Saturday, June 30, 2007

How to watch Sivaji-The Boss

How to watch Sivaji?

Answer in 9 simple steps:

  1. Figure out the timing of the song sequences in the movie.
  2. Enter the hall at the specified timing,
  3. Hold your breath tight.
  4. Watch Shriya Saran sizzle in the songs in the amazing attires, sporting one of the most beautiful smiles that mankind has got to see and showcasing her well crafted and chiseled body.
  5. Get the chills while seeing her.
  6. Get out of the hall till the next song and dream about her, as the movie is so loud(in all respects) that it will actually take away the precious things that you have witnessed.
  7. Watch the next sequence and dream more.
  8. Get back home and blog about her.
  9. Sleep and dream more.
I am sure CB would testify the same.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Leaders of tomorrow!

And that my dear friend, is my latest desktop wallpaper. Click here for more of them and an amazing campaign towards making people aware of global warming.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

I hate Snipers



This one is from Frank Miller's Sin City.

Wallace thinks to himself:

''I hate snipers. You should have the guts to look a man in the eye when you kill him''

Kickass!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Reversed

One of my close friends celebrated his birthday recently. We had a ball of a time and everything was nice and good. I noticed that all of us who had gone for the treat including the guy celebrating his birthday were in full sleeved shirts, all tucked in and neat. I realized that we were all growing up. It was only 4 years ago that all of us were in tees and clothing that clearly reflected that we were 17 year olds. Now the mature look was reflecting from our clothing, attitudes and demeanor. The feeling set in that we were all growing up. It won’t be much time before we start earning our livelihood and have kids who will be celebrating their birthdays with their friends. Bah! Let me not go that far.


(The sore thumb was the eldest of us, who we call as big brother. He is the elder brother of one of my friends and is the guardian and advisor to all of us. He was the only one wearing a tee and claimed that he was becoming younger by the day.)

It was then that my friend Vyshak pointed out a concept. I guess it has been thought over quite a few times before and lot of people already know about it. How would life be if we reversed the life cycle?

I come into the world as an old man (when I am supposed to die in the existing system). I am born as an old man. I live my life backwards. I have a good business, industries and many sources of income. I make money as I grow young. I would have made enough money and experienced all the troubles and pains of life while trying to make all the money in my old age itself. Now I enter my youth, having made lot of money and possessing all materialistic things I would have ever wanted. I am assuming that with all the achievements backing me up, now I will have ample time to enjoy my youth.

After having all the fun that I ever wanted to have, I head towards an amazing learning experience at the school. Then comes all the pampering of the innocent childhood. After all the time and effort spent in the old age, glory of the youth, and the learning experience in the childhood, I eventually get to sleep the best sleep in my mother’s womb. Bliss.

Only thing to wonder is, how will the relative life cycle of other people be with respect to mine? If you look closely, the whole life cycle gets reversed. So for the whole concept to work, I should be born to someone who in the existing cycle would have been born when I am on the death bed.

Probably there are flaws in the thinking. But it feels good to think that at the end of it, you don’t die, but sleep peacefully in your mother’s womb.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Claustro: the choice of phobia/philia

(x,y,z,t)= Some Darshini where I regularly go for lunch with other fellows (employees are actually called as fellows here) at TERI, lunch hour.

Dialogue:

A: Are you Claustrophobic?
Czar: Not really
A: I guess I am.
Czar: Hmmm..
A: But then, I have got accustomed to it now.
B: I guess I am claustrophilic.

( I am scratching I am head. The discussion so far was with respect to the Darshini that we were standing in. The population density is 2 per sq. ft in the area of the restaurant that strictly adheres to optimization principles when it comes to utilization of the space. So I am not able to figure out how one can get claustrophilic)

Czar(still wondering): But... how?
B: Dude, you are in Bangalore da.
Czar: So?
B: Wouldnt you love to be claustrophilic in some pub or disc with insane amounts of blessings from Almight Zeus himself to ogle over?
Czar: Ohhhhhh!!! *For once, I actually felt like an idiot*

It was a trippy momeny. :)

Friday, June 01, 2007

Full Circle

There are several view points and facets to this debate that has been going on for quite some time now. What does one mean by energy crisis?

