Nine Inch Nails: The Fight Club Soundtrack [What If?]

In an alternate universe, this would exist –

Nine Inch Nails - Fight Club Soundtrack - Fake Album Artwork by Karthik AbhiramThink about it – there’s a line of dialogue in David Fincher’s Fight Club (one of my all-time favourite movies), where the Narrator (Edward Norton’s character) says, “With insomnia, nothing’s real.  Everything is far away.  Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.”  One of the songs from “Hesitation Marks”, the latest album from Nine Inch Nails, is called “Copy of A”.  When I heard this song, the first thing that came into my mind was Fight Club.

The 2005 song “Only”, by NIN, from their album “With Teeth” also could be considered to have reference to Fight Club in the lyrics [SPOILER ALERT] – “I just made you up, to hurt myself” / “There is no you, there is only me.”  The music video for “Only” was directed by David Fincher.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails would go on to create the soundtracks for two of David Fincher’s movies – The Social Network (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011).

Therefore, there definitely must be an alternate universe somewhere, where the soundtrack for Fight Club was done by Nine Inch Nails and not by The Dust Brothers!  Above, is my representation of what that album cover would look like.  There’s Edward Norton and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden from the movie, and in the centre, is Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails.

Trent Reznor - Drawing by Karthik AbhiramI had this idea today while listening to “Copy of A”, and I proceeded to draw this in a gel pen on paper, and then scanned it in and added some paper texture and the text.  The text is in the font Reznor: Downward Spiral.

Trent Reznor Drawing, the Instagram Edition - Artwork by Karthik AbhiramReference images – Edward Norton is from a screenshot from the movie itself, Brad Pitt is from a publicity still, and Trent Reznor is from the recent Rolling Stone Magazine cover.  The Fight Club lettering on top is my hand-drawn imitation of the font Mrs Eaves Bold Italic.

Above are a couple of Instagram / Snapseed edits of in-progress photos of the drawing.  Edit of a photo of a drawing – that’s also a copy of a copy of a copy, isn’t it?

Here is a shot of the notebook page (A4 size) with the pen I used to draw it –

Nine Inch Nails - Fight Club Soundtrack Album Cover - Drawing by Karthik AbhiramThe “Paper Street Record Co.” is a reference to the “Paper Street Soap Company”, Tyler Durden’s soap-making outfit.

You can listen to the entire album “Hesitation Marks” here.  Below, I’ve embedded YouTube videos of the songs that inspired this drawing.

Nine Inch Nails / “Copy of A” –

Nine Inch Nails / “Only” –

Guitars

Trying out the WordPress app on my phone, posting an image.  For the last couple of months, I’ve been taking and posting photos every single day on my Instagram feed. Thinking that I’ll post a picture a day on the blog as well.  Here is a collage I did a few weeks back.  The photos were taken at Full Volume Music Store, Banjara Hills.  I used Snapseed, Instagram and PhotoGrid apps to edit.

image

T is for Turbo Drawing

Recently, a trailer for The ABCs of Death was released, and it looks great.  Related to that is a drawing of mine that I wanted to post.  Keep in mind, that this is a year old, but I never wrote in detail about it, so I’m posting it now.  Explanation will follow.

The ABCs of Death

The ABCs of Death is an interesting project – this is an anthology horror movie consisting of 26 segments (each around 4 minutes long), one per letter of the alphabet.  Each segment is about an instrument of death starting with that respective letter of the alphabet (say, “K is for Knife”).  26 different directors worked on this movie!  More details can be found on the Wikipedia Page or this page on JoBlo, where you can view the trailer.  Warning: Contains Blood & Gore, not for kids!

The people behind this anthology project left one slot free, for which they invited submissions from filmmakers from all around the world.  This was the slot for the letter “T” and there were more than 100 shorts that they received (you can view them at this site).  Out of all these films, “T is for Toilet” by Lee Hardcastle was selected to be in the final film.

T is for Turbo a.k.a. Turbo Kid – The Film

One of the top 3 finalists among the submitted entries was “T is for Turbo” by team RKSS (Roadkill Superstar – consisting of members Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell).  I absolutely LOVED this short film, and in fact I felt that this would be the winning entry that’d make it into the final The ABCs of Death film.

