Travis Neo Tyler

Murphy's law - Review

2009-10-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

Murphy's Law is a fictional book by Colin Bateman about an undercover cop Murphy Martin. The author doesn't try to prove Murphy's law that if anything can go wrong it will. In fact its quite the contrary and the only relationship of the title is with the protaganist's name and to catch your attention on bookshelves. There is also a BBC TV series by the same name.

Reading the book is like watching a really good gangster movie like Goodfellas or Departed. It has lot of twists and is unputdownable. It starts out as a regular infiltration movie with the protaganist making himself believable to the gangsters as a singer at a pub. The gangster family headed by Terry Hatcher is in the funeral services business and is also involved in protection, diamond robberies, murders and drug deals. Murphy makes his inflitration convincing initially as singer and later as driver. The other gangster characters Mitch, Johnny, Annie, Noreen have been well sketched.

After Murphy earns the trust of Hatcher, he is involved in their funeral business as driver and as accomplice in robberies. The plot in this book revolves around the sequence of events leading to Hatcher's major drug deal with a japanese gang. After Murphy enters the gang, its a roller coaster ride with lots of spiral twists and turns. And what do you expect when two gangs meet for a drug deal - ofcourse an adrenalin pumping shootout where lots of twists and truths which makes for a satisfying ending.

Murphy's character has lots of interesting shades as singer, funny guy and undercover cop with a sad history. There are some missing holes about his past life, which is expected from TV series to serve as missing links for future seasons. But that doesn't make the first book any less interesting. Overall a very fast paced and interesting read if you liked inflitration movies like Departed.

Pigs don't fly

2009-08-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

Swine flu is creating panic all over the world and being at Pune, the epicentre (Is it a volcano?) of the disease in India, i cant think of anything else to blog about at the moment except that. If you came here looking for medical advice on how to combat Swine flu, look elsewhere. If you want to make fun of the virus and the soothsayers hang on. Swine flu is disproving the old saying that 'Pigs dont fly'. All the news channels are saying it everyday, so you better believe it. This is my argument/rant that Pigs really dont fly :)

Uptil now, i have never bothered about seasonal flu. There are millions of viruses which can cause seasonal flu and it is difficult for the doctors to figure out the specific virus strain that caused it and administer a vaccine for that. My dad used to say that common cold can be treated in 7 days without medication and just 1 week with medication. That's how well we understand flu viruses, atleast as far as therapy goes. Maybe if they had a wikipedia of all the different flu viruses that have ever affected mankind, we would be in a better position to fight flu or the well known common cold.

I like the adjective 'common' in 'common cold'. When you're having a bad cold, it's such a relief to know that its so 'common' to have a cold. When you're in a relaxed state after accepting that, it's so much easier to come out of any disease. If only cancer was called 'common tumor', cancer patients wont be so hopeless.

Think of it from the perspective of the Virus. How would you feel when all humans are just categorized as different variants of the species HomoSapiens as H1S1, H5S1 etc without any identity. Well, the taxonomist thought "What's in a name?" just like the human taxonomists dont bother to name each individual animal. You would be dying in anger to prove to the world that you're special and establish your name. That's exactly what the Swine flu virus did with a vengeance, when the rest of its common cold siblings are completely ignored by humankind and even its cousin Avian flu could not attain much glory. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft of the Virus world (Human, Bird and Pig, not in that order!) decided to collaborate and come out with a combination we call AH1N1.

This might seem like a really stupid argument, but after having read The Selfish Gene, you tend to believe that each organism is just a machine for the DNA to survive. The virus replicates to propage its DNA. Thats the reason humans treat their child with all the care, its their only chance to propagate their DNA even though they are mortal. Nonetheless, there are other equally bizzarre journalism like this: "You wont die of Swine flu because the Virus wants to spread. If the host dies, it cant spread anymore. The virus wants you to be alive and kicking and sneezing so that you will go out and it can spread.". Even Richard Dawkins would not have thought of that!. Remember Rachel saying in the movie Ring "She just wanted to be heard". Oh the pity virus, it just wanted to spread :(

If thats stupid, consider this conspiracy theory. It argues that Swine flu is a biowar labtest gone wrong. What is the probability that a sick pig, bird and human viruses come together and spread across the world in 2 months, unless Dr Dolittle is sick and decided to have animal sex with his sick pets GugGub(pig) and DabDab(duck) and they ended up giving birth to AH1N1. We dont pity the Mexicans specifically like we pitied the Japanese in 1945, because the scientists seriously misjudged the capability of a Virus to spread across the world. They could have atleast learnt from Microsoft Windows

There are other conspiracy theorists who argue that Swine flu is being hyped up by Media, who get paid by Pharma companies to spread panic and fear of the unknown among public, so that they can get world governments to indulge in mass vaccination programmes and make zillions of dollars. Imagine the creators of Tamiflu and Relenza sitting on billions on cash, and WHO telling the world that by 2010, 2 billion people would be affected by SwineFlu. I say WTF, bcos thats 1/3 of the population. I think WHO needs some statistics lessons. Take a city like Pune for example. The population of Pune is 5 million, out of which 500 (0.01%) have been affected and 10 (2% mortality rate) have died. If thats a small sample, world over, out of 6 billion people, 200,000 (0.003%) have been affected and 2000 have died (1% mortality rate).
Even if it spreads 10 times by 2010, just 0.1% of the population and not 1/3 are going to be affected. I dont have the statistics for common flu because its common, we dont panic and it just goes away, but i guess the numbers would be marginally lesser.

