Monday, July 06, 2009

New york (Hindi)

I don't understand why some great movies have really misleading promos. Take New York for instance from wiki. The image is a typical "bollywoodish" one with two guys and a girl. It is from the great Chopra house which means someone like me will immediately associate it with "Rab ne bana di jodi", "Dil to pagal hai" etc. Not that those movies are bad, just that I don't really place them in the "must see" category.

On Sunday, when "Kambhakt Ishq" was housefull, New York was the only sensible choice left. I expected 150 minutes of love, friendship, ishq, pyar, mohabbat, yuck.. whatever. But New York managed to shatter all my preconceived notions. It deals with a very difficult line of how immigrants of Islamic origin have been treated post 9/11 without taking a stance. I really liked the movie for it's originality, content and presentation. Yes, there is a love track in the movie but that serves as a nice support instead of hindering the movie's pace. 

Minuses: 
  1. The initial 45 minutes features too many songs. I don't like the idea of songs in movies (except may be under exceptional circumstances).
  2. The length could have been trimmed towards the end making the movie more crisp.
  3. The climax inevitably adds some needless sentiments with Katrina, John and the hero in the rooftop of the FBI headquarters with shooters in helicopters around them. This almost spoils the entire movie !

Pluses:
Everything else really. And for once Katrina has showed us that she has something beyond her NRI looks and legs.

If you are really into excusing movie makers for a few silly mistakes and enjoy the bigger thing called the "movie", then this movie could work for you. 

PS: By the way, this was the only movie where I saw many people of European origin filling the movie hall !


Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Google money saving tips

Go to http://www.google.com that is the google homepage without any widgets (igoogle) or anything like that. Do a right-click and "View Source" and see the html. What do you see?

No closing </body> or </html> tags. Reason? Bandwidth. Google home page takes about a few billion requests per day and so removing about 12 characters from 1000 characters is still 1% bandwidth conserved. Google wants to conserve network bandwidth at each and every micro-penny level and this is one startling example. Most browsers know how to handle unclosed body or html tags so they just don't send those tags ! If you are a beginner in html you don't want to take that as an example !

Just for the sake of curiosity I checked the source of amazon/ebay and they have all the closing tags !!!



Monday, June 15, 2009

Dhoni was not wrong

One failure and this was what the entire media was waiting for. For far too long the media could not carry bad stories on Dhoni and they had enough writing about the Mr. Unflappable, cool, level headed blah blah. Now the media gets a chance to poke the Mr. Unflappable and they do so when it really hurts :). You can read some junk here, here and here.

First for a few things, any one who still keeps saying that India does not play bounce has been in a coma for the last 5 years or so. So where was this theory when India had success in Perth, West Indies and even New Zealand? Suddenly the reports claimed that those pitches were batter friendly. No, India has won in far too many places to put that claim just because of one failure (The correct thing would be Jadeja did not play bounce well enough).

Secondly, I don't understand why people pick on Dhoni on his selection. I think he is good. People ask why Ojha was dropped? Irfan was not performing well and he must be dropped. People need to understand a few fundamental things. You have to drop a player to pick another since a squad can have only 11 players (elementary!). India's problem was the 3rd seamer in the form of Pathan was not playing well. 

So most brainless people will think replacing Irfan with RPSingh was the solution. But that is not it, India HAVE to bat deep. The theory of "what can a 6th batsman do if 5 batsmen could not do it?" is rubbish. Take the last world cup where we simply won because of a partnership on the 6th wicket. It would be stupid according to me to swap RP with Irfan. To combat a loss in batting quality, the swap of RP - Irfan was compensated by Jadeja (better batter, lesser bowler than) - Ojha swap. On paper, Jadeja was an untested in international level but a decent spinner. I think Dhoni got his squad right !!

Thirdly, sending Jadeja at number 4 was not that bad a decision. You want some one to amble along just to neutralise the momentum which was ok. So what was wrong?

One, I think Jadeja should have taken some risks a little earlier, should have maintained a run a ball rate. If you cannot maintain that after 20 balls then try and get yourself OUT. This is the key in 20-20 ! Jadeja made 25 off 35 balls and the deficit of 10 balls was more than what India needed in the end.

Second and the most unpardonable offence that Dhoni/Yusuf made was giving up. India needed 9 off the 2 balls and the commentator announced that India needed every ball to cross the boundary here on (Could he be any more wrong?). And the moment Yusuf hit the ball along the ground straight to long on they ambled across for a single giving up that India could not get out of defeat. If only Yusuf tried hard and ran a TWO on that prefinal ball (let us say he had a 40% chance of completing the second run), then we needed 7 off the last ball and a six would still bring a TIE, and we could still be alive in the tournament.

