ipad (yagami)

why the Ipad is not for me. or is it not not for me...


everyone jumped on the ipad bandwagon. its good its bad its alright its all that.
so i thought for the post of the week i could do that. you know, i am much like a b grade celebrity like that... i wait for trends and i follow them soon enough to think,i am original...
so heres the things i see the ipad do for me and not do for me. (and the worlds worst cash in effort since indian cinema tried to use 9/11 as a measure of terroristic levels.)


the dont buys

1. i dont like the name. it sounds like a medical company made blue tooth napkins, or a 16 year old white male with too much of the wrong R&B in him naming his house (cos no self respecting male would refer to his own house as a pad, much less add an i to it). i think they could have called it much better things, just a tablet. or a slate (i think hp took that one tho') i mean why do you need the i? you dont have an i on the macbooks anymore. why this?

[i am going to call it something else from now on. because the image is just burnt at the back of my head and i get this weird smile on my face each time i hear the word. lets call it yagami after "the Death Note anime series has a still frame based on The Creation of Adam, with the protagonist Yagami as Adam and the death god Ryuk as God, holding an apple" it is only appropriate. since steve jobs is the devil. you only need to see the keynotes that he gives. i would have sold my soul for the shuffle if he had given that speech to me. i know hes only selling things, but boy is he the devil! ]

2. it replaces an iphone, an ipod and half a macbook. ok... whats the point? i dont want a bigger ipod. i want a smaller notebook. if you didnt get that.. go back home call your mother cos you didnt do your homework well! a 10 inch ipod is not easy to carry, a 10 inch macbook is peachy, a 10" touch screen thing is amazing... i know you position yourself as a company that does fun things... but a computer is serious business.. dont make fun of those who buy your things... (love the design by the way)

3. it plays games... so? so does my phone, and my ipod. dont need a new thing that does the same old thing only makes it more difficult? get better apps. get bigger things. make it a macbook. design users would loooove all their things on a tablet. and just FYI the last on the mind of a game making company is a mac user. no one makes games first for macs, they make them for the xboxes, the PSs the Wiis the PCs and then the macs. get your head out of your safaris and start looking around. me no PC fan but numbers rarely lie.

4. ipod, 3G, internet, and....? thats it? nothing more? my shitty phone did that... 4 years ago.. gimme something new people!


the buys.

1. you, finally finally have an os built for and just for a touch interface, no hand me down software, no adhoc interface needs .no small radio buttons and checkboxes. no need for a stylus, let your mind do the thinking and your fingers do the walking. (how ever far apple allows you to go that is...)

2.it makes the kindle look like a clunky 1980 nintendo. it will revolutionize ebooks. you dont need one more thing for your reader, you need just this one.

3. what's good for the iphone is good for the yagami (popularly known as the ipad!) so you get a big set of apps already built, tried tested and perfected.

4. it is a whole new OS. only jobs could do it. introduce a new os so subtly, without talking about it.. we just handed over the world to him on a plate. anyone who uses the iphone has already used a small version of the pad. so you dont really need to work on anything new.

5. its going to do to computers what notebooks did. shrink them. the laptop i typed this post on, the computer you are reading it on, even the phone that would show this post in an unimaginably small text is obsolete. its a revolution baby, and we are here when it happened!


so what do i need it to do for me?

1. make it do more.. make it replace my keyboard and my mouse on the mac, and then become a portable extension to my computer. make it all minority report like.

2. make people make things for it... photoshop, illustrator... bring the hand back in action... i am sick of dragging my palm along to draw

3. i dont need it to replace my phone.. keep em seperate... replace my mac instead!

4. surprise me... cos as of now... i see old wine in a striking new bottle!

