One of the most common problems documentary filmmakers face is the incidental appearance of copyrighted art, music and other media in the world they are documenting. This really interesting comic by three law professors takes a look at the legal barriers to documentary filmmaking.
Check it out: Bound By Law
Thanks to The Photos Blog @Wired for the link.
– Suramya
Funny. The scary part is that most stories/news reports I have read about the US govt. data gathering read almost the same…
Check it out: Template for News Stories on Government Data Gathering
Thanks to Schneier on Security for the link.
– Suramya
Tried out Pandora today.. It is an amazing service that recomends songs based on your prefrences. Basically you give it an artist or a song name and it will use it to play songs that are similar to it. If you don’t like a song its playing you can tell it and it will use that to figure out what kind of songs you don’t like and what kind of songs you like and will recomend new songs based on that.
I really like it and the best part is that if you like a song you can learn more about it (or the artist) with a click.
Check it out: Here
Thanks to Adam Fields (Weblog) for the links
– Suramya
A couple of days ago I was talking to Surabhi and she said something to the effect of how come you don’t post stuff like you used to on your blog… you know stuff like how you feel about something or what you think about it? So I was like, hmm good question. Guess I haven’t been thinking much about stuff recently, or when I have I got too lazy to post about it.
So here’s some of my thoughts on Movie Piracy:
Last week I went and saw X-Men: The last stand. Yes I actually went to the theatre to watch it. The big deciding factor was that it actually released in India at about the same time it released in the US. I like watching movies and I don’t want to wait for over 1-2 months for a movie I want to watch to be released in India.
One of the examples is: Underworld: Evolution. I really wanted to watch this movie. I had been waiting for a while for the movie to come out and when it finally released I checked the local movie listings to find a theatre that was playing it… Guess what? It hadn’t been released in India yet. I waited for almost a month before giving up and watching it online. I wanted to see it in the theater but since it took almost 3 months (give or take a couple of weeks) for it to come out in India and by then I had already seen it elsewhere and thus didn’t go watch it in theater. If they had released it at the same time I would have seen it in the theater.
Another example, during X-Men they were showing the trailer for ‘The Punisher’ and I was like why are they showing the trailer for a movie that old… then at the end of the trailer a message came up that said ‘Coming soon to a theater near you…’ and thats when I realized that it hadn’t been released in India yet. What the hell… The movie is more than 6 months old. Why don’t they release it world wide at the same time? If not the same time then release it within a couple of weeks. So that people like me who actually want watch the movie will watch it in theaters instead of downloading it.
Other than the delayed launch another big issue is censorship in India. You take any movie and you will find that its been chopped up like anything and its not just the nudity vulgar scenes (Those I can understand.. somewhat) its cutting up stuff like jokes, fights anything the censor department felt like. Case in point: Bad Boy’s II. The movie is a Action/Comedy movie correct? If you ask someone in India who saw it on the big screen they will be like ‘What comedy’ the movie was an action movie. Guess what? the censors chopped out all the jokes in the movie… and the movie ended up making no sense.
Watching the X-Men I got the feeling that some of the scenes in the movie didn’t quite flow together so I think the censors might have taken a go at it also… Wont’ know for sure till I get the DVD and watch it.
So in my opinion why is movie piracy so strong in India:
1. The movies are launched in India a long time after their launch in the US. People don’t want to wait to see the movie.
2. The movies are censored so much that it doesn’t make any sense anymore.
3. The ticket prices are high (My dad suggested this reason. Not sure I agree with it).
What do you think?
Thanks,
Suramya
Hey Everyone,
Its time for me to make everyone jealous as hell. 🙂 I got a new phone on saturday: The Nokia 6270.
I love the phone, it has a 2 Megapixel camera (My favorite part), FM Radio (Which I prob wont use at all) and a mp3 player. I also got a bluetooth headset for it and both work really well together. 🙂
Will take some pics using it and post them online.
– Suramya
Found an Interesting set of USB Accessories while browsing through the Wired Site… My personal favorite is this one:
It would be interesting to watch a wearer try to use this… 😉 Any volunteers for a demo 😉 😀
Source: Wired 14.06: PLAY
– Suramya
Had an uninvited vistor after my Ooty Trip last week. Two days after the trip I woke up with a high fever, nausea and a severely upset stomach. When I went to the doctor he diagnosed it with a stomach infection and gave me this mile long list of medicines to take…
Now the fun part was that I couldn’t eat anything without throwing up and the anti-biotics were making me feel buzzed. So all I could do was sleep and watch movies when I was awake. I watched ‘The Pink Panther’ which is an awesome movie. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Also saw ‘Darna Zaroori Hai’ Which was really pathetic. I mean it felt like they decided to release a half made movie in which none of the stories were scary or even interesting (Well… one or two of the stories were mildly interesting).
