Or would you prefer a watch with the latest technology that runs good for years and needs just one small (and cheap) battery?

Raise your hand if you desired a film based on your fav book. Ok, now that you have made a fool of yourself by raising your hand while staring at the screen, you may come back to what you were doing with it. But irrespective of whether you raised the hand, it’s hard to disagree with Netflix’s print ad on nyc metro “Books made good movies”. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
But a question before I get to the case on hand, why turn books into movies? Apart from the obvious lack of good scripts? An author wants the movie to move to the next level, reach a wider audience, and obviously get some money. A reader on the other hand wants to take part in the hype, to acknowledge/honor the author, to show others what an intriguing book they have missed, to see an interpretation on the silver screen or for that matter on the hdtv or larger than life imax.

But time and again since moving pictures started talking, book adoptions rarely did justice to either the author or readers (and in most cases did little good to the producers). The non-reader audience might like it (well they even like a mindless action movie in which cars turn into robots), but it is hard to please the ‘book fan base’ – Exhibit A. Godfather. And as for the author – they are rarely involved in script writing – Exhibit B – Girl with dragon tattoo. One plausible reason being that film makers do it for a very archaic reason – money. That explains why Tom Hanks would compress a thrilling Da Vinci Code in 2hrs. Or sometimes the director’s lack of imagination is stunted by their cerebral capacities.

Now coming to the case on hand – “Atlas Shrugged” – a book which failed to live up on the screen. Most idealists, capitalists, pragmatists (and other similar ‘ists) swear by Ayn Rand’s heavy-weight, small font HBO mini-series script. Ok, not swear, but at least appreciate. So the other day I got excited when Netflix threw this movie on my suggested list. With all its good intention, the only thing it offered was a bad adoption. Apart from other things, it lacks improvisation. Even an MBA knows that a story needs to be improvised according to the situation. And if you want to cater to the book readers – either give them spectacular visuals (read A Life of Pi) or add more drama (aka this) or an interesting take on climax (aka this). Rather, the makers has a dull drama in two parts. Disappointing. I had to watch cars turning into robots part-2 to get over it.

Reblogged from DEMONstrate:

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 14 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

In light of recent “India and Bharat” distinction, I sort of got confused. Don’t they mean the same thing? But given in the land where every name has a meaning, I wondered what does India mean (assuming we all know that Bharat comes Raja Bharat who used to rule a bigger chunk of current India)

The Curious Case of India
Me: So, where does the word India come from?
Google: Pretty simple – right from the river Indus.
Me: Ok smarty search, now where does the word “Indus” come from?
Google: “your search did not match any documents”
.. For the unindexed, Indus is a derivative of the group of rivers flowing through erstwhile west India (the irony always amuses me)

like Nolan, lets trace its roots
India Begins – A Story of Hindustan and Bharat
Now back in the days when Sanskrit was the de facto language, this big group of rivers flowing through erstwhile west India was known as “Sapt-Sindhu” – which means seven rivers in Sanskrit – Indus and its tributaries – Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and the now extinct Saraswati.
The people/culture/civilization living around Sindhu came to be known as “Sindhu”. The Persian traders started pronouncing it “Hindus”. The land of “Hindus” hence came to be known as Hindustan. So the people living in India before mughals were knows as Hindus or Hindustani. Which inherently means that “hindu” is actually another name for the people leaving in India and has got nothing to do with religion. After all, none of the religious texts in India call the people as “hindus”. This reminds me of the famous lines by Muhammad Iqbal:

“mażhab nahīñ sikhātā āpas meñ bair rakhnāhindī haiñ ham, vatan hai hindostāñ hamārā”

It’s all Greek and Roman
The early European traders picked up “Hindus” from asian merchants, esp persians. The greeks simplified the name further by calling it “Indos”, and then some bright greek scholar thought of substituting the “o” with ‘u”… and thus the name Indus was born. The Romans picked up the name and land of “Indus” came to be known as “India”.

Guess then I am a Hindu from the Bharat of India

We can’t say for sure. After all, today’s solution might be tomorrow’s problem.

Exhibit A – “Leaded petrol” – Internal combustion cars took over their electric counterparts in early 20th century. The major fuel source was gasoline which burnt well in the engine, actually too well which led to engine knocking. Cars would break down on the road due to knocking, let alone the discomfort caused on a knocking car. One fine day, Mr. Thomas Midgley discovered that he could add lead to petrol and make the engines perform smoothly. And thus Ethyl Petrol was born in 1923. More than half a century later people realized that leaded petrol was, ahem, not so good for us. The pollution concerns outweighed the engine performance improvements.

Exhibit B – “CFC” – Once again, our beloved scientist went on to solve the world’s crisis for a new product called the refrigerator. The refrigerators used ammonia, chloromethane and sulfur-dioxide, all of which were toxic but commonly used refrigerants. In defense of Dr. M, he was trying to solve the problem by providing a compound with low boiling point, low toxicity, and non-reactive. He came up with CFC, or chloro-fl…well every kid knows what it stands for and why it was later banned.

Inventions going the wrong way is nothing new. But, what keeps a check on them is a system called ‘peer review’. It is slightly different from the kind of peer review we indulge in with our friends while narrowing down on a restaurant. Instead, think of a review of restaurants by the top chefs, health inspectors, food connoisseurs (read kids) and self proclaimed foodies (yes! HOMP qualifies). It is this kind of peer review, but slightly sophisticated and with many doctors (both kinds) on board, which gave weight to the fact that lead is harmful and CFC are melting the poles.

