“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

I’m trying to write more regularly, so expect some rambling.

We used to watch a lot of Star Trek: TNG back in the day and there was this one episode I’m sure my parents were a little uncomfortable with - ‘Justice’. After around 10 minutes of watching the half-naked inhabitants of Rubicon III indulge in guilt-free sex and other pleasures (and my mother’s glares), we were asked to leave the room  (damn you, understandable but misplaced fears).

I finally watched the episode last night, 16 years later. It was pretty silly but thematically more substantial than I recall. The USS Enterprise makes contact with a planet whose peaceful inhabitants live in fear of their god, an advanced alien being kicking it out in the planet’s orbit. When Wesley Crusher breaks a trivial rule, the Enterprise has to prevent his execution and this isn’t easy considering they’re sworn to the Prime Directive. The reason I prefer TNG over the original series is because of the former’s obvious moral core.

Anyway, Captain Picard saves the day with a speech.

I don’t know how to communicate this, or even if it is possible. But the question of justice has concerned me greatly of late. And I say to any creature who may be listening, there can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.

Let me digress, but only slightly. The IT law overhaul in India is clearly a bad idea but shouldn’t we be worried that there are people out there making arguments like this?

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus by Patrick Clair for Hungry Beast.

I’m more of a first person/third person slasher/shooter fan myself but Limbo is unlike any other game I’ve played. Most of the indie platform titles I’ve come across (on a Mac) have been unimaginative and forgettable. Limbo, on the other hand, is dark, ambiguous, atmospheric and surprisingly moving.

A boy wakes up at the ‘edge of hell’ and encounters bear traps, giant spiders and a girl. The player gets to control the boy’s movements and perform some basic actions like jumping, climbing and interacting with objects. As the (very short) game progresses, things get darker and creepier;  you die many times before you figure out what to do. And the deaths are gruesome – plenty of decapitating and impaling. The puzzles get progressively harder and the deaths, more horrifying.

The developers were spot-on in recreating the noir look and feel reminiscent of Fritz Lang’s M, Metropolis and other German Expressionist films. The story is weird and uncomfortable and the ending is open to interpretation (or perhaps, no interpretation at all). Sadly the game clocks in at less than 5 hours and costs 1200 points if you’re on XBox Live.

For me, this is the closest a video game gets to being a work of art.

Hans Rosling’s (if you haven’t watched his TED talk, you should) Gapminder is a wonderful tool for statistics nerds.

If you’re as much a fan of data extrapolation as I am, you may want to check out his site or the desktop client. Some of the motion charts are very insightful.

Couple of examples:

1. Income/person vs CO2 emissions (tonnes/person)

2. Income/person vs Life expectancy

I’ve been using the Kindle for about a week now and contrary to what this article says, I actually have been getting a lot of reading done. As much as I love the smell of books and they way they look on my shelf, I’m starting to understand the appeal of an e-reader. For one, it’s eminently portable and since I spend an hour on the tram everyday, the device is starting to seem more and more like a great purchase.

I’d briefly considered getting myself a tablet device but then decided against it because face it, it’s hard to get any real reading done on a device that offers such lively distractions as fart synthesizers and pissed finches.

The reading experience itself is quite non-intrusive; you hardly feel you’re reading on a device that uses electrically charged microcapsules but instead, feels a lot like a book (now and then, I try ‘turning the page’ before realizing a click suffices). The screen contrast makes for pleasant reading and unlike devices with OLED screens, the Kindle works great outdoors.

The firmware however could use a bit of tweaking but for most purposes, is quite intuitive. It also comes with an experimental browser which is pretty useless and by the time it loads a page, I’ve done more on my phone’s browser. One of the great things about Amazon’s Kindle is the brilliant Kindle store (with a catalog of around 670000 books) and while some of the prices do seem a bit much, works out cheaper for me considering I don’t have to shell out for shipping costs.

Frankly, I never thought I’d get an e-reader but one week and 4 books later, I’m glad I did.

[Pic posted on my Flickr account]

Inception was everything I hoped it’d be.  It was sufficiently complex (though nowhere near as complicated as Primer or even, Memento) and despite the 148 minute running time, very very engaging.

(Spoilers)

Then again, like all great films, Inception has its flaws and it’s not just the false narrative or the plot holes. Christopher Nolan has a set of rules for his world – rules that are essential in moving the plot forward; call it cinematic license, but it does feel like Nolan gets away with a little too much. I might be nitpicking but that’s what happens when you go in with great expectations.

