(photography) the goal...

When would I say "I've learnt all I want to learn about taking photographs"?

When I can take shots like this:

http://flickr.com/photos/latitudes/263133495/in/set-72157594314154475/

(stupid malware) Vista's performance

To start with, it seems that when you are using GigE (gigabit ethernet) cards, and transferring large files over the network, Vista uses upto 41% of your CPU!!! That is horrible. (Linux barely blinks when doing the same thing).

What's worse is that this affects music playing -- if you're listening to MP3s they start sounding choppy.

So, guess what Microsoft decided was more important among these two? Riiiight -- the music. If you're playing music, your network bandwidth is throttled down to about 15 MB per second! (A GIgE card can theoretically give you about 110 MB per second -- the gig is "bits", not bytes, remember?)

Robert Love: Those Dang DPCs Clogging the MMCSS: http://blog.rlove.org/2007/08/those-dang-dpcs-clogging-mmcss.html

(life) Neem Hakim Khatra-e-Jaan

Just went to my very first open-air play, in a small amphitheater at Saptaparni on Road #8 (BH).

Neem Hakim Khatra-e-Jaan is an adaptation of Moliere's "A Physician In Spite of Himself". (I found one "full text" link at http://www.bibliomania.com/0/6/4/1968/frameset.html).

The play was mostly in Hindi, both the regular variety and the Hyderabadi kind, with small bits of Telugu thrown in, and was done very well. The lead actor (Sganarelle, in the original play) was very good, but maybe we felt that only because he was on stage more than the others, and in fact they were all really very good. The man who played the "Deewanji" (Geronte in the original) had a particularly pleasant voice, and he looked quite distinguished and cultured in his role.

We went with 3 kids and they all enjoyed it immensely -- much of the dialog (often laugh-out-loud funny!) was understandable even by my brother's 5 year old, and it was certainly easy for them to appreciate much of the acting. Parts of it could almost be called hamming, but I would say the material called for hamming anyway :-)

Sutradhar ( www.sutradharactors.com, but the damn web site seems to require both JS and Flash, so I didn't bother to actually see what's in it) are the people behind it, and it looks like I will be looking out for more of their work, at least the comedy variety and if it happens so close to home.

All in all, it quite made us all forget (except the 1-minute silence at the start) yesterday's horrors...

(funny,security) too much technology?

Sometimes I think the whole purpose of most modern technology is to make the bad guys job easier!

Stolen satnav guides thieves to owner's home:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/23/satnav_theft/

MyWire | Psychology Today: Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

http://www.mywire.com/pubs/PsychologyToday/2007/07/01/4190475?page=2

Explains a heck of a lot of things!

There are some really wonderful one-liners (unintentional, no doubt), and even though it looks like heavy reading, it is well worth the time spent reading it!

Best line: "What distinguishes Bill Clinton is not that he had extramarital affairs while in office—others have, more will; it would be a Darwinian puzzle if they did not—what distinguishes him is the fact that he got caught."

And speaking of Darwinism, it does help in understanding this article if you know the basic premise of Darwinism in order to appreciate this article.

Another lovely line: "Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women."

(photography) just bought...

... a Canon S3 IS handheld digital camera.

While there is no dearth of extensive reviews of this camera everywhere, with loads of sample photos and colour charts and so on, this is one of the best reviews I have read:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/canon-s3-review.shtml

Luminous Landscape is one of my favorite sites, and Michael Reichmann, the author of the review and owner of the site, is a professional who really knows what he is talking about!

Best quote:

The lens on this camera is a 12X zoom with a focal length of 6 - 72mm and an aperture of f/2.7 (wide end) to f/3.5 (long end). The focal length needs to be put into context with its 35mm equivalent; 36 - 432mm. This is a huge focal range, and a very fast aperture for such a long lens. If this lens had been designed for a 35mm full-frame camera it would weigh 25 lbs and cost more than most cars.

what would Scott Adams say, I wonder...

My daughter came back from school yesterday with a really bad migraine.  Apparently she didn't have time to have lunch because of a meeting!

Why does someone who's not even close to being a teenager have meetings?  Apparently she's the "junior house captain" or something for her "house" in school, and the meeting was to work out details of some duties that the house captains share.

Who says our education system doesn't prepare you for the real world?

(life) friendship day

Does this not remind you of the old joke about "women's day"? (The joke being that having a special day for women implies the other 364 days are "men's days").

The symbol seems more important than the reality to some people -- you can ignore your "friends" for much of the preceding year, and redeem yourself in one shot on friendship day. For added effect, take a bouquet or something along, and your "friend" is supposed to be suitably impressed and honored!

In reality he/she may be thinking: this is what my friendship has come to, like the joke about women's day.

I guess this is why real guy-guy friendships don't bother with friendship day. No woman involved, so no sentiment needed, whether real or pretended!

[to my 2 "girl/woman" readers: no offense intended; most women are very sentimental!]

Mozilla CEO denies Google decided Thunderbird's fate - LinuxWorld

I always loved conspiracy theories, and this one, despite the denials, (or maybe *because* of them!) sounds plausible.

Don't just think of it as "gmail". Think of google's enterprise email push, as the article says...

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/072707-mozilla-ceo-denies-google-decided.html

the nice thing about Himesh Reshamiya...

...is that he gives hope to all the crap singers out there. They're all thinking, "if this guy can make it big, why not me?"