aliens-redemption!

Watched avatar today - around a month after its release - and got in about 30 minutes into the show.

I am not sure there would be much to add to the things that most people have written of it, some of them being:

1. The storyline is pretty simplistic
   
2. The movie is an altogether new level of making cinema.
3. Like "there were movies before star wars and there were movies after starwars", "there were movies before avatar and there are movies after avatar" (corollary to point 2?).
4. Three hours get a bit boring.
   
5. The attention paid to detail whilst creating "an entirely different world" was brilliant (corollary to point 3?).
6. "Racist!" considering the eventual leader and savior of the navi happens to be an earthling - or more precisely a US Marine.
7. The bad guy is a trigger-happy US General (a contradiction to point 6 but such are cliches nonetheless).
8. Navi are too bipedal, humanoid.
9. Similarity to the post 9/11 shock-n-awe retribution.

Well apart from these obvious, oft-stated ones i wonder if anyone noticed the strong resemblance between this one and one of Cameron's previous Alien flicks (and we are not JUST talking about Sigourney Weaver).
It is as if Cameron is trying to correct portrayal of Aliens as emotionless beasts and of humans as poor prey (read marines with guns) on the run.
There is also the very ecological (we are messing with the world) message that he had also tried to convey (although not very effectively vis-a-vis setting fire to the box office) in The Abyss.
Point being, there is certainly a link between all three movies. Its as if Cameron is trying to say "Hey! I coloured them too darkly and made us look much vulnerable/harmless than we really are".
The contrast is so much more in Avatar with the peaceful, indigenous Navi are slaughtered by humans out to mine another world because they have bled their own planet dry (a theme incidentally occurring in the alien series too) with little regard or respect for anything else.
So now humans are the parasites just like the creatures were in Aliens.
The relationship couldnt be more starkly visible than in the final scene.

Aliens: Hero (earth scientist Sigourney ) sits in a mechanised armor and fights a villain (an alien) out to kill everyone out there
v/s
Avatar: Villian (crazed military commander) out to kill everyone out there sits in a mechanised armor and fights the hero (an alien - atleast part alien)

So mr Cameron, is there a message in this for us? Are there connections to be made. More importantly, are there reputations we are trying to set right here?

in praise of javascript recorded in hyperlink

javascript as most would agree, has been for so long been the underdog of programming languages.
only recently has it begun to garner some much needed respect (although the legacy, transactional, finance guys still havent been able to accept it as much more than an alert("please enter your phone number"); language... nevermind being something usable on a server-side scenario (a la jaxer ).

well just today, found a couple of really nice articles by doughlas cockford in while he mostly talks about how programming languages are cats does a world of justice to the language (virtues and deficiencies alike).

The way i got to these was so:

the other day i was discussing the GWT and its tightly-coupled (albeit unconfirmed by me) association with "The Ext-JS" with a couple of my colleagues.
A while back i figured - "hey! i dont know anything about this exotic animal that is the GWT". So after following a couple of links, i came to this.

deifying the sacrificial lamb

Today i saw the most stunning video of my life. It depicted procession in which the archpriest of my community took his samadhi. Or was it his cremation? I couldnt tell. Certainly the man was immobile throughout the whole ritual so there was no way to figure out if he was dead or alive. I had no time to watch the whole video (and certainly not the inclination) but there was also a whole crowd of my community people watching this murder(?) go on in eager anticipation as if they were watching some kind of a miracle happen. And it might have been a minor miracle which i missed thanks to my lack of patience.
So, the swamiji was washed, prayers were performed and the mantle was transferred to a junior. Once that was done the man was shoved into a very very small room (more like a concrete box), packed in books and other prayer articles and sealed in by an unnecessarily large and uncoordinated bunch of helpers and volunteers.
all this under the watchful eye of the police.
so how do i feel about this? not necessarily bad. i dont even know how the man felt about being put in a wall.
one thing though, is for sure. there was no scope to turn back. he probably had no choice but to accept his fate. guess when you are archpriest you can handle such things. trained for it? i dont know

another dreary day's account!

