Passing away of a star...........

"Sahasa Simha" Vishnuvardhan, a big name in the kannada film industry passed away on 30th Dec 2009 due to a massive heart attack. I remember his super-hit movie "Nishkarsha", which is his first movie that I watched. The movie is loosely based on Bruce Willis' Die Hard. Acting takes high credit in the movie. Vishnu plays an ATS chief who has come to secure the building taken over by a bunch of terrorists. Man! What acting! In Kannada, unfortunately, there are very few actors, who can actually act and Vishnu was definitely in the top 3. He had acted in over 150 movies with many massive hits and was still going strong. I had also heard he was a great humanitarian and supported non-violence. Unfortunately as it happens here, after his death, there were protests, stone-pelting, tyre-burning and other such inhumane acts where there should have been deep mourning for such a great soul has left us to join the Gods!

Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2

      It's been a long time and I have found the perfect topic to write about! :)
      The game, every gamer, hardcore or not, was waiting eagerly this year (proof of which is obvious by the sales revenue of the game, which according to Activision, is $550m during the initial week of its release!!!!) was finally released on November 10th! Although, in my city only the console versions were available even a week after the game's official worldwide release, the PC version, I was told, will be available after another 2-3 weeks of delay! :(
      Being too desperate to play the game, I had to finally download the pirated version (against my will). But not to worry. I will be buying a copy soon as it is available! :)
      About the game now, keeping aside all the controversies that all the wonderful things in this world tend to goof up, its a classic!!!!
      The game begins off with a training ground (in this case, the pit), just like any other game in the COD series, suggesting the player which difficulty level will be appropriate. :) Like always, I could only manage "hardened".
      The game uses the IW 4.0 engine and claims to have capabilities which are generations beyond the one used in COD4. Most of the differences compared to COD MW were noticeable beyond doubt. Game has better AI, advanced cinematics, awesome gameplay and I loved the "heat-sensor attached weapons", which is useful when the hostiles smoke up their area of defense so that the player will be unable to spot them in the smoke. The heat-sensor comes in handy during these times.
      I was beginning to miss Captain Price, but damn was I happy to meet him during the course! :) Just as in the first Modern Warfare, Capt.Price and Capt.Soap are the ones to carry out the final assassination.
Although the game is very very very short (I took only about 5:41 Hrs to complete the game) considering normally a game has about 9 hrs of playing time, the experience was awesome and the player is constantly in the midst of fast-paced action, where in the blink of an eye there may be death looking straight thru your eyes! :)
      There is an additional weaponry added into the arsenal of the player, Predator Drones, which are very useful to take out multiple enemies or armor. An entire zone is swept clean by the drone, which sometimes is imperative as the hostiles get overwhelming.
      Now to write a bit about the controversy that surrounds this game, which is a mission the player may choose to skip, called "No Russian". This mission is slightly off course and I disagree with Activision on including this mission. Though the game is rated 18+, there are lots of adult, yet immature gamers and its not very difficult for kids to lay their hands on the game! But seriously, having to massacre hundreds of innocent people, definitely need not have to be in a game, although the player may choose to skip the mission anytime during the mission or at the beginning of the mission! Even if the player (who, here is an undercover CIA field operative who has infiltrated into a terrorist team) doesn't skip the mission, he can choose not to shoot at the innocent people around, while the team of terrorists, led by Makarov, shoots and kills all living things in the airport!

      Apart from that one mission, this is by far one of the best games I have ever played! Thank you Infinity Ward and Activision! I hope you do come up with more such games!

Open Source Software

It has been some time since I had begun to admire open source software and their capabilities, where anybody can start right away and get their technical ideas implemented and where there exists a free software corresponding to almost every commercial software, there may be (except video games).
While working on windows operating system, most of the software has to be paid for to be able to use it and if one wants to be economical or has not much funding, then it is indeed difficult to get done with your work.

