We are bothered

As human beings, we have come quite a way along the evolutionary chain; from grunting, scavenging savages to erudite, intelligent individuals with a whole bag of skills we have acquired/learned over centuries/millennia.

One of these traits being a large emotional cortex. While it has its own benefits, providing us with the ability to empathize, one of the few living creatures proven by science to be able to do so, it comes with a caveat; we are always bothered. There must be a certain dopamine rush one gets from putting one's nose in another's affairs.

We bother about what our relatives are up to, that one cousin who doesn't come to family gatherings, and so on. I'm sure that you've been on one end of at least one of the examples below:

That one relative whose husband passed away recently; "Ohh! Poor thing! How is she staying all alone in that house? Why haven't her sons left their highly paying jobs and rushed home to take care of her? Has he made a will? To whom has he made out that plot of land? I wonder what they will do with all that land." 

That one kid who isn't doing too well at school " Look at him, that good for nothing. I hardly see him study. He must be bunking classes and vandalizing public property. I am sure his best friend was a gang member or something. My kid has been on his PS4 for the last 4 hours and has not even looked at his homework but this other kid...man! " 

That slightly obese lady taking a walk in the park "I wonder if she's on a diet. I know a certain specialist who could help her. Maybe she has a thyroid problem. Why can't she just go to a gym or something and lose weight? I've bought two custard pies and I'm diabetic but who cares? The doctor will just re-adjust my meds! This is more important than me!"

The neighbor who is in between jobs " Why can't he just join his old job? It's not like he left on bad terms. Wasn't he planning to go to the USA? I wonder what happened to that. Maybe I can ask him to call up his old workplace? I have a project report that's due tomorrow but who cares! This is way more important than that!"

The politician who allegedly got injured during a rally " Oh look , the cast is on the wrong foot! He wiggled the injured foot! Let's take a video and make it viral. Son wants to go out to buy schoolbooks? Nah! That can wait! We need to talk more about this foot!"

Picture credit : Shutterstock

"Why did they post that on Facebook? Why did she post that bikini pic on insta? Why did he upload that video of he and his friends drunk on snapchat?"

One allows themselves to be bothered with situations/scenarios that do not require their input/deserve our attention; one allows ourselves to get sucked into that whirlpool of negativity. One "feels" that their opinion may prove to be of "value" and by offering that opinion, they are making a difference, "constructive" criticism if you may say so. The only fruit one may reap of such a practice is that of resentment.

If you are so bothered by anyone or anything someone says or does, the best thing is don't follow them. Mute/Block/Unfollow/Unfriend/Ignore them. Do not make it personal. It is your choice to do so. The world would be a whole lot better if we could be a little less bothered with others and focus a little more on improving ourselves.

My Darkest Days

He trudged wearily, along an old deserted road,
Reminiscing fond memories, many ages old
Of all those he loved, of all those he cared,

Image source : www.faithstrongtoday.com

None came forth, when he cried in despair.

For a few moments , he found alleviation,
The next instant t'was gone , a fleeting illusion.
Our weary traveller, tired and sore,
His countenance couldn't have seemed more forelorn.
                                                                             
His journey brought him to the edge of an abyss;
Drawing him close, drawing him in.
Dare he jump?
Was there anything to miss?

Our weary traveller, the poor tortured soul,
He sat by the edge, and let his emotions pour.
Once he was done, he rose from the floor;
He thought to himself "Perhaps one day more".

He rose up from the floor, mind filled with resolve
Away from the abyss he walked, toward a new dawn.

The Art of Handwriting

I've always believed that handwriting, particularly cursive handwriting, is an art form; each stroke or flourish, whether it's a loopy "L", an elaborate "A" or some elegant "E", being unique to a single artist.

One can learn quite/assume quite a bit about a person just from his penmanship; perhaps I could say it offers a glimpse into one's soul.

Kids enter the realm of writing by scribbling; annoying as you may find those doodles scrawled on every wall of the house 2 feet off the ground and below, those are the formative steps of a young, developing brain, the result of multiple synapses firing in unison. Scribbles are soon replaced by stick figures and finally cartoonish ABC's on a sheet of paper that may sometimes find their way onto a refrigerator door.

Image credit : parade.com

In a year or two, those awkwardly shaped ABC's will soon begin to to merge together to form what we call "cursive".
To a kid, learning to write is basically like learning to draw, and just like every artist has his own unique form, each one's writing has its own uniqueness.

