Movie Frenzy

I watched a fair amount of movies this summer. Why not maintain a list and rank them for my personal satisfaction.

1) Scarface (8/10) - Was an excellent movie. Al Pacino couldn't have done any better. The plot was simple, yet powerful. The second half of the movie could have been a little more interesting.

2)Pink Panther (6/10) - I think Mr. Bean series would have originated from the enactments of Inspector Clouseau. For the people who don't know, Pink Panther is a stolen diamond.

3)Four Brothers(5.5/10) - Mindless mayhem.

4) Sideways (7.5/10) - Wine tasting, humor bubbling ....

5)The clock work orange (7.5/10) - Not for the faint hearted. Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece

6) Seven Years in Tibet (8/10) - I just loved this movie

7) Batman Begins(8/10)

8) Fantastic four (6/10)

9) Mr. and Mrs. Smith (6/10)

10) The war of the worlds (7/10)

11) The Star Wars: The revenge of the sith (7/10)

12) Mystic River : One of my all time favorites. It was a great movie under Clint Eastwood's direction. (8.5/10)

13) Hannibal (7.5/10)

14) Eurotrip (4/10)

Google sidebar a great disappointment

I feel Google sidebar (which is integrated with the Google desktop) is a mega failure. It offers less or absolutely no worth, at the cost of real estate. Frankly, Google desktop search could be better with one or two essential features like...(i) search and remove the index permanently for certain file types. (ii) I dont have to remove the index 10 at a time (One page).

Interesting TODOs

Bunch of linux projects
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http://www.cs.tufts.edu/comp/150LNX/project/topics.html

Security Projects
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http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/%7Edaw/teaching/cs261-f00/projs.html

My first blog comment was a blommer

Have you heard of the name blommer. I also anticipate with anxiety that one day, some random surfer
would visit my blog and write me a comment. Alas! I was unlucky until today. I received a my first ever comment
on my post. But it was from a blommer.

Blog + Spammer = blommer.

Time to appreciate Billy Joel or Lack of creativity

He says, "bill, I believe this is killing me."
As the smile ran away from his face
"Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinkin' alone
-- Billy Joel - Piano Man

To my love

I always wanted to write you a nice poem/song. Words fail me. Here is an apt song for
you.


Close your eyes so you dont feel them,
They dont need to see you cry I cant promise I will heal you,
But if you want to I will try.


I sing the summer serenade
The past is done, we've been betrayed, its true.
Someone said the truth will out I believe without a doubt, in you

You were there for summer dreamin',
And you gave me what I need
And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity, for eternity.

Yesterday when you were walking,
You talked about your Mom and Dad.
What they did had made you happy,
What they didnt made you sad.

We sat and watched the sun go down,
Picked a star before we lost the moon.
Youth is wasted on the young,
Before you know its come and gone too soon.

You were there for summer dreaming,
And you gave me what I need.

And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity, for eternity. I sing the summer serenade,
The past is done, we've been betrayed, its true.

Youth is wasted on the young,
Before you know its come and gone, too soon.
You were there for summer dreamin',
And you are a friend indeed.

And I hope you'll find your freedom,
For eternity.
You were there for summer dreamin',
And you are a friend indeed.

And I know you'll find your freedom,
Eventually, for eternity, for eternity.

Absurdity Vs. Copyright Infringement Complaint

I had an online collection of publicly available papers as one of my blog posting which I lifted from some website (I don't even remember the site's name). Since the collection was complete, I thought it would help me drastically in doctoral studies. To aggravate my pain, none of the papers were copyright protected and the collection only had links to other web sources only. Alas, some stupid yet selfish guy complained and the post was forcibly removed from my blog without my knowledge (as I was out on an internship).
I, certainly agree that blogspot personnel can't verify validity of all individual complaints. But, at the same time some efforts towards verifying the same should be actively pursued. Such inappropriate complaints piss me off and provoke me to run my own blog in my own internal webserver. Anyways the evil complainer got away with it just because I am a poor grad student who doesn't have neither time nor resource at his disposal.

From: "Blogger Support"
To: removedittoavoid@spamming.com
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 14:54:29 -0700
Subject: [#242798] Notice of Copyright Infringement

Hello,

My name's Robin and I work here at Blogger. We've received a complaint
that content in your blog:

maddybe.blogspot.com

infringes upon the copyrights of others. The content in question is
located on the following URL (post dated 6/7/05):

http://maddybe.blogspot.com/2005/06/intrusion-forensics-readings.html

The notice that we received, with any personally identifying
information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling
Effects and we will send you the link of this notice. We do this in
accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for
online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement.
Please see http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html for more information
about the DMCA, and see http://www.google.com/dmca.html for the process
that Blogger requires in order to make a DMCA complaint.

