Samsung Pebble

I was leafing through the December 2008 edition of JetWings during my flight when I came across something that caught my attention.

Here's presenting an mp3 player that is simple and stylish- the Samsung Pebble. It's small. It's cute. With a design to resemble a stone, it can be used as a piece of jewellery as well.

With a flash memory of 1 GB, it comes in 5 colours. Reasonably priced at 40$, it could give the Ipod Shuffle a tough time. Like the shuffle, it has no screen, which means that the user should be familiar with its functions. Another drawback is that it doesn't allow you to jump from one album to another while scrolling, so you may need to spend a really long time searching for your favourite song.

On the whole, it's a cheap, pretty device that could serve the purpose of a pendant.

World's largest TV

I always thought the Samsung 70” LCD TV was on the top of my wish list.

Until I came across the new Sharp 108” LCD TV. Released in Mumbai on Friday night, it’s the largest TV that has ever been manufactured.

Boasting a height and breadth of 52” and 94” respectively, it employs 8^th generation glass substrates. Sharp has proved that it can now manufacture LCD tvs in all sizes- from 14” to gigantic ones.

With a resolution of 1920x1080, it offers a plethora of inputs, such as HDMI, which makes it compatible with a wide range of products.

That’s the good news.

The bad news? It’s gonna burn a deep hole in your pockets, perhaps burn out your wallet. This awesome device comes at a retail price of 97 lakh rupees. And of course, you will need to buy a house with a wall big enough to mount the tv.

So if you are ever on the hot seat of KBC, and AB asks you what you would do with a crore of crore rupees, you know what to say. I know I will.

iPhone vs Stone

While the whole world goes “wo-how” over the new iphone 3G, here’s a picture to support those who speak against it.

I can’t help agreeing with this picture- even my simple Nokia phone provides all these features (except the touch screen), and it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
So as I always say, it’s smarter to buy the ipod touch and use a regular mobile phone.

movie review- A Wednesday

Undoubtedly one of the best movies made in the history of the film industry. It isn't the typical run-of-the-mill movie about terrorism, and how bomb blasts affect the life of people, and how they pick up the pieces and move on with their lives. It is completely a work of fiction.
It is the story of a day in Mumbai, narrated in retrospect by the Police Commissioner (Anupam Kher). The story of certain events that unfold between 2 and 6 p.m. on a Wednesday.
It begins on a normal day in Mumbai. A common man(Naseeruddin Shah) goes to the Mumbai police headquarters to lodge a complaint about a lost wallet. A little while later, the police commissioner receives a call on his mobile from an untraceable number, with a threat of a bomb being in the headquarters. Immediately, all officers are put to task, the bomb squad is called, and the bomb is located in the washroom of the headquarters. The bomb is defused and the police are on high alert. The mysterious caller calls back and claims that he has planted 5 more bombs in various locations in the city. His demands: 4 militants that are in police custody on charges of terrorism should be released that day before 5 pm. Further conditions state that those four should be accompanies to an open ground only by 2 junior police officers.
The commissioner isn't willing to give in so easily. He can't simply release terrorists, but he can't put 2 million lives at stake either. He gets his entire battalion of police to nab the caller, and even hires a college-dropout hacker to trace the caller. The terrorist is technologically well-versed, he uses different SIM cards to make calls and knows how to hide his identity. In the midst of this, the terrorist calls up a reporter (Deepal Shaw) and tells her about the bombs in the city. Like any typical gossip-hungry reporter, she immediately reaches the site and starts reporting about the happenings on TV. The police and the hacker can get no information about the caller and decide to release the terrorists. The four of them and two junior officers (Jimmy Shergill, Aamir Bashir) are put in a police van and taken to a desserted open ground. What happens then, will keep you gripped to your seat till the very end.
The movie has no sub plots, no songs and no attempt-to-be-funny scenes. It is absolutely crisp and focused on the story. The climax has been shot extremely well. The scenes at the police headquarters and at the deserted ground are juxtaposed brilliantly. Naseer's speech about terrorists vs commoners will leave a lasting impression on your mind.
Jimmy and Aamir are calm and poised as police officers. Anupam Kher shows great depth in his role as the commissioner. Deepal Shaw is surprisingly bearable (and well-dressed). But the cake is taken away by Naseeruddin.
I would recommend it to every person concerned about terrorism. There's just one problem- you may want to become a terrorist!

Getting back to life...