The stomach infection was why I havn’t been posting anything on the blog. Its hard to think coherently when you feel like you have taken one too many shots..
Now thankfully my stomach is better. Can actually eat normal food once again and not hospital food (Boiled stuff)…
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
Cya,
Suramya
I spent the last week in Ooty, Well it was in Wellington and Pykara lake but both are near ooty. I had gone there to attend Gaurang and Kangan’s engagement. It was a really fun trip. It started off with me leaving home at ~4:15 am on the 17th to catch the 6:30am flight to Bangalore. This was after I had been working till about 3:30 am so I was a bit tired but nothing major. The flight was uneventful and I arrived in Banglore on time where Lloyd picked me up and drove me to the Bus Stop where I was supposed to catch the 10am bus to Ooty. This is where the fun started…
The bus was supposed to leave at 10am (There was another bus at 9:15am) while waiting for the bus I found out that the 9:15 am bus never showed up and the 10am bus is the last bus leaving in the morning, the next bus was at 8 pm. So we waited and waited and waited… The 10am bus finally showed up and while boarding we were told that the 9:15 am bus was on the way also and would be arriving shortly. We finally left Blore at 11:00am and about two hours later we stopped for lunch. At this time I realized that my phone battery was low but I had called Gaurang and told him that my ETA was ~6pm. Then I went off to sleep (Cause I had to work again at night) the bus took forever to get to Ooty. He stopped a lot and drove really really slow. I finally reached Ooty at ~9:45 pm. Both Gaurang and Kangan had come to pick me up and they were royally bored. Plus since my phone was low on battery life I didn’t get a regular signal so I couldn’t tell them where I was. The best part was that all the road signs were in Tamil which I don’t read so even when I got through to Gaurang I had no idea where I was so I couldn’t give them an ETA.
The engagement was fun, I had about 3 hours of sleep before the ceremony but I managed. Gaurang had to wear a Dhoti which was funny (See picture below). I recorded the entire thing on video plus took some still photos. The funniest part of the entire thing was that the pundit told us that if the girl and guy exchanged rings that meant they were married so Kunal (Kangan’s brother) put the ring on Guarang’s finger. 🙂 It was funny as hell, I got a video of Kunal saying “Don’t anybody dare take any photos” (Or something to that effect. I don’t remember the exact words). Will post it when I get a copy. Then we went for lunch where a lot of people showed up. Then Gaurang and Kangan went to get his car fixed and I went home to sleep. Below are some photos I took.
Aunty, Kangan, Gurang and Uncle
Kangan and Gaurang
I worked again at night then the next day we went to Pykara lake. That was the best part of the trip. This is a series of 7 interconnected lakes which is restriced access for defence personal only. There are four rooms over there so Gurunathan uncle had booked them all for a 3 day stay. We went paddle boating, canoeing, on a row boat and this one boat that looked like a round bath-tub. (Don’t remember what its called.) Maitreyi, Kunal, Kangan, Gaurang and me went on the different boats in various combinations. The bath-tub and canoeing was the most fun and the paddle boat the most boring. At night we played Pictonary and dumbcharads where my team won 🙂
Next day me, gaurang and Kangan went to drop Kunal at the bus-stop and the rest of the group went to pick up Mini and then went for a walk. The second day was also spent enjoying the lake. We went for a ride on the motor-boat where we spotted a bison. Then in the evening it started raining and we watched the clouds move in over the lake which was really nice.
The next day (Sunday) I left at 6am to catch the 8:30 bus and arrived in Bangalore at about 6:10 pm and went straight to the airport where I found my flight was delayed till 9:30pm. The flight back was uneventful and I slept most of the way. Mom and dad picked me from the airport and I went to sleep after a long talk with them.
This was a brief summary of my trip to Ooty. Will post more later.
Cya,
Suramya
Lets hear it for the open source movement. Tamiflu one of the medicines used for treating pandemic flu has been made open source… meaning the process to create the drug has been opened to the public.
The biggest advantage is that anyone can now synthesize the drug if required so the production bottleneck has been removed. However, the question that comes to my mind is that how willing will people be to trust a medicine that their next door neighbor made in his garage? Are you really willing to risk trying that medicine? Prob yeah, if you don’t have any other option but what if you do? I think most people (including me) would rather take a medicine prepared by a qualified/reputed lab than some homegrown varity…
But still its a step in the right direction. How you may ask? Well, now all the labs have the process without having to spend R&D to reinvent the wheel. So if the need arises everyone can pitch in to make the drug.
Original Article: MAKE: Blog: HOW TO – Make Tamiflu
Thanks to Adam Fields (weblog) for the link.
Thanks,
Suramya
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