Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

Moving out of here...

2006-03-14T17:37:00.000-05:00

I do not host a blog here anymore, I've moved on to WordPress on my own website - Metlin.org.

This used to be my blog and that my website, but I've long since decided to combine the two.

So, thank you folks for a great time, and see you all there!

(This page will automatically redirect you to my new website and blog, in about ten seconds.)

This is what I do at work...

2006-02-27T14:41:00.000-05:00

My Einstein doodle that explains E != mc³ on Beck's whiteboard.

Tales of Blackjack

2006-02-25T09:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Friday. So, that made last night Friday night. Since it was the end of a particularly long week, it was decided that me, Jacob and Abby would go and have some fun, the kind where we could make some money. So, we headed down to a particular casino in a neighboring state, whose name shall go unmentioned. Anyway, the plan was to go play some Blackjack, and to try and pay for our drinks. It was fun. While I didn't win a whole lot, I did break even and got back an eighty from the house. It's amazing how adhering to simple Basic Strategy and doing some primitive card counting can help you! Sadly enough, a lot of people just seem to play Blackjack randomly, and throw away their money. All one needs to do is to beat the dealer's hand. Unless the dealer has an ace or a face card, your chances are even. Also, the dealer has to play until he has a 17, stand on 17s and draw on 16s. If you can track the existing cards in the deck, you can calculate the probabilities of him drawing something that will beat you. The other thing is insurance - when you are winning and the probabilities are in favor of the dealer, insure. When you are losing and the probabilities are in your favor, double your bet. It also helps to know the Basic Strategy for most draws, and when to hit/stand. Anyway, I drew three straight Blackjacks, two of which were two-carded, so I got back 3:2. Coupled with my insurance, it wasn't long before I got what I'd put in.

{Source: Wikipedia}

Ironically, a seemingly rich (but obvious) card-counter came by, did a drive-by and bid a $100 and took a 3:2 of $250 back, it was nice to watch. Once I'd gotten back my share, I wasn't going to bid anymore. That's another thing, you really ought to know when to stop. Anyway, since I'd had a good day, I spent the money on buying drinks and food, and got myself a framed glass painting of Hector (Jack of Diamonds) and a few decks of casino quality playing cards. Sadly, they only had a poker decks and not pinochle decks. Of course, tonight is Saturday night and rather than play music at some club, I'm going to a LAN party. Hopefully, I can kick some ass there, too.

Harman Kardon Soundsticks

2006-02-23T18:26:00.000-05:00

So, I've been meaning to buy a good pair of speakers for my computers at home. I'd initially thought of going for something a little expensive, but decided later on that I'd rather get an expensive amp set for my music playing and get relatively inexpensive but good speakers for my computer. When I used to work at the Sonification Lab under Professor Bruce Walker at GaTech, I'd noticed this really cool set of transparent Harman Kardon speakers that he had. Soon, even the labs had those and they were really fabulous, simply a pleasure to listen to.

Ever since, I'd been meaning to get them. However, when I looked at them while still at GaTech, I learnt that they were ~$250, and I wasn't willing to spend all that much on a pair of speakers while still an impoverished student. Then again, a professor of sonification was using them to project 3d sound, so you can be certain that they were definitely well worth it! Anyway, just out of curiosity, I recently searched Amazon.com for these speakers, and guess what? Turns out that they were on sale for just about a little more than $100. And since I'm an Amazon Prime member, shipping was almost negligent. Given that my income has significantly improved since, I decided to get them. All I can say is this - if you can afford them, get them! I'm serious, they simply rock. They look sleek, they've fantastic surround sound and they project the clearest sound I've heard from speakers in a long time. I've heard some people say that these speakers do not project the bass of heavy metal very well. As a long time listener of bands whose names you wouldn't want 10 year olds to hear about, I can assure you that that's not the case. One of the first things I did was to play music, starting from regular metal (Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden), grunge metal (Nirvana), black metal (Venom, Mercyful Fate), power metal (Pantera), speed metal (Judas Priest), heavy metal (Slayer), thrash metal (older Metallica, Megadeth) and of course some nice death metal (Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse). Trust me, it sounds fantastic. From classical to metal, these speakers are simply fabulous. They have fantastic 3d sound that sounds very cool.

Euchre - A Game of Tricks!

2006-02-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

So, I'm a big fan of card games. While I've always played cards, my days at Los Alamos were when I actually started getting good at it. Of course, if you are playing for money at a Casino, the only game that's worth playing is Blackjack. And that only if you know what you're doing, and you have a good partner. But if you are playing for fun, there are some pretty interesting games out there. Personally, I've always played either Poker, Rummy or Bridge. However, lately I've been playing this new game called Euchre, which is a very midwest game. Euchre is a trick-taking card game, where the objective is to make a bid for the number of tricks you'd take, and to name a trump. Among trick-taking games, I usually have a preference for games like Hearts, but Euchre is not half as ruthless. However, unlike Hearts or some of the other trick-taking card games, Euchre uses a Pinochle deck of cards. A Pinochle deck has 48 cards and essentially consists of two copies each of A, K, Q, J, 10 & 9 of all four suits. After the dealer has dealt, the game is started by the player on the dealer's left taking lead. However, you are allowed to pass until someone makes a bid. Once you you make a bid, you get to name the trump if no one outbids you. It must be mentioned that the Jack of the same color becomes a Jack of the trump suit. For instance, if Spades was trump, Jack of Clubs would be a spade. Therefore, for Spades being the trump suit, the order of cards would be:

{courtesy: wikipedia}

Out of the five tricks available, the bidder naming the trump should take at least three. The player who plays the highest trump in a round wins the trick for that round. If you succeed in a bid, you get a point and if you take all five tricks, you get two. There are also penalties if a bidder does not take three tricks. One must follow suit until one runs out, at which point you can use any card you may wish to trump (if that were an option). You can also go alone, where you give away two of your worst cards and take two of the best cards of the same suit from your partners. Of course, there are such variations as high-low (where the order of trump changes) and the scoring varies from one place to another. But on the whole, it's an extremely interesting game!

Funny Slashdot Thread

2006-02-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

So, for those that do not know, John C. Dvorak is a "writer" (I use that term loosely) who seems to make a living out of writing sensationalist bullshit related to technology that nobody cares about. Anyway, so, Dvorak's latest claim is that Apple is going to switch to Windows. To which, a poster responded: If John C. Dvorak wants some attention.... why doesn't he just go hunting with Dick Cheney? And of course, the response: Dick Cheney doesn't go hunting- Dick Cheney goes killing. For those missing the joke, the latter line is from Chuck Norris Facts.

Cincinnati Updates

2006-02-07T15:31:00.000-05:00

So, I'm finally here in Cincinnati. Got myself a nice apartment in downtown, because I'm too lazy to drive to work. It's a lot easier to just walk down a few blocks and be there at work. Besides, you get to have a good social life, too. My original plan was to settle down in a very nice part of town called Hyde Park, but houses there were a lot more expensive. I figured that I'd rather wait a while and try buying a condo rather than pay all that premium right away. I also went shopping and got myself a tonne of furniture - and I've Rebecca to thank for that! :-) In her own words, she hoped to "help me add some colour to my boring, drab life". Or something like that. Good lord, I never realized that there could be such hideous things as purple couches, bright blue sheets and orange bookshelves. Of course, between my love for beige and her love for bright orange/purple/blue, it made for an interesting time (I use the term loosely, of course). Fortunately, I did not end up with anything that's any of those colours. And oh, it was my birthday two weeks ago. Hung out with my friends here, and Beck made me a nice little card that basically implied that I'm a puppy that needs to climb a hill (go figure). She also gave me a tee that said that I was a Windows program gone bad and that she liked to push my buttons. Jacob got me a book that explained why Republicans rock and Andy got me a tonne of knives. Well, he's married, so he's looking out for my future, I think. Other people got me other things that I won't quite go into. Anyway, so I've been having a great time with all that. I should also mention that Andy is going to be a Dad in just a while - which I think is fantastic! It would seem that it was only yesterday that he got married. Congrats to Andy and Kristen. Who'd have thought he'd be such a straight shooter. =) And interestingly enough, my new apartment is right next to the Saint Peter in Chains Cathedral, which was where their wedding was. So far, life has been good. Well, except for the fact that I paid something like 4k in taxes in just the past month. Other than that, peachy is the word.

Moments of Zen

2006-02-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

Lorenzo says: are you doing something for S.A.D. ? Karthik says: S.A.D? Lorenzo says: Singles Awareness Day Lorenzo says: also known as Valentine day Karthik says: Ahhh Lorenzo should be doing standup comedy. Anyway, sorry for not posting folks! Been extremely busy with work and with settling down in Cincinnati. Updates will follow once the dust settles. And oh, Steelers ROCK!

Pictures!

2006-01-16T03:20:00.000-05:00

My room-mate and most amazing friend Lorenzo, and Selen. Young Mi and Karthik are Happy Tree Friends. I'm so delightfully devilish that people can't stop from giving me horns. :-\ Either that, or I'm a bunny. Go figure.

Atlanta - Auf wiedersehen und Danke!

2006-01-11T18:25:00.000-05:00

So, this is my last week in Atlanta. Starting next week, I'll be moving to Cincinnati for good, working for the labs division of a particular company that I interned at this summer. When I first moved to Atlanta, my life was a mess - in every sense. I had reasons to be disappointed about things that were happening in my life, things that I had no control over nor inkling of. Now, I'm leaving Atlanta as a much happier person (touch wood) - and after almost three years, it's become my home. I'll miss my friends, the wonderful south, the skyline and just about everything else. Today, one of my friends, Juan, who is a journalist at CNN, invited me for lunch at his house. He and his wife (who is from Mexico and is a GT alum) made the most delicious lunch, it was fantastic (they also have an incredibly cute little baby girl who's a darling!). The past few days, I've had people inviting me to farewell parties and hosting lunches and dinners - you never realize the number of friends you make at a place, and the fact that they care for you makes you feel wonderful. Ironically, when I first came to Atlanta, I associated the place with a series of unpleasant events that were happening in my life. Today, this place and the people here have only made me forget those experiences, but also helped me move on in life, to better things. The place and the people here have helped me mature and become a better person. Of all the schools I've been at, Georgia Tech has become the one school that I've actually grown to like, and love. I'm proud to have studied here, and I'm glad to have studied here. True Blue Guy blogged about leaving home after the holidays, but this feels like leaving home for good. After the past couple of years, Atlanta has become my home and I'll miss the place and the people. Here's to Atlanta and its people, the most beautiful city I've ever lived in. Thanks y'all, for everything. :-)

Archaeology & More Archaeology

2006-01-09T19:04:00.000-05:00

This is a tad belated, but it turns out that yet another paper that The Cydonian and I had submitted to CAA 2006 has been accepted - "The Precise Art of Decaying Months - How Mathematics Mingles With Mythology in the Indic Calendar System" I knew that I was in the wrong line of study. I could have been doing archaeology and anthropology all my life, out there on the field. Instead I spend it cooped up in a cubicle. Anyway, we would be presenting this (and a couple of other papers) at the conference at Fargo, North Dakota. And oh, it turns out that we'd also be having a thing or two to talk about at the International Conference on Archaeoastronomy - wonder what our names are doing in the participants list.

Adventures with Spammers - II

2006-01-04T15:04:00.000-05:00

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: josph32004 moses <josph32004@yahoo.fr> Date: Jan 4, 2006 6:14 AM Subject: Calvary greetings from Madam Josphine Charles / My pict attached. To: Paul Muad'dib <haderach.kwisatz@gmail.com> Dearest Paul Muad'dib, My warm greetings to you in the name of our lord jesus christ.i am very glad to receive your mail this mornning concerning this fund which i am entrusting in your hand for the propagation of the word of God.Really to meet you as a God fearing person was my often prayers for God to provide me his servant who will not betray or disappoint me in this vow which i made to him. I knew that it will be a thing of surprise when you received this letter,but the bible made us to know that all things works together for them that beleives in christ jesus,as he works mysteriously and his ways and ours as hummanbeighns are not the same. Only have faith in God and beleive that it is faith Abraham beleives that God will make everything possible and he bears his son Isaac,and i beleive that God of ancient days will still guide you to receive this fund for the accomplishment of this vow which i made to him. I thank you for your advices towards the treatment of my sickness,but since i found myself in this condition i have no other option than to allow the WILL of God to be done on me as i have decided for him to take me and do whatever he likes because i am not afraid of death hence i knew where i am heading. My motivation of making this decission to donate this fund for the propagation of the word of God is because of the predicament which i found myself into after 25yrs of marriage without any issue which i decided to take all i have in this devilish world to honour God as i know that every soul shall give an account of his life at the last day in the pressence of God,as i know that after death judgment follows. Base on your mail,i am well convinced that you are sent by God to fulfill this promise to his glory as you narrated here that your church is building a new temple which is also included in my first letter to see that the house of God is mentained,so what i want you to do is to try your best to make sure that you assisted me as you have seen my condition with the help of the bellow picture in the hospital which i could not be able to do anything by myself,regards to that i beg you to move out in faith to assist me so that you will use the fund to do the work of God as i concluded with my spirit. Remember what is in bible conjection in the book of mathew chapt 18 vs 6,that shall be our physical convenant that will bind both of us in this transaction. I want you to forward me your contact informations to enable me swear inn an affidavit of oath on your name from the Fedral Ministry of Justice to declare whole heartedly that i have made you the beneficiary to my inheritance in the Bank of Africa C.I,so that even if i am no more you shall continue from there and request the Bank to make the transfer to you without any confrontation from any body. The informations are as follows; 1.Your full name 2.Home and country address and 3.Phone and fax number. Immediately i received these informations the certificate of deposit issued to my late husband on the first day of deposit shall be forwarded to you for you to contact the Bank to confirm the existence of this fund and you request them to make the transfer to your destinated account as the new bnenefiary. Bear in mind that you will not receive any communication from me incase if the sister nurse who devoted her time to help me in typing this messages to you is in her off duty. You can also reach the hospital where i am responding to treatment with the address bellow; Chu De Treichville Hospital Abidjan Cote d'ivoire 8BP 2153 Rue 13 Ave 19 Treichville Abidjan C.I Tele/Fax;+225 07 46 37 02 Email; chutreichhospital@yahoo.fr Doctor;Dr.Ray Smith. Please,remember to put me in your daily prayers for God's healing. Thanks and God bless you. Yours Madam Josphine Charles. Madam Josphine's pict.jpg

Adventures with Spammers - I

2006-01-03T15:41:00.000-05:00

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Paul Muad'dib <haderach.kwisatz@gmail.com> Date: Jan 2, 2006 5:36 AM Subject: Re: PROMISE To: josph32004 moses <josph32004@yahoo.fr>, emircherif2002@yahoo.fr Dear Mrs. Josphine Charles, I'm extremely sorry to hear about the events that have transpired, and I express my deepest condolences at the death of your husband. As someone who was raised half Christian (my father was a Duke), I can most certainly understand your faith in Jesus, and his undying love for his children. I'm also shocked at your developing cancer, and I hope to God (and in that spirit) that your health improves. Like you rightly said, "the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace" - you should definitely consider consulting with experts on cancer about possible cures. I once heard from a good friend that a very famous Dr. Wilhelm Glibbschon is working on using Nano technology (small machines, smaller than ants!) to cure diseases. I hear that in some very famous hospitals in the world like John Hupkins and Hardward, even AIDS can be cured. Of course, like my very wise Mother Oma used to say, "the only way to fight evil is to deny it battle" - who knows, diseases are a form of evil too, are they not? But it would truly be my honor to carry God's mantle in this regard. I would gladly offer my assistance in the Lord's servitude, and do whatever it would take to help you out. Please do let me know how I may be able to assist you in this matter. And if I may not presume too much, I was also thinking if would you not have accumulated interest on such a large sum of money? You should be careful, banks can be theives sometimes and not pay the interest, since your poor husband is no more and you are in bad health. From one Christian to another, it would be my pleasure to help you. And I do hope you feel better, do take care. Praise the Lord, and glory be Christ's forever and ever. --Paul Muad'dib --- josph32004 moses <josph32004@yahoo.fr> wrote: > ATTN:TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, > > Dear Sir/Madam > > I am Mrs Josphine moses from Kuwait. I am married to > Mr. charles moses who worked with Kuwait embassy in > Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the > year 2003.We were married for eleven years without a > child. > He died after a brief illness that lasted for only > four days.Before his death we were both born again > Christian. > > Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a > child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is > against. When my late husband was alive he deposited > the sum of US$One million dollar in a Bank here in > Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire.Presently, this money is still > in bank. > > Recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last > for the next Eight months due to cancer problem. The > one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. > Having known my condition I decided to donate this > fund to a church that will utilize this money the > way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church > that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, > propagating the word of God and to endeavor that the > house of God is maintained. > > The Bible made usto understand that "Blessed is the > hand that giveth".I took this decision because I > don't have any child that will inherit this money > and my husband relatives are not Christians and I > don't want > my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers. I > don't want a situation where this money will be used > in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this > decision. I am not afraid of death hence I know > where > I am going. I know that I am going to be in the > bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that "the > lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace". > I don't need any telephone communication in this > regard because of my health hence the presence of my > husband's relatives around me always. I don't want > them to know about this development.With God all > things are possible. > > As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the > contact of the Bank here in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. > I will also issue you an authority letter that will > prove you the present beneficiary of this fund. I > want you and the church to always pray for me > because the lord is my shephard. My happiness is > that I lived a life of a worthy nChristian. Whoever > that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in > spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all > through your > life.Contact me on the this e mail > address:jospH32004@yahoo.fr > > :any delay in your > reply will give me room in sourcing another church > for this same purpose. Please assure me that you > will act accordingly as I Stated herein. > > Hoping to receive your reply. > > Remain blessed in the Lord. > Yours in Christ, > > Mrs.Josphine Charles >

John Constantine...

2006-01-02T04:56:00.000-05:00

...is a bastard. And Hellblazer is simply one of the nastiest and darkest pieces of work that's ever been out there. I just wrapped up Hard Time & Good Intentions, and it never ceases to amaze me how every Hellblazer book leaves me with a pit in my stomach, everytime.

Sadly, Azarello's run seems to have very little magic - but that did not stop it from being dark and gruesome, or simply deeply disturbing in the typical style that John's become famous for. However, I still like Garth Ennis better - he's a little more cheerful. Well, as cheerful as John ever would be, anyway.

Happy New Year and all that...

2006-01-01T17:26:00.000-05:00

...and my resolution for the year is to give my life a complete bloody makeover that's been long overdue. For one, absolutely no lite-beers, even if the social occasion demands it. It's gonna be a Guinness, Heineken, *weisen, Dunkel etc. or it's gonna be a glass of water. Well, tonic water. With maybe a dash of something nice. Absolutely non-negotiable. And for another, I've made some decisions about the women that I date. Not that you folks are ever going to know about it, but it's a nice thing to mention women in new year resolutions because I like mentioning women for no apparent reason. And because I'm like that. And then, I'm going to sleep more. Ten hours is just not enough for a man. I think 12 would do, but let's see, I might be a little generous to myself about this. I mean, I do like myself, you know? I'm also really really going to travel more and do more stupid things. Good lord, the last time I climbed a mountain that was more than 14,000 feet, got stranded, got attacked by a wild animal, drowned or generally had a near-death experience was 16 months ago. My life has simply gotten boring. And I need to play more live music. These days, my band hardly ever gets to perform much. I need to find new players and make some more cool music. I like making music, much more than I like my beer. Actually, much more than I like my beer when I don't like my beer, if that made any sense. Anyway, never mind, the point is that I'm missing my groupies. Finally, I really really need to find myself an eligible bride. Folks, I'm not even joking about this one. I'm getting old and I just realized that it's about bloody time that I settled down in life. So, I'm going to start looking out for potential brides. So if you people know any fantastic women around, hit me up. If anything else comes to my mind, I'll let you folks know. And oh, Happy New Year, Feliz Año Nuevo and all that.

Technology for the field

2005-12-30T16:26:00.000-05:00

Despite what we believe, there are still extremely large areas of this planet that are unexplored. To this day, good technology on the field is an advantage that cannot be ignored. And as an avid outdoors-person and adrenaline junkie myself, I speak from experience. One of the papers that The Cydonian and I had written for CAS 2006 was on an Open Source solution for Archaeologists, called ARASim, to perform some detailed structural simulations and the like. What would be the computing opportunities in this domain, if one were to consider building systems and software for folks on the field? After all, archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, explorers and adventurers most certainly have a lot of use for good technology. Of course, the problem is one of reliability - such systems would need to be extremely rugged, reliable and failproof. And while there is always the temptation to include the kitchen-sink, it would need to be lean and mean, to do just what it is supposed to. Umm, I think there is a hitherto unexplored domain that could be looked at. Update: I should also mention NDSU's Archaeology Technology Laboratory in this context.

Explorers House: National Geographic and the World It Made

2005-12-29T20:16:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading the book, "Explorers House: National Geographic and the World It Made" by Robert M. Poole, a former executive editor at the National Geographic.

It recounts the history behind the National Geographic Society and the magazine, and how it has evolved from the families of Gardiner Hubbard, Alexander Graham Bell and the Grosvenors. Quite nicely written, although a little sad, considering the degradation of the magazine and the society. It's unfortunate how the greed of a few men could bring down something so wonderful. Very highly recommended for fans of the National Geographic.

Emerging Explorers: Kira Salak

2005-12-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

I've been a reader of National Geographic for as long as I can remember. A little while ago, they published their list of Emerging Explorers for 2005. Of particular interest in the list were Constanza Ceruti, an anthropologist and archaeologist and Kira Salak, a writer and an "adventurer". What strikes one about Kira Salak is that at the outset, she almost appears like your next-door neighbor who decided to take off on a trip and managed to do some fantastic things. However, a little more reading into what made her into who she is today reveals that there is a whole lot more to her than meets the eye. One needs to but read into the student close-up piece that University of Missouri, her alma mater, had written on her.

From a shy to almost depressed kid with a talent for track running, she faced down obstacles and her personal problems. After a particularly depressing school incident, she decided to go across the island of Papau New Guinea from south to north, tracing the path of several well-known explorers, as a means to restoring her self confidence. During this time, she wrote her first book, "Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papau New Guinea". She encountered such things as cannibalism, met with separatist guerilla leaders, and trekked across the jungle and the water on a dug-out canoe. But she wanted to do more. In 1992, at the peak of tragically brutal civil war, she decided to travel solo across Mozambique’s infamous Tete Corridore, a war torn highway linking the nations of Malawi and Zimbabwe. On the road, she was dragged out of the truck by drunk soldiers at gun-point who had other plans for her. On the way to an outhouse and with the help of the driver, she escapes them to safety. She was 20 then. Reading now about some of her accomplishments, they almost sound magical. Somewhere amidst all her adventures, she got herself a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Missouri and managed to publish a piece of fiction in an important literary anthology collection. She is the first person to kayak solo 600 miles down West Africa's Niger River to Timbuktu in Mali, which she talks about in her book, "Cruelest Journey : Six Hundred Miles To Timbuktu". She is also the first woman to trek across Papua New Guinea and has made a 700-mile cycling trip across Alaska to the Arctic Ocean.

Now, that's what I call a true adventurer. Who says we are lacking in explorers in this day and age? :-)

Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Papers

2005-12-27T20:00:00.000-05:00

Great news - The Cydonian and I had submitted a couple of abstracts for the CAS 2006 conference. Well, it turns out that both of them have been accepted, and we would be presenting them at the CAS 2006 at Fargo, ND. Since we cannot really talk about the actual papers, here are the title-teasers:

ARASim: A New Approach to Visualizing Archaeological Sites and Structures
Breaking the Language Barrier -- A Digital Rosetta Stone for Indic Languages

Aren't we the coolest things since sliced bread? Yes, we are.

Women Writers

2005-12-25T18:37:00.000-05:00

So, the other day, I was compiling a list of my favorite authors (for no apparent reason). After much thought, I came up with the following list: Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Eric S. Nylund, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, Larry Niven, Peter F. Hamilton, Ian M. Banks, Ray Bradbury, Stephen Baxter, Mike Brotherton, Charles Stross, George Orwell, Orson Scott Card, David Zindell, L.E. Modesitt Jr., Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse, G.B. Shaw, Susanna Clarke, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, R.A. Salvatore, George R.R. Martin, David Eddings, Michael Moorcock, H. Rider Haggard, J.K. Rowling, Robert E. Howard, Alan Moore, Masamune Shirow, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, H.H. Munro, Arthur Connan Doyle, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Jorge Borges, William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, Anthony Burgess, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Linda Schele, John Lloyd Stevens, William L. Shirer, Jared Diamond. Now, The Cydonian looked at the list and made an observation that set me thinking - there are very few women-writers in that list. The only women-writers in that list are Virginia Woolf, J.K. Rowling, Linda Schele and Susanna Clarke (you have to read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). Out of more than fifty authors, there are four who happen to be women. Now, that just came as a shock to me, particularly because I was not aware that my reading list was so obviously male dominated. Now, there are a few possibilities. For one, my reading preferences strongly lean towards SF, i.e. Speculative Fiction, the over-arching genre of science fiction, cyberpunk, fantasy, alternate history, speculative narrative and speculative anthropology. Is it possible that such reading preferences are primarily catered by male writers? I mean, not to stereotype, but I do not exactly have a predisposition towards romantic literature! Secondly, is it possible that there are fewer women-writers in general? That would indeed be surprising, because I was under the impression that women were more literature-oriented than most men are. Don't believe me? Well, good lord, you just have to read some of the more verbose e-mails that girlfriends write. And finally, it could be that women's writing styles do not particularly appeal to me. Not that I can recall reading any particular women authors whose writings did not appeal to me, apart from being generally picky the way I'm when it comes to authors. I consider most of the fluff writers to be pop-authors (like how Britney is considered trash by the hard-rock crowd) - Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham and the like fall under this category of cliched rubbish that I'd rather not read. These, of course, are authors whose ideas and whose writing skills are absolute trash. There are some, like Michael Crichton, Robin Cook, Clive Cussler, Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum who occasionally have good ideas and write well, but their writing more often than not borders on the fluff-nonsense category. The only woman-author I can think of whom I'm not fond of is Ayn Rand - but still, it's just that while I do not agree with her ideas, I think that she is a great author. While I may not agree with what she stands for, she is a good writer whom I respect (you see, respect and dislike can come hand in hand -- I'd never respect any of the fluff authors). So, why is my reading list so obviously male-dominated? Any ideas? Clues? Insights?

