Why don't people write decent thrillers anymore?

The ranks of writers of military thrillers has been somewhat desolate this last two decades or so. Ever since the great Alistair Maclean departed to the great beyond, presumably contemplating the Stygian blackness with a large tot of Bushmills', there has been nary a man to take his exalted place. 

We desis' have always had a soft corner for Maclean. And indeed, why not? He was of the old guard, his heroes were brave men of honour, there were few, if any femme fatales in his books, the villains were usually the elements and then the always well regarded Germans (in that order, mostly) and he was as English as only a Scotsman could be. What I am trying to get at, my dear reader - is that Maclean wrote the most wholesome books that one could write - if one's topic was depth charging an U-boat, or dive bombing Stukas or blowing destroyers out of the Agean Sea. His protagonists could be, and frequently were defeated by a respectable enemy - and his men have always been distinguished by tenacity and loyalty to their comrades, not to some flag. Their actions have been tempered by mercy to brave enemies ..- born not of expediency, but of common decency.

Sadly, such writing now seems passe. The time for fairly straightforward war/adventure novels appears to be gone. The likes of Desmond Bageley and Hammond Innes are nowhere to be seen. The protagonists of their novels were somehow more nuanced, more real and displayed very little of the zealot-like xenophobia which pervades, say, a Clancy novel. And of course, the new generation of techno-thriller writers are more like Tom Clancy. The only decent book this man has ever written is his first one, 'The Hunt for the Red October'. Everything else comes across as meticulously researched, immensely detailed bilge. For all the effort he puts into describing an underwater sonar array, he then lets himself down by the fairly one dimensional characters that inhabit his world. The good guys are always correct, righteous and moral. The bad guys may be blessed with some technical skill, and sometimes strong beliefs, but their faith is always in false gods. Clancy's novels, at their very core, are plotted with wondrous complexity, but are ultimately simplemindedly jingoistic.

Another entrant into this fold is our good Patrick Robinson. He writes techno-thrillers. Much of his writing is good, old fashioned acronym masturbation (what; you didn't know what "SOSUS" stands for?) His leading men are all cartoonishly heroic, none of them suffers the slightest bit of self doubt. Introspection is not a quality much valued in his universe.I have recently had the misfortune to read one of his thrillers: Scimitar SL2, it is called. What was rather surprising is that the plot revolves around a giant tsunami - generated by a volcano-quake. Now this book was published in mid 2004, months before the Indian Ocean tsunami that caused such horrific loss of life. Did this fellow grab a hold of a crystal ball?

Secondly, Mr. Robinson, an F15 is not a Tomcat. Ask the US Navy. They know. Thirdly, as the fulcrum of the plot is the ability of the USAF to switch off the GPS system, have you ever heard about the GLONASS system? I believe it was operational in 2004. And finally, the Hummer H2, which you describe as GM's masterpiece. I understand that you might be a fanboy. Nothing wrong about it(actually, there is... but I'll let that slide). Yes, the H2 is based on a civvy platform. Doesn't share much with the milspec Humvee. So there. GM's masterpiece indeed! FYI, that would be the Corvette.

So about the conservative cause

Rules must be obeyed. Agree? Except, of course, when they shouldn't be. Most of what we think of as advances have happened because some cocksure renegades decided to run some verboten experiments. Before Werener von Braun, there was Goddard. But these mavericks, these intellectual outliers, these geniuses can only survive in contrast to a general population who they prolly find dull and soporific. The price that society pays for every genius is prolly a serial killer - but that is a price that we cannot not pay. Somehow, we have to structure ourselves that the smart ones, the game changers can be identified early and nurtured - and that the violent ones can also be identified early and helped. And of course, Gawd help us if the two are the same. But this has to be done, for all of progress depends on the really smart ones. The rest of us usually work to fill in the blanks. So there we have it - society needs to make room for its geniuses. Our survival depends on it.

Which brings us to the conservative agenda. Nowhere are the two anchors of conservatism tied together more deceptively than in the US of A. For some reason, economic conservatism appears to be linked to social conservatism. I say appears to be, for the relentless upward flow of capital is not being conservative. What it is is counter-thermodynamic, and very, very pernicious. But forgive me, for I have not the correct technical vocabulary to talk of such matters, just feelings about what is right and what is not.

I am more concerned by the social conservatism that appears to be lumped together with the economic package. This is a throwback to simple village-tribal societies which exist at the subsistence-farming level. Certainly, in that context, an immensely authoritative central figure is not a bad thing. Yes, you must obey the village elders, for they constitute the sum total of generational wisdom. But mankind as we are today is somewhat far from such a model of governance. What works, and works well for small communities in isolation is scarcely a viable structure for a globe girdling civilization with powers which would appear indistinguishable from witchcraft in the eyes of those early village elders.

Today, humans have the economic surplus needed to support investments in endeavours which may or may not have a tangible return. Some such investments are the immediately useful, such as the Three Gorges. Some others, less so- but serve as cheerleaders for much greater things to come. Case in point, our favourite new explorer - Curiosity. Indeed, we have the capacity to sit back and be entertained by the likes of reality TV stars. The question of survival is moot - barring another asteroid, or a bloody huge methane burp from under the Tundra - we will most likely make it. 

But in order to make it, we do need those smart ones. And to identify them, we need to loosen up as a society. The resilience that comes from a large and diverse population will help us survive where smaller and more homogeneous groups would not and did not. That is a lesson worth remembering. 

So the prescription: let people be.

Removie

So here I was living through the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - when Removies popped into the mind. What are Removies, you ask? Simple - pick a film title, remove one letter, make up a caption for the new title. So.. here goes:

1. Wall (from Wall-E) - a docudrama about the reunification of Germany
2. Cap Fear - a terrifying tale about the truth behind Bodmin's (bonus points for Ukridge and Wodehouse) 
3. SumDog Millionaire - a canine with wicked math skillz brings untold riches to his master.
4. U Forgiven (from Unforgiven) - a man commits a heinous crime and his victim texts him to say that everything is cool.
5. Mad Ma (from Mad Max) - pissed off ex-suburban mom drives a muscle car in post apocalyptic Australia (largely indistinguishable from Australia)
6. Raveheart - all this rebellious Scottish youngster wants to do is party!
7. Fat Five - Enid Blyton's Famous Five finally get a big screen adaptation, except that they move to the States and subsist on a diet of burgers and soda - with sad, but predictable results, proving yet again that the colonies know shite all about running their own affairs.
8. Dawn of the DEA - when the cartels had too much power, the Man sent in the Feds!
9. The Princess Ride - this one, unfortunately is not for minors.
10. Carface - Chris Bangle makes a movie.
11. Kill ill - a documentary crew accompanies the brave people of Doctors without Borders on a humanitarian mission.
12. Oodfellas - Doctor Who must stop an interplanetary crime syndicate.
13. Even Samurai - a meditation on how much it sucked to not be rich and powerful in feudal Japan. Often compared to Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai'.
14. Rear Widow - NC17, enough said.
15. Toy Tory - action figure of a British Conservative Prime Minister rounds up the other toys, imposes a poll tax and attacks Argentina.
16. Rainspotting - a NatGeo documentary about some wishful people living in the Kalahari.
17. Transformer - a PSA about power thievery by ConEd.
18. Transformers2: Revenge of the Allen - when octagonal screwdrivers attack!
19. Transformers3: The Dark Side of the Moo - a documentary about the fast food industry.
20. The Evil  DEA - this time the cartels make a movie.
21. Spider Ma! - a kid has arachnophobia.

Doha: the travelogue continues

So turns out that all these years of staying outside the vatan have made me.. umm.. somewhat racist. Allow me to explain. Frankfurt airport is full of sweaty white people. Most of them don't even speak my language (apart from that one awesome security bloke who turned out to be an old, chainsmoking Trekkie who turned out to be an expat WestCoaster who claimed to be from the Republic of California - go look at the Cali state flag.. but that is a different blogpost). Anyway, I found myself drifting through the swirling palefaced masses in Frankfurt completely unfazed. As if it were my (Gawd-help-us) comfort zone. This is the same me - which would have suffered minor panic attacks if set down in the middle of Dilli. You know what, I would still panic if I found myself in Dilli. So Frankfurt was so very normal to me.  Right down to the hick in front of me who couldn't quite work the Euro system. Said hick was also wearing a stylized Confederate flag shirt, so well... 