Pharma companies are hurrying to create a vaccine for Swine flu. A vaccine is a weakened less virulent form of the virus to train the immune system to fight the antibody and then remember it. Louis Pasteur need not have been a genius to discover this. Even Adam Sandler could come up with that idea in Longest Yard to boost the confidence of prison guards by setting up a football game with a weak team of prisoners. The medical world still doesn't fully understand the virus and can only hope that the weakened flu doesn't become really strong like the prisoners in Longest Yard. But they sure know that they're going to make zillions of dollars through mass vaccination programmes.

I finally had a chance to rant out on all the shit the media has been feeding me in the last week. Dont believe all that you hear from the news channels. Just use that info to be aware of the situation in your neighborhood. Swine flu is a little less common than common flu, but i'm planning to use this as an opportunity to eat with nutritional awareness and increase my immunity and get some exercise and good sleep. I dont mind if this is a conspiracy by Food industry to make people eat healthy food.

PS: The title of this blogpost is inspired by a really bad PJ by a co-worker.

Back on the Wireless Web

2009-07-21T06:17:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back on the blogosphere after 45 days without internet access at night when my blogging neurons are most active. And this time im on the wireless web. Not WiFi, its so yesteryear. Im connected on Reliance Netconnect EVDO, which is a CDMA wireless broadband technology. Don't be impressed by the tech, true to Reliance the speed and service suck top notch. I dont know why the Ambanis make so much money. Anyway, something is better than nothing.

It looks cool and suave, but its a horrible chinese product. And guess what, it doesn't work out of the box on Linux because the device behaves as both Modem and FlashDrive.

Getting it working on Linux is not for the faint hearted. This is how i got ZTE8710 working on Ubuntu Intrepid after 3 hours (It's supposedly easier in Ubuntu Jaunty):

Make sure you're logged in as root
$ su

Step 1. Make OS recognize it as Modem and not a FlashDrive.

You can do this either by using usb_modeswitch or ZTE8700 drivers.

And the following cmds are helpful for debugging this step:

$ lsusb
Vendor and Product of device. If the device is being recognized as FlashDrive Vendor/Product is 0x19d2/0xfff6. If the device is recognized as Modem, Vendor/Product is 0x19d2/0xfff1

$ dmesg | tail
Tail kernel log to see if USB is being mounted in the proper location. If its mounted on /media its treated as flash drive. If its mounted on /dev/ttyUSB, its treated as Modem

$ tail -f /var/log/messages
This log is also a Kernel log where you can monitor device being connected/disconnected

What to choose?

usb_modeswitch is written exactly for the purpose of switching from Flash drive mode to Modem. But somehow i couldn't get it to work.

As suggested in tuxhat post, this is what i did.
1. Download ZTE drivers for AC8700 from http://www.ztemt.com.cn/ennewzte/service/ziliao.action
2. $ dpkg -i ztemtEVDO-1.1-8-i386-ubuntu804.deb
3. Installation fails saying ztemt.ko not found.
4. Don't give up yet
$ cd /usr/local/bin/ztemtEVDO
$ tar -xvf usb-serial.tar.gz

Go to extracted folder and run make.
It builds ztemt.ko. Copy ztemt.ko to /usr/local/bin/ztemtEVDO

5. Now ztemt comes with 2 utils: ztemtevdo and ztemtvcdromd. ztemtvcdromd is used for swtiching modes

Run
$ ztemtvcdromd
reinsert device
$ lsusb

The device must have switched from Flash mode(0xfff6) to Modem mode(0xfff1)

$ ztemtevdo still errors out. I haven't figured out what it is.

If you have got it going till now, cheers.

Step 2. Mount usbserial kernel module to use the USB modem

usbserial module is not loaded by default in Ubuntu. You can load it in two ways:
1. Add a line to /boot/grub/menu.lst file [works only in Ubuntu Jaunty]
2. Use modprobe
$ modprobe usbserial vendor=$VENDOR_ID product=$PRODUCT_ID

This turned out to be the timesucker for me. The Product ID you use here is the product id corresponsing to Modem mode(0xfff1) not FlashDrive mode(0xfff6). So don't execute this command until you successfully switch to modem mode

Its time for some command line trivia:

modprobe
loads a kernel module with supplied options

lsmod
list all loaded kernel modules

lsmod | grep usbserial
check if usbserial is successfully loaded

If you got it mounted successfully, you're just one step away from getting disappointed (ofcourse after using Reliance Netconnect on Ubuntu)

Step 3. Use wvdial to connect

The next step is a breeze. Get wvdial, edit the config file and you're connected.

$ sudo apt-get install wvdial
(or)
make install from source (http://freshmeat.net/projects/wvdial/)

$ vi /etc/wvdial.conf

Here's a snapshot of my config file:

[Dialer Defaults]
Init2=ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
ISDN=0
Username=########## (Your 10 digit number)
Init1=ATZ
Password=##########
Modem=/dev/ttyUSB0
Baud=3686400
Phone=#777
stupid mode=1

Now run
$ wvdial

And you're Netconnected. All this pain for 'some stupid mode = 1' surfing through a dumb AT command modem.

So, what do you have to do for everyday surfing?
$ su
$ ztemtvcdromd
Plugin device
[Optional: $ lsusb to make sure device is in modem mode]
$ modprobe usbserial vendor=$VENDOR_ID product=$PRODUCT_ID
$ wvdial

Or make a convenient shell script and execute it.

Here are some more links which i found helpful:
1. http://www.tuxhat.com/linux/reliance-netconnect-broadband-on-linux/
2. http://outbackwifi.blogspot.com/2009/06/howto-connect-to-internet-using-zte-ac.html
3. http://thejeshgn.com/2008/01/12/reliance-netconnect-usb-card-on-linux-howto/
4. http://mysimpletricks.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/reliance-netconnect-broadband-on-linux-jaunty-jackalope-ubuntu-904/

Why we survived?