Villancios El Tamborilero

2005-12-24T19:04:00.000-05:00

Her Royal Highness The Grand Sophist was of the opinion that I'm on some sort of Deutsch-speaking trip. Not that she's wrong or anything, but I just figured that I'd go ahead and share a Christmas Carol in Español, given my impending trip down south.

El camino que lleva a Belén, baja hasta el valle que la nieve cubrió, los pastorcillos quieren ver a su Rey, le traen regalos en su humilde zurrón. rom pom pom pom, rom pom pom pom. Ha nacido, en un portal de Belén, el niño Dios. Yo quisiera poner a tus pies algún presente que te agrade, Señor, mas Tú ya sabes que soy pobre también y no poseo más que un viejo tambor, rom pom pom pom, rom pom pom pom. En tu honor frente al portal tocaré con mi tambor. El camino que lleva a Belén, yo voy marcando con mi viejo tambor; nada mejor hay que te pueda ofrecer, su ronco acento es un canto de amor, al Redentor, al Redentor. Cuando Dios me vio tocando ante El, me sonrió.

And for just a little while, you can get the mp3 here (Christmas spirit and all that). These go out to Lorenzo, my Catalanoia room-mate, Nathalia, my most amazing Colombian amiga who's partying down home at the Carnival, and finally, to John, who I'm glad is alive to celebrate this Christmas. Fröhliche Weihnachten, mein Freunde!

Merry Christmas, everybody! Welcome, Yule, and may the Yule-log burn forever.

Adventures in Los Alamos

2005-12-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I used to work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. To this day, those were the best days of my life. In every sense, I had a wonderful time. Most of the people working there were incredibly smart, but they were not your geeky types either. Almost everybody had a love for the outdoors, and we would almost always head out to do cool stuff. For instance, there was Ian, my neighbor. Ian is a roboticist, who has worked with such people as Mark Tilden of the BEAM Robotics fame. But Ian is also an excellent rock-climber and adventure enthusiast. Ian and I used to climb at Whiterocks regularly, and even went out to a few other places around New Mexico and Colorado. And then there was Robert. Ah, yes. Rob. He is a Chem.E. major from New Mexico Institute of Technology, who used to work with hazardous materials. Fun stuff, I know. But the fun part is not that - it's that in about four months, Rob had saved my life thrice. Once, I was caught in a landslide during a caving/spelunking trip. Second time, I was a lousy climber. You would think that something like this would really discourage someone to not do stupid things, but nope. The third time, we all had gone cliff-jumping, which basically involves jumping off really high cliffs into water. There were a lot of us, Rob, Ian, Sabina and a few others that I don't recall. In case you do not understand what cliff jumping is, the following pictures help provide a fairly good graphical description - think of it as bungee jumping into water without the ropes.

You can see Ian contemplating his jump in this picture. Should I or should I not, umm? Oooh! Rob actually jumps, oodles of fun. Spooky but fun!

Anyway, during one of my jumps, what had happened was this -- I jumped, I got cramps, I couldn't swim up. Yes, I was well and truly *drowning*. And it sucked to be drowning, trust me. Of course, Sabina thought I was joking and insisted that I stop playing the prank. Ian did not have a clue, because he was far up contemplating a jump. And Rob was the only one who'd realized what was wrong and jumped into the water, and saved me. If it was not for him, I'd have been in serious trouble. Well, the dead-kinda trouble. On the bright side, Sabina helped resusciate me.

Am alive! Dried up and ready to go home, yayy!

Oooh, nice adventure. So, that was the end of the adventure saga with these guys. And then, there is Austin, Brendan, Daria, Vidya and Janak, with whom I shall recount yet another adventure. Of course, what's the fun if I didn't do something stupid once again, right? So, we had gone to climb Mt. Walter and Wheeler Peak, because we had nothing better to do in life. Well, it so happened that I got stranded on the peak and search and rescue ensued, until I was rescued by two fellow climbers. Anyway, just so you know I was there - here's some proof for posterity...

Mt. Walter - Elev. 13,141 ft. - Named for H.D. Walter - who loved these mountains And of course, at Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico at 13,161 feet.

And somewhere amidst all this, I managed to get stranded on Wheeler Peak. Well, on the return path, to be accurate. Actually, somewhere after reaching the peak and on the way down, I got caught in a landslide, lost the grip, ate ice, almost killed ferrets for food and generally became the coolest cat in town. If you are interested in this incredibly fun saga, you should definitely read up my writeup on this incident - Search and Rescue at 13,161 feet. You can then tell me how amazingly awesome I'm, and ask me if I'm the Karthik, at which point I'll tell you that I'm a Karthik and that I come in six packs etc etc. Anyway, back to our buddies. Austin is a weather nut. Well, he's a meteorologist who quite literally goes storm chasing and things like that, so it's only natural that he'd be into this stuff. Anyway, he's a fun guy. The next person was Brendan, who is a geologist, so quite obviously he likes the mountains and the rocks. He's a rock-climber extraordinnaire kinda dude. And then there was Ryan. Ryan is a mechanical engineer from the Colorado School of Mines, but he's from Colorado and he's grown up climbing the fourteeners. 'nuff said. And of course Daria, who's Russian and is from UC Berkeley and is also an outdoors enthusiast. But, by some stretch of miracles, I actually managed to climb more mountains after that incident (heh). Yes, I know, isn't that swell? We wanted to climb Mt. Blanca, but could not, so we instead ended up climbing Mt. Lindsey.

Daria, Ryan, Karthik & Austin at the peak of Mt. Lindsey, 14, 042 feet.

My whole experience at Los Alamos was surreal. Here I was, working at one of the world's greatest research laboratories, and here I was, having the time of my life. You'd think a place like that would be full of geeks and nerds, but nope. Sure, they were smart people, but they also loved life and having fun. Of course, apart from the binge drinking sprees, the definition of fun kinda varied (well, such as, being part of several disasters). I mean, it was not even funny - once Ian and I were climbing in white rocks with a few other people - I do recall Anya being amongst the group. And we were caught in a thunderstorm, and there was forest fire. I called the fire department, of course, and they came and did something (fires are a big risk at Los Alamos - the whole place was almost burnt down in 2000 or something because of a large forest fire). The ironic thing was, my previously dialled number list on my phone included the fire department and all kinds of stuff - the worst part was, all of that was for a good reason. Anyway, I look back at the time I had had there, and I can quite honestly say that it was the best time of my life. Fond memories are an odd thing. :-) On a completely unrelated note... So, my friend Megan saw this blog entry and was wondering if I'd ever done anything outdoorsy where I hadn't done something stupid. After much thought, I actually realized yes! There are such (rare) instances. And so, here you go - Team India whitewater rafting down river Nantahala in the Smokies. And I did not do anything stupid - I was not stranded for my life, I did not try and get myself (or any others) killed. The only thing worth any consequence that happened during this trip was that we met some black bears and I caught a cold. And oh, I met some National Geographic folks doing a study of sorts. And I had a cut on my foot. And oh oh oh, I caught my friend Srikanth on candid-cam doing some things that I hope will earn me oodles of money when he becomes a millionaire. Billionaire. Whatever.

Diddly doo!

So, then. I need to go do something stupid. Fröhliche Weihnachten und Schöne Feiertage!

Trip to Central America - Mexico & Guatemala

2005-12-20T20:09:00.001-05:00

So, I'm planning a trip to Mexico and to Guatemala. Originally, I had planned on going to Southern Mexico and hike across Guatemala. However, some of my "explorer" buddies had strongly suggested that as a rock-climber, I would definitely have to look at Potrero Chico in the state of Nuevo León, and then find my way down south. Mostly, I want to do three things: 1. Do some technical climbing. I had thought of starting out at Potrero Chico, which has over 600 bolted routes, some of them 5'14s. Once that's done, I'd hitch a ride down south to the Sierra Madre range and do some climbing there. 2. Look at some ruins, primarily Olmec, Mayan and Aztec. I had thought of going to Tikal, Uaxactun and Xunantunich. Depending on how these go, I would then ride to Quetzaltenango, and try taking a hike into some of the unexplored parts of the jungles outside with Olmec ruins. 3. Hike a little around the area, scout around the scenery. Mostly, I would be taking my inputs from the Lonely Planet guide, looking at places to go to and if possible, scale some more mountains (non-technical, just hiking). If you are not a U.S. Citizen, you need a visa for entering both Mexico and Guatemala. For the latter, it usually takes a day to process and you need to be physically present. The Guatemalan embassy pages have *some* information (a lot of the links in there are dead links). You are better off just calling them and asking them for it. Mexican visa is almost similar, but takes a little longer. I've prepared a brief list of things that I would be taking, I just might not take some of this stuff. A pair of jeans and tracks, two pairs of shorts, three t-shirts, several pairs of undergarments, socks, a sweatshirt with hoodie, rain jacket, top loading backpack, camelbag, sleeping pad, blanket, sleeping bag, water filter, insect repellant, hiking boots, compass, altimeter, barometer, thermometer (I'm thinking of getting a Casio Pathfinder, instead, with all of these), headlamp, flashlight, whistle, climbing boots, belay equipment, carabiners, screws and bolts, chalk powder, swiss army knife, helmet, ropes, tent, stove and food supplies, toileteries such as toothbrush, shaving stuff, toiletpaper and deodarant, matches, light, flint, sunscreen, sunglasses, chapstick, Lonely Planet guidebooks, maps and a cheap digital camera, with lots of SD cards (or maybe, I'll just buy a couple of Walgreens regular cameras and a whole lot of film). While I have done this sort of stuff before, this would be the first time that I'm doing alone. I did ask some of my "adventure enthusiast" buddies, and basically, they think that this stuff should be enough. If I keep my wits around me that is, of course! Then again, The Cydonian might just join me on this trip, so it might not be solo. So, any other tips and pointers from folks who've done this sort of things before? Any kind of input appreciated!

Ramblin' Wreck

2005-12-17T19:47:00.000-05:00

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, and a hell of an Engineer A Helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva Engineer Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear. I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an Engineer Oh, if I had a daughter, sir, I'd dress her in white and gold, And put her on the campus To cheer the brave and bold. But if I had a son, sir, I'll tell you what he'd do-- He'd yell: 'TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!' Like his daddy used to do. Oh, I wish I had a barrel of rum, and Sugar three thousand pounds A college bell to put it in, And a clapper to stir it round. I'd drink to all the good fellows, who come from far and near. I'm a Ramblin', Gamblin', HELL OF AN ENGINEER!

Take me to Portugal, Take me to Spain...

2005-11-20T01:52:00.000-05:00

Spanish Caravan Carry me caravan take me away Take me to Portugal, take me to Spain Andalusia with fields full of grain I have to see you again and again Take me, Spanish Caravan Yes, I know you can Trade winds find galleons lost in the sea I know where treasure is waiting for me Silver and gold in the mountains of Spain I have to see you again and again Take me, Spanish Caravan Yes, I know you can ~The Doors (Waiting for the Sun)

I've been a fan of The Doors for as long as I can remember - but this is one of the few relatively not-so-famous songs that shows the sheer talent of what they could produce. This is the only song I know that has some very nicely done Spanish guitar that actually sounds melodious and happy, yet has the uniquely stereotypical Doors feel. Mojo Risin', baby! (yes, I know that there is no point to this post except maybe being a fan-boy post to The Lizard King)

ArchiTECH - Usability Solutions for Architects

2005-11-07T18:42:00.000-05:00

A long, long time ago, I had taken the Introduction to Human Computer Interaction class at Georgia Tech taught by none other than Professor Beth Mynatt. Of course, one of the very first things she'd said about the HCI project was that it should not be boring crappy fluffy HCI stuff (e.g. cellphone, PDA and other easy-to-tackle usability issues). So, I'd suggested that we look at structural engineering issues (I used to/still work at the Computer Aided Structural Engineering Lab at GT). But after much discussion and head-scratching, we went ahead and chose to look instead at Architecture as a possible area, hoping to find some interesting problems to tackle. So it turned out that that is indeed the case, with several interesting issues in that area. Trust you me, those darned Architects have a real lot of problems. :-|

And thus was formed A r c h i T E C H -- with the explicit goal of trying to provide solutions to Architects. Our enlightening and insightful motto was summed up quite nicely, of course we didn't realize that Beth would read any of it! ;)

We're the ArchiTechs. We want to do cell phone stuff. Just kidding Beth. you think I don't read these things ... :-) Beth

After much discussion with structural engineers, architects and folks involved in the construction industry, we decided to explore a series of problems specific to the architectural domain. So, we had three devices - the aWall, a large architectural display solution to evaluate designs and collaborate during discussions, the aDesk, a desk-based solution for an individual architect or a small team of architects working individually and the aTab, a personal tablet-PC solution for the average architect to help aid their moments genius.

Our design space is quite nicely summed up by this diagram:

Of course, that is a purely objective view of our design space, but that's about it. If you're more interested, you can read more detailed project notes and documents on the work we'd done:

Yeah, there're several pretty pictures and stuff in there. And a hell lot of study results and other material on why we did what we did. So, does anybody think there is market-value in this work, or stuff related to this? Comments, insights and stupidity appreciated!

Renzo Piano's Talk

2005-11-04T18:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, thanks to my good friend Young Mi, me and Lorenzo had the opportunity to attend a talk by famed architect Renzo Piano.

The talk was part of a Renzo Piano Workshop that is being conducted at the new Atlanta High Musem of Art, which in itself was designed by Renzo Piano. I did not imagine that many folks would attend - but I was blown away by the crowd. More than 2,000 people had gathered in the new Atlanta Symphony Hall to hear the man speak. And after his talk, I understood why. That man is a sheer genius! Some of his works are so mind-boggling that it's almost unbelievable.

For instance, he was the architect behind the Kansai International Airport in Japan - which is built on an artificial island and is the world's longest building at 1.7 kms. Better yet, he designed the whole thing amidst several earthquakes and the whole structure is built to withstand any but some of the world's biggest (and worst) quakes and tsunamis. And unlike a lot of architects who tout the aesthetics-sans-construction-and-engineering bullshit, Renzo Piano's father was a builder - so, all his works are not only aesthetically pleasing, they're also feasible works of engineering that are structurally sound. Atlanta was fortunate enough to have him design the new Woodruff Arts Center Expansion project, and his work is most stunning. He made one of the most insightful statements I've ever heard - he felt that he shouldn't be asked to design a building, but rather a place. If you build a building alone, then it doesn't become a place - making a place with just a building is an architectural challenge. And of course, one but needs to look at the new Woodruff Arts Center and its surrounding area to know that Renzo Piano has been successful. Some of his other projects, such as the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Zealand, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and of course the famous Postdamer Platz in Berlin are equally amazing. His talk also included some interesting material on his latest project, The New York Times Building in NYC. I can't even begin to describe the genius of the man without making myself sound like a complete fool. It was probably one of the better used two hours of my life, ever! (On a related note, there is some excellent HCI related software opportunity in the area of Architecture - for more information on that, stay tuned - same bat channel, same bat time!)

Take It Back!

2005-10-28T23:38:00.000-04:00

The Swastika is the Indian symbol of peace and prosperity, depicted in Hindu and earlier Indus Valley Civilization cultures. To this day, it still is considered a sign of good-will across the Indian subcontinent. However, it would seem that most of the western world associates the Swastika with Hitler and the Nazi party, which is quite unfortunate. So, I'll follow up on what Dr. Alamandrax has done: Take it back - it's a symbol of goodwill, not one of a madman who slaughtered millions because he had just one ball.

White Keikogi & Hakama for Kendo

2005-10-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

For those of you who know, I've been practicing Kendo for a while now. And for those of you who do not, Kendo is the Japanese art of swordsmanship, and translates roughly to Way of the Sword. It's one of those things where one can supposedly attain enlightenment through swordsmanship, and trust me, you will. Well, at least parts of your body will. Standing on your toe-tips for three hours with a heavy sword and fighting non-stop (and getting your ass kicked non-stop) redefines the meaning of the word pain. Now, I've been looking for full-body white Keikogi/Hakama combinations for Kendo for a while, with no luck. I've a couple of ones that are blue, but I'd like to own a white pair for things like competitions and the like, and mostly because it looks cool - you wear white during special occasions such as when an outside Sensei is visiting.

[Blue Keikogi & Hakama - boring, normal stuff]

Usually, I buy these things from e-Bogu -- however, they do not seem to have any full-body white Keikogis, just white Hakamas. Worst case, I'd get something stitched here, but that's something of a last resort. So, I was just wondering if any folks knew of any online stores that sold good Keikogis and Hakamas. (And no, I won't go to a random website and buy this stuff - the last thing you want is an uncomfortable outfit when you're fighting with swords - this is one of those things where the phrase "tried and trusted" means a whole lot. Well, not a whole lot, merely that you won't get your ass kicked because you tripped on your Hakama, fell onto your opponent's sword and lost an eye in front of a Hachi-Dan Sensei from Japan. I've no wish of looking like a dishonored pirate with a sword, so if you'd personally recommend something, I'd appreciate that a lot!) And oh, here's the 2000 WKC Individual Finals video, it's fairly interesting. Those Shinais must be fantastic to be able to resist those hits.

Now we talk about the... weather!

2005-10-25T16:40:00.000-04:00

Ford Prefect: Six pints of bitter, and quickly, please. The world's about to end. Barman: Oh, yes, sir? Nice weather for it. Well, I'm not particularly British - I don't talk about the weather unless I really, really have to. But for the past couple of days, the weather here has been bothering me. You see, Atlanta does not have the concept of Spring or Fall. There is summer. And there is winter. Fine, I've been here for the past couple of years, and that's something that I've gotten used to. Until last week, the weather was hot. Hot as in, blazing hot. Somewhere in the 80s, and it was even in the 90s less than a month ago. And like any normal self-respecting fellow, I was whining about how hot the weather was when it became cold. Now, I don't mean, it gradually became cold. I mean, it turned cold, the way people turn into penguins - that's right, they don't. Well, not unless you're Ford Prefect, but that is not the point. The point is that the weather turned cold, instantaneously. From the 80s, the weather fell down to the freezing 40s. Can you imagine how that would feel? No, you probably don't. Well, I can tell you how that feels - it feels cold. Very, very cold. To make things worse yet, we hadn't signed up for gas heating yet (well, for one, gas is freakin' expensive at the moment and for another, we're lazy ass bums). So, the past couple of days have done a world of good to my love-life (well, you know, pretty hot girls calling me and offering me warmth and stuff). Anyway, it's cold and I'm cold and that's the point. There. If you're a hot pretty girl, you know what to do. If you're not, well, too bad. Find a couple and send them along. If you're my girlfriend, I'm kidding.

Private Equity Investment in the Indian Economy

2005-10-22T20:21:00.000-04:00

The Indian Economy Blog has an interesting piece on India and Private Equity. But amidst what is said and what is not, there are a few untold facts that have been chewing my brains for a while. For one, it would seem that these investors seem to prefer investing (or are being encouraged to do so) in the larger companies. Of course, I've been told by more seasoned economists that there is a reason for this. Primarily, there is no system in place in India to check upon folks who set shop today and disappear tomorrow. To this end, larger companies offer a kind of security of investment. Not much, but definitely a tangible one. As a direct consequence of this, the government would prefer the investors investing in these larger companies simply because if they fell prey to every other small-time crook, the investor confidence in India would go down. Finally, the government can't have a large piece of the pie (i.e. the "cost of doing business" - roughly translated as bribes) with the smaller companies. Does anybody else see the flaw in this? Leave alone the fact that the investors should know better than investing in a company without any tangibles - this leaves the rich richer and there is no outlet for smaller companies to come around. Let me narrate a story here - a particular software company approached a certain large communications company in India with an idea that would be mutuall beneficial, and offered to implement it for them. Six months later, this company approaches them again asking them if they've thought about the idea, only to be told that they've already implemented an in-house version of this idea. Intellectual property has absolutely no respect whatsoever in India, so smaller companies with killer ideas just have no option - they either get gobbled up by the larger ones or worse, trodden upon and their ideas stolen. One of the primary reasons why the US is so successful is that ideas have merit. Despite what the Slashdot and liberal hippie crowd may cry out loud, this is true. Everybody from Microsoft, Netscape, Yahoo!, Google and a million other companies were small-time ones who had great ideas, and who made it big because of a handful of ideas - or sometimes, even just a single idea. Heck, even Slashdot was once nothing more than a simple, elegant idea that's now grown so big. Some die out, some don't and some make it big - but the bottom line is, an idea is worth investing in. What is Blogger, really, that Google was willing to invest so much in it? Contrast the more successful companies in the US versus those in India - most of those in India are nothing more than slaves of the software services industry, helping maintain the status quo by doing the boring stuff. Most folk working in Infosys, Wipro or TCS are nothing more than code monkeys that slave away writing code that's not going to change the world. In an age gone by, folks did pointless physical labor, these days, these folks do pointless intellectual labor. Do not mistake me - I'm not undermining the importance of their work. Folk like that are necessary to run the world, but quite honestly, they're nothing more than peons doing the work that nobody else will. Their work will not change the world, and therein lies the problem. (I mean, someone doing a graduate degree in mechanical engineering ends up doing Cobol programming for an insurance company for a pittance? Come on!) If you want to be a front-runner in technology, you need to innovate. And while innovation does happen in larger companies, it is much more easily achieved in smaller companies. It is wise to remember that most of the companies dominating the industry today were tiny startups by folks with great ideas until a while ago. Despite what folks say, Apple and Microsoft changed the face of the PC industry, but started out as garage companies. Yahoo! brought a new meaning to searches and portals and Google revolutionized searching and redefined how we perceive web interfaces - and both were graduate project endeavours. And these are not the only ones, Amazon and eBay have completely changed how business is done online - these days, I prefer buying most things online than from a store. There are thousands of other smaller players, including those like 24 Hour Laundry who bring simple but elegant ideas to board. I do not know if Ning will ever make it big, but I do know that it's a fantastic idea, neverthless. India will miss out on all this - for the simple reason that they're encouraging only the bigger players. When I was fresh out of highschool, I was part of a startup - which now has several thousand employees. I was one of maybe 5 people at the outset, today it's grown so big that I'm at a loss for words. I doubt most people even remember me, let alone know my contribution. Not to undermine folks who helped me (and I'm thankful to those mentors), but folks like me in the US went much a longer way during the boom. Unless any person (immaterial of age) with a killer idea can implement it and sell it at a price without having to worry about bureacracy and plagiarism, India will lag behind. Bharti and Reliance can take care of themselves plenty - they're very rarely fountains of innovation. There's enough red-tape in them to strangle Cthulu. On the other hand, schools and other places are where innovation really blooms. During the course of my graduate school, I've had several amazing projects - almost each of which could become a good startup, if I did a little more work and market research. In the course of a little more than two years here at Georgia Tech, I've started two startups - while they're not making millions, they most certainly are doing quite well. I know for a fact that if I came up with better ideas, I'll at the very least have angel investors to help me through. This fact by itself encourages me to innovate and do things I'd not even have thought about. None of this will happen in India - because you are not helping the small guy. It's not the big guy who changes things, it's the small unseen guy who is. Most importantly, it would appear that the investors who want to invest only in the bigger companies are going to make things worse for India. And like I said, the rich get richer, the big get bigger and the small guy cannot even raise his head. And Indians will become even more of wage slaves than they ever can be. It was the public sector that they used to work for, now they work for equally bureacratic, useless, mass of private sectors. You've traded one devil for another. You've traded one set of masters for another - you've not come out of the shell in so long that you've forgotten that there is an outside world. You've forgotten that you can have a cool idea and be your own master, rather than work for a nameless corporation. Entrepreneurship simply does not exist in India. If you're an investor who's thinking of investing in India - why don't you spend the time seeking out innovative early-stage companies or startups with funky cool technology? There is enough and more intellectual capital out there - and folk are definitely hardworking and enterprising. But they do need that light at the end of the tunnel. The socio-economic structure does not encourage free thinking. Folks want their kids to work for a big-name company, kids want to work for big-name companies to get that hot chick and the government cares about bribes under the table for its ministers to care two hoots about innovation. Religion and personal gains run the political establishment in India - not innovation. The educational system, despite everything, is in shambles and I doubt if most people even know what innovation means. Oh sure, they produce quintillion technical graduates every year, but what are they really worth? How many of those can truly create groundbreaking things, how many of those can truly innovate and bring about change? Heck, how many of those even work in their own area? People study Chemical Engineering and go work for Infosys. The only way to break out of the rut is to reward independent thinking and enterprising nature. Encourage that small guy to do big things - even a few hundred thousand dollars would go a long way in India and can help change things. I'm not saying that one should ignore the big players, that's almost next to impossible, especially given the returns. But do not ignore the small guy - they're the ones who'll help you change the landscape of a ~~third world~~ developing country.

Good Times...

2005-10-19T01:44:00.000-04:00

Books, Assignments and Flights of Fancy

2005-10-14T04:44:00.000-04:00

Just wrapped up Robert Jordan's latest Wheel of Time book, Knife of Dreams. Wow, it's quite amazing.

Spoilers for the fans - Egwene is really an Aiel at heart, impossible to break and impossible to be taken down. The true Amyrlin Seat shall reign supreme. Perrin thinks he almost makes a deal with the Dark One to free Faile -funny folk, those Seanchan. His Highness Lord Matrim Cauthon is quite hilariously lost as his luck gets him the Daughter of Nine Moons. Amongst other things. Rand al'Thor pays a price yet unpaid for being the Dragon Reborn - and the Dark One's shadow touches the world. The dead walk among the living and things that are not, or have been, seem to come to pass. Moiraine Sedai and Thom Merrilin have unfinished business (ooh! that got you, didn't it?). And who will ride with the Kings of Malkier when the Golden Crane shall fly again? My name is Nynaeve Sedai, Nynaeve al'Mandragoran - tell me, Malkier - will Lan al'Mandragoran, my Aan'Allein, ride alone to battle the blight? Who rides with the Golden Crane of Malkier? WHO! Now I've to wait for three more years for the grand finale, when the Dragon Reborn shall shed his blood on Shadar Logoth and fight Tarmon Gai'don. It should be fun, now that almost all the loose ends are tied up. Also wrapped up Anansi Boys - extremely Gaiman-like with macabre hilarity that is strongly reminiscent of American Gods. God is Dead. Meet the Kids. Very highly recommended! And it's 5 AM in the morning and I'm wrapping up my assignments, finished up last-minute school work, packing my bags and all set to fly to Seattle to see Min! This time around, I'm really *really* gone! I swear! See ya'll around.

