Is the thrill gone?

They say that blogging is dying… After reading this I thought this may well be true..  Many of my friends stopped writing anything. Only a few die-hard ones are still out there. I myself stopped writing for almost a year. My reasons though is not that I lost interest, I were busy and couldn’t found time first of all  , I mean believe me really.

The reason for once-a-thrill now-dying blogs are wonderfully explained here. The author who wrote “Blogging is dying” refines the statement by saying the long tail of blogging is dying. He says “blogging isn’t easy. More precisely, other things are easier – and it’s to easier things that people are turning. Facebook’s success is built on the ease of doing everything in one place. (Search tools can’t index it to see who’s talking about what, which may be a benefit or a failing.) Twitter offers instant content and reaction. Writing a blog post is a lot harder than posting a status update, putting a funny link on someone’s Wall, or tweeting. People are still reading blogs, and other content. But for the creation of amateur content, their heyday for the wider population has, I think, already passed.”

May be the statement has some truth.. but lo… wait, if blogs are dying what about their predecessors, i  mean, user groups? Between the ninties and early 2000s there were a plethora of user groups such as usenet, yahoo groups, msn groups etc. Are they still functioning or fading out like blogs?

I have been in the internet for almost I can say 10 years. I have seen the busiest times of groups, then came the blogs like tsunami waves. When blogs became the new web phenomina, it was almost felt that the days of user groups are gone. I were once member of groups like RayarKaapiKlub, Maraththadi etc.. They all went idle when the blog wave came into being. So can we conclude that its all twitters and facebook going forward and no more groups or blogs?

Definitely not, I am still following a number of yahoo and google groups. People still are thronging these groups. Blogs may be fading out but groups are not. May be the reason being, those who post in groups are sure that people are reading their posts and responding to it, whereas in blogs, unless one has a good web of friends, it would be like “Tea aathifying in an empty shop” (pardon by taminglish ).

Real phone numbers in movies

I came across this news that, in the latest movie Ghajini (Hindi version of tamil movie) they had unintensionally used a real phone number. That became a calamity because after watching the movie some fans started calling the real phone number and started asking for Gajini. Pretty comical though.

The scriptwriter possibly conjured up the number from thin air. But unfortunately for Ms. Varghese, it turned out to be her mobile number.

And the calls, since the release of the film last week, haven’t stopped.

Worse, Aamir Khan with the number, is imprinted on film posters all over town.

“On an average, I receive about five calls a day. It’s become a nuisance,” said a hapless Ms. Varghese.

In Hollywood, they have set up a fictitious number started with 555 to be used as phone numbers in the films. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_(telephone_number)). This obviously avoids any such prank calls.

So what do you think Ms. Varghese did after that:

Unable to come to terms with it, Ms. Varghese finally decided to see Ghajini and check it for herself.

On Wednesday, along with her husband, she went for a screening at Lido Cinema. And, behold, her number was indeed on Aamir Khan’s body. She also saw her number on a poster of the film outside the cinema.

Well,  if my phone number ends up like this, I would cut a deal with my service provider to play advertisements on the mobile… I could make some money isn’t it

Dr. Strangelove

I would say this is one of the best movie of all times. The way Stanley Kubrick portrayed the cold war times, with all the grotesque quirks of the two big nations and their leaders, its simply awesome. The film entirely runs a kind of dark satirical comedy that we may not be all laughing while watching it but the scenes are quite memorable.  The best thing about this movie is every line of dialogue is so perfectly carved.

Probably since it is an old movie,  the storyline is no big secret now.  In the movie, a U.S general due to minor flaw in the constitutional law, gets the ability to order an attack on the Soviet Russia. He does just that! Upon his orders, the U.S Bomber airplanes, about thirty of them, having nuclear bombs,  breach into Russian air space to drop bombs at various locations. Due to wartime rules, the bomber planes once launched on their mission cannot be easily stopped.  On knowing this, the U.S. President organises a meeting at the Pentagon. In there, with the help of Russian ambassador, discusses with the Russian President to stop the bomber. The entire movie is the sequence of happenings within about couple of hours during this crisis.

If we just read this story in a book, we could only imagine a nuclear war thriller. However its Kubrick’s brilliance, this story so perfectly transformed into a comedy.  In one scene, the Russian ambassador is invited inside the Pentagon War room. A US General,  goes on fighting with the ambassador accusing him that he is taking photograph’s of the war room. The US President then stops them saying “Gentlemen, you can’t fight here. This is War Room!”.  LOL!

The entire sequence of the US President speaking to the Russian President is worth watching. Luckily they have allowed this little video in youtube.   Take a look:

One would be surprised to see Peter Sellers (Yes, the Pink Panther) in three different roles, the US President being one of them and a military officer, and Dr. Strangelove being the other.  My favorite is the US President role than even the Dr. Strangelove in fact.

And one other character that was most talked about is the Slim Pickens, acting as a B52 Bomber pilot. His texan accent is quite humorous.  One particular scene of his, where he checks the emergency survival kit for air staff is one of the most talked about scenes.

All in all, its a masterpiece of one of the greatest movie directors of all time.   Movies like these are lessons that show it doesnt need huge sum of money to shoot a good classic movie.

CHANDRAYAAN

Its one of the immensely proud and joyful moment when Chandrayaan (means Moon craft), India’s first ever lunar mission  got off to space. With this our Bharath joins hands with bigger brothers like USA, Russia, Japan, China etc.

The remote sensing satellite will orbit around moon just over 100 KM near moon and it would also launch a Moon Impact Probe (MIP) to actually land on moon, with our Indian flag, to do experimentation.

Manoranjitam has moved. Please click here to read the entire post…

Words of wisdom!

Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus Chemistry could not progress farther when it would discover one element out of which all other could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all others are but manifestations, and the science of religion become perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world. One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science.
- Vivekananda
 

I came across this wonderful piece. I can feel the powerful, compelling words of wisdom in it. Hope in the coming days I could read more.