Aces High

You know you're getting old when you find yourself peering at the instruction manual. I haven't gotten to that stage yet, but sometimes gadgets aren't as obvious to me as they used to be. I shudder to think what it'll be 25 years from now, when I have the spawn to replace me, who'll snap at my inability to reset the flux capacitor on the Gibson. Yeah well, I hope to kick the shit out of them when that happens. I plan to raise them in India, where child services are a joke, and all parents know kids deserve a smack on the cheek now and then.

My disturbing kid rearing plans aside, you must think "Damn Thanatos, life for you geeks is so easy. You have these jazzy little gadgets that keep you updated on everything, and your massive social ineptitude means that you'll never face any true discomfort in the real world - you know, where people and stuff exist". I'd be inclined to agree with most of that statement - except spotty internet means I'm not updated on everything all the time.

But no, life's not all that easy, precisely because there isn't a gadget for everything. For instance, I buy French bread once in 3 days. I divide it into 3 pieces so that I can make sandwiches for 3 days. Only problem is, the bread gets all rock hard after 2 days, so my 3rd sandwich is never made and I have to go to stupid walmart to buy that cheap but tasty and super unhealthy boneless BBQ fowl. So yeah, that pisses me off. I can't keep it in the fridge, since that hardens the bread too (I think - haven't tried). I've seen bread boxes - but I don't trust anything that doesn't have wires sticking out of it and lacks a 4 star rating on Amazon.

Then there are the dishes. My dishwasher was manufactured shortly after a young Winston Churchill discovered his love for tightly rolled bundles of dried and fermented tobacco from a South American country. It (not the Brit bulldog) has broken a couple of my glasses, burnt a few plastic lids to a crisp, and made enough noise to alert the neighbors. All glasses and spoons have residual stains from slow drying, and house guests wince before using my silverware. The only choice I have is to handwash them, and then wipe dry all that shit. I hate spending time on stuff like that, moreso if I'm scooping crap out of someone else's plate.  I tried dumping it all in the in-sink-erator for a while, but had to stop when I shredded a shot glass.

So when I'm tossing out the garbage or cursing that the water isn't just the right temperature, I wonder how heroes in science fictions get along. Who does Neo's dishes? Does Clark Kent forget to change the TP? Do Ninjas have to shovel snow off their yards? The latter, probably not.

Anyway. Gotta go. Laundry time.

Update :  Turns out my neighbors are true rockstars. I leave my garbage on our shared patio to take out later, and they've thrown it away twice. I love you guys.

Feel Our Love

It's a good season to be a geek. There's going to be 3 new phones (new iphone, Palm Pre and the Nokia N97), and the summer's turning out to be an extended comic con. Wolverine, Star Trek, T4, Transformers 2, GI Joe - oh man, someone realized us geeks have dollars to spend in the theaters.

I saw the new "Star Trek" film last weekend. I even had female company thanks to my sacrifce from months ago in watching a chick flick. She'll figure out the Vulcan salute soon enough. If you've seen even a single episode of the old Star Trek, you'll know it's so damn cheesy it looks like they tried hamming it up in every single scene. If I find time later (and have the patience), I'll edit this post to link up some shining examples. In the meantime you can search youtube for "star trek wtf". After you read this post, that is.

The film opens with an overdramatic childbirth, and yet it has pretty cool explosions, people scampering and even a moment of comedy. In short, they nailed everything about the series in the first 10 minutes and kept it going for the next hour and a half. Kirk grows up as a bad ass rebel with no obvious reason - he's just made that way, accept it, okay? It was refreshing to see all the characters we've seen over the years getting introduced. The near-lack of wrinkles and the new found "serious treatment" in reboots seems to payoff. Speaking of wrinkles, Nimoy shows up and looks like he may drop dead any minute now. There's no Shat, and frankly it's a good thing.

The managed to weave all the cliches (set phasers to stun, live long and prosper, dammit man I'm a doctor not a phycisist) and somehow pulled it off without sounding like a Futurama parody. They even vaporize a redshirt. While the inside jokes are for fans to snigger about, the movie is quite the ride even for people looking for a solid sci-fi/action film. There's plenty of lasers, spaceships, punches to the groin, a little cleavage, samurai swords, histrionics, tragedy and all that jazz.

