Oscar awards - 2007

The OSCAR results are out and Martin Scorsese has finally been awarded an oscar. I stuck my neck out by speculating the winners for the 'Sound mixing' and 'Visual effects' category and appear to have got it right though the 'Best animated feature' award went to 'Happy Feet' while I thought 'Cars' was a good effort. The whole world and some aliens too predicted an oscar to Martin Scorsese which has ended in a double whammy - Best Direction and Best Picture, so no big deal on telling about that one.

(Eq)uality among the sexes - NO THANKS

This is not intended for the general female population over whom I have great respect. This is for a screwed up in the head and everywhere else, 40 something, socialite (un)dressed up(down) idiots who think equality between men and women equals both sexes have to do everything. Its a fucking partnership and if you can't understand that, go to hell(or maybe you are already there) (These) Women who want equality should first do away with a lot of stuff .... - Seperate ladies' queue at everything from Goverment offices to Airport security checks - 33% reservation in the parliment - Dressing up like whores and then complaining about Eve teasing - Stop trying to loose weight and show off your midrib to your socialite friends and the world - oh and I don't mean all the time, please keep fit and all that, JUST DON'T $#^^$^$% do it when you have just had a baby. - And if you don't want to look a bit round cos you have just given birth, stop $#%$@#& around so much and get on the pill - Just don't try to ride an Enfield cos you want to prove you are equal. Ride it if you truly love the ride. Otherwise you end up killing the others on the road. There is nothing wrong in going on a non-geared cute looking scoot(y)er. - There is nothing wrong in not being able to lift 100 kilos. Stop exercising so much that your Oestrogen screws up and you end up looking like 'a man', the same creature that you wanted to out do in the first place. - And hey we don't mind removing our tops in public at security checks, to the beach to the swimming pool. If you are so equal off with the tops and come into the pool. We'll be nice, I promise ;) To end a short clip from the immortal startrek

John Williams and Yo Yo Ma playing live

This is a video of John Williams (on the piano) and Yo Yo Ma (on the cello) playing the theme from the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha" in NBC's "The Tonight Show".

After the end - Finding Neverland

In this series I'll try to bring your attention to the music of movies after they technically get over. Yes, we are talking about the soundtrack that accompanies the credits on screen. This is the least heard/seen aspect of a movie but many a times it turns out to be the most fulfulling in terms of music. This week we'll start with the music that accompanies the end titles of the movie 'Finding Neverland'.


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Jan A.P Kaczmerak wrote a score that was melodic and orchestrated subtly for the movie about the writer of 'Peter Pan'. The end titles is accompanied by a piano solo deftly played by Leszek Mozdzer. The main attraction of this piece is the simple melody which when played over and over is improvised by the pianist. Scores like these should be written about less and heard more. So go on, list to the music and send your views too.

Ratan Tata - A true Indian entrepreneur

Ratan Tata has been in the news all the time and more so recently with the recent success they had in winning over Corus. What makes this man special? Is it the size of the businesses he oversees? It is the number of areas the TATA group has been able to diversify into? Is it the amount of value he's creating for his shareholders? What is the story about this man that makes him so special and likeable?

Ratan Naval Tata was born on the 28th of Dec 1937. In 1962 he graduated with a degree in Archietecture and Structural Engineering from Cornell University. He came back to India and was sent to work on the shop floor in Tata Steel for 3 yrs. How many of you remember a TV set called Nelco Blue Diamond? Nelco (National Radio and Electronics Company) was his next destination where he was made a Director.

Ratan completed a Management program in Harvard and around that time Emergency was imposed in India which led to a lockout of Nelco. From here Tata went to work in the textile business of the Tata's which had mixed results. The main reason for this was attributed to the labor problems in Bombay then under the astute leadership of Datta Samant, a strong trade union leader.

