staying.linked for feb 17, 2012

Every night this week

• Downton Abbey = X-Files
• More Photoshop Magic. This time I can’t quite tell how they did it though.
• You can’t make this shit up: Government buildings, flyovers, roadside railings, and taxis should be painted a shade of light blue, a minister in the ruling Trinamul Congress government said.. Our leader [chief minister of West Bengal] Mamata Banerjee has decided that the theme colour of the city will be sky blue because the motto of the new government is ‘the sky is the limit’.. ”Blue is a beautiful colour and is also soothing for the eyes,” Calcutta mayor Sobhan Chatterjee said.
  My favorite part is that this has happened before — Aurangabad was painted pink back in 2006 “to uplift the city’s spirits”. Clearly a working example.
• Targeted advertising? You bet.
• Binary tetris. It’s just a tweet.
• Even more “standard” rules for designing movie posters. Oh-so-true (via kottke)
• Whaaaa..? (I know, it’s a pretty insane vid.)
• A relatively well-argued piece on atheism, and the journey to realizing exactly what it means (and how you can reach that mindset) set me thinking. The article itself is based on the author’s Christian roots, though I can see parallels with my outlook. I’ve thought out loud about my journey from agnostic to.. something else, but the thing is that the concepts of Hinduism are not as radical as Christianity in some ways. I need to devote more thought to the subject, it appears.

staying.linked for feb 13, 2012

• The underlying idea behind SonicNotify is really cool. Think an audible NFC style technology that detects a particular sonic frequency and shows you content according. Magical to a user when it happens, and very monetizable (so something that can actually survive!).

• Ah, humanity.. it is awesome when you take satire seriously. Ofc, I would be more sarcastic, but I once took an article from the Huffington Post’s satire column seriously. In my defense, it was a badly named column. In my offense, it just goes to prove I’m only slightly better than the examples of humanity on above link. Hopefully.
• Windows 8 is shaping up to be more and more game-changing for M$. The latest plethora of information about Windows-on-ARM shows that it is essentially the iPad-style Metro-only tablet version of Win8 that some wanted. With Office. Without the Desktop. Single code base across all versions of Windows (PC, ARM, server). Single interface across all M$ products (Phone, XBox, PC, Tablet). This is simply insane, an advancement straight out of left-field that M$ has been working towards for the last 3 years.. oh-so-quietly.
• Book previews are so awesome. Y’know, except when all they are basically the extremely useful title and index pages of a book.. and not much else.
• Thanks to Kottke pointing me to the genius of Sellers riffing the Beatles, I found just how ruddy brilliantly he can do accents at all:

..which let to me remembering Kevin Spacey’s genius for imitation, and the classic 21 accents video.

Oh, and lots and lots of lots of LEGO news!

staying.linked for Feb 5, 2012

• The story of Gerald Blanchard reads like something out of a movie: parachute in to steal priceless jewels (check), ridiculously simple-yet-awesome escapes from the law (check), carefully hacking his way into bank after bank after bank (check), double-crossing, world mafia (check and check). Well worth the read.
• I think I will have at least one LEGO link in every post. There appears to be no dearth of material, fo’ sure. Today’s awesome: Back To The Future 2015 painstakingly recreated (via Gizmodo). Down to replicating the Nike shoe, Mr Fusion, and EVERY character in the town square chase sequence (circa 2015).
• Ridic’ Superbowl ads. As random as the VW follow-up ad is, Jerry Seinfeld in an ad is, as expected, priceless.

Adorable. And true.

staying.linked for Jan 31st, 2012

• True inspiration makes you revere the original even more. Case in point, this shot-by-shot comparison of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” vs. scenes from 30 different adventure films made between 1919-1973. Gotta love Spielberg/Lucas.
• Beautiful graphical Quora answer about the reality of software development and why software development task estimations are regularly off by a factor of 2 to 3.
• My LEGO obsession is not unhealthy, there are LEGO nerds who have their own site dedicated to nothing but announcements from that world. Before you ask, yes.. there will be a LOTR LEGO minifigure set (via Gizmodo). And even more pictures of these figures.
• What gives a Oreo its Oreoness? There’s much, much more to it than Twist, Lick, Dunk, lessons which had to be learned for it to become the best-selling cookie in China (via kottke.org)

While we’re talking about LEGO, here’s how you automatically sort the many pieces it has. Yes, the sorter is made with LEGO as well:

And an awesome Dr. Who tribute.. summarizing all 784 episodes in one 10 minute ‘shot’ (via the Verge):

staying.linked for Jan 29, 2012

• Windows 8 is starting to look really good. M$ has really got their Metro shit together, I hope. Imagine, a touch-friendly Windows tablet, which you might even be able to work on! via Gizmodo| First Touch: This is Windows 8
  

  Look. At. The. Ad.

