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Whatever you say, is gone. It can never be undone.
Be best at all times -- be what you are at all times -- be what you should be at all times.
If you are unsure whether you should say a thing, stop right there, and think twice before saying it.
Life can change because of it, to be never undone.
Maintaining two blogs was difficult -- it was good in certain ways -- but it was like exhibiting multiple personality disorder... :-)
So I have decided to abandon the other blog that I had - Commune, and just maintain one blog - this one.
I copied all of the posts from there to here (hehe, not manually, using movabletype's export/import functions of course).
So you just need to look here for all posts. (except for the personal blog ;-) )
As soon as they put phone functionality, and double their hard drive space, I am going to buy it. (whatever it takes)
Star War's Revenge of the Sith, the final episode, will shatter box office records. Thats definite.
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Fans braced for Star Wars finale
Fans had lined up outside LA's Grumman Chinese theatre months before the release (yes, camping out there).
The craze behind the movie is immense.
Sometimes, it feels that movies is what people want. If you want to do anything, which will affect a lot of people, or which most people would want to see/listen/hear/use, then making a popular movie it is.
Movies is a universal concept -- starting with story-telling from the very early days. People like to experience fictional stories, since they are more interesting than their own lives. Millions will watch this Star Wars movie in the first few days of its release. Then billions will watch it in the coming time, in theatre or on DVD. Thousands of people will watch this movie dozens of times.
Technology is also, of course universal. But the amount of impact maybe a little less. Of course, ipod sold millions, but thats only millions, not billions. And of course, the ipod does not come out every quarter, like blockbuster films come out. If IBM made the computer, ofcourse it was even more blockbuster than a film, but you have to realize that its not just one company that plays a part in such a product. There were lot of companies involved with lot of precursor of products involved, ultimately that will include thousands and thousands of people behind the development of the computer.
Whereas movies are made by just a small bunch of people. A small bunch of people make such a big impact.
Ofcourse, as with everything, the line is not solid here as well.
For example, the entertainment behind a movie will last for 3 hours and then cease. So if you count number of hours multiplied by each person that watched that movie, then the number of man hours impacted by that movie will be much less than the number of man hours that have been impacted by a computer.
Hmm. Actually, computer has been able to start new economies as well. Millions or more people depend on the computer for livelihood. Nobody depends on watching movies as means of livelihood, and if they do, they are very few.
Technology is an enabler of action - Movies (or other art) are an emotional experience.
Probably it is difficult to compare these two.
So I take my sentence back, and conclude that, as always, there is no single truth.
I had thought that Yahoo Search has improved a lot over past few months. But now I know: whatever Yahoo does, I think its going to be difficult for them to overtake Google in search excellence.
The brainy people at Google have put in such witty logic in the search, that search at Yahoo (even now) seems primitive.
Cases in point, that I encountered today:
- a search for MIT Stata Center showed that Yahoo gave wierd results. The link I wanted, Google had that right at the top. Even Clusty gave better results, even though it uses neither Google nor Yahoo.
- a search for Gaurang Bookmarks again defeats Yahoo. Even though Yahoo has crawled my updated website (as evident from it Cache output), and I have removed the link to http://gaurang.org/bookmarks.html and changed it to http://gaurang.org/bookmarks/xbel.html several weeks ago, it still gives the old link (and not the new link).
- Another search makes Yahoo give an erroneous link at the Number 3, which has been erroneous for several months now. Whereas Google had removed it only a few days after it became erroneous. Btw, its not exactly erroneous, I dont know how google managed to figure that out.
Google's search logic is so clever that it gives the eerie feeling of artifical intelligence sometimes.
No wonder, why Google is the most popular search tool today.
Yahoo is Very Good, but Google is Excellent.
How can people such good movies?
I just watched Good Will Hunting today, and it has become my instant favorite. Good Will Hunting
There are many scenes, dialogues, and principally insights about human life which will take a long time to get erased from my memory.
I just wrote this review about Chevy Malibu Maxx on http://consumerreports.org website --
Pros: Great ride, handling, steering, comfort, feature-full, very well designed, Great engine, Innovative Maxx concept, great value. Did I mention rear space?
Cons: wind noise; little vague feeling in steering and suspension (which I love actually, but others may not)
Driving experience
There is no match in this price range. I simply love this car -- in fact, I drive the longer routes, so that I can spend more time in it.
The car handles very well, the steering is easy(the variable assist electric steering gives you comfortable and easy control of the steering), ride is quick and very comfortable, the engine hardly makes any sound, car is VERY smooth, a Joyous ride (try it once).