IIPM Saga - What Constitutes Libel?

2005-10-12T23:44:00.000-04:00

So, there has been the much famed IIPM Controversy that everyone's been talking about. What is it? Well, to put it simply, IIPM is yet another of those institutes that seems to promise the world to future candidates, which is quite far fetched from the grim reality. Of course, when you promise the world, sooner or later, someone is bound to take you to task, or at the very least raise an eyebrow or two. Rather than re-tell an old tale, I'll just paste what transpired from the Wikipedia entry on IIPM:

In 2005, a youth magazine named JAM, edited by Indian blogger Rashmi Bansal, did a story exposing some of the claims made by IIPM. Gaurav Sabnis, a popular Indian blogger, linked that article. Three months later, IIPM threatened to sue Gaurav for libel if the said postings were not removed from his blog.

When Gaurav refused to remove his postings, in a bizzare move IIPM contacted his employer, IBM, and allegedly threatened to publicly burn the IBM Laptop Computers they had purchased from IBM unless the posts were removed. IBM is yet to confirm this alleged threat. Gaurav stated that IBM did not pressure him to remove the blogpost, but he decided to quit his job, as he did not want IBM to suffer bad publicity through his actions. This has generated spontaneous support for Gaurav from bloggers. On 11 October, 2005, IIPM became the highest ranked search term on Technorati.

Most of the Desi Blogosphere stood by Rashmi Bansal and Gaurav. Desi Pundit, a popular medium for Indian Blogs mobilised the Desi blogosphere to publicise the issue, stating that it was a litmus test for freedom of speech. IIPM contends that it is not an issue of free speech but an issue of libel.

On October 11, 2005, IIPM emailed Varna Sri Raman, a blogger who had been posting on the ongoing controversy, and asked her to remove all posts related to IIPM or face legal action. The email sent to Varna was almost identical to the email sent to Gaurav Sabnis.

Quite simply, it's amusing. Now, forgive me - but I happen to have been quite acclimated to lawyers and legal environments, having several family members, friends (including girlfriends *shudder*) in the legal profession, and having taken the odd law class or two hoping that they would aid my entrepreneurial ventures. Libel - that term is defined when someone is portrayed in bad light, at which point it is believed that the action was defamatory in nature. But usually, factual statements must be false to be defamatory. Firstly, in this case, the burden of proof lies upon IIPM to prove that it was indeed libel, so IIPM needs to prove that the said statements were indeed false and were indeed harmful (latter would be easier, former would not be). Secondly, quite often, statements of opinion (i.e. it is my personal belief that IIPMs are scumbags who run a sham institute and are in bed with ~~Michael Moore~~ the Devil) - statements which cannot be proven true or false will likely need to apply some other kind of defense, that are not factual. To this end, I believe both Rashmi and Gaurav have supplied varied points that are quite valid and inclusive. Thirdly, it is usually necessary in these cases to show that there is indeed a well founded public interest in (defamatory) information being widely known - which definitely is true in this case. Fourthly, the courts usually give the benefit of the doubt to people being tried. That is, they are usually presumed to be innocent until the prosecution can prove guilt of the perpetrator beyond a reasonable doubt that there was indeed libel (in criminal law), or if the plaintiff can show liability and accountability on a balance of likelihoods that there was libel (in civil law). And finally, there needs to be malice or what is known as "reckless disregard". When there are several blogs all over the place that are popping up claiming this, it stops being an act of malice perpetrated by one person or even a group - it becomes more of a demand to know the truth - it is journalism of sorts. In fact, the way IIPM and its students have behaved goes on to show that they have exhibited behavior that is quite ripe with malice and malintent. While I'm amazed at the fact that IIPM acted so stupidly, I'm even more amused at the competence of their lawyers. It does not take a J.D. for a person to see that they do not have a case, so why even bother with such allegations? Psst! Back to vacation mode, sorry - couldn't resist commenting upon seeing the whole IIPM thingy blown so much out of proportion!

The Saga of Recluce

2005-10-12T14:03:00.000-04:00

I'm not certain if I've not blogged about this before, but the Saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is one of the most brilliant and creative pieces of work I've ever read. Modesitt brings in a new way of looking at things - rather than the cliched fight between good and evil, this time around it is the eternal struggle between fight between Chaos and Order. For the most part, you would find that neither one is shown as being good, nor evil (well, one is evil in the eyes of the other and there is a judgement, but not until much later). People who have the power to wield either do what they do because of their own personal reasons and beliefs, and rarely because of some greater good - although greater good does happen, eventually. The origin of both order and chaos is even more interesting, and is reminiscent of some of the masterpieces of SF. More importantly, there is a balance, i.e. neither Chaos nor Order can "destroy" the other without destroying itself and as a result, there is always a fixed amount of either in the world. Create too much order and there is too much chaos that pops up. Foster chaos and you end up with people or places that have a very high concentration or order, and vice versa. No empire of Chaos nor Order will (or can) last forever. Which brings about some very interesting plots, of course. More details on the series in the reverse chronological order from the TOR website:

	Ordermaster February 2005
	Wellspring of Chaos April 2004
	Scion of Cyador December 2001
	Magi'i of Cyador May 2001
	Colors of Chaos January 2000
	The White Order April 1999
	The Chaos Balance June 1998
	Fall of Angels July 1997
	The Death of Chaos June 1996
	The Order War February 1996
	The Magic Engineer July 1995
	The Towers of the Sunset August 1993
	The Magic of Recluce May 1992

The origin of folks who can tap either are a result of Angels and Demons, beings who came through when a Chaos-Order portal opens into our world. How that happened is an even more interesting read on its own. There is amazing amount of detail, and everything has been so very well thought out that it's simply complete in itself. If you've not read this series, I'd very strongly recommend that you do! One of the best SF authors of our times! More details on the Recluce page.

MirrorMask

2005-10-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

So, I finally got around watching Mirrormask, whose screenplay was written by none other than Neil Gaiman along with his old friend, David McKean. To put it simply, it was simply fabulous. And it was Gaiman through and through. Funny, delightful and refreshing with a surreal feel that could only have been possible in Gaiman's world. The only thing missing was a chuckling Morpheus (and his family!). (No, I'm not talking Matrix-styled Morpheus, I'm talking about the original Morpheus, the Greek God of Dream and Sleep, who's supposed to be one of the many inspirations for Gaiman's Sandman - Dream - and his dysfunctional family of endless that includes Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delight/Delirium. On a completely unrelated note, has anyone ever wondered that Dream's new incarnation is by his son Daniel, named after the Biblical prophet who interpreted Dreams.) Back to MirrorMask, it is extremely well done and has a wonderful ending that is quite refreshing. In some ways, it is the Labyrinth of our era. And incidentally enough, the Jim Henson Company has acknowledged that Mirrormask was indeed influenced by both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. It's got the Gaiman trademark all over it - but hey, not that one would expect any less from the man, right? :-) If the movie is showing in the place you're in, I'd very strongly recommend that you do not miss it. Unfortunately, it's not playing at regular theatres, so you might have to hunt around for places that're showing the movie. First Serenity and now MirrorMask - all I can say is that I've been blown away! Update: And oh, here's an excellent page with several high-resolution pictures - clickety clicky for some MirrorMask PR Stills.

Heavenly Shades of Nights are Falling, It's Twilight Gaiman Time...

2005-10-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

Neverwhere - A Graphic Novel The old woman took the umbrella, gratefully, and smiled her thanks. "You've a good heart," she told him. "Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go." Then she shook her head. "But mostly, it's not." -Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman So, I've always wondered why there weren't graphic novels for Neverwhere - especially since Gaiman wrote Sandman, and since Neverwhere is exactly the kind of story that would do well to be adapted into a graphic book form. And lo! and behold! Guess what? Vertigo has come out with a 9-part graphical novel adaptation of Neverwhere.

For the graphic novel, the writing would be by Mike Carey (Hellblazer/Constantine fame) and art & covers by Glenn Farby (Sandman Endless Nights fame). So far, it's been AWESOME!! Anansi Boys And it also happens that I've started reading Gaiman's latest book, Anansi Boys, which is set in the American Gods universe. If it was not obvious, it's based on the character of Anansi ('Mr. Nancy' in American Gods) - and Anansi also happens to be one of the more important Gods of West-African lore, and is a trickster but a hero.

'He was not a god. He was my dad.'

'You can be both,' she said. 'It happens.'

The Hedge Knight

2005-10-03T03:16:00.000-04:00

At Dragon*Con, the Dabel Brothers also revealed another cool project - George R.R. Martin's The Hedge Knight in comic form.

It so happened that I laid my hands on this sometime in the past couple of weeks. And I must say that it has been quite well done. Of course, R.R. Martin does not come near Jordan, but for those of you who're existing fans of R.R. Martin's work, it's a lot of fun. It is the graphic novel adaptation of a part of a series of planned short-stories on the adventures of Dunk (Ser Duncan the Tall) and Egg (Aegon, likely to become Aegon V in the A Song of Fire and Ice epic).

Serenity

2005-10-02T18:44:00.000-04:00

w00t!

Watched Serenity yesterday and loved it - it's quite elegantly and tastefully done, and it's absolutely gripping. I'd say it's one of the best movies I've ever seen, in the longest time. It's funny, action packed and cool - a cowboy western set in space, something like Hans Solo having his own show during his smuggler days. As a fan of Firefly, I expected this to be similar - but sadly, it is not. It's not Firefly, it's Serenity. Sure, you have the same characters and similar themes, but some things happen that simply, umm, change things. (I know, I know! That's not really much of an explanation, but I don't want to give away spoilers! :-/) For those of you Firefly fans who would be watching Serenity, I'd strongly advise that you read the Serenity comics (there's just three of them) to have some back-story.

Serenity Issue #1 Serenity Issue #2 Serenity Issue #3

And more information can be found at the Darkhorse Comics website. Of course, the world of Serenity is the same - you have the Alliance, the Reavers and the folks that want River Tam back. Amongst others. And then, there is Mr. Universe (go figure). And as always, River is as smashing and awesome as ever! She simply rocks, and her character is by far the most memorable. The rest is the usual - Kayle has a crush on the Doc who would do anything for River, everyone thinks Mal is a jerk but yet an awesome guy, the Shepherd preaches and Jayne thinks with the hair on his chest. But - there are some serious changes in terms of characters, and how they evolve. And relationships, roles and things change. And not always for the best, either. Finally, let me just say that Serenity rocked - it was fantastic and I'd definitely watch it a second time, even. But it's not Firefly.

A Lugard Girl Came To Town...

2005-09-26T20:21:00.000-04:00

At the Wheel of Time track at Dragon*Con, there was a Gleeman's Contest at the Winespring Inn. It was quite simply fabulous, with people presenting all kinds of things imaginable, but the best performance there was a song called, "A Lugard Girl Came To Town" by Eleyan Sedai. It was simple, yet very well written and even better recited - if you're a Wheel of Time fan, you'd be falling down laughing hard at the lyrics. Rather than try and say about it myself, I'll just let Eleyan Sedai say it herself:

The song is one I wrote. The Lyrics are based off of these by Robert Jordan:

A lugard girl, she came to town, to see what she could see. With a wink of her eye, and smile on her lip, she snagged a boy or three, or three. With an ankle slim, and skin so pale, she caught the owner of a ship, a ship. With a soft little sigh, and a gay little laugh, she made her way so free. So free

Unfortunately, I couldnt think of a tune to go with it, so I rewrote it. Here are my lyrics.

A Lugard Girl Came To Town To a tavern down in Caemlyn, a maid came in one night With her hair all made of sunlight, and her big eyes burning bright She ordered up a beer, undid her cloak and let it fall And that’s when she stood right on up, and said this to us all… Oh I’ve just come from Lugard town in fairest Murandy I like where I’ve been, and I’m liking what I see! But I’ve come for a purpose. Now as quickly as I can, I have come down here to Caemlyn to find me a good man! We were speechless for a moment, t’was strange sight for to see So a lovely young maiden as brazen as she She wiggled her sweet hips and then she showed a little thigh Then every man stood all as one to try and catch her eye!. The first to get attention was a man from Tar Valon With his dashing good looks, he knew he just couldn’t go wrong He’d had plenty of ladies, far more than he could count! “Pick me!” cried the man” And I’ll show you Dragonmount!” Oh I’ve just come from Lugard town in fairest Murandy I like where I’ve been, and I’m liking what I see! But I’ve come for a purpose. Now as quickly as I can, I have come down here to Caemlyn to find me a good man! The next to come on forward hailed from far off Cairhien Which we all know does not provide the tallest of men “Dear Lady” he said, “Please invite me to stay! And we’ll play games within your house until the break of day!” And then stood a up man who had just come from Ebou Dar He’d been long on the road and he’d traveled very far “My beauty”, he said” Why don’t you pick me? And I’ll show you just how good an old seaman can be! Oh I’ve just come from Lugard town in fairest Murandy I like where I’ve been, and I’m liking what I see! But I’ve come for a purpose. Now as quickly as I can, I have come down here to Caemlyn to find me a good man! “Oh dear me” said the lady, “I cannot pick just one. I’d feel far too picky. And it’d ruin all my fun. So I’ll follow my heart, for its clear and all can see There’s no other decision! So I’m gonna take all three!” But standing in the back, a man from Amador for sure. Was wearing clothes of white, looking righteous and pure “Young woman”, said he “You will surely go to hell.” But if that is where you’re going, then I’m going there as well!” Oh I’ve just come from Lugard town in fairest Murandy I like where I’ve been, and I’m liking what I see! But I’ve come for a purpose. Now as quickly as I can, I have come down here to Caemlyn to find me a good man! I have down here to Caemlyn to find me a good man!

I did, however, lift the tune. I was terrified enough to sing lyrics, not QUITE brave enough to share my music writing. The tune is from a famous drinking song called "Beer Beer Beer" Original lyrics can be found here: http://celtic-lyrics.com/lyrics/46 I didn't feel too bad. If RJ lifts the Gary Owen for his tune for "Jack o'the Shadows", I can lift "Beer beer beer."

As amazing as it sounds, mere lines do not do justice to what it sounded like - there was no accompaniment, no music - but yet, it was probably one of the best sounding recitals I've ever heard in my life. Enjoy!!! And here's to Eleyan Sedai's wonderful performance, and varied talents. Now if only I could convince her to upload am mp3 of the recital... Psssssst: If you're reading this, Mother - please? Pretty please, with sugar on top? ;-)

New Spring Comic Book Teasers

2005-09-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

The Dabel Brothers had shown these preview teaser shots from the comics at Dragon*Con - these are also available off the Red Eagle Entertainment products webpage.

(warning - spoilers ahead...)

New Spring 01 [Aiel marching from the Waste] . . . . . . [The Aiel come to avenge the Tree-Killers] . . . . . . [The armies of the Great Coalition and the Aiel wage war] . . . . . . [The Island of Tar Valon, home of the Aes Sedai and the White Tower] . . . . . . [Trollocs March, with a Myrdaal at the lead] . . . . . . New Spring 02 [The Hand of the Shadow rises forth] . . . . . . [The White Tower] . . . . . . [Siuan watches Moiraine practice the Weaves] . . . . . . [Moiraine dreams of the faceless dragon...reborn] . . . . . . [Evil relishes and grows while the Shadow rises forth] . . . . . . New Spring 03 [The Accepted at the White Tower] . . . . . . ["Moiraine Damodred, have you ever thought of being the Queen of Cairhien yourself?"] . . . . . . [The Warders practice while the Aes Sedai watch - and yes, one of them is Elyas Machera, future Wolfbrother] . . . . . . [Elaida of the Red Ajah watches as the Accepted Weave] . . . . . . [Marching forth with the flags of the Flame of Tar Valon, in search of the Dragon Reborn - the Dragon Reborn who is Car'a'carn, He Who Comes with the Dawn - the Dragon Reborn who is the Coramoor, Shadowkiller and Lord of the Morning - the Dragon Reborn who is the Price of the Dawn and the True Defender of the Light. The Dragon, who shall be reborn to ride again on the Winds of Time.] . . . . . .

Obligatory disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended by posting these pictures - if you are the publisher or the publisher's lawyer(s) and would like me to take these offline, I will happily comply. This is just a posting to help fellow fans spread the good word of your great work.

Comic Book Adaptation of Robert Jordan's New Spring: The Novel

2005-09-25T15:39:00.000-04:00

That was the trailer to the Dabel Brothers' comic book adaptation of Robert Jordan's New Spring: The Novel. So far, it's one of the best comic book adaptations that I've ever seen, and the artwork is quite realistic. I even had the opportunity to meet Ernst Dabel and Les Dabel at both Dragon*Con and during the Robert Jordan session at Chapter11 Books.

(warning - spoilers follow...)

[Aes Sedai, Warders, Dragon Mount and the White Tower] . . . . . . [Moiraine Sedai - well, not yet an Aes Sedai - Moiraine Damodred of House Damodred, an Accepted at the White Tower] . . . . . . [al'Lan Mandragoran - Aan'allein, One Man Who Is A Nation, future Warder to Moiraine Sedai] . . . . . . [Lan and his Malkieri Battle Armor & King's Sword] . . . . . . [Bukama and his Malkieri Battle Armor & Sword] . . . . . . [Ryne Venamar] . . . . . . [Lady Edeyn Arrel] . . . . . . [An Aiel] . . . . . . [A Trolloc] . . . . . . [More Trollocs] . . . . . . [A Myrdaal] . . . . . . [Cadsuane Sedai] . . . . . . [New Spring - A Wizard World Exlusive] . . . . . . [New Spring 01] . . . . . . [New Spring 02] . . . . . . [New Spring 03] . . . . . . "He is born again! I feel him! The Dragon takes his first breath on the slope of Dragon Mount! He is coming! He is coming! Light help us! Light help the world! He lies in the snow and cries like thunder... he burns like the sun..."

Three Quarter Ale & Devil's Panties

2005-09-24T20:35:00.000-04:00

I briefly mentioned this a while ago when I blogged about Dragon*Con - but I just figured that I'll write a spanking new entry. Three Quarter Ale is a fantastic Celtic/Folk music band that I discovered when they played at the Wheel of Time track at the Winespring Inn at Dragon*Con. Be warned, though - if you are not into that particular genre, you might not quite enjoy it as much. However, if you do enjoy good poetic music set to good ole' Celtic and gleemen tunes with even better puns and jokes, they're one of the best there are. And their live shows are simply fabulous.

"Three Quarter Ale is a Ren-rock band based in Atlanta, GA. Comprised of players Ariana Pellayle (Becky Cormier), Rosemary Quench (Rivka Levin), and Wicked Pete Speakeasy (Dolph Amick), Three Quarter Ale combines the lilting charm of 17th-century madrigals and traditional favorites with the high-energy impact of modern folk-rock for a truly arresting sound. The toast of the Georgia Renaissance Festival pub crowd, Three Quarter Ale's tempting blend of lively harp, flute, guitar, and ethnic percussion with delicious three-part vocal harmonies in turn uplifts, enchants, and makes listeners want to dance in their seats."

Of course, you could try downloading some sample music off their downloads page. I'd particularly recommend their rendering of the "Two Magicians" based on Child Ballad # 44 - it's, umm, interesting! (if you do not know what Two Magicians is, you might not really be interested in this genre) Even more interestingly, I just found out that the sketch on their home page has been done by none else than Jennie Breeden of "Devil's Panties" fame! (Pssst! You can't find a bigger fan of Devil's Panties than my room-mate, Lorenzo...)

And btw, Jennie is a fantastic artist and her comics are such a laugh! Very highly recommended.

She's such a fabulous person, too - if you're in and around the Atlanta area, you can find her works (and her) at the famed Oxford Comics bookstore on Piedmont. Be sure to ask her to sketch a caricature or two. ;-)

I'll end this with the lyrics of the Three Quarter Ale version of Two Magicians...

A lady sits by her own front door Waiting on her man When by there come a lusty smith With his hammer in his hand Saying... You are such a maiden fair All in your robes of red Oh will you take me in your arms And have me in your bed Away away you bold black smith What you do say is wrong Just how you think a lass like me Could be had for just a song He said Bide lady bide Your lust for me don't hide This dusty smith will be your love So lay aside your pride. So the lady she took out her wand Held it high in her hand She turned herself into a cloud Saying, "Catch me if you can!" So the blacksmith shook his hammer And it turned to a magic stick And he turned to a lightning bolt For to zap her to her quick He sang: Bide lady bide Your lust for me don't hide This dusty smith will be your love So lay aside your pride. So the lady she turned into a fish Aswimming in the brook So he became a fishing rod For to catch her with his hook So the lady she became a fly And flew up into the air So he became a hairy spider To drag her into his lair So the lady she became a rose On a rosebush in the wood So he became a bumble bee And he stung her where she stood (OW!) So the lady she turned into a horse Dark as the night is black So he became a golden saddle For to climb upon her back Singing: Crying bide lady bide Your lust for me don't hide This dusty smith will be your love So lay aside your pride. The lady fixed the blacksmith With a keen and a piercing eye He gave a haughty laugh, "Ha Ha Ha! I'll give you one more try!" So she herself turned into a man And leered down upon him good So he became a bonny lass And she took him where he stood *gulp* Crying bide lady bide Your lust for me don't hide This dusty smith will be your love So lay aside your pride.

Drink Ale! Wassail!

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

2005-09-21T13:20:00.000-04:00

The family did not send to ask from whom the messenger had come; it was not the first time that messengers had visited them, after all. And there are some powers that no one, not even the Endless, seeks to inquire into too deeply. Invitations are delivered in SANDMAN #70, part one of "The Wake" The state of his bathroom— I'm not one to gossip, but there are things crusted on his sink that have not simply developed intelligent life but have in all probability by now evolved their own political systems. Cain in SANDMAN #70, "The Wake" part one Eblis O'Shaughnessy: you were created and gifted by five of the Endless, but you can neither dream nor, ultimately, destroy, and that shall be your triumph and that shall be your tragedy. Destiny, in SANDMAN #70, part one of "The Wake" I am not here to mourn him. I mourned the loss of my love a long time ago. I am here to say goodbye to a stranger who once did me a good turn. And to the man who gave my son the death he craved. Calliope, in SANDMAN #71, part two of "The Wake" The bonds of family bind both ways. They bind us up, support us, help us, and they are also a bond from which it is difficult, perhaps impossible to extricate oneself. Desire, in SANDMAN #72, part three of "The Wake" "The one I hate is where I'm just an actor on a strange television version of my life. Have you ever had that dream?" "Doesn't everyone?" "I don't." Superman, Batman, and Martian Manhunter, in SANDMAN #71, part two of "The Wake" We were never loves, and we never will be, now. I do not regret that, however. I regret the conversations we never had, the time we did not spend together. I regret that I never told him that he made me happy, when I was in his company. The world was the better for his being in it. These things alone do I now regret: things left unsaid. And he is gone, and I am old. Lady Bast, in SANDMAN #72, part three of "The Wake" I cared for him, very much. He was so wise; he seemed so certain of the rightness of his actions. And I, who do nothing but doubt, admired that in him. He was a creature of hope, for dreams are hopes, and echoes of hopes, and I am a creature of despair. Despair, in SANDMAN #72, part three of "The Wake" It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one simply assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best. Destruction, in SANDMAN #72, part three of "The Wake" We never even noticed the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a load of bloody Italians poncing around claiming to be the golden age of the Greeks come around again. Nobody in England had even heard of the Renaissance until it had been over for centuries. Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #73, epilogue to "The Wake" "There were a lot of Moors and Africans in Spain and Italy in the old days. Remember Othello? Trust me, if Catherine of Aragon had been in Alabama in the 1950s they'd have made her ride in the back of the bus." Hob, in SANDMAN #73, epilogue to "The Wake" "When I first met you I thought you were gay." "Why? 'Cos I'm English?" "Uh-uh. Because you seemed to know so many people who were dead." "... That's not funny." "No. It's not, is it?" Guenevere and Hob, in SANDMAN #73, epilogue to "The Wake" "Father? I am your son. That is only a kitten. Why do you abandon me to chase after it?" "When you were alive, you were all my joy. Now you are dead. I see you only in my dreams. And when I awake my pillow is wet with tears. The kitten is living, and it needs my help." Master Li and son, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" Why are you here, in this home of demons? Are you lost? Or are you also a demon? Forgive my bluntness, but I am an old man, and my flesh is sure to be stringy and lacking in taste: I doubt even a demon would relish it. Master Li is frightened of Dream, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" I have no liking for prisons, Master Li. Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while. Dream, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" "My Lord, what was it the barbarian said, as the riders vanished?" "Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost. Fare you well Master Li." Master Li and Dream, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" But truth or no, still I believe in the correct manner, and correctness in behaviour is one of the cardinal virtues. I place the kitten in my sleeve once more. I have saved his life, as he saved mine, and am responsible for him. We cannot evade our responsibilities. Master Li, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" I am banished to the grey waste at the end of the world, but I mourn myself no longer; I cherish the pain in my hand. I imagine the taste of the mulberries in the violet dusk. And tomorrow I shall arrive in the town of Wei. Master Li, in SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" Only the phoenix arises and does not descend. And everything changes. And nothing is truly lost. SANDMAN #74, "The Exile" "My own fine words notwithstanding, life is no play. We meet people once, and never see them again. There is no shape to events, no point at which we turn to the audience for their praise. No time at which we step behind the stage, to see the actors changing their wigs, and painting their faces, and muttering their lines." "But that is precisely where you are now, Will." William Shakespeare and Dream, in SANDMAN #75, "The Tempest" "I wanted a tale of graceful ends. I wanted a play about a king who ... leaves his kingdom .... About a man who turns his back on magic .... I am Prince of Stories, Will, but I have no story of my own. Nor shall I ever .... I thank you." Dream to William Shakespeare, in SANDMAN #75, "The Tempest"

I had the hubris originally to regard myself as a collaborator, as a co-author. Very rapidly I found myself reduced to the status of character, follow