Here, you can watch the short film (contains violence, blood & gore, not for kids!) –

I loved this film since it so very closely matched the look and feel of the 1970s/80s post-apocalyptic movie!  Specifically, I think they were referencing the loads of cheap Italian-made knock offs that came out after bigger-budgeted movies like Mad Max.  The costumes, the make-up/gore effects, the cheesy dialogues, all make for a wonderfully nostalgic experience.

The filmmakers have come up with interesting characters also (the villain Zeus, Shandella, Beardman, the Skeleton mask guy, etc).  The Turbo Kid himself reminds me of an older version of Commander Keen.

I liked the cinematography in the film (by Jean-Philippe Bernier).  The film was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR, but using an anamorphic adapter.  The camera shoots video in 1920 x 1080 resolution, which results in an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.78:1.  However, a lot of productions use a wider aspect ratio like 2.35:1, which gives a more cinematic look (since that is the ratio many films are presented in theatrically).  One way to achieve this would be to film in 16:9 and then crop off bits from the top and bottom.  This means that we’re not effectively using all the information that the camera has captured (the resulting image dimensions might be 1920 x 800).  An anamorphic adapter optically distorts the image horizontally, so it squishes a wider image into the 16:9 frame.  Later on, the image can be un-squished in post-production, so what this achieves is an image width of roughly 2500 pixels and a height of 1080.

I believe this is the source of the slight blur/distortions at the edges of the frames, which for some reason I find aesthetically very good looking, and it goes even further to enhance the feel of an old movie.

The submissions for The ABCs of Death were supposed to be kept to 4 minutes in length.  The longer (by few minutes) ‘director’s cut’ version of this film is called Turbo Kid.  I don’t think that version is online anywhere – I suppose you have to attend a film festival where it is screened, to be able to see it.

T is for Turbo – My Drawing

As is the case with things that I am deeply inspired by, I made a drawing based on this film.  I did this based on screenshots grabbed from the actual film, and the shot of the Turbo Kid was referenced from a behind-the-scenes still.

The drawing was done with pencil on an A5 size paper.  I scanned it and added the paper texture in the background and the subtle colours in Photoshop.  The fonts used are Helvetica for the credits, and the title of the film is in a font called Headline HPLHS (this font is designed to mimic the look of old woodcut headlines – I got it from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society site).  Perhaps not the most appropriate for a retro-futuristic film like this, but I think it looks good.  Cthulhu fhtagn!

Want to see a few in-progress / behind-the-scenes photos as I was making this poster?  Here is an album on Facebook which you can check out: T is for Turbo Drawing – Behind the Scenes [9 photos].

By the way, I posted this drawing on the RKSS Facebook page and even sent a message to them.  They liked it – and that made me really happy.

The Music – “58 minutes pour vivre” by Le Matos

Apart from everything else I loved about T is for Turbo, a standout aspect for me was the music in it.  It’s simply brilliant – the synthesizer-type music is exactly what you might find in a 1980s movie.

The track is called “58 minutes pour vivre” (translates to “58 minutes to live”) by the band Le Matos.  A little bit of trivia – “58 Minutes” by Walter Wager is the novel that Die Hard 2 was adapted from.

Here is a music video for the track, also edited by RKSS.  This video is called “58 Minutes dans le wasteland” which is very apt, as it is entirely edited together using footage from the very films that inspired Turbo Kid.

A full list of films featured in the video is there in the video description (if you view it on the Vimeo page).  Should be a nice list to pick movies from and watch.  And during the song, there is a bit of dialogue that comes up – that’s the voice of Bruce Willis and that’s a sample of dialogue from 12 Monkeys.

If you want to purchase the track, you can do so here (I did – I legally bought “58 minutes pour vivre”).

On a related note – you can also watch the grindhouse-inspired pulp horror fake trailer Demonitron: The Sixth Dimension by RKSS (it’s very good, and the look is again spot-on, though in some bits where they intentionally tried to emulate “unintentionally funny” – especially the ‘demon cake’ bit – I felt they went a little overboard, which kind of detracted from the experience).  The music used in that trailer is called “Sarah” also by Le Matos.  you can listen to the track and buy it here.