But then I ended up at Doha. As you, dear reader, have been following my travelogue with barely concealed impatience, you obviously know of the circumstances which brought me here. In comparison to Frankfurt, this place was alive. Western European airports are marvels of clinical efficiency, throughputting millions of jetlagged people with calm thoroughness. Now what does that put me in mind of? Nevermind, moving on. Doha terminal is this huge agglomeration of sweaty, tired humanity, complete with spilling baggage and squalling children. And somehow, this puts me in mind of Ashtami nights out near Ekdalia (that is a Durga Pujo reference to you Awbangalis). The point, of course being that being up close and personal with your fellow human being, such a basic, not-even-thought-of criteria of survival in our part of the planet, has been largely turned into a memory by the West. Even to me. 

And that was a rather frightening realization.

The travelogue, continued

So where were we? Ah, yes, landing at Doha. The city-state of Qatar is floating on a sea of oil. Much like Dubai. It is the perfect jumping point for the whole of Arabia, midway between India and Western Europe, an important Persian Gulf seaport, and so on. Quite naturally, it is the jumping off, and landing point for the many, many people who come to work in Greater Arabia. But, before that, a recap.

I was traveling to Kolkata via Doha because I had missed a flight, and sharing my adventures was a wonderful miscellany of brown people. We shall start off with my friend the unnamed geophysicist. The plane took off from Frankfurt. We had already bonded over dinner, so we found neighbouring seats. Qatar Air, like Emirates has this odd practice - the stewardesses have their headscarves on when the plane is on the ground. But once it reaches cruising altitude, they take the headgear off and you would never know that you were on an airline that is based in the MidEast. (Except that the plane was clean and new, the food was excellent, the service was fabulous, the cabin crew, as jetlagged and jaded as they might have been, smiled at all comers, including the inevitable passenger with the oversized carry-on).

Anyhoo, so my friend, after regaling me with stories of working in the oil biz, decided to get hammered. And get hammered he did. The booze kept coming, and he kept chugging it down. I went from smiling indulgently to being embarrassed for him to finally just praying that he does not puke his guts out.

Thankfully, he didn't, although he expressed his utter contempt for Shahrukh Khan rather vociferously en route to the terminal. I led him off the bus and into arrivals, where we were promptly selected for the "random" entry point security check. Apparently my mojo also works on  transit security in the MidEast. No matter. I steered the drunk oilman into the security line where he promptly refused to part with his shoes an' all, and decided, at that point to launch into his pet tirade about personal freedom and airports. 

I saw a grim faced security wallah rather pointedly snapping on gloves and decided that my own personal freedom was in imminent danger of being unceremoniously curtailed. So I turned to the oilman and hissed "Dilli vapas jana hai? to fir juta utariye". That worked, and a few minutes later I found myself in the midst of a huge stream of brown coloured humanity, being swept into the cavernous arrivals lounge. The chattering flow eventually deposited me in front of the transfer desk, where I turned around to see the rest of my cohort from Frankfurt, all tired and disheveled, several of them with bawling kids in tow.

The Guahati girl and the average Indian bloke

Sometime in late summer 2012, a girl was molested in the heart of Guahati - which is the capital city of the north-east Indian state of Assam. A viddy did the rounds - apparently there was a photojournalist nearby and he captured the entire shameful incident for posterity. Following the ground rules of the society of bloodsucking leeches, he did not stand up for the woman or do anything at all which would require testicular fortitude.

A couple of weeks later, and other news items have displaced this in the public consciousness: the Olympics, the Great Indian Load Shedding (contrary to what you may think, this has nothing to do with our national habit of mass defecation: this merely refers to the rolling blackouts that have plagued North India in late July, ya' know - population, summer, India, power thievery, a superannuated powergrid, yadda, yadda.) But I digress.

So, the Guahati incident. What are the things which we know?

1. Girl molested, video out there.
2. Cops and politicos say that she had been drinking and that she was not properly attired. Observe that such comments are now considered normal when such incidents happen. Such incidents are also quite normal. The video makes this one special.
3. Some people (NGOs?) capture stills of the faces of the offending men from said viddy and put them up all over the city of Guahati.
4. Furore.
5. Some arrests.

There is of course, much regretful shaking of heads and well, that is pretty much it. So let me try to articulate my feelings about this. GENTLEMEN AND LADIES, YA'ALL NEED TO GROW SOME BALLS.

Allow me to explain. Women are not chattel. They are not unpersons. You know what, forget it. This stuff is so basic that everyone should know this. It shames me to think of the many Indian blokes I know who have this deep rooted and sometimes quite well hidden hatred for girls. Eff-ed up, right? I mean, horny bastards on one side, future wife-beaters on the other. And all these fabulous medieval prejudices nicely coiffed up with an MBA (or a PhD, lets not discriminate) from some fancy school.

Takes a lot more guts to look a girl straight in the eye and risk your ego getting shot down. Much better trying to cop a feel as she tries to squeeze past in a crowded bus, amiright? And when its a (slight sloshed) girl dressed with (gasp) some leg showing, then (whee!) its like Diwali, Christmas and a winning lottery ticket rolled into one for our courageous Desi Boyz! C'mon ya'all, titty grabs an' everything - and we don't even have to pretend with flowers and chocolates. For shame, you sods. For shame.

I can't talk much sense into most Indian blokes. They have their heads shoved so very far up their own arseholes that they are deafened by the sound of their stomach gurgles. That is, they are not listening. So let me put this to the (unfortunate) women who will end up marrying my peers. Firstly, commiseration. Secondly, if you are to beget boy children, will you please, please try to bring them up to be decent men? To not be insecure douchetards who get their jollies from hurting women? Please, won't you try?

Stuck in Franfurt and other travails

The plane landed at Frankfurt and then spent a good 45 minutes chillin' on the apron. Of course, the airline was too cool to provide us with any connecting gate information. So upon deplaning, I ran like the blazes (not always a good strategy for a brown skinned bloke in Western Europe), got to my departure gate to see the flight pulling away. They had overbooked the flight as a matter of course, so it wasn't as if they were ever tempted to stick around for another two minutes for just one coach passenger. Oh wait, but it wasn't just one bloke in coach - it was more like 50 odd people. This was the line I found when I made it to the transfer desk. Most of us were desis, most of us returning to the Desh and most of us on United (bless their little hearts). They started giving people options:

1. Take the next flight back to the States, and then...
2. Here, follow this agent to the hotel booking desk, you have been chosen to receive a three night stay in Frankfurt, biergartens and nightlife not complimentary.
3. Of course, we can send you through Heathrow (rumour has it that Arrivals at Heathrow had a ginormous sign that said "Payekhana" in the good ol' Bengali script), and since you are a US citizen/greencard holder that is totally cool and you don't need brown people documents like a transit visa.
4. You, good sir are staying in this airport tonight. Since your three year old son appears to be sick, we will be sending him and the mom onwards to Chennai. But via Bangkok.

They took one look at my passport and told me to wait. More doors do open when you are in possession of a greencard. I got elbowed by a scrawny bloke and I was about to do some serious elbowing back when I spotted the anxious wife in tow, complete with infant. Had to back down. Bloke was going to UlanBator. The counter lady was delighted. Finally, someone she could route onwards with a minimum of fuss! (I should mention that Air India was on strike, leading to, umm.. complicashuns.) Anywhoo, by the time I got to the counter (again), the lady had been yelled at, had snot nosed kids dribble snot all over her desk and their sweaty, angry parents yell at her (again). So she sent me on to Doha, Qatar, with an effin' 14 hour layover and then Kolkata. I hid my grin as I asked for a mealvoucher and pheuncards. 14 hours in Doha would be fine. I fucken' hate overnighting at Mumbai or Dilli airports. They ship you to the domestic terminal which quite literally goes dark, apart from the one shitty fast food stall where the price gouging is done with a certain vindictiveness that I cannot account for. As I said, Doha was fine. My meal voucher got me some nice pork chops and a truly wonderful doppelbock. 

