Rants of a nerd
365days
Weather Scares
0Funny Story.
The winter storms that have lashed Western Europe and the US in the recent past have gotten people on the edge. So when news reports of an amateur weather forecaster predicting 40 inches of snow for the coming weekend came in, it started a near hysteria. Normally a prediction of this sort would have been met with scepticism, but coming on the back of two particularly nasty storms (and confident statements from newsmen that the forecaster had predicted both of these earlier storms), people were only too ready to believe it.
Now the guy says that he was misquoted. That it was only a worst case scenario and not what he had forecast.
What does this say about the spread of rumours? The internet seems to be particularly good at spreading rumours and stoking mass hysteria. Over seventy years ago, Orson Welles caused panic in New York as his radio adaptation of H G Wells’ War of the Worlds was taken as a news programme (despite many announcements that it was a dramatization). Nothing seems to have changed since then in terms of our gullibility.
PS: This reminds me of an old Archie Comics joke. Mr Weatherbee tells Miss Beazley, “rumours are like butter.” To which she replies, “because they are easy to spread?” The Bee retorts, “no, because they are so hard to unspread.”
PS3 Woes Be Gone
0It looks like the date related problems faced by many ps3s around the world are now gone. I took the less risky path of not turning on the console. So I guess I will know for sure when I power it up in a couple of days time…
In other gaming news, the ps3 exclusive Heavy Rain has been getting some very favourable reviews. It has a metacritic score of 88, and in general has gotten reviews that praise it for its non linear story. Apparently the game pushes the emotional quotient and has as a basic concept a “actions have consequences” twist. Unlike other games where you can die and respawn, here it has consequences on your game. Similarly killing someone eliminates that character from the rest of the game – meaning that if that character could have helped you in the future, no luck.
This is the way that games ought to be. Just as in real life, action (or inaction) has results that affect how things pan out later.
I have been enjoying playing Unchartered (the original game) and it is a blast. Again the development of the story and the detailing of the game is just amazing. It is also a bit of an in-between game (action and platform gaming elements), but it works well and the switch between platforming and action does not feel forced. Now if only they could get GT5 out the door…
Playstation 3 Error
0Apparently there is a widespread issue with the playstation that has appeared over the past day. It seems many of the fat models are having trouble with the date setting today, leading people to suspect that it might be a leap year bug. I haven’t turned the system on today and perhaps it would be wise to turn it on after a day or two just to see if it fixes itself.
This is seriously bad. Date related computer software has been fixed for decades. Even y2k happened 10 years ago, when the ps3 wasn’t around. Hope they fix this quickly. Reports suggest it does not affect offline gaming, which is what I do. Hope that is the case at least.
Spring cleaning
0The origins of spring cleaning are probably connected with the arrival of spring which had people getting their summer clothes out and placing the cold weather clothes back into shelves. In tropical climes, this is not a necessity and one can be a pack rat for years accumulating stuff.
One advantage of renting and not owning a house is that there’s a forced cleaning out of stuff on every move. Still something that cannot be thrown out are books. Today we took the decision to throw away some old books and I felt quite awful about that. At every second hand book store I wonder why are people throwing away these books. Some have come from libraries, others still carry their previous owner’s name. Presumably some have been sold as part of a spring cleaning, some on moving away or even death. The stories behind the copies may be sometimes better than the contents of the book themselves. How’s that for a plot – The Adventures of Billy the Book.
Furniture Shopping
0Is not fun!
We went to a store called Home Town. It is spread over 2 floors and is massive. It has the most amazing range of home products under one roof. From groceries to electronics, they have not left anything out. I can understand selling electrical equipment, paints and DIY stuff next to furniture and curtains, but I have not figured out why they should sell DVD players and general provisions at the same place.
Anyhow the object was to get some book shelves, a long pending purchase. Over time the book collection has expanded while the storage has actually contracted, leaving books scattered and disorganized. The project over the next few days (till the shelves come in) would be to make space and for once fix the organization of the stuff. I wonder if the Dewey Decimal system is appropriate?