2005-09-21T13:14:00.000-04:00

"It's never what they want, and if we give them what they think they want, they like it less than ever." The eldest of the three Fates, in SANDMAN #57: "The Kindly Ones:1" There are no gryphons, no wyverns, no winged horses in the waking world, raven. Not anymore. But we are here... The gryphon at the door, in SANDMAN #57: "The Kindly Ones:1" "I can remember the title, author, and location of every book in this library, Matthew. Every book that's ever been dreamed. Every book that's ever been imagined. Every book that's ever been lost. Millions upon millions of them. That's what I remember. It's my job. Other things... I forget sometimes." Lucien, in SANDMAN #57: "The Kindly Ones:1" "There's a downstairs in everybody. That's where we live." The youngest of the Three, in SANDMAN #58: "The Kindly Ones:2" It was then that Delirium noticed that she had absent-mindedly transformed into a hundred and eleven perfect, tiny multicoloured fish. Each fish sang a different song. SANDMAN #59: "The Kindly Ones:3" "What's he got?" "A feather. Looks like a phoenix's." "They're lucky." "For whom?" Loki and Robin Goodfellow, in SANDMAN #59: "The Kindly Ones:3" How remarkably funny, Remiel. Not actually original though, of course. Lucifer, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" Been there, Remiel. Done that, wore the tee-shirt, ate the burger, bought the original cast album, choreographed the legions of the damned and orchestrated the screaming... Lucifer, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" You didn't join the rebellion, not because you felt I was wrong, but because you were too damned scared. What would you have done, had I won? Told me that you'd always supported me ideologically? That you were secretly cheering me on the whole time? Lucifer to Remiel, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" I didn't say it was my fault. I said it was my responsibility. I know the difference. Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" "I'm on my way to that castle. It's owned by a shape-changing ogre. I intend to wager the silver collar around my neck that the ogre cannot change itself into three things that I shall name for it." "Will the third shape be a mouse?" "Of course." "But...don't they ever learn?" "They can't. They're part of the story, just as I am." A cat and Lyta Hall, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half- wit, and the emperor remains an emperor. Dream, in SANDMAN #60: "The Kindly Ones:4" The gods we prayed to when we were young used up their time so long ago. They cannot answer anymore. Euryale, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" "They never liked us, did they?" "Gods don't 'like'. They love and they hate and they ignore." Stheno and Euryale, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" If you go looking for the Ladies... well, I don't know that that's such a good idea. You might find them. Euryale, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" "I was tttt--told to give you a message." "Oh yeah? Who's the message from?" "Your gggggg--grandmother. She said she had a message for you. She said it was important." "My grandmother is dead, Zelda." "I know. She said that. She said she was dead." Zelda and Rose, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones Pt:5" You don't have to believe in God. But what about gods? Eh? The plurality of powers and dominions. The lords and ladies of field and thorn, of asphalt and sewer, gods of telephone and whore, gods of hospital and car-crash? Loki, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" There is a madness needed to touch the gods, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild woods of madness.. Loki, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" Do you know your tragedy, Carla? ... It's that, for all your goodwill, for all your willingness to help, you never knew what any of this was all about. What was going on. You don't know how it ends. And you'll never get to find out. Loki, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" I am the mother to Odin's stallion, Sleipnir. I am the mother of Fenrir sun-eater and of Hel half-rotted and of Jormungund the world-serpent. I am Loki Scar-Lip, Loki Skywalker, Loki Giant's Child, Loki Lie-Smith. I am Loki, who is fire and wit and hate. I am Loki. And I will be under an obligation to no one. Loki, in SANDMAN #61: "The Kindly Ones:5" And she wrapped her slimy body around his, and she whispered his name into his ear. And he screams, kill me, for god's sake, just get it over with. But she licked her lips with her long worm tongue, and she shakes her head. A meal this good must never be hurried, she says. Just hold still boy, and let me enjoy myself. And she takes her first, gentle bite from his cheek with her sharp sharp teeth... The closing of the tale, in SANDMAN #62: "The Kindly Ones:6" He was a very clever doggy. He said things like... like... "I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options." Delirium describes her dog Barnabas, in SANDMAN #63: "The Kindly Ones:7" Dancing salamanders brought the children silver plates filled with exotic ice-creams of various flavors, and with fruits they had never seen before and would never see again... although they would dream of them, on rare occasions, until they died. SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8" He spoke to the embryonic silicon dreams who clustered in a far ballroom, and whispered to them, briefly, about the other machines that had dreamed in the distant past. SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8" The things we do make echos. S'pose f'rinstance, you stop on a street corner and admire a brilliant fork of lightning--ZAP! Well for ages after people and things will stop on that very same corner, stare up at the sky. They wouldn't even know what they were looking for. Some of them might see a ghost bolt of lightning in the street. Some of them might even be killed by it. Our Existence deforms the universe. That's responsibility. Delirium, in SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8" I know lots of things. People think I don't but I really do. I know more about us than any of us. That's just one of the things I know. Delirium, in SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8" "I am honor-bound to warn you to stay on the path through the castle. Straying from the path could mean your destruction. ... You killed my friend, woman. Stray from your path." The guardian dragon warns the Furies, in SANDMAN #64: "The Kindly Ones:8" Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #65: "The Kindly Ones:9" The thing you ought to remember about ravens, is that we belong equally to both genders. You don't see that every day. But we're as likely to be the Morrigan's as Odin's, as likely to be Eve's as Dream's. Noah's raven, in SANDMAN #65: "The Kindly Ones:9" Listen, an eye's just an eye. A few more days, and he'll be something not even a raven would eat. Over to the ants..." Noah's raven and Matthew, in SANDMAN #65: "The Kindly Ones:9" It was like a bad TV show. "He's a reincarnated serial killer— his partner's a bird. They're cops." Matthew, in SANDMAN #65: "The Kindly Ones:9" "Now, majesty, banishment, decapitation, or something lingering with boiling oil in it somewhere?" "Cluracan, you are a rascal..." Cluracan and Titania, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" A Puck is harder by far to hurt than some little lord of malice from the lands of ice and snow. We Pucks are old and hard and wild... Robin Goodfellow, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" I am the Puck, called Robin Goodfellow. I am a trickster, an antic prankster, a will o' the wisp. "Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loose upon the world." That's me. Robin Goodfellow, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" I bind you, Loki Sky Walker, malice-monger. I bind you with the guts of Narvi, your son. I bind you with frost and with fire, and with the weight of the world. Odin, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" You guys're an elite corps. >>Khoff<<>>Khoff<< >>Khoff<< We're at war. Mervin's pep-talk, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" "Me? Lady, I'm your worst nightmare— a pumpkin with a gun." Mervyn, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" Gods fear us. Demons fear us. We have hounded kings and angels. We have taken vengeance on worlds and universes. We are the Kindly Ones. We are the Eumenides. The Furies, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" Yeah? Well, eumenide this! Merv's reply to the Furies, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" "How... how dare you let that happen, Lord? How dare you?" "You will not speak to me like that, Lucien." "I doubt I'll be alive tomorrow, Lord. On that basis I find it particularly easy to say exactly what I think." Dream and Lucien, in SANDMAN #66: "The Kindly Ones:10" "On reflection, while I cannot give you the thing itself, I could give you a dream of my love." "I already have that, my Lord." Dream and Nuala, in SANDMAN #67: "The Kindly Ones:11" No miracles. No magic. No dreams. Only pain and death and visa slips. Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #67: "The Kindly Ones:11" This will be felt across worlds and days as a reality storm; and, as it plays its course, conflicting realities will fall and spin and shatter across time and existence. Destiny, in SANDMAN #67: "The Kindly Ones:11" A customer at Lux's, drunk and flirtatious, peeks beneath Mazikeen's half-mask. He satisfies his curiosity, as he loses, one after the other, his drink, his lunch, and his sanity. Mazikeen has no patience with men. SANDMAN #67: "The Kindly Ones:11" "They aren't your memories." "They are all I have." Lucien and The Corinthian: in SANDMAN #67, "The Kindly Ones:11" Alianora foretold that I would receive my scars in my turn, like the one I left on her cheek, like the one I left on her heart. She knew it then. Dream, in SANDMAN #67: "The Kindly Ones:11" If you don't let me in, I will turn you into a demon half-face waitress night-club lady with a crush on her boss, and I'll make it so you've been that from the beginning of time to now and you'll never ever know if you were anything else and it will itch inside your head worse than little bugses. Delirium threatens Mazikeen, in SANDMAN #68: "The Kindly Ones:12" "Sorry, sweetheart. I don't do funerals. Life is, as they say, too short. And I can't wear black. I'm an autumn." "Asshole, Hal. The word you're looking for is asshole." Rose and Hal, in SANDMAN #68: "The Kindly Ones:12" "You're crying." "Lord Shaper is in dire need, and he doesn't love me." "Would it be better if he was in dire need, and did love you?" Cluracan and Nuala, in SANDMAN #69: "The Kindly Ones:13" The poison spills into Loki's mouth and eyes; he writhes, and a city falls: and in the moment of pain he gains a certain clarity. The master manipulator realizes how, ultimately— how strangely, how elegantly— he too had been manipulated. Perhaps the sound he makes is laughter. SANDMAN #69: "The Kindly Ones:13" I had the hubris originally to regard myself as a collaborator, as a co-author. Very rapidly I found myself reduced to the status of character, following something of a disagreement in the fundamental direction of the Creation. Lucifer, in SANDMAN #69: "The Kindly Ones:13" It's the same old story... Whatever it turns into on the way, whatever it is you originally undertake to spin or knit or weave, keep it going long enough and, in the end, my lilies, it's always a winding sheet. SANDMAN #69: "The Kindly Ones:13"

That red stuff, that's blood that is. Meant to be on the inside, it is. Bad sign if it's not on the inside, that's what I says.

2005-09-21T13:12:00.000-04:00

You need help, matey. You and that there young lady. That red stuff, that's blood that is. Meant to be on the inside, it is. Bad sign if it's not on the inside, that's what I says. Hedgehog, SANDMAN #51: "A Tale of Two Cities" When a world ends, there's always something left over. A story, perhaps, or a vision, or a hope. This inn is a refuge, after the lights go out. For a while. The hostess of The Inn at the End of the Worlds, SANDMAN #51: "A Tale of Two Cities" "What's going on?" "We're telling stories. You just missed a really good one about a man who won November 1937 in a poker game." Brant and Charlene, in SANDMAN #51: "A Tale of Two Cities" If a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams. That is where I believe we have come. We are in the dreams of the city. That's why certain places hover on the brink of recognition; why we almost know where we are. SANDMAN #51: "A Tale of Two Cities" "If the city was dreaming," he told me, "then the city is asleep. And I do not fear cities sleeping, stretched out unconscious around their rivers and estuaries, like cats in the moonlight. Sleeping cities are tame and harmless things. What I fear," he said, "is that one day he cities will waken. That one day the cities will rise." SANDMAN #51: "A Tale of Two Cities" We of Faerie are of the wild magic. We are not creatures of spells and grimoires. We are spells, and we are written of in grimoires. SANDMAN #52: "Cluracan's Tale" So, like everyone else, I was staring out of one of the windows of the inn at the end of the words. Worlds. I meant worlds. Brant Tucker, in SANDMAN #56: "World's End" The words said over my father's body were hollow and dumb, and I couldn't find it in me to cry, not then. I knew I was watching the real thing here. There was true grief in each step they took across the sky, and they shouldered the casket as if they were shouldering the weight of the world. Brant Tucker, in SANDMAN #56: "World's End" She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there. But I'll always love her. All my life. Brant Tucker, of Death, in SANDMAN #56: "World's End" It was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you. Brant Tucker, of Death, in SANDMAN #56: "World's End" I'm Matthew. I'm the raven. Not a raven— the raven. That's one of the weird things about the Dreaming— it's a kind of one-raven-at-a- time sort of place. Matthew, in SANDMAN: "The Castle"

"You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

2005-09-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

Change. Change. Change. Change... Change. Change. Chaaange. When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do. Delirium, in SANDMAN #41: "Brief Lives:1" In her world there are so many windows. Each opening shows her an existence that's fallen to her— some only for moments, others for lifetimes. Despair's realm, in SANDMAN #41: "Brief Lives:1" "I mean, does this always happen when a girlfriend walks out on him?" "Not at all. For example, after the Nada affair he razed the Dreaming. It was a bleak, lonely desert for centuries. I remember the first flower that grew. The first time he smiled again..." Matthew and Lucien, in SANDMAN #42: "Brief Lives:2" There are roughly seventy people walking the Earth, human to all appearances (and in a few cases, to all medical tests currently available), who were alive before the Earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust. SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less." Death, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago." "There isn't one." "Oh. I thought maybe there was." Delirium and Dream, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "What the hell would you know? You're a dog." "Did I ever say I wasn't?" Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "You know, Barnabas, there are those who claim that for unquestioning respect and eternal devotion, all one needs is a dog." "Hey, schmuck, devotion you've got. Perjury isn't in the job description." Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. Chloe Russell, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?" "When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget." "But that's not fair!" "No." Chloe and Dream, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3" "Listen, I couldn't help overhearing you earlier. You said destiny was blind. Well, didn't you mean love? It's 'Love is blind'. That's the saying, isn't it?" SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4" I know how gods begin, Roger. We start as dreams. Then we walk out of dreams into the land. We are worshipped and loved, and take power to ourselves. And then one day there's no one left to worship us. And in the end, each little god and goddess takes its last journey back into dreams... and what comes after, not even we know. Ishtar, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5" I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid. Ishtar, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5" The garden of Destiny. Look behind you: shadow-plays of memory are forever being enacted, on paths you walked too long ago. SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7" Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden. You would do well to remember that. Delirum to Destiny, in SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7" Destruction did not cease with my abandonment of my realm, no more than people would cease to dream should you abandon yours. Perhaps it's more uncontrolled, wilder. Perhaps not. But it's no longer anyone's responsibility. Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8" I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend. Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8" The Endless? The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more. We have no right to play with their lives, to order their dreams and their desires. Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8" "Even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the universe." "Except our sister." "So we suppose." Destruction, Delirium, and Dream refering to Death in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8" What's done can't be undone. Or very rarely. And definitely not this time. Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8" "You cannot seek Destruction and return unscathed." "Delirium has." "Delirium has been scathed enough in her time." Despair and Desire, in SANDMAN #49: "Brief Lives:9" "You know, I swore an oath once. I swore I would make him spill family blood. And now he has. I should be triumphant." "It was not your doing." "True. But it was what I wanted." "So. Are you happy?" "No. I'm scared." "So am I." Desire and Despair, in SANDMAN #49: "Brief Lives, Chapter 9"

It is sometimes a mistake to climb, it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt.

2005-09-21T03:37:00.000-04:00

It is sometimes a mistake to climb, it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. Dream, in SANDMAN: "Fear of Falling" - "Dreams. What are Dreams? Dreams are nothing, my brother." - "Dreams are 'nothing', sister? Without dreams there could be no Despair." Despair and Dream, in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" - "I hesitate to tell you this, Sam, but there are certain individuals who have accused me of. Mm. Well, being mad." - "You shock me, Your Majesty." Norton I, Emperor of the United States, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" - "His madness... His madness keeps him sane." - "And do you think he is the only one, my sister?" Delirium and Dream, in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" "Desire? You disappoint me. This evening's display: bringing back a dead man to offer Norton the pleasures of the world. It was not very subtle." Dream, in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" They say that the world rests on the backs of 36 living saints - 36 unselfish men and women. Because of them the world continues to exist. They are the secret kings and queens of this world. Death, in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" I've met a lot of kings, and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best. Death, to Joshua Norton in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" - "I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear." - "Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out." Norton I and Death, in SANDMAN #31: "Three Septembers and a January" "Will you kill all the poets, then, St. Just? Will you kill all the dreamers?" Lady Johanna Constantine, in SANDMAN #29: "Thermidor" From that Time on, the Song of Orpheus has always hovered at the Edge of my Perception; a Melody I can never fully recover, try howsoever I will. And do not doubt that there are many in Authority to whom I would sing it, if 'twere within my Power. Lady Johanna Constantine, in SANDMAN #29: "Thermidor" The young man's mother had died bringing him into the world; she gave him life, a small wooden finger-ring, and the name Vassily. There have been worse legacies. The grandfather's tale in SANDMAN #38: "The Hunt" "Of course you don't believe in fairies. You're fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn't a fairy. He was a librarian. All right?" Grandfather in SANDMAN #38: "The Hunt" Listen, blood of my blood, although I'm a hard man to anger, and I love you deeply, if you interrupt me again so help me I'll rip out your throat with my teeth. The grandfather in SANDMAN #38: "The Hunt" Do you know how long it's been since I mislaid a book? Well, let's just say the continents weren't in their current shapes, not that that means anything to you. Lucien in SANDMAN #38: "The Hunt" We write our names in the sand, and then the waves roll in and wash them away. The emperor Augustus in SANDMAN #30: "August" Forewarned is seldom forearmed. Not even in the shifting zones. Dream, in SANDMAN #39: "Soft Places" - "You look white as the man in the moon. Are you always that pale?" - "That depends on who's watching." Marco Polo and Dream, in SANDMAN #39: "Soft Places" Any view of things that is not strange is false. An aside, in SANDMAN #39: "Soft Places" There are really patterns. It was a revelation, of a kind. Dreams and sand and stories. Deserts and cities and time. SANDMAN #39: "Soft Places" Herakles was full of it. He just got dead drunk for a couple of weeks in Phrygia and told everyone he'd been to the land of the dead. Death, in SANDMAN: "The Song of Orpheus" "I don't need to know the future. When the future's over, then it's me..." Death, in SANDMAN: "The Song of Orpheus" Thou hast made the Furies cry, Orpheus. They will never forgive you for that. Queen Persephone, in SANDMAN: "The Song of Orpheus" There was also in that room the Other Egg of the Phoenix. (For the Phoenix when its time comes to die lays two eggs, one black, one white: From the white egg hatches the Phoenix-bird itself, when its time is come, but what hatches from the black egg no one knows. SANDMAN #50: "Ramadan" You have called me here, Haroun. It is unwise to summon what you cannot dismiss. Dream, in SANDMAN #50: "Ramadan" He prays as he walks (cursing his one weak leg the while), prays to Allah (who made all things) that somewhere, in the darkness of dreams, abides the other Baghdad (that can never die), and the other egg of the Phoenix. But Allah alone knows all. SANDMAN #50: "Ramadan"

I am not afraid. O Princess Barbara...

2005-09-21T03:36:00.000-04:00

This is a bright place, filled with frightened people, and fast hard things that hurt and wound. No matter. I swore I would remain by her side forever, and until death divided us. I must walk until once more we are reunited. Martin Tenbones, lost in New York, in SANDMAN #32: "Slaughter on Fifth Avenue" I am not afraid. O Princess Barbara, protect me now as I have protected you in days long past. O Murphy watch over me. I will not be afraid. Martin Tenbones, lost in New York, in SANDMAN #32:"Slaughter on Fifth Avenue" There are two ways into another's dreams. We can go through the dream king; or we can go by the moon's road. But the dream king has little time for you women, and even less for my kind; while the moon is ever ours. It's time to draw down the moon. Thessaly, in SANDMAN #34: "Bad Moon Rising" Where others ask timorously, Thessalian, your kind commanded, directed, ordered. It galled us. But the others are dust now, and less than dust. And one day you, in your turn, will join them. And then our compact will be over, and you will be ours, as they are. The moon, in SANDMAN #34: "Bad Moon Rising" I was one of seventeen children. We were all named Wilkinson -- I suppose it was roughest on the girls, but we all got used to it in the end. I blame the parents, really. ... It was just when they found a name they liked, they stuck with it. Wilkinson, in SANDMAN #35: "Beginning to See the Light"

I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it.

2005-09-21T03:28:00.000-04:00

The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 The garden of Destiny. You would know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it. Delirium, in SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 Desire smells almost subliminally of summer peaches, and casts two shadows: one black and sharp-edged, the other translucent and forever wavering, like heat haze…Desire smiles in brief flashes, like sunlight glinting from a knife- edge. And there is much else that is knife-like about Desire… Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Everything. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 Despair, Desire's sister and twin, is queen of her own bleak bourne. It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 Destiny is the oldest of the Endless; in the beginning was the Word, and it was traced by hand on the first page of his book, before ever it was spoken aloud… Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of night. He leaves no footprints. He casts no shadow. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 Delirium was once Delight. And although that was long ago now, even today her eyes are badly matched; one eye is a vivid emerald green, spattered with silver flecks that move; her other eye is vein blue. Who knows what Delirium sees, through her mismatched eyes? SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 Dream casts a human shadow, when it occurs to him to do so. SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0 "Well, at least you've got the element of surprise on your side." "That would not be honorable, Matthew. I have already sent a messenger to the Lord of Hell, to let him know that I will be coming. One must do these things properly." SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 [Of The Cainites] They also held that the way to salvation was to give way to lust and temptation in all things. And no greater percentage of them turned up here than of any other religion. Amusing, isn't it? Lucifer, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 - "'Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven.' Eh, little brother-killer?" - "Suh-certainly, Lord Lucifer. Whatevery you say, Lord Lucifer." - "We didn't say it. Milton said it. And he was blind." Lucifer and Cain, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 I move from dreamer to dreamer, from dream to dream, hunting for what I need. Slipping and sliding and flickering through dreams; and the dreamers will wake and wonder why this dream seemed different, wonder how real their lives can truly be. Dream, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 "You know, the idea of what someone like you considers a long time sends shivers down my spine." Hob Gadling to Dream, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 "To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the seasons of mists. And may each and everyone of us always give the devil his due." Hob Gadlings toast, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 They believe themselves Lucifer's equals, Cain, all these pitiful little gnats. But there is only one that we have ever owned to be our superior. There is but one greater than us, and to him... to him we no longer speak. Lucifer, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 We do what we must, Lucien. Sometimes we can choose the path we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all. Dream, in SANDMAN #22: "Season of Mists", episode 1 "I am Breschau of Livonia. I ripped out the tongues of those who spoke against me, and cut the unborn babes from the wombs of my enemies women, that they would not become warriors to rise against me. I took my mother by force, and I strangled my sister when she would not consent to my advances. Soon my name was whispered in the night by mothers to terrify their babes into obedience, I am Breschau, who bathed in the blood of children. I am Breschau, who forced the true prophets of the lord to dance upon plates of hot iron, under which fires were burning, and I laughed as they danced. I am Breschau, and when my mistress was unfaithful to me, I cut the nose from her face and wore it about my neck. As for the woman, I had her sewn to her lover, and, skin to skin, I left them in the desert to be eaten by ravens, and I laughed as I heard them scream. I am Breschau, and this is my punishment." Breschau (of Livonia), in SANDMAN #23: "Seasons of Mist: episode 2" - "Would the Lord of hell destroy his realm? Would the Lord of hell ever free the souls held in torment? Would the Lord of hell expel the never-born? Would the Lord of hell abandon the war with heaven?" - "The Lord of hell will do what he damn well likes." The demon Ketele and Lucifer, in SANDMAN #23: "Seasons of Mist: episode 2" "They talk of me going around buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves...they just hate to face up to it." Lucifer, in SANDMAN #23: "Seasons of Mist: episode 2" I could never again be an angel... Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. Lucifer, in SANDMAN #23: "Season of Mists: episode 2" "I'm the amazing Cain. If you enjoyed our show, tell your friends. If you didn't, I trust you get throat cancer and die without ever again uttering another word. Goodnight." Cain, in SANDMAN #27: "Seasons of Mist: episode 6" - "There will be no more wanton violence; no further suffering, inflicted without reason or explanation. We will hurt you. And we are not sorry. But we do not do it to punish you. We do it to redeem you. Because afterward, you'll be a better person...And because we love you. One day you'll thank us for it." - "But you don't understand...that makes it worse. That makes it so much worse..." Remiel and one of the damned, in SANDMAN #28: "Seasons of Mist: episode Infinfty"

Highbrew & Highbrew Technologies

2005-09-21T01:13:00.000-04:00

Lots of things, very little to say. Basically, Highbrew and Highbrew Technologies are now two different entities. Here be Highbrew Pvt. Ltd. - a London based software corporation that sells finance, education and healthcare software. And here be Highbrew Technologies, LLC. - a Cincinnati based software corporation that sells bar software.

...the price for getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted.

2005-09-21T00:18:00.000-04:00

The fraternity of critics, in reality a dark brethren, linked by profane rites and blood vows. To destroy an author they sacrifice a child and perform a critical mass... Ideas flooding the mind of Richard Madoc, in SANDMAN #17: "Calliope" Gryphons shouldn't marry. Vampires don't dance. A man who inherits a library card to the library in Alexandria. A rose bush, a nightingale, and a black rubber dog- collar. Ideas flooding the mind of Richard Madoc, in SANDMAN #17: "Calliope" "Justice?" It repeated. "Justice is a delusion you will not find on this or any other sphere. And wisdom? Wisdom is no part of dreams, lithe walker, though dreams are a part of the sum of each life's experiences, which is the only wisdom that matters. But revelation? That is the province of dream." A skeleton bird, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" All cats can see futures, and see echoes of the past. We can watch the passage of creatures from the infinity of now, from all the worlds like ours, only fractionally different. And we follow them with our eyes, ghost things, and the humans see nothing. The visionary cat, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" They dreamed the world so it always was the way it is now, little one. There never was a world of high cat-ladies and cat-lords. Dream, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" If enough of us dream, if a bare thousand of us dream, we can change the world. We can dream it anew! A world in which no cat suffers from the malice of humans. In which no cats are killed by human caprice. A world that we rule. The visionary cat, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" Dream the world. Not this pallid shadow of reality. Dream the world the way it truly is. A world in which all cats are queens and kings of creation. That is my message. And I shall keep moving, keep repeating it, until I die. Or until a thousand cats hear my words, and believe them, and dream, and we come again to paradise. The visionary cat, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" Little one, I would like to see anyone —prophet, king or God —persuade a thousand cats to do anything at the same time. A cynical cat, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" "So... we are here on your command, my lord, on Midsummer's Eve, by the Long Man of Wilmington. An odd choice of a place for us to perform..." "Odd? Wendel's Mound was a theatre before your race came to this island." "Before the Normans?" "Before the humans." Shakespeare and Dream, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak. Dream, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" "'I am that merry wanderer of the night.'? I am that giggling - dangerous - totally - bloody - psychotic - menace - to - life-and- limb, more like it." "Shh, Peaseblossom. The puck might hear you." Members of the audience, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" None of those women are women at all. They're males. I can tell. Human males taste more like rabbit than the females — and they stick in your teeth. Skarrow, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" You played me well, mortal. But I have played me for time out of mind. And I do Robin Goodfellow better than anyone. Robin Goodfellow, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Things have changed, and will change more; and Gaia no longer welcomes us as once she did. Auberon, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ...the price for getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted. Dream, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" During your stay on this Earth the faerie have afforded me much diversion, and entertainment. Now you have left for your own haunts. And I would repay you all for the amusement. And more. They shall not forget you. That was important to me: that King Auberon and Queen Titania will be remembered by mortals, until this age is gone. Dream, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" "It's true. It never happened thus, yet it is still true. What magic art is this?" Robin Goodfellow, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot. Dream, in SANDMAN #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" They say that cigarettes will kill you, eventually. Fine. That's just fine. I only wish they'd do it faster… I like smoking cigarettes. It's something normal people do. I smoke a cigarette, and pretend I'm normal. And I wish I was dead. Element Girl, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade" "And you've come for me? Blessed, merciful death. You've come to make it all stop?" "No. I haven't come for you, Rainie. There was a woman upstairs, changing the light bulb in her kid's room. The stepladder slipped... Like I said, I was passing and I heard you crying, and, well, the door was open..." Element Girl and Death, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade" Anyway: I'm not blessed or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes, in hospitals and forests and abattoirs. For some folks death is a release and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them. Death, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade" When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave. Death, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade" Rainie, mythologies take longer to die than people believe. They linger on in a kind of dream country that affects all of you. Death, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade" Who am I? Just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe. Sorry I couldn't help any. Be seeing you... Death, in SANDMAN #20: "Façade"

Tuck you in, Warm within, Till the Sandman he comes

2005-09-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

I guess a lot of you have probably been extremely confused about what the hell is going on - well, these entries are each from each of Neil Gaiman's Sandman books. I'm just having a Sandman theme, of sorts.