Various compression software are available and most of the commercial ones are being used, mostly, unless working in a non-windows environment, cuz otherwise a simple zip/gzip and tar -c commands would do to zip and archive the file(s).
Generally one may have scruples while using a pirated copy of a commercial software. Normally it's not the case :), but it is always good to respect someone's work, especially when you find the software useful enough for you. So, if you can't buy the software, you falter to use it (if not, you should). 7 zip to the rescue! It's by far the best compression software I have used and always use at home and would any day recommend it to everyone. Its interface is fairly user-friendly, compression algorithm is more efficient in terms of compression, although it does take some time depending on the system processor one has under the hood.
It also is capable of splitting compressed file into numerous files of size given by the user, which can later on be extracted into the original file, with as much ease as extracting a single compressed file. This is particularly useful, as I have found it to be, while mailing using Microsoft Outlook at office, due to the file size limitation of the attachments.
It can be freely downloaded from here. Do contribute if you can, as donations do help developers.

Another software, open source, of course, which I use for audio editing is Audacity. The word itself is a link, so please do visit its homepage to get to know more about the software, although you may find a gist below. :)
Firstly, the software is free. Can be used for audio editing, enhancing, amplification, bass-boost, fade in-fade out and so many more such effects that audio enthusiasts would love. Any supported audio file can be edited to the precision of a 100000th of a second. :) Cool, ain't it? Finally the file can be exported to one of mp3/wav/ogg audio formats.
All in all, a cool editing software to have and its FREE of cost, of restrictions and to modify ;)!

For all the graphics enthusiasts out there, or rather those interested in game coding and looking for a game engine, then what's better to begin with than Irrlicht! This engine has already been used to develop a few pretty good games with decent graphics and is being actively upgraded.
The best part of an open source game engine, or any open source software for that matter, is that a developer can customize it to her/his advantage.

Basically there will be numerous open source software, commercial implementations of which we may be using in our daily life, without giving the developers their due. Most software and their developers do need credit. Hence if buying a software is not an option, look for a corresponding open source software and do donate (money :)) even if it is the smallest of amounts, to the free software you find useful.

Movie freak?? Am I??

Original post edited

Well it's been a long time since I got a chance to get back at postin. Tonite anyways have to stay awake to wish a friend on her bday! Thought of bloggin in the mean time and....here it is.

I love watching movies. Especially fiction, action and comedy. During the recent weekend, when all my friends were busy and I had nothin to do, began my movie-watchin spree.

Watched about 6 movies in...hmmm..24 hrs I can say. Started with Kambhakht Ishq (KI). Personally, I felt "what a stooooopid movie!". What was Akshay (my all time fav) thinkin while signin for the movie. Movie begins with, a marriage, which does not consummate, till the very end. The protagonist, who thinks quite preposterously about women, is not totally supportive about his friend, gettin married. The leading lady is a man-hater, who considers all men only want one thing from women (ya, right!). There is only one scene in the movie which made me laugh and that was the scene jus after the operation performed on Akshay due to some intestinal bruise, where durin the operation, the surgeon (who is the leadin lady) accidentally drops her wrist watch (dont ask me y she had carried her wrist watch into the OT. Apparently a surgeon is allowed to wear jewelry while performing the operation), into the body of the patient and sews his skin back! So the next morning till evening, he keeps hearin a song, which is actually the hourly alarm from the watch in his abdomen.
In the whole movie, that was the only good scene for me.
Akshay, please please please read the story first before you sign up. You may have a great sense of humor, but on the big screen, it's too damn silly!!

Immediately after began watchin Fashion. (Those who know me, dont be startled. Yes I watched 2 NATIVE movies B2B). Awesome piece of work. Truly awesome. Whether its real-life based story or whatever, the movie is shot with absolutely no loose ends. Great direction, story and screenplay (which, the movie I watched jus before pathetically lacked). It was basically about how models are 'used', like a hanger, in the fashion industry. Begins with a lady aspirin to become a model...sorry...supermodel, after winnin a local beauty competition, gets no support from her parents (yes, unfortunately, my country is quite reserved). She leaves for mumbai, where a known friend receives her and then she gets to meet people, make contacts, finally ends up being a super-model, by replacin the current one. Durin her tenure, gets cocky, commits the same mistakes committed by the one she replaced and hence finds herself bein replaced by yet another model. The events are brought about so well, of course some of them resembling actual incidents of few models.
Overall, a great and watchable movie, with neat performances by all the actors.

It was 2.30 am!!! Hence jus slept!