I was grinning ear to ear by the time the credits rolled, and I'll probably see it again. I think rebooting of every franchise kind of reflects the times we're in and the times that passed by. The people in the 60s and 70s seemed to have been so baked nothing from that era had a shred of seriousness in it. Batman anyone? Now we're all about being sensible, environmentally responsible - "serious" in general. Our superheroes are getting bad ass, sensitive and more human. It's not a trend I'm very happy about, but it's refreshing to see the doritos eating community get some respect.

Next week : T4. Super.

My Generation

When I sit on the porcelain throne, a voice in my head says "I have three snipers on the roof". All. The. Time. Should I be worried?

Anyway. As I dropped my eye-phone on the concrete pavement for the 546th time, I was reminded of the long road of intelligent design these devices have taken.
Warning : Up ahead is geek reminiscence, and if you aren't into that kind of stuff (why would you know me then?)  there's always Ninja Cat.

If you're still here, lets take a walk down memory lane. Binge drinking has fried most of my brain, so it'll only be a few steps. Cell phones began making their appearance in India about 10 years ago. Pagers had always been lame, and cell phones provided welcome respite to the people with tens of thousands of rupees to spend. That's like a buck fifty before VAT. They were as big as the cordless phones of today, had dinky little green screens that could display 1 line, 2 if it was spanking new. Then came the Samsung with the blue screen and someone shot a load somewhere. Those were the good times, when phones just went ring-ring, and enough assholes didn't have them to set them off in theaters. Of course, that meant that people eager to show off scream their arses into the bloody ear horns, but they were few and far flung.

Then phones started getting smaller and cheaper, reflecting everything else about their owners. Midi ringtones gave way to polyphonic tones, and kids started getting their parents' discards. Lunch breaks nation-wide were never the same. Most things in America are about style and not utilty and the yanks will gladly pay through their noses to do less as long as it's easy. No wonder Nokias never caught on here and why stupid clamshells are oh-so-popular, but I digress. Meanwhile, in the subcontinent, where things like 2 year contracts and subsidized phones are still unheard of, phones were getting smaller and yet texting was catching on to teenagers like a pastor to an altar boy.

Things truly went to the shithouse when the all the 45 news channels (breaking news - cat stuck on a parapet, exclusive 6th hour of coverage!) decided it would be a great idea if boneheads with cellphones made great audience for thought provoking questions like "Should the Death Sentence be abolished?", "Should gay marriage be legalized" and "Should Nepalis be allowed to sing in Indian Idol*?".

That was just about the time when I left the scene and came to the land of milk, honey and mail in rebates. But turns out, we haven't seen the end of brick phones yet. In the name of touchscreens, graphics and other "features", phones are getting bigger again (not any cheaper though). If I went back in time with my mini tablet, I'd be laughed at for being a dinosaur with a phone that doesn't fit that jeans inner pocket (wtf is it for anyway?). Ah well, technology.

Someday, someone in a black turtleneck will convince us that phones half a foot long that hold charge for 5 hours are the future of technology and we'll all bite. Till then, I gotta pick up my phone and hope fall #547 won't hurt it any more than the 546 ones before it did.

* - Yanks - Nepal is a country, India is a country, Indian Idol is what you think it is.

Bring your daughter...

This Summer, when Martian Vampire Clowns attack the peaceful town of Nympho-blond-urbia, humanity's fate rests on its oldest savior.

Presenting...

Alpha Team Zombie Jesus vs The Undead from Outer Space.

Starring
Stephen Colbert as Jesus
Vin Diesel as Zombie Einstein.
Megan Fox, Jessica Biel and Angelina Jolie as The Stripper Sisters
Matthew McConaughey and Zoey Deschanel as Slaughtered Couple 1
Seth Rogan, Danny McBride, John C Reily as Slaughtered potheads
That tall guy from The Office.

This time, He's got the hammer.

Monsters vs. Aliens

I've spoken about my geekness before. It's an incurable condition, but over time the symptoms get manageable. There is plenty of drama in the geekworld too, we're human after all.

