and sad.
Friday, April 29, 2005
File Sharing news...
Slashdot has an article (link above) on the RIAA's unsuccessful attempts to get two North Carolina universities to reveal the identities of students accused of sharing copyrighted music.
As usual, the comments are a whole lot more fun, like this one by Simonetta -
Check this site out - Don't Buy CDs, especially this hilarious article.
Also, Some poetic justice here. Radio stations can't play promotional cds because the stations have computer based cd systems, and the promo cds have copy-protection, which prevent their use on pcs. Heh.
P.s. Buy your cds here - CDBaby - and help the artists get a fairer share of the profits.
Their privacy policy is quite interesting -
* We NEVER give or sell your personal info to any other company - EVER! (No not even your email address!)
* Only the musician whose CD you buy will know who you are.
* If you don't even want the musician to know about you, just say so at the bottom of your order form.
* Your credit card info is never stored, and never seen by anyone. We don't store it in your permanent customer info. The card number is erased immediately after the sale, for extra protection. There is nothing of yours here to steal.
* Yes this means you'll have to type your card number again when you return, but we hope you appreciate the extra safety and privacy it gives you.
And, no Microsoft products were used in the creation of their website. Plus, they plan on being HTML 4.0 compliant, so there's no browser conflict anythime. Sounds great, eh?
As usual, the comments are a whole lot more fun, like this one by Simonetta -
What the music industry doesn't seem to understand is that they are going through a fundamental shift in their business. Things are never going to go back to the way that were before the MP3-P2P revolution. If the music industry succeeds in stopping file sharing of music recordings, they will end up shrinking their industry much more than would happen if they let file sharing continue unharrassed.
File sharing is critically important to the industry because it is becoming the only way that people can find new music that they like. The old method of music sales, which was a single song or group of songs unalterably imprinted on a plastic disk (or tape spool in the case of cassettes), enforced the perspective that the only 'natural' way to market recordings was to have every disk have the same price for every song sold to every listener. This seemed obvious and actually did work well for 100 years.
Then digitization hit. Digitization takes any media and separates it into parts in ways that were impossible and inconceivable before the medium is converted into a digital format. This happens to every media that becomes digitized. These separated forms are then recombined with other forms that have become separated from other media. All the wealth that is created from commercializing digitized media comes from the recombination of these separations into new formats that were impossible before digitization. Usually the new products are inferior in quality to previous pre-digital products, but this is ignored by customers because the new products have so much more utility than the previous higher quality but more expensive products.
Examples abound: the typewriter keys split from the printing of letters and combined with television to become the word processor. The piano split between the keyboard and the sound of the hammered strings to become the sampler. The light bulb split from the generated heat and combined with offset printing to become the LCD graphics display terminal....and so on.
Digitization split the recording from the disk. The recording combined with the telephone to become P2P and the disk combined with the telegraph to become the CD-R. The $15 group of songs on a disk became the $0.15 CD-R with 10 albums worth of songs. This isn't going to change back regardless of the draconian incarceration laws passed by the music industry. They're just going to turn ordinary college students into hardened criminals and dedicated revolutionaries. Just to attempt a vain effort to preserve an outmoded pop-music distribution method from its inevitable transformation.
The new method of music distribution will be centered on the marketing to the individual listener/customer instead of marketing individual disk recordings. The industry has to get used to the principal that in the new era, every listener is going to pay a different amount of money for each recording in their collection. Currently with file sharing, that cost is $0.00 with the listener/consumer having to do all the filtering of the junk and uninteresting recordings available on the Kazaa. (a new noun meaning the underground file-sharing network, as opposed to 'being in Kazaa'). The music industry will reap unimaginable profits off file sharing when they learn to filter the astronomical amount of recorded music to individual listener's tastes.
This is where their real future lies, not with harassing and alienating their customer base.
Check this site out - Don't Buy CDs, especially this hilarious article.
Also, Some poetic justice here. Radio stations can't play promotional cds because the stations have computer based cd systems, and the promo cds have copy-protection, which prevent their use on pcs. Heh.
P.s. Buy your cds here - CDBaby - and help the artists get a fairer share of the profits.
