Tanglewood...

We'd gone to Tanglewood last Sunday to watch the Boston Symphony Orchestra play (with Yo Yo Ma)...

We had lawn tickets, and took a picnic, and all was good with the world for a while!

I've put up pictures on my gallery..

http://www.anujpradhan.com/photography/

:)

Hadron Collider Rap

This is awesome...

From boingboing.net

Photo credits...

The Umass website used a photograph that I'd taken on the 4th of July....

..a portion of my 15 minutes of photographic fame..

Here's a screen-grab.. :D

Movie star gossip...

I normally never indulge in movie star or celebrity gossip...

But this is too cool to just shrug off...

A bunch of my favorite Hong Kong/Chinese film industry folks are gonna be associated with Bhutan..

That's coz Tony Leung (and Carina Lau) are getting married in Bhutan (At the Uma Paro resort) ... and guests include Wong Kar Wai and Faye Wong among others..

How cool is that... 3 of my all time fave personalities from the HK film industry and all of them gonna end up in Bhutan!!

Who knows, maybe that'll inspire Wong Kar Wai to shoot a movie in Bhutan! :-)

http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_258012.html

And for those of you who're asking why is Faye Wong so special.. check this out. Here's a clip from Wong Kar Wai's "Chunking Express" with Faye Wong in it, and the song is also Faye Wong's cover of (The Cranberries) "Dreams"... :)

Rotten thieves...

Thought I'd get all green and enviro-friendly and healthy and all that and so decided that I'd bike as much as I can this summer.. Decided to minimize the driving and so was getting pretty good at pedalling about town and to work etc...

I normally lock my bike to the banister/railing of the stairs leading up to our building. And it's Amherst for crying out loud!! This place is supposed to be crime free!! But on Saturday, some dumfuks stole my bike. And how? They broke off the whole freaking banister so that they could slide the bike lock off of it!!!! Talk about desperately environment friendly thieves!!

Anyway, yea.. jus venting!!!

Summer's here..

Crap.. it's been a while..

so just to check in and say i'm alive..

it'll be a busy summer so posting frequency will be inversely related to temperatures, (and golf scores)..

But in the meanwhile.. enjoy this..
Weezer's video, featuring the internet video famous people!! Even the Numa Numa guy is there... :D

Titey Paatti: Bitter Leaf

Revisiting old literature classics can be quite educational in more ways than one.

While re-reading Kipling's 'Kim', I was moved to look up "Artemisia", which I learned is a genus of plants belonging to the daisy family. More interestingly, one of the species is known as "Artemisia absinthium", or commonly "Wormwood"... or what we knew as "Titey Paatti" (in Nepali, directly translating to 'bitter leaf') while we were growing up in the wilds of Chimakothi, Bhutan.

We always knew that the plant had medicinal properties... and worked well as an insect/pest repellent. How did we know that? Coz there'd be no leeches on these plants! :D.. and we'd make "hats" of these plants while hiking and trekking as they had a very effective shade-giving, cooling and relaxing effect.

Now I also know that our humble plant is also the source of Absinthe.. :D..... and more importantly, was the original flavoring for Vermouth (derived from the German word Wermut, "wormwood") !!

I still remember the bitter fresh smell of crushed Tittey Paatti leaves... and now that'll always come back to me when I drink Martinis. :)

on TV...

Our lab and research has been getting some press attention lately..

I have posted some of the print stuff already...

Now here are some of the TV clips.. (dorky as it may be!)

This one is from WBZ-TV, Boston, February 21.





This one from CBS-42, March 4.




and National News here.. from NBC Today Show, Mar 25.



In the first two clips I'm hemming and hawing my way through...
In the last clip you may catch a quick glimpse of me, if you don't blink. :D

Le Wire est mort, ...

... vive le Wire.

In honor of those multitudes who have not finished watching the 5th season, I will not be writing anything about the final episode of the final season.

Except..

I want it to start all over again.

mobile blogging - Amherst Graffiti

Saw this on a wall outside Amherst coffee tonight...



obviously referring to Bhutan's GNH... it was jus' so funny seeing it on that wall.

artsy cultural happenings..

There've been a couple of nice artsy stuff that've been taking place around here lately.. And luckily I've managed to make it to a few of these this semester.

