Chronicles of an Eclectic Life: 201304

Friday, April 26, 2013

chop chop chop

chop chop chop
trickle trickle click click
toot toot whip whip

Wow, what a movie experience the 80s arab-themed movies make. they made horses run up and down the beaches, and fight sequences in beach sand, and worked on a belief that it was believable. Then they had a father whose dying moments were about giving a sermon on how his daughter should preserve her innocence like its her favorite jewelry; this came in stark contrast with some american programming in parallel (which I'm not gonna elaborate on).

'Yes' is spelled out 4 times on the workstation desk; can't remember what's so right and about what that I get these affirmatives through subtle clues. My earlier research into behavioral contrast in short term memory didn't come up with any answers, despite a joint brainstorming session with A; now she's headed out, and I am headed in(to myself) so I can imagine coming up with something in the next 32 minutes.

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Death to the sleeper coach

Life just had to rub it in...
The Rosy notion I had of sleeper travel has been erased. Both my onward and return travel, in two separate trains of distinct routes, have proven to be hellish. If I try to finger some of my memory, it had been so even in earlier sleeper travel (post-2009 if I could make an approximate); the times that train journeys have brought back the nostalgia of enjoying the journey have been a >= 3AC experience, where I could stand at the door for hours and yet come back to a space reserved for myself in a bogey holding its usual capacity of 8 people instead of 11. Earlier, I just blamed it all on the long route trains and Kaifiyat express, but not any more.
Clean bogeys... say that again?

Rising India - the upwardly mobile, of which even I could claim to be a part of - has shun the sleeper, and now rides in 3AC or above. Sleepers just seem filled with either deadbeat elderly, or antagonistic youth, both of whom make a nights company feel a battle. Add to that the phenomenon of overcrowding. No longer do buzzing noisy families make the majority, no longer do people initiate a conversation out of curiosity, no longer does one bump into confident city women who talk the world in a space of hours, no longer does one bump into sportsmen, no longer the respectful elderly couple who offer you their food. All that social nexus has shifted to the 3AC.

The sleeper has been left to near anarchy, and despite thinking of reforms, I'm sceptic if it could ever change in the future. The sleeper culture is a fading legacy now.

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Three names

Met three new people today. Three new and fascinating names.

1. Ram Aasrey: Works at the dentist's. There's a very famous sweet-maker in Lucknow by the same name. So, every visit to get my teeth fixed has me thinking of sweets while in the dentist's chair. Yes, I already complained - my dentist just can't keep someone with that name; unless he's a sadistic types, which I don't think he is.

While playing with the new litter of the pariah canine couple, two kids - sisters - also came up to indulge in the same. They were children of the workers at the adjacent construction site.
2. Gudia: Translates to 'doll'. Elder of the two sisters, of about 7. No, it didn't remind me of Barbie, but something else: the name Gudia has entered the present national consciousness, thanks to another horrific rape incident - involving a 5-yr old... whom they decided to give a face and christen "Gudia". Comparing this Gudia's spirited face while being reminded of the other Gudia fighting for a life in the hospital got me pensive.

3. Bachhiya: Translates to 'a calf' . Younger of the two sisters, of about 4. It is amusing, but cute at the same time, to find parents naming their children after a young bovine animal. Maybe it hints towards the kid's playfulness. Or maybe she was achieved through IVF - performed on a cow to hold a human fetus; the culmination of a secret-but-successful experiment (remember the four-assed monkey?), later adopted by human parents. Very cool!

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

docx files

सजना दीवाना बनता बेगाना ;
सजनी का न पता ना ठिकाना |

I thought by end of the day I was gonna go mad and explode. I had a crappy day during the day (i.e. the hours of sunlight), where the highlight was being shot in the head, and then waking up from that dream to find that I'm still here. I kinda had been looking for escape from here, right since waking up. But then later in the day I couldn't skateboard, and missed my dentist's appointment, so it felt worse. Damn [a lot of stuff]. My madness saw its best at 34 minutes past 8 as I had myself dropped off faraway, on an excuse, and walked back home crushing the asphalt. Then I could recollect how I'd been scammed into leading the average life. How employment had been a bad value proposition. How damaging it is to have been thrown identities like dog bone instead of being allowed to wander for one. How life is the general expectation, against being given the choice to die. Luck finally struck, when, at the end of that madness of 8:34, as I got into 34 at 35, I rushed upstairs and finished a docx file. Then I learnt of the river whose waters I wanted to swim in at least before I die (or if not, then I'll relegate my ashes to be flown down the same river; but that eventuality is a slim possibility). Then I reasoned how sad my life is to revolve around a docx file. Then I blogged.