Looking at old works and writings is like admiring a work of art; they hold lot of memories, particularly if it's the writings of a loved one or someone who's no longer there.
I'd found a few letters my friends and I'd exchanged over the years while I was clearing up my drawers and going through them imbued in me a sense of nostalgia for the good old days gone by and also how much we've grown or changed since then.

Perhaps at this point you may be wondering as to why I decided to choose this as a topic for my post; to be honest , one reason is that I just got myself a shiny new fountain pen (yippeeee!) , the second is due to the reduced use of cursive writing in our daily lives.
Heck, the other day I'd come across an article in the papers which stated that apparently in some schools in the US, kids in their teens can't even sign their names in cursive!
It's a known fact that writing in cursive uses a lot more connections in your brain than just plain printing.
It is a character building tool in one's arsenal of life skills.

Writing cursive is unique. Writing cursive is an art. Writing cursive is your personal stamp of individuality that sets you apart from the multitudes.

Note 3 review : Pure awesomeness and fun

Okay then ; first of all I would like to apologize for being absent from the blogosphere for what may seem like ages; my electronic devices were taken over by IT gremlins (they are distant relatives of the ones that wreck airplanes and can be recognised by that they have a USB port for a nose). Anyway , after a long battle and a truce being agreed upon (I gave them my old gadgets to tinker around with so that they may leave me alone) I am back. And what better way to announce my return than post a review about the latest gadget to land at my doorstep ; a brand new shiny, faux leathery, Samsung Note 3.

A little over a year ago, I was an outspoken critic of the Note series by Samsung. WHY you ask?

Well, first of all, I wasn't sold on the idea about using a stylus when a touchscreen is supposed to be well, you know,touched.
Secondly, I felt the screen was wayyy to large and the device looked quite uncomfortable to hold.
And third, it was goddamn freakishly ugly; it looked like the unwanted offspring of a one night's stand between a tablet and a phone which then fell into a vat of radioactive toxic goo.




Then what changed ? Cue the appearance of the Note 2.
My opinion on this phone/tab (I hate the word "phablet" and will actively persecute anyone I know who uses this word.You have been warned!) was quite the opposite of what i thought about the original Note ; a pebble-like feel when you held it, a nice display, and a very good stylus with pretty neat handwriting recognition software and a more matured OS with great battery life made it quite desirable..Yet I was still a bit hesitant to make the plunge; I still felt that it could be better.It was a bit on the heavier side,plus it was quite thick.

And then came the Note 3; Thinner, lighter, faster and better. These were the accolades attributed to this phone/tab. Is it really worthy of such praise? Read on folks.....

Techie notes :
I opted for the LTE version which came to me on camelback from the sands of the Arabian peninsula.
Samsung this year released two models of the note 3 worldwide, though many regions just get one of the two. One, with the model number N900 which is powered by Samsung's very own octa core Exynos processor, while the other , the LTE variant n9005, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad core processor. Both come with 32 GB internal memory (around 26gb user available) and 3 gb ram.
The n900 has a mali 628 graphic chip while the n9005 is powered by an adreno 330 chip, one of the most powerful mobile graphics chips till date. Sound is powered by a Wolfson audio chip on the n900 and qualcomm's own chip on the n9005.
The device is also packed with sensors : Accelerometer, RGB light, Geomagnetic, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer, Gesture, Temperature & Humidity sensor, Hall Sensor.

Non techie stuff:
The note 3 is actually a millimetre narrower than its predecessor,though do not expect to use it with one hand.It bears quite a resemblance to the US version of the galaxy S2.
I also appreciate Samsung for doing away with the glossy plastic , replacing it with a rubberised "faux leather" back plate, the intention being to make the device feel more like a notebook. I do feel that the fake stitching is overkill though.
The 5.7 inch display is absolutely gorgeous, blacks as usual are really very dark and the whites are quite good as well,and may I add ; set the display to auto brightness and under the sunlight this screen is damn bright...I mean really bright ... I had no trouble viewing the content on the display even under the midday sun.
Call quality is pretty good as well; calls were clear and there were no dropped calls.
Speaker quality was much better and louder than my old phone, the Galaxy s2, though note 2 owners maintain their speaker was louder and better.But seriously folks, you want a good speaker, invest in a home theater or a nice dock.
Sound through headphones was clear and there are a few effects in the stock player that you can use to adjust the sound to your liking.
The camera quality is also way better than that of my old s2,and the addition of some fun modes like dual shot (taking a simultaneous pic with the front and rear cam), though I must add that Samsung made a faux-pas removing the night mode from their camera app. Low light images are a bit oversampled and may look like a painting.Macro mode is a beauty though and captured lot of detail. The camera app also has many other modes, some sound gimmicky. Beauty Face softens faces to get rid of wrinkles and spots,drama takes multiple exposures and merges them, to let you get multiple instances of one moving object in a single picture. Eraser takes multiple exposures too, but with the aim of removing moving objects from a scene. The weirdest of the lot is Golf, which is designed precisely to capture a multi-exposure shot of a golf swing.Now, how many of us folks play golf?