Other Notes

If you are on Facebook, you can view the “Making of T is for Turbo” album here (photos shot by Marie Raymond).  In that album, this photo is the one I used as the reference for the Turbo Kid in my drawing.  I think you have to “Like” the RKSS page to be able to see these photos.

There is an album with posters of their short movies.  In that one, you can see the digitally-created official poster for the film.  I love the look of the poster – I can almost imagine seeing this artwork on a VHS videotape and renting it immediately (back in the days when we used to rent videotapes).  I love the caption – “This is the future, this is the year 1997”.  Since Turbo Kid is inspired by those science fiction films made in the 70s and 80s, it makes sense that 1997 would be ‘the future’.  (For that matter, even John Carpenter’s classic Escape from New York, released in 1981, was set in ‘the future’ of 1997.)

The latest update about Turbo Kid is that it is going to be adapted into a full-length feature film!  This article has info about that.  Count me in as a fan!  I’m sure it’ll be a unique, quirky film that I will love.  I look forward to seeing it, reviewing it and drawing something based on it, in the future… in the year 1997.  “So what the fuck is your super power?”

Browsing Through Time – The Last Few Months

As I’d mentioned in an earlier post, I thought I would do a quick recap of what I’ve been up to, in the last few months.  This is presented roughly in reverse chronological order, and I’ve used photos to illustrate what I am talking about.  (NOTE: I wrote this post in the mid of October, so it doesn’t cover absolutely everything right up to the present time.)

150+ Days at the Gym

Looks good, no?  I’m quite proud of that photo!  I started going to the gym at office in mid-December 2011.  For whatever reason, I kept count of the number of days I was actually working out, and that count has crossed 150 by now.  I go to the gym on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (since on Thursdays I attend Guitar class), so typically the count gets incremented by 4 every week, less than that if there are office holidays or I am travelling.

You could say this is a new hobby of mine and just like posting my drawings or photos, I’m uploading pictures taken at the gym to mark milestones.  I posted the below one to mark Day 100, and that got a lot of Likes and comments on Facebook.

I was going to post one more when I hit Day 150, but towards that date, I knew there were going to be a few breaks since I was travelling for campus recruitment.  Therefore, I posted the below photo when I reached Day 146.

I’d have left it at that but the Day 148 picture just kind of happened… and it looked good so that’s my current Facebook and Twitter profile picture.

On a related note, here is a very useful link with a workout that you can do even if you don’t have access to a Gym: Beginner Body Weight Workout from Nerd Fitness.

Covering events at office

Over the last few months I seem to have become an ‘unofficial official’ photographer for several events at work.  It’s been a great experience for me and a lot of fun.

Covering these events teaches you a lot – how to get better at not missing important moments, how to plan in advance about what kind of shots you want to get, the importance of getting the photos right in the camera, and the importance of selecting the shots that you want to show to others.

For no particular reason, while I was working on the photos from one particular event, I decided to tweet about the process of selection (read the tweets from bottom to top) –

As you can make out from the tweets, I shot more than 1300 images during the four hour event, and made a selection of around 250 images to show to others.  However, out of that set, I further filtered images and only uploaded the 180 best ones to Facebook.

At one of the events, apart from being the photographer, I also played a small bit of music on guitar.

I later recorded a video of what I played that day.  Here it is –

This was recorded at home with my Nokia 808 PureView phone, and as you can make out, the audio quality is really great!  I edited the video on kdenlive and Windows Live Movie Maker.  The old videotape-type font is called “Camcorder” and you can get it here.

Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad

I attended Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Volumes 8, 9 and 10 in the recent past.  I took photos at each one of them.  I believe I may have put links to a couple of the albums in earlier posts, but for easy reference, here are the links (all are albums on Facebook) –

Two of the photos I took at PKN Hyd Vol 9 got printed in The Hans India newspaper.

(Both photos in that article are mine – you can see them on the Facebook album.)

