Back...

I have been silent for a long time now. Maybe I am back now.

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Alas, my window!

It is pretty unfortunate that my window is closed almost constantly. When I mean closed, I mean that the shades are always closed. This is the price one pays of living on the ground floor.

Only if someone could grant me a window that opens to a forest in some countryside or a window on a higher floor overlooking the hustle and the bustle of the city. But here I am stuck with a shaded window. What good it is to me?

I hear voices. Voices of people passing by. Weekend parties well spent are announced by loud cheery voices, a cell phone conversation is partially heard and mostly what is heard is the loud monotonous sounds of the construction activity going on.

Sometimes in the day I draw the window shades up and life flows in. People walking around, birds chirping and the change in light, as the day progresses are experienced. But that is only sometimes. All that I get is sounds, paartial sounds.

Alas, for the want of a window, I pine in sorrow and dream of the freedom an open window would have offered me.

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Unimaginative Brand Names - II

Before reading this, you should perhaps read the first part of my blog post.

As I was driving around today, I passed a rental car agency car which had an advertisement on its side. The ad as such did not catch my attention as much as their 1-800 number did. They had the easiest 1-800 number for a rental car agency - 1-800-rent-a-car.

Of course this irritated me, just as my previous complaints have. This rental car agency, just because it was first to register a 1-800 number, has got itself the easiest one. Undoubtedly this makes recalling the number very easy for the customers, but gives them an unfair advantage. Not only is this unfair to the existing competitors, it is also unfair to future competitors.

On another note, I got to know that Intel changed their naming process of their chips from 80856 name series to 'Pentium' name series, since they were not able to cipyright the numbering system.

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Unimaginative Brand Names and Trademarks

Every day morning on the way to work, I cross a construction site. Since this area is just near a traffic light (which is green for only a little time), I invariably look at the site. The first thing which strikes me DAILY is the fence which encloses the site. Well, not the fence itself, but the little sign boards on the fence - "Long Fence" (R). I don't know the exact reason why this fencing company chose to name themselves as "Long Fence", but it surely pains me a lot on two accounts:

1. Lack of imagination in choosing a name


2. Trademark protection of generic names

How boring it would be if all brand names were unimaginative! We would drive cars with names such as "Car", "Little Car", "Sedan", etc., we would read newspapers in the morning with names such as "Daily Newspaper", "The Newspaper", or would wear shoes named "The Shoe" and "Running Shoes" !

And mind you, all these names would be trademark protected. Meaning that if I put a fence which is long and another one which is short, and put up boards on them (for whatever reasons) - 'Long Fence' and 'Short Fence', I would be liable for brand infringement. Whoa !
Another instance can be as follows: a company obtains a trademark for the generic word "Shoes". Now, if I roam around with a t-shirt with a message printed "My shoes are pathetic", the company can very easily build a case against me on the grounds that I am derogating their brand name.

I really wonder why the copyright office does not reject generic names as trademarks!

The USPTO website offers simple definitions of all such confusing terms. Here you will note that there is a distinction between 'generic names' and 'brand names'.

Another case in question is the Project Honeypot (TM). If you read through their terms of use, you will be surprised to learn that generic word combination 'Project HoneyPot' is now their trademark and can not be used by others.

The Honey Net Project (R) also uses a generic name.

Generic names should not be offered trademark protection. It is definitely disadvantageously to future competitors.

To all such generic trademark holders, please TRY to be imaginative!


I might need to drop my case against 'Long Fence' (R) since it seems that the word 'Long' is what is registered and not both together. But even then it is disadvantageous to competitors who loose consumers, every time a person googles up generic words and reaches the website of a company with a generic name.

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Indian Advertisements - 2

Let's take a look at advertisements for a particular brand. Starting with Fevicol ads. These ads, I recall were very fresh, were funny and remarkably creative.

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Undoubtedly the first Fevicol ad which made a lasting impression. The use of animals in ads is definitely wrong.

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The most famous Fevicol ad. To the Indian guy watching, it provided some humour (not 'humor'), allowed him to smile at himself and his way of life, while to the western guy it provided a way to define and grasp India (like the abused concept of 'snake charmers and cows').

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The Katrina Kaif ad!



Very nice, a whole story is told in a few shots. There is the classic tension in being married and loosing the freedom, the appearance of a pretty girl in a married man's life who beckons out to him (much to his frustration and dilemma), the epehemeral quality of such attractions is well brought out by the busy railway station setting and the cloud of steam which seems to cover her. The husband wakes up from his dream and realizes that the box of fevicol had such a powerful influence, that he found himself to be really stuck to his wife.