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Shot in a dream

I was just shot, in a dream. It was some factional/communal aggression that led to it. I wasn't supposed to either be there or be defending justice; I should've been next door, with Papa, doors shut tight, pretending unconcern. Funny thing about dreams is that in one, I rarely come up with rhetoric - I'm mostly silent, trying to fix things through mere gaze and gestures. The characters in this dream were all Indian, and it was a Sardarji in the adjacent hall/apartment whom I was trying to save. I woke up with a sensation of being shot that quickly drained away... I don't know what to blame - the world is pushing so much of morbid data into my head.

Then I step out into the dining hall. Some TV soap where one of the Bahus, the pregnant one, has a fall, and the other Bahu dons an evil smile, thinking to herself "the way she fell, it doesn't look like the child is gonna come out alive". If we're talking about morbid, this disqualifies my dream.

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Khöömei #FTW

"Genius" has connecting elements; I was bought into that belief overnight. It connects Richard Feynman to Ron Fricke to Sheldon Cooper - the iconic physicist to the legendary moviemaker to TV's biggest geek (on TBBT). Talking about Fricke there's one thing that first comes to mind... Baraka - the most unimaginable and undefinable cinema project to date. Of course, it's gotta do with Baraka. And to be technical, not Fricke, not even the composer for Baraka, Michael Stearns, but it was David Hykes, that connects with Feynman and Cooper here.

Hykes, you see, did this one esoteric sound recording titled "Rainbow Voice", with an esoteric band called "The Harmonic Choir". The recording introduced something new, perhaps to the world... something that even the music composer Michael Stearns picked up and used in Baraka; it was the art of Khöömei, or Choomej, or Tuvan Throat Singing as its more popularly known (to refer to it without the regional distinction). Its origin lies in Tuva, a once-a-country with a capital city called Kyzyl, a landlocked region sandwiched between then-Soviet Russia and Mongolia, later taken over by the Russians (it is now a federal republic of Russia).

Tuva is a discovery; this is what got Feynman here.. So is Tuvan throat singing; this is what got Sheldon Cooper (on demand of Leonard Hofstadter, the friendship agreement incorporated - under Article 3: Cohabitation, addendum #3 - "Sheldon will no longer practice Tuvan throat singing".

Since the beginning of the 1990s, throat singing has been attracting the attention of a growing number of music lovers from all over the world, and in particular groups from the republic of Tuva, situated northwest of Mongolia. Shu-De is a group who presents this amazing music, alongside such groups as Huun-Huur-Tu and Chirgilchin. Throat singing is a technique that has been apparently developed in Mongolia which allows a singer to sing two or three notes at the same times. The people of Tuvan were able to develop five different ways of producing this particular type of singing. Feynman not only journeyed to Tuva (who was the first American to have come to Tuva), but he also wrote a book on it, called "Tuva or Bust!". Somebody learnt of that music, picked up that book, and even decided visit Tuva, to find the Feynman trail , compete in throat singing and make a movie on it. I'm slowly growing all the more fond of this singing and the region.

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Nature, death

Though it is 3 in the morning, and I feel alien being awake and drifting into my thoughts, while sitting on the rooftop and experiencing - the cool and moist air that stirs the trees to make them giggle and drawing inspiration even from the mute non-living objects, enough to be coerced into blogging about it, - the bird song from nearby trees tells me that I'm in conformance to some rule set of nature. Or maybe the birds have got internet these days. I will, now, be googling for "commonly entered non legal agreements" - and try to modify the document to fit this present association of mine, - because I think I'll be making one with the one. So together we'll be, in life and in death.

