Archive for January, 2010
First look at Kshitij
Jan 28th
We came to IIT KGP on 26th Jan. Well, everything looked deserted. Clearly the preparations for IIT KGP have been inadequate. The tent wasn’t ready on 27th. Unless they pull off a one nighter, its unlikely to look too good today. Apart from that, we haven’t seen anything worth recording. Will keep uploading pics as I get them. We haven’t worked much in the last 2 days. Just played NFS and San Andreas. Let’s hope we can finish this bot today itself. First look photos will be uploaded soon
3-idiots: miss takes
Jan 15th
So you’ve seen the movie, read my previous post about 3 idiots. Its a fun movie, alas with many not-so-well-thought-of miss-takes and am not talking about slip-ups. These are mistakes in the very story of the movie.
1. Raging a senior: So Aamir knows conductivity. First of all that prank isn’t all that original. Its been used in many colleges especially IITs, Jadavpur etc for years. They make you piss over the heater. Try doing that. Don’t worry you won’t get electrocuted, cuz you’ll automatically stop peeing as soon as you get the first jolt.
That apart, he shocks a senior. That’s a death sentence in most colleges. You do not get away with that, esp in a college where they can make you strip openly. They get back at you, gag you up and beat the shit out of you. they might as well give you the same treatment as you gave them (read electric shock). The only way you can escape that is by tying up with the particular seniors rival, if there is any. Again chances of that happening are low as it is. You cannot rag a senior esp not on your first day in the college.
2. The Quad-Copter
The cute little versatile helicopter you see in the movie “designed” by Joy. The design is called a quadrotor. It was invented way before the movie’s apparent timeline, around 1923. Check out Quad Rotor on Wikipedia
Now I don’t understand how it was an original idea. Its been there for years, even in the robotics field for years. I also don’t understand what Aamir did, because apparently he did nothing. I hope he changed the direction of rotation of 2 of the rotors to opposite that of the other two. But again that’s not so apparent.
3. Cellphones, guys, cellphones.
When they go to get the papers from the office, Aamir calls using the principal’s office phone. What the hell happened to cellphones. I mean he’s careful enough not to grab a paper later and run. He neatly opens the seal, xeroxes the paper, replaces it and seals the package, but no cellphones. Hell no cellphones. Why use a cellphone to call his girlfriend when there’s a perfectly suspicious and tracable landline phone right ther. give me a break
4. No Generators, are yo kidding me?
So ICE is the top college in India, dragged from #28 to #1 by His strict highness, Mr. Veeru Sahasrabuddhi, but I’ll be damned, the hostel doesn’t have a generator. They have to use an inverter made just to get the lights on. I mean, you got to be kidding me. No generator in the top college of India. Even our college has a generator.
Also add to that the fact, that when the city is knee deep in water, eletricity out, ambulance services out, the internet connection works just fine.
5. And ofcourse, forget Defibrillators and respirators, just say “Allizwell”
So you can revive a dead child just by saying Allizwell. You got to be kidding me. ROFl. Go to a graveyard and say Allziwell 3 timesand you’ll have a nice army of zombies at your disposal.
Am I the only one, who thinks this is crzy?
3 idiots: Chetan’s the idiot
Jan 3rd
Before I start, let me declare for the record that I am fan of Chetan Bhagat. I liked his first two books, though though the third one was a piece of …well you get the picture, but apart from that I ike him. So my views here are independant of my liking for either Chetan or Aamir Khan, they are purely objective.
Those who don’t know why I wrote that Disclaimer, please read this wikipedia article on the 3 idiots controversy. Now I am not saying the movie wasn’t inspired by the book. It was, more than 2-5% but not enough to say that the book was a screenplay. Let’s get to that first.
Points of Differences
1. The theme: 5.someone is based on the lives of IITians, the most elite institution, and how the most elite institution is not the most comfortable one. IItians would disagree, but this ain’t about you. So the basic theme is diffrerent. This one is about how the established system and norms aren’t always the best.
