Being Cyrus

This one seems to be a different movie. The casting seems excellent with people like Nasserudin Shah, Saif Ali Khan and Boman Irani. I started liking Saif's movies after watching Ek Hasina Thi because that movie proved his talents as an actor who can do serious roles equally well. I just hope that it is in fact a good movie unlike movie Boom( Kaizad Gustad) which were supposed to be different than mainstream hindi cinema but just turned out to be a total disaster.

Difference Engines: Move Over Mr. Turing

Proving the old adage that a good idea has many fathers, some scholars believe that one of the fathers of computing is Panini, an ancient Sanskrit grammarian who, according to commonly accepted estimates, lived in the fifth century B.C. Almost nothing is known for certain about Panini's life. Tradition has it that he was born near the Indus River in what's now Pakistan.

Panini's grammar for Sanskrit is highly systematized and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root, not recognized by Western linguists until some two millennia later. His rules have a reputation of perfection—that is, they are claimed to fully describe Sanskrit morphology, without any redundancy. A consequence of his grammar's focus on brevity is its highly nonintuitive structure, reminiscent of contemporary "machine language" (as opposed to "human-readable" programming languages).

Panini uses metarules, transformations and recursions with such sophistication that his grammar has the computing power equivalent to that of a Turing machine. In this sense, Panini may, indeed, be considered the father of computing machines. His work was also the forerunner to modern formal-language theory. Paninian grammars have also been devised for non-Sanskrit languages. The Backus-Naur form (sometimes called the Panini-Backus form), or BNF, grammars used to describe modern programming languages are similar to Panini's grammar rules.

It's not even known whether Panini used writing for the composition of his work. Some historians argue that a work of such complexity would have been impossible to compile without written notes, while others allow for the possibility that he might have composed it with the help of a group of students whose memories served him as "notepads."

What is your Varna?

Following is an exercise I did at a course I attended a while ago. It says it describes your "communication style". But I think it groups people in four different "varnas" or personalities. See where you belong!

According to psychologist Carl Jung, we all have a preferred communication style. To find out yours, write a "4" besides the response which best describes you, a "3" for the next best, a "2" for the next best and a "1" for the one which least describes you.

It would be helpful if you take a pen/pencil and a piece of paper. Ready?

1) I am likely to impress others as:
_____ a) Intellectual
_____ b) A good friend
_____ c) Detail-oriented
_____ d) Practical

2) When working on projects, I prefer them to be:
_____ a) Designed to contribute
_____ b) Stimulating
_____ c) Well-planned
_____ d) Results-oriented

3) My time is important so I want to make sure that:
_____ a) I am well prepared for the future
_____ b) My actions will be meaningful to others
_____ c) I plan well and follow my plan
_____ d) What I do today counts

4) I feel satisfied when I:
_____ a) Can connect one idea with another
_____ b) Can be helpful to a friend or a family member
_____ c) Can solve a problem by really thinking it through
_____ d) Get more done than I had planned

5) I enjoy it when others see me as:
_____ a) Bright, with a vision
_____ b) Warm and approachable
_____ c) Someone who knows what he/she is doing
_____ d) A persons who gets things done

6) When others pressure me, I am:
_____ a) Prone to step back into my own thoughts
_____ b) Apt to show my true feelings
_____ c) Inclined to be critical of them
_____ d) Linkely to react immediately

Now add up all the a) scores, then b) and so on:

a) _____ Intuiter (Brahman) b) _____ Thinker (Vaishya)
c) _____ Feeler (Shudra) d) _____ Doer (Kshatriya)

Of course, these are just basic questions. Some organizations conduct rigorous tests with close to 300 questions which will truely desribe your personality. Many people, I heard, fall in combinations like Intuiter-Thinker, Does-Thinker and so on.

No one personality is bigger or smaller than others. Each has its own traits. And if you want to be in another one, you have to change your personality!!

India-Mart

India is a veritable one-stop shop for all of America's needs –

• beacon of democracy;
• posterboy of globalisation;
• increasingly an engine of global growth;
• status quo power that won't challenge the US-fostered world order;
• perfect 'cultural fit' for America;
• potential partner if the intensity of Islamist terror should increase;
• a possible anchor for an Asian security architecture;
• most capable and willing potential partner in countering China;
• potential alternative manufacturing base;
• supplier of knowledge workers;
• bearer of American arms and therefore of American influence.

Try to grab the latest the issue of Newsweek to see the reasons of recent India flaunting.

What is matter?

"What the Bleep do I know?" seems like a good movie to watch. It follows Amanda as her uninspired life unravels to reveal the uncertain world of quantum mechanics hidden beneath her normal, waking reality. Watch the trailer here.

http://www.whatthebleep.com/trailer/

Downloading music and movies for free

So there are ways to donwload movies & music - Hindi and English - without torrents. I will give a step by step method to do this. It's a little complicated but the download speeds will appease you.

1. Download mIRC (Internet relay chat) client and install it.
2. Go to Packetnews website and search for any movie you want, e.g. click here
3. Click on some number under "pack" coloumn. e.g "#5" or "#21" etc.
4. This will open up mIRC and prompt you "change server and join the channel". Click OK.
5. Couple of windows within the application will open within a few seconds.
6. In the second window that opens within mIRC, do a "Ctrl-V" i.e paste in the chat box and hit enter. You have effectively logged on to a server hosting the movie/music file and sent a request to receive that file.
7. A dialog box will be show a "file warning" saying someone is attempting to send you a file. Just say yes. Select the destination folder and the file is being downloaded!! Check out the speeds - I get about 350kbps!
   Note: First time users should always make sure the following: Go to Tools->Options->DCC->Ignore. Select "Disabled" in the Method menu and click ok.
8. You might also need WinRar and Isobuster to decode your movie/music files.
   To learn to use Isobuster, post your comments, and I will add the details.

The quality of movies/music can be excellent if you choose the files a little carefully! Users can even share large size files (send/receive) between each other.

Funny clip

http://india.makemytrip.com/masti/fungama.html#

Especially check out the "chidiya udi" one... its funny :)