Friday, February 13

Foxkeh

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With the new impending release of Firefox 3.1 (aptly named Shiretoko – after the Japanese park), the Firefox community is considering adopting Foxkeh, a japanese mascot which is cute to say the least. It is a fox which has a flame as its tail. See for yourself. Here is one of the buttons available on the firefox community site – Spread Firefox

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Network Bridge

This is as a personal note to myself and to all you amateur gamers :)

Yesterday, I was at my sasural for some pani puuri and general chit chat. My wife’s cousin had also come-over. They have one desktop and one laptop over there, I had also taken my laptop over there. Enough for a mini-lan party :). So we were three gamers, with three machines and many multi-player games to play. The problem – how do we connect to each other and create a network? There are no switches available.

Fortunately, Ameya (that’s my saala) had a cross-cable through which we connected my laptop and his desktop. Then we took the other laptop and created an ad-hoc wireless connection on it, and connected that laptop to my laptop. So, my laptop was connected to both the machines on two different network interfaces viz., one lan card and the other wireless card. After this, I selected both the connections (in Network Connections) and clicked on Bridge connections. Thus a network bridge between the two connections was created allowing network traffic to pass between the two networks through my laptop. Voila!! The other laptop could now ping the desktop and vice-versa.

Start-ups and Upstarts

A co-blogger and an expert in start-ups, Sushrut has written an excellent post on reasons why one should join a start-up and what are the pitfalls one should look out for before joining a start-up.

The reason why I am re-iterating this point is simply because many start-ups demand the kind of dedication from their employees that is not needed and certainly not justified … all in the name of it being a start-up. Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe ESOPs dunga seems to be their mantra. While this works out for people who know exactly what are they signing up for, it comes out as a shell shocker for those who join the band wagon expecting a different culture altogether.

It’s the culture that could be a defining moment for the start-up. I am not dishing out gyaan here. It is true … the culture of an organization can go a long way between success and failure.

Luck By Chance

449px-Luckbychance Yes on a roll here. And extremely free :-).

Farhan Akhtar impressed everyone through Dil Chahta Hain. Many called it over-rated, but I loved the freshness of the movie. Then came a string of decent hits … then came Rock On, when people could actually put a face to the director. Imagine a 32 year old father of two, becoming a heart throb of Bollywood. People were calling him an overnight success and a lucky boy.

I guess that’s why he decided to make this movie. Luck By Chance shows us the life of a typical struggling actor and what are the sacrifices they have to make in order to make it big. Not to mention the paparazzi and affairs and the wheeling and dealing that one has to do in order to shape one’s career. Its startlingly true, and its being accepted by mainstream cinema. Akhtar is not a fluke kid, but a genuine all-rounder when it comes to films.

Give the movie a go, I do not want to put forth all the details in the movie, but suffice to say that its recommended watch. Movies like this make me think that Bollywood still has a chance.

Outlander

Outlanderposter The Vikings have a legend amongst them. A story about how an outsider came from another world, and saved their tribes from a terrible monster. This is the basic outlay, multiple movies have been made on this theme, yes. Beowulf (the animated version), The 13th Warrior (Antonio Banderas) and finally Outlander to name a few. Michael Crichton has also penned a book on the same theme. The different thing about Outlander is that it actually managed to plug a few holes in the story and come across as a more coherent legend. Not to mention FX.

Outlander takes us to the past, time of the Vikings when our hero who has come from another world (who surprisingly has the same physiology as us humans, beating the theory of evolution to the ground) and with his ship comes a terrible creature … the Moorwen. The creature in its bloodlust wreaks havoc amongst the hapless Vikings. Its upto Kainan (the hero) to reunite the tribes and forge his modern technology with the Viking weapons to bring the creature down and kill it before it can spawn more of its kind.

I would suggest download the torrent and watch it on your machine rather than spending those hard earned rupees in a theatre. Good movie if you have friends, chips and some ale to give you company.

Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans

Underworld_Rise_of_the_Lycans_poster This week went to the movies with the missus. Fortunately she likes action movies especially ones with magic and the ilk. Rise of Lycans was it. Underworld fans, spoiler alert!!

The movie is actually a prequel to the previous duology of movies. It starts off as the base for the next two movies. The story is about the love between the princess and daughter of the Vampire King Victor and the first of the Lycans (werewolves who can control their abilities). Needless to say Victor does not approve between this unholy alliance and his fury ensues. Battered and loveless, Lucient (the first second generation werewolf) arises from slavedom and starts a rebellion to overthrow the vampires.

Overall, its a good movie with all the familiar faces of the duology back in action. It also tells us small information about some of the characters. Why are they what they are in the next two movies. Pity you dont get to see Kate Beckinsale much in this movie!!