iPod! - Year 1

It was exactly an year ago that I bought the newly launched iPod Classic 80GB at a local store and unsurprisingly, it's still going pretty strong. Other than a few scratches, there is no indication that the iPod is an Year old now. Now and then, there were a few problems with the data transfer rate and stuff, but they have all been manageable. With the iPod now protected with a leather case, it's more secure and scratch free, though it's thickness is now 2 times more.
The original earphones I got with it gave away a long time ago. Whether it was my fault or Apple's, it doesn't matter. They just gave away and are now rotting in some corner. I am using some other weird earphones as a replacement and they seem to be doing fine as of now.
But what I have realized is that, no matter how many problems Apple has with their iPod range, people still buy it crazily. 6 out of 10 people own an Apple iPod of some kind and that's a clear indication of how Apple's ruling the music player market. And they never seem to be running out of ideas. So it's all Apple and the close of Year 1 of my iPod Classic.

Fresh, yet Old

And I am talking about my house which is like, 8 years old and never had a single coat of paint after the original one. It was in pretty good shape all these years, but we knew better. Bored of the same old colours and shades, there were some ‘innovative’ ideas to make things look modern. The result is a drastic change in wall colours and some minor changes in the ‘lighting devices’ of the otherwise boring tube-light lit house. It’s a change I was looking for from the past few years, and now with the changes nearly done, the house feels new. Modern, bold colours and yet a classic touch. Futuristic lights combined with ancient shaded lamps and chandeliers. It’s almost like each room has different personalities under different lights– Made for stereotypes, made for the audacious and also for the sober.

Though it has received mixed reactions I don’t really mind it as long as the building won’t collapse. The recent building collapse stories are sending chills down foundations. Especially the collapse of a wall in a ‘Junior College’ (which wasn’t even legal) and 30 students falling from 30 feet was a pretty sickening story to read. It’s high time the future of our city was taken into proper civil engineers’ hands rather than these so-called ‘builders’ (Don’t know where they came from!). All the engineers out there, listen up. The IT Sector is falling, start thinking from now and save our city at least, you can save the world later…

 

PS: This is my first attempt with an e-mailed post, rather than the usual ‘New Post’ business. Hope this works.

The End (?!?)

It finally came to a close today. It was 10 days ago that we started the Internal Exam 'Preparation' and after so long, it reached The End. Or is it just the beginning? There's a little more than a month left from now when the Real exams will begin and there's another set of internals left and between all that, I got my own GRE to take. Like Physics says Pressure is inversely proportional to Area, I would say, Tension is inversely proportional to Time. As time runs out, the blood starts warming up (Runs Cold in my case!) and finally reaches a temperature where we have to give in and crumble under the pressure.

The usual problems at college still go on. No books to refer to, no materials to prepare from, no lecturers to teach, horrible exams, even more horrible marks, students using the most ingenious methods of copying and yet getting caught, then the begging process, then the arguments, then the suspensions.. it's been the same right from the beginning. The present day 'Engineering Student' only looks bigger, taller, and smarter (new hairstyles, new fashion sense, etc.) than he was 4 years ago, but the rest is just the same. He still knows what he always knew and still doesn't know what he's supposed to know. How is it possible to change? Is there a thing called change in these lives? I don't see any in the coming future anyway.

All these arrows seem to be pointing to one direction. The End. Is it so clear?. Is the 'Software Boom'(as everyone called it), that attracted students from 'Far and Wide' stalling now? Are students are going back to 'Far and Wide'?. It's when the countless colleges around my house might find empty classes and see themselves shut down. They can only look for alternative sources of 'Power' just like the rest of the world needs to, from Petroleum.

There's only one thing that that can't 'End' any time soon and that's the Universe (Because we don't know anything about it!). Everything else will see an end. Be it Hyderabad's Colleges, or the IT Industry or Petrol or The Human Race or The Earth! It might all shut down one day like it never existed..

The New Face of Bollywood

I saw Rock On!! a week ago, and finally got the chance to blog and blab about it. I liked the music a lot and was expecting a pretty good movie to complement that and I must say, the movie lived up to its music. The number of films that I have watched are way too less compared to the others so I can't really compare this. Infact I feel it's best not to compare it to any. Just watch the movie, feel good and come back home. That's it.