-On October 19th, a whole load of us drove down to the Berkshire School at Sheffield, MA, to watch Dan perform as Pistol, the Earl of Warwick, and the Governor of Harfleuw in the American Shakespeare Center's production of Henry V. 'Twas a very interesting experience as this company's productions follow 'original staging practices', i.e. the plays are staged as they were during Shakespeare's time, with audience interaction, doubling of actors' roles, spartan sets, universal lighting etc.

(The drive to Sheffield, MA during the height of the Fall foliage along the scenic routes was pretty awesome too.)

November:
-...saw "Pillowman" at the Curtain Theatre. This dark comedy (???) by Martin McDonagh was disturbing to say the least, but engrossing and we couldn't keep our eyes off the stage, watching it like one would watch a car crash, with a sense of revulsion, dread and voyeurism. Great performances by all the amateur actors!

-...also saw Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado", a production of the Valley Light Opera, and directed by none but my downstairs neighbor Nick Dahlman. It was quite a lavsih affair, with amazing set and costume designs... befitting the classic tale of Nanki-Poo and Pooh-bah and Ko-Ko and Yum Yum. :)

-...The Commonwealth Opera presented Verdi's "Rigoletto" at the Academy of Music in Northampton. The supertitles during the opera definitely helps you understand what's happening... and all the more pleasure out of the performance due to that. The story of Rigoletto and the tragic consequences of revenge and murder.

December:
- ... The Bezanson Theatre was the venue for the Fred Anderson/Chad Taylor Duo as a part of the University Magic Triangle Jazz Series. A great performance by tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson and amazing, mind-blowing percussion by Chad Taylor. It was obvious that the 78 yr old saxophonist and the 34-yr old percussionist had a history of jamming together coz they were so in tune with each other's music, so well meshed and in perfect rhythm and harmony. One of the great Jazz performances I've had the privilege of attending.

Hope there'll be more fun artsy stuff before the end of the year.

Fear of social networks...

I've canceled my Hi5 account.

Orkut will probably go down that road too...

Facebook is freaking me out with their invasive privacy policies..

Hope Google hangs on to their "Don't do evil" motto..

Some pictures from Fall 2007

You may know that my digital camera got stolen from my bags in Heathrow earlier this year..
So I've been camera-less for a while.. and that kinda started bugging me, so I shook the dust off of my old 35mm SLR and bought a roll of film and went exploring.

Here are some of the results...

Shooting with a 35 mm is a very disciplining experience coz you know you have limited shots.. and so that makes you careful about the setup for that time when you actually press that shutter.. A good exercise.... Until I can afford a dSLR!

The 22nd Amendment..

Thank God...

http://andrewsloat.com/work/22ndamendment/index.html

Vote for Prashant

Alright, we all want Prashant to win the Indian Idol...

So make sure you vote for him!!!

US MIlitary on Underwear Alert at Gitmo!

This letter sent to a lawyer representing a Gitmo prisoner is unbelievable...
The reply from the lawyer is hilarious...

but the deeper point of this is... where does this stop? When did people lose their reason?

http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/underwear-alert.html

Haaaaah.. sweet victory..

I had a post here, exactly two years ago on Sept 17th 2005, complaining about the fact that New York Times Online had started a subscription service, Times Select, for select parts of their paper..

Read my 2 year old rant here - http://www.anujpradhan.com/2005/09/capitalists.php

Anyway, Guess what?? :)

Yup, you're right. The New York Times will stop charging access to parts of its website effective Midnight on Tuesday.

Hehehehe..

I sure am right most of the time..

ps - I never subscribed. As of few months ago they had started to make it free for students and educators.. but still, damage had been done.

Define chutzpah....

Russian bomb pips US bunker-buster
REUTERS
Spetember 12, 2007

Moscow: The vacuum bomb (World's Most Powerful Air Bomb) tested by Russia on Wednesday is said to be less harmful on the environment than a nuclear bomb. Alexander Rukshin, Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff, said: “I want to stress that the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one.’’
The consumption of gases in the blast generates a partial vacuum that can compound damage and injuries caused by the explosion itself. ‘‘The main destruction is inflicted by an ultrasonic shockwave and incredibly high temperature,’’ the reports said. ‘‘All that is alive merely evaporates,’’ Rukshin said.

WTF???????????

Don't damage the environment man... just evaporate every living thing bro.. it's all cool dude!!!

Is that chutzpah? .. or some kind of irony? .. or oxymoronic?? or just plain fraking-shoot-me-in-the-head-coz-this-world-is-going-nuts crazy?????