(WOW. i am here early. may be i am going to be good at this. or may be i am just too stupid to cound days. i swear i thought it was the third day and i would miss my deadline if i didnt come up with some crappy mindless sap to say. sorry but this was the best i could do on such short notice)

holy smokes batman... why?

the life and times in gotham city

Batman is my favorite superhero of all times. Right from the time I saw the adam west series with him faking a climb up a wall too evidently horisontal with the lady sticking her head out of the window too far to be real waving at him and the bang! pow! kapow! with the show tune, the colorful robin and the slightly bulging belly in a slightly too purple costume. Loved batman thru the animated series, thru the dark Tim Burton movies with the unconvincing Michael Keaton (who I only remember for multiplicity), the suggestive Joel Schumacher movies of the supposedly PG Batman with a very unsuitable Batman and an even weirder set of neon lit villians. I admired the dark knight thru the days of hush, Batman begins right up to now... with the miller/lee/williams masterpiece of Batman&Robin all stars... You want to know why? Because he is one of us. A man. An average joe super rich kid. But he deals with his life. happy or not, he soldiers on. Doesn't try to alter the balance of the universe thru time travel or setting up a dark dimension like superman or crib about how tough the life of a super hero is like Spiderman. He is not an alcoholic like Ironman. He doesn't have anger issues like wolverine. He helps when he's Batman he helps when he's Bruce Wayne. In my books, hes the only super hero there is. Him the robins and Barbara Gordons angels. The only non powered supers there ever were . Fighting with all they have to give, holding nothing back. If you are powered you are privileged. Its an unfair fight if you got heat vision and your nemesis is armed with no hair.

So what bothers me so much about him? This. Gotham city was Gotham city before Batman. Gotham city is Gotham city after Batman. nothing changed. They had the mafia, they have the mafia, they had the joker they will continue to have the joker (heath ledger, god bless his soul) two face was a good guy gone bad. bane in one series (battle for the cowl) plays a bad guy gone good and so on. gotham city with bats waxes and wanes from shit soup to shit storm all the time.... so my problem is why does he do it then? if he barely manages to make a difference to a city hell bent on not doing anything for itself, why is he really my hero?

like the gita says; "Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani" (which roughly translates into "your duty is towards action,but you are not entitled to the results they bare. Never consider yourself the cause of the results,and never be tempted to not doing your duty.") this is Batman's credo. he works towards a goal not for it. He's not an idealist like Superman. he calculates. the closest result to the path of minimum destruction is the one he takes. not dealing in absolutes but in reality can be quiet tasking to the gods. But he is relentless. when the city is unwilling, the world hates him, his best friend (superman for the most part) has difficulty understanding his ways. His childhood friend is hell bent on killing him, he still decides to go on unmoved and unshaken from his goal. he is a righteous energizer bunny. a man hell bent on making hell a better place. he fails, he falls but he rises up again. he is a man but he can move gods. he survived a battle with the Darkseid and won. only because the master of chaos knew that the worlds greatest detective has the steel in him to do what it takes to get the job done. he knows nothings perfect, not him not his ways, but he does what he can. trust no one, but give everyone a chance. there are no absolutes with him. all rules have exceptions. improvise. adapt. but never back down. he works on better tech for the world, he works on poisons, antidotes and medicines with equal sincerity. he wont lose sleep if there ever is no need for batman anymore. always preventing, always progressing. my god. my guardian. my hero.

(i wrote this as a piece for an online magazine run by a friend. its mediocre and childish i know but then so am i :) anyways, i figure this counts as post of the day. more to come. karthik out!)

suicidal planet.

why do none of us believe in a long and happy ever after anymore.

why is 2012 so deeply imprinted in our minds that we almost believe it will happen. why is everything we do today doesnt seem to be with a sense of where it will be 50 years from now. why cant we look at the future, straight in the eye and feel happy/hopeful about it? why are we focused on doom so much?

hindu mythology calls this period as the 'kalyug' or the time of instant redemption. it is a period where all actions are punished/rewarded almost instantaneously. it is also known as the dark ages, or the time when the truth and the righteous have to struggle for recognition and existence. the sins rule the game and all that exists around us is bad influence. it only gets better, the next phase according to the legend, is 'pralaya' or destruction., the end of the world. a mercyless reboot.
then there is nostradamus. he was pretty scary too. he predicted that the world would end this millinea. we have all been sitting at the edge of our seats waiting for the other shoe to fall. almost certain that the other shoe will fall soon. believing in our hearts that the world is going to end. and we are going to be around to see it.
the bible also predicts the end of the world soon. and not just the end of the world as a destruction of the planet, the end of the world as in the end of all that we know as creation. i wish we are wrong. i hope and pray that the world has a longer life than i do. i sincerely pray (if i have to) that the world will be a better place once day. that utopia will not be a bad thing and that the zeitgeist will cease to exist as a thing to be addressed, but will become as a statement of pride. that today we make tomorrow better.