As for me, I found it simple yet graceful and looked made for the modern-age. We have movies that are over-modern which completely spoil the show. Racing Bikes in narrow corners of Mumbai, cars, bikes, and trucks flying and planes crashing(!!), crazy dancing, over-smart 'bad guys', 'good guys' even smarter than them, millions of twisted plots and many similar things. This one had nothing of those sorts and that's what forced me to like it. There was no intentional humour. It just cameo ut naturally and people laughed where they were expected to laugh. But I also noticed something I never came across before. The audience were extremely silent throughout the movie. It was packed to the last available seat and yet I felt like I was sitting alone in there. I couldn't help tapping away to the music, and the rest were still just as silent. Was it a tennis match? People applaud a joke for a few seconds and then it's back to silence! Is it only Indian movie-making that has come of age, or has it taught people to come of age as well? The whole experience was simply different. I just didn't feel like I was surrounded by Bollywood. The shouts, whistles, dry jokes, 'masala', etc, all were absent. I actually felt good. The music was inspiring, the film was modern and the crowd was intelligent. It was perfect.

Just plain and perfect...

Back to Vectors

I recently discovered the magic of vector drawing. I was totally tired of the same old photoshop effects and brushes and all that crap and decided to do something new. I went back my hand-drawn Guitarist and thought for a while. An idea clicked. I wanted to convert that 'Pixelated Bitmap' into a ultra-high clarity image. Then came up the idea of vector drawing and I started surfing around for some good examples of vector drawings.

So what's special about these drawings? Well, Bitmaps are based on pixels and resolution. But Vectors are purely mathematical. All the lines, curves, fills(areas) are created by mathematical equations and hence any amount of zoom won't damage the clarity. They can literally be saved at any resolution without any loss.

Back to the drawing. I found out that normal bitmaps can be converted into vectors automatically with a threshold limit using some software like Inkscape, Flash(Trace Bitmap Command), etc. but that wasn't what I wanted. Mine was a pencil drawing and every small mark and shade would get converted into a vector line. So I took up the painful procedure of drawing it myself in Flash. Putting the bitmap image as a reference, I started drawing every line and filling it with colours. I had to use my own 'creativity' to 'estimate' where the highlights and shadows would lie, and had to draw more lines and fill more areas. Finally when it was all done, the result is like the image below... This drawing has a few flaws though. The more we zoom in, the easier it is to find flaws, breaks in lines, empty areas, overlapping fills, etc. And in particular, the Cartoon Drawing itself had a few proportionality flaws. The sizes of hands, arms, guitar's headstock, etc. are highly exaggerated just to make it look funny and cartoon-like and all this took an incredibly long time for me. And yet, I must call this easy. If it were a photograph, it would have taken much longer. And generally bitmap photographs can be converted to vectors using the gradient mesh tool in Illustrator. That's something I didn't try yet, but the results of that are simply mind-blowing... I'll get to that soon, but for now, enjoy this Flash Vector Drawing.

Time for the Kill

It's September and time's clearly running out. The tough game of Predator vs. Prey is on and nobody knows yet if the Predator is me or my exams!!

There's only one way to find out! Who's chasing whom? Whose life is in risk? Simple Conclusion: I am the Prey! The Internal exams starting in a coupla days, and soon followed by the GREat GRE and still followed by the 'greater' Semester Exams. On the other side of the vacations, time suddenly runs at double speed and the Prey(me) is fighting a losing battle... One more clear indicator is 'Less Internet' and 'More Music'. Maybe you would have thought 'More books' is my mantra against exams, but the true stress-buster is Music. It's the lubricant that allows easy outflow of your brain's most creative ideas (but you gotta have them to get them out). It's even recommended by professionals who advise people on preparing for exams. Music: Nothing Beats it!

End of Post, but there's a PS:
Last month I followed a rather strange pattern in writing posts. Can you guess that? Some interactivity is definitely fun... it takes about 3 seconds to answer that anyway. Best o' Luck...