The only caveat -- moderate wind noise at high speeds. I hate the wind noise. (but I also dont think that all other cars have lower wind noise)
Comfort & convenience
Again, among the best in the price range. The seats are spacious, there is lot of legroom, shoulder room, headroom. The rear is the killer. I have the MAXX, wherein the rear seat comfort is unheard of -- with sliding and reclining back seats, and 41 inches of best-in-class rear legroom. The front seat also folds, which will be quite useful occasionally. The power adjustable pedals, powerseats, lumbar support, manual transmission support, REMOTE START, very convenient front instrument panels (supports lot of customization and information on the front panel -- for example, you can see the current economy mpg, avg speed; the radio/cdplayer had RDS which allows us to see more data, and to search for particular genres of music on radio, etc), rear wiper, VERY GOOD SAFETY CRASH RATINGS, quite good mileage 21/30 for a V6, delayed lock, etc -- all these features I really love the car for.
Comments
In this price range -- around 20k -- I think this is the best car to buy right now. I test drove and analyzed a lot of cars - camry, accord, civic, corolla, mazda3, impala, stratus, and others. But I think chevy malibu (maxx) stands out.
This malibu IS DRAMATICALLY BETTER than the older Malibu model sold until 2003.
The Maxx concept is particularly the feature you might want to buy this car for -- since this innovative concept is not available in other mid-size sedans (and this is not a Wagon too!)
Whether you have kids or not -- if you drive your friends in your Malibu Maxx once, they will always want *you* to take them for ride! :)
Dont take my words for it -- test drive one and find out. This vehicle grows upon us as time passes, until the time comes when you cant live without it. Incidentally I got to drive this car for a couple of months as a rental car, and then just couldnt buy any other car.
We just came back from watching the Pacific Life Open ATP Masters Series tennis tournament at Indian Wells. The pics of the trip are here.
A very cool match between Hewitt & Roddick. Hewitt beat Roddick 7-6 6-7 7-6 in the semifinal that we watched. It was crazy.
Finally got to see some of the top players in the world with live eyes, with the additional bonus of a nail biting match up with some real quality play.
I purchased a Chevy Malibu Maxx today!!!
Was considering it for a while now!
Right now, it is a dream car for me in this price range.
Lets see how it goes with time.
Btw, I went to chicago last weekend -- rode the fastest elevators in the world in the Chicago Downtown, and saw a wonderful lake. Wonderful time with Ashish Chandak, Ashish Tapi, Rahul Gandhi, and Jitendra Rane.
Life should only be trips. With a weekend of work thrown in. ;)
Just had a nice time at Chinki Didi's (my bhua's daughter) living at St Louis, Missourie.
Went there, and experienced a first time snowfall!!!
Other than some sightseeing wherein I saw the Arch (went to the top), and went to see bro's university - "Washington Univ in St Louis" and yes one ice skating show, I spent most of the time with Sis, Jiju, and their little child.
It was a trip well worth going, meeting family is one of the best things that one could do...!!!
ohhh....... Pete Sampras!!! I miss watching him so much....that was an era in my life... watching Pete.
Next century, people will remember 20th century tennis, and people will remember Pete Sampras, the player of the century.
And then next century, people will have somebody else to remember for the player of the 21st century. People will have wonderful memories of that player, and it will be so wonderful remembering.
Bahuhuhuhuhu...(sob)... and I wont be there... :-(
After a couple of hectic weeks, -- los angeles, las vegas, bay area, -- back to rest.
More later.
hmmmm .... in order to keep this blog useful.... I guess I should do some periodic updating about whats going on...in the real world...up in this corner.
Well.... yesterday saw "Halchal" -- came about as one of the worst films in my recent viewing history. Some good comedy but that is only a small respite between a voilent, anger-filled, family-enemity-based storyline, which is almost unbearable.
Today planning to go to 17 mile drive with Manish and his mummy. Abhishek is also going to come along. Sumit has some work to do. Seems to be getting influenced by Kumaril. ;)
Had off-and-on plans of going to LA... finally decided against it.... I can meet Amit, bhabhi, uncle, aunty later during the Christmas probably.
Yes, and not to forget, I went for the Asaramji Bapu's Satsang yesterday evening. Was held in Sanju Bhaiyya's place in Santa Cruz ... hmmm.... far away ... but had fun driving too. Worth going definitely... again got a reinforcing lesson on the powers of faith, and got to meet nice people! (more on faith coming soon)
I find two problems in Mozilla Firefox very troublesome:
UPDATE: Finally this issue is getting widespread exposure in Information Week newspaper. Hopefully this would cause firefox to take notice.