Sample pic : click for full size

Video recording is a dream; the Galaxy Note 3 offers solid video capture. There’s refocusing during shooting,4k capture (only on the n9005) 1080p video capture, software image stabilisation and both slow motion and fast motion capture.
The better than average battery life will see you through your day without issue; you may even have a decent amount of battery left over at the end of the day! Infact, I charge my phone once every 36-48 hours.Oh may I add; The Note 3 comes with a USB 3.0 port! What this means is that the note 3's huge battery gets charged from around 10- 100% in just 2 hours! Also you get the benefit of faster file transfers to/from your pc (though your pc needs to have a usb 3.0 port as well).
Another cool feature is the IR blaster at the top of the phone; with the included WatchON app, you can use it to control your TV, DVD player, set top box and a few more.

Notes on the interface:
Anyone who used a Samsung android device in the past knows what to expect from the Touchwiz interface.
A few good features that are buried under a swathe of hundreds of useless gimmicks would best describe it.

One hand mode

It comes with android's latest iteration of Jellybean 4.3, though you won't be able to tell owing to the heavily skinned Touchwiz UI. Multi-view is a pretty useful feature which allows you to run two apps simultaneously on the screen.Thus, you can chat with your friends using whatsapp as well as check your twitter feed/browse the internet at the same time!

Another feature I want to write about is "One handed use" ;this effectively gives you a "phone in a phone" effect by scaling down the entire display into a smaller box. I must add though, that if you intend to keep this feature on permanently, you'd be better off using a smaller phone.
Coming to the gimmicky stuff, Samsung has included hundreds of gesture enabled actions and stuff like Smart stay, smart pause etc. Most of these "features" work only in optimal lighting, the rest of the time you'd actually be wasting more time trying to make them work.

The S-pen:
This time round, the S-pen has changed into a pretty neat piece of hardware; you can now slide it into its holding bay two ways rather than just one in the original note and note 2. Also it fits in quite snugly so no need to worry about it falling out.You can use it to navigate around, write text messages using the handwriting recognition and even sketch pics and more.

Pen window

Pulling the pen out of its holder opens a software called "air command" using which you may access active memo (a note taking app) , screen write ( takes a screen shot on which you can write a note), pen window (opens miniature apps in a small window on the screen ),and scrap booker ( draw around an article/image to save it in your scrapbook for later viewing)
You also have S-pen centric apps like S note and Sketchbook.
Using the s-pen has a decent learning curve and may take time to uncover all the features , but once there, there's no looking back.

My Magazine :

My magazine

This is more or less very similar to HTC's blinkfeed (which is in itself a lift-off from Flipboard) with the exception that it isn't an integral part of your homescreen and it can be accessed by a single upward swipe from the bottom of the screen. You may customise the topics you'd like to read about and it will display them in a neat tiled manner.

Gaming :
I guess it would be safe to say that as of writing this article , all games run well with nary a lag. though you may find the phone get a bit hot. This is normal considering all the high powered stuff lying under the hood though , so don't spend sleepless nights worrying about it.

Footnotes :
I have been browsing around various forums and also online retail sites such as Flipkart reading reviews on the Note 3.I am quite appalled by the fact that lots of individuals have given this phone a low rating owing to its high cost at launch (49,990 Indian rupees though now its available in certain areas for around 44k) and lack of the snapdragon version in the country.
The Snapdragon version benefits only a certain type of user : one who records 4k content ( Recording such content would eat up ur 26gb internal storage in NO time; uses LTE (which is only available in Kolkata , Bangalore ,Pune , Chandigarh and Jamnagar with planned rollout in Delhi and Mumbai in addition to the fact that it's costlier than 3G),and is interested in flashing lot of custom roms (the long-term driver support for qualcomm processors is better than samsung's exynos).
Exynos or non exynos makes no difference at all to the average smartphone user.
This is weird:
For some reason, I've noticed Indian retail stores displaying the Snapdragon 800 unit on demo while selling the Exynos unit to unsuspecting customers. On questioning the sales staff, they too seem to be ignorant on the fact that there are two different versions and have gone as far as to write "Quad core processor" on the device spec-sheet. I find this practice unethical (due to the feature differences I mentioned earlier) and it must be stopped.