In the meantime, I had made some travel buddies. Most prominently, this one desi gentleman who was in the oil business and spends three weeks in the Gulf of Mexico and three in Mumbai. Hell of a life. Anyway, toasted his good health with the doppelbock and hopped on the Qatar Air flight to Doha.

The trip out

Ya' know, I had planned to write this, and several other blogs while in India. Leetil did I know that vacations can be so strenuous. So here I find myself writing up the collected experiences of a midsummer trip to India, where amongst other things, I got hitched.

But before all that, way before all that - the trip outbound. 

Drrr Kovalskyy and his family had very kindly agreed to drive me to Houston - a rather longish trip. The conversation veered to the study of English and its comparison with various European languages. And somehow, I found myself frantically googling Past Perfect Participles and Gerunds. I have managed to spend half my life steering clear of the nuances of grammar (having studied at CBSE schools helped), and being asked such perplexing questions were causing me to have Vietnam-like flashbacks. Of primary school, that is. 

I must mention Dr. Dan Streetmentioner who had compiled the most comprehensive and authoritative handbuch of grammar - one equipped to deal with the very complex situations arising out of time travel. There was, I believe, something called the "Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Subjunctive Intentional". Grammar Nazis, or Gnazis (the 'G' is silent, just like the 'P' in Psmith) as I like to refer to them can rarely be reasoned with. Flamethrowers are recommended.

Anyway, we made Houston in excellent time and the plane toodled off. Shortly after take off, I found out, to my deep disgust, that United (and apparently most other US based carriers) have now begun charging for the booze on international flights. The shame of it all! Will airlines never learn? Here is a simple lesson. If you are an airline exec, please take it to heart:

1. Free booze makes people happy.

2. Free booze makes people sleep on flights.

3. A flight full of sleeping passengers, dreaming nice dreams is a good flight. People will not loiter around the walkways and the restroom.

4. So please serve free booze on international flights.

Ok, enough with the booze. When you fly long distance, I recommend the "Hindu meal". Hot veggie food, and it is always served before anyone else gets their meal. Alright, so after hopping over the pond, we finally made it to Frankfurt. Where the plane landed and then spent a cool 45 minutes chillin' on the tarmac. Of course they didn't bother giving us any gate info about connecting flights, 'cos that would have been too convenient. So I ran a brief obstacle race to my connecting Lufthansa flight to Mumbai which was pulling away from the gate even as I got there. 

Things were getting interesting.

Style/engineering

Citroën has always been a very different kind of automaker. Their styling has been like nothing else - its is a very love it or hate it thing. Even the best of those impeccably engineered autobahn cruisers has always looked businesslike. Serious. Prolly with no sense of humour. Have you ever tried telling an Audi a joke? No response, none at all. Even a lowly Civic-si whinnies in delight if you show it something slightly risque.

A Citroën though - something different. You have the sense, even when all you know of it is a medium res press photo, that this is something truly special. A Citroën is prolly female. The kind you wouldn't mind waiting hours for. The type who will let the wine breathe a bit. Who knows which live cheeses to look for - by smell. The one with the poster of Alain Delon on her wall. Which brings us to the new Citroën No.9. Shooting brakes are not a very practical design, but then if you wanted practicality, you would be looking at a Swedish wagon. While they didn't make the Metropolis - the No.9 is something to lust after. It reminds me of the art-deco lines of the Hispano Suiza Dubonnet Xenia. Will they ever bring this across the pond?

Every monkey with an SLR

The muddied streams of the interwebs brought this demotivational up to the surface. And I was inclined to agree - yes, today every monkey with a few hundred bucks thinks he is a photographer. And surely, it isn't limited to just SLRs - these days, apps like Instagram can make wonderfully filtered and bokehed snaps out out whatever duckface you and your drunk mates posed with after the seventh round of tequila shots. All of which is utterly despicable.

Oh, wait, it isn't and I am being a colossally silly prat. Similarly uncomplimentary thoughts were undoubtedly aired by serious photographers who looked askance at the AsahiPentax's silly mirror-flippitty thingy way back in the fifties. I mean, serious photogs use 120 film and wonderfully machined Rolleiflex TLRs, or at the least your less exalted Mamiyas - built to take punishment like the battleship Yamato.

But the mirror- flipping shenanigans continued, and gasp - outsold every other respectable camera type almost into oblivion. Yeah, yeah, there continued to be a small group of enthusiasts (read middle aged rich white dudes with OCD) who clung to their Elmarits and Summicrons - but every photo that made it to the cover of Time came from a 35 mm SLR. And then digital happened.

The same noses were raised high in the air and angry proclamations were made that it would never, ever be the same. True enough, for a while semiconductors lagged behind film emulsions and serious magazines like Arizona Highways would accept only film (and prolly 120 film at that). Yet, times have a-changed, Kodak has gone belly up and Arizona Highways now has a Flickr photostream. Hah.

The latest wave of development is being driven by instant capture, instant processing and instant sharing. In the time it would take me to unlimber the pack and swap lenses, someone with a fancy Nokia 800 series has taken the picture and applied a Holga-ish filter on it and sent it winging off to Facebook where his three hundred pals have liked it. Yes, of course, much of what is being shot - prolly most of it will be crap. But crap to you and me - not to the person who snapped it - and her mates pulling duckfaces in it. And by that account - the click-n-share crowd has already got what it came here for - their memories. But in the midst of this giant digital trash heap - there are undoubtedly gems. You merely have to sift through it - and there are plenty of people and their fancy apps doing just that. So stop whining about how a beautiful medium has been plebianized.

Also remember the unending horror that came from sitting through your aunt's friend's family album? Yes - now picture that, magnified a millionfold. With duckfaces. Yes, the future does look somewhat rosier now. Perhaps even instagrammed.

So I ruined my co-worker's childhood

That is NOT what it sounds like. This is what happened - her brand new laptop is adorned with a purple snapcase. This, obviously, reminded me of the Phantom - you know, The Ghost Who Walks. This naturally led to a brief discussion of classic cartoons and after I was done explaining my views on some Disney and other classic creations - she told me that I had ruined the better part of her childhood. You snicker in mild disbelief? Well, then we must talk about them cartoons, right? Here goes:

1. Beauty and the Beast - Stockholm Syndrome
2. The Little Mermaid - where do we start with this - bestiality, perhaps? Also, once said mermaid has forsaken her kind and gone to live with the lung-breathers, do you really think that the mer-people are going to be okay with one-way sexual trafficking? And when they find out that nubile land-dweller princesses are not okay with the whole living underwater deal - it seems logical that the next CNN report will be on the ongoing war between us and the mer-people. Sure, we will depth charge the ever loving shite out of SOME mer-cities. But remember, 70% of the Earth's surface is water - and every new Hummer sold is giving up a wee bit of the land that remains. And also, that oceans are effin' deep. With lots of room to hide. To hide and rearm. And possibly awake the sleepin' pet Kraken. That should be fun. All because some arse couldn't find someone in his postal code to date and had to get the hots for a bloody fishchick.
3. Snow White - let us leave aside the central issue that beauty is apparently the ONLY qualification for being a central character in this universe (and many other fairy tale universes - but more on that later) - but Snow White is effin' dumb. Dumb like the lovechild of a Kardashian and a concussed troll. She could have lived a moderately happy life as a Dwarf housekeeper - but noooooo.. given half a chance, she has to walk straight into traps like poisoned combs and supertight corsets. Saving her gets to be a full time job for the Dwarves (seriously, when do they go about their daily jobs like mining Mithril, or whatev?) But what the hell is wrong with the Prince. He sees a dead chick in a glass coffin and has to have it/her. I mean - did your Mommy never teach you that necrophilia is a bad thing?
4. Cinderella - I leave it to your imagination to figure out what a society is like where a woman's worth is her beauty - easily measurable in how tiny and dainty her feet are. If you are unburdened with an imagination this NPR article about Chinese foot-binding should do the trick. Njoi!
5. Sleeping Beauty - Not necrophilia, but more like that scene in Kill Bill where the Bride sleeps in a coma for years while her body is used as a sexual plaything by all comers (My name is Buck. I am from Huntsville, Texas and I like to f**k). Yes, so Princess in a 100 year coma and a Prince has to go get the hots for her. Dude, that is gross. She prolly went to kindergarten with your great grandma. Also, for her, the wurlde has moved on - for generations worth. Will she ever be able to use a smartpheun?
6. Rapunzel - prolly created by Aveda's PR team

This is enough for now. But I must share my views on the Lion King - perhaps later.