- "I am anti-life, the beast of judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... of everything. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?" - "I am hope." Choronzon and Dream, playing the oldest game, in Preludes and Nocturnes.

Dreams are weird and stupid and they scare me.

2005-09-19T04:25:00.000-04:00

There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women's tale, and it is never told to men. From SANDMAN #9: "Tales in the Sand" For love is no part of the dream-world. Love belongs to desire, and desire is always cruel. From SANDMAN #9: "Tales in the Sand" (page 15) I've started in a trade. Working with a friend of mine. It won't last. But it's a new trade. It's called printing. Don't need to be a guild member —not yet. Never be a real demand for it, mind you. Hard work. Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune" Her kind walk amidst the flotsam of lives they have sacrificed, for their own purposes, till friendless and alone they needs must make the final sacrifice. Dream, on Lady Johanna Constantine, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune" "Death's a capricious thing, innit?" "Yes. Yes, she is." Hob Gadling and Dream, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune" I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes. Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune" "If I hear another of your theological paradoxes, I'll scream. Frankly, today I don't care if God exists or not." "I doubt He feels likewise, Miss Walker." Rose Walker and Gilbert ("Fiddler's Green" assuming human guise in the form of Gilbert K Chesterton) in SANDMAN #14: "Collectors" And they left, slowly, one by one, with reluctance, leaving the safety of the light for the chill certainties of the darkness.It seemed like the night sucked them up, took them into its dark heart. It seemed like the darkness swallowed them... Perhaps it did. The Cereal (serial killer) convention breaks up, in SANDMAN #14: "Collectors" "Do you know what Freud said about dreams of flying? It means you're really dreaming about having sex." "Indeed? Tell me, then, what does it mean when you dream about having sex?" Rose Walker and Dream, in SANDMAN #15: "Into The Night" I left because I was curious. And because I was tired. Life as a human contains substance I never dreamed of in the Dreaming, Lord. The little victories, and the tiny defeats. I had my reasons. Gilbert (Fiddler's Green) in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" "I do not understand— " "Of course you don't. You're obviously not very bright, but I shouldn't let it bother you." Dream and Unity Kinkaid, in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" If my dream was true, then everything we know, everything we think we know is a lie. It means the world's about as solid and as reliable as a layer of scum on the top of a well of black water which goes down forever, and there are things in the depths that I don't even want to think about. It means that we're just dolls. We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored. Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" Dreams are weird and stupid and they scare me. Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" "And then she woke up." I suppose there are worse endings. Rose Walker in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" Desire, listen to me carefully. Remember this. We of the endless are the servants of the living— we are not their masters. We exist because they know, deep in their hearts, that we exist. Dream, in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" Human beings are the creatures of desire. They twist and bend as I require it. If I thought otherwise, I would crack, like Delirium; or I would abandon my realm, like our lost brother. Desire, in SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts" And Desire walks the endless pathways of its body, certain that he, or she, or it, is in sole and only control of its destiny. The only inhabitant of the twilight realm of Desire; and it feels nothing like a doll. Nothing like a doll at all. SANDMAN #16: "Lost Hearts"

It is never "only a dream", John Constantine. Here less than other places...

2005-09-18T19:17:00.000-04:00

What power would hell have if those imprisoned there could not dream of heaven?

Dream, in Preludes & Nocturnes

It was a dark and stormy nightmare...

SANDMAN #2: "Imperfect Hosts"

Have you ever had one of those days when something just seems to be trying to tell you somebody?

John Constantine, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

It is never "only a dream", John Constantine. Here less than other places...

Dream, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

... see the sun set in the hand of the man ...

Rachel, (quoting Kate Bush) in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

It is time for me to walk the abyss. Time to reclaim my own. I must talk to the Morningstar. I do not have high hopes for the meeting.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

The wood of suicides has changed since my last visit to Hell. I remember it as a tiny grove. Now it resembles a forest.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

Never trust a demon. He has a hundred motives for anything he does... Ninety-nine of them, at least, are malevolent.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories— if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

SANDMAN #6: "24 Hours"

I will be a wise and tolerant monarch, dispensing justice fairly, and only setting nightmares to rip out the minds of the evil and wicked. Or just anybody I don't like.

John Dee, in SANDMAN #7: "Sound and Fury"

You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification in this or any other plane!

Death to Dream, in SANDMAN #8: "The Sound of Her Wings"

Microsoft Start

2005-09-15T18:43:00.000-04:00

Life Imitating Art?

"He is Conan, Cimmerian, he won't cry, so I cry for him."

2005-09-15T16:13:00.000-04:00

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."

Cheesy Pictures Of An Idiot And His Swords

2005-09-13T13:48:00.000-04:00

Swords you can see: Two sets of Katanas, Kilgorin Sword of Darkness, Luciendar Sword of Light, Dark Wood Bokken, Heron Mark Blade, Bamboo Shinai.

Let The Dragon Ride Again On The Winds Of Time

2005-09-10T14:32:00.000-04:00

Met Robert Jordan at Chapter 11 Books and got my complete collection of Wheel of Time signed. It was awesome - DragonMount has more information. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... "...On the island, the air shimmered and coalesced. The blackclad man stood staring at the fiery mountain rising out of the plain. His face twisted in rage and contempt. "You cannot escape so easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time." Then he was gone, and the mountain and the island stood alone. Waiting. And the Shadow fell upon the Land, and the World was riven stone from stone. The oceans fled, and the mountains were swallowed up, and the nations were scattered to the eight corners of the world. The moon was as blood, and the sun was as ashes. The seas boiled, and the living envied the dead. All was shattered, and all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World. And him they named Dragon." "...And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past and will be in ages to come. Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time." "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the Winds of Time...

Heron Marked Sword

2005-09-05T18:41:00.000-04:00

So, I've been spending the past week at Dragon*Con, so forgive me for not posting!

I must say that I had an excellent time and even discovered a cool new band, Three Quarter Ale. Not to mention some, umm, interesting belly-dancing shows and other things. Got to meet Sgt. Walter and Salmak from Stargate, Jayne and The Preacher from Firefly, Councillor Deanna Troi from Star Trek and a few others. Also chanced upon Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time Track at DragonCon. Of course, the most important thing was the Sword Fighting Forms, where they demonstrated various sword fighting forms. Using nothing less than a Heron Marked Blade. And of course, the most important thing is that I got a Heron Mark Sword. Yup, a good differential tempered high-carbon folded steel Heron Mark Sword.

Here's what Museum-Replicas has to say about the blade:

" In the old days, the Heron Mark swords were made by blending metals to make a blade that need never be sharpened. Nor could it be broken. But today, the Heron Mark is a sign that the sword was made by a blademaster. Such swords are awarded only to he who has proven that he has the highest possible skill with a sword. We are very proud to offer a Heron Mark sword. The sword is hand-forged, and of a very tough high carbon steel. The guard and pommel are of brass, and the balance is simply superb. Authorized and approved by Robert Jordan, this sword is an accurate copy of those blades in The Wheel of Time series. Once you hold this blade in your hands, you realize how quick and deadly is the sword. A superb example of the swordmaker's art."

How To Buy a Good Sword

2005-08-28T16:01:00.000-04:00

Well, I've gotten a lot of responses (some mail, some comments and some blog posts) on my Swords blog entry. I never realized so many people liked swords, but a lot of folks seem unaware of what it takes to make a good sword. The thing is, Kit Rae swords are decorative swords - they look good, nothing more. A good Bamboo sword can quite effectively beat a Kit Rae sword for the simple reason that Kit Rae swords are not live (i.e. battle ready). If you are looking to buy a good sword (a real sword), here is what you would need to know. Know Your Sword Know the parts of your sword - you would not buy a car without knowing how many people it would seat or what mileage it would give, would you? Similarly, make sure that you know the parts, functionality, features, limitations and advantages of the kind of sword you are looking at. For instance, the following diagram shows the parts of a Kendo Shinai.

Material and Quality of Material I could write an entire treatise on this, but make sure that the sword is made of good material. When I mean material, I refer to it as an all-encompassing theme - the kind of metal, the metallurgy of the metal, quality of the metal/alloy, forging, post and pre manufacture treatments (like heating, curing), weight, balance and the like.

And stainless steel is not good material, it is brittle - when a 1 lb highcarbon rapier meets a 5 lb stailness steel Kit Rae, the latter will most unceremoniously break into two (or more) pieces, if you are lucky.

Also make sure that the sword has a full tang - i.e., all the parts are forged together as part of the sword, not welded as an afterthought. When you're in combat, the last thing you want is your blade flying off the guard, hilt or pommel (or something to that effect). The Highlander Sword Shopper's Guide has excellent articles on Determining Sword Quality and on Understanding Steel.

And remember - quality comes at a cost. Functionality and Aesthetics The sword you buy will depend entirely on what you would be using it for. My Kit Rae swords hang over the fireplace, but I practice using my Katana with other Kenshi (swordsmen). So, if you're looking for wall decors, it does not really matter - but if you are looking to use them, then your choice must be quite carefully made. For instance, I'd recommend serious Kenshi to look at the Japanese Swords FAQ that talks about Buying a Good Japanese Sword. And I'd also strongly recommend buying a pair of Bokkens - these are bamboo/wooden practice swords, and a good Bokken can beat a bad blade.

Size, Use and Balance If you are looking for a blade to be displayed on the mantlepiece, this is hardly an issue. But if you are going to be using your blade in live combat, you will need to consider all of the above. The size of the sword is dependent on your size - if someone who's 6'4 used a shortsword, it would look like a dagger on him. Or if someone who weighs 110 pounds tried using a 5 pound broadsword, it would be amusing at best and pitiable at worst. The next thing, once again, is use. If you are buying a blade for live combat use, what kind of live combat are you looking at? If you are the member of SCA and have medieval reenactments, your use is quite different than from someone who is buying a sword for Kendo or Iaido competitions. And finally, the issue of balance. This is something that most people completely ignore, but it's something that comes to haunt you later on. You need to feel that you are part of the sword. You and the sword should be one, and that will not happen if you do not have good balance. Depending on the sword, you should have a balance of the sword a little away from the guard. For instance, Horace Luong shows the balance of a good Tai-Chi sword below, which is about 5 cm from the guard.

Links and Resources Stephen Marsh has an excellent page on buying or forging swords.

I would also recommend looking at reliable manufacturers of swords, such as Kris Cutlery for buying good blades. While not particularly pleasing in an aesthetic sense, their blades are extremely functional and rugged. I would also recommend looking at forums such as the Sword Forum for information on swords.

Swords of Honor is another website with a good deal of information if you are looking to buy swords.

And finally, a disclaimer. Swords are blades made out of metal. Back in the day, these were designed purely with the intent to kill and maim. If you are dumb enough to stick one in places where it should not be, you're a moron and I'm in no way responsible for your foolish actions.

Unless you know what you're doing (and even if you knew what you are doing), nothing beats being careful and using your common sense. If something untoward happens, we can all attribute it to Darwin (and your stupidity, ofcourse).

Atlanta and Sword Fighting

2005-08-26T16:48:00.000-04:00

So, I'm back in Atlanta. After being in Cincinnati, I've mixed feelings - on one hand, I missed being in Atlanta (which has been my home for the past few years), while on the other hand, I miss the fun and friends from Cincinnati. Either way, me and Lorenzo are now roommates and we moved into a nice house at a small Georgia Tech student community. I've a lot to post (including how I almost missed my flight, how my smashing new iPod Shuffle rocks and how life is rocking on), but that's for later. For now, you'll bear with me while I talk about swords (yes, swords). As some of you might know, I do a little bit of sword fighting, fencing and lately, Kendo. Of course, I've been interested in all kinds of sword fighting techniques - but Kendo has been a realization of sorts. For one, it's nothing like European sword fighting. Most European sword fighting is based on one simple precept - your opponent is a tincan of sorts, dressed from head to toe in good armour, and you would do anything and everything you can to put a dent or chop off body parts. Well, to be fair, that's not entirely true - the use of the rapier (like in fencing) is an artform and most singlehanded sword duels aren't necessarily for decapitating your opponent. However, double-handed swords (especially broadswords or sabres) are designed with the intent of swing-until-you-make-contact scenario in mind. Kendo on the other hand is quite different - while you do wear armour while practicing (or even during competitions), it's derived from Kenjitsu, which most definitely did not involve punching through tincans. Kendo quite effectively means, "The Way of The Sword" and there is a strong correlation between Kendo and Zen Buddhism, and there are several schools that perceive the way sword fighting should be. For instance, the Itto-Ryu school believes in a single cut that is all encompassing. There are other schools that teach you to achieve enlightenment through Kendo, and others that say that the Sword and the Warrior need to be (and end up as) one. So, Kendo is more a form of meditation, a martial art-form where you just practice until you get that one moment of concentration where you become on with your sword. I'm not saying that European forms are not so, merely that Kendo seems to have been formed with this particular intent in mind. It has been a life-changing experience, I'd strongly recommend anybody interested in sword-fighting to learn Kendo first, it builds discipline and character, and you learn to respect your sword a lot more. That done, quite recently, I got around buying a couple of good Kit Rae swords as well as a couple of bamboo Kendo swords. (Yes, bamboo - you don't really use real metal swords when you practice. Bokkens are excellent learning and practice tools). And interestingly enough, the Kit Rae swords are Luciendar, the Sword of Light and Kilgorin, the Sword of Darkness.

[Luciendar, Sword of Light]

[Kilgorin, Sword of Darkness]

I've also been eyeing Morthoseth, the Sword of Shadows. Some day, I hope to get myself a high-carbon live Katana, too - but that would not be until I'm proficient enough to earn it.

Of Marriages, Martial Arts & Mad Days of Coding

2005-08-14T00:03:00.000-04:00

Today, a best friend and business partner of mine, Andrew Ford, got married to another friend, Kristen Scrofano. Their wedding was one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever seen - and if any two people were ever destined to be a great couple, it has to be them. Their wedding took place at the beautiful Saint Peter in Chains Cathedral, and was most amazing. And ofcourse, Andy is Catholic - which meant a large and wonderful family with lots of tiny and large brothers, sisters and everything in between running around! They had a great Soprano, who sang really well - and a wonderful celebrant, Father Bernie Weldishofer - people choked in tears during the Lord's Prayer and Nuptial Blessing ceremonies (awww). Andrew ofcourse, was talking really, really fast through the ceremony - "Get on with it, dammit! I need to get married. NOW!" Eventually, he did. Poor fella. But - before we were at the wedding, there were several things that happened. Such as me and Mark sitting and coding a few thousand and odd lines of code for our newest client. By the time this got done, I realized that it was 4 PM and rushed home (just in case, I'd also carried my clothes along, if for some odd reason the sky fell on me and I did not have time to get dressed for the wedding). Rebecca got a beautiful dress for the wedding, and after a multitude of "tasks" and "events" (not the least of which involved doing nails an hour before the wedding), we headed to the wedding. But ofcourse, it's boring if things always went well, so it decides to rain ("it" at this moment refers to the divine forces conspiring against me and Beck) - not your usual rain, but a torrential downpour, when we were already rushing to the wedding. Ofcourse, thanks to Rebecca's insanely awesomely scary driving skills, we reached the Church - and ran inside dripping wet. Well, for the most part - but the good news was that people who came after us were a lot more wet than we were, so that was a saving grace. And then ofcourse, the wedding ceremonies began and Andy got served. Err, sorry, married. (-: And we all wished them the most blissful wedded life ever. In between the wedding, we all chimed that there should be peace in the world in the name of the Lord and gave everybody hugs. And what did we do right afterwards? Well, umm, my insanely awesome Rebecca had decided that watching people beat the crap out of each other immediately after a serene wedding would be the thing to do. Yup, she planned a visit to a fighting ring for the evening. Right after the wedding. Think UFC, where real mixed martial arts people beat each other to a literal bloody pulp in a metal cage at a stripclub - The Metropolis Night Club. The event itself is called ICE MMA. But - before all this, we decided that we could not stand to watch people beating the crap out of each other on an empty stomach, so we rushed to some fast food joints and got ourselves lots and lots of food, which we consumed at extremely accelerated rates while driving at even more accelerated rates. Coming back to the fights, while they were brutal, they were quite awesome - remember, these are guys who are quite amazing at what they do (i.e. beating the crap out of people). Going out with Rebecca is a lot of fun that way.

R: "Damn it! Beat the crap out of him you nitwitted idiot! Grapple him and toss him aside, even I could teach you that, f***in' hell! Morons! That's basic f***in' stuff, right there! Grapple him, grapple him, graaaaaaa...AAAAAAAAAPLE HIM!" K: "Umm, you should consider a career in commentary." R: "Yeah, but I use the F word all the time, they won't let me do that." K: "Right. We're at a bar and a strip-club watching people beat the crap out of each other to a bloody pulp in a metal cage, and you're worried about language?!"

Just to be clear - I'm not particularly in the habit of doing such stuff on a regular basis (you know, just in case and stuff). Anyway, I've never felt more out of place - everyone there was having at least a tatoo, piercing or a funky hairstyle. Guess who were the only people dressed in insanely dressy, expensive clothes? Yup. The strippers, and us. Ofcourse, we did eventually get around to getting the hell out of there - only to head back to Andy's reception. Which was also a lot of fun - nothing beats seeing your good buddy and business partner dressed in a stuffy tux. I took particularly great pleasure in telling Andy that he resembled a Penguin! (yes, he did - a particularly large one, but definitely a penguin!) And then there was the funky dance/music stuff that goes on at weddings (combine all this with the mental imagery of just having watched people fighting, stripping, drinking etc). After all the fun stuff that happens at wedding parties and contemplations involving our own futures, we headed back. I could quite safely say that it was an interesting day!

Linux Laptops

2005-08-10T12:11:00.000-04:00

So, I'm looking for a Linux laptop - nothing serious, but something which I can use as a simple enough desktop and a basic development box. For the most part, I'll be doing the usual thing - writing and compiling code, doing some server/admin stuff, using office applications, surfing the web, listening to music, watching movies and the like. I might occasionally code a serious graphics or math app, or maybe run a MySQL test DB, but nothing enterprise scale (if I do run a MySQL app, it would be to do test a proof-of-concept thing or two, not an enterprise scale application). So, I've a couple of questions to all you geeky folks - one is about the hardware and the brand, and the other is about the software and the flavor to use. Now, first the hardware - I refuse to buy Dells or HPs - I've heard and experienced enough bad things about them. However, the problem is again the price - I'm not looking to pay $1,200 for such a system because I've enough systems at my disposal that have 1 TB of HDD, a few gigs of RAM and tonnes of processing power. I'm looking for a simple regular laptop for the tasks that I mentioned and so far, I've taken a liking to the Gateway M320S Series.

It's not a workhorse by any stretch, but here are the specs -

Intel® Celeron® M Processor 360 (1.40GHz, 400MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache)
1024MB 333MHz DDR SDRAM
60GB 4200rpm Ultra ATA hard drive
Integrated Intel® 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
Integrated 802.11b/g wireless networking card
Integrated Intel® Extreme 2 graphics with 32MB UMA memory technology
Integrated 4-in-1 card reader
Integrated 24x/10x/24x CD-RW / 8x DVD combo

And it does not cost much - the above configuration is just about $850 including shipping, which is quite cheap for such a configuration, especially given that I'm getting about 1 Gig of RAM, which makes me very, very happy. All the other notebooks that I've seen kinda seem to cost a whole lot more. I really wish that I did not have to pay for the OS, since I'll be wiping Windows off anyway and installing Linux on it, but other than Walmart, this largely does not seem to be an option with any other manufacturers. The most important problem ofcourse, is device drivers. My device driver writing days are long over - there was a time when I had written one of the first graphics drivers for the SiS 6215c graphics card simply because I could not find one. Or when I was asked by Wipro to conduct a series of workshops on how to write Network Device Drivers for Linux. These days, I simply cannot afford to spend half my life trying to get sound, video and wireless working. That is simply not an option. If it works, great. If it does not, I'll simply find one that works - I really, really do not have the time nor the patience to write device drivers and run Xfree86 (or whatever it is these days) a million times to get my basic resolution working. Or to sit with ALSA and GtkPod to for a good two weeks just to get my iPod working on Linux. I remember a quote by JWZ, not too long ago - "Linux is free only if you do not value your time". While I do not wholeheartedly agree with that, let me just say that I value my time much more than I value what social/ethical/moral principles drive my Operating System (or my editor). But I'm a developer and someone who is in love with the command prompt, and I feel at home with Unix and hence Linux serves my need best - but that does not mean I will go out of my way to use Linux. Which brings us to my next question. For the said laptop (or any other laptop), what is the best flavor of Linux that one would recommend? Personally, I started off with Slackware in the days when Linux was distributed on floppies, and moved on to Red Hat 5.2 and eventually matured to Debian. Then, I used FreeBSD and Solaris for a while and then kinda moved away from the Linux scene. So, I'm a little clueless on that front. At school, I primarily use FreeBSD or RedHat, but I've been out of circulation on what's the "in-thing" (or the best thing) in Linux now. I've been strongly advised to go in for either Fedora or Ubuntu, or maybe Mandrake - but I think I'll stick with the former two.

Both Ubuntu and Fedora look good enough, but I'm not sure which is -

More useful
More secure
Easier to setup
Has better device drivers
Is better in the long run

Deep down, despite the suits that I wear, I'm a hacker. I grew up hacking together tiny applications in operating systems long forgotten and harnessing unknown graphical abilities at assembly level in MS-DOS. And I used Linux before most people knew there was a Linux and I like a certain degree of control over my Operating System. More importantly, I like the freedom that Open Source gives me over my computer. And if I need a task to be done, I'm much more comfortable writing a script to do it rather than have a person do it (yes, I know). Then again, there is the case of security - I wear a tinfoil hat (sometimes) and I want a good, secure system that I know can trust. And while I do not GPG every piece of text before it hits my drive, I do use encryption occasionally, as and when I see fit. But I'm also an engineer and a practical man - I'd like to be pragmatic when it comes to my tasks - the right tool for the right job, and the tool that helps me rather than get in the way. I know that a lot of extremely geeky Linux using folks read my Blog (Cray3, PD, Beck, Dosai to name a few). So, now that you know what the hell I'm looking for, I'd appreciate any inputs and suggestions to this end. Thanks, folks!

I feel like Randy Waterhouse

2005-08-06T01:13:00.000-04:00

I feel like Randy Waterhouse. Like any kid, I wanted to be Hiro Protagonist. Hell, I'd have killed to be even Da5id, or Case. But after all these years, I've come to realize that I do not relate to any other character more than Randy Waterhouse. Including the "I-don't-want-to-be-known-as-a-geek" syndrome and the absolute lack of any social graces or skills and the stupid urge to be an entrepreneur. Not to mention my ability to attract Charlene's and yearn for Amy's. In fact, Epiphyte Corporation exists, but does not exist. Actually, Epiphyte Corporation does exist, but not entirely in a material form. Umm, that is not true, either. The metaphysical abstract version of Epiphyte Corporation exists in several forms (some imaginary, some real). Either way, immaterial (nice pun, don't you think?) of what form, everybody's either trying to get a piece of it, get rid of it or get rid of me. And lately, it's been a combination of all of the above. On the bright side, I'm yet to meet an Andrew Loeb, but I'm fairly certain that there are several Andrew Loebs in the making. Hopefully, none of them will decide to acquire hunting skills. I need an Enoch Root. I really, really do. And then, I'm surrounded by people. Well, we all are, but I'm surrounded by people. Some are like Avi, which is nice, but most are like the Dentist. And it's quite safe to say that I do seem to meet many versions of Chester who've airport hangars from my ideas. None are in Seattle, but several are in California. The worst part is, some are building those airport hangars right as we speak. Or I type. Whatever, you get the idea. Worse yet, some might even convince me to build them more airport hangars in the future. Scarily enough, I just might. I did get out of college with an incredible knowledge of computers, but am not too sure about the girlfriend part. Actually, I'm - but I just wouldn't tell you. Wait. Scratch that. What the hell, I'm still in college. It's too early, but am fairly certain of the outcome. Umm, yeah. Like Stephenson said, knowledge of Unix and a girlfriend are mutually exclusive. And Randy is fairly socially graceful than I'll ever learn to be, so no guesses there. In fact, my graduate thesis work is alarmingly similar to that of Randy, even. Just that I study swarms. Bee swarms. Ant swarms. Things like that. And try to understand and apply them to new-fangled geeky things that I pretend to understand. I'm yet to meet America Shaftoe, but there have been many Charlenes (or whatever the hell passes for them these days - you know, the kind that publish papers on beards). (Completely offtopic, today, we'd all gone to a Reds vs. Marlins game. Maria remarked that underneath the nice geeky professional gentleman persona probably lay hidden an aggressive dude. Sorta like the kind Amy and Randy find Charlene to be - which made me catatonic for a while. Just so you know, the answer is no.) Coming back to Charlenes, there've been way too many of them in way too many versions lately in my life. Wait. I should rephrase that suitably, but I'm too sleepy to care. The point being, there are two kinds of Charlenes in my life. The first is the annoying-academic kind and the second is the annoying-girlfriend kind. Fortunately, I've been smart enough (so far, at least) not to go in for combinations of the two. The former kind has ensured that I'll never get into academia in seriousness unless something terrible happened (i.e. become a liberal hippie, go mad, get married, marry a professor, start watching Julia Roberts movies and things like that). And the second has ensured that I'm definitely staying clear of that region of spacetime continuum for a while. Yes, you're wondering how a guy who uses girlfriends and spacetime continuums in the same line can actually get a girlfriend, right? Don't worry, if it makes you feel any better, I got stood up on today (actually, I also got a girl sitting on me later today and she was not even a stripper, but we shall not venture there). And then the question of Dwarves. Randy is lucky that way. He's a Dwarf. A metaphorical one. But I'm a real one. If you do not know what I meant, you must not know me very well. Which is just as well.