Conclusion :
For those of you folks having a 2 year old device and are ready to splurge cash on an upgrade, please DO add this device on your list; it won't disappoint.

Conversations

Mr X: "Oh hello! Fancy meeting you here! It's been ages!How are you doing?"

source : justicefergie.com

Y :"Not bad , not bad! Being around doing this and that."

X :  "And how are the kids? Which class are they in? My, they sure grow fast, don't they!

Y: "Yup! They sure do! Well, A is in class 3 and B is in class 5... Did I forget to mention that B is the topper in his class?"

X: Oh that's lovely! My! Quite a large turnout here huh!

Y: Seriously yaar! I ran into most of the relatives this time.

Y : They've arranged quite a good spread for the buffet ! And the sweet corner is to die for!

X : Yeah ! Those Ras malais are deeeelicious!

Y : We really gotta catch up more often yaar! A family get together or something of the sort!

X : Yes very true! We gotta stay in touch ! Perhaps we can plan up something next month!

Y : Count me in ! I'll bring the wife and kids ... It'll be just like the good ol' days..

X:  Sure! Hey lets go in now... They're about to deliver the eulogy......

THE END

Food Papparazzi and their habits dissected

Picture yourself at a snazzy upscale restaurant ; you and your acquaintances seated at a table, engaged in friendly banter, soft music playing in the background. The food arrives ; spicy kadhai chicken , some hariyali kebabs and an assortment of flat breads. The aroma is tantalizing, the waiter goes about his business, putting a generous helping of each dish in everyone's plate, and making it look aesthetically appeasing at the same time.The reason for this is partly due to a well known adage : We eat with our eyes.

Image source :gq.com

So, here you are, sitting in front of the delicious assortment of food in front of you; you're about to reach out for a piece of roti, when suddenly one of your acquaintances says, "One minute dude! I gotta take a snap of this stuff! Looks really great n yummy na?" And he's off, taking hundreds of snaps in quick succession, in different angles, positions and so on, to get the perfect snap to upload on to the social network.
Meanwhile, said kebabs and kadhai chicken are no longer piping hot and the once soft, tender rotis have transformed into brittle papads.

This my friends, is the story of the food paparazzi, a common menace these days..
These individuals have a pre conceived notion of being professional photographers and unlike many of their breed who stick to photographing sunrises and sunsets at every beach and hill station they visit, their focus is on food and unfortunately at times, YOUR food.

Image credit : tumbler.com

And if you have one of them in your friends' circle, then look forward to lunches and dinners of melted ice creams, cold curries , brittle flatbreads and so on..
Now while I don't condone this practice, I ask food photographers to answer the following in the questionnaire I've prepared below:

1.Did you prepare the food and just want to exhibit your culinary talent?
2.Do you own a food blog?
3.Are you a professional photographer seeking to build your portfolio?
4.Are you a food lover who only wishes to help friends searching for good places to eat out?
5.Are you an attention seeking prick who derives sadistic pleasure from taking pictures of food ignoring the grumbling stomachs and drooling faces of the people you are eating out with?

For those who answered Yes to Qns 1- 4 , I can't really fault you folks, carry on....

As for those who answered in the affirmative to Qn 5, you are a menace to social dining and perhaps one of the few reasons that sites like instagram are in business. And may I add, unless you wanna see the day when you consume food via the wrong end, try to enjoy your meal when you're eating out with friends; savor the aroma ,relish the flavor and appreciate the texture; keep the camera aside for when you're eating out alone.

A brief review of Windows 8

Well, Windows 8 was released just a few months ago, which in turn made me wait before purchasing a new laptop; my old one was without a battery, plus it seemed to have developed a mind of its own , giving me a few electric shocks once in a while..

So anyway, fastforward to the present; my new system has completed a week's existence in my care and I feel the time is right to give a straightforward review of my experience with Microsoft's latest iteration of Windows.

Now, you may have noticed the new windows homescreen kind of makes you feel like touching it, so I went for a laptop with a touchscreen. (so that I don't regret my purchase n bug my mom n dad later )

So here goes:

I switch on the machine for the first time ever; my eyes widened in excitement, the familiar loading screen comes on, I finish the initial setup and then , I'm greeted with this beautiful tiled interface..wowww!

Absolutely stunning!Magnifico! This homescreen has icons for mail, calendar, music, et cetera et cetera.. and there's a tile which leads to the desktop interface; which looks just like any of the previous desktop interfaces except for the glaring omission of the start menu. Yup! It's gone..banished to some mysterious land where all old innovations that have met similar fates reside.

