Friday, March 14, 2008

TR's Top 10

MIT's Technological Review just released the the list of top 10 technologies to look forward for this year, which they think are most likely to change the way we live.

Even though energy conservation, miniaturization and data mining seems to form the crux of most of these technologies, but its the ideas which are truly revolutionary. Here's the complete list, and though all of them seem pretty fascinating, the concept of Probabilistic Chips and Modeling Surprise really intrigued me the most.

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Movies Galore..

Yeah, that says it all. Its been a long time since I've seen one. All in all three of them in the last couple of days. Enter spring break.. Fountain_poster_1

The Fountain was pending since long and it lived up to its branding of being a little obscure. Classify it as science fiction or the romantic genre, it stays true to the Darren  Aronofsky brand. It might not have the kind of impact that Requiem for a Dream had, but nevertheless, its a pretty good watch with Hugh Jackman really showing his class. It took me a while to get into the groove after I played it and I won't grade it as supremely entertaining, but definitely worth a watch for it really is a different grade of cinema. What more, it stars Rachel Weisz..

Rambowallpaperkr8Pure unadulterated action was what I expected from the latest Sly Stallone's John Rambo.. Plenty of blood in it, but somehow it doesn't really invigorates as the earlier editions. But then, even if you are a Sly fan, you can't let this one go, for even at 60 this man can rip the enemies apart. :)

I don't know what drove me to watch The Notebook. Perhaps a high rating on imdb was the catalyst and though it was pretty decent, its not for me. I avoid watching such flicks, but then at times I do fall into the trap. VM._SY400_SX600_

That was it for me, radically different genres to get the ball rolling. I've heard 10,000 BC is a drag, and I wonder how can the makers of Independence Day screw it up. But then I do remember Godzilla!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Finally, it arrived..

87854 ..it indeed did. Nine years is a long time, but then when it came, it was all the more sweet. Few would remember that the last time he hit a ton in a winning final was against the Zims in 1999. He's been there all this while, scoring runs at a scorching rate, but when it came to the finals, it looked as though the law of averages seem to catch up with him. Perhaps it did him this time as well, probably this time the other way around, since he hadn't scored many in the earlier games.

Fantastic knock, which was not as imposing as the one Hayden played earlier in the day, but it was balanced. Talk about cricket being played as much in the mind as outside. There weren't many outrageous punches off the backfoot or the booming straight drives, instead what we saw was creative batsmanship at his best. This was mind over matter and no brownie points for guessing who won.

Being an ardent fan that I am, I was literally praying that India wins the toss and bats first at the SCG, since I've hardly seen teams chasing successfully on that ground. The pitch gets a lot slower and lower as the day progresses, and although the ground is at its magnificent best under the lights, it has more often than not been a burial ground for the chasers. But at last it changed..

A great game all in all - the Aussies showed why they are the best fielding side in the world yet again which meant that the Indians had to chase an extra 25 runs. They did and with the master there to see it till the end, it was all the more beautiful. I'm not saying that the Aussies are past their prime or anything else. There's still daylight between them and the others, but its good to see a few teams at least take the game by the scuff of the neck and give them a fight. After all any game needs two 'teams' to make it a contest.

I really expect Gabba to be everything but SCG in terms of the pitch. Indians are one up, and the Aussies are a bit wounded. Some fellow Aussie bloggers want their team to hit the deserts once again as they did when John Buchanan was the coach to strengthen them up. Interesting.. all I have to say is ask Stephen Waugh first - he'd have some scary stories about the desert storm he witnessed way back in the summer of '98 at Sharjah!