“… Charlene's crowd most definitely did take it personally. It wasn't being told that they were wrong that offended them, though -- it was the underlying assumption that a person could be right or wrong about anything. So on the Night in Question -- the night of Avi's fateful call -- Randy had done what he usually did, which was to withdraw from the conversation. In the Tolkien, not the endocrinological or Snow White sense, Randy is a Dwarf. Tolkien's Dwarves were stout, taciturn, vaguely magical characters who spent a lot of time in the dark hammering out beautiful things, e.g. Rings of Power. Thinking of himself as a Dwarf who had hung up his war-ax for a while to go sojourning in the Shire, where he was surrounded by squabbling Hobbits (i.e., Charlene's friends), had actually done a lot for Randy's peace of mind over the years. He knew perfectly well that if he were stuck in academia, these people, and the things they said, would seem momentous to him. But where he came from, nobody had been taking these people seriously for years. So he just withdrew from the conversation and drank his wine and looked out over the Pacific surf and tried not to do anything really obvious like shaking his head and rolling his eyes. …”

But that's not what I'm talking about. See? You really must not know me very well. "The parking lot of Novus Ordo Seclorum's office building is filled with cop cars, and BMWs and Mercedes Benzes that Randy assumes belong to lawyers. Avi's Range Rover is parked jauntily on top of some landscaping, and a few TV camera crews have set up, as well. In front of the building's main entrance a lot of people are jammed into the smallest possible space screaming at each other. They are surrounded by ring after concentric ring of cops, media, and law-firm minions--collectively, what Tolkien would call Men--and a few non– or post-human creatures imbued with peculiar physiognomies and vaguely magical powers: Dwarves (steady, productive, surly) and Elves (brilliant in a more ethereal way). Randy, a Dwarf, has begun to realize that his grandfather may have been an Elf. Avi is a Man with a strong Elvish glow about him. Somewhere in the center of this whole thing, presumably, is Gollum."
Anyway, the thing is, I see Wizards and Elves all the time. In fact, I've seen so much of them that I want to get away from them. When you are a measly tree that's forgotten how to walk, seeing Elves and Wizards, or worse, Valars and Maiars can be quite depressing. Randy realizes that his grandfather was an Elf, or maybe even a Wizard. I've an uncle who's a Maia, but whom I'm beginning to realize might be a Valar. It's worse. Way worse. And then there is Gollum. Several Gollums, many of whom may translate into Andrew Loebs. Scary, don't you think? The worst part is, I know that they are Gollums. In fact, they might even be Orcs, but I just do not care or seem to care. Which is way worse. The problem with Orcs, Gollums and variants thereof is that they seek power. Primarily in the form of money. The problem with going after only money is that by itself, money isn't worth much. And often times, the end does not really justify the means.

"We're businessmen," Avi says. "We make money. Gold is worth money." "Gold is the corpse of value," says Goto Dengo.

A lot of times, the corpse is not a stupid metaphor that Dr. Kivistik would come up with, but rather the corpse of a lot of things, and one of those things include Athena. And sometimes, you have to make a choice about having a river of gold or having Athena. And unlike Randy, we cannot have the luxury of having both. Funnily enough, this started out as a rant and has now wallowed into a philosophical rambling on pointless things. But sometimes hope springs eternal. You know? I might not find Golgotha or Amy, but I'd like to try anyway. At the very least, the ride across Middle Earth would be interesting.

Adam Smith, Bartending, Documentum Openings & Questions

2005-08-04T20:13:00.000-04:00

Adam Smith and Bartending So, today I got a couple of new books, seemingly unrelated. The first was Adam Smith's famous masterpiece An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, better known as, The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith is considered by many to be founding father of modern day economics, and this book explores the development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as ponders over such ideas as free trade and capitalism. Now I had read my Mom's copy of the Wealth of Nations, simply because she was an economist and wanted me to read "intellectual classics" when I was much younger. Suffice it to say that I wasn't really happy at the prospect of having been made to read this book at the age of 16, but it has most definitely helped me over the years.

And before you jump to conclusions, let me tell you one thing - no, you do not need a Ph.D. in economics to understand this. Adam Smith had written this for the common man, and if a 16 year old who is pissed off at the whole world (and his Mom, for making him read this book) can understand it, you most certainly can! The second book ofcourse, is Bartending for Dummies, by Ray Foley who is the publisher of the Bartender magazine.

No, I'm not considering an alternate career. I know, I know - with the JWZ quote and what not, that would have been a safe assumption and perhaps even a good guess, at an earlier time in my life. But not now. However, I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of it, either - so I will just go ahead and say that Stealth mode startups rock! But here's a hint - the two books have a lot more in common than you can ever possibly imagine. *insert evil grin* Documentum Openings Highbrew is actively pursuing Documentum folks or folks with Documentum experience for both onsite and offshore projects. So if you or your friends know anybody at all with a profile that fits this description, please do let me know at karthik - at - highbrew - dot - com. You will be suitably compensated! (-: Questions I had some questions on topics I do not seem to remember when I started writing this blog entry, but either I found answers to them or I've completely forgotten what they are. But since I started typing this paragraph, I just figured I'll finish typing it anyway.

Congresswoman Jean Schmidt's Victory Banquet

2005-08-04T14:35:00.000-04:00

Karthik, Jacob and Kyle were invited to Congresswoman Jean Schmidt's Republican Victory Banquet. The following are some pictures from the banquet.

[Karthik & Jacob at the tables] [Jacob & Kyle at the tables] [Karthik & Kyle at the tables] [Congresswoman Jean Schmidt walking up the stage upon the announcement of her victory; you can also see her daughter behind her] [Congresswoman Jean Schmidt announcing her victory] [She announces her policies and the benefits to the industry in Southern Ohio] [Billy Cunningham, the talk show host of 707-WLW talks about his commitment to the Republican Party] [Congresswoman Jean Schmidt thanking Jacob] [This picture looks a little odd, but she had actually given me a hug and was pulling back when this picture was taken. Kyle is in the background] [Thanking the supporters]

Well, yet another Republican victory.

Jean Schmidt - Republican Candidate for Congress in Southern Ohio

2005-08-01T02:41:00.000-04:00

Business Cards

2005-07-31T15:46:00.000-04:00

This post has been inspired by the MetaMutator's comments asking me if we had any titles - nope, Highbrew Technologies, Inc. has decided it to be company policy that there will be no titles. At least not until we are big enough to warrant a reason. Comments, suggestions and design ideas welcome! (...bite me if you do not like the design)

Curiouser and Curiouser

2005-07-31T12:23:00.000-04:00

Friday 29th July, 2005 12:19 PM - Jacob and I hit Don Pablo's to meet Andrea and Melissa. 3:34 PM - Lunch was umm, great! The company greater! The girls rock. Yay. 6:02 PM - Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take. 10:14 PM - Monty's is a hit. Two deals in two days. w00t! Brewing high, baby. 11:22 PM - Matt shows up. We all head out to The Woods, which is such a redneck bar that we get out in all of 20.11 seconds. There's no way these guys want to do business with us. 11:41 PM - We head out to the UC Campus and land in the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, they're too big and too sophisticated for our liking. 12:37 AM - Matt is getting shipped off the Rickenbacker Air Force base to Italy next week. "I'm gonna be on the jet, if the jet falls down, I fix it. If it does not, I party. I hope I party." Lucky SOB! 1:03 AM - We end up in Papa Dino's to have a bite. Nice place, perky waitress. She was too bubbly for Matt, but I thought she was kinda funny. 1:48 AM - We contemplate hitting The Mad Frog, but too little time (bars close at 2 AM). So, we head out back home. Saturday 30th July, 2005 No deals for the day. Jacob and I met up with Erica and her friends at Hofbrauhaus. Steve (who's also from the Rickenbacker base) and Matt turned up there. Steve had a huge woman who'd have quite literally crushed him hitting on him. She even stood up on the table and started dancing while Steve was praying out loud to all the Gods that he knew. Having a drunk woman four times your size dancing on the table right next to you isn't a pleasant thought. And no amount of beer is going to fix that. On the bright side, the band played a live recital of the Piano Man. And the waitress is practicing politics As the businessmen slowly get stoned Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness But it’s better than drinkin’ alone. Sing us a song, you’re the piano man Sing us a song tonight Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody And you’ve got us feelin’ alright.

A Series of Very Fortunate Events

2005-07-29T02:04:00.000-04:00

Wednesday 27th July, 2005 12:19 PM - Jacob and I begin writing up the business plan for Highbrew Technologies, Inc. 3:04 PM - Andrew, Jacob and I decide to register Highbrew Technologies, Inc. and wrap up the paperwork. 6:37 PM - We register Highbrew Technologies, Inc., a Delaware based corporation that provides technology products and services across various domains and verticals. 8:22 PM - A skeletal business plan is written and we discuss the logistics of the US operations. Thursday 28th July, 2005 1:01 AM - Jacob wins a hand at a game of poker. I get back my money, he gets back twice his money. 2:41 AM - I finish designing the business cards and letterheads for Highbrew Technologies, Inc. 11:43 AM - We give the templates for our business cards to Kinko's in downtown Cincinnati. 2:07 PM - Highbrew Technologies, Inc. is formally a Delaware based US technology corporation. On a related note, I still hold firm the belief that stealth mode startups rock. 4:34 PM - Emily calls me about plans for the evening - Jacob and I were supposed to spend the evening with Emily and Stacey. 5:05 PM - Jacob gets the business cards from Kinko's while I flirt with a particularly cute girl working there. 6:02 PM - Our plan with Emily and Stacey gets cancelled while Jacob and I hit Charming Billy's Tavern for a drink of beer and business. Tough luck. 6:38 PM - We hit Dana's Pub & Grill for another round of drinks and business. Tough luck. 7:34 PM - Work to be done at Xavier University, but amidst everything we manage to get our business plan in shape. 9:02 PM - Soupie's is an excellent bar, and Jen is a sweet bartender. Jacob befriends a spanish speaking dude, while I get the bartender's number. 9:09 PM - Jen makes me drink a Sex with an Alligator. I'm reminded of my childhood days when I'd say A for Alligator, while the other kids said A for Apple. Jacob has an Upside-down Pineapple Cake. Our Spanish friend has a Coors light. 9:18 PM - Erica comes by. So does Mike. Business negotiations begin. 11:05 PM - Random chick hits on me. At any other time, I'd have given anything to get the number of a girl like that. But sometimes, business comes before pleasure. I tell her I'll be back and get back to the negotiating table. Friday 29th July, 2005 12:14 AM - Highbrew Technologies, Inc. strikes its very first business deal within 12 hours of its inception. 12:15 AM - Random chick is gone from the bar. 12:44 AM - Jacob and I head down to IHOPs for our first meal in 14 hours. 12:47 AM - I hold the door open for two random cute girls. We're all waiting to be seated and the waitress asks if we're together. The girls giggle and say yes. Jacob and I are surprised but happy to join. 1:02 AM - We get an extremely dumb waitress. To make up for that, we get two extremely cute girls for company. Better yet, we find that Melissa is funny, Andrea is funnier. 1:50 AM - The girls like us. We like the girls. We all decide we should all hang out sometime. Phone numbers are exchanged. More giggles and blushes happen. 2:31 AM - Me and Jacob are done for the day. I get a message from Andrea. We're all hanging out tomorrow. 2:34 AM - My hands are shaking while I type this blog entry.

To quote JWZ

2005-07-27T11:02:00.000-04:00

“...but now I've taken my leave of that whole sick, navel-gazing mess we called the software industry. Now I'm in a more honest line of work: now I sell beer.”

Asimov Cover Art

2005-07-24T16:43:00.000-04:00

I was recently going through one of the many archives I'd collected over the years, and I came across these fine pictures. They are a collection of cover art from Isaac Asimov's books through the years. (Update: A quick search has revealed that all this cover art was done by Michael Whelan) I've also included a brief description right next to the pictures just so that you've some idea what each one is about.

[Trantor, the Capital of the erstwhile first Galactic Empire. I just felt that it would be appropriate to start off the entry with Trantor's picture.] [Arkady, from the Second Foundation] [Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw in the Caves of Steel] [Hari Seldon from the Foundation] [Golan Trevize at the Founder's Statues in Foundation and Earth] [The cover of I, Robot. I would imagine that this is probably Robbie and Gloria Weston.] [The Mule from the Foundation and Empire and the Second Foundation] [Elijah Baley examining an arrow in The Naked Sun] [Planet Nightfall] [R. Giskard Reventlov meets Elijah Baley in Robots and Empire] [Giskard in Robots of Dawn]

The following pictures are tributes to Asimov, from his Robot friends and other entities. My favorites are ofcourse those where Asimov is surrounded by Giskard.

And finally, a fitting tribute to the greatest master of science fiction.

[Isaac Asimov and Giskard]

Dear Dr. Isaac Asimov, Thank you for all the fantastic stories, thank you for stirring my imagination and thank you for making an engineer and a half decent scientist out of me. But more than anything, thank you for making my childhood enjoyable.

What's up? More Partying

2005-07-24T12:26:00.000-04:00

Just so y'all fine folk know, I had made up my mind that this Friday would be relatively sober. And in fact, it proceeded along those lines, too - me and Rebecca went to Newport on the Levee and had a nice and quiet dinner with almost no signs of partying. In fact, when I had gotten home, I was quite certain that I was absolutely, well and truly cognizant of my surroundings. However, I wake up in the middle of the night for a drink - a nice cup of cool water, mind you - and walk into a hall that looked straight out of a Roman orgy. For a brief moment, I wasn't even certain if I was in the right apartment (hey, it's known to happen!). I came to the realization that scantily clad women do not live in my house (as much as I'd wish that they did) and for a while I wondered if I really did have a wine or two earlier in the evening. I was quite certain that I was definitely sleepwalking, and these images were straight out of my fantasies. I was probably having a dream while walking, which is quite plausible, mind you. Then, I noticed someone saying out loud, "Someone get this man a drink!". Usually, things in my dreams want to kill me, not offer me drinks, so that was a good sign. However, I wasn't really sure if a drink in the middle of the night was a good idea by any measure. But, before I knew it, I was well and truly on my way to indulge in yet another debauchery (well, not really, but it did seem like the kinda thing that was going on at my apartment). To this moment, I'm uncertain if it was all my imagination or not, but I sincerely hope it is. I don't think I'd ever admit to having embarrassed myself so much, or so I'd like to believe. So, anyway, come Saturday morning and I realize that I've been partying for everyday the previous week, which cannot bode well. The day went fairly sober, except that I got my hair cut like a cross between a marine and a porcupine and me, Mark and Beck went to an excellent traditional Indian restaurant called Udipi, where I met up with some folks from my highschool days - folks I'd not met in over eight years. It was a fun experience, for the most part and the food was wonderful. And it was a sobering experience, too. Now it was about 9 in the night, and I was being a good kid reading a nice pleasant book and was glad that I wasn't out there partying. Well, not really happy, but more like a guilty kinda happy, if you know what I mean. But some things are simply not meant to be. Why? Because Jen calls and asks me if there're any plans for the night. After three hours of getting lost, doing nails and makeup, taking a long shower, doing her hair and fighting over torn jeans and tops she comes home, dressed like a snazzy movie star. Anyway, we decide to have a drink and then get out and head out to my favorite hangout - yup - the Beer Sellar! A few shots and drinks later, Jen was back to her spirits again (sorry, bad pun). And what do we do? Well, the bright kids that we are, we end up debating the whole right-wing-nut-job-liberal-weenie thing. I'm not even kidding you. After arguments, drinks, food and other things, Jen crashes at my place at 4 in the morning. On Sunday. And now, it's Sunday afternoon. I'm fairly certain that today will definitely not be a party-day. I swear! I sincerely, solemnly swear to all you fine folks that I will not party this hard for a long, long time. Well, for very small values of a long time, but trust you me! Hangovers on every day of the week is not my idea of fun. Not anymore at least. Hello? Hello....? hel...^c NO CARRIER

Baseball Games & Other Fun Things

2005-07-22T18:23:00.000-04:00

They say it's always good to start things off with a joke, but I'll do better -- here are two: *Me ogling at the poster of a particularly pretty chick in a particularly sexy lingerie* Me: Wow! *Jen looks at me, looks at the picture and shakes her head in approval* Jen: I'd do her! And ofcourse, there are three things that live in Rebecca's house - she, her cat and her cake (lately, I've also come to realize that there are several other life forms in the process of evolving in her refrigerator, such as her salsa). Anyway, the past week has been, hmm, let's just say intensive. I've come to the zen realization that the work hard, party harder thing is not as easy as I imagined it to be! *insert surprised smiley* So last Friday, new seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis premiered, so being the geek I'm, I decided that this would definitely be a lot more important than meeting new people and exercising my (albeit inexistant) social skills. To sum it up, SG-1 sucked, Atlantis rocked and BSG was interesting. ...Cue to Saturday So, after a nice boring Friday, I decided that taking over the world would be a nice thing to do on a Satuday. So, me and Rebecca sat down and tried building transceivers and other very geeky things which will help us in our laudable goal for world conquest. After a while, the geeky things got boring and Rebecca said that she'd never been to Hofbrauhaus, it ended up being a nice excursion to HB. After a fabulous time eating salad with funny sweet things in them at a restaurant in downtown whose name I forget, we headed to HB, where I introduced her to some nice Munich Weizen and she introduced me to Redheaded Sluts. The rest of the evening was fairly benign, except for a few kittens that I killed.

[The kittens are evil and must be killed]

...Cue to Monday So, it was Monday yet again, which was good and bad. Good because I'd a baseball game planned and bad because I'd a demo to be shown to some very important people. Anyway, the demo went fairly well and it was time for the game. But a game isn't all that much fun if you went all sober and boring. So, Lara, me and Chris met up Jacob, Kyle and Erica at a nice little Irish hangout. What was this hangout called? O'Malley's ofcourse. If you are not a Stargate fan, you can completely ignore the reference. Anyway, after Lara's education on the drinking habits of lawyers, it was time for the game. It was the Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds and it was a fairly fun game.

Fortunately, the Cubs won and we were all extremely pleased, indeed. We had a great time, with funny bear like mascots lifting Erica, Jacob pouring beer over the balcony and doing things he'd never admit to, unless ofcourse the security cameras find out. ...Cue to Tuesday So, I wake up with an extremely bad headache on Tuesday, and decide that no further consumption of the blessed liquid nor sitting out in the sun cheering for a bloody team is worthwhile. However, by the afternoon, sufficient quantities of advil, water, coffee and Emily had convinced me otherwise. Soon thereafter, I found myself at Emily's place where there was a lady's night out, and from there me, Emily, Jacob and his sister found our way to the second game of the series - yes, I know. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to overdo things, which proved to be a good thing the next day morning. And ofcourse, the Cubs won. ...Cue to Wednesday So, it's the middle of the week. Usually by this time of the week, people hate the week and me being most people, I was glad to do so too. This was further helped by the fact that for the past couple of days, I would work for 10 hours, party for 7 hours and sleep for all of 5 hours. You must remember that the remaining time goes out to various other activities, such as talking to my Fiendetta! Anyway, Wedneday evening seemed to loom above my tiny head and Rebecca felt that it would be a good day to play soccer. But nope. Once you've had the bittersweet taste of partying, it's hard to let go. Which was not really a bright idea, as you would soon find out. So, not only did I decide to go ahead and do stupid things with myself once again, I also made sure that Jenna and Rebecca came along. So, we once again hit O'Malley's with Jacob and his friend Chris, and tried drinks that went by names such as Bad Habit and Purple something (hey! don't blame me, I was drunk, for cryin' out loud!). Which was followed up by - yup - the third series of the ball game, between the Cubs and the Reds. Why would I want to do that? Who knows, maybe that's what I do. Anyway, once we felt that we were sufficiently inebriated, we headed to the game. The game went for a long time, and so did the beer drinking. The game got over, the Cubs lost (surprisingly!) and we headed back. After much contemplation, it was decided that driving back immediately would not be a very bright idea, so it was followed up with a time of sobering up, during the process of which we had some very insightful discussions on life and things like that. And for the night, I ended up crashing at Jen's place, and once we were home, we realized that we didn't have to drive anymore. Which meant ofcourse, more partying! Which was a very, very bad idea. Why? Because I had a talk to give the next day at Convergys Labs on all the cool new things I've been working on, and here I was partying at 3 in the morning. ...Cue to Thursday Since my clothes were quite stained from all the partying the previous night, I walked in the next day morning into my house in Jenna's trackshorts and sorority tee. Wearing my work boots. Isn't that a sight? Fortunately, my roomie Justin didn't say a word. Maybe he's used to seeing this, but hopefully he didn't think I was a fairy! =) So anyway, I wasn't sure what clothes I should wear, and asked my beloved compadre Jen what she thought of my mildly pink striped shirt (which looks particularly good on me, if I might add). Me: But pink for a talk!? Jen: Duh! You're wearing my pink sorority top right now, stop making a fuss and get ready soon!!!! x-( Ofcourse, the talk went fairly well and everybody thought I was the coolest kid on the block. There were other issues, but I'll not bore all you fine readers of my blog with those things. So now, I had decided that after the three previous nights, I would not want to party today. Nope, none whatsoever. But then again, we had watched three consecutive games of the Cubs vs. Reds, so we figured that we might as well watch the whole series. Except that it was a day game. And on that particular day, the Sun decided that it would be really, really mean. Half hour after my talk, I found myself changing into shorts and me and Jen headed to the game. In the middle of a Thursday. When it was over 100 F. (yes, I know) At this point, I must tell you readers that this was not one of the "brighter things we've done", in Jen's words. Jen was dressed in her work clothes, so she ended up buying a particularly tiny pair of shorts for the game (and she is not even a Reds fan!). At the end of the seventh innings, it was 5 -4 and we were sure that the Cubs were going to win. Besides, it was too hot and we weren't really all that interested in staying there for long. We get back to work, and what do we see? We find out that it's 5-7 and the Reds were leading. That was totally unforseen, and we'd missed it. But hey, at least we weren't boiled away to glory. Later, we heard that the Reds had thrashed the Cubs, which was really unfortunate. Ofcourse, at this point, we had quite literally stopped caring. So, after nearly a full week of partying, I'd come to the conclusion that it is usually a good idea to sleep for at least one night in a week, which is what I proceeded to do. But then again, it's Friday and I've slept enough to last me an entire week. Besides, I've some more partying planned for the day! And the next time I complain about a headache, remind me to tell you about a particular tee that O'Malley's sells.

Adventures with Jenna

2005-07-13T21:49:00.000-04:00

So, we have this presentation that needs to be done on the Professional Services Group at Convergys, which is all fine and dandy. To that end (and to meet my fellow interns and co-workers), we sit on big chairs and conduct boring meetings and draft jazzy presentations, and pretend to do interesting work. But in the unlikely case that it was not obvious, this task is extremely boring and joyless. In fact, it makes staring at a wall seem interesting, and challenging even. Until ofcourse you meet cool people and have a good time with them. To ensure that the "having a good time" happens, me and Jenna (my newest cool friend who's so cool that she makes me look like hot salsa) decided to, err, work on our "corporate bondings" and "social skills" at the hangouts in downtown. Suffice it to say that after a couple of drinks at the Happy Hour of the Havana Martini Club, we came to some awesome conclusions about life, people and each other. We followed it with a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant where we met monks who had undergone deep meditation and grown hair-buns, encountered alien kidnappings, incorporeal possessions, spaceships and things of such great import. Ofcourse, our dinner was equally delightful and over a fine glass of Chardonnay, I asked Jenna if she was buzzed already (if you must know the answer, no). Two minutes later, we were discussing her driving to Chicago for the weekend. And ofcourse, my plans for the friday night. At this point, my dear reader, you must understand that I'm from Georgia. So, my tiny little brain was under the impression that we were still in Georgia. Whether it was the martinis, the wine or the splendid and dazzling company, I do not know - but I told Jenna that it would be a long drive, a very long drive. About fourteen hours in all. She just looks at me funny and reminds me that we're in Ohio, not in Georgia. Very politely ofcourse! Never mind. Five minutes and a few bites later (and a few laughs later, too - at the alien abduction stories going on at the monk-table beside us), the topic drifted to "activities" on the Friday night. Mind you, this was the middle of the week - Wednesday. Bang in the middle of the week. Friday is two days away, two long days. And our corporate presentation which we were "working" on is on Friday. So is another very important presentation on some very important thing with some very important people (I know, I could make a career out of being vague). And so, except for the evening part of Friday, there is absolutely nothing to look forward to this Friday. But in a blinding flash of insight that is clearly indicative of the sheer genius that my Mom mistakenly thought me to be capable of as a kid, I thought Friday was the day after Wednesday. I'm not kidding you. Why? I do not know. Well, at that point, it seemed to be the thing to say. Now, let's rewind a little - to the part where I asked Jenna if she was buzzed. After having just proven to her that I have no clue where I was or what day of the week it was, Jenna looks at me with a puzzled look and says, "You're the one who thinks we're in Georgia and that tomorrow's friday, but I'm supposed to be drunk?" Priceless, eh? (Yeah, now I think I'm in Canada) Anyway, a while later, we decide to talk about more interesting things. Particularly our working hours. Ofcourse, unlike me, who's a slacker that sits and IMs, surfs the web and listens to music all day, Jenna does real work. Actual work. But unfortunately, she works long hours, and is quite positively sober (and dismayed) in the mornings. She has the look on the face that could basically be summed up as, WTF, Mate?! So, I ask her the zen question for the reason behind all this mystique. And Jenna goes, "I have a 2nd shift body - I'm with it from 3 to 3 but not so much in the morning if it's not bar time." Yeah, I know. And she also makes cute bunny rabbit sounds.