As I said about this ad, so much in so less.

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Fevicol is so strong that you don't need gravity :)

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To the urban class, there is a definite charm in the rustic life. Perhaps this is why there are so many shots depicting the rural setting. And of course the Rajasthani people's life is very interesting. Note how the parents have made a toy for the kid from a used fevicol bottle. I think this is a very accurate depiction of how people use a little creativity in thier daily lives to turn things into something other, especially for the poor folks who can not afford a real toy.

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This is another classic ad. This was one of the first few ones which lay the stage for Fevicol's brilliant ads.



It is also pretty interesting as the radio in the scene has two uses. One to be a part of the srtting and the other brilliant use being to supply the audio for the ad.

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Indian Advertisements - 1

One of the greatest pleasures of watching Indian TV channels are the BRILLIANT advertisements.

I found a treasure trove of some old and some new ads on YouTube. Here are a few:

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This one must be new. I don't recall having seen it before.




The shots are definitely inspired by a great movie called "Rudaali". The first few lines of introduction are definitely for the Western viewer. They establish some of the cultural truths associated with the marks of being married in India.

The ad viewers have no clue what so ever as to what this ad is all about until the last shot. The shot from outside, when the husband has seemed to die is very nice, because there is this little explosion (audio and visual) in the story at this time.

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Another new one, very funny! The music is JUST RIGHT, starting from a traditional piece to some western song snippets.



You will notice (perhaps on the second viewing) that there is no break in logic in the story (I get pretty upset about logic breakdowns), since there is a good explanation as to how the girl gets the remote and mistakenly preses a button on it too! This is conveyed in single shots and people may miss it. But then this is not so important to the normal viewers perhaps. The only problem I had, was that there was no couch in front of the Tv set! People in that house viewed the TV by turning their heads by 90 degrees...yeah right!

The first line in which the girl's father asks her to "come and meet your husband" is perhaps just to reinforce the idea that this a matrimonial related ad. Without that line, it might be tough for the advertisement creators to convey the message that the guy has come to see the gal, to viewers who are not familiar with what is going on.

Hmmm...perhaps this ad and the previous one are also targeted to non-Indian viewers.

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The cute Rasna girl! She was such a rage, that millions of kids would get the "Rasna" haircut in summers. The mark of a cute kid was having the Rasna haircut.

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Well, I'll see you in a few minutes, ol' buddy!

27 March, 2007 (9:43am)

RIP dear Kuku.

--------------------------------------------------
Hobbes: I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night!
Calvin: Hey, yeah.

Calvin: Well, I'll see you in a few minutes, ol' buddy!
Hobbes: I'll be right there!
--------------------------------------------------
Bill Watterson.
Released on: Sunday, Oct 22nd 1989.
The Calvin and Hobbes Searchable Database

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Long days are back....

It no longer is dark when I reach home. Noticed it for the first time this Monday.

The winter retreats back slowly into the dark corners of the forest. While over the meadows the sun shines bright.

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Pathetic Greed - scam mails

I received the following pump and dump scam email in my inbox:

============
Subject: The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,

Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings

XXX XXXXX ENTERPRISE (XXXXX.PK) new share for YOU!!!
We PROVIDE U ADVANTAGEOUS METHOD to earn a lot of money.

This XXXXX.PK share increases with every hour !!!
It has CONSTANT GROWTH POTENTIAL.

For more info about XXXXX.PK check broker web-site!!!
Hurry up YOU need get this XXXXX.PK stock on TUESDAY: 02/13/07

--WARNING--: Tomorrow will be more expensive!!! Do it!!!

TV Wants You. I thought I was Need fresh faces shows all major networks
ABC, NBC, CBS & FOX Now But seasons 1-5 have already
============

where I have replaced identifying information with "x".

My point: how greedy must a person be, to accept an email with a subject line as:

"The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,",

with content as:

"Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings "

and some advice about investing money in it to be true?

Is there ABSOLUTELY NO sense in people? It would be REALLY interesting to know the kind of people who will accept such an email to be good advice!

This brings us to the question, to what levels of distortion can the scammers stoop to, while still ensuring that the stupid greedy people will neglect ALL warning signs in the scam email?

I hope there is some level of distortion and obfuscation, below which even the most greediest person will become suspicious of the intent of the scam mail.