Their privacy policy is quite interesting -
* We NEVER give or sell your personal info to any other company - EVER! (No not even your email address!)
* Only the musician whose CD you buy will know who you are.
* If you don't even want the musician to know about you, just say so at the bottom of your order form.
* Your credit card info is never stored, and never seen by anyone. We don't store it in your permanent customer info. The card number is erased immediately after the sale, for extra protection. There is nothing of yours here to steal.
* Yes this means you'll have to type your card number again when you return, but we hope you appreciate the extra safety and privacy it gives you.
And, no Microsoft products were used in the creation of their website. Plus, they plan on being HTML 4.0 compliant, so there's no browser conflict anythime. Sounds great, eh?
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Adobe out to get Marcomedia!
Wow, I can't believe I missed out on this. Adobe is all set to buy Macromedia!! Photoshop triumphs over Flash?
I guess this takeover bid was ultimately inevitable. Macromedia has totally captured the web market, something that Adobe has no idea about. Now that they're buying out Macromedia, they are set on their was to become the Microsoft of the graphics world.
I'm actually surprised that Adobe still has more buying power than Marcomedia. Maybe saddened would be a better word. Photoshop is the only good software that they possess. Every other application they've come out with has been too generic, or too lame, to make any impact. Was the world actually going all ga-ga over the PDF format? It's heavy, slow to load, and definitely not fun to use. Premiere just isn't powerful enough, and for low-end editing, there are loads of better softwares around, including some free ones. Pagemaker is nowhere near as good as QuarkExpress. Illustrator is decent enough, but it has some bugs, and CorelDraw is the standard for dtp stuff. I haven't used Audition and After Effects, and I'm really sure I will ever need to, so these I don't know about. The other Adobe products aren't worth talking about. On the otherhand Macromedia has had either refreshing innovativeness or a high level of user-friendliness in all of their softwares, and they're all pretty much unique.
My colleague Tushar is of the opinion that all of Macromedia's future innovations will be now be credited to Adobe, something he isn't happy about. A Businessweek interview with the two CEOs certainly points towards Macromedia losing their complete brand identity. Nevertheless, I'm optimistic about this merger. Now it won't be such a pain switching back and forth between Photoshop and Fireworks and Illustrator. Hopefully, the sharing of technology will lead to better integration, and more powerful tools with all the positives and none of the drawbacks.
I guess this takeover bid was ultimately inevitable. Macromedia has totally captured the web market, something that Adobe has no idea about. Now that they're buying out Macromedia, they are set on their was to become the Microsoft of the graphics world.
I'm actually surprised that Adobe still has more buying power than Marcomedia. Maybe saddened would be a better word. Photoshop is the only good software that they possess. Every other application they've come out with has been too generic, or too lame, to make any impact. Was the world actually going all ga-ga over the PDF format? It's heavy, slow to load, and definitely not fun to use. Premiere just isn't powerful enough, and for low-end editing, there are loads of better softwares around, including some free ones. Pagemaker is nowhere near as good as QuarkExpress. Illustrator is decent enough, but it has some bugs, and CorelDraw is the standard for dtp stuff. I haven't used Audition and After Effects, and I'm really sure I will ever need to, so these I don't know about. The other Adobe products aren't worth talking about. On the otherhand Macromedia has had either refreshing innovativeness or a high level of user-friendliness in all of their softwares, and they're all pretty much unique.
My colleague Tushar is of the opinion that all of Macromedia's future innovations will be now be credited to Adobe, something he isn't happy about. A Businessweek interview with the two CEOs certainly points towards Macromedia losing their complete brand identity. Nevertheless, I'm optimistic about this merger. Now it won't be such a pain switching back and forth between Photoshop and Fireworks and Illustrator. Hopefully, the sharing of technology will lead to better integration, and more powerful tools with all the positives and none of the drawbacks.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
CHEEZ!!!
Last friday, we released our first mobile game called CHEEZ. This is the copy I drafted for the game -
It's a free game, for the following phones models -
Nokia: 3230, 3600, 3620, 3650, 3660, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 7610, 7650, N-Gage, N-Gage QD
Panasonic: X700, X800
Sendo X
Siemens SX1
It's basically an arcade style maze game, where you control the mouse OOn Dir throught 3 different world, with 5 levels each. Each world has bugs and enemies that you need to avoid (or kill). It's a lot of fun, and multiplayer is pretty entertainig too.
