Finally Sunday To Rashomon

Last Friday night I watched Francois Truffaut's Finally Sunday in UTV World Movies.It is a black white movie with a brilliant combination of film noir and comedy with a tinge of romance.This is the story of Julienne Vercel who is the prime suspect of his wife and her lover's murder and Barbara,Julienne's secretary who tries to prove his innocence.One particular sequence in that movie left me thinking for the past one week.This is the scene where Julienne tells Barbara that his wife's death has become inconsequential in the context of solving the mystery to prove his own innocence.

Mumbai Attacks & Terrorism

Now it's more than 37 hours since it all started in Mumbai Wednesday 9.30 PM in the night.One of the most fierce terrorist attacks in the history of the country with 125(if not more) reported dead and 327 injured.The hostage situation still continues in Taj Mahal Hotel,Oberoi-Trident Hotel and Jewish centre at Nariman house.
I came home quite late on Wednesday night and was not at all aware of what was going on in Mumbai.Yesterday's local morning newspaper caught my attention.But somehow the report was not very detailed explaining the magnitude and gravity of the situation.Throughout the day in office we were going through the blogs/twitter and online media to get a detailed description of the events.

Uncertainty Principle - Few Thoughts

The "Uncertainty Principle" proposed by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 states that we cannot precisely measure both the position and momentum(velocity) of an electron.This is because we normally observe things as light(photons) bounce back from that object.To observe a tiny particle as an electron we need electromagnetic waves of smaller wavelength like gamma radiations.Now photons of the gamma radiation colliding with a tiny electron can alter it's position and momentum introducing a factor of uncertainty into the measurements.

Paleolithic Cave Paintings - A 20,000 Year Project - The Stream of Learning.....

Prehistoric cave paintings... by hearing this term the "Bison in Altamira Cave" comes into my mind.One of the earliest signs of human creativity.I still remember that black & white picture in my sixth standard history book.Looking at that picture I used to visualize a shadowy dark cave with almost extinguished fire in the centre,group of men dressed in animal skins,talking in weird languages,painting bison in that psychedelic studio.Later I have found several references to this painting including Satyajit Ray's last movie "Agantuk".This has been always a topic of interest and wonder to me.

Few thoughts on language

"Today late afternoon in the illusive shades of the twilight I saw a beautiful lady dressed in white.Someone like the Lady of Shallot.What to say.. Belle de Jour?.I am just not able to find right words to describe"
The above statement is interesting but vague.It tells something at the same time hides away many things.Many of us has come across such a situation where we do not find the right words to express or find that the words we have used are not enough to express what we actually felt.Also there are many occasions where we say something and it gets interpreted in an absolutely different manner.So what ever be the language the words fall short or becomes vague to portray our thoughts in satisfactory and unambiguous fashion.

Rainbows End

Presently I am reading a science fiction novel called "Rainbows End" by Verner Vinge.The story is set in a post singular society where books are obsolete,laptops are backdated, people are networked via wireless devices attached to their clothes(known as wearables) and smart contact lenses.But the central theme of the story remains a global terrorist conspiracy and personal struggle of the protagonist to adapt to this changing world.So it's about a world where the gadgets have got somewhat advanced and human beings are trying to utilize and adjust to that.Society has evolved technologically but the human beings have not changed fundamentally.

Dismal Week ,Few Interesting Findings

This week was a rather dismal one.Project issues/problems.Bad news from the financial markets.Future of IT industry looks uncertain and gloomy.Today another massive terrorist attack in Pakistan.God knows how many seals are still left to be opened.
So bored with all these bad news,movie channels repeating same old stuff I started random search using Google and some blog directories(the greatest cognitive tools I have found till date)

ColdTrail - A Thriller From IceLand

Over the past couple of months I have become a regular viewer of the UTV WorldMovies(http://www.utvworldmovies.com/). Apart from the movies of world reknowned French,Italian directors,I can find good movies from various parts of the world about which I knew very little.

Silver(Moon)Light - Cross platform CLR

In today's Kolkata .NET User Group we had a very good discussion on Silverlight the latest User Experience technology launched by Microsoft.This is a cross browser and cross platform plugin to deliver rich media content and enhanced interaction capability to the users over web.In very simple terms we can think of this as something like a Adobe Flash Player.

Steve Jobs and Calligraphy

Today we had a session on "Windows Presentation Foundation" and "Silverlight" as part of the monthly Kolkata .NET User Group meet.While discussing about various graphics related stuff and fonts somebody pointed out about Steve Jobs contribution about the fonts in PC based software and his inclination on calligraphy.I was not at all aware about this.So coming back home first thing I did was googling with Steve Jobs and Calligraphy.