I think Dhoni (as well as the commentator) lost this plot and both Dhoni and Yusuf ran along the ground for a single in an unhurried fashion. They certainly missed the fact that they could still tie had they run harder or atleast they could have stayed alive for atleast one more ball ? (What if the last ball that dhoni hit had travelled 2 inches further?)

To me, I think most of 20-20 is impulse and momentum. But you need to do the right/sensible bits. I don't think the problem was with the squad selection or batting order. The problem was common-sense. Giving up early and failing to see oppurtunities. If my crisis man Steve Waugh had been there he could have easily spotted this chance of a 2 run in the last but one ball keeping the match afloat !!



Monday, June 08, 2009

Bing..

Some time ago Microsoft launched Bing "the second largest search engine" at about 8% of the traffic with "Google" in the first spot at 87% of the web SEARCH traffic (not email or anything else). The launch was very "Microsoft"y, with lots of advertisements, marketing campaigns, heavy blogging etc etc. This is in stark contest to Google where they silently slip out code, probably write a couple of blogs and then you have the millions of technology writers like "tech-crunch, reddits or read-write-web" each claiming that they found the feature first and effectively doing the marketing themselves. The only product that Google "sorta" advertised was the "Chrome" browser where they even put a download link to the supposedly fast browser Chrome in their Google search home page.

I don't know which kind of marketing is better "subtly-put-the-product-and-let-users-discover" or "bang-flood-the-user-with-here-you-go" type of marketing but this MS-Google war is good to watch. 

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Tendulkar's Bests






I was startled when one of my friends claimed that Lara/Ponting have played more series altering innings' in the One day format (aka the dying 50-50 over format). Apparently it seems many people have the impression that Sachin has not played enough great knocks in the semi-finals/finals/series-deciding matches. That sounded ridiculous to me. I told him "I can quote atleast 10 knocks in such so-called series altering matches". And I could just quote 10 knocks from my mind without even consulting my favourite StatsGuru. I have arranged it chronologically below.

Criteria : The match must either be a final or a do-or-die game in a tournament that involves 3 or more teams. A do-or-die game would be like a knockout game which is of very high importance and you can go ahead in the tournament only by winning that match.

Sachin was the top scorer and also the bowler with the best economy rate (plus a wicket). I remember this match as Kambli's match because of some of the monstrous shots  that he played. Nevertheless, the player of the match + the player of the series was this man ! 

To me this was the best innings of Sachin Tendulkar in an important match. Most people tend to disagree with me but here is the context. India lost to SA the last 7 times they played in an ODI (and they will lose the 4-5 matches after this one). SA had exceptional bowlers like Donald and De Villiers. Till date I think De Villiers has the best average/runs conceded stat against Sachin Tendulkar. In all the previous matches it really did not matter how much India scored, SA just knocked them down. Symcox coming in at No. 9 is testimony to how deep SA bat. (During the mid nineties all these allrounders like Gillie, Flintoff, Symonds, Dhoni had not proliferated in other teams). Kumble was the man of the match but Sachin's was an equally important contribution. The match was a delight to watch and Yours truly faked illness to miss a half-yearly physics examination just to watch this match :)

Most of you may remember the third final in this series, because of the last 3 runs off 2 balls knocked off by Mr. Hrishikesh Kanitkar who starred in atleast 20 ODI matches just because of these 10 runs that he scored. India chased their first target above 300 in the third final. But the first final is a little known match where Sachin dismantled the Aaqibs and the Mushtaqs to give us the lead. Just in case, it matters he was also the top wicket taker !!

  • Coco cola cup - semifinal & final (India vs Australia) - Sharjah 22 and 24th April 1998
I do not need to say anything about this match. This was the historical sand-storm match where Sachin had Australia on their knees, disposing off their bowling to wherever he fancied. Quite easily, this was considered his best.

Just to prove that his show in the Sharjah was not a fluke! Srilanka were the world champions in 1996 and with the likes of Jayasurya, Aravinda they still were very strong. But Sachin and Sourav had other ideas and they made the THEN longest opening partnership of 220+ runs.

For ardent Sachin fans, I just have to say "Olonga" and this match will immediately spring up to their mind. Zimbabwe were by no means minnows in 1998 and they had the habit of springing up all kinds of surprises. The last time these two sides met, Olonga just ran through the top order and India lost. It was time to show who was the "Badshah of Sharjah" and Sachin rightly put this man to where he belonged. I still remember the way he walked down the track for the first ball that Olonga bowled.

Many of us who followed the 1999 world cup knew how important it was to carry some points to the super-six format of the world cup. No points would mean that even winning all the games of super-six will not guarantee a place in semi-final. India had to beat Pakistan in 2003 world cup to carry some points to super six (Refer the points table to exact scenario/understand why). When Pakistan piled up 270 and had Wasim, Waqar and Akhtar in their ranks, most of my friends went for their dinner and started making plans for the night (assuming India were going to lose this). Thankfully me and some of my friends did not. And we were rewarded with the most audacious strokeplay against the best bowling side in a pitch which was lively !

