Machines read your brain and American paranoia gets to Sachu Kichu

Apparently, Machines can read your brain. I read ust two lines from the article now. And all my brain can  think of is - oh my god - now another one of those facebook/google startup  is going to steal my thoughts(most of them, I will tell you straight away arent pleasant). 

One young and brilliant guy born to Jewish parents whose Jathagam has billions written on it is going to proclaim I want is an open world where every one shares every one's thoughts (so that I can make my billions - that part is ofcourse unsaid) is going to launch a start up where you and your high school class  mate who you have never spoken a word to can share your thoughts. Frankly, I dont know why you want to know my thoughts - sometimes I dont want to know my thoughts. 

Ofcourse, Macys wants to know. Macys, infact wants to stop my thoughts and show an ad right away about the upcoming 2day weekend sale from 8.00am to 1.00pm.  but unfortunately for both of us - Macys and me - the ads are going to show up in my head after I have already splurged all money on their online shop. Worse, Times of India wants to stop all my thoughts and show tons of irrelevant ads before my brain can access  two lines from their server and all my brain was trying to recall 'Love in the times of cholera' (what my brain is slow - it is just slow). 

My brain literally shuts down with deluge of ads, that is much more activity than my brain has handled from the time I was born. (TOI has infact always been against Brains in principle)

Good part is, before Times of India's news and before the clothes - I would have thought of food - cupcake heaven children, cupcake ad heaven. 

About Facebook and Google again

I am not a 'software' Person so might not be the right person to evaluate these companies anyway. But I have had these opinions for sometime so jotting it down. 

Innovation leading to success doesn't invoke negative feelings, which is why Google and blogger's success feels great. While the former had significatnt engineering/technology innovation the latter's innovation was more in the social aspect. 

Facebook, on the other hand isnt  based on anything path breaking. There was already orkut and Myspace. (on top of it, the allegations of stolen idea - it is called adding insult to injury)

Now, I do like few things about face book  - more than 500 million accounts  isnt a joke - 500 million acccounts translates every one's thatha patti playing farmvile. It is nice to see my cousins and nephews feeling as much for the family as me.  Lookwise FB is zillion times better than orkut. 

To lead a company to grow in a stable manner for 6 years - Mark Zuckerberg definitely gets huge brownie points on that. 

There is yet another aspect and the most critical aspect where facebook is scoring big time. Google was/is able to make the money because someone stumbled on adsense. 'Adsense' made google. Twitter is still struggling to find the magic wand - even though on innovation scale it ranks up high for me

BILLION DOLLAR REVENUE. I have no clue where Facebook gets that from.  If they are selling private info like some people speculate - I cant see how me clicking 'like' for the nth time on some 'n' friend's baby's photo can be crucial to anyone's business  Nevertheless, billion dollar and more.

******

Now the following doesnt count towards anything, as my sample size is way too limited. But something I found interesting enouh.

Google has this whole checking your LKG.UKG GPA thing which doesnt make sense(and apparently before i moved here google also hired only if they have done their lkg and ukg in cal, berkeley or stanford or a harvard) But the people who I know who are employed there - from some Phd in neural imaging to successful start up owner whose product is currently in your router - in general pretty respectable crowd. (leave the ukg/lkg grade part).

Facebook crowd, except the guy who I met last week who had gone to a Top 10 college rarely generate a 'wow' factor.  Again, limited limited sample to count towards anyting.

Come april + 6months later when these people can sell their stocks - they would be millionaires and can retire - if i retire i most likely a pauper so i will shut up on this ).

What I am trying to say is - Facebook doesnt deserve its billions and I hope it dies.

Sepiamutiny and TV sitcom

Have you noticed? 

TV sitcoms have become like Sepiamutiny's password -  a token brown on each one. Well, atleast the ones I watch or sort of watch.

Aziz Ansari      Parks and Recreation

And they dont mock his Indianness  heck they dont refer to it.

Mindy Kaling  Office 

She is no Tina fey but she is a writer cum actor  and she is also cute - So WIN

Kunal Nayar   - Big bang theory 

Yep, the ttereotypical geek but he is one of the four main characters so in your face whoever you are

whatchyacallhim in 3d rock 

he has been there for some time and he is Indian, so had to add him.

and now Kal Penn in How I met your mother.

I rest my case.

Also,  Note Two out of the five - Tamilians - I am local like that. 