2. The Subtler differences: Well there are hundreds of subtle differences even between the parts adapted from the book and the original book. Like the key being willingly given by the daughter, rather than being stolen. The main trouble making character, Rancho in the movie, Ryan in the book are a lot different from each other. Rancho is an identity thief, Ryan a rich bastard. Ryan ends up with a job lesser than his fellow Chuddy-buddies, Rancho is one helluva lot richer.
3 idiots is about chasing your own dreams fearlessly, FPS is more about defiance.
Having said that, you already know how different they are, if you’ve seen the movie, so let’s skip that part. My point is they are very different, the storyline has traces of similarity here and there but overall, even if you’ve read the book, you cannot predict the story and vice versa. Now Aamir gave Chetan credit. If I read the contract correctly, he was supposed to be given a name in the rolling credit, he was. I also assume the monetary formalities were taken care of, otherwise there’d be a whole lot different issue and Chetan would file for theft/fraud/ any of the million things.
So the legal contract was fulfilled. As for the moral ground. Let me tell you the story as I see it and as Chetan would probably want us to think about it.
Aamir’s writer comes to chetan and says heya fella, we are making a movie out of your book. Chetan smiles in delight and says “Ya cool, let’s talk money”. Writers say we’ll send our lawyer. Lawyer comes says “We give you a lac bucks for chai-pani now and 10 lac, after the movie is released.” Chetan says “Ya cool, but give me some sunshine” Lawyer says “Your name will be in the rolling credit” Chetan says “Oh Goody, thank you. Have some chai in our humble house” Lawyer says “No thank you, I cannot accept anything from you that might be considered a bribe in any way”. Lawyer hence goes(Ya that part was how lawyer would react if he knew what he’d have to do later). Movie goes into production, and all. All the time Chetan doesn’t consider it necessary to check the script, which he has a right too, and doesn’t file for a stay order, if he had read the script, on noticing that the movie is adapted quite a lot. So the movie is released and then Buhuhu Chetan says “Aamir stole my booksie.”, goes to his wife, who welcomes him with a warm hugsy. Chetan gets over is tears and goes to Aamir. Aamir says “Chetan, I am the Koyal’s egg, you are the crows egg, you are broken”. Chetan says “I want to be in the nest”, Aamir says “No, you are broken egg”
Okay so that story wasn’t very realistic, but translating it to a more sensible version you will see there are big flaws. I mean for God’s sake Chetan is the writer of 2 best-selling and one bullshit book. He is smart. You expect me to beleive he never read the book. Infact, I may be wrong but isn’t he supposed to consent to the release of the movie.
He didn’t mind then, but now he sees that he could have extacted more money so how about break Aamir’s eggs. So you see the flaws in the story. Chetan is actually just looking for money. Maybe he has a strong case, but Aamir was never wrong. He promised credits, he gave credit. Chetan could hae stopped the release of the movie at any time, but did he? No he waited until he was sure the movie was good, and then attacked. So who is right?
Even
10 Signs you are addicted to twitter
Jan 1st
So you use twitter. That’s all cool. The question is : Are you a twitter addict to the point that you have blurred the line between real life and tweelife. Find out
- Your mom asks you to come to dinner and you say at mom (@mom) be rite der.
- All your sentence are less than 140 characters
- When Twitter Goes Down You Spiral Emotionally.
- You asked the really cute girl in the BBA department’s twitter username instead of her phone number
- You don’t want to go to a vacation in the beautiful countryside with your girlfriend because there mightyou might not be able to tweet there
- You actually direct your wishes to @god instead of praying
- Ah so its new year’s eve, you can be out partying but you’re sitting on your desk, waiting to tweet “Happy new year” at just the right moment
- Your friend says “Ah that’s a rare species of the Isiopiitia myopia bird twittering. And you’re like birds don’t twitter. The guy is stoned
- You wish your girlfriend Happy Birthday with an “@sophie Happy Birthday” instead of calling
- You Judge People On Their Following/Follower Count.
Yeah, you better get that in check or the next thing you know your girl friend asks for a kiss the first time and you say “b-r-b gotta tweet this” ( that’s number 11, if its already happened)