Speaking of this, earlier (in May 2012), my Pecha Kucha presentation from November 2011 got mentioned on the Pecha Kucha Daily blog.  My presentation is also there on the global site.

Blue Moon and Hard Disk

I took a photo of the Blue Moon from 1-Sep-12 – this is probably my best Moon shot yet.

At around that time, I also welcomed a new 1 TB hard disk to the family –

Mumbai Trip

In the beginning of August, I went on a short trip during a long weekend to Mumbai.  I stayed at my cousin’s place, visited TCS Gateway Park office, met my friend Rajith there, watched Gangs of Wasseypur II, and participated in the TCS Fit4Life – 5 km Run with the CEO.

Here are the two Facebook albums that show photos from this all-important trip –

Two notable pictures – the below one shows me, Girish and Vrushodh – the crew behind the Gods of Galactica podcast (earlier known as Galacticast)…

…and here is a photo from the 5 km Run.  This was the second 5 km Run I’ve ever participated in.

Secret Lake Photo

From earlier in August, here is a photo of Durgam Cheruvu, the “Secret Lake”.  This was shot from Inorbit Mall one afternoon when I went there for lunch, on my PureView phone.

My post mentioned by Nokia

After I wrote that long post about the Nokia 808 PureView, I tweeted it to the official Nokia account (@nokia).  It was really nice of them to retweet it – and they mentioned they liked the post.  I felt very happy about that.

Han Shot First Drawing

I did the below drawing as a gift for my cousin on his birthday.  I also got it printed on a t-shirt (that’s what Girish and I are wearing, in the Galactica crew photo above).

Star Wars fans will know the background of this.  For the uninitiated, here’s the explanation in short.  In the original Star Wars movie released in 1977, there is a scene in which the character Han Solo played by Harrison Ford, is confronted by the gangster Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina.  Greedo points a weapon at Han and says that Han owes money to the ruthless Jabba the Hutt.  Han then shoots Greedo and exits the cantina.

In the 1997 “Special Edition” re-release of Star Wars, this scene was slightly altered, to show Greedo shooting first and missing Han (at very close range), and Han shoots Greedo after that.  This alteration (though made by the movie’s creator, George Lucas) was not looked at favourably by fans.

My cousin has a long post on this here.  This is why I made this t-shirt for him!

On the topic of the alterations made for the Special Edition of Star Wars, it is to be noted that a fan called Harmy has created high-definition “despecialized” versions of all the movies in the Star Wars original trilogy.  This is an assembled edit from various sources, since LucasFilm had not released the unaltered versions on Bluray.

More details at the below links –

Blue Sky at Hyderabad

Early in the month of June, there were a couple of days when the sky was a wonderful blue colour.  A great opportunity for photography –

Here is the Facebook album with some more photos – Blue Sky.

Electric Guitar

For my birthday on May 15, I was lucky to get a great gift from my family – an electric guitar!  I uploaded some photos of it on this Facebook album, and posted a short video of me playing it.

Rooftop Shooting Challenge

I had earlier written about a photo shooting challenge I’d done, of taking only B&W photos in my room at home.  I tried a different challenge sometime later, of shooting with just one lens on the rooftop of my house.

Here is the link to the album on Facebook: Rooftop Shooting Challenge.

I believe I have covered most of the important events from the recent past in this post!  More to come later.

Nokia 808 PureView – My Impressions So Far

NOTE: This is going to be a long post, but written from the point of view of someone who is passionate about photography and therefore really appreciates the technology that Nokia has put into this device.

Nokia’s new flagship phone, the 808 PureView, was announced on 27-Feb-12 (I wrote about it in this post).  After reading about it, I immediately knew that if I was ever to upgrade my existing phone (a Nokia N8), the 808 would be the one I would get.

My phone choices have been dictated to a huge extent by the kind of camera in the device.  In 2006 I got a Sony Ericsson w300i, followed in 2007 by a w700i, post that, a Nokia N82 (which had the whopping 5 megapixel camera), and in 2010, the Nokia N8 (which, with its 12 megapixel camera, had the best camera on a mobile device).