The Worlds Of William Gibson (And Inspirations From Neal Stephenson)

2005-07-09T23:16:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I was accused of using Gibson-esque references by Allison, in relation to how the corporations and states of tomorrow may evolve into. And I would not even consider Allie to be a part of the vast left liberal conspiracy, so this is unusual, not because of what Allie said, but because of why she said that. For the uninitiated, in an era of trash quality fiction, William Gibson introduced a genre of science fiction called Cyberpunk, set in a near-future dystopian Earth. Amongst other things, he is also credited with the coining of the word cyberspace. His works have been the source and inspiration of several movies, such as Jonny Mnemonic, Matrix and several Manga, Anime and television series.

One would imagine that the realm of economics in cyberpunk is better left to the other master of the cyberpunk genre, Neal Stephenson. After all, his Baroque Cycle coupled with Cryptonomicon could easily be construed to be a historical thesis indicative of near-future predictions towards that end.

But make no mistake - despite appearances to the contrary, Gibson and Stephenson are two very different people handling similar topics in the same sub-genre in very different ways. I remember attending a talk by Gibson, where someone asked him what it felt like to be predicting the future. Gibson quipped that he had hardly predicted the future, he could not even see the permeation of cellphones, something that would have drastically changed some of the storylines in his books. While this is indicative of Gibson's humility, he most certainly does predict the future, in a way that most "futurists" of today can never comprehend. Gibson's world is set in an era where corporations wield more power than any single government, or entity. This is an era where nation-states are obselete, but corporations are not. In Stephenson's worlds, you have communities which are small, self-styled governments in the forms of phyles (i.e. cultural tribalisms and social classes like the Victorians and Confucians). You have the Han, made up of the Han-Chinese, the Neo-Victorians made of people who hold true to Anglo-Saxon cultural totems (immaterial of ethnic origin), Nippon, made up of Japanese and lastly, Hindustan, made up of East Indians. In some senses, this is reminiscent of the small-government model that the Republicans originally stood for (this seems to be no longer true). However, Gibson's worlds primarily focus on the concept of Corporatocracy, a neologism which is a variant of plutocracy, with corporations quite literally controlling, or even becoming the governments. In Gibson's worlds, the concept of giving corporations individual rights has has the consequence of making letting them dictate terms to (and eventually become) the governments. But what makes up a corporation? The people? The board? The founding charter? What if an Artificial Intelligence were to take over the decision making process of the corporations? What if the founders never die and forever remain in cyberspace, their consciousness strapped on to ROMs forever and ever? Do you have a dictator who lives on forever? This is what Gibson explores, and he explores this quite well. But if you think that Gibson explores merely the future, with no consideration for the present, you're quite wrong - some of Gibson's works are even set in the present day. Consider his latest work, Pattern Recogntion, which explores the concept of viral marketing and memes.

Lest you confuse the way Gibson and Stephenson write, the way Gibson explores memes is very different from the way Stephenson explores memes in his books, particularly Snow Crash. Gibson's points are frightfully realistic, and he explores the topic from the perspective of a ruthless corporation that may choose to exploit these themes. The fact that Gibson builds a future that is devoid of the Stephenson-trademarked satirical black humor that's vaguely reminiscent of Joseph Heller gives a more serious feel to his works, something that rings true somewhere deep within us. Ofcourse, all this begs the question of how powerful corporations should really be allowed to get. One but needs to lurk on Slashdot for a day reading the Google-praising and the Microsoft-bashing to realize that even if a company has "Do-no-evil" as their corporate motto, it is almost inevitable that at some point, ethics versus monetary profit becomes an issue. And the primary objective of any corporation is to further the interests of its shareholders, no matter what else the corporate charter may say. That, ofcourse, would be the extreme left-liberal view of things, where corporations are capable of nothing but evil, and to this end, we should definitely curb their powers. And this is where Allie's accusations hold water. And here is why I bet to differ. If you ignore a few religious nutheads, money has been the ultimate motivator for just about everything. Why? Because money is representative of accomplishment and achievement, for the most part. And capitalism in its purest form encourages this line of thought. Corporations are like the Borg. They need to create, assimilate and acquire new technologies or they simply die out. They need to be on the cutting edge of innovation, or they die out. People whine that companies stifle innovation, but that is not true. They expand to consume all available resources, and once there is no more room for growth, they die out when others rise to take their places - bigger, better. If you look back, both Gibson and Stephenson seem to predict a right-dominated future -- Gibson believes that corporations, led by the fiscal-conservatives, would dominate the world while Stephenson indicates that we would have traditional paleo-conservatives back in the mainstream, with the socio-cultural small-government model. Ofcourse, one might consider that a dystopian future would quite obviously consist of the right, in contrast to the utopian socialist future that the likes of Gene Roddenberry expound upon. But the truth is, the dystopian future is quite indicative of a future that we are quite likely to stumble upon, more so than the socialist's idealist utopia. More importantly, this rat-race between corporations forces the best to become better. Once upon a time, the best of the best used to work for Bell Labs. Somewhere in between, Microsoft claimed that it attracted the best and the brightest, but today that is most definitely not true. The very best of today go work for Google, yet another corporation that is not even a decade old. Corporations are the ultimate boundary breakers - they do not care about your color, your race or your nationality. All they care about is how best you can help their bottom line, and how good you are at what you do. This is Darwinism at its very best, and this is what will help civilization. Going to space because we have a calling for it sounds fine and dandy, but it is quite unrealistic. We would go to space if space has something to offer - and what better way than to have that something have a monetary value? Mining minerals, mining fuel, space tourism and the like is what will take us into space, not a utopian ideal of being explorers. Even in the days gone by, conquest and economics drove men to test their limits, everything else came a distant second. The new worlds of yesterday and today hold wonders, first to our pockets and only second to our hearts. But then, this might just be the cynical pragmatist in me. William Gibson Pictures These are almost a year old, but I just thought of putting up these pictures for your viewing pleasure. I had taken them when William Gibson had come to Georgia Tech to give a talk and promote his new book, Pattern Recognition.

Gibson once said - "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet." The corporations are here, they're just not evenly distributed yet.

Adventures On Yet Another Friday

2005-07-09T09:27:00.000-04:00

So, this Friday was getting to be pretty boring, except for the fact that me and Rebecca had a nice Banana Split to celebrate a perfectly nice and short week. And ofcourse I watched while she shopped and tried on some pretty-looking girly clothes. I was about to give up hope on the evening being any fun, when Jacob calls me and decides that we definitely ought to do something interesting. Unfortunately, it was a little too early to be hitting the hangouts, so me and Jacob just decided to chill for a while and made ourselves a couple of drinks and some pizza and sat watching some mindless entertainment (Swordfish, if you must know). And incidentally, Swordfish brought up an interesting concept (if you can get past the technobabble bullshit) -- maybe there should be a real Swordfish of sorts, something that teaches anybody who messes with freedom and liberty a lesson or two (think Islamofascists who need their butt kicked).

Anyway, after that and several episodes of Punk'd, we decided to hit the Beer Sellar, since they usually have good bands playing on Friday nights. For the uninitiated, I've some excellent memories of the Beer Sellar. The first time I was brought here, Rebecca force-fed me rasberry flavored beer right on my first week in Cincinnati. The second time I was here, I was surprised I could converse in any form of humanly understandable-communication whatsoever. After which I proceeded to go to a party at Chris' place (to understand the true implications of what this means, my dear reader, you should really, really get to know Chris - and you should really, really look up the term beer pong). Anyway, given all that, I was quite assured that I would have a good time this time around. For a while, we sat out there, looking at the Ohio river and all the pretty boats go by. I imagined that unlike my past experiences at this joint, this Friday evening was going to be pretty boring - but that wasn't meant to be. Which was good in a very semi-masochistic kind of way. While we sat there contemplating the poor quality of Honey Brown on the tap, there was a pretty lass sitting across from us who asked us for a light. Ofcourse, she did have company, but that would not stop us now, would it? After several lights and chit-chats later (where she referred to her companions as idiots), Jacob's blindingly insightful mind came to the conclusion that she was hitting on me. Well, this is not unusual, I get hit on all the time, everywhere I go (while I'm at it, I must also mention that my coolness outranks that of any human male ever born). Anyway, I wasn't really sure what I should do, so I was contemplating how best to stop myself from making a fool of myself. So, we went ahead and told her that we would be leaving soon. A few hugs later, we decided to take some time off and play some pool - which, btw, I won - not because of my superior pool playing skills but because Jacob misplayed the Eigth Ball shot. So I decided to go pay my new friend a visit one last time (who by this time had acquired the name of Amy). I was also hoping to God that her last name was not Shaftoe (if you did not get the reference, do not even bother). I would have made a smashing version of Randy, though. Back to where we were, the moment Amy's cute friend sees us, she nudges Amy indicating that we were heading her way. Amy was leaving at that point of time, and Jacob stongly and very definitely felt that I should get her number. The whole now-or-never thing. Now, mind you, I'm hardly the kind of guy who takes numbers from random girls at the bar. Well, not always anyway. Okay, not that often anyway (anybody know if the Bible counts lies on blogs as sins?). Fortunately for us, her dork of a guy friend seemed to have temporarily left the table, and Jacob engaged her friend, while we signalled Amy to come to us. And ofcourse, using my infinite charms and the like, I managed to ask her if she'd want to hang out sometime. She was delighted ofcourse, and she gave me her number, adding a few cuddly cute expressions along the way. (Tip to guys looking to pick up women at bars - pop a random question and follow it up with a can-I-have-your-number routine. Works everytime. Like a charm.) And guess what? It turned out to be a 404 number. The lass is from good ole' Atlanta. Yup. Down south, boys. Buckhead. Now that we'd done our deeds for the night, it was time to have some fun. So, me and Jacob wrapped up our drinks at the Beer Sellar and headed to Arthur's in Hyde Park. Now, Arthur's is a really nice place - your typical American pub with typical American crowd and typical American food and typical American drinks. Well, okay, the last one wasn't necessarily typical American (for instance, they serve real beer, not water). The thing was, we went in to Arthur's at about 1:30 AM, so that we could hang out with the crowd. Not the crowd that visits Arthur's, but the crowd that works at Arthur's. At this point, you must understand something - people in the services industry (waiters, bartenders) are some of the nicest, warmest and most fun folks ever. EVER! And when they unwind, boy! Do they unwind or what! Besides, it's always fun to know the locals when they can get you that nice drink and an espresso after 2 AM (you cannot have alchohol after 2 AM in Hyde Park). So, there we were, a whole lot of us - about 15 in all - most of whom worked at Arthur's. We all hung out and did really stupid things, things you're never gonna find out (and even if you did, things you're never going to believe, so why bother). We had flaming shots, we had people falling on the floor, I had folks give me some drunken but heartwarming tips on when I should call Amy, there were people who thought the beer was water and the water was beer and so on and so forth. Your typical American friday night out. By the time all this was done, it was a miracle that I was able to hold a humanly understandable conversation. Actually, it was a miracle that I did not find myself awake in a park trailer somewhere this morning, but that's besides the point. The point is, well, there is no point. But I did have fun. Yes, that is the point. Or maybe not. Anyway! I go home, and find myself to be quite lushed. Which would be an understatement, by the way. But my adventures of the day were not meant to be over, yet. A few minutes later, I find myself in a heated conversation with Allie dearest, on several interesting topics such as world economics, politics and how mean people suck. Ofcourse, Allie was high for another reason and I was high thanks to my adventures, so suffice it to say that it was a very interesting conversation. What say you, girl? I do remember her accusing me severely of being a Bush-supporting right wing elitist capitalistic pig and of bringing up Gibson-esque references. I do not really remember when was it that I hit the bed, but I'm fairly certain that the sun was shinin' out bright and my head was pounding in a way that would inspire fright. So, to fill myself with delight, I went ahead and put out the light. And right at this moment, I'm having a fairly boring, sober Saturday evening, where I've been spending half the day at work (the first half was spent dealing with the whole headache thing). Yes, you read that right - work, my fellas. But fear not, my young minions! The night is still young! The stars are yet to be out yet, and the starlets shalt see the infinitely cool me swinging by their parties in just a while. And as always, me, Jacob and Chris have some party-crashing planned out for the evening. Which should be quite very exciting, if I might say so.

Zero Point Modules

2005-07-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

What is a Zero Point Module? According to the sci-fi show Stargate, Zero Point Modules are devices built by an advanced race of humanoid aliens that can harness ZPE, or Zero Point Energy.

But how feasible are they in real life, given our current or plausible future level of technology? This will be a series of articles discussing the feasibility of building one, substantiated by equations and other mathematical, engineering and physics related proofs. Stay tuned for the first installment!

London Attacks - Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

2005-07-07T08:26:00.000-04:00

A series of bombings shook London today. Not one, not two. But four. Four coordinated attacks all across the London transport system shook the entire subway and transport system, bringing everything to a standstill, killing many and injuring several more. The world leaders of the world's most powerful countries are out there at the G8 Summit, discussing ways to solve poverty and the world's climate. But that does not matter now, does it? You don't really care. All you care about what your Voice in the Sky tells you to do. All you care is about blowing people up to make a point. This is what the self-styled Michael Moore-ish kind of liberals forget, the ones that want to talk peace with these jihadis - the fundamentalists do not care about appeasement or accomodation or pity or sympathy. All that they care about is that they hate you because you are not like them. They attacked before there was an Iraq or before there was an Afghanistan. Why? Because that's what they do. But wait, let's talk it out with them, you say! Let's negotiate. Peace? Discussions? You don't understand, do you? You don't negotiate with barbarians. I mean, sure - let's look back at history, how did World War II end? We all sat around in a big round table discussing how we can all be nice to each other, right? Ofcourse we did, while six million Jews and countless others across the world were slaughtered. Until we realized it was too late, and acted. Or the Gulf War. Or any other war. You can talk with people with some semblance of a human brain. You don't talk to animals. Or barbarians. Terrorism is one of the most abonimable crimes ever. Islamic fundamentalists are beyond hope, beyond any semblance of civility that the West can comprehend. Beyond any sense of civility that any human being can comprehend. They kidnap Egyptians - who're their own kin - and kill them. Why? Because they were not "fundamentalist" enough. France was shocked that they would kidnap and kill their people. The French said, but, but we're not like them - we're not like the Americans or the British, we did not support the war on Iraq! Do you think they care? They do not. All they care is that you are not them, and that makes you their enemy. You're all the West. You're all immoral in their eyes. If you do not chain your women and cover them up from head to toe, or if you do not grow a flowing beard and pray five times a day, if you do not slaughter a sacrificial lamb in a barbaric ritual, you're not them. And if you are not them, they do not care. Look at any part of the world - Islamic fundamentalists are fighting everyone everywhere. They're fighting the Christians in the US, UK, Russia and several other parts of the world. They're fighting the Jews in Israel. And they're fighting the Hindus in India. Islamic fundamentalism and civilization cannot coexist. It is us versus them, for real. One of the two has to go. I hope it's Islamic fundamentalism.

Soccer Adventures & Kings Island Pics

2005-07-06T22:38:00.000-04:00

Soccer Adventures Rebecca and I go for a pick-up soccer game here in Cincinnati, which is quite a lot of fun. There are some really cool people, and it's fun running around for a good couple of hours. Anyway, today was an interesting day (in an interesting sorta way). I was trying to tackle a guy who probably was a lot bigger than me, and we both kicked the ball at the same time. As a result, I was thrown on the ground. Quite violently, too. I tried balancing up when the ball came towards me again, which I kicked. But the other guy kicked too, just that he kicked me and not the ball. He did prove to me that gravity works, though. And then I plonked quite unceremoniously to the ground (you know, the whole gravity thing), and I tried minimizing my fall with my left hand. Which, by the way, was really, really stupid. I ended up hyperextending my elbow, which has been screwed quite badly. Really, really screwed. Really, really badly. The next thing I remember is Rebecca holding me on the sidelines and telling me to ease up. The good news is, I scored a goal!

["Did you hear that, Marge? He scored a goal! He scored a GOAL! I'm so proud of you!"]

The bad news is, my arm hurts. But hey! That's life. Anyway, there were some funnies at the game that were quite priceless, and here they are for your reading pleasure.

Jerry (after missing a goal by a tiny margin): You know, I was this > < close to getting it in. TJ: I bet that's what he tells his wife, too. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- TJ (in a strong Turkish accent): No one can ever score a goal when I'm the goalie, trust me! Jamie: Yeah, right. TJ: I'm serious! When I'm here, you all better do defence or midfield. No forward or offence, because you're never going to get the ball in. Jamie: Do you want to bet your money on it? TJ: Sure, how much? Jamie: Nah, I left my wallet in my car. TJ: Bah. I'll do a chicken dance! Jamie: Bah. Two minutes later, Jamie scored a goal. TJ did not do a funky chicken dance! Bah! --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- TJ (tackling me): Leave it to me! Me: Huh?! Leave it to you? Not on your life. *I try passing it to someone and fail miserably as TJ intercepts me* TJ: Thanks! Sally: You aren't married yet, are you? I mean, the kids and stuff? Gee, thanks folks!

Ofcourse, as always, Becky gets the most priceless of statements - but before that, I'll introduce you to Mr. D, who happens to be a big, smart fella in the office, quite literally and figuratively. Anyway, I ask her if she ever puts her car top down. Mind you, lads - this is a girl who drives a Z3 BMW Convertible, but never - I swear, never - puts the top down. I've obviously asked her this before, ofcourse. So, she looks at me with a raised eyebrow and tells me, "You know, you asked that in front of D this morning, I wonder what he thought." Me: "You mean, take your top off?!" She: "Yes!" It took me a good couple of minutes to understand what the hell she was talkin' about. Ouch? Yes, I know. But oh wait, there's more - I change my clothes at Beck's place for the soccer games, so she has the habit of throwing my clothes (which I sometimes forget at her place) across my cubicle. In front of just about our whole team. Mostly, at least. So, this begs the obvious question, how did they end up with her in the first place? Well, duh! I changed at her house. Obvious, isn't it? Ofcourse it is, my dear reader. But not to the many sheeple we work with! x-( Given all this, I doubt if D (or anyone else) needs any more information to spin a spicy story. What do you think he thought, Beck?! Fortunately for us, D isn't the kind, simply because of who he is in the company. But it does amuse us, though! ;-) Kings Island Pics Well, ever since you've read about our adventures at Kings Island, you were probably wondering how cool and smashing we probably looked! Fear not! Here is your chance - here are some cool pics from Becca's cell-phone camera (they're low-res, sorry!).

[Rapunzel with a piratey lookin' hat on. Arrr!!] [Metlin with an idiot grin and a hat.] [Two monkeys and two hats are happy and fat. Okay, not so fat. Okay, okay! Skinny.] [Metlin, Spidey and Rapunzel are one happy little family living in the trees and eating candy. Or at least, in Kings Island. But they eat candy, though. Lots of candy!]

Well, that's about it! Stay tuned, y'all. And oh, eat candy and play with Spidey!

Litany Against, err, of Beer

2005-07-05T10:05:00.000-04:00

For all you Dune lovers out there who aspire to become Homer Simpson, here's the priceless Goats Litany of Beer tee -

(Thanks, Alamandrax! *burp*)

Information Interfaces & Microsoft Alerts

2005-07-05T01:45:00.000-04:00

These days, Information Interfaces is yet another of those buzzwords that seems to be doing the rounds. Everybody and their brother in the industry seems to have taken a liking to making cool new information interfaces. A classic example of this is the Ambient Orb Device - a color transitioning interface to display information. Or any of the many of other similar technologies that have popped up.

[The Ambient Orb]

A while back, I used to be part of the Information Interfaces Laboratory at Georgia Tech. Ofcourse, we used to work on some real information dispersing interfaces, like agents, info-viz and the like.

[Talking Heads]

The question is, how are the information interfaces of the future likely to be? And more importantly, why is that even an interesting question? If you had noticed the science fiction movies from the days gone by, you would notice that all spaceship consoles and the then-future interfaces were shown as having several bright lights and dials, all in analog. Years later, I remember seeing a presentation by some dudes from NASA once, and all they had on their spaceships were IBM Thinkpads and lots of ports to interface them to. This was at least a couple of years ago. Given all this, it is hard for us to predict how best the interfaces of tomorrow may evolve, or metamorphize into. But when you focus this a little further into something like software applications in a particular platform, your task becomes a little easier. Not much, but just a little. If my HCI background has taught me one thing, it is that while designing an application, it becomes important for you to keep in mind the legacy backlog that the application may carry. Often times, applications have elements that are the result of a legacy feature designed eons ago. Portfolio Optimizer has the potential to become one such application, given that there is an enormous amount of information that needs to be handled, some of it in real time. So, how best do you display all this information? Some of it, like the enormous amounts of stock data and manipulation can be quite easily dislpayed in graphical format, something that analysts would quite easily understand.

[Highbrew's Portfolio Optimizer Viz.]

On the other hand, displaying critical information in realtime becomes a lot more tricky. Popups and alerts are a strict no-no -- quick pop-quiz -- how many of you folks bother reading the content of the various alerts that Window throws up? So, the only other viable alternative is alerts. This got me thinking, and for a while, the only thing I could find was the system tray balloons-style alert, which is once again a popup alert of sorts.

[Windows System Tray Balloon-style Alert]

While this is not a bad solution, it has the disadvantage of being not really eye-catching. If my stock was crashing, the last thing I want is to lose out on a lot of money because some tiny box at the bottom of my screen was too incongruous for me to pay attention to. Microsoft seems to have designed the balloon-API with passive alerts in mind, and these do the job of being passive extremely well - almost all the users that I talked to told me that they found the popups to be too "sober". Given this, this was not really an option. So I started looking around for better solutions. Something along the lines of balloon-style alerts, but a little more visible. And preferably something which made its arrival known. It would also help if the user could interact with it, and perform various actions. I remembered having read about Microsoft's Messenger-style Alert API in Visual Studio .Net, which lets you create MSN Messenger style sliding alerts, which show up on the task bar, but I wasn't sure.

[Microsoft Alerts]

While it most definitely looked impressive, I was uncertain at first - this seemed to be more of a publicity by Microsoft for their Alerts Services (which is quite different from the Microsoft Alert API for developers). However, the more I explored, the more I realized how cool this really was. Not only can you control just about every aspect of the alert (including the background and functionality), you can also control what the resources inside the alerts really do. For instance, if you are displaying three alerts, you can have the user click on each of those alerts and take them each to an appropriate website. Or, you can play a tune indicating the market status (Britney would indicate that the market is trashy and Led Zep would mean it's like the good old days).

[Sample Stock Alerts]

More importantly, I also found out that you can push data through webservices, and quite literally control the content and aspects of the alerts that are being displayed - a truly powerful element. Next in line - controlling and publishing a webservice using the alerts API. Stay tuned!

Happy Fourth of July

2005-07-04T00:54:00.000-04:00

Well, Happy Fourth of July to all you folks in the US. At this point, I'm glad that at a time like this, we've a President like George W Bush, so here's to a better, stronger United States of America!

(Yes, I've disabled comment posting - I do realize that a lot of you believe differently than I do, and while I respect your beliefs, the last thing I want is a 14,382nd reason on why you think Bush sucks. Unfortunately, I choose to disagree and I'm not really interested in a flame war. Thank you.)

Fantastic Weekend at Kings Island

2005-07-03T17:54:00.000-04:00

So, it's Rebecca's birthday right on the 4th of July weekend, which is absolutely cool because it's a long weekend and we got to do some really cool stuff. Fantastic stuff, actually. We ended up going to Paramount's Kings Island, which is an amusement park by Paramount Studios in the outskirts of Cincinnati. I had a really long day at work on Friday where me, Andy and Anindita went shopping twice, I got a haircut and ate lunch twice, all in the middle of the day. Just to make sure, the twice was for the shopping and lunch, not the haircut - I hardly even have enough hair for one haircut - but my haircut did spark some interesting conversation:

Andy: Hahaha, he looks like a marine, ready to kickass. Way to go. Rebecca (visibly mad): Marine!? I threaten to dye his hair red and blue. Allie: I'd like to see your friend Becca do that! Long hair rocks! Short hair sucks! Go away, shoo. SHOOO!

Anyway, after all that hard work, I ended up staying incredible late killing kittens - which I squarely blame Allie for. My deeds done for the day, I went to sleep at some unearthly hour after cutting my hand when I tried saving some children, a nun, and a puppy from a speeding car that was about to hit them (go figure). No guesses on whom I blame this on, either. And before I knew it, I was brutally awakened from my R-rated dreams involving Hawaiian masseuses by Rebecca early the next day morning, and I was surprisingly all too enthusiastic about it! I do remember having a very weird conversation, though -

Rebecca: Mornin'! Me: Becca! Mornin'! Happy Birthday! Rebecca: Heyya, good morning! You sound perky! Are you drunk? (where in the nine hells did that come from, God alone knows - and that too, the first line in the morning I hear is Rebecca asking me if I'm drunk; isn't that sweet?) Me: Uh? Noooo! I was busy killing kittens. Rebecca: Ah, okay. (as if getting drunk is somehow way worse than killing kittens) Me: Yeah. Rebecca: Get off your bed, I'm coming there in half hour. (talk of faith, can't I be like, up and running, or saving nuns and puppies or something? Do I have to be in bed sleeping everytime she calls me?)

So, she did eventually come and we rode to Kings Island in one piece. (just so that you feel happy and sorry for me at the same time, you should know that Becca hangs out with people who drive around in race cars for fun) After some fumbling with the tickets and signing away our souls and firstborns to the parking dudes, we were on our way to have some fun. To cheer ourselves up after having just given up our souls for parking (of all things) and having driven here safely without any interesting incidents (awww), Rebecca decided that we needed some ice-cream. So, we went ahead and had some Dippin' Dots, and waited while Andy and his fiancée Kristen came around.

[These Dippin' Dots were happy to be our food. "Eat us, eat us", they urged! So we ate them. All of them.]