How much energy does an average Indian consume? This question answers a lot of other questions about how developed we are and where we stand now in the world scenario. The highest per capita energy TPES(Total Primary Energy Supply) for a country stands at 23.24 toe/capita (toe – tonnes of oil equivalent), the country being Qatar. Developed countries like US and Japan stand at 7.91 units and 4.18 units respectively. China stands at 1.24 units and then comes India at 0.52 units. The world average for TPES per capita is 1.77 units. Click here for more 'authentic data'.

The above data must give us a wide angle perspective of what the energy consumption trends in the world are. India constitutes 1/6th of the world’s population and consumes energy that is less than 1/3rd of the world average. That is a tremendous imbalance, isn’t it? Should we set the imbalance right? Many say yes. Maybe people should start re-thinking.

Looking at such figures, and the regular reports that go around saying that the growth and development of a country are signified by the energy consumption of the country, tells us that India is not anywhere closed to being called a developed country. In fact, it has been, mind you, has been far behind even on the developing nations list. As every country has to boast about its pathway to development and glory, India too has to increase that figure and hence be called a developed country. Now what exactly are we supposed to do to increase that figure? Are our needs such that the number (TPES/capita) is expected to increase? And are the speculations true that we will not be able to cater to the demands?

So we decide to increase the energy available at an average(?) Indian’s disposal. We are taking steps to achieve the aforementioned goal. At the top of the list of the steps would be the idea of adding 1,20,000 MW of installed capacity in the next five year plan.

Something to open up our eyes:
With simple calculations we can arrive at the fact that even after we add 1,20,000 MW to our existing installed capacity, our annual per capita electricity consumption will only be a sizeable fraction of China’s current per capita electricity consumption. It is not very difficult to guess that China will not be sitting quiet for the next five years and might very well end up installing a few lakh MW of capacity themselves. In which case, the per capita electricity consumption for India becomes much smaller in comparison with China, which again, is below the world average.

I would like to throw light upon the fact that India as a country has never installed more than 40 MW in any five year plan. The idea of installing 1,20,000 MW in the next five year plan sounds overly ambitious to any layman.

Probably this is what is known as energy crisis.

We will only end up buggering the atmosphere and the environment by adding 1,20,000 MW capacity in the next five years. Indian think tanks are just trying to follow the trends that the west and developed economies have set. We just want to reach where they are today. Beyond that nobody knows what should be done. The developed economies are already on the path backwards, and will very soon be paying heavily in terms of environmental costs. India too, is trying to imitate its way to hell.

The needs always arise because there are facilities to cater to a new need. What I am trying to say is, needs are not perennially existent. They merely arise every time human beings find something new. I always used to think that need is the mother of all innovation. Of late I have been thinking that needs are results of innovations.

Human beings are a little short of traveling a full circle. And I believe that many of us have lost the capacity to realize the same. After talking to lot of people on this front and thinking a bit myself, I have started wondering how exactly should growth be defined? From an Indian’s perspective, one should realize that the existing scenario of a billion people killing for that extra piece of land itself is frightening. If we go any further, very soon there will be nothing to lose.

It is high time that we stop defining growth in terms of the energy one consumes and the lifestyle standards. We need to define our standards ourselves, and showcase that for everyone on this planet to survive happily, the standards need not always get higher and higher. Again, that very definition of ‘higher’ is subjective.

Till date, every budget was measured in terms of the amount of money one possessed. It will still effectively be the same. With the introduction of CDM, and Carbon Credits for entities, industrial houses and countries, carbon costs are making their way into the budgets and balance sheets of these biggies. It wont be far from now that carbon budgeting will be the way of life for every individual.

A person traveling by a bicycle will have to be paid by a person owning a SUV for the guy owning the bicycle is more environment friendly. A person staying in a smaller house will be paid by a person residing in a mansion for the former consumes lesser energy at home, and hence the latter has to buy his carbon credits to be environmentally friendly too.

All said and done, being environmental friendly will become fashionable and being green will make you richer. The green will eventually transfer hands. That was a brilliant pun, wasn’t it? :)

Black Google(?) - Blackle

Do check this out.

Irrespective of whether the facts about the amount of energy being saved are true or not, we should not ignore the fact that some energy is definitely saved.

So start using Blackle.

And in general, use darker wallpapers (preferably black) and switch off your computers when you aren't using them. People tend to forget that computers to consume power even during the sleep/stand by/hibernation mode.

So please do whatever little you can do to save whatever little energy you can.
You will be able to appreciate it if you manage to tell many more like you, and hence see a greener future.