2009-03-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Now that you're ROFL after seeing the obese man, have you ever wondered why we survived all these years? Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is based on the whole premise of "survival of the fittest". And do you call that fit? The point is its not fit as in gym/healthy, but fittest could be interpreted in a lot of ways - the species that survives is the one that is fittest for the circumstances.

Why should the human animal survive and prosper all these years when there are stronger animals out there? And we are so far ahead in the evolutionary game that we control the survival/extinction of the rest of the species. They are under our mercy, or atleast getting the mercy of the subset of homo sapiens who are members of PeTA or WWF. I have sometimes wondered while walking on the streets, why we humans built those huge buildings and live comfortably. Why not Tigers, Rats, Dogs or Ants?

Reproduction alone is not the answer because rats multiply faster. The next obvious answer would be Sixth sense. But billions of humans living alone with their sixth sense could not have dominated the earth the way we have dominated today. There's an element of collectivism that helped us unite in some way and survive so far. We still don't have as much collectivism as Ants, who could have easily been here instead of us. Imagine zillions of ants walking the face of earth, slowly and steadily building huge ant mounds and industries, which is easily possible. But their collectivism was not enough to beat us. If only they were carnivorous and fed on humans, they wouldn't be the object of fancy of every child playing in the park or backyard. Or they would not have become a cute decorating item on your coffee table.

Humans have both collectivism and individualism. The individualism makes some humans aspire to greatness, like a Wright brothers or Newton or Shakespeare or Einstein or Da Vinci, which help us like turbochargers in the evolutionary game. But the important element that made sure we didn't re-invent the wheel or re-invent the fire in evolutionary terms, was the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another. And the tools that helped us are language, books and internet, and not to forget schools and colleges and universities.

Intellect was the key in later years, but that still could not have helped early humans beat a lion in catching a deer. There could have been no "Teach yourself How to catch a deer in 21 days without being eaten by a Lion" in those days. Humans were not completely carnivores, and that solves half your food problems, because flesh rots faster than vegetables and they didn't have refrigerators in those days.

Can you think of any animal that doesn't have an external dependency on food? Even cows need grass. And if you have been to a park with monkeys, even they depend on the snack food you feed them, in additon to the fruits and nuts on the trees. That's where it all started. Imagine humans feeding monkeys in a park. Flashback 50 billion years. Only there are no humans to feed the monkeys, because the humans have not yet evolved from the monkeys. The monkeys jump around trees, grab fruits and vegetables and sometimes eat in groups. Some monkeys are more advanced than the others and fed on meat. As evolutionary rumours in erstwhile People magazine "Primates" go, one monkey-man dropped his food in the sea, discovered that salt added taste to his otherwise raw meat. Another monkey-man dropped his food in the fire and heating was born. Monkey man one meets Monkey man two and cooking was born. Salt evolved into garam masala, schezuan sauce and numerous other spicy tastemakers. And heating evolved into Firestoves, Kerosene stoves, Gas cylinders, Ovens, Microwaves and Magnetic Induction cookers.

And the external dependency of humans on food was gone. Now they no longer needed to hunt for food. They can store and cook their own food, which no other animal can even today. Now when everybody has to hunt for food everyday, humans can happily cook and feed on 3 sumptuous meals a day, and have other things to think about than where the next meal is coming from. They thought of agriculture, industries, science, philosophy, wars, computers and a lot of other things.

After depending on restaurants for a long time for food, I recently discovered this freedom from external dependency after learning to cook using the magnetic induction cooker i recently bought and the numerous packed and ready to cook foods available. I felt like the Neanderthal man walking on earth feeling sorry for the Lions and Tigers who'll never learn how to cook.

If Yossarian Lives In a Big City

2009-03-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yossarian is a popular fictional character in the book Catch 22. He has a lot of witty and funny lines in the novel, and here's Yossarian ranting about pollution for a change instead of me:

"They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.

"No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.

"Then why are they polluting my lungs?" Yossarian asked.

"They're polluting everyone's lungs," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."

"And what difference does that make?"

"Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"

"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.

"Every one of whom?"

"Every one of whom do you think?"

"I haven't any idea."

"Then how do you know they aren't?"

In search of Fresh air

2009-03-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

The most common cure people suggest for anything is to get some fresh air. But where is the fresh air? I recently discovered fresh air in a hopelessly polluted city like Chennai. Try traveling in a busy polluted street at 6 PM and at 6 AM and notice the difference. The same choking street is radically different at 6 AM and is full of fresh air.

If we reduce our pollution levels for just 6 hours, and allow some time for nature to recuperate, see how well nature rewards us. Nature has its own air purifying mechanisms and absorbs the insane amount of pollution we stuff upon it. Imagine if we stop or atleast reduce pollution levels forever, how fresh the air would be. And fresh air is known to make wonders to your health. No wait, i dont need to convince you, Fresh air is my fundamental right. I cant breathe polluted air because of lone drivers who travel in big cars and breathe marginally fresher stale air.

This early morning experience has clearly convinced me that when Humans are extinct from respiratory problems due to inhaling polluted/stale air, Nature will need just a little over 6 hours to recuperate and become habitable to Aliens or the next generation of ecologically-aware smarter Humans.

There are situations like these that reassert my faith in Nature in the Nature vs Humans ecowar. Whenever you fly from one big city to another, you can see through the window seats of airlines, that the concrete jungles of big cities are just 10% of the surface of earth. Nature predominates the rest. Or imagine a busy traffic day interrupted by rain. It takes 15 minutes of downpour to down out the pollution and bring in the smell of rain and some fresh air. I hope i get my regular dosage of fresh air every morning before they ruin it for the rest of the day.