My monitor's health is deteriorating. I have to do something about it soon.
Took my cousin and his son to see Town today. Its been years since i visited myself, except for a couple of the usual places.
So it was that i saw the gateway of india, nariman point, taraporewala and girgaum chowpati once again after a certain number of years. There was a lot of fun to be had seeing my cousin's (and his son's) face (with its small-town-in-india sort of cultureshock so visible) when we passed "not just jazz by the bay" so full of GIRLS in skirts and jeans.
There was also the aquarium. Nothing like in its heyday but the fish were nice (two small sharks, some Pirhannas, the works!)
Back home was good again! Lots of tea, some pav bhaji, and aquafina which tastes like coconut water

sullenly i unscrewed the sick screen

my monitor messed up again. no, the monitor was messed up anyway, still is - i made it worse. the thing has a resolution problem. initially it showed a random stretched, lined display till i shook it a bit. now thats all it does while its screwed closed. so i have to keep the thing unscrewed. another thing, which i am completely responsible for, is the burning up of some soldier in its legendary compaq mainboard (yes its a compaq 140. yes i am proud of it.). and i had thought the thing was all but lost but fortunately i somehow salvaged it. the problem now though is that i havent solved the initial problem, namely the lined display, for which the only solution is to keep it open while in use and a new problem of a weird shade that develops towards to the right bottom of the screen... thats irritating. but anyway, i can get on with my work without having to borrow anything from anyone for now.

training back home (continued)

"Do you want to get off the train?" he asks me.
"No".
"Just asked, You know. Its better"
"Uh ok.. no problem" i smile and pray he doesnt talk any further.
"You know, this thing happenned this morning".
Smile.
"This woman was trying to get off the train. She had these two kids. The kids couldnt get off."
'Now whats this?' i think and keep smiling
"So when she tried to get on again, the train started and she fell off the platform into the tracks."
'Not unusual'.
"And under the same train. Cut in two."
'Niranjan. He had seen something like this. I remember how traumatised he was that day.'
"She died on the spot. Her children told us that they were on their way to the hospital to meet someone, probably the father."
'How would i react if I saw something of this sort?'
"I mean she was poor and all that and maybe she was off to see her husband who was serious or something"
"Its not too good to take kids along in trains in peak hours."-'what am i saying ?'
"The kids didnt even know the address."
'How would i have reacted if i had seen this?"
"She was probably a muslim.."
"Hmm"
"But whoever she was, how does it matter?"
"Yes, its really bad in the morning, for women and children".'am i saying it again?'
"Fact is, she mustve not been too well off."
"Agreed, well off people dont take their children to hospitals in crowded trains at rush hours."
"The train stopped after that. Thats when they asked the children about it."
'Wonder if the kids reached home safely afterwords. Wonder when this casual chat stopes. No, this isnt that, he is trying to ease his own pain, i guess. Its ok then. Would i have been able to handle this?'
"A lot of people wept."
"Yes?"
"They couldnt do anything about her. She was split in two. Died on the spot."
'On dot?' "I understand."
"A lot of people wept. I could see. Its difficult to forget. I couldnt all day."
'Is it? How would i have reacted?' "I understand."
THE TRAIN REACHES THANE NOW
"U know thats why i asked you if u wanted to get off ... i mean...." he says.
"I understand."
"So are you a student?"
"No. I work."
"Ok." smiles.
"Well, till next time." Offer to shake hands.
Shakes hand."Yes. Take care of yourself."
"You too."

On my way home i thought about it. About whether i would be able to handle such a situation. The empty streets at night seemed very beautiful.

training back home

i travel 2nd class these days and i must say its great. you get to see real people more often there than in case of first-class where u see real people that want to mostly feel u up just because u look like a docile little kid(I have nothing against them doing that, i understand, but i cant help but avoid such things).
anyway, here i was the night before the last, very close to the door, trying to avoid the smell of sweat that could surely make one faint. the train wasnt too crowded i must say. so these two men come in- must be around 60 - 65, balding, pot-bellied,maybe slightly drunk(i did smell alcohol but i cant be sure it was them) and generally harmless- hang around the door and talk, labour, money, north-indian influx into the city mostly.another guy, in 30s, comes in and stands right behind me wearing a wet windcheater and mostly wetting my t-shirt with it which really pisses me off. i dont say a thing. the guy starts talking casually to the two men... maybe they all know each other. after a while these people stop talking.. and theone with the windcheater starts rubbing his ghutka/tobacco. i feel like telling him about tobacco and lime and all the bad things that could happen to his mouth but i dont. a while later, at kanjurmarg, he asks me if i want to get off the train in hindi. i say no in marathi and give a polite smile.... continued in the next post