I haven't been living for too long, but I think death is something to think on coming to terms with before you think of an eternity, because it will be the major part of your eternity anyways... The "living" is the in-between part, when you get to decide whether you hate it or not, and how many you find who think similar as you do - to form a cloud of majorly-dead-for-eternity that is denser than the dark matter that surrounds it; and feels warmer inside.

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Jab Tak Hai Jaan

Well, so I went through all of it. All of what? Jab Tak Hai Jaan... starring some memorable names in Bollywood who won't be in memory for this.

From a trailer to an entire reel length, yes it converted me. That sure says something about the trailer, esp when the rest of it was so obnoxious that I'd had a bath when it ended to wash off the obnoxious yrf spunk all over me. The trailer scammed me, flat, though I did start to sense shortcomings right then after repeated play. Maybe it was because I've started to miss the road again, and reminiscing old days.

Oh, damn, so Rahman is enough to influence my decision to never watch any big-studio Bollywood production. I've been so consistently disappointed, but that disappointment never included Shahrukh since real long, in fact I'd been safely avoiding Shahrukh Khan movies until now, until Rahman convinced me to dedicate it some time. The music of Rahman from JTHJ is something that grew on me. More so, since I don't even listen to much of the Bollywood stuff either. But JTHJ is a name I first picked while on a bike trip to Auli... I was smitten enough to ask Atul about the track playing on his list (and he seemed not to like it at all, clueless of the track title, and barely certain of its parent movie). That track was Ishq Dance... and after that came this music from the trailer, that I picked on Sony TV [the movie airs this Sunday, the best part of which is that you only need to see it for the first 5 minutes till the opening shot]. That music trailer, it has come to my mind as well, feels very much inspired by Santaolalla's Apertura on The Motorcycle Diaries soundtrack.

In a quick review of a movie composed of several threads tied clumsily... oops I just said it all. It grows on you - increasingly obnoxiously, that is. You won't know how Shahrukh managed to become a bomb expert soon as he gets dumped, but you will come to know that he's so awesome that he walks into his work - in the bomb squad - sans protection (to tote his medals which he apparently, again, got right after being dumped), and walks out of it victorious each time, and rides away to camp at Pangong tso between those bomb calls (yeah, so you mean he fucken needs to ride a Royal Enfield 5 hours to urgently attend to a bomb in the marketplace each time?). Oh, and don't even ask how he got into the Indian Army after 30 - and living in London for n years. You just don't ask these things when in such movies.
Katrina Kaif looks hot for the first five seconds, then grows increasingly annoying, to match the increasingly-annoying Mr. Khan.
That other girl, Anushka, stays consistently annoying throughout. She seems to be taken in the movie just to finish some contract. The script barely makes some intelligent effort to incorporate her. Her acting goes with her figure - flat (as Katrina's goes against her figure, i.e. flat, again).

The worst scene in the movie has gotta be the one where the first friction between Shahrukh Khan and Anushka develops, as he's trying to defuse a bomb while she's standing right under it (and oblivious of that fact) listening to iPod, deaf to the outside world, and looking the exact opposite way, filming some captivating hill scenery - at the scene of a bomb defusal site... then a loud explosion (apparently not even the car parking sign in the background was damaged, despite the intensity) and some phony action follows. Then there is a compilation of scenes of Katrina Kaif being made to run towards Shahrukh Khan from all corners of London wearing skimpy dresses; and then one scene where she actually gets to act for more than, like, a minute, as Shahrukh has, for once, shut up, after coming under a car. Pathetic and hilarious, come together.

And no you don't sit forlorn by the shores of Pangong Tso, Mr. Shahrukh - you become a part of it.

Fantastic movie. To feel good about not being so cloyingly obnoxious. Jab Tak Hai Jaan - ये पिक्चर न देखना. Ha, they knew this pun was coming.

Jab Tak Hai Jaan probably better describes my this day, 6 years back.

