Internet Reservoirs

For the past few years, a couple of websites are providing online music services. The movie songs in most of the major languages (Indian) are available - to listen online.

There (is?) was the website coolgoose even provided the downloadable mp3 versions.

Since the huge growth of band width, there are sites offering video - either parts of movies or even the full length movies. The second wave of music sites are even uprooting the old music sites like raaga/music-india-online.

In case of video-sites, the major ones are videoduniya/videoraaga/videomasti etc. These websites are just a collection of well organised links to the online reservoirs of YouTube and Google-Video (both are actually the same).

This is in fact a very good business. Since I live abroad, I know how much do people want to see Indian movies here. And this kind of websites is a blessing for us - especially in Europe.

Now comes the problem of piracy. Even Sivaji (the latest Rajni movie) is available online. And as far as I know, the real distributors of the movies are not happy about it. Still I am surprised, why don't they act?

All these online sites are providing very low-quality videos. At the same time, if the distributors want, they can setup good servers with good quality video - let it be streaming or even download (which expires after a couple of hours/days). This is what is happening with amazon-video right?. People rent the movies and watch them. (I don't know about the patent/legal issues)

Even if they charge about 3-5 Euros, I am sure there would be quite a lot of people to rent and watch the movies. If you consider the whole of Europe, I am sure you'll get quite a number of people for that.

I would definitely watch 2-3 Indian movies at the cost of 10 Euros a month. I am sure, I am not a movie-freak in this aspect. There are people with LOT of time who would watch at least 8-10 movies every month.

Am I overlooking something? Some legal issues?

Now since Indians are smart, they would download the stuff, record it new, and the sell it off for lower price. In that case, I am sorry.. you cannot help it! Let the online piracy continue!

By the way, I watched Sivaji and liked it. It was fun. I am becoming an ardent fan of Thalaivar ;). [Reciprocating for another post ;) - from a dear friend]

Signing off,
Sands
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PS: From a Malayalam daily (online version) what I could understand is this. The following image is of a health centre in Kerala - How is it?!


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Inferiority Complex? Not really!

Lately, I am watching some documentaries about Cosmos/Wildlife/Human-mind etc. The documentaries are so good that they sometimes point out some of my prejudices. Especially about human-mind. They say most of the thoughts/fantasies of adult people are closely connected (or even root from) the child hood experiences.

I am not sure which experience of my childhood gives me this feeling! The people who know me wont believe it - that I have a complex. Actually I don't have one - expect for a small thing.

I always feel a kind of reverence towards those students from MIT/Stanford/Berkeley etc. I feel that they are way too smarter than me. May be they are, but why should I feel it when I meet them?

Earlier, I had the same problem with IIT-ians. When I went for Shaastra 2001 at IIT Madras, I had looked at the student who was our hostess - with an awe - "WOW she's an IIT-ian".

Later, when I went to IIT, I had similar feeling for all IIT-Bachelors. After a few months of life there, I knew, they too were normal humans with a few exceptions :) .

I guess, it might be that I could never make it to the above mentioned places. That makes me feel they are superb. But when I achieve it, things are cool. For eg. When I reached IIT, the respect factor faded away :).

So, some day when I reach Stanford (:?) this respect factor too would fade away! (WOW, what a dream!)

Actually, I was at this party last night - where I met a bachelor student from MIT (mathematics). This "awe" struck me on face and hence the post.

But there are some people, not from such great institutes ... whom I respect quite a lot. They have shown me the quality and hence I simply respect them and try to learn from them.

I should stop respecting just the "brand" without knowing the quality of the person.

NON-RELATED
My sister has started attending PCEs classes. I envy her now - for being not able to attend PCEs classes. :)

signing off,
Sands.

PS1: I know a couple of IIT-Bachelors and Masters who are good for nothing.
PS2: I have seen this "awe" towards me from some other people when I was at IIT/M$. It used to make me laugh since I knew very well about me. ;)

Heat Kills

The temperature has gone up - to 34 degrees! The humidity is so less that it is all dry heat. Feels like being roasted.

There is no fan; even with a fan you get only HOT air. Getting a room cooler would be stupid - as it is not cheap and all the other months when the temperature is pleasant/cold, the cooler would take up a good deal of real-estate of my small room. What to do? - just suffer!

The main reason is that all buildings are made in such a way that it traps all the heat coming inside. Yes, during winter, that is very much needed. Hence, all houses are basically green houses.

I planned to sit in the library the whole day - as it is air-conditioned. Today they stopped the AC after 2 in the afternoon. WOW!

Anyway it's nice once in a while. We realize the importance of rain - even though when it rains for days we curse that too. Human - what a creature? Keeps complaining. ;)

There is something which should not be left unsaid - the girls. Oh boy, to fight the heat they are in their smallest clothes - simply awesome. Micromini? Spaghetti-strap? - whatever it is called! :). Really seducing.. and lovely. ;)

Today, Firefox has crashed at least 5 times. I haven't visited any crazy web pages. Why don't they make the browser stable?

I want to write a couple of *real* stuff. The heat in my room is irritating me. Let me get out of here. Going to the library again. Shall write later.

Signing off,
Sands.

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A quick entry!

The wind is howling outside. I expect a heavy rain tonight. My dinner is being cooked in the kitchen. I just got tagged from some secret blog. A tag for which, I am supposed to write 8 things about myself.

Here I go.

1. I am a man of pretty strong character. Normally, I am able to take things lightly. And when once in a while a volcano erupts inside me, hardly any sign of it comes out.



2. I am an extrovert and hyperactive – this needs no explanation.



3. I am an egotist. The number of "I"s in the post must explain it.



4. I am a friend who believes "Friendship is a sweet responsibility, not an opportunity" – I am indeed a friend in need.



5. I always (almost) do THE RIGHT THING. The right thing is decided logically.



6. I am a good cook. Especially, Kerala cuisine.



7. I am very much interested in Gadgets and new software. At present, I have an iPod, a Nokia N70, a Nokia 6131, an iMac 17'' which runs both OSX and Vista, an M$ wireless mouse, an M$ ergonomic keyboard, M$ office 2007 and Cygwin running in Vista …. The list goes. Crazy about LaTeX, Vim, Pstricks etc. I love M$.



8. I am a good programmer and problem solver. Both technical and real-life problems. I always have someone coming to me with some problems of his.

I have lot more to write. Eight seems like a very small number! Anyway, my food is ready, let me go and eat.

I don't like tagging. So, I am not passing it over.

Signing off, Sands.

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Something missing

The browsers we use need to have two more features in my opinion. It would be very useful for people who have many tabs open at the same time.

1. Send/Email the addresses of a set of selected tabs (or all tabs).

Scenario: You might be doing some research on something and have got a couple of useful links. You want to send these links to some friend/colleague. Copy paste is irritating.


2. Close a set of selected tabs. (or at least, options like "Close all tabs to the right(left) side")

Scenario: You research on something and get distracted by some site (eg: Wikipedia distracts me a lot). All the unnecessary distracting pages are on the right side. You cannot do a "close all" as you'll lose all the useful pages too.

Sometimes you search a lot and finally get a couple of useful pages. You want to close all the pages on the left now.

I hope, these issues would be addressed when IE8 and FF3 come out. (or already available?)

Signing off, Sands.