Next day, in the afternoon, wanted to watch some comedy. Well, I had The Hangover. Oh man!! Watta movie! Had amazin fun watchin. The headline of the movie is somethin like this "They had the best ever night, but they can't remember it". Yes, they had the best night ever, and so freakin frustratin for them tat they cant remember a damn thing they did last night!
Seriously worth watchin!! Do watch the movie, if you (the reverend reader ;)) can. But I must say, if you reside in few of the conservative and reserved countries like mine, then let alone watchin it with parents, don't even watch it with your galfriends. I mean, that again depends on the gal(s).
Awesome movie! Please do watch it once at least.

Then watched the movie which will be listed as one of my favorites. Story-wise, not so good. But acting, Will Smith is a really really great actor. Movie is Seven Pounds. Watta movie!
It's about a man tryin to redeem himself due to one of his gruesome past incidents. Movie starts off with the protagonist behavin very rudely with a blind man (I couldn believe I'd ever see Will Smith in such a role, but then turn of events reveal that he is indeed a good person), workin in the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and meeting about 7 complete strangers, who's life is not goin so good, and wantin to help them. But he should first know that they are really good people, by heart, and that they really deserve to be helped. Hence he meets them often tryin to get to know them and learn if they really do have problems, which they claim. He would always have a jellyfish in his residence, on which he says somethin like this, "I was 7 when I first saw a jellyfish. My father told me that it was one of the most dangerous things ever. But to me it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen". Indeed so he must have, since the fish does look beautiful :). In the end, it turns out that the jellyfish ends up being his killer.
Awesome movie! I praise the acting. If you are a Will Smith fan, then you must watch this one, else do watch it, it's good! :)

Later in the day, switched on TV and one of my fav movies was bein aired. Hitman. If not for the blood and gore, I'd've referred it to everyone I knew. Watchable movie with excellent direction, screenplay and action. Introducin Olga Kurylenko, who goes on to become The Bond gal in the future of her actin career (in real life of course), Timothy Olyphant is the Hitman. Begins with an assassination mission, where he is assigned to terminate the president of a well-known country. Though Agent 47 never misses his target, this time his target 'escapes' death, which 47 is sure is an impostor. Soon after 47 becomes the target and then begins the entertainment.
Man, awesome direction, plenty of action and makes u wanna be an assassin....a stylish assassin, like 47. Movie of course, is based on a video game of the same title. Great game too, but very slow paced and a stealth based game.

Alas, my weekend movie-watchin spree ended with the last movie I watched being Sin City. Yuk! Though I do not like such movies and stop abruptly, I ended up watchin the complete movie and also liked it! In its own way, the movie was quite good, nice direction and the colorin was...hmmm...interesting, where the movie as a whole bein black and white, only 2-3 colors, such as yellow, red and kind of radium color, are shown as a contrast. For eg, a lady's red dress and her red lipstick.
Movie is a collection of 3 short stories by Frank Miller, who is also the director of the movie. Entire movie takes place in a fictional city called baSin City, where crime is pertinent and happenin everywhere. Nice movie, but definitely not for the weak-hearted. Of course the colorin helps make the movie seem like a cartoon at times, but it still is gross.
So went my weekend. Only weekend, mind ya. On sunday had to go out of station with dad and had to drive all the way to and fro, a span of about 300KM. But it was comfortable in SX4. :)

Chit chat...

Last night, was chattin with 2 of my friends. One of them is a silly gal (just normal chit-chattin) and the other had some doubts about love. Same doubts that people generally get when proposed to by someone whom they do not love, or rather are yet to experience love in their lives.
1) How do I know if I am in love?
2) What does it feel like to be in love? (Tricky question)
3) I don't love him/her, but how do I convey that to him/her?
4) I love him/her. But how do I convey that to him/her?
5) Why do people fall in love? (Yup, people do get this doubt).