Now this is what I don't get... One of the earliest windows OS's 3.1 did NOT have a start menu; it made its first appearance in 1995 with the Windows logo and "Start" written next to it. This was innovative; it conveyed the message to the consumer."Wanna do something?Well, press 'start'!".The start menu went on in the same fashion all they way to Windows XP, and then suddenly ,come Win Vista and WHAM! The word "start" has mysteriously vanished! But one may argue that by now, consumers had got used to the start menu concept and that just the logo was enough to convey the message.

But here we are, in late 2012, in a desktop mode , without a start menu! After making the consumer get used to what one may say was one of the main pillars of the Operating system over a span of more than 15 years, you suddenly make it vanish!

Okayy, now some may argue that well, that's what the tiled homescreen's for , it's got the word "start" written on it isn't it?

Well, writing the word "start" on something doesn't really mean much...The most irritating aspect of the OS is that if I were to "start" something, I had to access this start screen by pressing the windows logo key or accessing the "charms" bar, (another niggling feature which I'll get to in a minute).On entering this start screen, I am totally disconnected from what I'm doing on the desktop.What ever I was doing on the desktop has been completely masked by this assortment of tiles and whatnot.

Fine, I'll get used to it... Now what's it with this "charms" bar? Was it designed by a leprechaun?Will I get to his pot of gold by clicking on it? No? Then what's so charming about it?

Firstly, I had no inkling that this "charms" bar actually existed until I inadvertently went to the top right corner of my screen with my cursor and moved it down; I was like , now what the hell is this? It has a search button, a homescreen button, a settings key and a "share" key. Now frankly, were I using a tablet, this so called "charms" bar would actually be of some utility, but what the hell do I need it for on a laptop?

Another thing that bothered me was that for some reason, Windows was giving me this impression that they developed Windows 8 as a desktop interface first , and then at the nth moment, decided to do away with the start menu and plaster on a large sheet with tiles on it instead.

Select on any app that isn't a native homescreen app and it first takes you to the desktop mode and opens the app there.Personally, I feel that a transition effect such as a blackened screen would've been more aesthetic plus it would've made the interface feel more fluid. Currently, the continuity feels broken if you ask me.

Now one of the worst design flaws ever is the fact that if you purchased a machine without a touchscreen, your touchpad would then replicate touchscreen gestures.While this may seem as the natural way to go, lets discuss the repercussions of going down that route; swiping from the edge of the touchscreen opens the charms bar, and just moving the cursor from the right end of the touchpad does the same! The touchpad fails to differentiate between a swipe and a random cursor movement! Many a time I managed to accidentally bring up the charms bar by moving the cursor to the left..Not so charming now eh?Thankfully here,the presence of a touchscreen prevented me from using a sledgehammer.

For non-touchscreen users,the chance for error may be reduced by just using a mouse, but hey,the point of having a touchpad was to eliminate the need/use of a mouse..So , FAIL.

I must admit that I did get used to all these minor niggles over the week, but that's a pretty steep learning curve for a guy having an IQ of 149!(Imagine a nice old lady sitting at home searching frantically for the start menu just to open skype to chat with her grandkids!)

A newer version of an OS should invariably be much easier to use than its predecessor, right from the word go. Win 8 fails at this critical point. 

Many folks complained about Apple maps being a piece of crap, but that's just bad software.You can live with bad software.But can you live with a bad OS?

Hopefully the next Win version will be better.

PS . A lil retro analysis

Win 3.1 = good

Win 95 = bad (blue screen when bill gates demoed it for the first time live)

Win 98 = good

win me (millenium edition) = bad

win xp = good

win vista = bad

win 7 = good

win 8 = WTF?!?!

Update: Well, it's been two whole weeks since my foray into the Win8 universe. And I'd like to add a few additional points.
Clickpad gesture support : Once you get used to what each finger position and swipe on the clickpad leads to , it's really quite helpful , be it switching between the Start page apps and desktop or accessing various other features such as two finger scrolling , pinch to zoom etc.
The "charms bar ": Well, you may not get a leprechaun with his pot of gold, but it does come with a sizeable bag of tricks,for example "flight mode" so that you may easily disable the wifi incase you don't really require it, and the search button which actually is way more efficient than your old start menu (obviously once you get used to it)
Infact, apart from google maps and the start page apps , I really haven't used the touchscreen much.
But that doesn't change my overall opinion of Win 8; atleast not yet.