Sleep and me or I, whatever

I fight sleep the whole evening and night and right as the clock strikes 1, sleep leaves me. I wait for it whole night!. 

One slap at a time

Update: A poll on the side - which politician would you like to slap?

Q:  How did the early 21st century citizens express their anger against their Politicians who seemed to know the magic of making money vanish from the country's coffers and end up with substantial bank balances?  

Two methods - fliippity flip and 'Slappity  slap'. 'Flippity flip involves throwing your shoes at the said Politican - a method pioneer  by Iraqi journalist George Bush. But this method has its costs. Below is the video of a man who wanted to save his shoes so employed slappity slap instead.

To those  condemning the slap - yes those other politicians and bollywood celebrities -one tight slap coming for you all.

Thanksgiving day

Turkey senja paavam - thanksgiving day, Got it?

And I watched Rockstar

For me, this was a real musical - a musical as it should be - not the western musical where characters suddenly start singing it does nothing to the movie's emotional arc, they might move the story forward but here in rockstar the songs helps you hit the right emotional notes. There is less dialogue and more songs and songs didnt replace the dialogues but they were a better way of communicating the emotion at play.  Music helps us reach emotions better whether be it be the realization of the higher force or the lilt of love much better than words do.

AR is good that is known - undisputed. if it isnt it should be. Imitaz's craftmanship is good too - every scene seemed orchestrated to the music that was being played. I loved that.

Ranbir knows to act - I have alway felt that - but then there is always a realization that he is acting as you watch him. In this movie, he did manage to get past that. I really hope he gets to work with Maniratnam. A good one from him

Nargis Fakhri - looks beautiful - there is the flawless skin - you could call it the fair skin obsession - but this sort of blemish free skin isnt present in any caucasian - it is a true middle eastern trait - It isnt entirely pale - a bit of pink hue. It looks nice. Her mouth is wierd - It is almost as if you want to stop calling her a beauty but then there is some thing else that comes along. 

Beauties are normally too conscicious to be good actors. Their each move is normally orchestrated lest the poise/grace be disturbed. Nargis isnt that - she can act. Unfortunately her non-Indian background makes her expressions a bit bizarre for the situation at hand. But considering this is bollywood whose top heroine is Katrina kapoor - let us give Nargis an oscar for best debut. 

What delights me is the smaller aspects - like when he is about to be thrown off from his house, Jordan says a couple of sentences about his Bhabi - that leads to his brother getting angry enough to throw him out  - without much emphasis on what is being spoken about - we all realize the gravity of the situation. 

Or the report girl's interaction with Ranbir.

Overall, I look for one word for any movie I watch - engaging. The spectrum of movie could be your vijay masala to one about WORLD peace( that really does define the other end of triviality, doesnt it?).  

This movie is - for the most part engaging. But

SPOILER ALERT

..  when a word like a bone marrow aplsy comes around - esp. with Indian movie history of  the many many movies that have used'dashy dashy dascoma'  - it does take you away. Especially when you know the director has defined tragedy as the element in the movie, it seems a bit forced. But not that the movie was a complete failure after that - there were still parts that i fell for.

SPOILER ALERT END

I could almost visualize Imitaz Ali's sketch with my limited abilities - a rockstar - throwback to the 70's western pop musician - ofcourse a personal love story tragedy.Western 70's popstar bio in an Indian setting - seemed again a bit just a bit forced. I couldnt help but feel all this effort for this story.

Then again it is a weekday night and I caught it on big screen - there was effort from people on the screen and behind the screen in a way I liked. 

A happy enough night.

And why is this song popular?

ok, tell me in two lines or take as many lines as you want but tell me why you like this song.

Comment space isnt what one looks forward to in the online world. Rediff's  comment space is abyss but most other sites are just a step above that and nothing more. The blogging world has exactly two kinds - one of the facebook vareity -awesomebeautifulprettynice - another of the troll - ustupidfoolidiot. 

Which is why baradwaj rangan's comment space somewhat surprises me. Often I skip his post and jump to the comment space, because let'ss face it - his real articles for paper  as much as they do make a delish read aren't really light. They need to be enjoyed at the privacy of one's home with nothing else to disturb us.

Links to nice articles, songs, some good discussions with some new perspectives - all this is randomly interpersed in the comment space. Ofcourse, there are trolls - but the regular trolls are just people's obsessed with a single topic and go on a literally thenji pona record mode. All this is only 70% of that comment space.