This was a virtual semi-final where we had to beat New Zealand to meet Australia in the final. Australia were still the world champions and by far one of the most difficult sides to beat. Sachin and Sehwag decimated the attack. Yours truly regrets till date why he did not use the ticket he had for watching this match in the stadium. 

  • Commonwealth Bank Series - India v Australia - Sydney and Brisbane - 2nd and 4th Mar 2008
This was an important match because Tendulkar was being written off for "losing his charm of early days" and he proved not so against the reigning world champions. Both finals were a delight to watch on very lively pitches :)
It is not difficult even for the dimmest of the minds to see that these matches cover almost all grounds across India, Sharjah, South Africa and Australia. They also cover instances where India bat first or chase (which is considered more difficult). Even the bowling attack was not spineless in any of these matches. So Sachin has covered geography, batting vs chasing, grassy vs flat pitches, excellent - good - moderate bowling conditions, time (from 1994 - 2008) in his knocks. On most of these occasions Sachin was the player of the match + player of the series.  This also excludes numerous tournaments played between two nations where Sachin single handedly won matches (there by winning us the series). This does not include many matches where Sachin made a second-best or third best contribution or even a very useful helping hand in winning some finals. (Remember the third final in 1998 against Pakistan where Sourav was Man of the Match and Kanitkar struck the winning runs? Well Sachin started it all with 41 off 26 balls at the top before Sourav and RobinSingh took over)

You may also remember that between 1998 and 2002, India did not win about 9 final matches on the trot (after making it to the final in these tournaments). Notably, Sachin did not play in about 4 of these matches.

So to me it is totally wrong and mis-informed to say that Sachin has not made enough contributions in "important" matches. I think he has more instances to show than Lara/Ponting although I do not like such comparisons....

So why did we not win a world cup when he was at his helm between 1992 and 2007? Simply because a world cup is not won by one man. You need to win atleast 10 out of 12 matches and you need good bowlers, good runners and an all round team :). Sachin was the top scorer in 1996 world cup (although Sanath got the Man of the series) and 2003 world cup. He averaged 47+ in 1992 world cup, 87+ in 1996 world cup, 74+ in 1999 world cup and 61+ in 2003 world cup.

Apparently my friend is now not convinced that Sachin has not played enough good knocks in important Test matches. So my next job is to point him to Sachin's "Series changing knocks in test matches in India/abroad"...




Thursday, February 05, 2009

Essential Software

Here are some softwares which I use to solve most of my routine headache with computer systems. This covers a wide range of categories so I am sure you are going to find this useful (useful internally means 0$, innit?).








  1. Lastpass - Is the best password manager IMO. Like it says it is the last password you are going to remember. If you use firefox/IE, the extension sits on the browser and prompts for filling up user name logins whenever you visit any page. For chrome you could use the bookmarklet feature.
  2. Free hide Folder - Ever wonder how to hide some files in windows explorer ? Such as the movies in an office system or some personal pictures ? You can use this tool to hide/unhide folder or password protect them :). Handy !! but certainly not super-smart-hacker-proof.
  3. DownthemAll - Is probably the best ever download manager which is available as an add-on only in firefox (I haven't researched if it works in Chrome with bookmarklets or something). I was suprised at the way it accelerated the downloads, managed the file names etc.
  4. Teracopy - You are not alone when you feel windows explorer copies files very very slowly. Teracopy can be used to copy files between folders and typically when you copy about 10-20GB (normal when you backup music files/movies) this software seems to copy at an excellent speed.
  5. Explorer2 - Ever wondered that windows explorer is way too bad. I work in a software at about 10 different branches and 5 environments simultaneously and have alteast 6 explorer windows open. This amounts to clutter and explorer 2 is the best way to solve it.
  6. Launchy - Why should you go to Start -> Programs -> (spend 2 mins searching the list) -> Program of your interest -> Program EXE every time? If you launch 20 programs a day that is about 350000 clicks extra per year :). Use Launchy which combines a MacBook style navigation. [Please note that if you use Google Desktop, a good software that I hate, it performs most functions that Launchy does]
  7. WinDirStat - Your C: has no space why ? some folders in "Documents and Settings" (aka "All kinds of junk") and "Program Files" might be the culprit. How to find such culprits? If you are a windows guy then good luck with right click on each folder and seeing folder size. If you are a sensible-windows guy try WinDirStat.
  8. SyncToy - Microsoft at times makes some really good software and SyncToy which I think was originally from SysInternals is a good one. If you are a geek then there is a good chance that you have high-capacity mega hard drive which backs up your movies/music/pictures etc. SyncToy can sync between your backup folders (and only copy what was changed, thankfully)
  9. TeamViewer - Trust me when I say this is the best software for seeing a remote desktop. Or if you fancy paying money try FogCreek Co-pilot (google what that is) or GoToMyPc.com. Remember !!! the team viewer license is free only for PERSONAL use. 
  10. Unlocker - You delete a file, windows says it is in use. You try and close all processes which are possibly accessing the file and still same issue. After pulling whatever hair is left in your head you give up saying that directory will stay there forever. You don't like that? Take Unlocker :)
  11. Dropbox - You want to send a 800MB file. You have tried yousendit.com, isendit.com, someonesendit.com with multiple variations like 7 days/14 days/48 hours in the server. The best option for this is Dropbox where you are given a 2GB space. Open dropbox and drag a folder/file into it. The upload happens in the background so even if your internet connection flicks, you wont lose all contents. Once you upload you get a easy download link which can be sent to people :) A simple browser is enough for downloads but for more fancier stuff like recovery etc, the other party can use dropbox as well to sync. (Windows live folder share is a close competitor to this software)
  12. BitMeter - You use broadband with limits and want to know how much you have guzzled. What if your provider gives 4GB free and charges therafter, be extra careful when you are at 3.7GB. This software records the amount of data that goes up/down in your computer so it is handy when you have usage limits.
  13. Wink - You want to record a screencast? For example, instead of saying "Go to this site -> click on this link -> enter these details -> Press button -> Open another link -> See if your data turns up" you can simply record what you did and send him over?
  14. Command Window Here - No more registry tweakings to get a "Open Command Window here" in Windows explorer.