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Spiti Tribute

Though I really want to start with spewing venom on a(another) crappy Bollywood 'picture' I recently saw, I could let it hold while I spit out Spiti. Or more like, how it was when I was in Spiti, and whom I was with, and how it fed a new notion of the great Himalayas, and of isolation in my head. It was really my first contact with these rugged people whom I continue to find across the breadth of the Himalayan region the more I travel. It marked the largest barrenness I'd ever experienced, until then, and since, I've stared at, been in, and fallen in love with more of it, in different seasons. To shift the landscape to the other extreme, I also saw populated grasslands and deep wooded valleys by the end of our journey, as we exited towards Manali. It also marks the first that I fell in love - with a rock... or more accurately, with the figure emergent from the action of degrading forces on some rock - journeying between Kaza-Losar - of a girl sitting forlorn and staring into the vastness (and also the void). Love, love, love.

I wonder how it'd be now. "Ab toh tujhe Kaza mein momos bhi milenge - punjabi tadke ke saath," quipped Saurabh, who was the other half of the conversation that brought about this tribute to Spiti. Maybe even my love had gone elsewhere.

We recalled about the time we spent on just travel. Calculations showed it to be ~56 hours. Two and a thirds of days, of nothing but grinding of the hip bone against shabby seats (or whatever close passed off as a "seat") and banging of heads - against either the window grille (ouch!, it constantly reminded me of brain hemorrhage) or the shoulder of some fellow ~~inmate~~ passenger. Well, at least count a day and a half of it ('it' being the ass-ault-on-the-senses part), since we also recalled our return affair from Kaza to Manali to Delhi being a combination of Jeep and Volvo - not that it was too comfortable, either.
And then I put sleep into the calculation, which was another 56 hours (not counting the hours of mixed-sleep-enroute); which means another two and a thirds of days of non-cognition. So, that totals to four and two thirds of days, not being upto anything. On a 7/8 day trip, if we knew we'd be dedicating a majority of time to doing nothing, we might have reconsidered. But that is only because we would've not known how it feels like traveling through Spiti - the painterly sparse landscapes, with human settlements marked in thin strokes across the canvas, or sometimes just a plain sight of lines and the sky intersecting. We won't have seen the unreal visions from Dhankar and Key Gompa (थुक जी छे, Lop Cha!), and the way the clouds against a crisp blue sky bring out the best in all photographs. We wouldn't have known the fun (and the intoxication) of pristine lakes in pristine settings, like the one we discovered in Dhankar where I swam with the Golden Trout, or the more-known Chandra Tal at one end of the Spiti valley where I almost drowned (since I didn't know swimming). Back then, even Rohtang Pass was a cruise (it hadn't been torn apart by landslides, up until 2008) and the valley didn't sound of only car/truck/minivan horns and ma-bhen-curses.

To end our conversation, it brought to my mind my pakka pakka promise to C about taking up Spiti for a challenge on the bikes for a whole week sometime this season. This would complete my "coverage" of this amazing region (Manali-Lahaul-Spiti-Leh), on sheer pedal power. I'd be seeing my bestest-version-of-isolation - in probably an even more isolated time, when snow wouldn't have gone away altogether, and when I'd have to walk with the bike on the shoulders at Kunzum La after an unannounced snowfall, and be the first to rescue this damsel-in-SUV-trapped-in-snow-with-cocker-spaniel-in-the-rear-seat-and-a-box-of-snickers-in-the-glove-compartment-and-a-really-wet-uh-smile. We have had this plan cooking for so long; that I wonder if it'd taste the same I thought it would; maybe there are some things that change with time.

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Sunday, April 14, 2013

As You Stand There

Gonna get this on a tee.

Yes, I'm the one.

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Across Peaks and Passes in Kumaun Himalaya

Received, and subsequently started with a new book today - "Across Peaks and(&) Passes in Kumaun Himalaya" by Harish Kapadia. [got it from Infibeam, at a cool INR90 cheaper than Flipkart] Being a Kumaoni myself, who could know, explore, care, and write more about them? - Answer: Harish Kapadia

Though a lot has gone into the making of this book, 20 pages in, and it already feels uncomfortable. At least the introductory parts barrage the reader with so many geographical details and facts, that sitting with a map becomes almost necessary. The maps in the book aren't well done, so in case somebody is caught with this travel book while on travel (like I was), then the best option will come naturally and gradually - falling asleep of mental fatigue and boredom. Google Images would come to next best aid. Then probably someone like Ghoru. Then maybe Naye. Then one of the Kumaoni porters. Then Mr. Kapadia himself.