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Sometimes...

when you look back you wonder IF....

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TED Conferences - II

Found that TED conferences has an interesting blog here and the video/audio files can be found here.

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TED Conferences

Thanks to Kiran T, that I was made aware of these brilliant short presentations from renowned people. The presentations I am talking of are of the presenters in TED conferences.

From their website, they describe this annual gathering as:

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration.

Some of the videos are available on Google Videos. Listen to a great talk by Richard Dawkins about how we perhaps have been evolved to live and rational in the middle world.

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Subject - Biography

Just as we have different subjects such as languages, social sciences, science, maths etc in schools, we should also have biographies as a subject. Every year students can learn about some great people. I guess students won't have this subject for all the 10 years or so of school life, but having such a subject during the formative years will indeed be valuable.

Who then will the students read about? Here the state and the education board will have a say. Such a scheme is prone to political/religious propaganda by the state/government, but then there is no other way. Surely depending on which government is in power, the definition of 'great people' will change.

Nevertheless, I think it will have a considerable impact on the students and will help shape their personality.

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Happy New Year

Another year passes while another starts.
Time you old friend and enemy, what do you hide for me in the folds of your robes?

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Where is clean comedy?

Androidparanoid complained that most stand-up comedy shows do not have any clean comedy in them here

This is what he says about one particular show:
* 60% of it was on sex or sex related.
* 35% of it was on the race, origin, ethnicity... most of it derogatory.
* remaining was what I would say normal jokes.

I agree completely. My issues with comedy not being clean and above the belt started in my undergrad years. Being very active in the inter-college competition scene, I would take part in numerous public speaking competitions and also would try to participate (and try to win) in stage competitions like 'Mad-Ads' etc.

But...but ...but alas, to win in stage competitions like MadAds, one HAD to be dirty. All the jokes had to be below the belt or at best on the belt. No clean funny jokes! And the worse part is that the audience and the judges enjoyed such stuff ! The fact that the judges were also students or from a comparable age group segment did really influence the way these competitions were judged and what it took to win in them.

I believed that to be able to be above the belt required real talent and a great sense of humour. To make jokes which were not clean was the easiest thing to do. I tried at times to win a prize based on clean jokes, but that never happened. I also grouped up with the best teams of other colleges to learn how to go about this whole thing, but would then drop out since all their jokes would be dirty.

For example, lets take the popular humourous stage event 'MadAds'. During my college days, the other colleges and their jokes for MadAds can be categorized as follows:

* my college - NIE -> we did not participate a lot in such events. (so did not win prizes in such events, so missed being the overall winners) I was personally against making dirty jokes on stage and wanted badly to believe that the event could be won based on clean jokes alone (talent where are you?).

* our rival college - SJCE -> they wouldn't mind being dirty on the stage. In fact they would go to such extents that their quiz teams would have explicit/dirty words in them, just to sound 'cool'.

* the medical college - MMC - well, what to expect from my Doctor friends, who read about human anatomy day in and day out!


And my BIGGEST complaint and point of frustration with MadAds was that the majority of jokes made would be based on feminine hygiene product advertisements !

I don't know what the scene in such inter-college competitions is these days. But I sure do hope, a bunch of really talented guys have changed the direction and steered it away from being dirty to good clean homour. I believe to be able to do so requires real talent. I hope the competitions are not swayed by the antics of the less-talented ones, who will always take the short-cut to success.

Or should humour be always dirty to be fun?
No, we just have not seen much of real talent. Most of the chaps have just followed the crowd.

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Borat, Borat, boRAT

You must see the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". It is really really hilarious like all the millions of zillions of people are saying about it.

The theater I went to, had the audience laughing almost throughout the movie. Some people were laughing out so much that they started stamping their feet on the ground!! Claps would be heard every now and then from segments of the crowd. A must-watch movie to get great laughs.

The Question: How many of the people in the movie knew that this was for a movie?
A lot of websites are following up on this question. A good source for answers is "The Real Stories behind Borat". This site has collected various local news articles which report on the reactions of the people who were duped into being part of the shot.

Yes, duped is the word. Most of them reportedly had not read the fine print of the consent forms they hurriedly signed. There is also speculation on the internet that one of them will definitely sue the actor and his team.

About whether there was a script or not, this MTV article has this to say:

"There was no script. The movie is an experiment — a new form of filmmaking for an age in which reality and entertainment have become increasingly intertwined. Real events with real people push the film's fictional story, and when scenes played out in unexpected ways, Baron Cohen and his colleagues had to rewrite the outline."