So you've decided to make the move to high def television. You're confused, potentially technologically challenged or just plain lazy to find a deal online. By all means, throw your dollars at a big screen and/or blu-ray player, but when you hear any of this from the sales guy, reach for the nearest sharp object and jab it in his eye.

1) Now that you've bought a high quality TV, it's time to think of how the signals get around
2) It's just 40 bucks to make sure your TV and DVD player can display the video as it was meant to be
3) premium cables will be able to handle HD signals that are "faster"
4) the high quality will ensure "frames are not dropped" or "there are no jitters".

Bullshit. Absolute and complete bullshit. HD signals are digital, and unless the cables are frayed and broken, there's no difference between the ones that cost $75 for a foot long cable and $3 for 10 feet. Do yourself a favor. Buy cables from monoprice. Heck, even Amazon's better.

Don't believe me? Check this out - read the comments.

Further reading. Monster cables tried to sue a smaller cable company for "parent infringement". Problem was, the owner of the smaller company had been a litigation attorney for 20 years. Details and general hilarity here.

So do everyone a favor, stop feeding those litigious asshats.

Mortal Kombat

I've been on the internet since its early days. Back then, it was hideously expensive, frustratingly slow and mighty unreliable. There was no google, myspace or facebook, yahoo was evolving and porn wasn't free. There was no blogging and some of the few ways to communicate with strangers were IRC and usenet. The latter was occupied and aggressively maintained by angry nerds of all ages. I was 13 or 14 and was given to typing like I was texting on a cell phone (strangely enough, I didn't have one till much later). I was crucified for the first post I made, and it made me feel like shit. I still know where to find that post, but won't post it for obvious reasons. Soon, I caught up with the program was blazing away on the digital trail.

You can never take anyone seriously enough online. The anonymity that the internet provides makes for spectacular cajones and people are nasty, witty, interesting, predictable - sometimes all at once. In real life (IRL), people are almost the same. Usually civil, occasionally awkward and sometimes funny. While one may want/need the opinions of strangers (or people of online acquaintance), there's only so much thought you should give to the words of some chap with a little time to kill.

I've been on forums, slashdot, comment threads in communities and blogs long enough to somewhat understand human behavior online. Although the idea is to discuss opinions, people get into arguments. Some of them get nasty and turn into flames. Flames sometimes augur very well for traffic, but in the end they all end mundanely . It's like peeing in a crowded swimming pool - wrong but hysterically funny, until you realize that you're swimming in your own waste, and perhaps others had that idea too. Flames lose the original intent behind the argument rather quickly, and they turn into long-winding slugfests that people participate in, only because they want to have the last word, as useless as it may be. I've noticed a few patterns after having instigated and participating in plenty of flames.

Presenting, the top 5 defensive tactics and ways to deal with them -

Ad-hominem attacks.
"Oh yeah? If that's what you think about subject at hand you must be a retard". Common insult when a person has nothing much to say about the previous post since it did make sense, and cannot be countered by logical reasoning. Falls apart when goaded into sticking to the topic at hand. "Yeah, very clever, how about you focus on subject at hand and leave the Freudian shit to someone who knows better?" is known to work.

It's my blog/forum/website, I'll do whatever I want shpiel.
Web 2.0 (i.e. sites that allow and encourage interaction) presents a unique set of opportunities and problems. While your opinion may be spoken about on your site and elsewhere, it opens up the place for attacks on your thoughts. Many times, a good perspective will help quell some nastiness. However, if the perp is out to get you, taking it on the chin may be the only resort. A common mistake is present something controversial, and just dismiss it altogether in the next line (or post) by saying it's your website, a place where you don't need to justify your thoughts. Unless you can pull that opinion off without a long winded explanation, why bother maintaining it? Telling the author that's a weak line defense doesn't solve anything, but is extremely funny.

Yeah, I wasn't being too serious about it, get a life...
We write about the thoughts we subscribe to, because we like them, and want to be heard. But when one is forced into a corner thanks to numbers or strong words, some people throw water on it all by simply shrugging it off. It mattered, at some point. Admit it. How hard is it to agree with someone else? Laugh this line of defense off for maximum hit points.

