zigzackly

Thursday, May 26, 2005

P2P (Pigeon to Pigeon) file sharing

Remember Google's PigeonRank™ spoof? Perhaps they, like Mad magazine so frequently was, were just ahead of their time. On Ami Ben-Bassat's Blog, you can read about how 4 Gb of data was moved 100 km faster than ASDL can. [Via Suhail, via endgadget, via pasta and vinegar]

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Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Time's list of the 100 all-time great movies

...(as selected by Richard Corliss & Richard Schickel, the magazine's movie critics) is here. Most of the usual suspects, you'll find. And Indians will be pleased to see The Apu Trilogy and Pyaasa on the list.

Here it is, in alphabetical order. The link above gives you a clickable list, which opens up a short note on each film by either one of the Richards, and a link to Time's original review - though you'll need to be subsriber for that last bit.

Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972)

The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Baby Face (1933)

Bande à part (1964)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Blade Runner (1982)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Brazil (1985)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Camille (1936)

Casablanca (1942)

Charade (1963)

Children of Paradise (1945)

Chinatown (1974)

Chungking Express (1994)

Citizen Kane (1941)

City Lights (1931)

City of God (2002)

Closely Watched Trains (1966)

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)

The Crowd (1928)

Day for Night (1973)

The Decalogue (1989)

Detour (1945)

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

Dodsworth (1936)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Drunken Master II (1994)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

8 1/2 (1963)

The 400 Blows (1959)

Farewell My Concubine (1993)

Finding Nemo (2003)

The Fly (1986)

The Godfather, Parts I and II (1972, 1974)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

Goodfellas (1990)

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

His Girl Friday (1940)

Ikiru (1952)

In A Lonely Place (1950)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

It's A Gift (1934)

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

Kandahar (2001)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

King Kong (1933)

The Lady Eve (1941)

The Last Command (1928)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Léolo (1992)

The Lord of the Rings (2001-03)

The Man With a Camera (1929)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Metropolis (1927)

Miller's Crossing (1990)

Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)

Mouchette (1967)

Nayakan (1987)

Ninotchka (1939)

Notorious (1946)

Olympia, Parts 1 and 2 (1938)

On the Waterfront (1954)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Out of the Past (1947)

Persona (1966)

Pinocchio (1940)

Psycho (1960)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)

Pyaasa (1957)

Raging Bull (1980)

Schindler's List (1993)

The Searchers (1956)

Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

The Singing Detective (1986)

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Star Wars (1977)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Sunrise (1927)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Swing Time (1936)

Talk to Her (2002)

Taxi Driver (1976)

Tokyo Story (1953)

A Touch of Zen (1971)

Ugetsu (1953)

Ulysses' Gaze (1995)

Umberto D (1952)

Unforgiven (1992)

White Heat (1949)

Wings of Desire (1987)

Yojimbo (1961)

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Tuesday, May 24, 2005

But wait!

There is hope!

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The horror...

...the horror!

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indi³ lives

We're glad to report that our little experiment with getting some of our favourite bloggers together to talk about blogging, indi³, has, after a long silent period, come to life again.

Amit Varma writes on why he doesn't have comments enabled on his blog. That post, at the moment of typing, has 50 comments. Which I both envy and shudder at the thought of. 50 comments? Crikey! I wouldn't get any work done! Thank goodness I'm a harmless filter blogger without an opinion to save my life with.

And Dina Mehta writes about the news that the Indian government, all by its little self, proposes to offer bloggers accreditation.

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Speaking of Annie...

...which we'll happily do for as long as you want, you must go see her set of posts on Fakiri legends. And this one about waiting for a visa at the Pakistan Embassy. And this one... Well, you get the picture. Just bookmark her blog.

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DiscrimiNation

One of those innumerable internet FWDs that keep landing in our inbox ascribes this to Andy Rooney - why him all the time? - on 60 Minutes.

I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America; and see what happens... Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.
I am sick of "Political Correctness." I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa; so how can they be "African-Americans"? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don't go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe. I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.

Whatcha think, people?

On the second question, we tend to say we're Anglo-Indian when we're asked, because usually, the people who ask know we're Indian, and are trying to slot us, and we frankly don't know what slot we can claim, with all the mixed blood flowing through our veins.