It is still a phenomena worth studying.

My thoughts on piracy - some one else's words :)

I know not what SOPA and PIPA are but these are pretty much thoughts on piracy too.

" I think something else is going on. I believe that downloaders are making a moral calculation and coming to the conclusion that the content industry immorally perpetuates an artificial scarcity to maximize their profits at the expense of users and artists. They understand that content is a non-rival good, that unlike an apple, they can consume it without diminishing anyone else’s ability to consume the same thing. They know that the content owner paid nothing to reproduce or distribute the content on the Internet. They also know that the artists who created the original content get a tiny fraction of the revenue. So they are making a moral judgement that the content owners are pricing their product to extract unjustifiable profits and they feel morally justified taking the content they find out there on the web." 

- http://bradburnham.tumblr.com/

Except for a line that doesnt apply to me -  "They also know that the artists who created the original content get a tiny fraction of the revenue."  I differ, I think most artists compensated way beyond the pleasure I derive out of hearing their music!

I speaketh from the experience of a person who has done her contribution to the bay area indian music shop and some.

Women at Work

Warning: If words like women's period makes you squirm, you might want to skip this post!

Of all the things that get discussed about women at work, why have I never seen discussion on what we have to go through to work through our periods? 

Most women I know cant work atleast for few hours of their period time.

My own body took a long long time to get used to chums. Atleast thats what it looked like to me. There was a lot of puking at the onset of my chums for many years well into even my grad school days. My room mates then thought I was going to die. After the saga (of puking of course), I have to have some food and sleep. Imagine being at work at the onset.

I was interning those days and this one time I had taken all the care to go to a bathroom in 'unoccupied' first floor and puked my guts out. Moment I returned  to my cube in the second floor, one look at my face  my colleague(male  - that place was 95% male!) asked if I should be taken to the hospital -  I looked that sick.

 Those days, I had some vague notions of hiding the fact I had my chums  and act all normal. I dont believe that anymore  - I mean 3.5 billion people suffer through this monthly for a major portion of the life  - so why hide it? It is another matter but I still hide it or use the brahmastram of stomach ache.

Sometimes a bit of dysentry, stomach ache, utter discomfort and physical weakness and so on. Atleast in my case it has gotten better with age. Myraid problems, Varying from woman to woman. I  know of some women who are lucky enough not to go through major discomfort.

But the general talk with other women at work during these times reveal most of them do feel physically horrible - Sufferings strong enough to disrupt work. And this happens on a monthly basis. 

How come we have never seen any discussion on this?

Ps: it wasnt easy writing this post!

I love how the 'city' has this cute little throw away fabulous  places.  Last week I stumbled at 4.00am with D, her friend and her friends in tow onto coit tower.

Like all roads leading to golden gate, in SF all the special places lead to a view of golden gate.

Death by exhaustion!

Goals for november

This is an SK'ish post.  I have often seen her do it in her blog with considerable success but never took it up because of fear of Jinx. Also writing a task list doesnt work for me. Once I write down any task for some weird reason, my brain things it is done. I never have to do list(except at work). FACT. May be I should write WORLD PEACE and make my brain believe it is done :)

But... it isnt like I have achieved anything without these lists lists either. So as well make a list. Here it goes.

1. Home cooked meals for atleast 5 days  a week.
I did do this last december and it was great for my weight. I have always wanted to make it a habit.

2.  Excerise 

if not anything else atleast the most popular sport practised by Indians -'walk' .

Walk the 'walk'. I used to do it quite regularly and not sure when I stopped it. Then, there is yoga, kickboxing and my beloved elliptical.  Exercise  is suppose to be increase 'endowhatisit' - which is suppose to give you happiness. Pppls.. Happiness apparently is just  chemical substance. So here is to more of that. 

3, Books 

  Finish a book I am reading for career and 'Norwegian wood'

4. Shop 

I know! Shopping in their goals list. I will give you a half second to take your time and judge me.

But I have skipped it for past few months and now my wardrobe has nothing new. The dressing standard at my work place is relatively high for a place filled with Indians. On most days, I end up going to work as if I woke up from my sleep(let us not comment on how close to truth that is). I need all therapy I can get in my life right now so why leave out retail therapy.

Work is as usual well work. I dont  give a damn about it but we have a deadline end of this year so November is very much under the gun. And I have another thing undergoing related to career right now. 

So, it should be interesting check at the end of november :)