While it’s no Memento, it has a hook like every Christopher Nolan film³. Unlike Memento, which loses its charm for obvious reasons with repeated viewings, Inception’s hook is a bit more charismatic. The idea of riding through dreamscapes is an interesting notion in itself, but I think the hook of the movie is actually the relationship between real time and dream time. The compounding of that with the dream within a dream business is what keeps things lively⁴.

I don’t think the movie is trying to make a philosophical message, so I’m going to avoid the obvious allegory to The Matrix, but the storyline is mature and exciting, and I think that Nolan has set the bar for summer blockbusters from here on. It’s about time these films grew up out of the Michael Bay era of blowing shit up and doing it with the kind of style that Nolan showed.

Speaking of blowing up—this movie is beautiful. There are plenty of visual glitches—when Ariadne broke the mirror, for example, it looked like CGI from a 1995 movie—but the imagery is masterful. And to know that so little of it was done with CGI is truly something spectacular. The explosions around the Parisian bistro were done primarily with compressed nitrogen with CGI used to fill in. The awe-inspiring gravity-bending action sequences were done with a crazy mixture of wires and a huge, purpose-built rotating hallway set. The opening dream sequence where water floods the dream was done with carefully positioned and timed sprinklers. For maybe this alone, Inception will cause a generation of kids to look at action in a totally different way, and for a new generation of movie makers to steal from it. Just like The Matrix.

To complement the visuals is Lord Hans Zimmer’s score. I was blown away—this might be some of his best work. Powerful and raw, with a smooth flow through the editing that you don’t usually find in movies this elaborate. I was unimpressed with Zimmer’s last collaboration with Nolan (The Dark Knight). Must like the film’s floundering final act, the score didn’t stir emotion. Inception’s soundtrack is a different beast. It’s a throwback to the Zimmer who scored The Lion King, Gladiator or True Romance.

Acting is an all-round solid affair. Leonardo DiCaprio is shaping up to be today’s Robert De Niro. He seems very deliberate with his role selection, and has been a part of some solid chart-toppers. This is a role that was right up his alley. The brooding, damaged and flawed protagonist play to his strengths, and he had good chemistry with his supporting cast. I was glad to see Ellen Page had dropped her too-indie vibe to take a slightly challenging role (that was well executed). Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a surprise—I was worried I was going to see a potentially awesome character go to waste the way Topher Grace murdered Venom in my mind forever. No, Gordon-Levitt, despite having limited dialogue, was suave and surprisingly right for his action-heavy role. Knowing that he performed his own stunts for the magical hallway action sequences ups him on the respect ladder somewhat. The rest of the cast, particularly Tom Hardy, put on a good show as well.

What’s bad? Well, unless you’re like me and love to read into films far too much, you may find the storyline a bit pretentious. The “militarization” of the projections was probably, for me, the weakest part of the film. Conflict has to be made, but I can’t feel like it was a bit convenient. I can’t help but imagine that turning this movie into a psychological horror film⁵ might have served the very dark idea of invading someone’s dreams quite well, but I don’t think a Hollywood studio would have footed the bill for an audience-limiting film like that the way they did⁶.

Nevertheless, I think Nolan pulled it off. Definitely the best film of 2010 so far—not that there was really any competition—and definitely one of the better summer blockbusters in many summers. I hope this starts the same trend in summer films that Nolan managed to start with superhero films—giving the audience enough credit to write an intelligent script.

And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers, 
But all that lives is born to die. 
And so I say to you that nothing really matters, 
And all you do is stand and cry.

When the first-generation iPhone debuted, I was floored. The screen wasn’t an original idea, the lack of an SDK was laughable, and the closed filesystem was upsetting to the hacker in me, but I think that it was the best phone on the market at the time. I’ve held off buying one for several reasons, most of which are the traditional criticisms of the iPhone (and now, iPad): no third-party multitasking, closed ecosystem and poor camera². I held off three successive generations for that phone to appear, and there is now a glimmer for it with the fourth-generation iPhone. But it doesn’t matter. Jailbreaking affords enough luxuries now that I know I will be buying the next iPhone.

I can’t imagine a use-case for the iPad³ that wouldn’t be better sufficed by having the same functionality in a pocket-sized gadget.

Surfing? Check. Sure, a bigger screen is nicer, but I have a browser in my pocket right now, and even though it’s not Mobile Safari, it’s more convenient to be able to Google something while sitting in a cab during a night out than not at all.

