My first 3D movie experience

Tin-Tin became my first 3D movie experience

Hey there!

Life keeps on giving us new 'firsts' every now and then as long as we are breathing isn't it?

Today it was a first 3D movie for me. I have been watching the 3D versions of Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar and others pass by me because of paucity of time or outright lethargy. But this time I made it :-)

Colleagues went to watch Tin Tin to celebrate an official milestone. So how was it? Well, the depth was evident and while it was not actually as realistic as I saw during one of the demo's of a Sony Bravia 3D TV but it was really engaging to watch in 3D especially during some sequences that had the special touch of director Steven Spielberg.

If you are looking for a few words on the movie, I would say it is a good (not great) entertainer. The animations and detail that the animation artists have added to the 3D world is commendable. Movies like Avatar claimed to be animation marvels but given the fact that we have such realistic looking animation complete with expressions where even the twitch of a bow counts, created in less time than the acclaimed masterpieces, deserve some commendation for the genius of people who work behind these technologies, managing hundreds of thousands of variables in each scene.

That was a bit of sidetrack. Coming back to the storyline stuff, it is mature enough to beat a common guess so it keeps you entertained unless you are a regular Tin-Tin reader! The climax also hints at another adventure in store that obviously prompts us to wait for a sequel.

To end the story, I will now be looking forward to more of 3D movie experiences and induct others who have not yet been there. If that means I am a victim of technology driven consumerism? It is a Yes!

Have a nice day.
Tin-Tin!

Rise of the Tweaker

tweak*  (twk)

tr.v. tweaked, tweak·ing, tweaks

1. To pinch, pluck, or twist sharply.

2. To adjust; fine-tune.

3. To make fun of; tease.

*Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tweak

I am a Tweaker by birth. Although the term is not present in Oxford ALD, but defines my cravings for electronic, mechanical and electromechanical stuff very well.

Of the above meanings, my idea of tweaking goes more with the 2nd with added tactics of 1st one to achieve my goals and sometimes the 3rd one as well for recreation. But my subjects are mostly inanimate articles from the long forgotten boxes full of broken inventions and some curious metal and plastic contraptions that tend to stay at home long after their useful period has elapsed due to their virtue of catching the curiosity of a Tweaker like me.

I already have mentioned my other DIY project that is about to jump on the drawing board. Last day one of my as geeky cousin called up to seek my help in rigging up a cheap surveillance system comprising of web cams, motion detectors, limit switches, GSM modules (or cell phone itself) and so on...

Discussed the plan for about one and a half hour and this is what fell into my bucket:

"Write a program to receive Boolean status information from any of the devices connected to a LPT1. The system will then have to take some action based on state of the connected devices. Possibly send a Boolean signal to one of the few signal pins on the LPT1 to trigger a low power relay that in turn triggers a high power relay that powers up an alarm or blah blah blah..."

A dive into this realm of electronics seems to be very fascinating and I am keen to explore more and more of this geeky entertainment. Being a techy, I believe that controlling an LPT should be less pain than trying to impress a girl. Holds true at least for me ;-)

So be sure to find some cool projects coming up soon. That reminds me! Summers are here and I need to fix our desert cooler for the season. Will do this weekend if I can find enough time. Its a lots of work. Again for fun, I am doing it myself, if anything goes wrong, we always have mechanics to fix them ;-)

Well, now I am thinking that mine would be a lucky wife to have a plumber, electrician, mechanic, all in one!

Ahem! Ahem! No self praise!

Okay then. Take care. See you again soon with my first rough rough (yes those are two roughs!) plan of the HLD and stay tuned for this LPT prototype as well.

Good nighties!

Hello...? ubuntu here!

Hi all!

You know what is unique about this post?

This one, I am keying in from ubuntu 10.10 running from my 4 GB USB drive! Reason is that I have to revise some aspects of Linux for an upcoming examination. So I thought that there must be someway to quickly try some commands.

What I was searching for was some public server that I can access using telnet or remotely try something over a web sharing session. But here I got it running on my own PC within 5 minutes of downloading the ISO file from http://www/ubuntu.com.

The process was so straight forward! Download the ubuntu ISO, download the USB installer, enable USB boot device in the BIOS, select removable drive to boot! That's all.

I have not set any persistence area on this USB device so will not be able to create any files or save any settings I make to the environment. That is, I will get to use a brand new installation of ubuntu in every session I log in. But that serves my purpose.

Also it reminds me of some games that I used to play on my RedHat installation when I was graduating. Even then the purpose was academic: Shell programming. This time I will just be running some file system commands and get to know the file system and device management in Linux. That'll be all.

Nice experience and it has got nice effects like wobbling windows that stretch and wobble when you move them around or resize and maximise and icons that you can right click to stretch. Something new and different from what I have been seeing on my XP...cool!

I got to play with this for a while. Seeyaround.

Take care