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

From boingboing.net
by Cory Doctorow

Naomi Klein (No Logo) and Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón (Children of Men) have created a short film to accompany her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," whose thesis is that present-day global capitalism took hold when its advocates learned to exploit disasters. After a disaster (war, tsunami, terrorist attack), you can push your agenda for worsening labor conditions, looser regulation, and pocket-lining exercises (Enron, Halliburton) while the reeling, disaster-struck population of the world has its attention elsewhere.

Klein attributes this technique to Milton Friedman, who is reported to have said that "only a crisis -- real or perceived -- produces real change." She connects this idea to the fundamental notion underpinning CIA torture techniques (as reported in CIA interrogation manuals from 1963 and 1983) -- to produce a state of shock in which the victim is out of control of her faculties, a "suspended animation" that can be exploited to get victims to do things that violate their own ethics or beliefs.

The Cuaróns' filmmaking is superb, as is Klein's writing. This is a chilling and powerful 7-minute film, and it made me want to pick up the book as soon as possible.

Do watch the video. I haven't read the book yet but it looks like it'll be pretty good.

..just a hello..

Hi Folks...

Sorry I haven't been writing much here.. or updating this too often.

.. maybe from next month you can expect an increase in the frequency of posts.

Till then.. Check out the box titled '.. from my feeds' on the right column -------->

I'll add some news story that I found interesting over there.. so that'll be updated pretty often. Just in case you wanna know what news stories I find amusing/intriguing/exasperating...

ciao...

Happy 60th

Happy India's Independence Day

60 years

you've come a long way. and you've got miles to go..

hang on in there.

salty water in ears..

that's what happens if you jump into the ocean...

The weather was perfect for the beach.. so that's where we were this weekend.
Nantasket beach in Hull, MA.. voted the best beach for people-watching.

We'd gone down to Boston for Siri's bday bash.. at the oh-so-posh Om Bar (and Lounge) in Cambridge.
The following day 2 carloads of us trundled down to the beach to do nothing but chill.

and then, the same thing on sunday too..

now that's what weekends are sposed to be like.

The future republicans..

How creepy is this?

Here are some of the future of the USA in the College Republican National Convention Tour...

Max Blumenthal finds that they strongly support the war in Iraq... But why aren't they fighting then??

Hypocrites...

and what's with Tom DeLay.. Why is he still around??

Check out the video...

ooooh..

Wow.. that is what I call a tough old lady!!



Read the full story here...

07-07-07

I quite like the date today

07-07-07

I guess it is considered lucky by many!!

Definitely lucky for me.. It's my Mom's birthday! :)

Happy lucky day...

Bush 'commutes' Scooter Libby's 30 month sentence

WTF


can you believe that?

Sheeesh...

how depressing!

The Bhutan and Timberland Connection

Today I saw a colleague's friend wearing this t-shirt...


????????????

So where is this connection between Timberland and Bhutan??
Or does Timberland randomly look for country's names to display on their clothing?

Actually, BWP 0198 is a vehicle license plate number.
That is how the plates looked in the old days in Bhutan (Nowadays they are BP or BG or BT):

BWP is for a Private vehicle from the Western region...

BWG would be a Government vehicle
BWH would be a Heavy vehicle
and
BWT would be a Transport (or Taxi) vehicle

And the permutations would continue for vehicles from the Eastern regions or the Central regions.

So .....

Who in Bhutan, in 1973, with the vehicle license BWP 0198 went on a Summit Discovery trip... which resulted in a sign.. or poster.. which was then reproduced 35 years later by Timberland on an American t-shirt??

I will pay serious money to the person who can solve this mystery for me!!

Well, at the very least I'll buy you a couple of beers! :P

Call the US from India now.. not the other way around!

It is finally cheaper to call the US from India rather than the other way around...

BSNL slashes ISD rates for US, Canada, Gulf

Monday, June 11, 2007
12:24 IST
New Delhi: Triggering another price war in the international subscriber dialing (ISD) space, state-run telecom major BSNL has reduced calling rates to the US and Canada to Rs 1.75 per minute and Rs 6.75 per minute to the Gulf, slightly lower than the rates offered by private firms.

US, Canada and Gulf are the busiest ISD routes from India, and with the drop in rates, the company hopes to scale up volumes, a senior BSNL official said.

Private players at present offer ISD calls at Rs 1.99 per minute to the US and Rs 6.99 a minute for the Gulf countries.

BSNL will soon introduce Call Now, a new STD/ISD calling card that will enable a user to call in the US at Rs 1.75 per minute using a card worth Rs 2,000, which will have a validity of three months.