Hybrids and suchlike

Confession - I learned driving on a Prius and loved it.

Hybrids are cool. In the same way that Macs are cool. However, people who get all evangelical about hybrids (or anything else) are profoundly uncool. Just like Apple fanboys (and linux people - except that linux people actually have a valid point or two). And regretfully, some of their uncoolness also reflects on the product that they adore. And guess what - that sucks! Hybrids are here to stay, and possibly change the wurlde for the better. If only people who dominate Priuschat did not come across as so blinkin' smug all the time. But they do.

However, there are hybrids and there are hybrids. All of them are not exercises in comfortable beigeness - and they are making their way into motorsports. First off, there is the obvious Formula1 push-to-pass battery system. And this potent stuff is making its way into endurance racing - from none other than what-is-it-nine-time Le Mans champions, Audi. But the stuff that makes me sit back and whistle, is of course from the masters are Zuffenhausen - the new GT3R hybrid from the 911 stable. Because this hybrid system uses a flywheel to store the braking energy - not some battery. I vote mechanical engineering over electrochemistry.

Home Alone is a prequel to Die Hard

Ok, item 6 on this list by my esteemed friends at Cracked tells us that Home Alone (1990) was a remake of Die Hard (1988). More power to them for figuring this out. BUT THEY ARE WRONG!

See, they have this wrong way around. Home Alone is the origins movie for the Die Hard franchise. This is the film in which Kevin MacAllister (Culkin) is shown to a be a slightly maladjusted attention-whoring kid who just happens to be the last person standing before those two inept burglars. But this is also the film which shows him developing all the traits which we have come to associate with John McClane (Bruce Willis) - he is resourceful, has a never-say-die attitude and has an instinctive dislike for authority. Of course, during the process of growing up, he gets into more shenanigans, changes his name to McClane, switches his Scottish heritage for the more believable, and equally aggressive-as-fuck Irish, acquires a slight drinking problem, a wife and a reputation for being an effective cop; but a loose cannon. And then, Nakatomi Plaza happens - and before you can say "Now I have a machine gun, ho, ho, ho!", all of those skills developed years and years ago are put to the test, by none other than Professor Snape!

See, the theory fits perfectly!

Why I haven't logged into Reddit for over a year

This is not a rant. This is NOT a rant. Understand? Ok, lets continue.

I loved Reddit. Loved it with the impassioned zeal of a nerd who just stepped into a room full of nerds - who were different. Different in delightfully strange ways. I seem to remember some poll which came up with results that said that Reddit was mostly male, white, late 20s and large your sysadmin. I did see it turn into something more diverse, but still, delightfully quirky. But you know what the deal with quirky is? It eventually begins to pall. At some point, you ask the question - is being quirky merely a phenotype, or is it the be all and end all of this person (or club). Hence, Zooey Deschanel. Seems, somehow, that quirky is her main stock-in-trade. Hence, also, Reddit's abiding unidirectional love affair with said Zooey.

But this aside, Reddit appeared to be this fantastic place where people can be fanboys with no fear. Where "The Hero of Canton" is a real song and you cannot say River Tam without half the thread bursting into sobs. Where, also, inexplicable mediocrity like Arrested Development becomes gold. I do not effin' get this obsession with Michael Cera. Why?

And the smarts. I remember a random post about the Depression Era with Studs Terkel referenced in the very first comment. Yes, the Redditors were smart. They were funny too - what with the narwhal bacons at midnight and much, much, more. And then there was Bozarking... dear Gawd, there was Bozarking.

But the plain fact of the matter was that it was turning into a 4chan meme repeater more than anything else... and a gigantic time drain into the bargain. So one day, I pulled the plug on this delightful bad habit and never logged in again. I was mostly a quiet lurker with very leetil karma. So the withdrawal symptoms were minor. But I do still have my weak moments. Anyway, Redditors, hope ya'all are having a good time of it.

Danger words

I am compiling a list of words which sound the warning bells. Whenever you hear someone use such words, you can tell that they have been, or would very much like to go to business school. Further assessments about their character, legitimacy of birth and suchlike might follow, but that is mostly up to you. My job is to present you with the words. Here goes.

1. Leverage: should be used in a context which involves pulleys, chains, and machinery. Not in finance. Especially not in finance. If you use it in daily conversation, chances are you might have brought on the Great Recession.

2. Incentivize, also incent: an example: "we should cherish the for-profit college model because when executed well, it can incent a much greater focus on learning outcomes." Makes sense, in a certain perverse way. Only people espousing for profits are likely to use words like "incent".

3. Synergy: a douchebag word if ever there was one. Interestingly enough, finds its roots in Greek.

4. Team Player: a circle jerker. Also one with no responsibilities and a 401k.

Red Tails

A film by George Lucas about the Tuskegee Airmen - the first US Army Air Force unit made up entirely of African American. Does anyone remember the mid 90's made for Tv film - "the Tuskegee Airmen"? Yeah, didn't think so. I remember Laurence Fishburne putting up a bravura performance in it. Far superior to what I saw in Red Tails.
Also, while we are at it, why does Terrence Howard always look as if someone kicked him in the nadgers, took his lunch money and his 401k and buggered his aunt for an encore? I mean, has that man ever played a happy role?
So, back to Red Tails - fantastic action. Fabulous sequences of aerial combat, but completely let down by one dimensional characters and dialogue that sounded like it came straight from the Commando Comics. And the music - dear Gawd... remember Glory? Remember the rousing music. Well, now imagine the opposite. Amateurish, at best.
All in all, a rather mediocre effort. Probably put together with the best of intentions. But hardly worth your time.

Of bootloaders and boiling seas

Bootloaders. What, pray, is a bootloader? Oh you are not sure? Here, read this. Now, in the normal course of events, when your Windows system does something terrible, you usually pray that your backup DVDs are not lost, or your trusty passport drive is still alive and well and thank your lucky starts that its just the last week worth of porn (sorry, work) which is lost. You might buy (beg/borrow/steal) an install disc and voila! Back to lolcats! With a Mac, well if you have Applecare, good for you. Or else, it might just be a 1500$ hit. Now with most flavours of linux, there usually is a way.....

That way goes through the bootloader. This is something that makes strong men curl up and cry. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to rid my computer of the unused Ubuntu partition, and extend Win7 to the liberated space. I also have a Kubuntu partition (totally useful, with tonnes of data). Anyhoo, I did something horrid to the MBR and it refused to boot into anything. Back in the day, I would have enlisted the expert help of mah boys Padala and/or Nandi, or gone seeking the sage advice of Tony the Wise (our sysadmin, a person of Godlike powers). These days, well.. I was forced to walk the path alone. Until helped by Kamerad Kovalsky! Another one of them Wizards.

So... short story shorter - hard disc recovered, and I think I am slightly better equipped to do this myself the next time around. Woot!