We also picked up a few other items of bulk, which we have to fit in the house now. So there is much to do over this long weekend!
Broadband at last
0I’ve been struggling to get my broadband speed going over the recent past. After much struggle with the MTNL helplines, today the speed has just surged. Now the question is – should I go in for the recently announced unlimited plan with a lower bandwidth at the same price?
The current pricing at 750 Rupees per month promises speeds up to 2 mbps and 5GB limit. Until today it seemed capped at 256 kbps. I could switch to 700 kbps unlimited… but I rarely hit the 5GB cap, so the higher speed is worth keeping, I guess?
Maybe I should try out the higher speed for a month and see if I use up the download quota.
Expressway
0Pune to Bombay by the expressway at night is a very interesting experience. It is part scary as people speed well above the limit and at night the danger of accidents is magnified. Indeed we passed an accident on the opposite side which had backed up traffic for a good mile or so. My taxi driver was of a speedy disposition which made for quite a few heart stopping moments. It helped keep me awake though.
On the positive side, despite the light pollution, you can see stars in the sky! The darkness also means the tunnels are as bright as the road. Normally the tunnels are relatively dark (the change is like what one sees in the Monaco GP). The whole journey has a different, detached feel to it. I must do this trip again but driving by myself.
Percy Jackson Movie
0Saw the movie Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief today. The movie was well made overall, however the critical reception has been very mixed. That is understandable because it tried to be as different from the book as possible. The director (Chris Columbus) had something to do with that for sure. He would certainly have wanted to make sure that he differentiated this well against the first Harry Potter movie (which he directed also). If you think about it the parallels between this series and the HP series are pretty starkly obvious.
Percy Jackson = Harry Potter, the protagonist who discovers that he is special. There is a prophecy about him. Even in the demi-god (magical) world he is special because of his birth. PJ because his father violated his promise not to have children and HP because he lived.
Grower Underwood = Ron Weasley, the sidekick.
Annabeth Chase = Hermione Granger, the know-it-all wise-girl. In Annabeth’s case literally since she is the daughter of Athena.
Luke Castelan = Draco Malfoy, the antagonist. The roles they play are very different though.
Camp Half-Blood = Hogwarts, nothing more to be said really. There is a magical spell that prevents mortals & monsters from getting in.
Dionysus = Severus Snape, the camp director who immediately manages to antagonize the hero.
Chiron = Albus Dumbledore, who takes the hero under his wing. He is also mis-trusted by those around him.
I could go on and on.
Obviously then the director tried to make this the anti-HP film. So the scenes at camp were cut short and this became a sort of "road trip" movie. What I missed most was the lack of some of the strong points of the books – the interplay between Percy and the various Gods he meets (Dionysus and Ares in the first book). Also, they left out the Oracle of Delphi.
In a way because of the differences between the book and the film, the film became more watchable (the story was new). The characters were also developed differently. All the characters are older in the film than the movie, so there is romantic interplay between Percy and Annabeth, which would have been weird in the book where they are 11-12 years old.
Overall, watchable but don’t expect any real Greek myth stuff. All that has been taken out and this is pretty much a dumbed-down version of the books, which are dumbed-down versions of Greek tales.
Cheryl Cole – 3 Words
0I picked up Cheryl Cole’s 3 Words only because she is a member of Girls Aloud. The album is not bad. A couple of the singles so far – Fight for this love & Parachute – are pretty nice. will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is present on more than a handful of the tracks. Unfortunately he does not enhance those tracks at all.
One of the best reviews is this one. I agree with most of it, including the complaint about "the greatest misuse of a Fleetwood Mac sample ever." That is on the song Boy Like You. It is really terrible.
Forms
01 year ago
The inimitable xkcd looks at forms here. When you disassemble a lego house, where does the house go? The matter that formed the house is no more, but that does not destroy the form or idea of the house.
One can always reincarnate the house by building it again with the same or different blocks. The house lives on and is not affected by the medium in which it appears and disappears.