Here's a well done route map - Milam Glacier's. Seriously, I've gotta do the Milam trek, not that it hasn't even been in my aspirational light.

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run dos run

Average day out with friends. Krushers at KFC was the highlight of my social. CP never fails to suck even more than the previous time, and the plight is that there's no comparable hub in Delhi. I do less, talk more, and miss a lot of things a lot more - if the days spent in some absence or void are some litmus test to make that same thing more deserving, then I deserve an ocean of it (or an avalanche of it, but "avalanche" would be the wrong word to think of here).

On the cult/fad front, there's progress.

This is awesome. I don't listen to House, but take this for an exception. It was a love-at-first-sight thing, and only grew better. I think it's gonna grow more in the aural space.

This is ah-some too, albeit by a few watchings you start noticing finer details of average cinematography and shah rukh khan's frozen looks.

तेरी आँखों की नमकीन मस्तियाँ

तेरी हंसी की बेपरवाह गुस्ताखियाँ

तेरी जुल्फो की लहराती अंगडाइयां

नहीं भूलूंगा मैं

जब तक है जान

जब तक है जान

Remember >?

C:/DOS

C:/DOS/RUN

RUN/DOS/RUN

Yes, ze Simpsons. I need to get that tshirt done.

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Corporeal

There's a dark emotion I'm fighting. Every step in the sun reminds me of it. About how I'm used to being a ghost, as what we play most of our lives. Corporeal existence in this world of ghosts, its something I didn't imagine too much of. I have always assumed myself settled to the life of ghosts. And yet here I am, seeking for the opposite, towards corporeality.
I know exactly why I'm writing this.

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Friday, April 12, 2013

A Train Journey log

xx:xx - Running out of the office in haste. Didn’t even check the time.

xx:xx – Auto to my GF apartment… I have comfy time now.

xx:xx – Almirah locked. Where are the keys? Gotta iron my clothes, too.

18:15 - Still have time

18:30 - Clothes done. Hurry.

18:45 – Bags packed, all set for Indore. I’ll be making a straight-to-office re-entry in this city.

18:50 – Onboard a rick to Jogeshwari Stn

19:00 – A mere 100 mts covered in 10 minutes… nervous

19:10 – @Jogeshwari. My proposed shortcut worked. Cost 20 bucks.

19:15 – I miss the Mumbai “local” by a few seconds. Damn.

19:20 – The next one arrives, crammed. Jostling, fighting, nostrils, squeaks. What are these people rushing for?

19:30 - @Goregaon… the fella in front of me has been punched twice in the periodic commuter stampede.

19:35 - @Kandivali; the guy in front finally got down, just hope it wasn’t coz he was repeatedly getting punched in the face. Now it’s my turn to face the punches. I shield my face as everything around me suddenly compresses which is a sign of more people jostling at the door to get in.

19:40 - @Borivali! I wonder if the train’s left… As a policeman tells me, it hasn’t. Goto PF4.

19:55 – Train arrives. I’m already standing next to the right coach, S3.

20:00 – Some guy needlessly fighting with me over the seat. I’ve held my camp.

20:10 – General chitchat. The train should be in Jaipur by tomorrow morning. I’m off to Indore! Wait, what?

20:15 – It is confirmed; I’m on the wrong train!! See me in Jaipur by tomorrow morning. Surprise bvttseks.

20:20 – I consul my neighbors… Surat, which comes next, in a coupla hours, is a common junction for both - my wrong train and my right train. Some relief.

20:25 – The ticket inspector arrives. I sneak away, to idle time near the toilet. New skill: “Evade” unlocked! I notice that the faucet is broken and want to complain, but can’t.

20:30 – My cabin is taken over by 3 drunk men. They open up their canteen, peel cucumbers right there, pour out mutton and some veg dish, and whiskey. Looks like the Army.

20:40 – I befriend a young Indian Army officer. He seems most sensible of these guys. Affable, actually.

21:00 – The drunk officers had a great feast, and even forced their dinner upon a father and son duo. The officers disperse into the respective cabins, but for one.