Call charges on the same card are Rs 3.25 per minute to France, Russia, the UK and South East Asia, Rs 5.50 per minute to the rest of Europe and Sri Lanka, and Rs 8 per minute to the rest of the world. Local and STD calls will be charged Re 1 per minute under the plan.

In May, Bharti Airtel dropped ISD charges to the US and Canada, where a Airtel mobile user could call at Rs 1.99 per minute with a Airtel STD and ISD Calling Card worth Rs 2,245.

Reliance Communications has also cut its rates to the US and Canada to Rs 1.99 per minute on its 'Reliance Global Call Card' worth Rs 1,900. The company had recently cut calling charges to the Gulf to Rs 6.99 per minute.

From MSN India Business - Link

The Sopranos ain't singin' no more

It's over.

No more.

The Sopranos wooed, conquered and then left...

not with a bang.. nor with a whimper. Just left!! Where's closure when you need it?

And to Mr. David Chase.. hats off... You pulled off the Zidane of television.

Man, the only thing on TV worth watching is over and done with.

Now I can go on with my life!

The return

This prodigal blogger has returned...

Stay tuned for content gleaned during my self imposed exile from this area of my life.

Home

I am home.

After a long and eventful travel
over many oceans and strange lands.
Many days of journeying
through cities
rich and poor,
tropical and temperamental.
And...
Meeting friends and family
and more.

Tempus fugit,
but till then
Home Sweet Home.

good product + bad website = no sale

My brother had mentioned Crumpler bags very favourably. And my oz friends also had very very good things to say about the products. So it was with the enthusiastic anticipation of a seasoned online shopper with a hot tip that I looked up and visited Crumpler's US website.



The first thing that you notice is that it is a completely flash based website.

Flash Website = Bad Website.

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that google doesn't index them.. and the non-standard (read Stupid) user interfaces that are used. The websites can be noisy, flasy, confusing, irritating.... ad nauseam.



However due to the strong endorsements for the products, I decided to wade through the flash flotsam and find and purchase a bag or a sleeve for a 15" Mac Book Pro.



But at every turn my efforts were thwarted.

First of all the very weird and obnoxious music that played automatically as you entered the site. OK, I turned that off. But that doesn't turn off the sound effects... which are weird and obnoxious too. Think teenagers' myspace page.

The language used to describe the products was the next irritant. I mean OK, it's cool to be cool and trendy and explain the type of bag with humorous and witty descriptions. BUT.. the descriptions.. if you can call 'em that... are such that the potential customer won't know whether it's a bag he's reading about or a furry sex toy or a victorian naughty book...

You are more embarrassing than a lizard without a tongue, chum, more embarrassing than Superman’s skidmarks, son, I’m gonna throw you reverse piking from the diving board with your costume up your three bum cheeks!



Let me rub my hands on you, hairy one . . . Oooh, you are like silk that’s gone rough, yes. You are like velvet that someone has blended a goat coat through, hmmm. You are so tight, tight, tight, I can see your bruschettas through you

You see? It's funny. Sure. But it doesn't help me when I'm trying to see what kinda bag or laptop case I'm going to spend $130+ on.



ANYWAY.. even after all this, I still persevere. I decide to go with a sleeve not a bag and even manage to kinda interpret some of their gibberish babytalk to choose what I wanted. And then I realised that if I ordered it online it might not arrive on time, unless I paid another $15 for rush delivery.



So I decided to look for stores in the area which would stock these products.



And that's when I almost died with frustration because of the amazingly dumb user interface that is used in order to locate stores in the US. Why? Why? Why? At the very least take pity on guys who don't have the time to go through your site like they're trying to find their way out of the crimson room. Put in a link to a regular normal text based page with the information we are searching for.



Pheww..



It was one of my worst experiences with a website designed to sell a product.



I'm sure the product is great and if I do see it in a store I will probably buy it. But man, change your website design please.



So no, I did not end up buying one. And I did not end up finding the information which would help me find the product in a brick/mortar store. So essentially, due to poor design and user interface, the website lost a customer who was willing to pony up.



I hope someone from Crumpler reads this and realizes that if they already have a great product they do not need to indulge in flashy website bells and whistles to convince the buyer. If the person is a serious buyer then you'll only scare away the fella. And if it's a person who's just stumbled upon your site, he's gonna walk away without looking back. Lose-lose situation.