Now, I don't claim to be an expert in human psychology or in perceiving or realizing emotions and feelings, but my (along with some help from the internet and my biology books) answers would be,
1) If you are in love, you'd not ask that question. :) Yup. You will know you are in love when you are in love.
2) Well... this is quite tricky, since it depends and varies from one individual to another. This question is best answered by yourself, when you do fall in love.
(though not much of an answer, I hope people do agree that I am right. If not feel free to comment. :) ).
3,4) Be honest. Let the person know how you feel or what you feel. How he/she takes it is an entirely different matter. Remember, by telling the truth, you don't have to lose anything.
(Since, if you are in love with that person who proposed to you, you'd say yes and if you are not in love, you wouldn't propose to anyone, for the following explanation I am assuming, that if you are in love, you're the one who's gonna propose to and if you are not in love, then you are the one being proposed to.)
If you are in love, give it a try. This way you have 50% chance of success. But, if you don't do anything then you have a 0% chance of success.
Similarly, if you are not in love, let the person know about it immediately as you get to know about the matter.
5) Honestly, people fall in love, because, humans (actually almost all animals) are social animals. We all need a companion (though in animals, a companion normally keeps varying). We need love in all walks of life. Till adolescence, we crave for our parents' love. From then on till adulthood, we crave for love from our friends. Once we are adults, we crave for our partner's love. When we become a parent, we crave for our child's love. (It may be argued here that the love we want from our parents is different from what we want from our mate. Yes, it may be. But consequently, what your heart feels is the same.)
Hence, people during adulthood tend to fall in love. Of course, most of the times before/during/after adulthood, its just infatuation. But generally that is the age when people find the love of their lives (either after marriage or before marriage, but that's immaterial anyways).

BLR Traffic Conditions and Pollution

Ya well, BLR, garden city, silicon valley, friendly city, city where weather's great, etc etc. But when it comes to traffic, "Whoa whoa!!! What rules??? What ethics??? What road manners??? Oh, you are a human??? Oh, I am a human???".

Here are some of the things that happen on streets in my city.

1. The rider in front of you is gonna spit to the side which you are gonna use to overtake him.

2. The passengers seated next to the windows of the bus in front of you are gonna wait for you to try to overtake and when you are still in the process... they spit.

3. Auto Rickshaws and of course their drivers, deserve a place in the list of reasons for traffic congestion. Not just that, they run for the most polluting vehicles and their drivers, the most misbehaved 'animals' of all time. It's difficult to even guess what they use to run their rickshaws. Almost all of them emit thick white smoke which is so choking if you inhale even the slightest amount. Unfortunately nobody complains, not even me, after blabbering so much about all this and hence, they do anything and get away with it, including polluting our planet.
Also, they think they are driving a Ferrari Enzo... and since you are slower then their Ferrari Enzo, you shouldn't even think of overtakin them. If you do, they spit, incidentally, on the side that you are overtakin them from.

4. You are caught at a signal. You have stopped just before the limit line (or whatever that line is called), since some of them drove/rode past even though the signal turned red. A two-wheeler pulls up just next you and almost all vehicles have stopped just at the limit line. Once this is done, several two-wheelers AND auto-rickshaws come and halt past the limit line.... Hmmm... feels like they are in a hurry. Now, you too are in a hurry. But have stopped before the line. Well anyways, signal turns green and all those who had crossed the line (who seemed to be in a hurry), just begin to kick start their rides and once that is done, they begin to move and maintain a speed of about 20kmph. If you intended to drive so slow, what was the point of coming all the way from behind and stopping past the line and also creating problems for the people who are actually in a hurry?? Sigh...

5. You are a pedestrian. You walk in the streets, literally. Road is not meant for vehicles. It is meant for pedestrians. At least that's what you, being a pedestrian, think. Sometimes, can't blame you people either. Footpaths are so damn narrow, that you fear losing your balance and so you consider the 'better' option, Walk in the streets. The vehicles don't crash into you or scared to do that anyways. Poor drivers/riders, I totally empathize.
What I find frustrating is, that bike riders don't seem to care about the traffic congestion caused due to pedestrians walking in the street, while there is heavy traffic movement in the streets.

6. The city cab drivers deserve a mention. During the night just like ghosts and monsters and devils, who haunt you in your dreams, the cab drivers of our famous city turn to be the demons on road, not only after dark, but even during broad daylight. They simply don't give a damn, whether or not you are traveling along, just like them. According to them, you have sinned by being in their way. So if you get smashed from behind by them, like I just said, you have sinned and hence now perish.
When questioned as to why they have to travel so fast, they say they need to maintain timings. At what cost and why??