i tend to quote the matrix on this one 'we see reality in misery' we ourselves dont believe that the future will be bright,


but can we change this obsession with the dark side? i dont think so. for two primary reasons.

one, we are short sighted, we dont dream of the future, we dream of a better today. better standards of living. better cars, better homes, better education, better vacations, better everything. not new, but better. i haven't, in a while heard of any significant breakthrough that we weren't genuinely surprised by. pluto is NOT a planet, or better yet, almost a planet. but have we found something beyond that? have we even begun with the idea of a possible USS enterprise? have we actively made progress in finding a new one, or a new solar system. i don't know. the last time we put a man on the moon was in 1972. what happened then? have we found out everything there is to find out about the moon? does the moon hold nothing of learnable value for us?
we are so busy waging wars and protecting territories, that we forget to look beyond. we are going smaller and deeper while ignoring the wider and farther.
what i do know is that we have become unimaginative. we cant imagine beyond 10 years. our goals are shorter, more attainable. i don't remember the last time a kid said that he wants to be an astronaut. i cant remember a time when a kid didn't want to do what his dad was doing.

secondly, research shows, that we are at present going through the most unhappy phase of our evolution. this after the holucast. our society and culture is ridden with holes. we tend to look for the cloud in the silver lining. once we start looking for holes, we look for the fixes, once we find the fixes then tend to capitalize on the fixes, if we dont find the fixes, we tend to shop... if everyone will be happy, who will buy the fixes, or the replacement to the fixes? the capitalist system will collapse and money will be of next to no value. and this cannot happen. we cannot let people get happy under any circumstances. happy people are just bad for business. what if we change the assumption? what if we say, happy people make better consumers, only if the consumables are made better, then the question of quality comes into play, as long as you make quality items, happy folks will buy it. a good car will get brought, advertisements or not.

and therin lies the tragic flaw, we then have to innovate, we cannot reproduce, we have to invent. get off our lazy behinds and make something. until now, the shortsighted version had been paying off pretty well.

low quality + investment + demands (or short supply) = high returns.

but since everyones happy, the consumption patterns will change, they will no longer be linked to the happiness index but to the quality index. which means that people will no longer look at flash value, or street credits, but for quality of goods, environmental impact, because we have enough, we only need replacements not additions. everyones happy with what they have, they want new when they want better. zen all over!

the flipside: by making quality = returns we are adding the risk of failure to the whole equation. making manufacturers nervous... rejected again.

so is there a solution. i would like to believe so. i would like to think that at some point we all truely acknowledge that chaos will exist, we are all ok with being miserable from time to time and that good time are always around the corner as opposed to the other way around. we dont live on a linear chain of consumption but on a cyclic one. hand me down is the new cool and such... like the schoridingers cat experiment, where we are assuming that the solution will be one or another. and hence both simultainously exist for a finite time, and then it shall go back to an absolute (the cat is either dead or alive...). that the final solution will always be absolute. but i think that is where the problem lies. there can never be an absolute. it will be 2 things at the same time, waxing and waning in importance but present and accounted for at all times. we need to focus on a better today, and a future that we never thought of. we need to bring back the use of imagination as a need and not a sign of insanity, we need kids to paint more than sunsets houses and ducks. we need imagination and we cant need it sooner!