Hackintosh

2009-03-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

Mackintosh or Mac is one of the most desired computing devices. Of late it has become relatively affordable. I never knew Mac was Unix-based and as powerful as any Linux box until last year. I just thought it was a glossy device with a flashy UI for Rich startup CEOs to brag about. Even with student discounts, MacBook is still not for the masses.

One elusive thing about Mac is the difficulty of installing Mac OS X on PCs. Thats also the USP of Mac. Why would you want to pay for expensive glossy hardware when you can get the same experience on a cheaper laptop. Every platform needs a USP like this.

Even after Mac shifted from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors, it still isn't easy to install Mac on a PC. For the poor people out there who can't afford a Mac, there are several ways to do it:

1. Get a Theme
This is by far the easiest option if you want only the Mac look and feel and are not bothered about Time machine or TextMate. And this is legal too. But a Mac underneath is more than just the glossy looks for flaunting. The differentiating factors in a Mac desktop are the cool buttons, the dock and global menubar. Checkout this link on how to convert your Ubuntu Intrepid to OS X Leopard lookalike.

http://maketecheasier.com/turn-your-ubuntu-intrepid-into-mac-osx-leopard/2009/01/08

And here's how i saved 2000 $ by adding Mac OS X Theme on Ubuntu Intrepid on a rusty old Desktop. So much for the looks!

2. Virtualization

There aren't many virtualization options available for the OS X and it isn't a breeze like other Linux or windows installations. You need to do lots of patches and tweaks on the Install image and virtual os settings to get it work. And it doesn't work on VirtualBox, which is a freeware. VMWare is relatively easier compared to Qemu, but it isnt free.

Checkout this guide for how to get it working with VMWare

http://pcwizcomputer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=32

Checkout this forum for how to get it working with Qemu

http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewforum.php?f=11

And for the faint hearted, there's a pre-patched VMWare image of OS X which works like a charm on a VMWare player. Search for pcwiz vmware in your fav torrent tracker, find an image and follow this guide. Actually there's not much in the guide, you just get the image and run it.

http://pcwizcomputer.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=48

Here's a VMWare install of Mac OS X Leopard on a Dell laptop:

Checkout your favorite torrent trackers for the corresponding image files. Browse around InsanelyMac.com forum to find out other virtualization options

In case you still havent guessed, lots of essential things like Ethernet, Sound and USB dont work properly on a Virtual OS. Ethernet and Sound might work if you're lucky or perseverent.

3. Patched DVD

The last option for people who want the real Mac OS X on a real partition is to get a Patched DVD like Kalyway etc, perform BIOS tweaks and after lots of struggle get it working. Checkout InsanelyMac.com for discussions and guides

LEV-Riders's guide to the Polluted big cities

2009-03-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

I have been riding an electric vehicle for a while now. Its called Velociti and its made by Ultra Motors which is a UK based LEV(Light Electric Vehicle) company. It has a max speed of 40 Km/hr and a max range of 50 Kms per charge.

It has some really cool features like it discharges when you go uphill on bridges or flyovers and charges like a dynamo when you go downhill. Feynmann would be so proud about the Engineers of Ultra Motors for applying the Law of conservation of energy and utilizing the conversion of Potential energy to Kinetic energy to store electric current and trying to solve the Energy problems of the world. The world where people are traveling alone in Big cars rushing from Point A to Point B everyday while another set of people are traveling in Big cars from Point B to Point A while you're stuck in the middle of a traffic signal at Point C wondering whats so interesting about Point B that everybody from Point A wants to get there and whats so interesting about Point A that everybody from Point B wants to get there. And mind you this happens everyday, between any 2 random places in all the big cities of earth. Why wouldn't people decide once and for all where they want to be - Point A or Point B, and stay there and walk or cycle or electric-bike everyday, saving the millions of people at the numerous Point C locations from breathing Carbon monoxide and dying of slow poison. Douglas Adams would really hope they build the intergalactic superhighway and destroy Planet earth sooner before we ruin it for the next generation.

People in Point C are no different and are just in transit from Point-Alpha to Point-Beta. Its just that they do not contribute to the slow impending death of Planet Earth due to Global warming or The Return of the Ice age. And their crude oil independency doesn't make them vote for a government based on the increase/decrease of crude oil prices and they dont offer any kind of economic motivation to wars like Iraq. So much for their Environmental, Political and Philanthropic influences, they might as well dream of their Scientific influences that the electricity for their bikes come from clean hydro-electric sources or from a Portable nuclear reactor in the backyard of a multistorey apartment building.

I wish my rear-view mirrors and the body of my bike are reflective solar panels, but a drop in an ocean doesnt turn sewage into clean water. I just hope the galactic superhighway is built before Day after tomorrow, and Ford Prefect saves me from the Mostly Harmless planet.

Levels of Happiness

2009-03-01T05:37:00.000-08:00

When you're running late and get stuck in a traffic jam, especially the long ones which never seem to end, you seem to have no choice but to get frustrated. Its beyond your control unless you're Bruce Almighty or belong to a different human species called 'Morning-persons'. Getting Murphy to explain such things beyond your control only adds to the frustration. And Einstein will tell you that if you get stuck in a traffic jam for 5 minutes, it will seem like half an hour, but when you sit and chat with a pretty girl for half an hour, it'll seem like 5 minutes. Why would anyone want to sit on a hot stove these days? And you cant even get into a microwave oven, forget the harmful radiations!

