Chronicles of Narnia

Saw CoN last night. I wasn't very impressed. I know everyone and their uncle (on IMDB and rotten tomatoes) seems to love it, but it just didn't click with me. You can't have the epic sweep of LOTR without breaking it into more films (and LOTR crew barely managed to do it without butchering the original story too much)

i somehow distrust movies extolling the virtues of violence to under 14 year olds. Not to mention santacalause (or Narnian equivalent) giving them instruments of violence and egging them on to "fight for lasting peace"...

I think most hollywood movies these days seem to have at least a few scenes in them which can be taken out of the movie and still serve as marine recruiting videos. But everyone seems to love it.. which is scary to say the least!

DabbleDB.com

dabbledb.com
Two words: Holy Shite!

hint: watch the screencast videos!

Stallman Travels to Venezuela

Stallman visits Caracas and Merida. Apparently the Venezuelano State Oil company is switching to opensource software. That's pretty good.

First stage was "free" software. Next stage would be "indigenous" software. I think pretty soon we'll start seeing opensource "hardware". How about an open-source car? Anyone can make a steam-engine these days. No-one will invade your country for stealing _that_ technology ;)

I tend to think that in the final analysis, anything can be open-sourced-ed

Some interesting tid bits:

"I gave two speeches in Caracas. One was mainly for government people, organized by Sergeant-Major Torres, who converted the Venezuelan Army's servers to GNU/Linux. People from the Ministry of Science and Technology attended, and I hope this will encourage them to support free software more in the future."

Its interesting that the army is one of the early adopters.

"There was a bookstore downstairs in the same building; I went there and found an interesting book to buy, and at that point I learned something shocking and disappointing about Venezuelan law. Every purchase--even food--requires the purchaser to present his national ID card, and his ID number is recorded to report it to the government. The bookseller was very angry about it, and I share his feelings. It is like my worst nightmares about surveillance, come true. Supposedly the purpose is for tax collection, but no one was able to give me a clear story of how it would solve a problem or why it was necessary. Other countries have been able to collect taxes in other ways. "

This is interesting and disturbing, because I was in Caracas in summer of 2004, and we did not encounter any such restrictions. This must be new. Actually, the going government rate for Bolivars was 1700 B. to each USD. But the street rate was 3200 B. to each USD (almost double). We were able to easily convert our money via a kind chinese restaurant owner in the Alhambra (Cordoba) (I think that's the name) district. No one ever asked us for ID even though we were doing groceries and purchasing things and eating.

Maybe the secret service was following Stallman around and the shopkeepers realized this and asked to see the ID. This is really very odd, but things may have changed in the mean time.

I also noted that his blog is running plone. Ah, sweet memories of plone . I only got to play with it on a part-time basis. Seems like its still going strong. I would like to use it, but Zope gives me nightmares. My encounter with Zope and Squishdot turned me off. Plone, IMO was a valiant attempt by runyaga, limi et. al. but the foundation (Zope) is too crooked to built something common-sensical on top of it. Still they've managed to tame the hideous beast that is CMF. So Kudos to the plone team.

But I digress. Then I abruptly end the post. Ciao!

"No one starts with a masterpiece"

RyanC has a "Small Biz 101" series of excellent articles about starting out on a wing and a prayer. I like this no non-sense way of looking at the world of startups. Incidentally, it reminds me of Paul Graham's essays. I wish I had read these things in the mid 90's. I also wish I wasn't broke out of my wits for most of the 90's (at least till mid 90's):

In anycase, here are the links for future reference:

• Small Biz 101: How to get Started
• Small Biz 101: Cash flow
• Small Biz 101: No on starts out with a masterpiece
• Small Biz 101: Tips for increasing sales ( Added: Jan 2006)
  

And just to top things off, here is Paul Graham's essay on "How to Start a Startup"

The coming web 2.0 glut

I just had this ominous feeling that pretty soon, when all these little web 2.0 egglings hatch, we'll have so many cute little applications to keep track of that we won't care what they offer.

On the one hand, I like the idea of "do one thing and do it well". But when everyone and their third cousin is coming up with cool apps that want your attention, I think we're getting back into the "Worditis" syndrome. Too many things to keep track of.

So what will happen next?

A web 2.0 app to keep track of all the web 2.0 apps? Kind of like a web 2.0 applet dashboard?
A web 2.0 protocol which lets all these little apps talk to each other?

I wonder what would that be?

All this got triggerd by the latest post on Signal Vs Noise regarding their "super secret upcoming application" which Jason F. calls "Campfire"

Its interesting to see everyone try to figure out what exactly it is. We consumers are so trained. We will knock the doors off of any store that has the tickle-me-elmo equivalent for this shopping season. The must have gadget. The one thingh which will fill that gaping void that is so carefully nurtured by everyone who wishes to sell us things which they will claim will fill that void.

Time for some meta-programming?

Welcome & About this blog

This is my second venture into the blog land, The first one being the one that shall remain un-named and hidden as far as possible ;-) . This blog will be mostly about my adventures in the big bad world of self.propulsion() . I tend to take roads less travelled by, So I identify with the sentiment, and as the very first post, I shall post this timeless poem by Robert Frost as my offering to the fortune cookie monster. Bring it on! :)

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.