In 1991 Ratan Tata took over as group chairman of the TATA group and this period saw TATA consultancy services going public and the foray of TATA motors into the passenger car market. The TATA Indica was an ambitious project because no Indian company had designed cars before. The easiest way was to find a foreign partner and manufacture cars under a JV. Ratan chose to take the path that was never travelled.

TATA Indica was launched on Indian roads in 1998 and it met initially with a lot of criticism and was also plagued with defects and other running problems. But to the company's credits everything was sorted out in a short span of time and it's one of the best selling cars of the country today. This was followed by the supremely successful TATA Indigo which still sells like hot cakes. The TATA's are all set to launch a luxurious version of this car named Indigo XL.

Ratan also led TATA to Korea and acquired Daewoo motors heavy vehicles division. TATA Tea acquired Tetley. Tata Teleservices acquired Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) when the Government divested it's stakes in it. Corus was a tough bargain because CSN stepped in and upped the ante. But Ratan says they bought it for a price which was within what they had decided and it surely is a victory for the group.

Ratan Tata is know for his integrity in business and the values that he holds dear to him. An intensely private bachelor, he loves dogs, flying, electronics, technology and cars. Rumor has it that he drives a TATA Indica to work in Mumbai. His next big adventure according to him is to fly the F16 for which he's been invited. A big cheer for the man who makes India proud, who serves as a role model for countless indian and who strongly believes that corporates should give back something to the country.

This interview with Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN on being conferred the 'Indian of the year' is a must watch.

The most humourous Mac Vs PC debate EVER !!!!

I have been online a long time now and have read/had been in plenty of This Vs Thats. But this certainly has to be the most humourous debate I have read in a while http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5957 I never thought I'd see a DT artile with so much humour.

McLaren - F1 2007 season

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 team has released pictures of the new car (MP4-22) and the driver for this season. The MP4-22 is by far the best looking car in the lineup for this year, I hope in terms of performance they are able to break the reliability jinx. Day 1 of testing in Valencia saw Alonso retire in the last 5 minutes of testing with a "minor oil leak" but the fact that he did 102 laps and was the first on the track was good news. Day 2 of testing was mildly hampered by wet track conditions but no car problems.

Jax is a big fan of Ferrari and I wonder where his loyalities are this season. Can't wait till the first race, keep watching this space for more.

Launchy | The App Launcher

Sometime back, I came across this nifty little tool called Launchy.

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

The results were really amazing. Since I started using it, I have never opened up Windows Explorer at all to locate my docs. A simple Windows+Spacebar shortcut fires Launchy and I just type the name of the doc I am looking for. Actually I manage to type a few characters in the app as it retrieves the document. The best feature about Launchy is that you can set it to index and retrieve any filetype in your system. For instance, at my home PC, I have set Launchy up to index my mp3 folders. Now any song is just a few keypresses away. The latest release adds a lot of support for stuff like plugins which take the application to a new level. A built-in calculator and a Firefox plugin has made this piece of software warrant a high place in my 'Must Have' tools list. If you consider yourself a power-user or if you are tired of going through a complicated directory structure to locate your documents, you should head over here and download Launchy and start using it immediately. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hog that much memory.

The Wow Continues !!!!

So you have decided to go on the Vista path. There are certain things that you want to do before rushing out to buy the stuff. First check if your system meets the minimum requirements. You might have heard/read a lot of stuff about Vista needing these futuristic machines to be able to use it normally, and most prolly about 95% of them are not true. So what is the 5%? Well for one you do need atleast a 1.5 Ghz processor for normal usage, and faster/better processors for more advanced usage. But practically speaking, now that the Mega/Gigahertz myth has been broken, let's just take an AMD Sempron 64 2.0 Ghz as a base processor or even the 1.6 Ghz Intel Centrino as the Base for Mobile processors. Also for anything other than just browsing the internet with Aero turned off, let's have a minimum of 1 Gb of RAM and a decent graphics card (Ah! c'mon for god's sake you can buy a 'decent' graphics card for less that what it costs to buy a 'decent' pair of trousers) and atleast about 40 Gb hard disk space ....contd.....