7. Now come the traffic police. I've never seen any more lazy people than them. You jump the signal or meet with an accident, or run into the cop himself, unless there is an inspector waiting to bust some innocent rider to reach their monthly quota of 'collections', they do not care. But when there is an inspector, you are caught no-matter-what. That's indeed good work. But there are several better things that can be done, rather than just inspect! What they do not do is to find ways to prevent traffic congestion than to wait behind a damned tree to fine the rider/driver.
Moreover why is that they switch of the traffic signal lights and try to manage by hand?? Most of the travelers can't even see you standing/sitting at a corner of a junction. Switch on the lights and control them being off or on based on the traffic, which is what you are trying to achieve by hand, which again i know you guys think you are succeeding in it. You are not and you can't! Jams/Congestions will continue to exist.
Either them or the crime cops, neither of them know that the traffic rules are applicable for them as well. You can find some of the cops traveling in the wrong direction in a one-way road, spit, behave like disgusting animals, converse without manners, etc etc.
However, fat-bellied lazy bums, who do nothing necessary to prevent traffic jams or congestion can't be blamed much. For what I've heard they are paid, standing amidst the chaos, trying to manage/control, having to sacrifice your health due to the pollution, really not worth it.

8. Traffic Signal Lights. There is no particular stretch of road, absolutely none, in my city, whose subsequent signals are synchronized/coordinated. By unsynchronized, i mean, if the signal you are caught in, turns green, the immediate next signal turns red. So, you get clear of this signal only to stop at the next signal just about 5-6 seconds away.
Signals are supposed to be coordinated in such a way that if you get a green light, then you do not stop until about 2-3 minutes at least. (For those who want to argue on this saying this can't be done, blah blah, please think about the amount of taxes you all are paying on Research, Planning and Development of the city). This way, at least mileage of the vehicles improves and also will there be a considerable decrease in pollution.
Another funny thing I recently encountered was a traffic signal, where normally at least one side of the lights is green, so that at any particular time, at least at one side of the junction the traffic is moving. But on one particular day, as usual I was caught at that signal and suddenly all the sides of the signal lights turned red and stayed that way for about 1-2 minutes.
Needless to say, impatient travelers, just went ahead normally without bothering about the signal or its lights, while some of the sane ones just wondered what was going on apart from horns screeching at them and being blasted....

Anyways, this particular post can go on and on and on and on....... Might have missed out on a lot of other things. Basically, every traveler, be a rider or a driver, you DO NOT know how to ride or drive.

At the least, please do not show off your new BMW. If your colleague stays near your house, has an 800 and he commutes alone daily, please please try to Car Pool. If you have a 2-wheeler even better you travel in that. If you can travel in bus, all the more better (you can get to watch babes too! ;) ). Petrol prices too have increased and they can never go down considering the amount of consumption.
Hence please please citizens of my country, do all you can to let our kids have a healthy life, if at all there will be space for them on earth.

Employers love it, employees hate it.....

Another day at office, began with checkin mails and initiation of some of the boring monthly tasks, looking into the same old windows on the screen, with blogspot.com blocked by what I consider to be a very good software, but like all software, is not immaculate.

What is interesting about this software is, it blocks most of the websites, related to entertainment or fun or streaming media, etc etc. Basically if you are bored and considering checkin for some fun via the internet, don't even think about it.

Wanna catch some celeb gossip? You can't. Games? Can't. Youtube? Can't. E-bUy? Can't.

Well, in a way, considering the Employer's POV, you are cornering your Employee to work and be 'more productive' to the company, if you understand what I mean.

But what I don't like about this software is that it blocks some of the websites necessary for a developer's reference. Though i cannot remember the websites that are blocked, I do remember that zipped files cannot be downloaded, since they are compressed files (What c***!!) . If you want to download a plugin for Eclipse or an API from Sun Microsystems website (if both are zipped), bham! CGI blockpage, "Cannot download file : Category : Compressed files".

Come on Employer's!! You want us to be more productive. Atleast let us download some stuff that makes our lives easier! Whatever happened to "code reusability"!

Another funny thing with this software is that when trying to download some attachments from your inbox provided by a popular email client, it shows "Category : Tasteless : blocked".
@#$!!!!!

Sigh..... If you know which software I am talking about and you are one of the developers for it, atleast make your software less liberal to let people download compressed files and attachments. Developers need them both!!

First Post

Haaaa........ Feels kinda great to be blogging about something I feel about on the web, which may possibly be read by a person thousands of miles away just by connecting to the world wide web, WWW!!

Firstly, I would like to thank Google and Blogspot, or rather Blogger, for providing people with this wonderful feature.

Anyways, not in much of a mood right now to be blogging... kinda sleepy... but will be back soon! :)