A different perception can help in reducing your level of frustration atleast. Consider what would have made you happy at that instant. Green light. Consider what would have made you most frustrated at that point. The light turning red when you're just about to cross the signal. For a uniformly distributed traffic signal controlled by a relativity-ignorant electronic timer at some average peak time of the day, your wait time is inversely proportional to your distance from the signal. So the farther away you're from a signal, the lesser your wait time at the signal. Your level of frustration is directly proportional to your wait time, excluding the other random acts of unkindness (like Pollution) the world inflicts upon you to make you even more frustrated. And your level of happiness is inversely proportional to your level of frustration, unless you're way too depressed or happily driving under influence. So the next time you get stuck in a traffic jam, feel frustrated only when you're the first in the waiting line. At all other times only decrease the tangential angle of your smiling arc, contemplating the philosophical mysteries of life so you can blog about it.

DIY Army Tank

2009-01-15T03:36:00.000-08:00

Life is beautiful is one of my favorite movies. I like it more than Schindler's list in the genre of holocaust movies. While every other holocaust movie is about the tragedies of concentration camps, this movie is completely different. It is about a father(Guido) making a lot of sacrifice to protect his five year old son(Joshua) from even the thoughts of war and its horrors in concentration camps. He pretends to his son that everything is a game and whoever scores 1000 points wins the game and gets a real Army tank. Guido instills a lot of hope and cheerfulness to his son.

The final scene is one of the most touching moments in cinematic history. Guido tells his son Joshua to hide and not come out until everybody is gone, and also tells him thats the final test before he wins the Tank. But Guido is finally caught and shot by a Nazi soldier. He makes sure that his son doesn't know about it. Joshua comes out of his hiding place in the morning unaware of his father's death. And out of nowhere a US Army tank arrives in front of Joshua. Joshua thinks he has finally won the prize and is ultimately joyous.

Watch the final scene on youtube...

So why the digression about Life is beautiful? Well, the Tank which i recently built from a DIY woodcrafting kit reminded me of the final scene from Life is beautiful. The kit is similar to other woodcrafting kits and comes with 3 sheets of wood. It takes around 2-3 hours to assemble and here's the completely assembled wooden army tank:

Not too real? Ok lets start painting the Tank.

I tried painting the tank with a camouflage pattern thats common in the Army. But somehow it didnt work out and i settled on bottle green for the whole tank. To make it look darker, the bottle green color was obtained by mixing green and black to give the tank varying shades of bottle green. And after painting for over an hour, here's the Tank in all its glory:

It looks even more real on a camouflage cloth.

Now that's a Toy Tank that even Joshua will envy me for! (unless he joined the US/Italian army!)

Chandler's Creative Discontent

2009-01-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

Chandler is the funniest and most sarcastic guy in Friends. This is not about his funny lines, but about his Christmas in Tulsa. In one episode, He is supposed to work in Tulsa during Christmas to finish some paperwork or else he'll get fired.

Monica: This is so unfair. You don't even like your job.
Chandler (surprised): So who does?
Phoebe: Oh I like my job!
Joey: I like my job...
Rachel: I love my job!
Ross: I can't get enough dinosaurs!

Chandler might be naive to think that because he doesn't like his job, no one else does. But the rest of the friends gang totally love their jobs. contentment and discontent, not just in job, even in other aspects of life. There is an article by J. Krishnamurti titled Creative discontent which argues that discontent is good because when you're discontent, you don't just stay happy, your discontent will direct you to take initiative in a lot of creative ways to find contentment, and that's good for the world. Thats how most big inventions and business ideas are born. Even though contentment and job satisfaction is what most people aspire for, its not too bad to be discontent at times.

After Tulsa, Chandler quit his job doing "Statistical Reconfiguration and Data processing"(!) to join Advertising as an Intern and to find his real calling. Not sure if his fictional initiative helped the world in some creative way, but it definitely helped the producers and writers of the show and the subject of this blog post.

Choice And Time

2009-01-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

Road Not Taken is a beautiful poem by Robert Frost. It illustrates the confusion we have in taking decisions.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
.
.
.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference

Robert Frost's choice of the Road Less Travelled may not always be the right choice. You don't just choose to be different without judging the merits/demerits of each choice. Sometimes its not a question of whether its less travelled or more worn out. Sometimes its more than two roads that diverge. Sometimes the choices are influenced by others and sometimes you just don't have the time to choose.

The author of The Paradox of Choice says that the more choices we have, the less happy we are. Here's an excerpt from One Minute Book Reviews:

"...unlimited choice produces genuine suffering. The more choices we have to make, the less certainty we seem to have. When we have 285 kinds of cookies to choose from in the grocery store, how can we be sure we’ve picked the right one? And that’s just cookies. When faced with seemingly unlimited choices that have significant consequences like which stocks to invest in, which career to pursue or even which person to marry, many people make choices that will never satisfy them."

Here's a TED talk of the author making his point:

When a Poet can't help you make an informed decision and an Author tells you the choices will make you unhappy anyways(i haven't read the book yet!), Punk Rock band Greenday gives a completely different perspective in the song Time of your life.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Billie Joe (Greenday Lead singer) tells us that sometimes you let Time take the decision and just let go. In the end if you look back it tuns out to be right and it couldn't have been better. Reflect on your life and think of the times you were totally confused. Time chooses the Road for us at such times.