Critics who’ve compared it to 2001: ASO or Blade Runner are only kidding themselves. Inception is more than just another great science fiction film – it’s about mathematics and engineering. The narrative is so tightly constructed that when scenes flit across the three (or four) ‘dream levels’, you cannot help but marvel at the genius behind it especially since time is supposed to be relative in all levels. A couple of years ago, the brother suggested I read Douglas R. Hofstadter’s wonderful book, Godel, Escher, Bach and after Inception, I find myself comparing the two. The film’s production design is certainly inspired by M.C. Escher’s art and some of the themes have been explored in other films. In fact, for a much more accurate interpretation of lucid dreams and more specifically, the concept of limbo, I’d recommend Richard Linklater’s underrated Waking Life.

Despite my reservations, I loved Inception. I find it oddly comforting that amidst all the crap that finds its way into cinemas, we can still count on someone to deliver a truly original blockbuster that you don’t have to switch your brain off for. And yes, I’ll be watching it again.

9/10

Design obsolescence has always puzzled me. How does something that’s aesthetically appealing one day become an eyesore the next? Remember back in 1998, when the translucent candy-like iMac came out and everyone and their grandmother soiled their pants over it? It really hasn’t stood the test of time. Now compare that with the set-design for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; 41 years and it still gives off that futuristic vibe.

Gary Hustwit’s Objectified tries to tackle this dissonance but never quite succeeds. Despite that, Objectified is a very engaging documentary on industrial design. There are some very insightful interviews with leading designers including the reclusive Jonathan Ive and the brilliant Mark Newson. Contrary to what you might expect from a documentary on design, Objectified is never boring.

If there’s one thing you learn from the film, it’s that most designers share a singular albeit abstract design philosophy – “I want things I can’t have yet”.

Highly recommended.

I spend over an hour on the tram every day and when not dozing off, I’m listening to one of the many podcasts I can never find time for otherwise. I’ve put up a list of the ones I listen to religiously because, well, we all know there hasn’t been much writing going on around here.

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe: If you’re looking for a weekly debunking of irrationality, go no further. I’ve admired Dr Steven Novella ever since I came across his brilliant blog, NeuroLogica. You have to hand it to the man for making it his life’s work promoting critical thinking and skepticism while actually making a fun podcast with plenty of  gastrointestinal humour. Also, Rebecca Watson is awesome.

Nerdist: Chris Hardwick is not that funny but I love how he tries. And if you need just one reason to tune into this podcast, it’ll have to be because they had The Muppets on. Yes, Kermit and Gonzo and everyone.

This American Life: I’ve been told that TAL is one of the best podcasts out there and I cannot disagree. The show consists of several acts with interesting essays, field reports and short fiction.

Reasonable Doubts: I’m a little tired of all the atheist blogs and podcasts out there but Reasonable Doubts manages to offer interesting analyses of religions and religion related news without being overly condescending. They also won a People’s Choice Podcast Award and the people are seldom wrong.

The Ricky Gervais Show: Ricky Gervais is genius. Fact. But what makes this podcast really stand out is the amazing Karl Pilkington. I’m still uncertain as to whether he’s pulling off an elaborate prank or if he really is as daft as he comes across. But face it, to pull of that kind of stream of consciousness stupidity, you’ll have to be a prodigy. Doesn’t make sense otherwise.

The Bugle: I’ve invited a million stares in public because of The Bugle. I dare you to not snicker if not laugh out loud. John Oliver and Andy Zaltsman have created a satirical news show that puts The Onion to shame. Oh and they ‘re responsible for my extremely unhealthy Florence Nightingale fixation.

Yeah, that’s about it.

While I don’t agree with Cory Doctorow on comic books (I rarely, if ever lend mine out), this is exactly why I won’t be getting an iPad.

Then there’s the device itself: clearly there’s a lot of thoughtfulness and smarts that went into the design. But there’s also a palpable contempt for the owner. I believe — really believe — in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple ][+.

But with the iPad, it seems like Apple’s model customer is that same stupid stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother as appears in a billion renditions of “that’s too complicated for my mom” (listen to the pundits extol the virtues of the iPad and time how long it takes for them to explain that here, finally, is something that isn’t too complicated for their poor old mothers).

(…)

If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad isn’t for you.

If you want to live in the fair world where you get to keep (or give away) the stuff you buy, the iPad isn’t for you.

If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you’re going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn’t for you.