We are asking that you please remove the allegedly infringing content in
your blog. If you do not do this in the next 7 days we will be forced to
remove the post in question. If we did not do so, we would be subject to
a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits.

We can reinstate this content into your blog upon receipt of a counter
notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and 3) of
the DMCA. For more information about the requirements of a counter
notification, and a link to a sample counter notification, see
http://google.com/dmca.html.

If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain
your own legal counsel. If you have any other questions about this
notification, please let us know.

Thanks very much for your understanding.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

IT talks

Mind - So powerful yet so weak

Random yet so coherent

Discipline is a form of training to acheive moral improvement. But rules are framed by people. Conveniently twisted and twirled to accomodate loop holes for their benefit. But on the other hand, Indiscipline is doing what you want to do. Doing what that makes you happy. But we have to keep in mind that the ultimate happiness is not ephemeral. If smoking gives you happiness today, will it also give you happiness when you die young leaving your loved ones behind?. Desires of today are consequences of tommorow. But protocols and rules begets more protocol and rules. Shackles and chains can hold helium but no mind. With no doubt and fear, I say that mind controls the body and vice versa. It is like if I don't eat I get angry and When I get angry I don't eat. Just a dead end. One who can control his thoughts. words, actions is a true winner.
Hypothetically, if an ancient religion advocates the principle that it is unholy to live beyond 30 years of one's life. Can such religion thrive?. NO. God has given us the power of thinking. Even if we are brought up in a room, devoid of any humans we would still self discover most of our needs. In essence we would evolve by constant learning. Our reasoning might be incorrect but who knows that our reasoning is correct today. Ain't science one major hoax, if left unpursued makes us apes again. Even if it is a hoax we must pursue it just to reach the ultimate goal. We learn by mistakes. Is it not true that a burnt child dreads fire ?. But there is also a proverb which says "Never give up and try again". If fed into the computer the computer would go bonkers because the two statements are a contradiction. If I get burnt, and use my second premise then I am likely to get burnt again. This is the major difference between man and the machine. Man can rationally identify the differences according to the context. But same man can easily succumb to evil habits like alcohol, drugs, terrorism, rape etc. Despite having such a wonderful mind he can't control it. It is riding a wild horse. One who domesticates it is the winner.

Camera Tricks

I was always fascinated by photos containing flame torches, which display wakes of illuminating light. Albeit it's sight is flabbergasting, it is not so difficult to produce such images. The trick is to have the camera's aperture open for more than a normal exposure time. In such event, the moving object engraves it's path of movement on the film making it appear as one continuous tail of flames.

A simple match stick did the trick for me here.

Leave me alone you idiots

I can't speak.....it doesn't mean I can't express my rights. If you remove my derma, I definitely would chop down your stalk.

Male Circumcision is the process of removing the foreskin of the private part under the pretext of safe guarding it from urinary track and other infections. It was mainly adopted in the muslim world, which is now becoming increasingly prevalent in western cultures too. Removal of foreskin is supposed to be a very painful process and can even be fatal. Teaching children good cleaning habits is an easy and safe subsitute to circumcision. Also, it might result in destruction of pleasure inducing nerves from the private parts impairing them from experiencing that particular sensation. There is also a variety of proven side effects which question the advocacy of such draconian process. Since it is a billion dollar industry, it is still able to thrive inspite of all it's risks. Thereby, We should actively participate and educate ourselves to put an end to such a total unnecessary yet precarious process.

Fabricated Reality

I feel life is one onerous journey. You pretty much don’t know what to except, where you will land, what you will do. What exists today may not be there tomorrow. Fame and shame don’t stand forever. Humans have discovered new things, made amazing advances in the field of medicine and science. But they haven’t made any progress at all towards understanding birth and death. For example, the sensual elements like fear, happiness, sorrow, orgasm, numbness can’t be reproduced on the same amplitude among humans. Even if it can be, it can't be expressed or measured quantitatively. If we can’t understand the entire working of some grey matter enclosed in 1 ft x .5 ft region, a cynic like me would never believe it is ever possible to be understood. But an optimist would reckon that it is that region which provokes you to analyze it. Though it seems conceivable at first, I feel that we all have some personality of our own. Beyond our brain, heart and our body. Someone somewhere have a little control over us. Incomprehensible to our wildest reasoning, untouched by infinitum, far away from the realm of science it is purely psychological. "You only see what you eyes want to see, You never know what it wanted to see". I DON'T DOPE. :)