Movies? Check. Again, bigger screen is nicer, but I have a laptop with a 13” screen, a 42” television and can’t imagine myself not using either of those over the iPad. The one interesting scenario is on flights. I take several 12+ hour flights a year, so while a 10-hour battery life doesn’t do the job, it’s not bad. Most of the time, though, Emirates has a pretty excellent and very vast selection of movies, television shows and music that I don’t run out. The iPad does have a better screen, but I am not sure about the form factor being comfortable for 10 hours of movie watching in a cramped seat. What am I supposed to do with it? Rest it on my lap and look down? Put it on the tray table? What do I do when meals come? Get some rubber bands and MacGyver it to the headrest in front of me?

Here’s my last issue: how careful do you have to be with a 9.7” touch-sensitive screen with nothing on it? Smudges aside, it’s going to get banged up pretty badly. Especially with the slightly dubious form factor, I expect to see some hilarious YouTube videos of people falling asleep and their iPads getting into all kinds of mischief.

Here’s what will make me buy an iPad: at least a front-facing camera⁴, multi-tasking for third-party applications (this should be coming pretty soon), and an iPhone that is perfect for me.

“This plane’s wings are as long as its body, and it can fly. My arms are as long as my body, so why can’t I fly?” I explained aerodynamic lift as simply as I could (which was, incidentally, a much harder task than I anticipated). Therein followed a long list of “why” questions that got harder and harder to answer. “But if the size of the wings goes up as the body goes up, why are a bee’s wings so tiny?”

Stumped.

If you come to Mumbai, you absolutely have to sit in a rickshaw. The open sides and sheet metal body create a subconscious thrill of danger, and the tiny wheels and lack of any real suspension means you will truly experience why Mumbaikars cannot stand the roads of the city. The front wheel and corresponding fitting is reminiscent of the front wheel of a Vespa; indeed, rickshaws in Mumbai use a two-stroke scooter engine. Steering is controlled by handlebars rather than with a wheel. At my height, if I sit straight, the canvas tarp that is stretched over the top of the frame comes till my chin. Mumbai rickshaws are tiny, and are barely comfortable with two people. Unlike cities like Bhopal, where rickshawallas are proud and decorate immaculately cleaned vehicles, Mumbai’s rickshaws are usually filthy. You’ll see bare wiring flaying about in the breeze, rust gouging fist-sized holes in the body and cracked windshields on most rickshaws.

The meter on rickshaws are mechanical, so despite the fact that is might say Rs. 2.20 on the meter, you might pay Rs. 21. It always begins at Rs. 1.00, and stays that way for the first kilometer, and then increased proportionally by Rs. 1.00 for every additional kilometer thereafter. As of October 2009, each meter rupee is approximately Rs. 9 of real money. The government adjusts this value every once in a while, and you can buy meter cards at newsstands, since it is not intuitive, but most Mumbaikars follow a simple rule: multiply the meter value by ten and subtract one rupee. It is not perfect, but it seems standard. I have not seen a meter card since the early 2000’s. Put a mechanical meter in the hands of a rickshawalla though, and it is going to get tampered with. I would guess that rickshawallas fiddle with their meters less than taxiwallas, but it definitely happens more often that I first suspected.

Rickshaws are one of the major causes of bad traffic in most Indian cities, and Mumbai is no exception. They have a top speed of 50 km/h and probably cruise at 35-40 km/h, though I am guessing—I do not remember the last time I sat in a rickshaw that had a functional speedometer. I have to assume they come broken from the manufacturer. Despite the rather humbling resumé put forth by these vehicles, rickshawallas are the king of the roads. When you flag one down, he will stop (it is always a he), and you’ll tell him where you want to go. With an almost imperceptible leftward rotation of his head, you can get in the back¹. Now, the fun begins. Every rickshawalla thinks he is Michael Schumacher, and his rickshaw has the power and agility of a Formula 1 car. Expect a roller-coaster of tumbles, turns, heart-stopping close calls and earfuls of swearing from the rickshawalla to the public around his rickshaw, in or out of cars. They are masters at making everything part of the road, be it the sidewalk or a lane of opposing traffic.

I absolutely love rickshaws². It is by far the most incredible way to travel in the city. I would advise a fairly large subset of the population, however, to stay away from them. Asthmatics are the first: I remember taking a rickshaw with my aunt nine or ten years ago. We stopped in traffic right next to a bus. I stuck my head out to marvel at this towering behemoth of red and smiled at the passengers so high up above me. The bus lurched forward, and out of the exhaust pipe came this seemingly sentient dark mountain of smoke. It made quick headway towards my face, and as I sat there, terrified and unable to do anything to stop the impeding emphysema, I wondered if this is what Bob Dylan was singing about in Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

The old should also consider avoiding rickshaws. It is not an understatement to say that sitting in a rickshaw is to feel the pulse of the city; you can feel, deep in your bones, every groove of every pebble on the road. Standing on solid ground after a thirty-minute trip requires patience and effort. Your knees will not hold, head will swim, and heart will threaten to stop. It just does not pair well with afflictions of the body that come with age: blood pressure, arthritis, muscle degradation and a weakened immune system. Pregnant women should avoid them too, or risk giving birth in a moving, open-air vehicle.

Now that I’ve convinced you that this is the best transportation method in the world, excuse me while I go and find one to take me to work.

Let’s take the example of televisions. This is one of my favorite examples, and it is also, in my opinion, one of the greatest consumer hoodwinks in recent years. The buzzwords are no surprises: “1080p”, “HD-ready”, “LCD”, “LED” etc. I would eat my hat¹ if anything more than a tiny minority of the people reading this couldn’t tell me² what every single one of those 4 buzzwords mean, what the difference between 1080p and 1080i is. Or hey, between LCD and plasma televisions.

My television has a feature I hadn’t seen before on a television before I bought it: Bluetooth. The television has a Bluetooth receiver, and you can send it photos and display them on the screen. That’s it. Anybody who has used Bluetooth for anything more than hands-free will understand why this is ridiculous. Not only is it absurd to view photos by sending them one-by-one to a television over a medium that has throughput that barely rivals 1990’s ISDN lines, but it’s even more ridiculous once you realize the TV has no storage. The picture is gone when you don’t want to look at it anymore.

This is a feature? No: this is perceived value-addition. For people who don’t know any better, this seems like a wonderful solution. But a solution to what? I know I didn’t have the problem that I wanted to look at crappy-quality photos from my phone’s camera on my television’s non-persistent screen.

Another place where I’ve seen this come up is in professional settings. You’ll hear a lot of people throw around words lifted from management or statistical training books and try to pretend they know when to apply them. I recently met someone who works in a non-durable goods manufacturing industry, and he mentioned to me that he uses the statistical tool ANOVA, something which I have been using at work myself. This guy didn’t know what ANOVA stands for!

This rant has a purpose, I promise, and this is it: if you’re going to throw around a buzzword, make sure you know what it is. If you don’t know what it is, you come off looking either pretentious or like an idiot³. I’m fairly knowledgeable about computers, so I’ll know at the drop of a hat if someone mentions, say, “solid-state drives” to me and doesn’t even know what the “d” in the “drive” is. But, on the contrary, I know absolutely nothing about cardiac function, so I won’t walk into a hospital and say someone had an acute myocardial infarction⁴ when all I really think is that it’s a heart attack.

Stick to your strengths.

Before I continue, let me add that I’ve been doing something along the lines of what I’m about to show you for a long time now—none of this is particularly new functionality.

My setup is a bit different to James’—I actually never use the Firefox search box, and so I hide it (Right Click > Customize…). I’ve seen a lot of people get a little confused when they try to search something on Wikipedia, for example, on my browser, but I find this makes my life much simpler.

I find myself regularly searching on a wide variety of websites besides Google. I daily search Wikipedia, IMDB, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, Wolfram Alpha, YouTube and Google Books (to name a few). In doing so with a search bar, I find myself constantly changing the engine (which can be changed by Ctrl/Cmd+Up or Down when the search box is highlighted) and wasting time. Instead, I use search engine keywords (click the search engine selection button and hit Manage). Once I’ve got the keywords set up, I hide the search box.

Now, I hit Cmd+L to activate the address bar¹, and then type (to search Rotten Tomatoes, for example) r district 9. It’s quite simple: [keyword] [search term]. So to search any engine in Firefox, it’s three (if you use one-letter keywords) keystrokes: Cmd+L, w and [space]. That’s not bad.

Here’s the catch—and in my opinion, the biggest flaw with James’ method. Like me, you’ll probably use Google most often, and those extra two keystrokes (g and [space]) will probably begin to add up over time. Firefox has the cool feature of letting you just type in the address bar, hitting [enter] and instantly searching Google, but for whatever reason, this sometimes takes you to the “I’m Feeling Lucky” result, and sometimes not. I’m not sure how or why it’s decided, but it seems arbitrary². Google is good, but not close to good enough for me to trust Mozilla’s sending me directly to a result on a whim.

The solution is about:config. Look for the keyworld.URL parameter and change it to http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=. The btnG=Google query string dictates here that we are going to be using a standard search and not I’m Feeling Lucky.

This pretty much solved most of my search related problems. I have a cleaner browser with less chrome, and I’m more efficient overall at using it. In fact, this feature is essentially the only reason I use Firefox and not any other Mac browser. I am reasonably extension-free, so I could happily switch to any browser that offered me this exact functionality and customization.

Let me know how this works for you, or if you can replicate this on any other good Mac browser.

I’ll eventually get around to pushing this to a Twitter account, but that’ll come later. For now, head to Best of Wikipedia to subscribe and read.