Dream sequences

I dreamed last night that I drank a small quantity of some sweet wine, very viscous. I remember wondering if it was Imperial Tokay, and whether in my previous life, I had been a dawg. Rather appropriately, this dream seamlessly segued into my father instructing me in hushed tones that some high personage in the Imperium, possibly the Queen - had passed away. And that he was convinced that there was a mole hidden deep in the heart of the Geological Survey - and I had to bring him some files from Registry so that we could make sure. It was rather trippy. There might have also been something about a gangster driving a Mercedes W140. Although, it should have been a W201. I might need help. I am dreaming of Tokay and Cosworth engines.

Don 2. And hopefully the last.

Don2.

The Khan in what looks suspiciously like cornrows. Also him kicking the everloving shite out of many, many baddies. Who else bought that? Ya' know what, I am going to be all systematic an' jazz and write out a list of all that was not well. Here goez:

1. Cornrows. Cornrows and shades and rivergoing powerboat (have you no consideration for the fishes, what with your 400 hp motor an'all?)
2. Fighting. Like serious fistfighting. But what would look convincing if done by Brad Pitt and even more so if done by Hrittik, looks uber fake when done by the Khan. Granted, Farhan, the wunderkid diro does much to make it look even summat realistic. But it fails. The Khan should spend less on botox and ask Hrittik to lend him some sixpacks.
3. Car chase through the strasses of Berlin. A Toyota SUV chasing a late model Hyundai. In Berlin. In effin' Germany. In the land of bimmers and mercs and audis. Is that sacrilege? Yes it is.
4. The plot. With gaping holes like a fishing net. Still, this was better than Ra-One.
5. Irani fighting. Uncool.
   

There were many things which were right with this fillum.

1. Priyanka Chopra. That official uniform with the shoulder holster. Hawtness. Try asking Amisha Patel to pull that off.
2. The car chase. Again. Wasn't too bad as car chases go. Even ended up with a medium sized pileup in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Seeing as how Indian movies are all about the armchair tourism bizness, this one did quite well.
3. Irani acting. Very cool.
4. I am conflicted about this one. Whenever a SWAT or GSG9 type of team heads out, the blokes are all in bulletproof Kevlar flask jackets and shite. The dames are in tank tops. So, here Ms. Chopra, in her substantial hawtness, has about half the body armour she should be wearing. On the other hand, tank top. See, tough call.

The verdict - if you like the Khan, go see it. Otherwise, don't bother. Also, when will they make films which are do not revolve around a superstar? And in that same breath, thank goodness, this did not have Salman.

Ship names

Aah, whimsy strikes again. Inevitably, whilst in the can. And this time, brings a quartet of names. Names suitable for Shipminds (Culture). Or bands. Or cars. Here goes:
1. Mrs. Darcy
2. The Princess of Blandings
3. The Bespoke Semicolon
4. Occam's Salon

Economics and ecologies

This is something that other people, far cleverer than your truly have thought of - however, it is always worthwhile to put some random thoughts down. Consider an economy as an ecology. Most economies will begin as primitive ecosystems - where meagre resources (basic chemicals) will be traded amongst almost lifeless entities. And economies, just like ecosystems, given the right mixture of resources (nutrients) and conditions (an energy surplus, moderate stability in the environment) will evolve. As they do, more complex traits will emerge. At some point, the barter system of trade will become something more sophisticated. A common currency of trade might emerge. In the living world, this is, mostly chlorophyll derived carbohydrates. There will, of course be primary producers, like farmers - or in the biological case, plants. Almost everyone else will use the primary product (crops/carbohydrates) and act as middlemen. At the same time, there will be continue to be niche markets and niche ecologists, such as the lovely anaerobic bacteria which help in fermenting any number of things we love to eat and drink. Think also of the tenacious little buggers (like my old friend Thermus thermophilus) surviving absolutely extreme conditions in volcanic springs like any Glen Beck viewing survivalist who wants nothing to do with trade treaties.

And as every economy grows, it creates a surplus. With a sufficient surplus, there comes the opportunity to do more than merely eke out a living. There will be people who do other things - which, in turn can accelerate the rate of development. The first person to make a wheel was perhaps greeted with the same derision that the first sea-dweller who liked hanging out on beaches was subjected to. There might even be a critical mass, a tipping point for every economy and every ecology after which the rate of growth increases and increases.

And inevitably, in both systems, there will be predators. And there will be predators of predators, superspecialized creatures which usually represent the current peak of development in that system. But such apex predators can only survive when their footprint, their constituency, or simply put, their garden isn't wiped clean. If these predators kill everything that sustains them, then the whole system collapses. Probably examples are many current deserts. (side note- does the goat count as an apex predator, when protected by the benign hands of humans?)

I leave it to your active imagination to think of hedge fund managers as apex predators in today's economy and why their untrammeled greed can lead to the undoing of a functional economy which has taken a long time to build up.

But, before leaving, two links which are the reason I started thinking about such things: the first concerns the use of cellphones as a barter system in Africa - which is a new economic development - and should merit close study. The second is a podcast by Kaspersky's people on frauds in the cellphone economic system. The predators have arrived.

Guest post - on building a tech base

Guest post from the Statesman.
All content belongs to the Statesman, Kolkata - but this is worth reproducing here.

From body shop to hi tech

8 November 2011

The tendency of India’s government and its industrial sector to play safe when it comes to technological invention will prove disastrous in the long run if more emphasis is not put on research and development, writes arunabha bagchi

