One step forward, One step back

Recently, the inventor of the mouse prototype, Douglas Engelbart died. While there have been many eulogies, obituaries and praises stating that the mouse was the best invention after the computer, I beg to disagree.

Though, it cannot be refuted that the mouse is one of the iconic inventions ever, which almost changed the perspective of a computer, with GUI coming in, made it more user-friendly to the common man, I am going to take the computer geek's perspective here to stand on saying that the mouse is overrated.

Moving one's hand back and forth between the keyboard and mouse? Few things can be more irritating than it. It is funny how Microsoft had to develop a game called 'Solitaire' to make people understand the concept of 'drag and drop'. Who needs the middle button when you have space and shift+space? Page up and page down? Who needs left click when you have Enter? Who needs right click when you have the 'drop down list' key ( the one between right Alt and Ctrl ).

An online experience such as filling out a form, or a list, is almost twice as fast, using keyboard alone than keyboard+mouse. But again all this, this comes from a computer undergrad, who sits in front of the computer almost 12 hours a day, meaningfully during weekdays, and meaninglessly and aimlessly so, during the weekend. Maybe my hands are tuned towards using the keyboard better.

For me, the fundamental reason for moving away from Facebook is the absence of extensive keyboard shortcuts. Just 'L' and 'C' won't do, man! We need better. Twitter and GMail have recognized the potential of keyboard shortcuts and the speed one can achieve with them and have an amazing range of keyboard shortcuts.

All said, I don't hate the computer mouse, I just don't think it deserves the hype that it gets. Especially from the opportunistic pseudo intellectuals who scroll away everyday and come to praise it on the day of demise of its founder alone.

RIP Douglas Engelbart.Your contribution made the computer experience better to the common man.

21 years later

July 2nd, 1992. My parents' wedding anniversary.

Got my first stipend at Microsoft.

Some days are special, but some are uniquely so. This belongs to the latter.

Visual Treat

And finally after 3 weeks of its release, we booked tickets to Man of Steel in Hyderabad's famed IMAX at Prasadz Mall. Must say, it was a wonderful experience. After a little hiccups in the route to reaching the theatre, a small comedy of errors, we reached there and met our friends who were to join us for the movie. Here's what I thought about the movie:

It was an absolute visual treat, probably the best movie that I've seen in 3D. I'm a big time Nolan fan, and like him, I don't favour 3D that much. Avengers' 3D didn't impress me. It gave me the headaches. But Man of Steel was different. I actually liked the 3D experience without getting a headache. The theatre was as awesome as it as rumoured to be; though we could've enjoyed a little better had we gotten seats a little farther from the screen ( we sat in the fifth row from the screen and there was no sufficient space between the first row and the screen - poor people whose necks would've hurt sitting in the first row).

As for the movie itself, I kinda liked it, though it wouldn't be in my "Movies to watch a second time" or "Favourite movies". Definitely felt the tinge of Nolan with the non-linears here and there and the development of Clark Kent as a troubled child. It was a new approach and it paid off, unlike previous renditions which supposed Kal-El to be innately comfortable using his prowess and skills. The development of Zod was good in the way that he was potrayed a little stronger than Superman. The super scale damage was typical of Snyder and was a little taken too far, but it was definitely better than "spinning the world backwards to reverse time" crap. I won't be putting any spoilers here, for the sake of poor souls who mightn't have watched yet.

The story, Goyer's rendition was pretty good and could've done with a little better screenplay. As for the downside of the movie, it was Lois Lane through and through. I mean, what the hell man? She is like this Pullayar kovil (Vinayagar temple) appearing at every corner. It was an eyesore. You don't see Rachel helping Batman defeat scarecrow, do you? The whole point of Lois Lane seemed to be forced and quite unnecessary.

However, it was overall a nice experience and my personal opinion is that Henry Cavill might just be the best Superman yet. Definitely looks super cool in the suit. Looking forward to the Justice League movie, even more after reportedly Bale reprising his role of Batman. Do watch, at least for the 3D :)

P.S.: I don't miss the underwear.

P.P.S.: Hans Zimmer = God. What epic background score! :-o \m/

Pride? No, shame actually.

This samacheer system is a complete failure and waste of good intellect. I've felt it when I teach the kids, how much good, interesting and important portions are left out in the syllabus. These ten of thousands of centum marks are not an indicator of success. They are indicative of failure. One does not achieve success by lowering the standards. It is like pros playing amateur sports. This is spoiling the next generation.

While it is agreeable that the syllabus that previously existed wasn't the best either, it was surely better than what exists today. The samacheer science book which I have read through, is a complete joke. Those who are proud of your kids scoring centum marks, please reconsider. It is not something great. A kid studying 8th standard can be coached to get the same, in 2 months time. I can vouch for it.

Building such a shaky base is the main reason people slack off in their college. Don't blame the college system and the bad teachers in college. That's not the entire story.