• Eye-opening profile of the CEO everyone loves to hate via BW| Steve Ballmer Reboots
• Some real gems in this list of ridiculously awesomely funny Failbook posts of the past year. The corresponding Twitter posts are boring.
• This hits the nail on the head so perfectly via Shawn Blanc| It’s Just Stuff. The more I read, the more I assimilate.. the more irritated I get about the way treat technology today. There is always more.
• The only reason for this link is because it uses Bayes/kNN for something so ridiculous. And I know exactly what/how those work! (via kottke.org)
• I remember VCDs were the reason India actually moved to affordable home video.. and the death of the cablewallah’s Friday Night Pirated Releases. A deeper look into their life via David Bordwell| Pandora’s Digital Box
• Just to follow up on the Sibal war on protecting the Indian populace from obscenity on the Internet, the stand-out statistic from this article includes the fact that only 3 out of 350 requests made by the Indian Govt to remove content from Google is due to pornographic content. Pretty much all the remaining requests are to avoid defamation — of Govt or public figures. Srsly.

An awesome quote, from a great letter (link):

If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away

And finally, a brilliant visualization to compare movies (compare 2001, Alien, and Solaris):

Last but not least, I nearly took this brilliant BBC sketch seriously. No, really:

one more year before..

..the next 5 years are supposed to run away with themselves, and you’re 30 before you know it.

I said that 4 years ago. I’m not going to say “That feels like yesterday.” Coz it doesn’t. And it wasn’t.

But it doesn’t feel like too long ago..

In the past 4 years, a lot of things have changed: marriage, life, activities, pastimes, what have you. At the same time, some things are somewhat the same: the PhD, research, being a student, etcetera. I can only imagine how many things will change in the next one year. Just how much, even I don’t know yet. As I said at the start of the year, 2012 is a year of great promise.. a year of which only 25 days have passed so far. Even now, I have a sense of my life reaching a winding down stage. At the same time, there is also a sense of anticipation.. of winding up for something bigger. Bipolar? Very likely.

But as of today, I’ve given myself a great birthday present — a significant portion of my PhD dissertation (something I currently call ‘my life’s work’) is going to see publication in a peer-reviewed journal. On one hand, this is just another milestone you reach during your PhD. From my own personal perspective, this particular paper has been in the making for 3-odd years; during most of which it has been under review.. as well as constantly faced rejection. A trial by fire.. with random reviews, reviewers who just didn’t get it, and finally, reviewers who gave the manuscript it’s due.

In the end: it is my paper, a culmination of a LOT of my research, and I’m glad it’s published.

It is also my second journal paper this year. Both within a few days around my birthday (I know, I spoil myself). Hopefully, not the only two for the year.

I had a set of random goals for 25. I actually don’t remember setting any such for 30. I guess I never thought that far out. The closer I’ve gotten to it, the more I have focused on immediate milestones. Today.. By this time next month.. In the next year.. Living in the now, seeing what I have to do today. I guess you realize that beyond a point, life can be considered too dynamic to over-think and over-plan. You put in what you can best do now, and let other things pan out the way they will.

Fatalism? Not really.

More like I’m only a year away from being considered an old, married man. Might as well get into the mindset for it.

Ya damn kids.

staying.linked for Jan 10, 2012

• It appears the future of gaming is moving to personalized computer-console hybrids.. if that makes any sense. The Wii U brings to the console the advantages of a graphical controller, and the Razer Fiona brings to the PC the advantages of a console controller. The question is whether Sony is going to extend the Vita to such an interface. A single gaming device which marries the power of the PC with the console controller. Can’t say it will be cheap, but its a variant of a “single device that does one thing very well” philosophy.
• It appears that science fiction is coming true all around us. We’ve already seen prelim prototypes of the “Minority Report” style control.. now we have something that appears to read our mind. This is why I can never stop reading about technology. The implications are mind-boggling.
• This pretty much makes a nice little list of must-see places on a vacation.. via Futility Closet| Road Games.
• The house husband is apparently becoming increasingly popular (something I never fail to tease G with).. and as always directly correlated to the other person’s success via Business Week| Behind Every Great Woman..
• I’ve always wondered why Motorola’s WebTop idea used Firefox instead of Chrome, especially given the Google factor and the existence of ChromeOS. Just think of a chromebook style device that perfectly integrated with your Android phone. Very Apple-esque ecosystem, no? via The Verge| Motorola working on next-generation Webtop with Chrome support.
• And finally, the Minute Physics Youtube channel has to be one of the best things I’ve discovered recently.