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Straight Angle™: June 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007

Disappointed with Apple Safari for Windows! 

When I first read about the release of Apple Safari for Windows, I was jumping in joy- It's been my wish to use it ever since I saw Safari working with Mac. I wanted to use the browser- if not for anything atleast for the user interface. The moment I was able to, I downloaded Safari and installed it. And then began my saga of trying to get to open a few pages in Safari.

The pages that I tried to open in Safari in the same order in tabs.

Apple (This is the home page)
Google.com
GMail.com

I was never able to get the Apple site open for me in the 20 Minutes that I had kept the window open. In the 20 minutes, I have downloaded, Maxthon browser, installed it and even browsed all my unread items in my Bloglines account. It is fast.

The first time I am disappointed with Apple. Hopefully, this is the last time too.

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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Why we do What we do? 

Couple of days back, I was reading through something, when I hit upon this piece of post by Emanuel Derman. I follow his posts regularly and I find this post of his, informative and pretty interesting. I am just reproducing his words:
Doug Hofstadter's book about Godel's theorem, "I am a Strange Loop", points out that mathematicians before after Hilbert and Russell and Whitehead thought that in axiomatic systems, (a) if you could prove it, it must be true, and (b) everything true could be proved. Godel threw a monkey wrench into (b). There's a similar set of assumptions people often make about human beings: (a) If you can persuade someone of the logic of something, they should experience the same feeling as you about it; and (b) if people experience some feeling, there must be a logical cause. But this too breaks down in various ways. In my case, take global warming as an example of the falseness of (a): it's logical that I should be anxious to do something about it, but the logic doesn't really move me enough. I could try to explain why, but, in the end, that's how I feel. It's a version of Schopenhauer's "You can do what you want but you can't want what you want." I might want to be a person that wants to do something about global warming, but I can't be that person. That said, a long time ago I was friendly with a philosopher/physicist who told me in all serious that he wanted to be a person that liked classical music, and he could really make himself into that kind of person. I never knew whether to believe him. (b) is more difficult. There probably is a cause for most feelings or reactions, depending on what kind of cause you like -- Freud, Darwin or some neuroscientist stuff. But on the other hand, who cares: I like licorice: why? God knows and no-one cares. And why justify it? I thought of this when some telemarketer called to get me to donate money to some charity. I told her not to bother me at home. She tried to explain to me the virtue of the charity. I said I didn't want her to call me. She kept asking me WHY I wouldn't give money for something good? She wanted an explanation and I was tempted to give her one. But when I asked her why she had to call me, she said I was on her "list" and that was that. She didn't need any justification, though she wanted me to justify not giving. There's an old Lou Reed song called "Doin the things that we want to," and she knew how to do it.
There are more than a couple of inferences for me from those words. I particularly agree with these words : There probably is a cause for most feelings or reactions, depending on what kind of cause you like -- Freud, Darwin or some neuroscientist stuff. But on the other hand, who cares: I like licorice: why? God knows and no-one cares. And why justify it?

This justification is something that I have already discussed so many times. There can hardly be no reason (cause) for something that I feel or do, but why should I justify it and to whom? The do/like something intrinsically and there is no need to justify it. With Justification comes guilt- in my opinion, you don't justify unless you feel guilty about doing something- you don't justify the breath you take, the food you eat - but you tend to justify some exorbitant money you just lost gambling or the wrong way you took when you didn't know which way to go!

To me, Justifying something is an upfront acceptance of the guilt that I harbor and the moral smallness that I feel because of that, towards the person that I am justifying my actions. I don't think I need to justify my actions/feelings etc to anyone unless I really want apologies and/or acceptance. Expecting acceptance in itself is something that seems to me as repugnant. But then I realize we do it all time- every time. Seems unsurmountable to me. May be thats why we do what we do!

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Friday, June 01, 2007

Nostalgia 

There were days when I used to steal my way away to my neighbors place late at night. Those were the days, when late night meant 8:00 PM and very late in the night meant 9:30 PM. Those were the days, when a black and white portable TV(mostly Solidaire) was the sole reason for fame. Thoe were the days when we called it Matinee the same thing that we call Noon Show. Those were the days when I was so young that I needed my mom to be at my side and my legs over her to sleep. Those were the days of Street Hawk.

I still remember vividly those nights when I have to steal my way away from my mom- we didn't have a TV then- probably this was in late 1980's- sometime around 1986 or 1987- that was the time when my mom wouldn't let me stay awake for watching Street Hawk- but at such an impressionable age, "The Man, The Machine, The Street Hawk" is such an enthralling proposition, that I didn't mind to many a times defy my mom and stay awake till that time to watch it. There were times when my neighbor would go to sleep, when I would wake him up for the show. Those were the days when watching TV was a thrill- the stories of Jungle Book, The He-Man and the Masters of the Universe- those days.

As I was feeling so nostalgic about those days, all I had was YouTube to keep me company. So, there you go!

I simply love the introduction and the "The Man, The Machine, The Street Hawk" tag line. Even the funny 300 MPH sounds good now- the green cube of focus that the Man will have in the Machine...when I see it now too, I am so excited about it. I watched it completely, called up a couple of my friends, made them watch it too- its just a great feeling to watch that, the "Ek-Chidiya- Anek- Chidiyaan" bit.

Those were the days, my friend
we thought they'd never end!- But end did they!

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Swarnasrikrishnan/Male/28. Lives in India/Tamilnadu/Chennai, speaks Tamil, English, 

Malayalam, German, Hindi(??). Eye color is black. I am a god. I am also optimistic.
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Swarnasrikrishnan, Male, 28, India, Tamilnadu, Chennai, Tamil, English, Malayalam, German, Hindi(??)


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