22:00 – The drunk officer in our cabin starts to masturbate. He think he’s invisible.

22:10 – His organ still plays hide-and-seek with the innocent occupants of our bogey. There’s a Muslim couple as well, the lady in traditional Burqa, and I wonder how much of a shock fest this makes for em.

22:15 – Fondle, smell, spit, fondle, switch position.

22:16 – The officer seems bothered by my observation, and asks me, pointing to the lights that were just turned off, “Won’t you sleep, too?”

22:20 – Anubha calling me, but I can’t pick up. I’m on a rattling train passing through sleepy Gujarat villages, among sleepy people in the bogey, and that is when she calls! Bad coincidence.

22:45 – Surat now. The station is built on an elevated patch, so you alight staring into shiny hoardings.

23:00 – My train has come; the right one this time. Getting in.

23:15 – The ticket inspector was generous to find me a replacement seat. I’m on S2/8. His scribble on my ticket: “Pass boarded from ST allotted B.No. 7”

23:18 – Getting through any night – good or bad – comes as a beautiful experience. I’m a traveler to the core. Good.

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An old list

Prepare custard
Sleep
Eurotrip fantasies, Pornography, Hand relief
Vodka
Cuteoverload
Get bike fixed
Philip Glass
The Penal Colony by Franz
Shopzilla
Flickr uploads
Brainfuck
Hip Hop

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Yo, then B, then Grunt!

Well, in theme to something I'd posted long back - about people having their brand of eccentric creepiness - is why I'm finding these Facebook "confession" pages not so surprising after all.
But still unprepared for ones like this

The above is how my day's gonna end - with an inner monologue on cyber culture and human psychology. Yeah, it doesn't even spill out to the blog here, so 'inner' it is. Thankfully, what's noteworthy (and lesser consequential) is that it's a relief from other occupations for the day - a lingo world where each term means half a dozen browser tabs. However, that was also a part of the 'awesome' in the day. Presently, I'm equipping myself to be creative/productive/tweaker both on the terminal as well as the tablet.

Talking of tablets, I also received my new phablet today. Something sucky called an iBerry Auxus. It is quite powerful, and the specs are really awesome. Gingerbread 4.1, too. But I call it sucky because its camera is stuck at 1cm focus (note: front-facing cams have a 270° orientation) and the backlight somehow manages to flicker like a tubelight and ultimately get stuck at "half-dead", much to my annoyance. Now that Phalanx is about to be retired, I need a new one, and one under consideration of my perseverance at unemployment.

Talking of perseverance, the biggest feat of perseverance in the day I've come across is this fly that still flits all about me, buzzing, secretive, random (flight path of bees is impossible to predict in a domestic setup, especially one like the present state of my room, even with high precision calculations), and _very_ annoying. M was after it earlier in the evening, with my Chandani Chowk wala chappals; he apparently was familiar to this fly. Some legend, this fly is becoming. The fly then visited our drawing room to disturb an IPL match, then came back to disturb me at the terminal. It's still fucking around, can't believe it!

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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Handicap

I've been in my zone in the past coupla' months. Like, hypnotized. Like, drunk. Too many words are ringing in my head, linking and unlinking into chain of thoughts.

How was it like? Nice? - to call it 'nice' would be a gross understatement. Let me get one fact out - that travel was the dominant theme across this span of time. And the travel scale generally has 'Nice' just a level above the lowest rung on the ladder of experience, which is 'Terrible'. So, to continue on the ladder above nice - onto 'Good', then 'Great', then 'Awesome', then 'Awesome', then 'OMFGsuperawesome', then 'Perfect', - one could put it between 'OMFGsuperawesome' and 'Perfect'.

However, the higher I climb up this experiential ladder, the shakier it feels. Only if there were someone to hold it for me.

[This thought has been interrupted by the thought Police due to inappropriate descent into romantic expression. Stay order until further notice.]

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Sunday, April 07, 2013

Neodymium Magnets fad

Life is a bit less boring with my latest acquisition - Neodymium magnets. These are rare-earth magnets, the strongest permanent magnets made. To the hobbyist, they are marketed as tiny 5mm spheres (much like ball bearings, only super magnetic), which could be used to make a whole lotta things, and improve your general smart.

