The Power-Cut Chronicles

Yesterday, there was no power here for the better part of the day. It was the same thing a few days ago. I couldn't use the computer, so I had to keep myself busy with other things. This is what came out of those 'other things' --

A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step


I think it's been a year since I did my last drawing. I knew my drawing skills (if I had any) would be a little rusty, so I wanted to draw something simple. This isn't the best drawing ever, but I think it came out pretty nicely. Now don't you dare compare it with any of Karthik's stuff.

The Pod


Was bored so I took out my camera to take some pictures... this is actually an out-of-focus shot of the emergency lamp in our house. The funky colours and all happened by accident, when I was post-processing. The name I know is dumb, but I couldn't think of anything better. But it does look a little like an alien space pod doesn't it?

I'm tired of saying there's a new photo in my photo gallery everytime I write a post here, so I won't this time. Just go to my gallery everytime you see an update here. There most likely WILL be a new photo there anyway.

Good Morning or Happy Birthday?

Yep, turned 18 yesterday. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

I changed my profile pic recently, got bored of my 'comic' self. Made a wallpaper of A Perfect Circle's latest album, eMOTIVe, some days ago. Their songs are awesome! If you ask me, they come a close second after LP. Not much of creativity in the wallpaper, but you probably won't be able to find a huge/sharp/clear album cover like this easily. And this time it's designed for people who like to have their icons on either side of the screen (are there any?).



Other than that, I uploaded two new pictures to my gallery. One is a portrait (!), and the other is a shot I took of my Philishave. I like both of them, but the number of views they got say otherwise. Or maybe people were just lazy this week.

Hey, it's 11:55pm. But who watches the watch... err... time anyway. Are you reading this K?

The Unimaginative

The first weekened after college re-opened on the 4th! Was waiting for this since... the beginning of the week :) With the kind of lecturers we have this year, five days felt more like five weeks. Anyway, now time for a movie... and speaking of movies, take a look at this —



So Bollywood has moved on to ripping-off stuff from video games now... guess they ran out of things they could (sort of) copy from Hollywood movies. Pathetic really. India is so full of unimaginative people (there are exceptions, of course). They can't even come up with a tune for a song on their own these days. The recent "Aaj Kal Tere Mere" remix has the beats of Will Smith's "Switch" in it. Then there was this song called "O Haseena" (from the movie Haseena) I saw some time ago which had the tune of Safri Duo's "Rise"! There was one more song I saw yesterday which was a ripoff... can't remember it now. Does their right brain even function at all?

There's a new photo in my photo gallery - "Four LEDs". Took that shot when there was a power cut at home. I first saw this kind of thing done in some of Pablo's (early) photos. There will probably be another new photo over there in a few days, so stay tuned.

Is There Life Out There?

Today I'm trying something new - I'm writing a general article! Why? Mostly because I'm jobless and have nothing better to do. I've never done this before, so don't expect too much. And don't ever complain if you fell asleep reading it.

If you're even a little curious, this question would have definitely crossed your mind at least once — "Is there life out there in space?" (if you're not, then let's assume it crossed your mind at least once). Now to me, the answer to that question is quite simple - there IS. Considering that the universe, housing billions of galaxies, is bigger than you can start to imagine, it's improbable that Earth is the ONLY planet that supports life. Besides, Earth-like conditions aren't even a necessity for life to exist — on the Earth itself, some extremophiles have adapted to living in extreme environments where other life wouldn't stand a chance. They're boldly going where humans dare not and cannot.

So if there is life out there, why haven't we come into contact with them? Simply because the universe is so immensely vast, and we have only explored an infinitesimally small portion of it. Our escaping radio and TV signals (called the radio bubble) get weaker and weaker as they move away from the Earth and eventually drown in the ambient radio noise of the universe. Just for the sake of it, let us assume that technologically proficient aliens are intercepting our signals and are managing to decode them. After watching 50 years of our television (if they have the patience) — all the K-serials, mindless comedy shows, news about the wars we started etc., they'd probably conclude that human beings are a dysfunctional bunch of idiots.