I enjoyed working on it. My part of the game was basically creating user interface and splash screens, and the maze layouts for most of the first and last world levels. Plus a few of the bugs. The game was developed fairly fast, and getting it's fair share of downloads.
The sis file for the game is available at the following sites -
BoomSlang Studios
My-Symbian.com
Handango.com
There's a also a write-up on the NewLC site.
Have you even felt bad about eating cheese? Felt it go straight to your middle? Well, not any more!! Now you can eat cheese to your heart's content, with OonDir the Mouse!! There is unlimited cheeze to be had, spread out over three world of 5 mazes each.
But beware, the guardians of the maze are a zealous lot, and they will hamper your progress at every step!! Each world has two distinct types of enemies for you to tackle, and they increase in number as you progress.
Two minutes are all you have in each maze, to gobble up cheese and vanquish enemies. When time is about to run out, a magical warp will open that will take you to the next maze. Ignore it at your own peril!!
Ofcourse, if you think these enemies are too pedestrian for you, then you can always challange a friend to see who is the better mouse, and who will come away the winner!!
All this and more, in CHEEZ!!
It's a free game, for the following phones models -
Nokia: 3230, 3600, 3620, 3650, 3660, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 7610, 7650, N-Gage, N-Gage QD
Panasonic: X700, X800
Sendo X
Siemens SX1
It's basically an arcade style maze game, where you control the mouse OOn Dir throught 3 different world, with 5 levels each. Each world has bugs and enemies that you need to avoid (or kill). It's a lot of fun, and multiplayer is pretty entertainig too.
I enjoyed working on it. My part of the game was basically creating user interface and splash screens, and the maze layouts for most of the first and last world levels. Plus a few of the bugs. The game was developed fairly fast, and getting it's fair share of downloads.
The sis file for the game is available at the following sites -
BoomSlang Studios
My-Symbian.com
Handango.com
There's a also a write-up on the NewLC site.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Tremors, Updated
The earthquake that just occured, was 5.1 on the Richter Scale, with it's epicentre at Koyna, 200 kilometres south of Mumbai. Koyna was previously hit by a 7.0 earthquake in December 1967, causing about 200 deaths.
MSN.co.in had this news on their front page.
Yahoo.co.in had this inside their news page.
Indiatimes.com apparantly thought this wasn't worth reporting, for neither was it on their frontpage, nor under their top stories. It was tucked away somewhere inside the news page.
MSN.co.in had this news on their front page.
Yahoo.co.in had this inside their news page.
Indiatimes.com apparantly thought this wasn't worth reporting, for neither was it on their frontpage, nor under their top stories. It was tucked away somewhere inside the news page.
Tremors!!
Wow, we experienced some tremors here about 30 minutes back. It was wierd. I initially thought it was just my stomach rumblimg for food, but it was waaay too widespread for that. We felt about three different distinct tremors. It hasn't registered on a lot of news sites as of yet. MSN India news just has a headline, with nothing else as of yet. Will update as news comes in...
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Strike Down!!
So the buses are back to normal. Which, is, well, a relative term, for vehicles that are always late, may or may not halt at the stops, are mostly bursting at the seams with people, are ignorant of the existance of road rules, occasionally knock down people, and overcharge as much as possible (Andheri station to Cinemagic is 4 bucks??).
Nearly 3400 buses were off the road since midnight on thursday, when 45,000 employees of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) went on strike. I guess the salary that the employees of BEST currently draw aren't enough to motive them to be as roughneck as possible. Maybe Sharad Rao should be commended for his generous and extremely thoughtful decision to hold the strike now, and not during the actualy student board exams. How best do we show our gratitude? With a stick, a noose or a sharp stabbing object?