He'll keep you in a jar

2009-01-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

Some Psychedelic Rock songs of the 70s and 80s can evoke a rare moment of philosophical enlightenment. One such song is Sappy by Nirvana. The song title itself is an unusual word play on Sad and Happy - Its called Sappy. Its definitely not one of their popular songs (in comparison to Smells like Teen spirit). But it is definitely Kurt Cobain's favorite song . He tried singing the song in different tones and moods and could not attain the perfection he wanted. There are even two different lyrical changes here and here

The lyrics of the song makes you wonder if Kurt Cobain was elevated to a whole new spiritual level when he wrote this song. Songmeanings and Songfacts have several interpretations of the hidden meanings of the Song. Here's the solo from the song:

He'll keep you in a jar
And you'll think you're happy
He'll give you breathing holes
Then you'll think you're happy
He'll cover you with grass
And you'll think you're happy
Now

You're in a laundry room,
You're in a laundry room

The metaphor that impressed me a lot is the line "He'll keep you in a jar" comparing God to a small boy playing with bugs in a jar. And no prizes for guessing what the bugs represent!

Creation vs Evolution has always been a topic of major debate between believers and atheists. There are several alternative theories to dispute the existence of God. God could be a Simulator controlling earthly forms like the game Sim city and the simulator could be just another Alien. A very humorous take on this comes in Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Earth is just a super computer built by a superrace of Mice(!) in another galaxy to find the Ultimate question for the Ultimate Answer to Life, Universe and Everything (Click here to get Wikipedia's help in your ultimate spiritual quest to find the meaning of it all). Why not Aliens or Mice, why should it be an Unexplainable God is the argument here. Another interesting take on Reality comes in the movie Matrix where we humans are part of a Matrix, which is just a battery source, and what we perceive as reality is just electrical signals being fed to our brains. Computer programmers might even say 'God is real unless declared int'. Being a confused agnostic and a programmer, im just adding the interpretation of this song to my Array of God theories.

The song Sappy uses He as a reference to God to minimize controversy. It offers a whole new perception of God, happiness and what we want in life. 'breathing holes' is a metaphor for the basic essentials.'grass' represents materialistic possessions and money. And the 'laundry room' represents the cycle of birth and death or maybe something else!

The chorus repeats thrice and each time it is preceded by a different verse:

And if you save yourself
You will make him happy
.
.
And if you cut yourself
You will think you're happy
.
.
And if you fool yourself
You will make him happy
.
.

If you strive for salvation and redemption you'll make God happy. And when you endure Pain and Hardship in life you'll make yourself happy. And if you accept both you'll only fool yourself and make God happy (if he exists)

There are two different endings to the song. "conclusion came to you" refers to death before you realise this. "clue that came to you" refers to the enlightenment that comes with this realisation or maybe i'm clueless about Kurt Cobain's lyrical depth

Mumbai Terror Attack - Inspired by Games?

2008-11-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

Was the recent Mumbai Terrorist Attack by a bunch of 10 terrorists in their early twenties inspired by video games? Here's an analysis.

Infiltrating enemy territory on a boat is a common strategy in Age of Empires(AoE). Infiltrating Mumbai on a Mothership and then an inflatable boat resembles this. But the same strategy has been used in 1993 when Terrorists infiltrated through a coastal village near Mumbai. AoE is a historical game and its possible that 1993 terrorists were inspired by History when AoE wasn't there.

Hand Grenades are used extensively in Postal and many Third person shooter games. Using a grenade to blow up other things like Gas cylinders to cause further havoc is common in such games. An attempt to blow up a Petrol pump in Colaba by throwing a Grenade has a resemblance to this.

Attacking a Cop and hijacking his vehicle. It's what Gamers do on the streets of Grand Theft Auto(GTA). Not just that, using the hijacked Police vehicle to shoot random people on streets is way over the limit in real life. In Games like GTA, Carmageddon etc innocent people are attacked or killed for no reason. Attacking citizens on street for their Cars is the theme of GTA. The terrorists have attacked people to hijack a Skoda, Bolero and a Two wheeler.

Shootout in a Club happens for some reason in GTA and mafia movies, but in Leopold it was totally baseless.

Any First person shooter game will instil the thrill and power of holding AK47s, MP5 and other automatic weapons. Terrorists could have been lured just for the thrill of touching these weapons. Entering a building for self-protection and attack is a common gaming instinct, but holding people hostage is natural to terrorists.

But the terrorists haven't heard of games like Commandos in which NSG were really good at. Can games inspire people to become remorseless killers and make them lay down their lives for the sake of killing random unarmed innocent people?

Murphy's Missing Spectacles

2008-11-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

There is a Murphy's law for Keys which says When you're in a hurry, your keys go missing - Car keys, home keys etc. It basically follows up from Murphy's master law which says If Anything can go wrong It will.

Why isn't there a Murphy's law for Spectacles? I wonder if Murphy was ever wearing one. Well, Keys are easier compared to spectacles. If you're not wearing one, its just like Keys to you. But if you're wearing one, you understand why spectacles are not so easier.

Imagine this. The reason most less than forty people wear spectacles is because of short-sightedness - a condition in which things beyond 25 cm seem blurred to your eyes. Spectacles are worn to correct this condition. Now imagine missing your spectacles, because you kept it on one of the numerous Tables / Cupboards / Stands around the house and forgot exactly where. It could be on top of even a computer monitor / TV / Microwave oven.

Things are easier for people with long-sightedness unless your spectacles are right under your nose and you didn't notice.

Now to locate the missing spectacle, you need proper vision, the enabler of which is the missing spectacle in the first place. It puts you in a Catch 22 situation. How do you find something which is used to find everything, and you dont have that one thing which helps you find everything including itself?

If the key-loser in you still didn't get it, imagine a key which opens a box which contains the keys to your house. Now imagine losing the master key. You know the house keys are right there in front of you, but you've still lost your keys!

A simple solution to this problem is to switch to contact lenses. But i'd rather search for glasses with frames than transparent lenses.