Surely the whole shooting would have had a lot of hiccups. The team had a lot of problems with the law enforcement authorities reports the same MTV article:

In real life, the legally questionable activities of Baron Cohen and his colleagues often attracted the attention of local authorities. A warrant was issued for the actor's arrest in New York, and Baron Cohen was advised by police to leave the state when he tried to secure a room in a fancy hotel while his underwear was hanging out of his pants. Through it all, the actor remained in character as Borat - even when the Secret Service detained him outside the White House.

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Guns - primitive solutions?

Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Guns - primitive solutions?

An interesting conversation with my Prof. led to the realization that guns are such primitive solutions to defense!

Many many generations back taking a life out, eliminating a life form was the solution to any defense or self preservation related problem. And unfortunately this primitive solution is used even today!

Most of the people with firearms reason out that self defense is the reason why they are in possession of one. But if this is true, then it is also worthwhile considering that the elimination of another life form for the self preservation of one is a solution which dates back to time immemorial and is thus an extremely antediluvian form of a solution!

Isn't it strange that better tools are not there? And if you reason out that there is research going on for such weapons, even then I am surprised that it has taken this long to even realize the need for such non-killing weapons.

I guess it can be accepted that taking the life of any life form should be the last resort in any case, in any developed society. For it guarantees everyone that basic right and fundamental right of life. Take this right away from some life form/s and it might be taken away from you too. The best way to guarantee that you always have this right is to ensure that every other living form has the same right without any kind of exception. (For it could be that as you treat some life form/s as an exception to this rule, you might be considered to be an exception by some other life form/s.)

So if we have agreed upon that, then the next step is to realize the primitiveness in the idea of taking away a life in order to defend oneself. Surely there are better ways to guarantee self preservation than this extreme step.

To attack is not the best defense in this case, surely not for an advanced society.

UPDATE:
The recent episode of the UCLA police using Taser, has brought a lot of focus on the usage of 'non-lethal' weapons. Wikipedia article on Shock Guns highlights the advantages and disadvantages of such weapons.

UPDATE:
The movie 'Lord of War' is about an arms dealer, Yuri Orlov, who is cold and cynical to the point that he says:
"They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails." ".

The movie ends with Yuri saying:
"You know who's going to inherit the Earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself."

Guns, do we need them?

The lobbyists for guns say "Guns do not kill people. People kill people". Which has been countered by a similarly illogical statement: "Fingers do not kill people. Bullets do".

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From the archives

Tuesday, August 31, 2004
The Thousand whispers of the Banyan leaves

they whisper softly to me...what I don't know.
and now, I don't go to the tree anymore.........


Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Brrrr....its cold again !!!!

Well the cold season has arrived !! Some were waiting for it some don't like it.
Last night I recorded 15C on my little thermometer key chain. I was wearing the jacket to school for the first time too. Late in the night it was really cold. The unprepared were shaking and shivering while the ones with the jackets were doing better.

That means from today onwards there will be more winter wear out in the school. That also means that soon I wont be able to cycle to school anymore and will loose my much much valued independence!!!!

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Credit Card Number Input - Web Design

We shop on the internet very often (though there are some who fear online shopping yet). Atleast I do shop often.

And everytime I shop (or even pay bills online) I get irritated with the web design for accepting the credit card expiration date details. All of my credit cards state the expiration year using numbers only. E.g.: 05/02 standing for the fifth month in 2002. But almost everywhere (online shops, online bill payment web sites) I am asked to enter the name of the month when my card is due to expire.

This is reason for irritation to me, since I now have to covert the number to the month name and I am not too fast at that!! I wonder if this irritates other net users too or is it that I am growing old and lazy ?

WHY, WHY do online web forms need to know the name of the month when credit cards display the month's number?

I can't understand the rational for this design!

I was happy to note that meritime.com, an online shop, provided the shopper with a drop down list which stated the name of the month and also the number, e.g.: Feb (2), Mar(3).

Simple and nice design !

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LisaNova - Competition

It was once said (and perhaps believed in) - "The means are more important than the ends". That meant that the action was more important than the fruit. But something killed that....and that was this world's definition of "competition" !!

Watch this hilarious youtube video on competition:



Personally, I feel the "Harvard guy vs. the Yale girl" is exceptional !

What about you, do you believe that the end is more important than the means?
Have you won even though you played by the rules? Or in today's competitive world, players who play by the rules never win?

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