Nearly 3400 buses were off the road since midnight on thursday, when 45,000 employees of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) went on strike. I guess the salary that the employees of BEST currently draw aren't enough to motive them to be as roughneck as possible. Maybe Sharad Rao should be commended for his generous and extremely thoughtful decision to hold the strike now, and not during the actualy student board exams. How best do we show our gratitude? With a stick, a noose or a sharp stabbing object?
Sharad Rao, when asked by the Bombay Times on what he thought of the faction that said it would continue to ply - They have no strength. And if they operate buses, we know what to do about it.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
P2P alerts and more..
Kazaa is harmful to your health and well-being. Yes. The RIAA uses a modified version of the software to spy on you. Kazaa reports the actual machine IP address behind whatever firewall, as well as the user information, protocol, port number, and a bunch of other stuff, then the router plugs in it's own IP address in the transport header.
On a related note, Ed Felten at Princeton University has written a p2p client in Python, with just 15 lines of code, each line having 80 characters or less.
On a related note, Ed Felten at Princeton University has written a p2p client in Python, with just 15 lines of code, each line having 80 characters or less.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Google Fight..
Following it up from over at yet another comic blog...
John Byrne vs The Public
Rob Leifeld vs A Pencil
Yeti vs Bigfoot
Tim Burton vs Joel Schumacher
Windows vs Linux
Bart vs Lisa
Calvin vs Hobbes
Siskel vs Ebert
Tom vs Jerry
Aunt May vs Uncle Ben
My personal favourite...
Monkey vs Robot!!
And some office humour...
Tushar vs Tejas
A point to note - the last two have the same number of characters respectively... :D
John Byrne vs The Public
Rob Leifeld vs A Pencil
Yeti vs Bigfoot
Tim Burton vs Joel Schumacher
Windows vs Linux
Bart vs Lisa
Calvin vs Hobbes
Siskel vs Ebert
Tom vs Jerry
Aunt May vs Uncle Ben
My personal favourite...
Monkey vs Robot!!
And some office humour...
Tushar vs Tejas
A point to note - the last two have the same number of characters respectively... :D
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Backup Contacts
This is an application for the Series 60 mobile phones. It will create a backup of the phone book contacts on your cell to any location you specify, either on your mobile, or on you pc. It's available for purchase here.
Anyway, the reason I'm posting about it is because I designed the UI and menu icons for it :-). As for the application icon (the two mobile phones), it was initially made by my friend here, but ended up not being used. I salvaged and edited it, and ultimately ended up using it.
It's a fine product, and pretty cheap. Go get it!!
Anyway, the reason I'm posting about it is because I designed the UI and menu icons for it :-). As for the application icon (the two mobile phones), it was initially made by my friend here, but ended up not being used. I salvaged and edited it, and ultimately ended up using it.
It's a fine product, and pretty cheap. Go get it!!
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Royal Bumble 2005
So i caught the Royal Rumble on tv the other day. Skipped most of the matches, i just wanted to watch the main event.
Is it just me, or have these WWE ppv's gotten really bland over time? It's all so predictable. Batista winning the rumble? Yeah right, big surprise. Someone like Rey Mysterio would have been an excellent winner actually. Heck maybe even Edge. Infact, get him to win a title match atleast once, so he'll shut up with his whining.
Only good thing, my mom has started recognising the characters. Like when Daniel Puder came in, she was all like, oh he's the kid who won the competetion, competetion being Tough Enough. Too bad he was in and out of the ring befor you could say Crack Snap Pop. Or Snap Crackle Pop, whatever his catchline was.
Yeah, that plus Eddie Guerero, heh, his attempts to hold onto the ropes were pretty howlarious.
Is it just me, or have these WWE ppv's gotten really bland over time? It's all so predictable. Batista winning the rumble? Yeah right, big surprise. Someone like Rey Mysterio would have been an excellent winner actually. Heck maybe even Edge. Infact, get him to win a title match atleast once, so he'll shut up with his whining.
Only good thing, my mom has started recognising the characters. Like when Daniel Puder came in, she was all like, oh he's the kid who won the competetion, competetion being Tough Enough. Too bad he was in and out of the ring befor you could say Crack Snap Pop. Or Snap Crackle Pop, whatever his catchline was.
Yeah, that plus Eddie Guerero, heh, his attempts to hold onto the ropes were pretty howlarious.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Baaaad games
Wow, these games defy imagination...
