Solar is a tale of the sun, the moon, and two characters who inhabit a world that relies on day and night perhaps more than it would seem. It is one of the best short animations I’ve seen in the recent past. The CG work is pretty cool, but most importantly it has a subtle yet intriguing concept.

Watch this award-winning short on its official website, or on Vimeo.

Some other noteworthy short animations that I’ve liked a lot are:

• Balance, by Lauenstein brothers
• Father and Daughter, by Michael Dudok de Wit
• Harmonica, by Leevi Lehtinen
• The Box Man, by Nirvan Mullick
• Falling in the Woods (live action short)
• Reflections (live action short from India)
• Match (stop motion)
• Android 207, by Carrotkid Films (stop motion)

Enjoy!

And we think, and think, and overthink, till the last drop, when infact we already have a decision in our mind much in advance. This new study brings an interesting question in light - should we act first, and think later?

In the past few weeks, I came across two contrasting pieces of real-life incidents that loosely show this void in the human behavior of thinking and action.

In the first incident, as frightening as it may sound, an 81 year old Australian man built a robot to kill himself. You heard it right. A man built a machine to commit suicide. Reportedly, he built a robot that could fire a gun repeatedly, then laid down in his driveway and let the robot attack. Sadly, yet ingeniously, he died.

In the other incident, as bizarre as it may sound, a young man spent one year following every rule in the Bible. Much, much harder, he soon discovered, as he found himself growing his beard, struggling not to curse and asking strangers for permission to stone them for adultery. I suppose his intention was not to mock religion, but atleast he liked something about a forced day of rest.

I feel that its this sort of contrast in our thinking and action that creates a dillusion of stimulation in our minds to start with. I wonder if my dad is right about offence being the best defence. Maybe, maybe not.

The other night I was hurriedly trying to watch this sci-fi film called “Primer“. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish it as I had to return the rented DVD the same night. But I quite enjoyed a good sci-fi film after a long time. I’ll have to watch it again sometime soon. Made with only $7000, the film has a raw and natural feel to it. The film seems to put a basic question in place:

If you always want what you can’t have,
what do you want when you can have anything?

I’ve always been a fan of sci-fi cinema, be it subtle or a bit loud. Sir Arthur Clarke, who passed away this year, will always be one of my favorite science fiction visionary and author. His thoughts were not only ahead of the future, as needed for good sci-fi writing, but his vision was purely provocative. His predictions about the future of science, technology and human society are extraordinary.

I’m eagerly awaiting the 2009 release of the sci-fi film “Rendezvous with Rama“, which is based on a novel by Arthur Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a cylindrical alien starship that passes through Earth’s solar system. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.

“Rama” is the name given to alien starship, after the Hindu God Rama. Clarke mentions that by the 22nd century, scientists have used the names of all the Greek and Roman mythological figures to name astronomical bodies, and have thus moved on to Hindu mythology. Peculiar and vivid details like these, along with the larger imagination, have made Clarke such a great sci-fi writer.

The novel itself is considered to be very difficult to narrate visually, due to its slow yet visually enriched theme. I’m sure it will be a challange for the film maker to put it on screen with all its abstractness.

Model image by Eric Bruneton

An excerpt …

Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. You might never fail on the same scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all. In which case, you failed by default.

A pretty good speech on the whole.

But, let’s face it, Microsoft has had a hard time selling Vista, their most recent operating system. The sales have been lower than expected because XP is still the preferred choice by home users in particular. When Microsoft stated that it sold more than 20 million Windows Vista licenses in the first month of availability, more than twice the initial sales of Windows XP, but that doesn’t sound quite right.

Anyways, to make things worse for XP users, Microsoft will officially end the lifecycle of Windows XP in June 2008, to make way for their future operating systems. That means there will be no more XP security updates, no more XP technical support, and no more XP on new computers. At some point you’ll be “forced” to upgrade to Vista, which is slower (on most computers that are 2-3 years old) and incompatible with many hardware devices.

If you love Windows XP, considering that you are not yet an open source junkie and still stuck in the Windows world, and would like Microsoft to hear you say, then join the “Save XP” movement. Close to 200,000 people have already signed the petition to show their support for Windows XP, but the petition needs more substance, from you and your friends.

Coming over to some breaking news, CrunchGear has released screen-shots of Windows 7, Microsoft’s next major OS after Vista. Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky was interviewed by CNET about Windows 7 sometime back.

Windows 7 is expected to be released by 2010. Go figure!

Update: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates will demonstrate Windows 7, tonight at Dow Jones’ D6 conference. Checkout the D6 Highlights blog for more details as they emerge.

Update-2 (29/05): Ballmer And Gates Demo Windows 7: Multitouch, Pie Menus And a Piano

Futures speculation has created frenzy, unless you are driving a Prius. Supply fears have sent oil past record $135 a barrel, likely to reach $200 soon.

So, how much would it cost to convert the entire U.S. fleet of passenger cars, which collectively burn 40 percent of the oil that we use, to electric cars?

Zero dollars! Instead of spending $400 billion each year for importing oil, the US could spend it on electric car production locally. Atleast, that’s what Philip Greenspun from Harvard thinks. A bit far-fetched I feel, but a creative outlook none the less.

I was reading Simone Brunozzi’s blog post about his adventure from a virtual gig at Second Life to becoming a Technology Evangelist for AWS. Its an amazing testimonial that simply reinstates the golden rule: choose what you love.

Here’s another interesting article with 101 Tips to Help You Make Money Doing What You Love. Most important tip for me was to ‘Seek Answers Within‘!

