rantlust » anupcs

Tron Legacy & Daft Punk

anupcs — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 22:54:43 +0000

Tron was one of my favorite science fiction movies when growing up in the ’80s. Now I can’t wait for the new movie: Tron Legacy to come out. Jeff Bridges reprises his role in the original movie 28 years later and the special effects are going to be so much better. I hope to catch this in IMAX 3D.

But what I am also excited about is that the soundtrack is done by the Parisian Electronic music duo Daft Punk. Check out their music video for the song Derezzed:

OK Go Song

anupcs — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:26:04 +0000

Brilliant! Already viral…

Lincoln on Twitter

anupcs — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:07:39 +0000

Creative tweeting from a historical perspective. More at historicaltweets.com. Hat tip to @sreenet.

Tweeting Congress

anupcs — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:26:35 +0000

Blogs are so out. Microblogging is where it’s at these days. Even the US Congress gets in on the action at Tweet Congress. Check out the site for whether or not your local politician is tweeting (is that even a word? Sigh). So far 15 Democrats (including the President- and Vice-President-elects) and 26 Republicans are on Twitter.

The pressure is on enough that our buddies across the pond also started their own tweeting with Tweetminster (Westminster, get it?).

Is this going to be information overload or is this going to be actually a useful way to keeping track?

Sign of the times

anupcs — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:34:52 +0000

Comedian Louis CK appears on Conan and puts some interesting perspective on what we take for granted these days. He calls the current generation the “crappiest” of all time. Extremely funny.

Star Studded Golden Globes

anupcs — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:31:27 +0000

Next year’s Golden Globe awards promises to be a superstar studded event (hopefully a strike like this year won’t reduce the show to a press conference) after looking at the nominations, announced today. As usual, most of the movies nominated are the ones released in the last 3 months of the year (I really hate this practice). But some of the gems from early on did make it (especially in the comedy category). I haven’t seen some of the new movies but among the nominations I really like, are the ones for “Tropic Thunder” (if only the Academy Award people will shed their inhibitions about nominating comedic pictures), Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” (with the Indian music superstar A.R. Rahman winning a nod as well) and of course the incomparable performance of the late Heath Ledger in “Batman: The Dark Knight.”

The superstars that are nominated are (in no particular order):

Brad Pitt (In the yet to be released “The curious case of Benjamin Button”)
Tom Cruise (for his hilarious foul-mouthed turn in “Tropic Thunder”)
Leo DiCaprio (for the yet to be released “Revolutionary Road”)
Angelina Jolie (for Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling”)
Sean Penn (for “Milk”)
Bruce Springsteen (for the song for “The Wrestler”)

Some of the other familiar faces in award shows continue their uncanny ability to attract the voters and this year we see the return of uber-nominees Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet (nominated twice this year), Kristin Scott Thomas, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Dustin Hoffman.

I am also pleased to see two comeback kids getting nominated: Robert Downey Jr. (for his extremely funny albeit controversial role in “Tropic Thunder”) and Mickey “The Voice” Rourke (for the critically acclaimed “The Wrestler”). I am a bit surprised to see no sign of my beloved Cate Blanchett (for “…Benjamin Button”) though.

The Matrix runs on Windows

anupcs — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:47:39 +0000

Hilarious. Wait for “Ubuntu? I am going to learn Ubuntu?”

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

How the markets really work

anupcs — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:56:38 +0000

Some British humor explaining how the markets really work:

[Hat tip to jcaldara]

What to do with the dead people

anupcs — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:58:07 +0000

Salon’s Carol Lay has the following suggestion for what to do with dead people:

From Cricket to Major League Baseball

anupcs — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:36:56 +0000

Two laddies from villages in India just signed free-agent contracts with the Major League Baseball team The Pittsburgh Pirates. Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel were winners of a reality TV show called “Million Dollar Arm” that sought to find people who could pitch at 85 miles per hour. While a lot of MLB players are from countries as disparate as Cuba and Japan, this is the first time athletes from cricket loving India has signed on. Let’s hope they shine.

Single Girls

anupcs — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:47:22 +0000

Worthy sequel to the first boymongoose video (thanks to Suman for the tip):

The Tina Fey (Vice) Presidency

anupcs — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:31:58 +0000

As has been rumored all of last week, the incomparable Tina Fey is indeed on SNL again, this time as Sarah Palin. This clip with Amy Poehler as usual playing Hillary Clinton, introduces us to the new season of Saturday Night Live. These two women, who recently starred in a movie called “Baby Mama” together, have got to be the funniest women in the country. Tina Fey is destined to play this role at least as long as Palin is in the national spotlight. In fact, I think she could even be a dupe for the latter if she, cough, becomes our president in a heartbeat.

Thank you, Lorne, for keeping us sane in these crazy times.

Of bosons and hadrons

anupcs — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:43:13 +0000

By now, I am sure you have heard that the largest particle accelerator ever built is about to go live. On September 10, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) will attempt to circulate a beam through the 17 mile circular tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border. The first collisions are planned for late October when it will be officially unveiled.

