Just finished watching The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. It was a 'okish' movie. Normally I don't like book adaption movies, I liked Godfather and Contact as much as I liked to books. H2G2 (the movie) looked like a mediocre one to me. It was not 'fun' watching this one. Was this movie a hit? I will check IMDB after this post.

I have yet to see LOTR and Harry Potter movies and that reminds me that I still haven't to read HBP. I don't really know where I am spending my time nowadays. :-)

I was catching up with my Dilbert Blog reading and found this great post by Scott Adams. I will spend some time surfing about this guy James Blake now !!

Update : Found another James Blake story.

About 42

Not a workoholic anymore

No internet, no work and no computers. I didn't know I could survive without them for as long as I did last week. I am not a workoholic anymore.

I remember when we went to Shivpuri for white water rafting my eyes were hurting and Vivek suggested that the reason was lack of daily radiation that I get from working on my PC.

It has been ages since I put a night out in office. My average working hours in a day have reduced to less than half of what they used be earlier. I miss working late and then coming to office early. During Viaedge time it used be some sort of race to reach office early (remember The Firm by John Grisham?). I miss those days and those people, I miss them sorely.

I am not sure if this change is for good or not. Only time will tell.

Just came back from a ten day long vacation in Delhi and Jaipur. Got to visit Dilli Haat twice and found it to be a good place to visit an evening. I also finished reading Jeeves in the Offing by Wodehouse.

I took Go air flight from Jaipur to Mumbai and found them to be using more pink than the heroine of Legally Blonde.

Happy Holi to everyone !

Enjoy the colours and be safe.

I will be in Delhi for next full week (starting tomorrow). I have never liked Delhi that much. While evaluating Delhi with other cities it always gets real good marks but I have still not developed a liking for it.

This is the first time I am taking a cheap (low-cost) airline and I hope these guys fly at right time.

I also finished reading Jeeves in the Offing by Wodehouse. Another good one from the master of comedy.

I keep wondering, when India would be recognized a potentially huge consumer market. I agree that it is still recognized thus by a few companies and nations but U.S. and Japan (did I hear that correctly?) are the leading markets (atleast in consumer electronics).

Kia motors (S. Korea) decided to open a new plant in Georgia, U.S. and they don't even have any plans for India (they do for china and europe).

Is it because of some contractual requirement from Hyundai or they are just ignoring Indian market?

I had recently posted about the Mumbai mills. Today's Indian express has a big story on this topic here.

I am wondering what took these guys so long? They should have been ready with this story on the day of judgement.

Alternate Reality, Microsoft Doesn't Exist

Apple Matters has been writing about an alternate reality where Microsoft doesn't exist. They are trying to predict what would have happened to other players in the market.

Today' article Part 4 of the series mentions some thought provoking predictions.

Most notably: Existence of iPod and success of Linux are in question if Microsoft did not exist.

Other observations are also quite interesting to think about and speculate.

Google offering Gdrive?

After reading this and thisnews, I was wondering if this service would directly compete with .Mac service from Apple.

If I were given a choice between flickr, .Mac and Gdrive I would go for Gdrive. What do you say?

Copyright Protection, Piracy and Backups

I have been thinking about this for a long time. Media companies want to curtail piracy, people want to take backup of their media (and want to pirate too but that's not what I want to discuss).

When VCR was introduced there was a huge row made by media company that this would make piracy easier. They also said the use of VCR itself was an illegal act. But court (U.S.) ruled that using VCR to record (for personal use) a program telecasted on television is not illegal. VCRs are not very popular anymore but DVRs (read TiVo) are.

Copying of VCDs for keeping back-ups met similar fate. But DVDs is a different ball game. While ripping VCDs for personal use was ok. Ripping DVDs is not legal. It is illegal because circumventing copy protection mechanisms is illegal. DVDs have a copy protection mechanism and circumventing that (ripping) would fall into the 'crime' category.

This leaves consumers high and dry. DVDs are costly and they are not exactly 'forever' media. What happens when the DVD I bought after paying a good sum (and various taxes) goes bonk. I have to spend the same amount (may be more after a couple of years) to buy the DVD.

It would be better if media companies gave consumers some room by replacing damaged media for a lesser amount. The argument is that the consumers have already paid for content, copyrights and royalties related to the contents of the DVD and they own the content. Consumer should not be asked to pay for the content again. Media companies would be justified in asking for a small profit on the replacement copy because they will have a whole lot of changes and increased traffic in their supply chain and distribution cycle.

Just wondering if that would ever happen.

I also want to know whether iTunes Store lets you download the same song/audiobook/episode again without paying? If it does then this is exactly what I am asking for.

Some links : here

एनटीसी मिलों की ज़मीन बेचना वैध

BBC is reporting that Supreme court has ruled that selling NTC land for residential development is now legal. Will it mean another wave of building construction in Mumbai? I will wait and watch.

An action filled weekend, largely due to Machine Singh.

I saw Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12 and Crash. All three superb movies. (12 was not 'as' good as the other two). Just read that Crash won oscar for best film. I think it deserves the oscar.

Also went to Bombay yesterday, had dinner and came back :-)

Back to reading.

I just finished reading Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P. G. Wodehouse. Another gem from Wodehouse. Most of the people who have read a couple of Wodehouse stories tend to have an opinion about him that he is repetitive. Some say he uses too formal a language for it to be funny.

I always tell these critics that it is his style. I have seen some paragraphs and phrases being repeated sometimes but those are probably some of the funniest phrases. He also keeps referring to events in past and draws parallels. One starts to appreciate the whole style better only after reading a good number of his stories..

Off to reading another one.

Apple had invited some press people for a special event on 28th Feb to 'come see some fun products'. In general press and Apple fans are not very excited about the products that they launched. You can search for the reaction that they have received for iPod Hi-Fi and Intel Mac Mini.

Found this page that lists some of the reactions to original iPod.