Big Rigs : Over The Road Racing
Gods and Generals
Ambulance Driver
Alcatraz - Prison Escape - though the grafix here aren't as bad as rated...
Demonworld : Dark Armies
Navy S.E.A.L.S. : Weapons of Mass Destruction
Big Rigs : Over The Road Racing
Gods and Generals
Ambulance Driver
Alcatraz - Prison Escape - though the grafix here aren't as bad as rated...
Demonworld : Dark Armies
Navy S.E.A.L.S. : Weapons of Mass Destruction
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Tequila Express
Whatta movie. I stayed up till 3:30 last night watching this.
It starts with the DEA arresting some Japanese dude at this major drug warehouse. Then we cut over to Mexico, where some chick and her girlfriend are arrested on charges of drug possession. They were planted there, by the cops, no less. Turns out that the girl is the daughter of the governor, of the are/state where the Japanese drug guy is being held. His minions want him to be released, of the daughter will suffer.
The Governor panics, and calls up the head of the DEA. The head then tells him that he's got about 6 undercover agents in mexico, near where the girl was arrested. The Governor's chief of staff volunteers to head south and rescue the girl. There he meets up with the other agents and they go kick ass.
So it's like 6 guys and one girl agent facing off and prevailing against the entire drug cartel. Who really arent as powerful as they should be, because only three guards are knocked out, the door is opened, and the girl is rescued. They they head cross-country, have some lameass final fight with the baddies (the minion boss is dispatched by getting stabbed in the back by the daughter), and escape through some tunnel connecting the two countries. The end.
The movie seems terribly cool, thought i can't figure out a single reason why.
It starts with the DEA arresting some Japanese dude at this major drug warehouse. Then we cut over to Mexico, where some chick and her girlfriend are arrested on charges of drug possession. They were planted there, by the cops, no less. Turns out that the girl is the daughter of the governor, of the are/state where the Japanese drug guy is being held. His minions want him to be released, of the daughter will suffer.
The Governor panics, and calls up the head of the DEA. The head then tells him that he's got about 6 undercover agents in mexico, near where the girl was arrested. The Governor's chief of staff volunteers to head south and rescue the girl. There he meets up with the other agents and they go kick ass.
So it's like 6 guys and one girl agent facing off and prevailing against the entire drug cartel. Who really arent as powerful as they should be, because only three guards are knocked out, the door is opened, and the girl is rescued. They they head cross-country, have some lameass final fight with the baddies (the minion boss is dispatched by getting stabbed in the back by the daughter), and escape through some tunnel connecting the two countries. The end.
The movie seems terribly cool, thought i can't figure out a single reason why.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Test/Quiz stuff
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I am 43% Asshole/Bitch.
I may think I am an asshole or a bitch, but the truth is I am a good person at heart. Yeah sure, I can have a mean streak in me, but most of the people I meet like me. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I am 34% Hippie.
I need to step away from the tie-dye. I smell too good to be a hippie and my dad is probably a cop. Being a hippie is not a fashion craze, man. It was a way of life, in the 60’s, man. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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I am 12% White Trash.
I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.
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I am 11% Metrosexual.
I need some advice. I need to STOP BUYING MY CLOTHS AT WAL-MART!!!! I will never land a decent woman unless I shave this nasty facial hair, and spend more then $5 on a haircut.
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I am 57% Evil Genius.
Evil courses through my blood. Lies and deceit motivate my evil deeds. Crushing the weaklings and idiots that do nothing but interfere in my doings.
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Saturday, January 15, 2005
On the Punk Scene..
Checking out the Gigpad Forums after three weeks, i see there's nothing new happening really. However, my man Rishu Singh's been hard at work as usual, promoting the Indian Punk scene. He finally got the local scene profiled on the Punk International website. Check out the interview here.
Heh, he's got a real droll sense of humor. Sample this -
Heh, he's got a real droll sense of humor. Sample this -
Q] Is there much representation of independent music in major media?
A] No. TV channels take a turn to promote the local scene once in maybe a year. Sorta like pro bono work that a lawyer does.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
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