On the minority thing, we belong to one of the smallest in this country ("Huh? Mangaloreindian? Mangalorean? Oh, Anglo-Indian. Which one of your parents is British?" / "Oh, you don't look Angrez.") and have never really felt the need to seek out my whatchamacallit - community? - for companionship. Another aside. Of all the Significant Others in our life, only one-and-a-half were AI. The half refers to one that didn;t last very long. :) So this blog wonders why human nature seems to make people band together in some way when we feel we're in a minority. To our mind, that only serves to make the divide wider. And falls into the same things-we-don't-grok file as the bit about people who travel but want exactly the same food and ambience as they get at home.

Now where were we?

Damn.

This a meandering, half-hearted rant. It isn't even getting our own blood pressure up. It's this heat. Saps the cerebrum. Or perhaps we should leave this kinda thing to Annie. She does it so much better.

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Sunday, May 22, 2005

Remix we can live with

Yo, DJ!

Penguinremixed is offering you "Thirty of the best spoken word samples from some of greatest books of all time." You can download them, mix them with your music and submit to the site, to be eligible for a prize, including your tune published in a Penguin Digital Audiobook.

Among the tracks available are extracts from Alice In Wonderland, Frankenstein, Dracula, On The Road, The Great Gatsby, The Prophet, The Ugly Duckling, Blake, Kipling, some Charles Dickens, H G Wells and Ian Fleming. Among the readers, Rufus Sewell and Ian Richardson.

Worth a visit if only for the downloads.

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Book events we'd like to see in the Habitat Centre and Crossword

Lit Lite, a weekly literary series, invites performers to select and read from their favorite bad books.
...
...Greg Walloch, a stand-up comic, chose to deliver passages from two novels by the actor Ethan Hawke, "The Hottest State" and "Ash Wednesday."
"Man, when I first met Christy - and this is no joke, a cliché but no joke - it was like my heart was literally stuck on my esophagus," Mr. Walloch read from "Ash Wednesday" as an audience of more than 40 groaned and giggled. ...
Since the series began in February, more than 40 books have been skewered. A $5 cover charge is imposed and, because of the subject matter, heavy drinking is encouraged. Each session tackles a different subject, from sex to self help. At one event the ballet dancer Robert La Fosse poked fun at his autobiography, "Nothing to Hide." Earlier this month, in keeping with the theme "Women's Problems," performers read excerpts from Rosie O'Donnell's free-verse poetry blog (onceadored.blogspot.com), "Yvonne: An Autobiography," by the actress Yvonne De Carlo, who played Lily Munster in the television series "The Munsters," and Eve Ensler's "Good Body." Tonight, under the banner "Difficult People," Jodi Lennon, a comedy writer, will present "Hold My Gold," a hip-hop how-to guide for white girls.
Lit Lite is the brainchild of Kevin Malony and Grady Hendrix, both of whom stage productions for the Off Off Broadway theater company Tweed. Mr. Hendrix began the evening with a recitation from "Mission Compromised," Oliver North's military thriller.

Perhaps Hurree will suggest some passages from the IWE school for a series like this? We'll volunteer to read, though it's been years since we put on a wig and a mini skirt.

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Saturday, May 21, 2005

In which we are paid to point people to websites

Which also explains why this blog hasn't been updated as frequently as it should be

The Bombay edition of the TOI has gone through a much-needed and very welcome makeover in the last few months. A decent city section, with some of the old columns like Snapshot and In Search of... revived in slightly tweaked avataars on Page 5, and a bunch of new ones thrown in, a gen-oo-wine Books page on Sundays, and more recently, a International supplement.

And among those page 5 columns, every Friday you'll see one with our byline. It's called Mousetrap (lovely name, and sadly, one I can't take credit for - Nina Martyris done thunk it up), and it covers five sites a week. The pattern I have set so far is one blog, one India-related site, and three random wacky, unusual, or just plain useful sites. Since the TOI hasn't seen fit to archive the column on their site, we'll have to point you to first three editions of the column on our own press archive. Comments criticism and suggestions are welcome, either on-site or via email.

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Wednesday, May 11, 2005

We're faymbus for a few more seconds

As we type this, trying very hard to look wise and knowledgeable, a CNBC camera is tracking our every move. Earlier, the nice lady told us we came across as rather pessimistic.

Anyway, does anyone want to pay us to endorse products or stuff like that?

update tight close up happening. they're masochists, these TV crews.

update 2 tight close up of fingers tripping delicately across keyboard. are our nails done?

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Friday, May 06, 2005

Roger that.

The Instituto de Estudos Orientais seems to have been, erm, shafted by their logo designer.
[Thanks Mash

Update: The bloody spoilsports have taken the logo off that page. Will attempt to recreate it for your edification, though. Give us a day.

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