PPPPS: Any software here is just a recommendation. The authority of any information about licenses in this blog will be superseded by the actual license information at their individual websites. Some/most softwares may be free for personal/academic use and not for professional use. This is just a recommendation, so please use your judgement.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Raaja and I






Apparently Mahesh has tagged me to share my thoughts about the legendary Ilayaraja. If you are from south India there is very little chance you will not know him. If you are from North India you might remember the mysterious musician behind the melodious numbers in Cheeni kum, Shiva, Sadma, Hey Ram (and the like). I am supposed to answer five things that is part of this blog :) so here we go..

The moment I got introduced to Raaja..

This would be very tough to say because I grew up with Raaja. As a kid I always woke up to hear "Ceylon Radio" (It was early 80s so we did not have Satellite TVs, iPODs or any other gizmos) and in the 80s and 90s Ilayaraja ruled the roost in Tamil cinema. So it would be more like asking "How I got introduced to my sister/brother" etc :). However I knew that the man who makes this music is called Raja when I was 4 years old. I liked the song "Vikram.. Vikram" from the movie "Vikram" sung by Kamal Hassan himself, in a really gruff voice. I was mesmerized as a kid by that song and my parents finally had to buy an audio cassette and our first tape recorder for me. Because I was only 4 years old, I could not fully memorize the lyrics so I made my own lyrics and sang the song more number of times than I blinked :)


Name one occassion where Raaja’s music directly/ indirectly influenced your life

I really do not know how to answer this. But I think music has always been a healer during my troubled times and a stimulant when I am brimming with joy. Music into my life has been more like an organic deep-rooted passion rather than a one day enlightenment. 

Lets take Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi into account. Assuming that one of this is either your mother tongue or native language, name a favorite song in each of the other 4 languages that immediately comes to your mind.

Tamil - Sundari Kannal Oru Sedhi  from Dhalapathi

Malayalam - Haven't heard many

Telugu - Anything from Salangai Oli and Sippikul Muthu

Hindi - Cheeni Kum hai song from Cheeni Kum, it was even better than the original tamil version (Mandram vandha...)

One song of Ilaiyaraaja that you consider rare and think a song that many people should have known but don’t.

There is a song from a movie titled "Bharathan" with many good songs that went so unnoticed. My pick will be the song that starts as "Alage amudhe poonthenral thalatum...". It is an amazing song and this gives me a feeling similar to what a painting of Monalisa would give to a connoisseur of art. I am told that the painting of Monalisa looks happy when you are in a happy mood and looks sad when you are depressed. Similarly try as hard as I can, I really cannot identify whether the mood of this song is cheer or pathos. It is simply the most loveliest song I have ever heard.

Lets keep the last one simple…Raaja’s number that you are hearing right now/ most recently heard..?

Paravaye Engu Irukirai from Tamil MA and Machan Machan  from Silambattam. I consider Yuvan Shankar Raja as "junior Raja" and these songs were sung by IR himself. But if I were to pick a Raaja composed number it would be "Siruponmani asayum adhil therikkum pudhu" from kallukul eeram.

To conclude, although wikipedia (my favourite website after Google) terms Music as "an art form whose medium is sound organized in time", I would say it is more than just art/entertainment. It could mean everything for some people. To me music comes right after basic necessities in life :)