Frankly, much disappointed in the 10th board results that were released today. If 29000 people scored centum in math, what the fuck is special about it? What is there to be announced in news with such pride?

Think twice. Don't throw the education system to the dogs. If not already. These kids deserve better. They are bright. They can learn much more. 75 odd state ranks is not something to be proud of. The kid who scored 498/500 will still probably not be happy because his achievement is split with 9 people in a system that is designed for everybody to pass, not the bright to excel.

*Sigh*.

Who I Am

Its been quite a while since I've blogged. Writer's block? அதுக்கு மொதல்ல writer ah இருக்கணும் ல? Anyway, this is an attempt at resuming the blog, keeping it going, for this is by far the thing(read hobby ) that has lasted more than one year and I would like to keep it that way. This is going to be more like a rant (Oh dear, already started hasn't it?) but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.

The source of this post came from a face-walling epiphany that I had just a few days back when I was clearing up space on my computer by deleting movies that I had at more than 1 location. I ended up having 2 copies of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban and was watching both to decide which was the better quality, to keep and delete the other.

In came, Sirius Black. I have always loved JK Rowling's characters and their corresponding casting in the movies ( though I hate the movies a lot for their plot deviations, inconsistencies with the books ). I hadn't paid much detail into who played Sirius Black because I was in 9th if I recall correctly when I saw Prisoner of Askaban for the first time and I hadn't seen Nolan's Batman until when I was in 12th.

The epiphany came, when I realized that Commissioner Gordon in Nolan's Batman franchise was Sirius Black here in the HP universe. Quite trivial for someone who'd watched both BB and HP-PoA at around the same time, but I face-walled at my ignorance till now. Then I realized how much difference one pair of spectacles make. Gary Oldman __/\__

Spectacles, have occupied a very important part in fiction, largely due to Superman.

Man + Spectacles = Clark Kent.
Clark Kent - Spectacles (+ hidden costume make overs) = Superman.

Then another epiphany (Double, yeah, tough to handle). The technical probability of my being Superman, was much better than me being Batman.

I'm Superman B-) (because being Batman and Ironman are too mainstream.)

P.S.: The author is a fan of Batman and worships Nolan. Those who are in a trolling mood are strictly advised to study for their semester exams. Thank you.

One Million Digits

This was a fun thing to do on the otherwise boring afternoon.

I was randomly surfing Quora when I received a notification on a question which I'd seen and followed for its humour a while ago and the answer goaded at my curiosity.

When I went to this particular website, the website challenged me to find the particular HTML page where the actual 1,000,000 digits were present. First the website, mockingly and tantalizingly told me to follow the index2.html and inde3.html URLs, which quite obviously didn't have the million digits.

Now, I was irked. A little Googling hack that I'd learned a while back came handy now. I copied the URL of the website, went to Google, and did this.

When searched with "intitle:index.of", Google displays indexed websites on servers which match the search query, and lo and behold, only one search result. After that, it was only matter of clicking the search result, opening the folder containing the website and viewing the 1 million digits.

Not a great accomplishment or anything, I know, but still, it was fun :D

Brace Yourselves!

No, this is not going to be a post on Game of Thrones, though I'm eagerly awaiting Season 3, which is about to come out this Sunday. Waiting for a TV series, without reading the book ( similarly with manga and anime ) is quite tough but is, at most times, worth the wait. But then, let me not go into something that I claim that this post is not about.

For the past 2 days, there have some really happy teenagers, whose face reactions remind me of these 2 memes.

Seriously, this is the reaction on the faces of those when their parents hand out the keys to their bikes ( Yes, they have bikes already :3 ) or their smartphones ( Oh, don't even get me started ).

The HSC exams ended a couple of days back and to be quite frank, it is only normal that these kids think that they are freed of some serious burden, responsibility and pressure. However, they do seem to have some misconceptions. There are a few general categories, that these "free-birds"( from some random Facebook status )  fall into.

1. The hyperventilating kind : Okay, maybe you screwed up very badly. So, don't bother hyperventilating every time you think about your exams and not sleeping till the day the results are released.

2. The nervous kind : The genuinely nervous kind who know what mistakes they made, and are quite normal about the acceptance and hope that the mistakes don't cost dearly. The performers come under this category mostly.

3. The "Screw-it" kind : The ones to whom these exams were never a big deal in the first place, because making it a big deal would only make things worse.

The normal ones, if you ask me, are the second kind, but in general, to all 3, "WHATEVER HAPPENED, HAPPENED!". Don't gloat over it.

But what is common to all these 3 kinds is that, they think of college as some haven, where all freedom is unrestricted, they become these cool guys with nothing at all to bother about. That, my dear foolish-youngling, is a very very wrong notation.

I won't bother to delve into the specifics of what may/may not happen, but let me assure, college will be very different from your imagination. All I can say is,