Coming back to the question – based on a preliminary unqualified analysis of Google search result’s first page, sweeteners have not yet been ‘peer reviewed’ to the full extent to conclude whether they are good or not. But like all unproven myths, various websites recommend to avoid artificially synthesized products.

http://adventuresofatraveller.blogspot.com/search/label/55wordstory

The Room

The fans were at their best, but not enough for the tense atmosphere with its pin drop silence. Sweaty palms at the table, none dared ask for another one before finishing what is on table. Suddenly, he shouted. All eyes turned to see the courageous. He signaled the lady doing rounds – “Extra sheet please Ma’am”

Continuing his earlier theme on Indian mythology, Sanjay’s new book talks about  illustrates Ganesha beautifully…. check the book cover at the bottom of this page… and he is out promoting discussing the book at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. So if you around SFO, do make it there and hear him out loud:

event link: http://events.kqed.org/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=23955&year=2012&month=10

and if you missed… Sanjay Patel is an illustrator with Pixar and has 2 other books under his sleeves with illustrations on many Indian mythology figures (not all, obviously)… read more about him and his work here: The Art of Sanjay Patel

pic from amazon

Related articles

• Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth: Sanjay Patel & Emily Haynes (jkrbooks.typepad.com)
• Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth (designofthepicturebook.com)

Promote art – a DEMONart initiative

oh and yeah, like all things, there is a tumblr post for this as well… http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com

Gosh… Me loves internet

Related articles

• The “Binders full of women’ meme and coverage (psawomenpolitics.wordpress.com)
• “Take off her binders! Take off her binders!” (patheos.com)
• Romney’s ‘binders full of women’ gaffe goes viral (itv.com)
• Jokesters flood Amazon binder reviews after Romney remarks (digitallife.today.com)
• 10 Helpful Amazon Reviews for Binders Full of Women (mashable.com)
• Mitt Romney may have sparked a binder boom (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• “Binders full of women” becomes internet sensation (abc4.com)

but in US… it’s party time…

From the almighty trustworthy Wikipedia

“In the United States, summer vacation lasts two to three months. The dates vary depending on the location of the school district, with two major formats. One is from early June to Labor Day, the other major format lasting from late May to late August. Students also get a week off in November for American Thanksgiving, two weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s, and one week off in March or April for Spring Break (usually starting on Lazarus Saturday). In some rare schools, students also get a week off in February for President’s Day and a week off in October for Fall Break (usually the week of Columbus Day).”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_vacation

So let’s get this straight

• Summer vacation: 2 months (lets pick the lowest number, just to play safe)
• Thanksgiving: 1 week
• Christmas/ new year: 2 weeks
• Spring break: 1 week

That is a minimum of 3 months… and then add to it a longer summer vacation, fall break, president’s day break, leg break… that brings about to 4 months on the top end…

3-4 months of holidays… pure unadulterated fun… man its fun to be a student here…

(Photo credit: TheDorkReport)

That’s difficult to answer – too many variables in play – facebook likes, youtube hits, twitter follower count, google search trends…. the list is endless and vague… you might have a better chance at predicting whether Obama will win the elections of not.

And guess what, it is damn straight easy to check who will win the biggest election in 2012 – Obama or Romney. (the biggest government change though is happening northeast of India in Nov).

Per the latest intrade data – punters predict Obama to win with an 80% chance… as for the uninitiated, Intrade is like a stock exchange where political predictions can be traded on a scale of 10. Each trade has a yes and no chance. If the prediction comes true then the shares will give out $10. If the prediction is false then the share will yield a lower bank balance. Its more like sports betting without sports or stock market without stocks. Its legality is obviously questionable but they have found some way to circumvent it for now (read headquartered in a different country). Now coming back to the US 2012 elections trade – 20% chance that Romney will win – that’s it…. even 2016 Obama film didn’t help him.

disclaimer: i do not have money to trade on intrade, i do not have a citizenship to vote in US

Scoreboard: http://www.intrade.com/v4/misc/scoreboard/

Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012 = 78.9000015258789% @Intrade.

PS: Gangnam style is awesome

Conducting a PowerPoint presentation is a lot like smoking a cigar. Only the person doing it likes it. The people around him want to hit him with a chair.

PowerPoint was released by Microsoft in 1990 as a way to euthanize cattle using a method less cruel than hitting them over the head with iron mallets. After PETA successfully argued in court that PowerPoint actually was more cruel than iron mallets, the program was adopted by corporations for slide show presentations.

PowerPoint is usually restricted to conference rooms where the doors are locked from the outside. It is, therefore, considered unsuited for large rallies, where people have a means of escape and where the purpose is to energize rather than daze.

n

A not so well lit place – meant to fill people with alcohol (5%-40% ethanol) and drain them of their money (denomination does not matter, hard cash does)

beware: very different from watering a hole…

• get rid of TV – that is commercial cable… the one which charges x every month and still shows you ads
• get netflix (or similar)… you’ll be surprised at the legally available content you can stream at a click
• subscribe to the regular entertainment sites – Songs (soundcloud, grooveshark, saavn, youtube), Videos (youtube, vimeo), News (get RSS feeds in your google reader account or flipboard if you have a smartphone)
• while browsing on PC – get firefox with adblock plus – deadly combo and kills any ad instantaneously
• shopping – go for review sites for a better pick – don’t rely on that glossy print

and as for print… who reads a physical newspaper anyways

or rather the NYT style…

Amidst all the clutter around news websites which scream for attention i finally found solace. The blog-cum-news style never appealed to me, and neither did the desi gaudy template, nor the i am too clean and conservative one. I did like the magic wand addon but it requires some extra clicks, and while my fav app lets me flip the board it looks good only the small screen.

and then comes in new york times which does an excellent job with an online reader. it calls it the skimmer and provides many templates – sans ads and clutter (me likes that ).

do try: nytimes.com/skimmer

disclaimer – i use ad blocker

Reblogged from Mostly Economics: