Scribble Scrabble

Invictus

2011-05-28T01:00:00.000-05:00

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Lord of War (Warning: contains spoilers)

2008-02-13T23:45:00.001-06:00

Where there is a will, there is a weapon

Yuri Orlov: There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other eleven?

Yuri Orlov: The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I *do* rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of these men are the enemies of *your* enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss--the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year--sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So. You call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

Yuri Orlov's (Nicholas Cage) four rules in Gun Running.

1. Never get shot with your own merchandise.
2. Always have a fool proof way to get paid.
3. Never pick up a gun and join your customer.
4. Never go to war. Especially with yourself.

The movie begins with Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) matter-of-factly stating, "There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other eleven?" The opening credits then follow the journey of a bullet from a munitions assembly line in the eastern bloc to the head of a small African boy.

The rest of the movie is told in flashback, starting in the 1980s and ending to where he is now.

Through voiceover, Yuri Orlov describes how he first became an arms dealer. Yuri and his family came to the U.S. from Ukraine as a young boy. His family pretends to be Jewish for favorable immigration conditions. His family owns a restaurant, which is useful, "because people are always going to have to eat." After Yuri sees a Russian Mafia boss kill his two would-be assassins, he decides to provide another necessity: guns.

Before beginning his career in earnest, he approaches Simeon Weisz, a seasoned arms dealer, at an arms convention with a business proposal. Weisz turns him down, dismissing him as an amateur. He partners up with his brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), and begins selling arms. Yuri keeps his multiple identities and paperwork in a security container. It starts small and begins with him selling US M-16 rifles they left behind from the 1982 Lebanon War.

As he grows, Yuri (through voiceover) tells of his first incident with Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke) , a dogged Interpol agent who can't be bought with money. The first encounter in the movie is when Yuri is on the ship Kristol smuggling a shipment of weapons, including M16s. He gets a call stating that the authorities have been tipped off; Yuri changes the ship name to the Kono and uses a French flag turned sideways to seem like a Dutch flag, and the first encounter with Jack Valentine smoothly plays out in Yuri's favor.

During his latest business deal with a Colombian drug lord, Yuri is paid in cocaine instead of cash. Yuri objects, is shot in the heated exchange, agrees to the deal, and leaves in a taxi with the load of cocaine. Vitaly is unsure of what to do next and asks Yuri what to do. Yuri answers by saying "let's celebrate". They both end up snorting cocaine, but Vitaly becomes addicted, and Yuri takes him to a rehabilitation center. From then on, Yuri conducts the arms business alone. Shortly thereafter, he begins to court Ava Fontaine, a successful model. After booking a fake photo shoot for $20,000 and the entire hotel for $12,000 he successfully courts her and they later marry and have a son.

His business is still relatively small, but finally Yuri gets his big break when the Soviet Union dissolves. Gorbachev's Christmas Day 1991 resignation speech is shown on television, which Yuri is more interested in than his family. He contacts his uncle, Dimitri, a general of the former Red Army, now left in bureaucractic limbo, as the new Ukrainian government and military are in the infancy of their organization. Taking him onside with his business, Yuri buys Dimitri's tanks and AK-47s to expand his inventory. Meanwhile, Interpol agent Jack Valentine stalks Yuri, nearly catching him when Yuri is loading weaponry, along with an old model Mi-24 Hind onto a Russian ship bound for Burkina Faso. Fortunately, Yuri discovers a loophole in the law banning the export of military helicopters — if unarmed and converted to civilian use, their export is not prohibited. The weapons are removed and shipped separately. Valentine growls about the loopholes and vows that they will be closed, but has no choice but to release Yuri.

Shortly after this, Dimitri is assassinated by a car bomb — compliments of Weisz. Yuri moves onto selling arms to the West African dictator of Liberia, André Baptiste (based on Charles Taylor). Jack Valentine continues his pursuit of Yuri, confident that he will eventually slip up. Jack doggedly searches the garbage of the Orlov household. After painstakingly reconstructing a dumpster full of Yuri's shredded documents he discovers that Yuri will soon be making a cargo run to Sierra Leone.

Yuri's cargo plane, an Antonov An-12 is intercepted by an L-39 jet trainer. Yuri instructs the pilot to land the plane on a dirt road, knowing the fighter will not be able to land there. After landing safely, and having been deserted by the plane's crew, he gives the entire shipment of arms away to passers-by. When Jack Valentine finally arrives, the plane is empty, and there is no evidence of the arms shipment. Jack deliberately keeps Yuri detained for twenty-four hours (the longest detention allowed without charge), before he is forced to release him, because, as he argues, any delay in the arms trade saves lives. Yuri is just left unguarded in the wild for 24 hours with handcuffs on. In the meantime, all removable parts of the plane are stripped off by locals.

By now, Yuri has established a very good relationship with André Baptiste, but is horrified when Baptiste captures Weisz as a "present." Baptiste invites Yuri to kill Weisz. When Yuri refuses, Baptiste puts the gun in his hand while slowly pulling the trigger himself. Yuri is invited to say "stop" at any time, but only says it after the shot. Soon after this incident, Yuri sniffs "brown-brown," a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder, and becomes extremely intoxicated by the mixture. At a point in his delirium, he has sex with an African prostitute, despite the uncomfortably high probability that she is HIV positive. Jack keeps Yuri under surveillance, and reveals to Ava that Yuri is an arms dealer. At first, she does not believe him, but begins to realize the truth. Ava confronts him about his business, and he promises that he will stop. He makes more legal deals to exploit the resources of poor nations, but complains that the margins are low and competition is high. A year later, Baptiste and his son come over and visit Yuri (they are heading to the United Nations) with another arms deal offer. Yuri initially refuses, but when Baptiste indicates that he will be much more generous than usual, Yuri relents.

He takes Vitaly along to the deal, which turns out to be in Sierra Leone. However, during the deal, Vitaly becomes distressed: he sees men kill a mother and child in a nearby village of unarmed civilians and tells Yuri that their customers will kill all the villagers right after Yuri sells the weapons. He pleads with Yuri to cancel the shipment. Yuri, who goes by the slogan, "It's not our battle," tries to convince him that someone else will sell the weapons if they don't; he also argues that both of them will be killed if they try to cancel the deal. Vitaly pretends to agree. But in a bold act, he takes two grenades and destroys half of Yuri's shipments; the guards then kill Vitaly. Of the incident, Yuri says that it was true that the village dwellers were massacred after he handed the weapons over, but, "There were half a dozen other massacres that week. They say that 'evil prevails when good men fail to act.' It ought to be 'evil prevails.'"

Yuri ships his brother's remains back to the United States. He pays someone to remove the bullets from Vitaly's body, but one bullet remains, and Yuri is stopped by customs. Meanwhile, while being followed by Jack Valentine, Ava finds Yuri's security container, who finally has the definitive proof to imprison Yuri. Ava takes their son and leaves him. When Yuri calls his parents, his mother says, "Both my sons are dead." Valentine tells Yuri that he has a long jail sentence ahead of him, but Yuri abruptly brings him back to reality. In a bold statement, he proclaims that the United States government is a much bigger supplier of arms than him, that some of Orlov's customers are useful to US foreign policy (i.e. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"), and that to put him on trial would bring too many embarrassing revelations. He tells Valentine that there will be a knock at the door, and that a high ranking military officer will be standing outside, and that he will order Yuri's release. Valentine realizes this reality and states, "I would tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there." A few seconds later, there is a knock at the door, and events proceed as Yuri predicted.

A free man again, and without his family and friends, he returns to selling arms. In the closing scene of the film, he is in North Africa and gives two guards a packaging slip for a shipment of umbrellas. "Umbrellas? In the Sahara?" one guard asks incredulously. "Sun umbrellas," Yuri says. The guards lift up the slip — revealing a plush bribe — and both guards immediately wave them through. The movie ends by proclaiming that the U.S., the UK, France, Russia and China (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council) are the world's leading arms dealers and ends with, "This film is based on actual events.", as the camera rolls over thousands of bullets (symbolic of all the weapons Yuri has sold) until they fade away and the credits pursue.

The visual journey of a bullet from its "birth" in a manufacturing facility in an Eastern bloc country to its "death" through the head of a teenage African kid has the song "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield:

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d0d6qgsvTw

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Trivia:
According to Andrew Niccol, the filmmakers worked with actual gunrunners in the making of the film. The tanks lined up for sale were owned by a gunrunner who had to have them back to sell to another country. They used a real stockpile of over 3,000 AK-47s because it was cheaper than getting prop guns. The gunrunners were more cooperative and efficient than the studio or the crew.

Yuri Orlov is a composite of five real arms dealers.

No US studios would back the film. International finances were secured instead.

The tanks seen in the movie were real and belonged to a Czech arms-dealer.

Before shooting the scene where tanks were lined up for sale, the filmmaker had to warn NATO, lest they think a real war was being started when they see satellite images of the set.

The character of Andre Baptiste is loosely based on famous warlord, and ex-leader of Liberia, Charles Taylor.

Quotes:
Yuri Orlov: Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.

Yuri Orlov: Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: a federation of worse oppressors than the last bunch of oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves freedom-fighters.

Yuri Orlov: There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?

Yuri Orlov: There are two types of tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it

Simeon Weisz: The problem with gun runners going to war, is that there is no shortage of ammunition.

Yuri Orlov: Enjoy it.
Jack Valentine: What?
Yuri Orlov: This. Tell me I'm everything you despise. That I'm the personification of evil. That I'm what- responsible for the breakdown of the fabric of society and world order. I'm a one-man genocide. Say everything you want to say to me now. Because you don't have long. The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I *do* rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of these men are the enemies of *your* enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss - the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year - sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So. You call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

New amendments to the ICC Cricket Rules

2008-01-18T11:25:00.000-06:00

(In the wake of the second test match between India and Australia at the SCG ...)

Here are the new amendments:

Amendment 1.1 — LBW rule
It is no longer necessary for the ball to hit the pad for a leg before wicket appeal to be successful. The ball can hit the bat or even miss the player completely. As long as the leg is before the wicket, it can be deemed out. The batsman or his pads have no required legal involvement in this process.

Amendment 1.2 — The Caught behind rule (converse of LBW rule),
The batsman will be deemed caught behind, if the ball makes it to the wicketkeeper’s gloves. No contact with the bat is necessary. As the rule implies in its apt naming, the ball has only to be caught behind the stumps. The batsman and his bat have no required legal involvement in this process.

Amendment 2.1 — The Catch rule
Gully cricket rules will be expressly observed in this regard. The ball can reach the fielders’ hands after one bounce, and can be claimed as a catch. The ball can be caught after the bounce, with one hand or two hands, as per the fielder’s discretion. It’s mandatory for the catcher to make a dive or roll over after grabbing the ball.

Amendment 2.1 — sub clause
i) In the above case, the umpire, if in doubt, can outsource the decision to the fielding team captain, who can then convey his decision directly to the batsman. This will be known as the ‘Bangalore Amendment’.

Amendment 3.1 — TV Umpire rule
Whenever a decision is referred to the third umpire (TV umpire) it is not legally binding for the said umpire to be watching the cricket channel on his/her TV in the umpires box. The TV can be tuned to any channel, as long as it is not beaming racially insensitive programming. The mere matter of the impending decision can be sorted out by the TV umpire in the commercial break of the programming he/she is enjoying.

The decision can be made on a random‘eanie-meanie-minah-mo’ basis of selection. No proof or reference/attribution to on-field occurrence is necessary in such decisions.

Amendment 5.1 — the Racism hearing rule (also referred to as the Guilty until proven Innocent rule)
This rule states that any sub-continental player accused of any charge by the opposing team is guilty. No proof or evidence is required. The player must be banned for 1/2/3 Test matches, the punishment being directly proportionate to the nuisance value of said player to the accusing opposition. The charges for imposing a ban can be racial abuse, verbal abuse, stealing helmet, having an extra sandwich at teatime or not saying ‘excuse me’ after an on-field sneeze.

So, there you have it, poor Mr Bucknor and Mr Benson are not at fault, because these amendments came into effect with the 2nd India-Australia Test match. It’s a pity that only one team knew the new rules.

Evil roommate’s observation of the week: The racial abuse hearing was judged by a White South African?

And the (Cricket) Oscar goes to...

2007-04-28T19:58:00.000-05:00

Best actor
Umpiring in his fifth consecutive World Cup final, this award goes to West Indies' Steve Bucknor. His decision-making has slowed down so much that even in slow-motion it looks pretty fast. Notice that he is usually looking at the stumps below his zinc-ked nose while giving decisions reluctantly.

Best film... oops match
The only award for which there were few candidates, actually just two. The last Super 8 match when England beat West Indies by 1 wicket and 1 ball remaining. The unlucky one: South Africa beating Sri Lanka with 1 wicket in hand after Lasith Malinga had claimed four wickets in a row.

Critics award for best actor
Matthew Hayden of Australia. Until last year he was not even being considered for the World Cup. Until Saturday night he was the leading scorer of the World Cup.

Critics award for best film
Ireland, for beating Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for defeating India.

Best actor(s) in a sad role
Captains, Brian Lara and Inzamam-ul Haq. Both had sob-sob sendoffs. The first one decided to quit international cricket completely and the second stepped down as ODI captain.

Best actor in a supporting role
Tom Moody, Sri Lanka's coach: Did anyone hear anything from him, including wanting to coach India, during the last two months. Perfectly cast, always in the background, yet with an important role to play.

Best actor in a comic role
Andrew Flintoff of England for his outstanding performance of getting drunk, falling into the sea and then having to be rescued. He was suitably rewarded as England stripped him off as vice-captain.

Best actor in a villainous role
Greg Chappell. For taking a team of talented players and winning only one match, against lowly Bermuda.

Best dialogue
Two nominees, both Dutch captain Lucas Petrus van Troost. First, after the match against South Africa when Herschelle Gibbs hit six sixes in an over: "Before the match we told ourselves, we'll make history and we made it."

And the second, after losing to Australia and South Africa, and on the eve of their match against Scotland: "After two warm-up matches, we're ready for the big one."

Best debut
Shaun Tait. Fast, young, bowls wides and no-balls, troubles all batsmen.

Best make-up
Lasith Malinga. Fuzzy, tinted and bouncing hair, zinc on face, pouting lips and for hurling the ball out of somewhere over the umpire's left shoulder.

Best choreography
Ireland captain Trent Johnson's bizarre jig when he leaps on one foot, then the other while flapping his arm. The chicken dance, as it's being called now, is the in-thing at all fashionable dos in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Best guest appearance
Marvan Atapattu of Sri Lanka. Like in 1996, this former captain has failed to play a single match.

Best story and director
Malcolm Speed of the ICC for giving a World Cup which had everything including a murder mystery.

Best screenplay
For the Bangladesh vs Ireland match which was actually supposed to be an India vs Pakistan tie.

Best editing
For the Sri Lankan (81-2, 10) bowlers for finishing a 100-over match in just 37.2 overs against Ireland (77, 27.4).

Best action
The 120 kg-weighing (a conservative figure) Bermuda's Russell Dwayne Mark Leverock gravity-defying successful effort to pluck an edge by Robin Uthappa at first slip.

Lifetime achievement award
It was a World Cup of veteran thespians and, hence, quite a few candidates. But this award goes to Dustin Hoffman.. err to Glenn McGrath who might be tempted to reconsider his retirement decision after this.

Best Art movie
Team India.

na tum jaano na hum: An explaination for the unenlightened..

2007-04-26T09:54:00.000-05:00

kyon chalti hai pawan => Due to varying pressure zone formation
kyon jhoome hai gagan => Because of earth's revolution
kyon machalta hai mann => Problems with respiration
na tum jaano na hum => But I just gave all the reasons!
kyon aati hai bahaar => Because of a change in season
kyon lutata hai karaar => Suffering from mental tension
kyon hota hai pyaar => Because of opposites' attraction
na tum jaano na hum => Seems you didn't pay enough attention
kyon gum hai har disha => Because you have a poor sense of direction
kyon hota hai nasha => Because of drug addiction
kyon aata hai mazaa => Brains response to physical sensation
na tum jaano na hum => Even after all the EXPLANATION!!!! C'mon

Simple rules to live by

2007-04-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"

What other people think of you is none of your business.

Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your family and friends will. Stay in touch.

Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful, or joyful.

Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

The best is yet to come.

No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.

Do the right thing.

Call your mother and father often.

Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass.

Top 10 Unconventional IPOD uses

2007-04-06T11:42:00.000-05:00

Top 10 uses of an iPod you'd never expect

You may be used to seeing people listen to iPods on the train. You may even use one yourself in the gym or while walking the dog. However, the rise of the iPod has prompted generations of developers - and creative end-users - to exploit possibilities other than simply listening to music or watching videos.

Record flight data
The little white box can also be used as black box. One airplane modification company, LoPresti Speed Merchants, has apparently added iPod integration to its Fury line of planes, with a view to using the MP3 player as an in-flight data recorder.
According to LoPresti, the iPod can record more than 500 hours of flight time details as well as act as a voice recorder to capture cockpit conversations and clearances. The company's CEO is also hoping developers will come up with some new aviation applications using the iPod.
The cockpit isn't the only place Apple's MP3 players can be found on aircraft. Seats that connect iPods to aircraft entertainment systems are expected from a number of airlines from this year.

Cut medical bills
Using an iPod can be good for your health, it seems. Radiologists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a system to share images using open source software and the Apple MP3 players.
UCLA's Dr Osman Ratib, whose background is in medical imaging, wanted to find a way to sidestep the $100,000 workstations needed to view high-resolution images that required 3D rendering. So, with help from programmer and fellow radiologist Dr Antoine Rosset, he created OsiriX - an open source application to enable radiologists to teleconference with the images on Mac desktop systems.

Make your desktop ultra portable
Developers have already cottoned on to the potential of the vast storage the iPod packs in. One company has devised a service whereby users can almost carry their laptops inside their iPods.
Once users of the service, which already include some police forces, plug their iPods into another PC, the iPod will present them with their 'home' desktop - files, folders, Outlook emails, preferences, cookies and the like. The system is apparently used by students and salespeople, who regularly use different PCs, as well as police and the military, who need secure access to their desktops.

Improve your tech knowledge
Aside from all the enterprise applications, it's worth remembering the iPod is first and foremost an entertainment device. If you fancy killing some time in between meetings, fill the iPod up with your favourite tunes, music videos or even a TV show or two.
However, one of the more interesting changes the iPod has wrought on broadcasting is the podcast - user-generated content of every stripe and on every subject. If you fancy genning up on tech in your lunch hour, there's a thousand and one podcasts to suit, available from the iTunes Store.

Polish your bowling
Technology is now even inveigling its way into the fusty world of cricket. According to reports, the England team have been given clips of their opponents' batting and bowling to be played on video iPods to help prepare for matches during the Cricket World Cup.
Reuters reports that team members have long been used to studying such footage on PCs but the decision to put clips on iPods is a recent one. Apparently the gadget-laden cricketers have had footage put on their games consoles too.

Run Linux
Both Linux and Apple products bring out the fanboy in geeks the world over. Now one band of souls is working on uniting them in an iPod running on Linux. The LinuxiPod project has been running for years and has successfully installed Linux on several generations of iPod.
And if all that were not enough to warm the cockles of the techiest techie, the iPod Linux lot have also managed to install playable if not high spec versions of Doom on iPods.

Turn it into an enterprise haven
All that lovely storage is just crying out to be used for business purposes. Should you feel so inclined, you can buy a microphone that fits into your iPod and records audio - essentially turning the device into a Dictaphone. And with up to 80GB knocking around, even the longest of meetings can be stored for posterity.
As well as massive audio files, you could use the iPod as a larger version of a USB memory stick and keep all the documents and spreadsheets you need for portable use. And the iPod is equipped with a host of personal information management (PIM) tools, with several solid applications out there for helping you do even more with your PIM - including iSync, which as the name would suggest, lets you sync all your calendaring and contacts between your iPod and your computer.

Get some education
Schools and universities are already waking up to the potential of the iPod as an educational tool, podcasting lectures, making audiobooks available for students and using iPods to record music lessons for example.
Duke University in the US even took to giving away free iPods to all incoming students hoping to encourage them to make use of them for education purposes. Some Scottish schools have also experimented with a more straightforward iPod-as-bribery tool, rewarding healthy eaters with one of the shiny devices.

Commit theft
What looks more innocuous than an iPod hooked up to a PC? What some employers have come to realise is that not every worker is filling up their MP3 player with music - they may be filling it up with sensitive corporate data, a practice that fraud investigators have observed and which has spawned the term 'pod-slurping'.
Other members of the criminal fraternity have been turning to the iPod to store the particulars of their nefarious acts, including details of identity thefts. Which is rather handy for the police when they turn up to investigate and find an iPod packed full of vital evidence.

Personalise it
There's a world of applications out there to give your iPod a flash new look. Don't like the font? There's an app that can change it. Fancy putting some new wallpaper on your iPod? There's one that can do that too. There's even some third-party apps that will act almost as RSS readers and suck content such as weather and news updates onto the device every time it is connected to an internet-enabled PC.
And if you fancy making sure your iPod stays yours, some developers have come up with an anti-theft application. If the software in question is installed, the next time the iPod is connected to an internet-enabled PC, it will betray the thief by sending information on its whereabouts to its original owner.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

2007-02-02T18:17:00.000-06:00

OLD VERSION...
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

NEW VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with on-line petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for noncompliance). Opposition MP's stage a walkout. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes Special Reservation for Grass Hopper in educational Insititutions & in Govt Services.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justice". Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice'. CPM calls it the 'revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden' Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later...The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi billion dollar company in silicon valley.100s of grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India..

As a result losing lot of hard working, brilliant ants and feeding the grasshoppers, India is still a developing country......

Football

2006-06-26T11:32:00.000-05:00

Football. Wonderful Sport. At last a sport that has a ball that’s bigger than your foot. World Cup 2006 is like a rare steak approximately 30 per cent done. And after two weeks of football, let’s see what we have learned exactly.

Let’s start with the spelling, the English spell it football, the Mexicans have an atrocious spelling of Fuzbol, the Ukranians are no better with Fotzbal, and the Ghaneese also erroneously spell it Fietbel, which is almost as bad as the Bengali Photbole or the Malayalee’s Fatboll. What the hell are we trying to teach our children?

We’ve also learned that a fat Ronaldo is far better than a fit Ronaldo. After sleeping through two games, the world’s fattest athlete, (barring three Sumo wrestlers and In-za-mam on weekends), sprang to life with a brace of goals. Fuelled by Atkinson’s initial diet of fries, supplemented with cheeseburgers, Ronaldo finally proved Newton’s fourth law of motion to be entirely and conclusively true. Size does matter. The fatter the better.

We’re also learning that England is not only a country ruled by a Queen, (and please no asides even though it’s coming onto Elton John’s birthday. But for all practical purposes it’s the WAG’s (Wives and girlfriends of footballers), who really are wearing the shorts. These wives led by the world’s most untalented celebrity, ( a record she’s held since Milli Vaniti abdicated and Kishen Kumar retired), miss Posh Beckham, have drunk more beer in a week than the entire colony of East Germany, between 1945 and 1989.

Not to be outdone, Mrs Rooney-to-be, flew from Baden Baden or twice Baden in Germany to Liverpool, and back just to have her hair coloured by her neighbourhood barber, still obviously clinging onto old English prejudices ‘that there are no barbers in Germany, since that close shave in World War II’.

The Germans have been in sublime form and whilst proving to be superb hosts, they are inventing new Germanic phrases every day. For example a German player scratching his groin is referred to as one scratching his Michael Ballacks. Consequently a German player scratching another player’s groin is known simply as Michael Ballack.

The French, whose team’s average age is 57, are showing that you may advance in the world Cup despite having one foot in the grave. Sadly their captain is now a travelling antique,and without Zidane, France looks like Bollywood without the Bachchans. Thierry Henry is suffering from a serious flaw in his game. The flaw, of course, being that he thinks France is his club, and Arsenal his country. A common and hopefully correctable mistake.

We’ve also learnt about a similarity between goalkeeper Fabien Barthez and Zaheera Sheikh. Both keep hoping the balls in someone else’s court. Ghaneese are educating us in a more positive way.

Michael Eisson’s pure poetry with the odd phonetic muddle. But what’s amazing is a six-foot 3-inch, 220 lbs mid-fielder who answers to the name of Ping Pong. Ping Pong’s name and physique are a harsh lesson in mutual incompatibility.

Croatia vs Australia took politics to a new high. The game itself is being served in as a question for Majors in Political Sciences. Seven Australians are from Croatia. Three Croatians were born and live in Australia. Two Croatians are married to Australians. One of whom has returned to Croatia. One Croatian is half Australian on his mother’s side and four Australians speak Croatian as their first language. The good news is that three Australians hadn’t ever heard of Croatia, and one more consistently spelt Croatia with a K.

As Crosby Stills Nash and what’s his name said ‘lets keep following the World Cup and teaching are children well’. Or as more contemporary Missy Elliot says, The Miseducation will continue until further notice from FIFA.

2006-04-29T17:33:00.001-05:00

Carved ceiling, Akshardham

2006-04-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

Central Quadrangle, Akshardham

2006-04-29T17:32:00.001-05:00

Fountains in Akshardham

2006-04-29T17:32:00.000-05:00

Shri Swaminarayan statue in Akshardham

2006-04-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

Water spigots in shape of cow head in Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:30:00.002-05:00

Window to Akshardham

2006-04-29T17:30:00.001-05:00

Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:30:00.000-05:00

Akshardham Temple lawns

2006-04-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

Akshardham Temple at dusk

Resplendent Akshardham at night

2006-04-29T17:28:00.000-05:00

Night lights at Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:27:00.002-05:00

Akshardham Temple, just after dusk

2006-04-29T17:27:00.001-05:00

Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:27:00.000-05:00

Lights in Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:24:00.001-05:00

Lights in Akshardham Temple

Carved Pillar, Akshardham Temple

2006-04-29T17:24:00.000-05:00

The life and death of Kevin Carter

2006-04-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

Visiting Sudan, a little-known photographer took a picture that made the world weep. What happened afterward is a tragedy of another sort.
BY SCOTT MACLEOD/JOHANNESBURG
(http://www.thisisyesterday.com/ints/KCarter.html)

The image presaged no celebration: a child barely alive, a vulture so eager for carrion. Yet the photograph that epitomized Sudan's famine would win Kevin Carter fame - and hopes for anchoring a career spent hounding the news, free-lancing in war zones, waiting anxiously for assignments amid dire finances, staying in the line of fire for that one great picture. On May 23, 14 months after capturing that memorable scene, Carter walked up to the dais in the classical rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. The South African soaked up the attention. "I swear I got the most applause of anybody," Carter wrote back to his parents in Johannesburg. "I can't wait to show you the trophy. It is the most precious thing, and the highest acknowledgment of my work I could receive."

Carter was feted at some of the most fashionable spots in New York City. Restaurant patrons, overhearing his claim to fame, would come up and ask for his autograph. Photo editors at the major magazines wanted to meet the new hotshot, dressed in his black jeans and T shirts, with the tribal bracelets and diamond-stud earring, with the war-weary eyes and tales from the front lines of Nelson Mandela's new South Africa. Carter signed with Sygma, a prestigious picture agency representing 200 of the world's best photojournalists. "It can be a very glamorous business," says Sygma's U.S. director, Eliane Laffont. "It's very hard to make it, but Kevin is one of the few who really broke through. The pretty girls were falling for him, and everybody wanted to hear what he had to say."

There would be little time for that. Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. His red pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child; a green garden hose attached to the vehicle's exhaust funneled the fumes inside. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."

How could a man who had moved so many people with his work end up a suicide so soon after his great triumph? The brief obituaries that appeared around the world suggested a morality tale about a person undone by the curse of fame. The details, however, show how fame was only the final, dramatic sting of a death foretold by Carter's personality, the pressure to be first where the action is, the fear that his pictures were never good enough, the existential lucidity that came to him from surviving violence again and again - and the drugs he used to banish that lucidity. If there is a paramount lesson to be drawn from Carter's meteoric rise and fall, it is that tragedy does not always have heroic dimensions. "I have always had it all at my feet," read the last words of his suicide note, "but being me just fit up anyway."

First, there was history. Kevin Carter was born in 1960, the year Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was outlawed. Descended from English immigrants, Carter was not part of the Afrikaner mainstream that ruled the country. Indeed, its ideology appalled him. Yet he was caught up in its historic misadventure.

His devoutly Roman Catholic parents, Jimmy and Roma, lived in Parkmore, a tree-lined Johannesburg suburb - and they accepted apartheid. Kevin, however, like many of his generation, soon began to question it openly. "The police used to go around arresting black people for not carrying their passes," his mother recalls. "They used to treat them very badly, and we felt unable to do anything about it. But Kevin got very angry about it. He used to have arguments with his father. "Why couldn't we do something about it? Why didn't we go shout at those police?' "

Though Carter insisted he loved his parents, he told his closest friends his childhood was unhappy. As a teenager, he found his thrills riding motorcycles and fantasized about becoming a race-car driver. After graduating from a Catholic boarding school in Pretoria in 1976, Carter studied pharmacy before dropping out with bad grades a year later. Without a student deferment, he was conscripted into the South African Defense Force, where he found upholding the apartheid regime loathsome. Once, after he took the side of a black mess-hall waiter, some Afrikaans-speaking soldiers called him a kaffir-boetie ("nigger lover") and beat him up. In 1980 Carter went absent without leave, rode a motorcycle to Durban and, calling himself David, became a disk jockey. He longed to see his family but felt too ashamed to return. One day after he lost his job, he swallowed scores of sleeping pills, pain-killers and rat poison. He survived. He returned to the S.A.D.F. to finish his service and was injured in 1983 while on guard duty at air force headquarters in Pretoria. A bomb attributed to the A.N.C. had exploded, killing 19 people. After leaving the service, Carter got a job at a camera supply shop and drifted into journalism, first as a weekend sports photographer for the Johannesburg Sunday Express. When riots began sweeping the black townships in 1984, Carter moved to the Johannesburg Star and aligned himself with the crop of young, white photojournalists who wanted to expose the brutality of apartheid - a mission that had once been the almost exclusive calling of South Africa's black photographers. "They put themselves in face of danger, were arrested numerous times, but never quit. They literally were willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believed in," says American photojournalist James Nachtwey, who frequently worked with Carter and his friends. By 1990, civil war was raging between Mandela's A.N.C. and the Zulu-supported Inkatha Freedom Party. For whites, it became potentially fatal to work the townships alone. To diminish the dangers, Carter hooked up with three friends - Ken Oosterbroek of the Star and free-lancers Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva - and they began moving through Soweto and Tokoza at dawn. If a murderous gang was going to shoot up a bus, throw someone off a train or cut up somebody on the street, it was most likely to happen as township dwellers began their journeys to work in the soft, shadowy light of an African morning. The four became so well known for capturing the violence that Living, a Johannesburg magazine, dubbed them "the Bang-Bang Club."

Even with the teamwork, however, cruising the townships was often a perilous affair. Well-armed government security forces used excessive firepower. The chaotic hand-to-hand street fighting between black factions involved AK-47s, spears and axes. "At a funeral some mourners caught one guy, hacked him, shot him, ran over him with a car and set him on fire," says Silva, describing a typical encounter. "My first photo showed this guy on the ground as the crowd told him they were going to kill him. We were lucky to get away."

Sometimes it took more than a camera and camaraderie to get through the work. Marijuana, known locally as dagga, is widely available in South Africa. Carter and many other photojournalists smoked it habitually in the townships, partly to relieve tension and partly to bond with gun-toting street warriors. Although he denied it, Carter, like many hard-core dagga users, moved on to something more dangerous: smoking the "white pipe," a mixture of dagga and Mandrax, a banned tranquilizer containing methaqualone. It provides an intense, immediate kick and then allows the user to mellow out for an hour or two.

By 1991, working on the dawn patrol had paid off for one of the Bang-Bang Club. Marinovich won a Pulitzer for his September 1990 photographs of a Zulu being stabbed to death by A.N.C. supporters. That prize raised the stakes for the rest of the club - especially Carter. And for Carter other comparisons cropped up. Though Oosterbroek was his best friend, they were, according to Nachtwey, "like the polarities of personality types. Ken was the successful photographer with the loving wife. His life was in order." Carter had bounced from romance to romance, fathering a daughter out of wedlock. In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter."

After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed.

Carter quit the Weekly Mail and became a free-lance photojournalist - an alluring but financially risky way of making a living, providing no job security, no health insurance and no death benefits. He eventually signed up with the Reuter news agency for a guarantee of roughly $2,000 a month and began to lay plans for covering his country's first multiracial elections in April. The next few weeks, however, would bring depression and self-doubt, only momentarily interrupted by triumph.

The troubles started on March 11. Carter was covering the unsuccessful invasion of Bophuthatswana by white right-wing vigilantes intent on propping up a black homeland, a showcase of apartheid. Carter found himself just feet away from the summary execution of right-wingers by a black "Bop" policeman. "Lying in the middle of the gunfight," he said, "I was wondering about which millisecond next I was going to die, about putting something on film they could use as my last picture."

His pictures would eventually be splashed across front pages around the world, but he came away from the scene in a funk. First, there was the horror of having witnessed murder. Perhaps as importantly, while a few colleagues had framed the scene perfectly, Carter was reloading his camera with film just as the executions took place. "I knew I had missed this f--- shot," he said subsequently. "I drank a bottle of bourbon that night."

At the same time, he seemed to be stepping up his drug habit, including smoking the white pipe. A week after the Bop executions, he was seen staggering around while on assignment at a Mandela rally in Johannesburg. Later he crashed his car into a suburban house and was thrown in jail for 10 hours on suspicion of drunken driving. His superior at Reuter was furious at having to go to the police station to recover Carter's film of the Mandela event. Carter's girlfriend, Kathy Davidson, a schoolteacher, was even more upset. Drugs had become a growing issue in their one-year relationship. Over Easter, she asked Carter to move out until he cleaned up his life.

With only weeks to go before the elections, Carter's job at Reuter was shaky, his love life was in jeopardy and he was scrambling to find a new place to live. And then, on April 12, 1994, the New York Times phoned to tell him he had won the Pulitzer. As jubilant Times foreign picture editor Nancy Buirski gave him the news, Carter found himself rambling on about his personal problems. "Kevin!" she interrupted, "You've just won a Pulitzer! These things aren't going to be that important now."

Early on Monday, April 18, the Bang-Bang Club headed out to Tokoza township, 10 miles from downtown Johannesburg, to cover an outbreak of violence. Shortly before noon, with the sun too bright for taking good pictures, Carter returned to the city. Then on the radio he heard that his best friend, Oosterbroek, had been killed in Tokoza. Marinovich had been gravely wounded. Oosterbroek's death devastated Carter, and he returned to work in Tokoza the next day, even though the violence had escalated. He later told friends that he and not Ken "should have taken the bullet."

New York was a respite. By all accounts, Carter made the most of his first visit to Manhattan. The Times flew him in and put him up at the Marriott Marquis just off Times Square. His spirits soaring, he took to calling New York "my town."

With the Pulitzer, however, he had to deal not only with acclaim but also with the critical focus that comes with fame. Some journalists in South Africa called his prize a "fluke," alleging that he had somehow set up the tableau. Others questioned his ethics. "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering," said the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, "might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Even some of Carter's friends wondered aloud why he had not helped the girl.

Carter was painfully aware of the photojournalist's dilemma. "I had to think visually," he said once, describing a shoot-out. "I am zooming in on a tight shot of the dead guy and a splash of red. Going into his khaki uniform in a pool of blood in the sand. The dead man's face is slightly gray. You are making a visual here. But inside something is screaming, "My God.' But it is time to work. Deal with the rest later. If you can't do it, get out of the game." Says Nachtwey, "Every photographer who has been involved in these stories has been affected. You become changed forever. Nobody does this kind of work to make themselves feel good. It is very hard to continue."

Carter did not look forward to going home. Summer was just beginning in New York, but late June was still winter in South Africa, and Carter became depressed almost as soon as he got off the plane. "Joburg is dry and brown and cold and dead, and so damn full of bad memories and absent friends," he wrote in a letter never mailed to a friend, Esquire picture editor Marianne Butler in New York.

Nevertheless, Carter carefully listed story ideas and faxed some of them off to Sygma. Work did not proceed smoothly. Though it was not his fault, Carter felt guilty when a bureaucratic foul-up caused the cancellation of an interview by a writer from Parade magazine, a Sygma client, with Mandela in Cape Town. Then came an even more unpleasant experience. Sygma told Carter to stay in Cape Town and cover French President Francois Mitterrand's state visit to South Africa. The story was spot news, but according to editors at Sygma's Paris office, Carter shipped his film too late to be of use. In any case, they complained, the quality of the photos was too poor to offer to Sygma's clients.

According to friends, Carter began talking openly about suicide. Part of his anxiety was over the Mitterrand assignment. But mostly he seemed worried about money and making ends meet. When an assignment in Mozambique for TIME came his way, he eagerly accepted. Despite setting three alarm clocks to make his early-morning flight on July 20, he missed the plane. Furthermore, after six days in Mozambique, he walked off his return flight to Johannesburg, leaving a package of undeveloped film on his seat. He realized his mistake when he arrived at a friend's house. He raced back to the airport but failed to turn up anything. Carter was distraught and returned to the friend's house in the morning, threatening to smoke a white pipe and gas himself to death.

Carter and a friend, Judith Matloff, 36, an American correspondent for Reuter, dined on Mozambican prawns he had brought back. He was apparently too ashamed to tell her about the lost film. Instead they discussed their futures. Carter proposed forming a writer-photographer free-lance team and traveling Africa together.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 27, the last day of his life, Carter appeared cheerful. He remained in bed until nearly noon and then went to drop off a picture that had been requested by the Weekly Mail. In the paper's newsroom, he poured out his anguish to former colleagues, one of whom gave him the number of a therapist and urged him to phone her.

The last person to see Carter alive, it seems, was Oosterbroek's widow, Monica. As night fell, Carter turned up unannounced at her home to vent his troubles. Still recovering from her husband's death three months earlier, she was in little condition to offer counsel. They parted at about 5:30 p.m.

The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg's northern suburbs - and through Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquire T shirt, he got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow.

The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was "depressed . . . without phone . . . money for rent . . . money for child support . . . money for debts . . . money!!! . . . I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain . . . of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners . . . " And then this: "I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."