Downtown
waiting
at your
window
strain to
drop by
while you
ask why

You’re reaching
for stars now
try to
hold on
ahead

Can’t
can’t we
can’t we be
can’t we be dreaming?

That’s Menwhopause‘ unreleased track titled “Downtown” (mp3 here, courtesy Shree Mulay). Two other unreleased songs titled “Time” and “Floating” are up for streaming on their MySpace profile. After their gig at SXSW 2007 (the first Indian rock band to do so), this talented bunch is currently on a US tour. While I was in India last year, I heard them live. A tour downunder next?

But, what is wealth? The most common notion is that its to do with money. Some liberated souls relate it to the amont of happiness in one’s life. Other, practical bodies, relate it to the legacy of their life-time - which is to say the memories, the teachings, and the lessons of life - that they’ve passed down to their grand-children. Happiness, is as subjective as wealth itself, and yet they seem co-related. For a lot of people, money can deter worry, and that can add to their happiness.

The Easterlin paradox, proposed by economist Richard Easterlin, is a classic theory which argues that economic growth doesn’t necessarily lead to more satisfaction. This paradox asserts that happiness is not related to the total amount of money you own, but rather to the amount of money you own compared to those around you. Makes sense in all likelihood.

But this month, Easterlin’s paper has had a rebuttal. A new theory, based on research and surveys extending over 30 years since Mr. Easterlin’s study, now claims that money indeed tends to bring happiness, contrary to the original hypothesis. An accompanying map shows a correlation between a country’s GDP per capita income and average life satisfaction. Quite compelling.

So, its still debatable if economic growth, by itself, is enough to guarantee happiness? To obscure things further, a recent research has also found that some of the things that make people happiest - short commutes, time spent with friends - have little to do with higher incomes. But I think this assumption is flawed, because your short commutes can be a result of your housing affordability near your work place, and your time spent with friends can be a result of you already having enough money not to work too hard and stay busy most of the time.

One sure sign of prosperity and happiness, is that economic growth can pay for investments in scientific research that lead to longer, healthier lives.

Maybe, with the cultural penetration of the Internet, TV, and Radio, in the third world nations, the new paradox is simply the fact that information technology has made it obvious to the poor countries how poor they really are. Imagine, being in a small village in Uganda (for example), and watching BBC’s coverage of the Ugandan food crisis. Maybe, this very projection of poverty has made the poorer nations accept their state of being. They are a little happier now, for the world is contemplating their well being. Maybe, the first step toward social happiness is to desist the intake of mainstream media, much like how China does. But then, are Chinese more (or less) happier than Ugandans?

With oil prices soaring, I wonder how much 35.27 ounces of happiness would cost me today.

The top 1 percent (of all wealth-holders in the U.S.) own about 44 percent of the financial assets of the nation. The top 10 percent own about 80 percent of the financial assets.

But the real question it poses is, how did the ones at the top get there? Obviously, some do it through inheritance, and some have spectacular athletic or musical abilities. But what about the others? How did they get to the pinnacle of wealth?

First, as the genius financial planner Ray Lucia would say, the first step is to have a plan to save. Without equilibrating assets and liabilities by accumulating lots of stocks, REITs, and cash, you won’t get there.

But … how do you get the income to start saving meaningful sums?

… experience proves the great advice of Warren Buffett: It’s better to be medium-good in a great field than great in a medium field. There are some fields where a lot of money can be made.

…the most interesting and psychologically rewarding work is rarely the best-paid. So choices must be made.

If your goal is to be in that top 1 percent of wealth-holders, you have to … follow the instructions to where the money is, and to where it isn’t.

My question is what do you do when you don’t have any instructions to read? Just kidding. Instructions are mere directions - course of life, line of thought, area of work etc. - which we’ll have to gauge, and choose, on our own eventually.

All the “XaaS” platforms exist and operate under the same umbrella, so to speak. The “Comparing Amazon’s and Google’s Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) Offerings” article illustrates a nice graphical overview of the Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine platforms:

The XaaS platforms out there are great for B2C apps, but I still don’t think that they are quite ready for enterprise computing yet. I think Salesforce, with their user base and current platform, has a better chance of leading (and even redefining) the enterprise-level application delivery model.

Update (14th April): In a contrary move, Google and Salesforce have partnered together and announced the launch of “Salesforce for Google Apps” today. Will this alliance benefit the enterprise customer? I still have my doubts. Taking technology to the enterprise consumers depends a lot on the developer community. The size of the Salesforce developers network might be substantial for their own platform, but would the average Salesforce developer branch out to Google’s App Engine for deployment?

Update (15th April): More Details On The Google-Salesforce “Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend” Alliance

Look at it today, scientists, using genetic engineering with pieces of DNA code, are doing all sorts of cell regeneration in small petri dishes. It’s possible today to grow body parts for people who are ill or who were born with birth defects. A new nose from lab-grown cartilage tissue isn’t science fiction anymore. Even injecting tiny computer chips in the human body, performing tasks as good (if not better) as the nervous system, is a possibility. This is being done right now.

On the other hand, scientists tell us that if we don’t continue using all our body parts, those parts may be reduced or eliminated during the course of evolution, much like an ostrich’s wings.

Now, here’s my question, to anyone who reads this blog post in the coming time: if medical science was advanced enough to allow humans to grow a completely new body part (internal or external), an organ that’s never been part of the human anatomy, what kind of an organ would you want to grow? It sounds weird, but I bet its not far fetched. I asked this question to my friend Gautam, and he had a very sensible answer. “Wings!”, he said. However, getting a pair of wings and learning to fly can be two separate points in human evolution. Never-the-less, fair imagination I’d say.

So, what body part would you want to grow?