What a crazy week! 4 class tests- out of 30 marks, then reduced to 2.5 (yeah, I KNOW). I didn't care too much for them, I mean...who cares about 2.5 marks in the final year once you're placed? The tests were pretty entertaining...one of the supervisors from the M Tech class screeched like Ross making dinosaur sounds(for the non-FRIENDS addicts, don't bother). Another professor made us draw margins on both sides of the answer sheet...whaddehell has gotten into these people!!
Once they were all finally over I decided it was time to relax. The whole month of August had been pretty hectic, beginning with GRE, then placements, then these pain-in-the-ass tests.
I have virtually stopped going to theaters to watch movies, since I watch them on the computer, and due to my miserly nature. But this was a point of celebration, so I decided to catch a movie.
I caught the morning show(so at half rate) of Mumbai Meri Jaan. The movie is based on the train bomb blasts that happened two years ago. As most Bolly flicks these days, it has 5 different stories interconnected. A reporter whose life tragedy is made into a melodrama by her own colleagues (Soha), a police officer about to retire who thinks about what he has really achieved in his career (Paresh Rawal), a young executive who ponders over his principles (Madhavan), a struggling madrasi trying to get foot in Mumbai(Irfan Khan), and an anti-Muslim defeated businessman(Kay Kay Menon). All performances are brilliant with each character delineated with depth. I would recommend this movie to all those who consider Mumbai as their home town, and especially those who travel by local trains.
That evening, the entire wizards gang had gathered at Classic to celebrate a birthday. We came up with am impromptu plan to watch the first day first show of Rock On. In true wizards style, within minutes, money was collected, the attendance sheet was passed, and about 20 people signed up for the movie. *Sigh*, I am going to miss all this next year. The final toll went up to about 30.
After a meeting with a prof that lasted unto 10 mins before the movie (I wont go into the details), we just about made it to the movie.
Rock On does live up to its expectations. Farhan is truely an all-rounder. He has already proved his directorial capabilities by making a masterpiece like Dil Chahta Hai, but we get a glimpse of his singing and acting talent as well. Prachi Desai is demur and rather stoic at some parts. I wonder who her hair stylist was- it looked like she has run a road roller over her hair and stuck it together with fevicol. The lack of hair dresser talent is compensated by that of the interior decorator. Farhan and Prachi's house was WO-HOW. I was totally enthralled by the decor and furniture of the apartment, with the balcony and water wall. Arjun Rampal and Luke Kenny have given memorable performances, but the cake is taken by Purab Kohli, with his charm and sense of humour. He had always been my favourite VJ on channel V, and his charisma was the highlight of his performance. The music, of course, is mostly hardcore rock. Though most of the band songs are similar, Tum ho toh and Socha Hai remain amongst my favourites. The non-band songs Ye tumhari baatein and Phir Dekhiye are refreshingly soft. [:D] The story is somewhat old and gets predictable at some places. But overall, great movie and brilliant music. There's just one problem, you can’t dance in the theatre during the songs.
I can't believe I watched 2 movies in a week in the theatre!! I have to get back to my first love...computer/ipod shows [:)]

The CG Final

Its been a while since I got back to my blog. I'd better write about the CG final before it fades out of my memory. (For those who don't know me, I've got a really weak memory retention capacity).

You're probably wondering what happened to the MST-that-never-was. Well, it never re-happened. We were told that the marks given for term work would be doubled instead.

In the meantime, we did get a teacher for CG. And I mean a real prof, not a simulated prof who never turned up in class. She didn’t take too many lectures though, but she did "clearly define" the portion from the textbook. And that's what we care about. :)

Now I'd like to mention at this point, that the portion marked was really really little compared to the actual syllabus. It was probably less than what we usually study for a

mid semester test.

So we were all pretty relaxed for this paper and were all chilled out on the final day. A lot of people(from other branches) did ask us whether we would be answering the exam this time or not.

As we got the question paper, we were relieved to see that most of the questions were of our level. Phew! But then, a lot of the questions were from our original syllabus (and not in the marked syllabus from our textbook). As you may have guessed, we all started talking to each other at once. We even had exam partners (from the first year), who were totally taken aback at seeing us. (I do hope we influenced them!!) The professor wasn't in college at that time, so the controller of exams came into our class. We explained the situation to him- that almost half the questions were out of syllabus. He told us to write whatever we knew, and to mark the unknown questions as "out of syllabus". If they were truly out of syllabus, we would be given credit for it. And that's exactly what I did. Fortunately, i knew all the "in-syllabus" questions pretty well. I attempted 140 marks (i.e. the whole paper), with about 70 marks "out-of-syllabus”.

A little while later, the CG prof came in. She was cool (a bit too cool) and told us to "relax, don't worry, everything will be fine". She came to the same conclusion as the Controller of Exams, so I was really happy.

And that's how the CG tribulation ended. We thought it would have been a little more exciting, but what the hell, it’s the first time in my life that I’ve attempted 140 marks in an exam.

Oh by the way, I scored a 10 in CG!!! I wonder if the exam department knows that my account in the lab where we were supposed to do the programs was totally empty!