Neodymiums entered my consciousness through American entrepreneurial efforts like NeoCube and Buckyballs (Buckyballs business went bust on Dec 27, 2012). Their cool was hard to escape; just the YouTube videos were addictive. After brief exploring around, and not having any friends returning from the USA, I turned my head to China, and found a whole lotta Neodymium deals on Alibaba. Finally, this is what I ordered myself, a 6x6x6 Neodymium lattice. There is also an Indian website selling Buckyballs - and not too costly.

As one site says, "Your Buckyballs is a truly amazing thing. It has the power to simultaneously stimulate and "exercise" both hemispheres of your brain, making it more beneficial to you than most other types of puzzles." After playing around with these for about a month now, I'm not disappointed. These are like the best fun that could fit inside a pocket - portable, and stimulating. Of late, I've started expressing a range of emotion through these. Magnets have some very cool properties, which work like hacks for making complex structures. The North-South Pole hacks are just scratching the surface of possibilities with these. Technically, any imagined structure is possible. It also helps sticking a lotta unusual things to the fridge.

Will keep updated on exploits with Neodymiums. And some parallel achievements unlocked.

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Friday, April 05, 2013

Astronomer Porn

Under the Wing of a Dwarf Galaxy (NASA, Chandra, 04/03/13)

Kepler Supernova Remnant: Infrared and Iron (NASA, Chandra, 03/20/13)

Kepler Supernova Remnant (NASA, Chandra, 03/18/13)

Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae (NASA, Chandra, 03/06/13)

Supernova Remnant W49B (NASA, Chandra, 02/13/13)

Superbubble DEM L50 (NASA, Chandra, 01/28/13)

Vela Pulsar (NASA, Chandra, 01/07/13)

Ultramassive Black Holes (NASA, Chandra, 12/18/12)

Spiral Galaxy NGC 3627 (NASA, Chandra, 12/13/12)

Ring Galaxy NGC 922 (NASA, Chandra, 12/05/12)

Quasar GB 1428 (NASA, Chandra, 11/28/12)

A Reborn Planetary Nebula (NASA, Chandra, 11/15/12)

Star Cluster Cygnus OB2 (NASA, Chandra, 11/07/12)

A Mini-Supermassive Black Hole (NASA, Chandra, 10/24/12)

A Planetary Nebula Gallery (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

Nebula NGC 7009 (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

Cat's Eye Nebula (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

Nebula NGC 7662 (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

Nebula NGC (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

A Planetary Nebula Gallery (NASA, Chandra, 10/10/12)

The Milky Way's Hot Gas Halo (NASA, Chandra, 09/24/12)

New Findings on Kepler Supernova (NASA, Chandra, 09/11/12)

A Surprisingly Bright Superbubble (NASA, Chandra, 08/30/12)

The Remarkable Phoenix Cluster (NASA, Chandra, 08/15/12)

Chandra X-ray Observatory (NASA), a set by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on Flickr.

Chandra X-ray Observatory (NASA)

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Wednesday, April 03, 2013

rock the sweeper

A rare challenge that I took up. 500 bucks.
It all started with a "It is impossible to do this inside 50," that bro remarked when toying with Minesweeper on the PC. At that same time I was busy with the same on my Tab, consistently maintaining a sub-60 average, and breaking my day's personal bests on successive tries. So I took it up as a challenge.

Laboring, almost 3 hours into it, but finally got there. Carpal tunnel and 19/20 eyesight could be the side effects. Problem with playing Minesweeper on the PC is
1) Microsoft has, again, as to its reputation, ruined a cool game. It was all good with the simple graphics. Now we get flashing stuff and distracting gradients on everything.
2) There's apparently an option to replay each level. So it was that the first 15 minutes I was basically trying at the same grid, and wondering how it could match all the previous grids, and yet not be so, as the generation rules dictate.
3) Minesweeper on the PC v Minesweeper on an touch interface is multitudes of difference. I love the latter now. It is hard to point-and-click at such speed (anymore). I have a 35 second best on the Tab.

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