A new controversy regarding IIT graduates made headlines recently in India. It was sparked off by comments made by Mr Narayan Murthy at the IIT 2011 Global Conference in New York while ruing the poor quality of recent IITs graduates. His contention was that the quality of students gaining admission to the IITs had deteriorated over the years owing to overemphasis on coaching classes. Chetan Bhagat, a well-known writer and an IIT graduate, hit back, wondering how could someone, who ran a “body shop and calls it hi-tech”, make such sweeping comments.
While Bhagat’s observations about Infosys were just as candid as Mr Murthy’s take on the quality of recent IIT graduates, the point worth exploring is whether the perception that IT bellweathers such as Infosys are no more than mere body-shops and not really pioneering centres of technological excellence holds good or not. Newspaper articles and books churned out by American and Indian presses would give a layman the impression that Indians are giving a tough competition to Americans in the technology race with only the Chinese still in the reckoning. Japan and Europe already seem to have disappeared from the picture. A glance at an article titled Special Report: Technology in India and China that appeared in the 8 November, 2007 issue of The Economist, made it clear that outside of the pharmaceutical and software sectors, India finds hardly any mention. Our technology handicap in other sectors of the world economy cannot be more glaring. What is also surprising is that while the article lauded the remarkable success of the Indian pharmaceutical industry and had special words of praise for Biocon, to name a few, it pointed out: “Few Indian firms are creating drugs, rather than recreating them.” Furthermore, according to The Economist, exports of indigenous software comprised a tiny fraction of the Indian IT industry’s total service exports. Most telling was the comment of the then head of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), Mr Kiran Karnik: “…companies are either born as product companies or as service companies, not both. Scribes want to become better scribes. To be a poet, you probably need to be born as one”. This is likely what Bhagat had in mind when he had reacted to Mr Muthy’s comments. Why should we then bother about the deteriorating quality of IIT engineers? The truly bright among the IIT graduates should be busy inventing products for companies in the West. Perhaps the not-so-brilliant ones would serve India’s interests better!
How does one then reconcile this scenario with the barrage of good Press that the “India story” seems to be enjoying? Well, it would seem that this had been made possible by a twist in the tale provided by desi and phoren business gurus. They put the thrust on “innovation”, as opposed to “invention” to forecast India’s continuing high growth in the foreseeable future. Roughly speaking, innovation has three levels: “know how”, “know why” and “invention”. “Know how” means learning and tweaking the production process, better quality control, making slight adjustments to the technology already in use and adopting other minor measures to improve business performance. “Know why” involves delving into the technology in use and improving the design by trial and error. This is commonly known as “reverse engineering”. The third level, of course, is genuine technological invention. In fact, a subtitle in the 8 November, 2007 issue of The Economist suggests: “A new way of mixing existing technologies is also innovation.” The argument often advanced is that India has unlimited potential in this broad area of technological innovation.
In fact, the World Bank and other organisations advise India against making large investments in technological inventions. A report put out by one such organisation argues that traditional companies in India are so inefficient that just improving the functioning of a vast majority of them in order to bring them to the level of the few well-run ones would increase India’s production by five-fold. So, the World Bank and other moneybags of the world recommend that India remain in the “know how” stage and protect the impressive growth rate witnessed during the last decade without disturbing the status quo. But, given India’s lack of “inclusive innovation”, this growth model is bound to hit a wall in the medium term. International experts do not advise India to even dabble in the “know why” stage of innovation. The argument is that the “know why” stage does not give much of an immediate return though it is, of course, an essential step to reach the invention stage that guarantees an enormous return ~ something enjoyed by the developed economies. India is warned again and again that any policy favouring investment in invention would be very expensive, highly uncertain and unnecessarily stressful.
So, how does India fare by international standards in the matter of technological innovation? The World Competition Index: 2011-2012 prepared by the World Economic Forum puts India in the 38th place in the field of “Innovation” ~ way above Pakistan but nothing to write home about. A closer scrutiny makes it clear that India would have done far worse but for the economic meltdown of the former USSR and some Soviet bloc countries during the 1990s. But India is advised to remain optimistic. For any country, optimism of such a nature is derived from its level of “technological readiness” or, the current state of human resources in a country deemed necessary for successful absorption of new technologies. Another glance at the World Competition Index: 2011-2012 made it clear that India has very little to be optimistic about for the simple reason that it ranks 93rd under the head “Technological Readiness”. In fact, in terms of both innovation and technological readiness, India is doing no better than Indonesia ~ a country that is rarely mentioned by business gurus.
India’s poor performance in technological readiness is a very serious matter and needs a separate discussion. It will be appropriate at this stage to recount India’s efforts to develop innovative technology since Independence. Even before Independence, top Indian scientists had been making plans. The final strategy adopted was two-fold: to develop strategic technologies and to help foster indigenous technologies for both capital and consumer goods through import substitution. The first strategy led to the birth of Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (Barc) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). The success of both Barc and Isro is now well known. The only pity is that the technology developed in these centres did not appear to have much of a spin-off effect on the industry as it happens in developed countries. To implement the second strategy, diverse government-run research centres were set-up under the aegis of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Research undertaken in these centres had only a marginal impact on the private sector. Big companies catering to sheltered markets were not particularly interested. And, import substitution efforts resulted in horrible inefficiency, obsolete technology, shoddy products and the license raj.
There was also a parallel effort by the government to create a technologically-trained workforce by setting up a number of IITs, complemented by National Institutes of Technology and other engineering colleges. India’s best and the brightest were attracted to IITs because of their world-class facilities. Some of the IIT graduates went on to become highly-successful engineers and scientists abroad, mostly in the USA. The opportunities for successful invention offered by the Indian industry were, however, limited. So, in effect, India eventually gave some very expensive gifts to the West. No wonder, IITs received universal acclaim and the attention of multinational corporations.
With economic liberalisation, efforts were undertaken by the government to provide fiscal incentives for research and development (R&D) in the private sector at the expense of R&D in government-run research institutions. As such, one would expect the private sector to invest more in R&D in the new economic climate. Expenditure on R&D as a share of the gross national product (GNP) is an important indicator of a country’s level of innovation. In the case of India, this share steadily increased from 0.17 per cent in 1958-59 to 0.98 per cent in 1987-88 and thereafter started declining before settling around 0.8 per cent. This confirms the general perception that India’s technology remains primarily in the “know how” stage, despite the fact that huge profits made after economic liberalisation by Indian companies have given them the wherewithal to move into the “know why” stage. We know that Japan, and later South Korea and Taiwan, deployed the “know why” strategy extremely successfully in the years following World War II. It would seem that the only exception to the rule has been delivered by India’s pharmaceutical industry that has clearly crossed over to the “know why” stage.
While writing this article, I tuned in to the BBC World Service just when the presenter was announcing that Europe’s first satellite-navigation (sat-nav) spacecraft, developed as part of its Galileo mission, had been launched into orbit. This sat-nav system is Europe’s answer to the GPS system ~ developed originally for defense, and now used widely for civilian purposes all over the world ~ put into orbit earlier by the USA. I recalled that at the planning stage of the Galileo mission, the USA had put every conceivable pressure directly and indirectly through Great Britain, to dissuade the European Union from going ahead with the mission. The argument advanced was that the GPS system was available to everyone for free and to try to develop an alternative system would be very expensive, highly uncertain and unnecessarily stressful. Sounds familiar? The stance of European Commission’s Vice-President Mr Antonio Tajani, as reported on the BBC website could not have been clearer. “Galileo is at the heart of our new industrial policy,” Mr Tajani said once the separation (of satellites from rockets) confirmation had come through. “We must commit very strongly to Galileo. We need this; this not entertainment. This is necessary for the competitiveness of European Union.”
When will policymakers and business leaders show the same determination in India? To not move our focus beyond the “know how” stage in order to play safe with economic growth will prove disastrous in the long run. Our nuclear and space research must find a resonance in the industrial sector. Even more important is to develop an indigenous defense industry with a strong research base. The civilian spin-off of defense technology would give a big boost to new inventions and the private sector can play a major part in this endeavour. Indian business houses must spend far more on R&D than they do at the moment. The ultimate key is in forming a research triangle involving universities, government-run research institutions and the private industry so that India’s “Innovation” ranking climbs steadily. Only then will India be able to shed its “body shop” sensibilities and put its economy on the “hi-tech” track.

The writer is ex-dean and professor of applied mathematics at University of Twente, The Netherlands

Ra-One

We Desis don't do subtlety. It does not come naturally to us. Melodrama has always been, and will continue to be a big seller when it comes to entertaining us. Hence 'jatra'. Hence, also our enormous love for bling, be it in our clothes or our houses. Hence, also the Punjabi word 'shosha' - the meaning of which I leave you to find. Not that I am against any of the above. Oh wait, I am. That is why I feel compelled to to take some time away from sleep to write this review of Ra-One straight after returning from the late night show.

The one sentence summary - this movie sucks giant, hairy balls. Avoid. At all costs.

However, since I have subjected myself to this ordeal, I will tell you about what you should miss. This movie is about a viddy game archvillain jumping the barrier from the digital world to the real one, and the superhero doing the same to save the day. The superhero is, of course woodenly acted out by our beloved Sharook Khan. SRK delivers his best post ki-ki-ki-ki-Kiran acting here - straight from the HART - by which I mean the viddy game's Hertz Analog something Transmitter. Yes, the movie is full of such technobabble. Of course the nice thing is that it references EVERYTHING. Yeah, really everything. If, for some reason you have been completely oblivious to the movie and pop culture milieu of the last twenty or so years, fear not. Messrs. SRK and company have taken it all, shoved it into a giant blender and served you a cocktail which has the same aftereffect as a New York mugging.

The whole thing about the HART being part of the villain (Ra-One) and the hero (G-One) and has to be integral to the bloke in orde for him to be vanquished smacks of different flavours of the "shaitan ki jaan us pinjre mein band tote mein hai". Apparently the budget was 150 crore Rs. That is what - 30 million $? A lot of money. And you can tell where it has gone. A liberal application of bullet-time Matrix style shows up. As do shades of Terminator, and of course Iron Man. But the actual philosophical underpinnings - well they might have well been derived from the David Cronenberg sleeper eXistenZ, and also from the rather awful Virtuosity - where a cyber villain Russel Crowe battles Denzel Mr. Eternally Righteous Washington. All of that has been updated here, and very slickly done, all the way down to a Tron style lightcycle.

