Rants of a nerd
Archive for January, 2010
Sherlock Holmes
0Finally watched the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law. Good movie overall but the story was not up to the standard expected. Plus Mary Morstan & Irene Adler were there but everyone was pretending that they hadn’t met before.
More later.
Spirit Rover: RIP
0It’s not quite dead, but now it cannot move as it is stuck in the Martian mud/sand.
The rover landed on Mars in 2004 with a 90 day, 1 kilometre mission. In reality it did something like 10 km over the next 5 years and more (more than 20 times the initial duration). Mostly the extra duration was made possible by some “cleaning” events that periodically wiped dust off the solar arrays that powered the rover. Little green men with wipers perhaps?
Webcomic XKCD's brilliant tribute to Spirit
Read more at Wikipedia and at JPL. The latest attempt is to try and extricate it from the soft soil by driving it backwards, which apparently has its own problems (probably was never designed to do that in the first place).
Grammy Nominees
1Seeing as the Grammys are around the corner, I checked out the list of nominees. On the pop music side, there is not much by way of surprise, but take a look at who is nominated for best solo rock performance:
Bob Dylan
John Fogerty
Prince
Bruce Springsteen
Neil Young
Hey the 70s called and they want their rockers back. Seriously, are there no modern rockers good enough to even make a nominee? The hard rock category is not much better, but then that category should be moved to a side show anyway.
The selection in the major awards are pretty good. Should be close competition among the women especially. Also given that the trio of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift are all nominated for best song, best album and best pop female solo. The only other nominee who has covered the major categories is the Black Eyed Peas.
It should be worth watching even though the show airs early on Monday morning here in India.
Republic Day
0This is what I wanted to post earlier, on Republic Day, the 26th of January. This year, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the republic. But we are celebrating the 63rd anniversary of independence this year. Makes sense?
I wanted to look back at the historic events of India’s independence movement to see what date could actually be set for the nation’s birth. Going back in history one could probably find justification for Sher Shah Suri’s India to be called the first version of united India in a reasonably modern form. Or perhaps the Mughal empire.
Colonization following the 1857 rebellion changed all that. A near century of direct rule by the British government followed. But India’s independence and the formation of the republic have some interesting asides.
For example, India is a founding member of the United Nations Organization. The UN was formed in 1945. India became independent in 1947. How could India be a founding member of the UN then? Even more interesting is the fact that India is one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended the First World War and founded the League of Nations in 1919. How’s that even possible?
The history of crown colonies fighting for independence in some form goes back further than one normally imagines. The first world war was a turning point for the British empire as many colonies sacrificed a lot in the Great War. Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand apart from India got recognition as separate entities / nations after the War.
So we have 1919 and 1945 jostling with 1947 and 1950 with some claims for recognition in the history of independence.
The year 1919 lays another claim to recognition: it was the year of the passage of the Government of India Act, 1919, which led to the devolution of powers to provincial legislative assemblies. The victory of the Congress party in several of these elections was a turning point for increased devolution of power.
Then came the real year that set the course for India’s political landscape that exists even today: 1935. This new Government of India Act is the model for the Indian Constitution today. The 1935 Act also separated Burma and politically created the unit known as undivided or pre-partition India.
1947 “only” saw the creation of the independent Dominion of India. We continued as a Dominion with a Governor General representing the British Crown till 1950. Indeed Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the last Viceroy, was invited to remain as Governor General even after “independence” was achieved.
It was in June 1948 that we got the first Indian as Governor General. Remember that even then the Head of State remained the Queen.
So there we have it:
1919 – GOI Act, Treaty of Versailles, League of Nations founding member
1935 – GOI Act, the model used for the Constitution
1945 – Founding member of the United Nations Organization
1947 – Independent Dominion status
1948 – First Indian Governor General
1950 – Formation of the Republic, first President elected
1952 – First general elections
Is that it?
No.
Impossible as it seems India as a separate entity goes even older than that under British rule.
1900 – India represented at the Olympic Games as a separate country
So there we have it, 8 different years spanning 52 years that have some claim to mark the start of independent India in some form or other.
PS. Before anyone wonders, India won two medals at that 1900 Olympics (both Silvers).
Apple iPad
1Okay, Apple unveiled its tablet computer called the iPad. No, seriously, that’s what they called it.
As several women asked around the net, “Are there no women in Apple’s marketing department?”
The jokes are flying thick and fast about the name, of course. Did Apple not realize that MADtv had done a parody of Apple iPad years ago? Comparisons with Maxi Pads are bound to happen. Jezebel.com probably has the best compilation of jokes on the name.
Elsewhere, I stumbled on this joke:
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Zune.
Zune who?