An ingenious solution would be to have another pair of spectacles which are the Finder spectacles. You keep the Finder spectacles in the exact same place always and deploy the SWAT team only when required. Since they are in the exact same place everyday, You can always locate them on habit like a Pavlov's dog. With the secondary spectacles on, finding the Primary spectacle becomes a normal chore like finding keys. But if you can be organized with the secondary spectacle, why not be organized with the Primary spectacle itself, which makes the Secondary spectacle unnecessary in the first place. But we all know it doesn't work that way.

Now imagine losing the secondary spectacle. How would you find it? If you like Recursion, you'll add a ternary spectacle to find the secondary spectacle which in turn is used to find the Primary spectacle. But soon your house will be filled with N Spectacles and chances are you wouldn't locate N, N-1, N-2 in sequence to find your Primary spectacle. By then you won't remember what Nth-order a Spectacle is or Where its supposed to be present. In your search you'll stumble upon any Spectacle and you'll be happy with it even if it's not your Primary spectacle. Now you know how hard it is.

For those more organized people who keep their spectacles in the exact same place everyday and never have a problem figuring out where your spectacles are, i pity your uninteresting lives. Now let me go find my missing spectacles. Everyday is a treasure hunt...

DIY Ferrari F1 Car Model

2008-11-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

I picked up a Formula One woodcrafting kit and decided to make a Ferrar1 F1 model.

All you need to build is a Formula One Woodcrafting kit and a couple of Poster colors - Red, White, Yellow and Black. Pick up your colors accordingly if you are a McLaren or Renault fan. Paint brushes of several sizes are needed to make the impressions more realistic.

Now here's what we aspire to build in this model, including all the adverts.

Its not going to be a 350 Km/h monster. But its going to whizz past you in a blink just like a real F1 car at speeds much lower. Unbelievable? Check out some amazing videos of my Ferrari model speeding past you in a blink on youtube. [Or is it my video camera at low resolutions that creates this effect?]

Now let's build the model.

DIY kit comes with 3 wooden sheets with jigsaw-like pieces you can pull out and assemble to build the model. It has a pic of the model on front and instructions for assembling the model on the back side.

Pull out the pieces one by one and follow the instructions/numbering to assemble the car:

Here's the fully assembled car resembling the model on the front:

Now let's start painting the ferrari:
Start with the tyres...

Paint the body of the car in trademark Red

That still isn't a real Ferrari. Whats missing are the logos on the body and tyres.
Create logos of Marlboro, Vodafone, Shell etc on the body. Create Bridgestone logo on the tyres.

And don't forget the Ferrari logo...

And finally the Ferrari is ready to roll out of the Pitstop at blinding speeds....

DIY Wooden Guns

2008-11-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Pictures are not real guns. They are wooden models made from DIY(Do It Yourself) Woodcrafting hobby kits available from www.hobbyideas.net

DIY Gun? I'm not kidding but this ain't a real gun. Its a wooden model.
I recently discovered this amazing hobby while checking out the DIY kits at a local hobby store. The wooden kit comes with 2 or 3 sheets of wood. Each sheet consists of 100+ jigsaw-like pieces which you can pull out and assemble.

It's so well designed that the pieces interlock without any glue. The pieces are numbered in the instruction manual to make it easier to assemble. After assembling the kit, you can paint it to make it look more real. Its like assembling a Lego kit or solving a jigsaw puzzle, except that its even more fun as the models look very real. Its like solving a 3D jigsaw puzzle.

Beretta Model

Now let's start making a Beretta model

The kit comes with 2 wooden sheets with jigsaw like pieces which you can easily pull out. It has a nice picture of how your model will look like on the front and instructions for assembling on the back.

Start pulling out the pieces one by one and assemble them using the numbers on the instruction manual. For more challenge, pull out all the pieces and throw away the instruction manual :)

Pull out the rings and fit them to make the barrel.

Now the model resembles the front pic.

Lets start painting the gun to make it look more realistic. You don't need to be a Picasso to paint this especially if your model is going to be in single color. Black goes well for guns. You just need a medium sized paint brush and Black poster color. Just make sure you paint uniformly.

Beretta is now ready

Carbine Model

Here's a similar set of pics for assembling a Carbine model:

Wooden board with pieces removed for assembling:

Fully assembled model:

Painting the Carbine:

Carbine model in all its glory

Check out pics of Wooden gun models, made from Woodcrafting hobby kits:

Have fun Woodcrafting! Watch out this blog for more realistic wooden models..
Post your comments on Woodcrafting and models you would like to see in the future....

Why So Serious? - Dark Knight Review

2008-07-19T14:15:00.001-07:00

Dark Knight is a very fast paced Batman movie and a fitting sequel to Batman Begins. Batman Begins ends with a scene where Gordon hands the Joker card to Batman. Dark Knight is a treat to all the fans who have been waiting since 2005 to watch the Joker's madness onscreen.

The Joker is Batman's worst ever nemesis and Heath Ledger's portrayal is near perfect in this movie. Somehow Jack Nicholson's performance in the 1989 Batman movie seems a bit unnatural after watching Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger as Joker is nihilistic, remorseless and is darkly funny.

The Joker pulls off one surprise after another taking us through a thrill ride. He simply rips everybody's plans and just steals the show. As the Joker himself puts it:

"Do i look like a guy with a plan? Im a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with it it if i caught one. I just do things...I hate plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's. Maroni has plans. Gordon has plans. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I am not a schemer. I show schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are."

The Joker symbolizes all the evil madness in the world. Batman will never kill the Joker "out of some misplaced sense of righteousness" and the Joker "enjoys" playing with Batman. They are made for each other in a Superhero-Supervillain sense. The Joker in fact completes the Batman which is what makes him the greatest Supervillain ever.