The masses have not been forgotten. The great Rajni makes a surprise appearance, and what I really liked - Munnabhai comes in - but not to peddle 'Gandhigiri'. Kareena is her usual ravishing self - and there is a song and dance routine which is almost worth sitting through. Seriously, there are very few wimmen who can look like that one in a sari. My 'watch this!' scene was when Kareena was powersliding a bloody huge Volkswagen Panzer, um.. sorry, Touareg for what seemed like 6 or 7 turns. Speaking of which, this was the first movie in which I have seen a veedub Phaeton. Methinks that most underrated of overachieving German exec saloons will now be sold in the Des.

But then again - what is completely lacking in this movie is a marginally competent storyline and good dialogue. The emoshuns are ladelled on nice and thick. And the music changes gear like a suburban mom suddenly placed in a racecar. This is supposed to cue you into the current emoshun. Bang, bang, dishum, dishum! And then, suddenly a wailing mandolin informs you that it might be time to turn on the the tears. The screen-changes and lines have all the finesse of a sledgehammer. Typical Bollywood blockbuster.

Bottom line, avoid this. Bollywood has a long way to go and shelling out money for tripe like this will only encourage them to produce more movies where everyone gets a paycheque except for the scriptwriter.

PS - the best acting, by far in this movie, and I mean by miles is by the obviously gay transit security bloke at Heathrow who almost wants to see all of Sharook's piercings. Bemused? Don't be - I am sure someone has put this scene on the web. Me-also-thinks that this is a not-so tongue in cheek reference to when the SRK was strip searched at Newark Liberty Airport. Go Jersey!

PPS - ladies, Arjum Rampal takes his shirt off. You might like that.

Battleship New Jersey

This day is propitious. Or it was, almost six hundred years ago, for the British. For on the 25th of October, 1415, in a recently ploughed, rain muddied field in an entirely undistinguished place in France called Agincourt, the English won a battle. The English monarch, Henry V's inspired leadership and exhortations aside, this battle was won by the English commoner, in the form of the most effective European artillery of the time - the longbowman. And in turn, this battle was lost by the nobility of France, their knights in armour - the very flower of French society and the natural leaders of their state. The event lives in memory through the words of the bard himself. This is where the 'Band of Brothers' speech on St. Crispin's Day comes from. But that is not why we are here. The reason for this extremely complicated start to this discussion is because this battle heralded the end of the age of chivalry and the beginning of a process which I can only describe as the democratization of war itself. Armor would not show itself to be superior on almost any European battleground for more than 500 years, when these two former enemies would join hands at a place called the Somme. But for the moment, Agincourt had shown that heavily armoured knights were easy targets against the massed firepower of poorly paid common archers.

The naval parallel is almost too easy to make. Battleships are as the armoured nobility of the high seas. When these capital ships engage, the engage as did the knights of yore. They move in close and slug it out like heavyweight boxers magnified a billionfold and encased in unbelievably thick armour. Smaller ships, like minnows, get out of the way of these orcas. The art and science of battleship warfare came to its stunning climax off the coast of Jutland in midsummer 1916 where the two greatest fleets in modern history, the British Grand Fleet and the Imperial German High Seas Fleet met, and sought to annihilate each other.

With this engagement, the day of the battleship was over. Unfortunately, no one had mentioned this to many of the naval strategists of the world powers. What few doubts remained about the obsolescence of battleships were put to rest on a Sunday in December 1941 by the Japanese. The future belonged to carriers and now, as we know it to submarines. But battleships continued to be built, if only for the remaining years of WWII. And they continued to be marginally useful as giant gun platforms, but as smaller vessels increased their firepower, even this role was usurped from them. Still, the very word "battleship" evokes a very special feeling - that of awe. With that immense scale, that terrifying firepower, battleships were the last titans of the ocean - when they fought, the heavens stood still and watched.

In the days following the debacle at Pearl, the US Navy scrambled to replace the losses it had suffered. The Iowa class of capital ships formed part of that plan. The USS New Jersey was commissioned in 1943 and saw service throughout WWII in the Pacific. Later it was decommissioned, then recommissioned in time for Vietnam, the mothballed again, then brought back - well you get the picture. Suffce to say that this was one of the longest serving battleships ever and was probably the last such vessel to sail the seas. Today it lies moored quietly off a pier on the Camden waterfront, just across the river from Philly. This was where I spent my Sunday midday with my friend Rudra - and I have a few pictures to show for it. Here goes.

Images, images

The beginning of every interesting piece of art is a canvas. This is especially true in the world of storyboarded cityscapes rendered in hypercontrast as Robert Rodriguez does. There are other ways of going about creating art and putting it down on film though.

Some auteurs have managed to think of every frame as a canvas in itself - and have spent loving hours (sometimes years) in turning such frames into masterworks. Examples? Certainly. Ray's Pather Panchali, Sergio Leone's Once upon a time in the west - remember Harmonica's thousand year old face, enduring and indestructible like the mountains which framed him? And yes, remember also how a camelback rider suddenly appears in the view on the far left of a huge, huge, vista - they called that 'the anvil of the sun', in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia.

The very best of these works have told beautiful stories, and have used fantastic imagery to imprint those stories into our consciousness. But sometimes, the story takes second place to the canvas. A fabulous example of this is Refn's Valhalla Rising. This is a ponderous work, which creaks under its own burden of self importance.

Every frame is created with the utmost care. Vivid nightmares of colour appear, to be washed away by the everpresent mist. There is a long and arduous Rime of the Ancient Mariner chapter, save that there is no albatross, and no redemption. The violence is sporadic, but always threats to break loose. And the soundtrack. Dear Gawd, the soundtrack. The use of harsh guitar tones from an obsessive compulsive strummer you cannot see - mixed in with the sound of a heart beating. This, frankly is baiting. Very skilfully done, effective, even - but not subtle.

There might be a story here. Who knows? Depends on how psychotropic your last indulgence has been. But this will leave you shaken.

A bunch of crazy sites

About tipping http://15percent.tumblr.com/

ABout the best dads in cinema http://www.brobible.com/bronews/advice-cinemas-greatest-bro-dads-supercut

Guest article: Ghosts of Bretton Woods

From today's Statesman, Calcutta edition - no copyright violation intended, its just that you guys do not maintain archives - and this article deserves to be read and re-read.