Zune, I’ll be the second worst named gadget in the world.
I can sort of understand it if a Japanese company names its product Wii, but an American one?
Technically also, this device falls way short of what it can deliver. This is a Tegra-type device in terms of computing power. So why no multi-tasking? Why limit this to the iPhone OS, when the Mac OS X is probably a much better fit for a laptop replacement? Moreover, this is again in the iTunes ecosystem, so probably needs to be tethered to a Mac for installing apps or loading content. No camera, non-standard SIM card – tying you down to AT&T, non-standard ports – the iPad does not even have a USB port, one needs to buy an adapter for that (and even then its functionality is limited to camera connection).
The worst of it is the condescending behaviour of Apple in describing it as a magical device. Come on, we have much better and innovative products out there. MSI today unveiled a 10-inch tablet powered by Android. Always Innovating actually delivered their tablet/laptop hybrid featuring such innovations as a separating keyboard section (a la Star Trek’s saucer separation).
When the iPod came out, it was not the first MP3 player, it was the first one that made it easy to use an MP3 player. Look at the evolution of that range. Over time, Apple has tried to exert ever more control on what people could do with the hardware they purchase. Firstly through requiring iTunes to sync. Then further tying things down with the App Store. The iPhone (which is an evolved iPod Touch) locked in to a single carrier.
And now, a large iPhone.Well, I’m not getting one. So there!
Cop out
0Today was supposed to be a long post on the Republic Day holiday. There is a lot to reflect on 60 years of India as it has become – going from an experiment in popular democracy to what is essentially a feudalism.
But that was before a long walk followed by a couple of mahjongg games on the phone. Now I just feel sleepy. So this topic will go on the back burner for a while.
Kashid Trip Summary
4I’ve been posting short trip-updates during the weekend break, but this is the full log.
We started Saturday afternoon after lunch and after a long drive (especially around Panvel), reached the resort (grandly named Sagar Beach Resort) by about half-past eight. It had gotten pretty dark by then. Still the drive was quite good and finding the resort was easy in the end – although we were quite sure we would miss it. It was a small, but cheap and nice place. For the three nights we stayed there, we seemed to have been the only continuous guests. Everyone else seemed to just spend one night there.
The following day was beaches. First to the more organized beach to the north of Kashid. Lots of fun but the sun was really beating down on us. After a while, we retired to some shelter erected by the local merchants, and we bought some coconuts to cool us down.
We headed towards Alibag and found a restaurant along the way for lunch (brinjal one). A nap in the afternoon later, we headed to Kashid beach itself. This beach does not have the facilities of shelter and shops and is much more quite and private. Perfect to enjoy the sunset. That night we ravenously devoured the food served by the resort kitchen.
Day two had us heading to Murud and Janjira fort. It dates back to the 12th century and is now mostly in ruins. Unfortunately nature’s destructive powers have been supplemented by man’s, and there is graffiti and litter everywhere.
The fort is built on an island and is approachable only by boats. Rickety sailboats that are filled to the gills with people. As we approached the pier, there was a shouting match on between two sets of boatsmen on who would get to carry the tourists, with some heated arguments on who had the “dibs” so to speak.
With our hearts in our mouths / up our sleeve / anywhere except the chest cavity, we entered a boat and were ferried across. The fort tour (which we had had once before) was nice, except for the heat of the morning sun. Another ride back and it felt good to be standing on solid ground once more. The return trip had its interesting moment when it appeared that too many sailboats were trying to dock at the same time and our boat was “parked” at sea while we waited for a previous boat to undock. No one on board was really happy with that for sure.
Lunch at Murud (brinal two) and then it was another nap and evening at the beach.
That night we remarked that we had brinjal twice already for lunch and the resort cooks had avoided the vegetable so far for dinner. And lo, we had brinjal three for dinner that night.
The drive back was much more fun as we saw the more beautiful parts of the route by day this time. We also stumbled on to a by-pass around Panvel that saved us an hour. All in all, a good break.
Updated with all brinjal references
Janjira fort
0We went to Janjira fort this morning, and had a good outing despite the sun & heat. It is a wonder that we cannot maintain monuments in this country despite professing a great love for our history and culture.
The fort itself is some 900 years old and unfortunately it has been done over with graffiti and littering. The boat ride to the fort is an adventure in itself! People hold on to anything, if only hope and prayer, as the rickety craft sails towards the rock in the middle of the sea.
Picture of the fort at right on my flickr stream.
At Kashid
0We are on a break at Kashid for a long weekend. This is our second holiday with the Pais, only now with their much expanded family size! The “resort” is called Sagar and we reached fairly late, thankful that they kept our rooms. Hope that they will be able to serve dinner soon as we are all quite hungry.