(a positive outcome of me being lazy, and being too egoistic to give up so soon, added with the difficulty of coming up with something new each 3 days is that now i can start finishing all the bad ideas i dropped with good reason. this is the first of many back up plans i have for me to get thru my 106 post this year. people of the world... one at a time please....! )

my digital is too analog.

look at the things you use today. your phones, computers, the softwares on the computers, the things those softwares do, the internet, blogs, social media everything digital. now think of a time before these, the time before you had any of your digital realities. think of how people used analog things to do what you do with your digital. the watches, the word processors, the drawing tools. even the things you use the internet for. like communication, publishing, photo sharing, ideation, collaboration, everything that you do today, was being done then. slowly, none the less, but surely. now you have blogs, then you had news letters, now you have websites for designers, then you had bulky portfolios, now you have a mobile phone, then you had telephones, the text messaging of today, is the direct lineage of the telegram. and i can go on. but what am i rambling about here?

what i really mean to say is... we havent changed anything. we made the digital do analog things are satisfied with them. architects use autocad for 2d drawings, and are happy with it, only a few push things to their full potential. how many architectural firms think of computers and digital techniques as more than tools that replaced the drawing board? we call them design drawing. not designing. Word replaced the word processor or the typewriter. books written on the type are like books written on a computer, no change there. just the convenience of a select few. i am not one of those shun your computer, nature is the right way to go preaching hippie. i love my macbook. more than the people around me, but its just a sad realization that since the time someone invented the printing press, we havent moved much, and since the time of the telephone we have moved even lesser.
the mouse simulates a pen, the screen supposed to be paper, digital watches with needles, mp3 players that look like cassette tape players, bluetooth headsets made to look like Bakelite phones. we even had mobile phones with jog dialers,
all new technology at some point simulates and if we are lucky just about replaces old technology.

now forget what you know. think of something that has never been done before. like the multi touch track pad in the macbooks, and the new apple mouse since the beginning of the mouse/trackpad usage, no one thought of more than two fingers and 3 buttons. or google wave, first time ever, we got a system that is built on the internet, not on the postal service! social networking broke the mould to some extent, orkut, facebook, linkedin all these did move out of the general already existing since adam and eve.

now lets look at what work we do. day in and day out. time and time again, do we do the same things that people have been doing since for ever? or are we doing something new? is your digital too analog?

food for thought. and action. :)

(i know i got preachy on this one... but i was sick of the autocad interface when this one came about :) too bad you got the wrong end of this stick)

resolution day!

happy new year everyone.

i know i am late. i know it was 2 weeks and more ago. but i just woke up. from work. not a holiday, nor a drinking binge. anyways, the point is that its new years, and i got a good feeling about this year. i am doing seemingly well, making apparent intelligent moves, while showing hints of settling down in a job for longer than 30 days. the point is, i like this year. i think it is going to bring a lot of new things.
so when i saw a lot of designers come and write about their new years resolution of doing 365 pieces of personal art, i thought i should do something like that! now the catch was, i cant think of 5 different things to draw, wait... i cant think OR draw!365 of those would give me a stroke! i needed a more doable goal. 365 blog posts a year. again, stroke worthy. i can barely think of one tweet a day, plus a facebook status message added to that.. the pressure of being visible, is too much. not that i mind it, its a mental exercise and i love the challenge of coming up with these, plus its fun. so now back to the challenge of doing something that will need constant thinking throughout the year. 52 blog posts a year. (for 52 weeks, of the year.. if you didnt know that... i think u should quit reading here). that means a couple of 100 words a week. too doable. its not so much of a challenge, when u have to get up one morning say, good morning people in text/type, rant about the things that happen to you once a week and then go back to bed. i mean once a week is for starters. not re-starters. us second time text offenders need stricter punishment. so here goes. 2 posts a week for the first 3 months. then move up to 4 and so on. the final climax would be 2 posts a day, for the last one week of the year. so those watching, (i know i got 2 official followers (thank you both!)and hopefully a larger number of people who would read it once and then would sanitize their computers, delete their logs, format their OS's and never acknowledge that they visited my blog. i know, its insulting to read this crap right? anyways...) brace yourselves, include me and my resolution to write more often in your nightly prayers and your daily desires or at least lie thru your teeth and say 'good job karthik keep it up!' cos i am NOT a self mover. i am a self starter but i am also a self - lose-interest-er.

so here goes nothing. absolutely nothing.

see you in 3 days with more nothing.