Verbose posts that say nothing
You will find little ticks in every forum. Ones that don't have any real opinion, but want to be popular. They'll usually align themselves with the hip crowd and chip in with little more than "yeah, I agree" followed by a stream of wordy nothingness. Even if they disagree with the current happenings, they'll continue with the butt kissing, because everyone knows the ticks can't stick it up to the big boys. All the more interesting when the ticks are brown and the asses are white. Ignore the ticks, they'll never amount to much.

You need to get laid.
Right. Ultimate last resort from someone not getting any. Pity is an option.

Flames are great ways to build character and grow a thick skin. If you have the strength, find a forum, recognize the typical defensive reactions and kick their self righteous asses into oblivion. Always makes for good entertainement.

Games we all play

Hello, with the state of the economy now officially downgraded from "rotting" to "gangrene", I've decided to give this whole "working hard while at office" a shot. So, expect the same quality (or lack thereof) in lower quantities.

I love gaming. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do enjoy the outburst of finger activity (shoo, dirty minds). Incidentally, there's a surprisingly high number of gamer chicks in the US - I personally know like, 3 of them. I've even met one in real life.

Anyway, I play a few games on a friend's xbox 360 I keep "borrowing" now and then. I used to play computer games from 2000-2003 until the world decided my PC was good only to run viruses (viri?). I'm not an off-beat gamer, I'm as mainstream as it gets. Therefore, presenting games that everyone and their sister like.

1) Soldier of Fortune - Okay, maybe not this one. Bad start, but I really do love this game. It came out in 2000 for PCs. I loved the special effects at the time. If you used the bad assed shotgun, the bad guys would lose a leg and/or arm. Headshots were freakin' awesome since their necks would have some flesh remaining. There were blood pools that would form, and the guys would wreathe in pain till they died. The game even counted how many poor sods got it in the family jewels. Hell to the yeah, I had some fun with that game.

2) Bioshock - Set in an underwater Utopia gone horribly wrong, this game actually blends suspense with morality. You're faced with the choice of saving girls with super powers and getting a small portion of the pie, or draining them of all juice. Well not exactly, but that's the gist of it. Superb graphics, shock tactics and variety of arsenal and "genetic enhancements" make it a super fun experience.

3) Call Of Duty 4 - I played part one on the PC and was bored by the time part two came out. WWII just isn't my thing. But COD4 is set in modern time. Features decent AI and great graphics. The weapons sound brilliant. Very good game if you need to switch your mind off and kill some, uh, terrorists.

4) Need For Speed Carbon - There are games that supplement great graphics with a tight storyline, superb acting and the ocassional joke. This isn't one such game. Campy overacting and a stupid plot drag this otherwise fun, simple race 'em and win cash enterprise. Times have changed since NFS parts 1 thru' 4, where all you did was pick a car, a track and race.

5) Dead Space - Sometimes, you play a game that's just so good, you dream about it. Well, sort of. This game is so fucking scary I had nightmares the first time I played it. The second time I played it, I was actually a bit queasy not knowing what to expect. A futuristic game set in a spaceship overrun by crazy aliens. Sounds old? Hardly. The creepy crawlies won't die till you hack their arms and legs off, will play dead to confuse you, will even charge at you minus their deformed heads. Look out for bloated tentacles, flying manta rays and babies with peacock-feather like snakes. The last one's hard to describe and imagine, just play the game already. Other features include 3D zero G puzzles, a superb HUD experience, and a decent storyline.

To do games #2, #3 and #5 full justice, play them with a 120 Hz HDTV with a 5.1 surround sound system at full blast. Neighbors be damned, they can sleep while driving on the highway.

Any games I may like to play?

MTV Grind

If you thought the FCC was a little slow on the uptake you have no idea what the "moral police" is like in the land of the Taj Mahal. Of course, Indian ingenuity is always about working the system and so the clever fellas beaming out programming would broadcast racy stuff only later in the night. "It's 11 PM, your kids shouldn't be up anyway"...

Part of this programming was this show called MTV Grind. Wikipedia says it was called "The Grind" stateside. Whatever. The show featured people in a very fake looking disco dancing to songs I did not understand (or like). Of course, it was decent entertainment for a kid getting to know certain parts of him better, since the ladies moved in astonishing fashion. Then came baywatch, adult films, and of course porn. Plenty of it.

