Kiran Jonnalagadda's LiveJournal

Making a stop-motion video
The Unknowns played here yesterday and were excellent as usual. I was rather unsuccessful at trying to get a single picture that captured the mood of the show, and in the frustration, took to shooting in continuous mode and made a stop-motion video. 263 frames at ~3fps, 5.9 MB, accelerated to play for about a minute.

See the video »

For the geeks, ( here’s how it’s done. )

Current Music: R.E.M - Losing My Religion

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I need an upgrade
So this dude just walked over my laptop… and it survived, despite the terrible crunch. I don’t know whether to be thankful for the titanium casing, or for that I was reaching for his foot to pry it off before he could raise the other.

In other news, my battery lasts barely over an hour now. I need a new battery. And more RAM and a bigger disk. And a faster processor, USB 2.0, internal Bluetooth, 802.11g, … and the list keeps growing. It’s starting to look like I should save a few months and get a new PowerBook instead of upgrading this one in parts.

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At the department of Turkish Tea and FLOSSophy

Asia Source is being simultaneously an uplifting and a humbling experience. Another two days to go. I’m going to miss being in the company of these people in such a wonderful setting.

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Rolling along

Hyderabad’s Hussain Sagar lake—better known as Tank Bund—provides much needed open space in the heart of the city. The lake’s shores are lined with parks, walkways, memorials, and some excellent commercial spaces like Eat Street on Necklace road, the venue for Saturday’s LJ meet.

Eat Street is a strip mall of eating joints with seating on the terrace, where you can dine in the cool breeze and gaze into the vast waters. It’s easily the best location for a get-together I’ve ever been in. Eat Street makes chump change out of Bangalore’s Forum.

We sorely lack a space like this in Bangalore.

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Hyderabad drizzle

It drizzled in Hyderabad yesterday. The clouds went dark, the breeze picked up, and then a fine rain swept the roads. The weather turned extremely pleasant, and remained so until the train pulled out of Secunderabad station. What a lovely parting!

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Good old Hyderabad. Good to see the place hasn't changed much. There are still no traffic lights on these roads. To cross, you use the age old protocol of looking to both left and right. In case of a conflict, the heavyweight wins. Oh, and most roads are outfitted with disco lights that go red, yellow and green, but nobody seems to know what these are for.

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Granny’s clothesline

Clothesline in my grandmother’s backyard. The clothes must be a tenant’s, since she doesn’t wear bright colours. Two dogs descended the stairs as I framed this picture, then proceeded to make an emergency exit, bounding from stair to compound wall to street. Dogs may not have the dexterity of limbs to climb like cats, but they sure do make good use of available facilities. Poor brainz had an unnerving experience when the dog sailed directly overhead.

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Things to do while the Indian Railways website is down

1. Go out. Stretch. Make tea.
2. Hit Reload over and over again, hoping to see something other than “communication failure.”
3. Get paranoid and buy a bus ticket.
4. Swear at the moron ticket booking agency that bought a sleeper class ticket waitlisted at 241, when they were clearly instructed to get a higher class ticket if sleeper wasn’t available.
5. Wonder what on earth the babus were thinking, running a website that only operates 9:30 AM to 6 PM. Even websites need to shut shop and go home for the evening? Websites are not allowed to provide better service, since that would put human jobs at risk?

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The huddle

Three of my housemates went to the same college and graduated together. They frequently have friends over for the night.

Unfortunately, there’s a shortage of mattresses.

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The habit

Found this in the shelf. Since I see very little daylight these days, I might as well try indoor photography, where time and composition are in my hands. My only source of light was the tube, which lined the bottles with a distracting glint, so I shaded these with a towel for 30 seconds. A green towel, resulting in a very green picture.

Much fiddling later, this is what I got. I’ve obviously got a lot to learn about subject arrangement and colour manipulation. The hair-like thing you see by the left edge is from my CCD. Time for another cleaning.

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How not to send notifications
And now for today’s usability annoyance, the Flickr Mail system:

From: mail@flickr.com
Subject: [Flickr] You are [bleep]’s newest contact!

You’ve been sent a Flickr Mail titled:
You are [bleep]’s newest contact!

To read the full message, click here:
http://www.flickr.com/messages_read.gne?id=[bleep]
…

Think about this: you’ve received a message telling you that you’ve received a message elsewhere. What’s with the brilliant idea? Why not just send the message here and dispense with Flickr Mail, the way LJ handles comment notifications? Not only do I have to delete it from my email inbox (after reading it), I have to go to Flickr Mail and delete it there too. What an annoyance!

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WingIDE rocks
And in positive news today, I upgraded to WingIDE Pro 2.0. For Python programming, WingIDE seriously rocks. It’s the best IDE I’ve used since Delphi in the late-’90s. The more I use it, the more I love it.

Their customer support makes it even better. They respond the same day, usually within the same hour, and consider all suggestions and bug reports seriously. They give me the sense of security that even if I’m stuck in future, the license fee won’t be a dead investment.

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After Reliance, blasted Airtel chaps are now advertising with automated diallers. And I paid incoming roaming call rate. Where is the regulation prohibiting such behaviour when you need it? Airtel has also sent me SMS spam, and I’m not even an Airtel customer.

If you get a call from +91 98802 86018, don’t take it.

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Need help finding LiveJournal cartoons
Folks, I need some help. Several of you have posted cartoons from around the Web relating to LiveJournal in recent months. Can you help me find these again? I would have gone searching myself, but I simply don’t remember who posted what. This is for my Sarai-sponsored research.

Here, for example, is a recent cartoon posted in futurama. Thanks for your assistance.

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The waterproof camera housing how-to
Instructions on how to make your own underwater camera enclosure. I want to take pictures like this one from supertatas.

File under “fun geek projects that I’ll most likely never get around to doing.”

Current Music: Jethro Tull - My God

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94 bottles of beer on the wall…
Ronnie and Nicole were married this 9th, in Matunga in Bombay. I was between Dadar and Lower Parel most of that day and completely unaware. sumod and ghazala, when is your turn?

Ronnie used to be surreal, but that account has since been hijacked.

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Recycled doors and windows

Demolition contractor, Jayanagar, Bangalore. November 2004.

The monotonous routine continues here in Pune. Attention is a segmented rope in a tug-of-war. Except, instead of two parties, there’s one for each segment, each pulling their own way and walking off with their piece. There’s never enough useful length left. It is time again to drop all non-critical commitments. I’m considering shifting base to Pune for a few months, just to keep up.

This song makes me nostalgic for Bangalore.

Current Music: The Cranberries - Ode To My Family

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I’m trying to not sound like a grumpy old fart, but I must say this: Thunderbird sucks!
There, I’m done. A pleasant post next, I promise.

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A different sort of usability rant
I’m vetting proposals and resumes for a usability consult and must let off steam:

What is it with proposals that are filled with spelling and grammar errors and formatting inconsistencies? How can a user experience company be so careless with the very first step, presenting themselves to the client? What does it speak of how they will handle the client’s users?

We’re still looking. If you’re interested, apply to hrd@partecs.com. Be aware that I’m very finicky.

I think I should make notes on common shortcomings in proposals. I see the same mistakes over and over again.

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Tonight’s gracious host

And here is shekhark, my host for the weekend. He has the best apartment I’ve ever been in.

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