There are lots of theories as to the origins of the Joker. One is that he fell into a vat of chemicals which gave him the whitened body, red lips and coloured hair. But everytime The Joker tells about his scars, he tells it differently and each tale is chilling the way Heath Ledger tells us.

Joker has some dark funny lines in the movie. The scene where he holds Rachel at the edge of the building, Batman says "Let her go" and the evil Joker smiles and says "Poor choice of words" and just lets her go :)

Heath Ledger has said in an interview that he was asked to read The Killing Joke comic book as a preparation for this role. Click here to read the comic that inspired Ledger, the Method actor to emulate the Joker so flawlessly. Its sad that he wont be around for a sequel.

There are some slick action scenes like the stunning BatPod and scenes where Helicopters and Trucks are toppled with metal wires. Great work by the Nolan brothers on the direction and screenplay. Dark Knight is a great summer blockbuster that rightfully deserves its place on the imdb #1 atleast for sometime. No other movie could have beaten Godfather and Shawshank Redemption to get there.

Why so serious? Go enjoy the movie....

Fight Club Philosophy

2008-07-13T09:27:00.001-07:00

This post is a collection of philosophical quotes from the movie Fight Club:

I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let's evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.

Stop trying to control everything and just let go.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

The things you own, they end up owning you.

It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen. We don't need Him.

Reject the basic assumption of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions!

Self-improvement is masturbation.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.

We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war…our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

Born Champions?

2008-07-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

We face an astounding amount of competition for everything in life - to get a good education, to get a good job, to get a good partner, to get a good apartment etc. Sometimes good isnt enough. We want the best or better than what others get. In this quest, sometimes we forget the fact that we are born champions.

Yes, You heard it. We all are born champions and this is not some feel good positive psychobabble at all. During sex, 100 million sperms are released, but only 100,000 enter the uterus, out of which only 1000 reach the oviduct, out of which only 100 reach near the egg, out of which only ONE penetrates the egg. You were the champion that won the F1 race on that day. Congratulations!

Where is my Innocence?

2008-07-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

There is a moment in the film Knocked Up where Pete(Paul Rudd) and Ben Stone(Seth Rogen) watch Pete's children playing in the park with soap bubbles. Pete isn't quite upbeat about life and says this about his children:

"Oh God, they go apeshit over bubbles. I mean, that’s an incredible thing about a child. What’s so great about bubbles? I wish I liked anything as much as my kids like bubbles. It’s totally sad; their smiling faces point out your inability to enjoy anything."

There comes a point in our adult life when we gradually lose our innocence and the curiosity of a child because of day-to-day stress and depression. And by the time we realise it, the innocence and curiosity are long gone. This post is a reminder to myself to rediscover the childlike innocence and curiosity with which we were born.

"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night!"

[from Rock Me to Sleep by Elizabeth Akers Allen]

Growing Younger

2008-07-13T02:37:00.000-07:00

Have you ever imagined the possibility of growing younger? I mean you would actually be growing younger with each passing day instead of growing older. We are born into this world as infants, and gradually grow into young boys and girls and then as the years pass by we become men and women and then senility pushes us into old age and we finally die. What if this whole life cycle is backwards? Imagine life if you could actually grow backwards. You no longer have to worry about aging, wrinkles or saving for old age.

George Constanza is a character in Seinfeld and his imagination of backwards life goes like this:

Oh, what a happy ending to life!

And if aging is all backwards, models and actresses no longer have to worry about growing old and losing their beauty. Imagine Monica Bellucci turning from an old woman to a gorgeous lady to a beautiful young girl with the passage of time. Wouldn't it be nice to see your fav star turning younger instead of older and uglier.

There would be no such thing as underage drinking or underage driving. You'll be given all the licenses when you're born and if the archaic laws still exist, your license would be revoked once you celebrate your 82nd birthday and your body is less than 18 years old.

This imagination of growing backwards is not all that new. There is a 1922 story by F. Scott Fitzgerald called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which explores the theme of growing backwards. Its an amazing short story about the life of Benjamin Button who actually grows backwards. Click here to read the story...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is being made into a hollywood movie by David Fincher with Brad Pitt playing the protagonist. David Fincher and Brad Pitt have made some mindblowing movies like Fight Club and Se7en in the past. Check out the teaser trailer of the movie below. Brad Pitt is amazing in his portrayal of Button from old age to young age.

You could have actually grown a few minutes younger after reading this post if all this were possible. Until then post your comments on your imaginations of a backwards life...

Beer is good for the Brain

2008-07-13T01:31:00.000-07:00

This is not a reference to one of those medically proven articles that uses statistics and controlled experiments which prove that 600 people who regularly consumed beer performed better in mensa puzzles than 400 other people who abstained from beer. Well 99% of all statistics are made up including this statistic on statistics.

But, Buffalo theory is actually a different way to look at drinking Beer. It was conceptualized by Cliff in the TV series Cheers. It goes like this:

"Well you see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo and when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive drinking of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

Amazing theory Cliff... Drink beer and Get smart. Kill all those weaker and slower brain cells every weekend...

Travis Neo Tyler

2008-07-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

Hi, Welcome to my blog...

Btw, Who is Travis Neo Tyler?

Well, i was thinking of a pseudonym to blog with and i thought of a movie character that best represents me or the me i want to be. I could not pin it down on one, so i came up with this collective pseudonym of my fav characters from the movies Taxi Driver, Matrix and Fight Club - Travis Bickle, Neo and Tyler Durden.

im your host TNT (Travis Neo Tyler) and ill be blogging on movies, books, music, software, philosophy,fantasy and anything that interests me at the moment...Keep checking for loads of interesting stuff...