I was taken to a club the first weekend I got to the states. Now, I'm from Bangalore where the club scene is virtually non-existent. In the bars (we call 'em pubs ya' know), we listen mostly to rock and metal, head-bang in a circle and nearly everyone gets wasted. A typical Friday night. Dancing doesn't happen and many of us dance/move like arthritis patients practicing Tai Chi on a cold Monday morning. Anyway, here I was trying to dance with with this outrageously pretty Indian girl, and trying to forget how goofy I looked (and felt), when suddenly I heard this wild hooting sound and found myself firmly wedged in between two white girls.

I'm built like a typical Indian male which meant that these two were each a foot taller than me. Great. I wasn't prepared for anything like this, and neither were my friends judging by their bewildered expressions. What was I to do? Thankfully I kept my hands to myself (or in the air - I forget), didn't make contact on my own - I behaved. Of course, I was able to keep perv habits in check since the Amazons stank. Badly. Guess a night of dancing and groping strangers does that.

They left as suddenly as they'd arrived and I tried getting back to that pretty girl. My friends, clearly invested in my best interests, suggested I go dance with "my girls" instead. My "research" had taught me that pizza delivery, plumbing and computer repairs were the best jobs and that women in America found brown skinned foreigners exotic. So naturally, I complied. Strolled up to the girls who were now just milling about on the floor, ignored the huge Mexican chap with them, and beckoned one of them to me, asking for a dance. Naturally, she refused. Told my friends I couldn't take the stench and barged my way back to the pretty girl. She said "your dance style is unusual".

So yeah. Slept well on the futon that night.

Real Genius

There's massive stereotype about nerds that many people stretch and apply to engineers. Large glasses, incompletely broken voices, pants that reach the ankles, braces, acne, awkwardness with women - the list goes on. While going to college in India for Electrical engg., I'd read a lot about the Star Wars geeks, Computer Science (CS) nerds, linux gurus and all that. Heck, any Star Wars wikipedia talk page will give you the feeling you're on a different planet. All impressions were gathered from videos, satires and jokes so I had this whole mental image of computer science brainiacs half a world away.

When I did get here, I realized that the non-engineers (and sometimes even non CS majors) held these stereotypes to be true, mainly because they'd met as many CS nerds as I had - none. It took me some time to get into that world, and boy was that a learning experience.

To a large extent, the stereotypes are true. But not so many of them in 1 person. Uh, not to many people in 1 lab anyway. Reality is like the assortment of fruity colorful sprinkles on an under baked cupcake. In the 2 projects I did with CS nerds, I found a handful of these curious cases. Funnily enough, most of them had girlfriends, and that was when I was single - didn't do a lot to the self-image.
Of course, I didn't go to MIT or summat and I'm told their computer labs are swarming with grown up McLovins, but I'll probably never find out for myself.

What I realized was that Americans in general have some pretty annoying habits, and they get massively amplified in geeks and nerds. To the "thank-you-come-again" Indian mind, the American accent is a lazy, slow drawl with not too distinct enunciation. A nerd speaks a lot slower and deliberately the rest of the yanks do, and it can get highly annoying waiting for him to finish.

Indians are a reactionary lot, so facial reactions are important in a conversation. Some nerds will keep their faces extremely devoid of expression while listening, sometimes not even making eye contact. When it's their turn to talk, the really self-absorbed ones will take about a minute to wind up and will not stop, making the victim pray for the fastest form of death, pain no factor.

Nerd jokes can be funny, if you understand science. Really well. Most of their humor is derived from the wry observational wit Americans are typically good at. It is however, extremely predictable, and rather focused about science pop culture - which can range from cult nerd movies to comics (paper or electronic). The response to a joke is usually a shy smile or a silent chuckle. And then more jokes. Getting caught in such a crossfire is perilous to health.

Nerds aren't that bad, really. They can piss you off at times but are pretty harmless as far as most things go. Not the Japanese/manga obsessed types. You guys are sick. Shoo, scat.

I, Engineer. I, geek.