We were busy eating ice-cream and trying out some funky cool hats, when the so-in-love couple showed up. After this, the four of us were for the most part having rides and chilling out. We did see some very, err, unusually dressed people and we were enlightened on why nudity is illegal - there are some folks you'd rather never see without any semblance of clothing. Ofcourse, I refused to be part of a ride where I'd be thrown down from an alarmingly tall structure when tied down tightly to a seat. (Kristen's reaction: "You climb mountains, jump off planes and do bungee jumping, but you do not want to take one stupid ride!?"). I tried mumbling something incomprehensible, to no effect. Anyway, soon after, Andy and Kristen had to go, and Rebecca decided it was time to force-feed me something (isn't that something?). That something turned out to be some pizzas and salad amongst other things. And oh, Rebecca insists that I force-fed myself some chocolate milk, although one would wonder why. But then, I'm quite weird and one would suppose that it's a perfectly normal thing for me to do. That done, we were having post-lunch-traumatic disorder. So, we spent the time loitering around and getting, err, let's just say, very wet. God, that sounded bad, but before you mistake me - all we did was go on some funky water rides to wake us up. That done, we decided to explore rides of various kinds. We did ride some cool things, like the Son of the Beast, which is apparently one of the coolest and fastest rollercoasters in the world. I thought it was fun, Rebecca's body decided otherwise. Poor thing, it was kinda a spooky ride though. (A little tip, Beck - keepin' your eyes open usually is more fun, ya' know?) We also saw some cool larger-than-life stuffed toys. Rebecca tried winning a Homer doll for me, since she knew that he's my inspiration in life. She tried hammering the hell out of something, but it didn't quite work out. But she did beat me at shooting and won a Spiderman, though!

[Homer Simpson, Karthik's inspiration in life...]

We were dog tired by then and had headaches, and it was not even five in the evening! So, we went and caffeinated ourselves with an aspirin and were up and ready in no time. To have more fun (yay, aren't y'all happy for us?). You're probably wondering right about now, well, it's a theme park. And it's a birthday celebration. Usually, birthdays involve cakes and candy, right? I mean, do these two just hang out all day and do nothing fun? Like, eat candy? You, my dear reader, have no idea. By the end of the day, between me and Rebecca, we had consumed the following in some form or the other: gatorade, dippin' dots icecream, cherry icee, pizzas, salads, chocolate milk, candy of all sorts, chocolate mint fudge, double dip chocolate and vanilla icecream, tacos, fruits and funnel cake. I'm sure I probably missed out a lot, but that ought to give you an idea. Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand. We also noticed that there were several cheesy t-shirts that folks were wearing out there, here's some that caught our attention:

PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. Vegetarian: The village idiot who could not fish, hunt or ride. (I thought it would be cool if I were to wear one, particularly considering the fact that I'm a vegetarian...) Draft Beer, Not People. (bah!) It does not suck itself. (go figure) But the most priceless of all things was what Rebecca said - her Mommy dearest called her asking if there was a Starbucks in downtown Cincinnati, when her eminence comes up with the following: "Mom! There's Starbucks in Amazon." One of a kind, Rebecca. You're one of a kind. *shakes head*

Update: I just had this weird conversation with an Einstein of a Friend of mine -

Einstein Friend says: but seriously... is there starbucks in amazon? Einstein Friend says: you can order online? Karthik says: Amazon JUNGLE, fool! Einstein Friend says: i so knew that !

Damn geeks! *shakes head again* Anyway, by this time, it was getting quite late and we decided to go for a ride called the Italian Job, which was said to be an awesome ride involving stunt rides of Mini Coopers. There was supposedly a fireworks show at 10 PM, and by the time we got to the Italian Job ride, it was almost 9 PM. We decided that this would be our final ride before we went and saw the fireworks.

[The Italian Job]

It was a long wait, but it was well worth it - the Italian Job ride was a lot of fun. But the best part was that the fireworks started just before we got on the ride, and we got to see the fireworks while we were having the ride. It was simply fabulous and the best ride ever! Nothing can beat a cool ride with helicopters and cars burning, and fireworks in the sky! We were simply awestruck. We had some fireworks glasses on and saw some funky lights stuff. I got myself some wacko psychedelic thingy. I mean, who needs acid when you've Rebecca and psychedelic stuff for company, eh? That done, we wrapped up the day with funnel cakes and pictures of us with Spidey. Whew! And by the time we got home, it was almost 12 AM - we had left home at 10 AM in the morning, and had stayed in the park for a good 13 hours. Needless to say, I'm extremely tired right now and have urgent issues in life that need to be taken care. These are strictly between me and my bed, so forgive me while I go back to my Hawaiian Masseuses. Have a great Fourth of July weekend, y'all!

Speculative Fiction

2005-06-29T19:52:00.000-04:00

This rant is an offshoot of a discussion at Sci-Fi channel's Stargate Atlantis forum. Someone had suggested that just like Battlestar Galactica, Stargate needed more cool phrases and chicks to rev it up (which indicated that it needed revving up in the first place, which it does not). Don't get me wrong - I think Battlestar Galactica is a great show by itself, very nicely taken with some very interesting people. However, at the end of the day, Battlestar Galactica is a Space Opera, a chick-flick of sorts with lots of cool stuff. It has a very stylish look and feel to it, and merely happens to have been set in space. It covers very little on the theme of social and cultural constructs, it is more along the lines of Asimov's Lucky Starr.

On the other hand, Stargate is a true SF show. By SF, I mean Speculative Fiction - the original genre encompassing science fiction, fantasy, horror and related themes. To paraphrase Djisktra, the question of whether or not computers can think is about as interesting as asking if submarines can swim - Stargate is as much sci-fi (I'm referring to the modern, corrupted use of the word) as a swimming submarine. Stargate is not merely about cool technology or impressive science, although there is plenty of that. Stargate is about how that technology affects things, how civilizations rise and fall with new discoveries and new science, how the tyranny of superior races and slavery of the inferior ones evolve and how entire cultures can be the effective result of near-singular artifacts. What would have happened if we did not have our Dark Ages? Could there be common threads to the various belief systems in this world? What would parasitic nature taken to the extremes look like? Or what would pacifism taken to the extremes look like? While it is definitely not the first work of fiction to address these, it most definitely is one of the better ones.

Every term, every cultural, religious, linguistic, anthropological or technological reference in Stargate has been well thought out and well derived from genuine facts that are quite plausible in the real world. Star Trek aims to be like that, but fails at several points because of one simple flaw - technobabble. "Geordi! Align the deflector dish to emit two quarter frequency of the theta radiation and arm the phaser banks to open fire and execute sequence alpha delta beta using photon torpedos upon my mark." Did that mean anything to you? If it did, you're probably a script writer for Rick Berman. Contrast this with Stargate, where O'Neill has the priceless dumb look on his face everytime someone brings up something complicated - no, don't feed me buzzwords. Show me the technology, and how people and things react to the technology. I don't care how the Stargate works, but rather what happens when it works. People do not really care how things work, as long as they do. Sure, a few geeks may, but the bottom line is that civilizations and cultures are not the result of how a thing works, but rather that the thing works at all. However, other than the flaw of technobabble, Star Trek comes right on top (well, right next to Stargate anyway). Why? Because ultimately, it too talks about the anthropological, social and cultural influences of technology. You can replace the ship with a flying chariot, the technobabble with hymns and Picard or Kirk with wizards, but you'd still not quite get the same elements - because despite appearances, Star Trek is more about how people react to technology, rather than the technology itself. What would we be without our emotions? Is rationalism really worth it? How does a civilization treat an artificial life form? What would be the prejudices of a race that has supposedly overcome every prejudice? What kind of ethical and moral issues would come about in the future? What are the problems that would come about in a near-perfect era? How do we handle power? How do we handle a life where material possessions are quite meaningless? An android who sacrificed himself in a quest to be more human. An enlightened civilization seeing itself in other younger civilizations. Races that can be evil without meaning to. People and their perceptions.

The spirit of Star Trek was quite nicely summed up when someone asked Gene Roddenberry, "Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century?". Roddenberry replied - "In the 24th century, they wouldn't care". That is the utopia of Star Trek. But while Star Trek aimed at this utopia, it ended up sending out political messages, when it did not mean to - a lot of people conceive Star Trek to be largely socialist in nature, and the idea of a Star Trek-ish utopia while nice, is near improbable to be ever realized. In that way, Star Trek was pseudo-allegorical of sorts, in demonstrating the beliefs of the era that it belonged to. However, Stargate takes a different approach. You do not have Captain Kirks and Picards, you have normal folks who handle things of galactic consequence. Do wormholes scare the bejeezus out of you? Don't worry, Col. Jack O'Neill is just as scared. Nobody has learnt Wrap Drives in their eighth grade textbooks, they're just glad that they exist. And when they do figure things out, it's not any one of them, but rather the best minds in a planet working together trying to figure things out. In fact, they are just as surprised when things work.

Sam: This may not be possible, you know. Jacob: Come on, Sam – it can’t be any harder than blowing up a sun. Sam: You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water! (At which point, whatever Sam's been working on starts to work) Jacob: There you go! Sam: Oh. Next up - parting the Red Sea.

Stargate is not merely about cool technology - it is about how this technology (amongst other things) affects people. The fact is, every action has consequences, everything you do has an effect - this is what Stargate captures so well. Every simple action that the Stargate team performed has had far reaching consequences, everything was tied-in together, in the grand scheme of things. It is not a one-episode thing at a time, the storylines tie in well together and they all weave a beautiful web of a motley colored story. And it's about normal people doing great things, and great people doing normal things. There is science fiction (cool technology), fantasy (Ancients) and horror (Goa'uld, Wraith) - but it does not talk merely about the science, the fantasy or the horror, or related things. Rather, there is a speculation of stories set in those themes, and how things evolve and affect one another. You stop being fascinated by how the Stargate works, but rather how the fact that it works has changed entire races. How it becomes a scientific, religious, social and cultural symbol. How it can make or break entire civilizations. Battlestar Galactica on the other hand focusses more on technology and its evolution, rather than people and their use of this technology. In Stargate, it is not the technology per-se that matters, but the people flexing it - that is what makes the good guys the good guys. And very often, the technology changes people, turning them into something or the other. Absolute power. "The only way to fight evil is to deny it battle", showed a young boy to a man who refused to believe him. Or very often, technology brought about a certain level of responsibility, a benign but tempered attitude that comes with true maturity. "They very young do not always do as they are told", said the Nox. And it only went to prove how young we really are, as a race and as a civilization. The great races are cool not just because they have cool tech, but because of what they did with that tech. Everything (and everyone) has a background, a history and a character. And everyone has a side to them that has evolved over time, something that is not black or white, but shades of gray. Things have historical references and characteristics that you could relate to (etymological dervivations, anthropological references etc.) - things that you and I could understand. Sure, it was all make believe, but it was make believe, not merely believe. This is why Stargate rocks. And this is exactly why Battlestar Galactica does not.

Quotes of the Week & Allie's New Blog

2005-06-29T10:23:00.000-04:00

Quotes of the Week Some priceless quotes from last week:

Allie: Help me, Karthik-wan-kenobi. You're my only hope...! ... ... ... ... ... ... Andrew: Yes, that was several hundred years ago. Me: No, that was several thousand years ago. Andrew: The last time I checked, thousands were made out of hundreds. ... ... ... ... ... ... (after a little limerick recital) Allie: Whoa! is your acid kicking in now?

Allie's New Blog Don't you just love technology? My fiendly fiend now has a blog, yay! She's also got a cool new website showcasing some of her photography and the like. You go, girl!

Stargate Barista, Star Dragon and Accelerando

2005-06-26T12:01:00.000-04:00

Stargate Barista I've seen "people" make attempts at writing fiction. Some of them in fact try very hard, and yet do a poor job of it. Some are hyped up, for no apparent reason. Some write stuff that perhaps I'm unable to appreciate nor particularly enjoy. However, Stargate Barista is one of those series that is so fabulously written that you cannot help but like it. The Barista series explores the SG world from the perspective of Kira, a barista whose coffee shop the SG-1 crowd frequents. While Kira has absolutely no clue on what's happening in the gateroom, she does make a particularly mean Americano (although, I'd personally have a doubleshot or a straight espresso). To make things interesting, Kira sounds exactly like a feminine version of a cross between Jack and Daniel. Ofcourse, Kira's encounters with the SG team given the various episodes and the fact that she has no clue whatsoever about what they do makes it a really, really good read. I mean, come on! Who among us did not wish that they would show us Jack, Sam & Daniel kicking some serious butt at O'Malleys in Upgrades? I seldom read fanfics, but the Barista series comes out right on top - it's funny as hell, and one can almost imagine RDA or Shanks saying the lines. I'd rate this as one of the best series I've ever read - Dena, you should definitely start writing pro! Star Dragon & Accelerando While we are still discussing good writings, here's some more. I recently stumbled upon two more excellent books - Star Dragon and Accelerando. Both are available online under Creative Commons. The former is by Mike Brotherton, who also happens to be an astronomer (and a fellow Slashdotter), while the latter is by Charles Stross.

In simple words, Star Dragon is a cross between ST:TNG and Neuromancer (or rather, Cyberpunk in general). It's a really well written, and a great (albeit a little serious) read. Accelerando on the other hand, is true cyberpunk - with a Slashdot/Kuro5hin/Fark kinda sense of humor. Some of the lines are priceless -

"Uh, I'm not sure I got that. Let me get this straight, you claim to be some kind of AI, working for KGB dot RU, and you're afraid of a copyright infringement lawsuit over your translator semiotics?" "Am have been badly burned by viral end-user license agreements. Have no desire to experiment with patent shell companies held by Chechen infoterrorists. You are human, you must not worry cereal company repossess your small intestine because digest unlicensed food with it, right? Manfred, you must help me-we. Am wishing to defect." -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - "Nyet!" The artificial intelligence sounds as alarmed as it's possible to sound over a VoiP link. "Am not open source! Not want lose autonomy!" -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - Manfred walks on, hands in pockets, brooding. He wonders what he's going to patent next. -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - He's the guy who patented using genetic algorithms to patent everything they can permutate from an initial description of a problem domain – not just a better mousetrap, but the set of all possible better mousetraps. -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - There are lawyers in San Diego and Redmond who swear blind that Macx is an economic saboteur bent on wrecking the underpinning of capitalism, and there are communists in Prague who think he's the bastard spawn of Bill Gates by way of the Pope. -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - His fiance and sometime dominatrix Pamela threw him over six months ago, for reasons he has never been quite clear on. (Ironically, she's a headhunter for the IRS, jetting all over the place at public expense, trying to persuade entrepreneurs who've gone global to pay taxes for the good of the Treasury Department.) To cap it all, the Southern Baptist Conventions have denounced him as a minion of Satan on all their websites. Which would be funny because, as a born-again atheist Manfred doesn't believe in Satan, if it wasn't for the dead kittens that someone keeps mailing him. -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - Oh shit, thinks Manfred, better buy some more server time. He can recognize the signs: He's about to be slashdotted.

Both are excellent reads, and will keep you entertained for hours - now that is what I call good writing! Rock on, all ye' good writers out there. Starbuck This is totally offtopic, but what the heck - this is my blog! I just figured that I've mentioned Stargate and Star Dragon, so I might as well mention Starbuck too.

[God, I seem to have a thing for kick-ass women in uniform]

And since we are at it... Star Trek Star Trek (yes, this is very much akin to saying Matt Damon in Team America).

Hacking Wi-Fi

2005-06-26T08:53:00.000-04:00

Hacking WiFi Last week, me and Rebecca decided to try and do a little war driving set-up of sorts. Well, not driving per-se, but neighborhood "network analysis", if you know what I'm talking about. With permissions from neighbors ofcourse (ofcourse!). So, we started out by ripping open her HP-Lucent wifi modem, which did not have an external antenna - and what do we find? The damn thing has a PCMCIA wifi card inside, hooked to a USB adapter. Wow, and they actually charge an arm and a leg for those things. Anyway, we take the thing apart, and build a make-shift antenna out of some spare wire and Becca's old Sprint cellphone (which looks something like the one below).

But then, this by itself does not really improve the reception much, so we also built a parabolic reflector antenna from an, errr, Pringles can. We used the original template of a deep dish cylindrical parabolic antenna, and it came out quite well!

[That would be the picture from the freeantennas.com website, just to give you an idea of what a deep dish looks like]

After cutting and sawing off modems, pringles cans, headphones and cellphones, we ended up wiring up the system together - and voila! The system worked perfectly fine, with quite a good reception, although we had to fine tune and mess with the settings a little. More importantly, Becca tells me that it hardly ever drops connections, so that's an excellent thing. Stay tuned for more pictures and the like, from your friendly neighborhood antenna builders. =) Update: Rebecca's updated her blog with a link-back.

Do Stealth Mode Startups Suck?

2005-06-20T17:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently, Mark Fletcher feels that they do. He was commenting on 24 Hour Laundry, a new stealth startup by Marc Anderseen. And before I go on, I strongly encourage you to read 24 Hour Laundry's business motto, of sorts, and Paul Kedrosky's rebuttal to Mark's points. That done, let us see why Mark Fletcher considers stealth startups to be a bad idea. According to Mark, there are 5 main reasons that he thinks so:

First mover advantage is important.
There is no such thing as a unique idea. I guarantee that someone else has already thought of your wonderful web service, and is probably way ahead of you. Get over yourself.
It forces you to focus on the key functionality of the site.
Being perfect at launch is an impossible (and unnecessary and even probably detrimental) goal, so don't bother trying to achieve it. Ship early, ship often.
The sooner you get something out there, the sooner you'll start getting feedback from users.

Mark also has this to say, about ideas -

Some people think that they need to stay in stealth mode as long as possible to protect their exciting new idea. I hate to break the news to you, but unless you're Einstein or Gallileo, your idea probably isn't new. I have this theory. The success of a web service is inversely proportional to the secrecy that surrounded its development. There are exceptions of course. But I also think this can be applied to other things. Segway, anyone?

Well, now that we've everything in place, let us analyze each of those points, and see how much sense they really make. First Mover Advantage is important First mover advantage is useful, if you are new and unique, I cannot disagree with that. But at the same time, you mention that almost no idea is original or new. Well, then - you've already lost the first mover advantage, haven't you? Yahoo! was one of the first search engines, and Google was one of the last - yet, what has first mover advantage done to Yahoo!? The point is, first mover advantage is a tiny edge, and it is an edge that cannot override quality or standards. Unless and until you are really good, your first mover advantage cannot take you far. I can state countless examples - IE wasn't a first mover, and neither was Winamp. And yet, look at their marketshares today. Yes, you may lose out on the first mover advantage - but that does not mean that you come out with a sucky product and would somehow miraculously gain marketshare. This also brings up another issue, that of user expectations - when you do publicize your product or put it out before it's really ready, you raise user expectations. Hype and expectations can bring down even the very best of things, no matter what. A good product launch without any preconceived notions has its own set of advantages. There is no such thing as a unique idea Ofcourse there isn't. However, there is such a thing as a good implementation of a good idea. Google's ideas aren't unique by any stretch, but what sets them apart from the crowd is that they do a great job of their ideas. Investors and customers stopped paying for unique ideas a long time ago - the DotCom boom was the last time that people invested in technology for the sake of technology. These days, investors look for viable, reliable, working ideas that help them. Stealth during the period when you develop your idea into maturity is most certainly a good thing to do, because if you publicize your product before you are ready, you are going to raise user expectations and would be forced to move earlier to keep up with your competitors. End result? You come out with incomplete and badly developed products, not all that better than your competitors. Ever wonder why Google never even gave you an indication of what Gmail would look like, or that it would exist at all? They did that for a reason, if they had come up with a half-baked version in a non-stealth mode, it would not have been half as popular. And I would take this out even further, if you do have vital and defensible intellectual property in an emerging market, stealth is definitely a good idea - making your efforts public will only give your competitors an advantage. Forces you to focus on the key functionality of the site Well, sure. But it also forces you to do that in a haphazard manner, under market pressure and threat from your competitors. That is not a good way to build an idea, nor a company. And if focussing on the key functionality is your biggest problem, you've got bigger things to worry than being in stealth mode or not. Being perfect at launch is an impossible Yes, but that does not mean you go public with an incomplete, underdeveloped product. Being perfect at launch maybe impossible, but that does mean you should not aim for it. More importantly, perfection is relative. While you may not achieve perfection, you can definitely appear to be much better than your competitors - which would definitely make you look great in the eyes of your customers. If you are willing to wait and put the time and effort in achieving this, I can assure you that your business will go places. Ship early, ship often. Hmm, this is something that would entirely depend on who your market is made of. If you are targetting the enterprise segment, you can be quite certain that nobody likes their systems requiring an upgrade every other week. This does not mean you should be like Debian, but a good balance is a great thing. Ship as early as you can, but ship updates and bug-fixes often - this would be a much better advice. If one were to ship early for the sake of shipping early, you would ship products lacking complete feature sets and with lots of problems - this would only do to antagonize those that are willing to give your product a chance. Worse yet, this would create an element of bad publicity, which is something that you definitely do not want. And besides, shipping early is relative - when you do not know what is it that I'm shipping to begin with, how does it matter? The sooner you get something out, the sooner you'll start getting user feedback Ofcourse not. They are called NDAs. What use is feedback if you are shipping an incomplete, underdeveloped product? Feedback is valuable when you've made a complete product, worthy of shipping, where user feedback *means* something. I can ship up a lousy product that I coded up in all of two days, but that does not mean much unless I've taken the efforts to make it complete. User feedback is important, but only when there is something worthy of giving feedback to. And Paul brings up an excellent point, that I could not have put better:

"But you have to keep the role of stealth in context. It is a rational response to a marketplace with too much risk capital, low barriers to entry, and many entrepreneurial teams looking for ideas. Saying that many people will come to variants of the same idea at the same time is not the same thing as saying you should ring a bell and invite everyone and their favorite VCs to come and feast on your nascent startup."

Stealth is relative - it is no silver bullet, but there are situations when it makes sense and situations when it does not. In a ruthless market filled with picky customers and investors, where ideas are dime a dozen, publicizing your works before maturity isn't always a good idea. Remember that while it may give you an edge, it also gives your competitors the exact same edge.

Serial Entrepreneurs

2005-06-20T10:40:00.000-04:00

Serial Entrepreneurs Well, yet again, I have Prasenjeet to thank for this interesting article on serial entrepreneurs. Quite interesting comments, too.

"We work hard, but keep sane hours (not a sleep-under-your-desk startup), use agile development processes (though we could use a little more), have an office with a view in San Francisco (right next to South Park), tend to prefer Macs (but it's okay if you don't), and are going to change what's in people's ears (and between them)."

How much fun is that? The only reason I like what I do is because of the crazy hours and the pressure, the fact that you have to do everything on your own and deliver things on a tightline. If that is taken away, I'd not be doing this. Draw conclusions as you will.

Marketing for Geeks

2005-06-20T10:39:00.000-04:00

Marketing for Geeks Thanks go out to Prasenjeet for this - I was recently "indoctrinated" into reading Eric Sink's Weblog, and quite honestly, it's fabulous. His articles on marketing for geeks, immutable laws of marketing and the business of software are really well written and quite insightful. A must read for all techie-folks who plan on doing any kind of client interaction, marketing or management related stuff. Very highly recommended. And if you are an entrepreneur, that's gold right there!

Serenity

2005-06-19T23:18:00.000-04:00

Serenity This is old, but I'm just very excited about Firefly's upcoming movie, Serenity. It's really unfortunate that they stopped an excellent show like Firefly, but at the very least, I'm happy that they're making a movie out of it. And ofcourse, I really need to be thanking Lorenzo for gifting me the entire DVD collection for my birthday this year!

Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me. Take me out, to the black, tell 'em I ain't comin' back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place, I can be, since I found Serenity. You can't take the sky from me....

And besides, it shows River kicking ass - have I ever told you that I think River is one of the best sci-fi characters ever created?. While her character is not particularly unusual or new, it is refreshing to see such a character with an awesome sense of humour.

[it's worse than you know - it usually is]

And talking of which, that show had some of the best lines I've ever heard...

... ... ... ... Jayne: Are you saying River's a witch? Wash: Yes, Jayne, she's a witch. She's had congress with the Beast. Jayne: She's in Congress? Wash: How did your brain even learn human speech? ... ... ... ... Early: You're all insane. Simon: My sister's a ship. We had a fairly complicated childhood. ... ... ... ... Mal: You know, you ain't quite right. River: It's a popular theory. ... ... ... ... Simon: You're out of your mind. Early: That's between me and my mind. ... ... ... ... Early: Where did River go? Simon: I can't keep track of her when she's not incorporeally possessing a spaceship - don't look at me. ... ... ... ... Zoe: Oh yeah, this is gonna go great. Mal: If anyone gets nosy, just, you know... shoot 'em. Zoe: Shoot 'em? Mal: Politely ... ... ... ... Mal: I believe that woman's planning to shoot me again. ... ... ... ... Simon: You know, I've saved lives. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. I reattached a girl's leg. Her whole leg. She named her hamster after me. I got a hamster. He drops a box of money, he gets a town. ... ... ... ... Jayne: No. I would never do that, my hand to god, may he strike me down as I'm standing here. Mal: Well, you won't be standing there long. ... ... ... ... Mal: One of you is gonna fall and die, and I'm not cleaning it up! ... ... ... ... Kaylee: Oh, gosh, I... I-I knew she took females as clients... I just... They look so glamorous together. Jayne: I'll be in my bunk. ... ... ... ... Zoe: Preacher, don't the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing? Book: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps. ... ... ... ... Zoe: Take me, sir. Take me hard. Jayne: Now somethin' about that is just downright unsettling. ... ... ... ... Jayne: Well... I don't like the idea of someone hearin' what I'm thinkin'. Inara: No one likes the idea of hearing what you're thinking. ... ... ... ...

Party Weekend

2005-06-19T14:58:00.000-04:00

Party Weekend So, I've met up with these few other interns and folks from Xavier during the course of the week - we were busy engaging in diverse intern bonding during the weekend at parties and clubs. Friday was a blast, when we all ended up going to Hofbräuhaus in Newport and ofcourse the good ole' Beer Sellar. Hofbräuhas has this fantastic drink called Hofbräu Munich Weizen, served in a humongous stein that'll take you a good half hour to drink up.

And ofcourse, Saturday night was the party night at Chris' place, where I played games you're better off not knowing (and losing, ofcourse). I was supposed to go to a Reds Game (which they lost, too) and the Indy F1 Grandprix, but hey it's Sunday and I've a headache or two to handle. So forgive me while I go about slamming mugloads of coffee into my pea brain.