Then what about those signals (of our own choosing) we sent in space crafts like Voyager? Don't worry, at the rate they're travelling (50,000 miles per hour I think), they won't reach the nearby stars for another 100,000 years. Our propulsion systems are not suitable at all for space travel... sure a rocket is fast, but it exhausts its entire fuel in a very short time. Newer propulsion systems like the ion drive and solar sail are very efficient for long distance travel, but they're horribly slow.

So will we ever make contact with extra-terrestials? Of course we will. Just not yet. With the research work being conducted by organisations like SETI, it's only a matter of time till we do make contact. Their Seti@home (thanks for the link Ganeshan) is a program that YOU can run on your computer to help in the search for extraterrestial intelligence. Who knows? You might find an alien and become really famous! Or you won't find anything and you'll get so mad you'll uninstall it.

In any case, this article comes to an end here. I know I haven't really talked about anything you don't already know, but then again, I told you in the beginning not to expect too much didn't I?


Edit: I was finding links for some of the stuff I just talked about, and I came across this page — http://www.duntemann.com/fermiqsn.htm. Good question ;)

Seven Days

That's how long I was in Chennai. Got back yesterday morning. After experiencing Chennai weather, you'd probably never complain about Hyderabad weather again. Except that, the whole trip was a lot of fun! It was mostly meeting relatives and all, but we also met Karthik and saw Mahabalipuram, which isn't as scenic as I expected (or maybe I expected too much).

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure —

[ 1 ] :: [ 2 ] :: [ 3 ] — Mahabalipuram pictures

[ 4 ] — Some school kids who became my 'fans' on the last day of the trip. They later gave me a grand send-off, from the windows :)

In case you've visited my photo gallery recently, you'll notice there are a couple of new photos there... two of them are sunset shots I took from my terrace (and you thought you don't have scenic scenes in Hyderabad), and the other two are shots of a small glass clock I have at home.

And that's not all. Here's a wallpaper I made just before I left for Chennai. This time it's totally computer generated... no modified-photo stuff. Haven't done that in a while huh?

The Morning After

Exams are finally over! And I have a really really long 'summer vacation' of two weeks. How nice. It'll be over before I know it... and then it's back to drab college stuff again. Anyway, I guess two weeks is better than say, one week.

So what have I been up to all this while? Let's see... I did add a couple of photos to my photo gallery at bytephoto.com —

Inside A Computer — If you've seen my wallpaper, then there's nothing new here. Just cropped off some of the distracting wires and stuff and rotated it so it looks a little more 'professional'.

Indian Gods — This is one of my very early photos, taken last year. This was probably the first time I used a 'set' (it was taken against a black background) to take a photo. I think I even used a tripod, so the final image is nice and crisp. You should definitely see the high-res version of this one.

Metallic Flowers — There was this wall-hanging with flowers on it, made out of gun metal I think. I really liked the texture and the subtle colours it had, so I took a picture of it :) The photo was taken in very low light, so a tripod was a must (exposure time was three seconds).

Looking Down — No, this is not a photo version of the caterpillar wallpaper. It just has the same name. And a simlar style - dark with high contrast (maybe I overdid it?).

Apart from the photos, I did make a wallpaper last month that I never posted. It's called 'Burn' and you can have a look at it here. I've been getting mixed reactions about this, so you may or may not like it.

How come there's no thumbnail? I'm lazy. That's why.

Serendipity

Yep, another wallpaper. Found this dead frog lying in front of my house the other day... thought I'd take some snaps of the little thing. Of course, I had to bear the stink and ward off all those ants while taking the pics, but it was worth it.

I don't really expect you to set this as your wallpaper (unless you REALLY like dead things), but I bet/hope it's going to hold your interest long enough to say "Whoa!" or "Yuck!" or something like that.

15 May was Karthik's birthday so... Happy Birthday Karthik! We went to watch everybody's favourite Indian Idol contestants, Rahul Vaidya and Prajakta Shukre, perform live at Taramati Baradari (Gandipet) that day, and it was awesome!

I'm extremely busy right now (final exams start in 2 weeks and go on till 15 June), so I'll end this post here. If you have too much time on your hands (like these guys) and want to keep yourself busy, maybe you ought to stare at some autostereograms or better yet, try interpreting those e-Serve ads.