Amidst doomsday reports of the possibility of a black hole being created by this collider and thus gobbling up the planet we call home, the physicists in the thick of things are working on improving their improv skills. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on how the CERN physicists are honing their communication skills by taking lessons in improvisational comedy. Some of the gems coming out of this meeting of minds with above average IQs:

She: “Do my bosons give you a hadron?”

“Two protons walk into a black hole.” (end of joke)

“A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much the drinks cost. The bartender replies, ‘For you, no charge.’ ”

Demetri Martin on Flipcharts (and Art)

anupcs — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:29:00 +0000

I have never heard of this guy before but he’s sure funny as hell:

Laptops at the US Border

anupcs — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:33:32 +0000

This is not exactly new news but for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security is admitting that their border enforcement policies include confiscating electronic equipment such as laptops, cellphones, external hard disks, iPods, etc. This can be done without any reasonable cause of suspicion. According to The Washington Post:

The policies state that officers may “detain” laptops “for a reasonable period of time” to “review and analyze information.” This may take place “absent individualized suspicion.”

I first heard of this egregious policy a couple of months ago when computer security maven Bruce Schneier blogged about the ruling by a US court that border agents can do this with no restrictions. I have been traveling a lot internationally and often have my laptop (plus PDA, cellphone, flash drives, etc.) with me and so far the only untoward border incident has been me stupidly forgetting the laptop at the security conveyor belt at Washington, DC. (Luckily for me, it ended up in the TSA lost and found and I was able to have a friend pick it up and mail it to me.) But the odds of me being a victim of “profiling” are rather high and I am taking no chances in the future.

The obvious solution to avoid the scenario of not having your laptop for weeks (or in one case, months) is to not take one. Or for that matter, don’t take anything that you don’t want usurped at the border. Schneier has some other recommendations at his site.

Another option is to carry a content-free laptop with you. Recently, I purchased for my organization a laptop meant for just this purpose. The idea is to re-install the laptop with a new operating system (Opensolaris in our case) every time we cross the US border. We plan to do this both to and fro from our travels so that there is no trace left of our usage and more importantly no company confidential information. I also keep a cheap unlocked Motorola Razr phone for international roaming or local sim card use. And my ancient iPod still gets toted around. I don’t care if they usurp any of these from me. Though now I am seriously debating whether I should even carry my fancier dSLR abroad or just take my point and shoot.

If the goal of the terrorists was to make America more like some of the countries they come from, they have won the war already. I long for the day when we can transport ourselves by hologram.

You can read the full customs policy here.

Planes and Walls

anupcs — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:26:04 +0000

Read about this in the WSJ today… in an op-ed expressing the need to educate the general public (i.e., us) about how safe nuclear reactors (the power generating ones) are. The video is pretty awesome:

The New Yorker Cover and (N)Obama

anupcs — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:39:04 +0000

Maureen Dowd writes in an Op-Ed in the New York Times that Obama and his messianic followers need to lighten up and have a sense of humor about things. The recent furor, as I am sure you have heard, is about the cover cartoon of the latest issue of New Yorker magazine that depicts our man as an Osama look alike and Michelle Obama as an AK-47 wielding terrorist. Even John McCain was forced to decry the cartoon in the name of political civility.

I really hope that we don’t end up having an unfunny president as Dowd fears. We need to keep feeding the genius of the likes of Letterman, Leno, and Stewart and who better to feed them than our leaders? We can only take so much of the Brits and the Lindseys. The nation is depressed as it is. We need more humor to survive through these tough times in the economy and not complain over mere cartoons. What are we, turning into The Netherlands or something? (No offense, reneejo.)

Dengue Fever

anupcs — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:06:27 +0000

No, this post is not about the disease but is about a new (curiously named) band that fuses Cambodian pop music with psychedelic rock (think Austin Powers) to produce a rather unique sound. When I first started hearing them online, I didn’t really dig the music. But now, after listening to them almost on a daily basis on Radio Paradise, I am getting addicted. Their tunes are catchy and the singer, Chhom Nimol (who only recently moved to the US), has an attractive voice and manner about her. Check their myspace page here. I won’t be surprised if Quentin Tarantino features their music in his next flick.

Why is Obama Black?

anupcs — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:04:28 +0000

If my wife and I ever have any children, they would be neither “brown” nor “yellow” but something else entirely (I am South Asian and my wife is Taiwanese). So, why do people perceive Barack Obama as black? His mother is fully white as far as I know and he’s biracial and both white and black. Why is everyone referring to him as the first black person to have a real chance at winning the presidency?

As the furor over the racial remarks by a pastor associated with Obama rages on, I am really curious about this. Obama is definitely the first half-black person to have a chance at becoming president but he’s not fully black. Maybe the Obamans in the audience can shed some light to this mystery.

Dubya at the Gridiron Dinner

anupcs — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:21:23 +0000

As much as you might hate George W. Bush, check this out. He sings and makes fun of himself (Brownie, Dick, and Harriet makes appearances) at the annual dinner with Washington journalists. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad (and I don’t mean him leaving the White House come January).