Ghosts of Bretton Woods
In A Global Collective Action Trap
andrew sheng
LAST week I attended the second annual meeting of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) in Washington Hotel, nestled in a beautiful snow-capped valley, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. In 1944, the historic meeting on the international monetary system was held there. The British delegation was led by Lord Keynes, the foremost economic thinker of his day. The US delegation was effectively led by US Treasury adviser, Harry Dexter White. Even though all the Allies attended the meeting, including China and India, it was essentially a debate between the declining superpower, Britain, and the rising superpower, the United States.
Keynes understood full well the problem that Britain faced as the issuer of sterling. Since Britain was running large current account deficits because of the two world wars, she was having a tough time maintaining sterling as the main reserve currency. By the end of the Second World War, the US emerged as the dominant global power, since she ran large current account surpluses by supplying food and raw materials to Europe in exchange for gold. To avoid the Triffin dilemma, Keynes argued for the creation of a new international currency, called Bancor that would not be related to the issue of a national reserve currency.
The Triffin dilemma is the problem that the issuer of the global reserve country had to continually run large current account deficits to meet the liquidity needs of the world. In the short-run, the reserve currency role benefits from an “exorbitant privilege”, since the issuer country could pay for its imports by printing more currency, whereas non-reserve currency countries could only import by paying in foreign currency.
However, Harry Dexter White rejected the idea of the Bancor because he did not like the idea of the issuance of global currency by a global central bank. Instead, the idea of the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) was adopted, where the SDR was a reserve unit of account, which could only be created through the exchange of national currencies with the issuer, the International Monetary Fund. As the dominant IMF shareholder, the US could reject the issuance of SDRs, thus ensuring the US dollar remains the dominant reserve currency.
There is common confusion that the SDR can eventually become a reserve currency to replace the US dollar. It is a unit of account between the IMF and the member-countries, but it cannot be used for international payments. Currently, it is issued to member-countries to increase their foreign exchange reserves. However, when the member-country needs foreign exchange, it must exchange its holdings of SDR with the IMF in four component reserve currencies, namely, the US dollar, the euro, sterling and yen.
Thus, the components of the SDR can change, but the reserve currency role remains national, not global.
Keynes was right. Sixty-seven years later, the US had become the leading global borrower, whereas the net lenders are Japan, China, Germany and the oil producers, creating what is now called the Global Imbalance.
Last year, the Italian central banker, Tomaso Padio-Schioppa gave a speech about the international monetary system, called the ‘The Ghost of Bancor’, because the idea of Bancor was killed in Bretton Woods 67 years ago. Mr Padio-Schioppa, who had a major role in the creation of the euro and became a member of the Board of the European Central Bank, unfortunately died early this year. Interestingly, he equated Bancor with Banquo, the Scottish king who was murdered by Macbeth, in the famous Shakespeare play Macbeth. As is well known, Macbeth met three witches in the forest. They predicted that he would murder his king, Banquo, and become king, but he would be succeeded by Banquo’s successors.
Keynes conceived the idea of Bancor as the steward of the king (gold). But the replacement SDR has yet to emerge as an effective replacement for neither gold nor the US dollar. At the heart of any global currency (issued by one country, a number of countries or the IMF) remains the Triffin dilemma: what is the hard budget constraint to prevent the global currency issuers from printing too much money and, therefore, creating global inflation?
The ghost of Bancor basically says that no national central bank or a global central bank, can resist the temptation of printing too much money.
Currently, the deficit countries blame the surplus countries for saving too much and the surplus countries blame the deficit countries for printing too much money. The reality is that it is the current international monetary system that is flawed. We cannot return to the gold standard, but a fully flexible system of fiat money is also not desirable.
We are in a global collective action trap, where everyone must share a burden of being part of the global game. The difficulty lies in how to allocate that burden in a fair manner.
My humble opinion is that the crisis of fiat money is due to excess consumption financed by excess leverage. That excess consumption is also the fundamental cause of global warming, as natural resources are depleted, while fiat money keeps on increasing. No one likes to use gold because there would be price deflation which would automatically cut down excess consumption. That is too painful, so everyone still keeps on printing money by passing the pain to savers and future generations.
If there is more and more quantitative easing (money printing) and less and less natural resources in a shrinking world, should we be surprised that gold and oil prices keep going up?
Who speaks the truth, the ghost of Bancor or his successors, the current reserve currency issuers? Perhaps it is the witches in the misty forest, the shadow banking system. That story will be revealed in the next article.

Perl grep = fat?

I present for your perusal this webpage which sez summat about ze Perl grep function. Also, it comes with an advert for reducing ze tummy. Why? Implicit assumption that anyone interested in perl will be pasty faced, eating Doritos and fat?

So, about Last.fm and other online players

My laptop has gone kablooey. After 5 years of more or less loyal service (yes, Deep Thought, we shall not speak of that one time. Or that other time. Or the third time, when I had to enlist the assistance of our Godlike SysAd at Ann Arbor). [They hire good people at the U of M. And I have always held that while 'one should never meddle in the affairs of sysads, for they are subtle and quick to anger' - the man we went to was like the White Wizard reborn].

Anyhoo, the dear old Macbook having gone the Vashangshi jeernani way, I have decided to invest in a desktop. Prolly (and yes, do gasp) from Walmart. Apparently they sell nice computer deals - Athlon X2. 5 Gigs DD3. ATI Radeon and also 1TB. Sounds good, no?

But my music collection, as eclectic and awesome as it was has also gone to the great beyond of randomized ones and zeros. Hence, last.fm also this cool project called Bollywood Production (go ahead, Google it.You know you want to). But as clever as Last's algos are - in that it can send from one member of the 27 club to another in 3 steps or less - it more or less screws up with Desi music. Why else would Kishore Kumar radio start playing Bhangra. Yech!

The Cosworth

So, here I was about to start muh car and pull of the lot when I espied a Merc opposite me. It was an old, low slung, rather nondescript looking car, with those straight lines and right angles that so fascinated the misguided designers of the seventies and mid eighties (and I am not just talking about the people who, say designed the Eldorado - this was an affliction that crossed continents as a whole generation of designers forgot how to draw curves. Apparently, Volvo was the last to recover.) Anyway, something, a sixth sense perhaps, told me to take a closer look. I legged it over and spotted a muscular spoiler, almost Evo-esque in its aggressiveness. And then I saw the legend.

190E 2.5-16

And my mouth went slightly dry.

Which was about when this bloke strolled up with a questioning slant to his eyebrow. I asked him if it was his ride. He responded in the affirmative. I then asked, somewhat hesitantly, if it was the Cosworth. His jaw hit the blacktop with a dull thunk.

Now you, worthy reader are prolly familiar with the TopGear episode when the Hamster talks about future classics and rambles on about the Cosworth. No? Ok, here, take a look.

Back to the story. So this bloke is rather tickled that I recognize his Merc for the beaut that it was. He was kind enough to give me a dekko under the bonnet. Aah, the loveliness of it. Just a 2.5 litre straight-4, but what an engine! Remember this was made by Cosworth which made a name for itself making those awesome Formula 1 engines which dominated the entire field. The reason why Merc wanted this car was because they wanted to ace the World Rally Championship. But then, around that time, another game changer came out. This happened to be the Audi Quattro. In its turbocharged shadow, the E190 had to be relegated to track and touring racing, where, of course it took the DTM. This was also the car that brought AMG into the Mercedes fold.

So, long story short, bonded with said bloke over his 190E. And then he tells me that his other car is a Delorean. A bloody Delorean!! I wanted to know if he had ever pushed it to 88 mph. He hasn't. Yet. Well, time to go build him a flux capacitor.

Citius, Altius, Fortius

I have long salivated over stuff that moves fast, turns corners violently and generally looks badarse. For the longest time, this led to a deep fascination with things that fly. Thus, the Supermarine Spitfire. The plane that is frequently, and erroneously, referred to as the plane that won the Battle of Britain. It was not. The plane that did win it, was the much underrated, Hawker Hurricane, and the equally (then) underrated (and in hindsight, unmatched) brilliance of Air Chief Marshal Dowding. But, here, for what it is worth, is the Spitfire. Is it a coincidence that the most beautiful things that fly, created either by the hands of Gawd, or men, are also the most deadly?

Tax cuts and how the media talks about them

I am not an economist. Neither am I a journalist. However, I understand that the perceptions of people are moulded by media. This much, I imagine you will agree with. So when you read an article like this one, you wonder why the coverage appears to be so biased.

Consider this section: "While about three-fourths of Democrats favor raising taxes on the rich, about half of independents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans oppose the idea. Support for cutting everyone's taxes exceeds four in 10 people in every region of the U.S. except the Midwest, where one-third back the proposal. Even among people earning under $50,000 a year — mainstays of the Democratic Party — 43 percent want to continue the tax cuts for all."

Would that not have been better written as
"While about three-fourths of Democrats favor raising taxes on the rich, about half of independents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans oppose the idea. 6 in 10 people in every region of the U.S. favour ending the Bush tax breaks. In the Midwest; 7 in 10 people favour ending them. Among people earning under $50,000 a year — mainstays of the Democratic Party — a majority of 57 percent want to end the Bush tax breaks."

Just a thought.

Visa blues

OPT - visa

quite a quagmire of paperwork and timings. Officialdom (sigh)

The best of Science Fiction

The best of Science Fiction. This is a tall order. Who defines the best? In a field as subjective as literature, who draws arbit margins and delineates the awesome from stuff like Twilight? The answer is, I do. As do you, my dear reader. Anyone has the right of judgment. Of course, I will then judge what you have judged, and probably laugh at your choices, especially in hard SF.

But enough proselytizing.
The Hugo and Nebula awards are considered the two most prestigious awards in SF writing. They are the Nobel prizes of true geekdom. There is a small and very exclusive list of books which have been graced with both awards. Check it out. I am making my way through this list. And being rather impressed with what I am reading here.