A Graphic Revolution

20th Feb 2008. Probably the most memorable (and revolutionary) day of mine in VJTI till date.
It was the week of our mid semester tests of the 6th semester. The CG (computer graphics) exam was scheduled in the afternoon- 3.30 to 4.30 pm to be precise.
VJTI is well known for its lack of faculty. The situation has reached its zenith, for we officially did not have a professor for this subject. We had some lectures taken by the high brain society of our class (yes you are reading right!!) The syllabus had been marked for the exam through a mutual agreement between the "student-professors" and the HOD. We were told that a certain temporary professor would set the paper. (Do not even think about asking why this temporary professor could not teach us in the first place. Rumours say that he attended the lectures taken by the students. Ever hears of "swapping roles"?)
The supervisor that day was a junior professor of the dept, not more than 2 years older than us.
Time: 3.30 pm. Question papers handed out. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw the question paper. I couldn’t figure out a single question, let alone the answers! I looked around the class to observe the reactions of the other students. They looked as perplexed as me. I tried to think about what I could write in the exam, just so that my answer paper was not totally blank.
Time: 3.35 pm. Two of the toppers of my class walked in and said "Does anybody know the answers?” That broke the silence. People started murmuring about the absurdity of the questions. Murmurs soon turned into loud voices as we explained our situation to the supervisor. The classroom turned into a huge discussion room, and everyone started explaining to each other that the questions could not have been answered with our minimal knowledge of the subject. Other professors also came in to the classroom to add to the commotion. Whoever said that fish markets were noisy!
Time: 3.40 pm. The supervisor, obviously vexed, decided to bring some level of decorum into the "exam hall", which was now beginning to look like the Indian parliament. She gave us two options- either nobody write the exam, or everybody write. We decided that we should speak to the HOD as soon as possible. Along with our classmates in the neighbouring class, we marched down to the HOD's office. Obviously, the HOD could not speak to 50 students at once in her cabin (and she was probably intimidated at seeing us hording around her office) and told us to go back to class and she would join us shortly. So we marched right back to the class.
Time: 4.00 pm. By now, some of the students had already started discussing the solutions to the questions in the paper. The others started discussing about what we would tell the HOD when she came up. The verdict was that we demand a re-exam, drawn from the syllabus, nevertheless. As we waited further, some of the camera-savvy people started taking videos of people's reactions to an exam. "All questions out of syllabus" was written unanimously on the answer sheets and handed over to the supervisor. We realised that nobody was going to turn up to discuss the matter.
Time: 4.30 pm. As we left the exam hall, we realised that some of our classmates were bullied into writing the exam by some professors. Worse, some noticed that the absurd questions in the paper were actually printed in our textbook!

The picture shows our answer papers. As you may have guessed, the top right paper is mine. I didnt even bother to take the trouble of copying the questions.
If you think this was interesting, wait till I fill in about the final CG exam. Till then, sayonara!

Bollywood masala

Welcome to Bollywood- the largest film industry in the world, churning out more than 300 films a year. What's famous about these movies is the filmy "ishtyle". Most masala movies are known to leave us challenging our logic, and sometimes, education. Now this was a movie that have left me absolutely dumbstruck.

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham: ( I apolise to the director if I have spelt the movie name fallaciously. I should have probably checked with the numerologist before typing). The situation is somewhat like this. SRK has been kicked out of his house by the patriarch Amitabh Bachchan for marrying a girl (kajol) below their social status. So SRK, along with Kajol and her little sister pack off to London with just a few pennies in their pocket. Somehow in 10 years, they have a sprawling house in London thatwould put even houses from the Barjatya mush factory to shame. In the second half, Kajol's sister has as overnight transition, from a small town tomboy to a snobbish bimbette( now played by Kareena Kapoor). Now SRK's little brother (played by Hrithik in the 2nd half) goes home after 10 years to find out that bade bhaiya has been thrown out ages ago. You may wonder how he didnt find out all these years. Didnt he ever call home or visit in the vacations? In true Hindi film style, he promises his "maa" that he will bring back her "laadla beta". So he sets off, to London, to find his "big brother" (Does that ring a bell somewhere?). As soon as he lands in London, he gets admission to a certain college almost instantaneously. What's even better (or convenient), is that he bumps into Kareena on his first day of college. And of course, he recognises her and remembers their conversations of 10 years ago (and so does she), even though they had met just a few times. Hats off to him for his terrific memory! Hrithik informs Kareena about his master plan and his promise to mommy dearest. When Hrithik meets SRK, the latter has absolutely no clue that this is his little brother, the person who lived in the very house as him. I guess his memory wasnt as effective. Anyway, SRK allows Hrithik to be a guest in his house and the story coninues. The climax too, was rather predictable, with Amitabh suddenly landing in London (in his private aircraft, neverthless). All's well that ends well, Daddy dearest asks his son to forgive him and come back home. Phew!

More to come ahead....