The N8 now has the second-best mobile device camera on the planet.  This is because, the Nokia 808 PureView has a 41 megapixel sensor.  Over the last few months, I’ve been reading everything I can about the camera and the technology behind it, and I decided that I was going to buy it as soon as I could.  Fortunately, India is one of the countries to get this phone early, so I managed to get my hands on the device on 21-Jun-12.

The retail price of the phone is Rs 33,899, but I ordered it on Flipkart and got it for Rs 32,499.  Plus, they even threw in a cover for the phone worth Rs 1,000.

You can see more pictures of me opening up the package I got from Flipkart on this Facebook album: Unboxing the Nokia 808 PureView (19 photos).  This is like a little kid opening up a Christmas present.

I have been talking about this phone to my friends for the past couple of months now, so quite a few people knew that I was crazy about this device, and people told me that I probably was one of the first people to order this from Hyderabad.  And I know of at least one person who actually bought this phone because of me.

Now you might ask the following questions (and people have asked me this) –

  • Why would anyone need a 41 megapixel camera on a phone?
  • Why would I want this, considering I already have a Canon EOS 550D DSLR camera?

My answers to that –

  • You don’t NEED a 41 megapixel camera, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to have.  Recently, I saw Ren Ng’s TED talk about the Lytro Light Field camera, in which he says that the Lytro opens up new creative possibilities.  In the same way, the Nokia 808 allows one to take different types of pictures that wouldn’t be otherwise possible.  You can use it as a normal camera and produce 5 or 8 megapixel images with it.  But you can also use it to produce large-resolution images with lots of detail, and when done right, those images would be unique and can’t be produced with any other camera in its class.
  • Who says you can’t own and use more than one camera?  The DSLR along with the lenses I have can produce beautiful images, and yes, the images are superior to what the Nokia 808 PureView produces.  But a big advantage of the PureView is that I have it with me practically all the time – including situations where I wouldn’t be able to take along my DSLR.

Here are my impressions on this device so far.

Right now, I am not using the 808 PureView as a phone, more as a camera & recording device, and a device to carry around photos, music and videos.  I am using my Nokia N8 as the phone still.

As you can make out from the above picture, the 808 PureView is larger in size than the N8 and feels heavier too.  This phone has a Micro SIM slot, so I have to get my SIM card cut down to size if I have to use it with this.  I haven’t yet done that.

The AMOLED screen on the 808 PureView is bigger than the one on the N8, but it has the same number of pixels (360 x 640 resolution), as a result of which the N8’s display actually feels sharper to me.

Due to the higher memory and better processor, the 808 PureView feels smoother in operation than my N8.

The phone come with a higher version of the Belle OS than the N8.  People told me that if I was investing in a phone, an Apple / Android / Windows phone is better in terms of the applications.  But that was not really my concern, since I was interested in this device only for the camera.  I seem to have bought a camera that also in its spare time, makes calls!

Now that the other stuff about the phone is out of the way, let’s talk about the things that I am actually using this phone for.  Firstly, the camera.

PureView Technology

To really understand what’s special about the camera on this smartphone, here’s a small primer on photography and what Nokia is calling their PureView technology.

A camera is a box that is completely dark inside.  At one end of this box is a shutter – which is something like a curtain.  In order to take a photo, the curtain opens for a brief instant of time, admitting light inside the camera.  This light is focused by a lens, and it hits a light-sensitive surface (film if one is using a traditional film camera, or a digital sensor, if one is using a digital camera).  And this is how a photo is produced.

Nokia put a huge sensor into the 808 PureView.  This sensor is the biggest ever in a mobile phone, and is actually bigger than the sensors found on many compact digital cameras.  A comparison is given below –

  • 35mm Full Frame Camera (Canon EOS 5D Mark II) – 36 mm x 24 mm
  • Nikon APS-C Crop Camera (my brother’s Nikon D90) – 23.6 mm x 15.6 mm
  • Canon APS-C Crop Camera (my Canon EOS 550D) – 22.2 mm x 14.8 mm
  • Nokia 808 PureView – 10.7 mm x 8 mm (1/1.2″ sensor)
  • Nokia N8 – 7.2 mm x 5.3 mm (1/1.8″ sensor)
  • Compact Camera 1/2.3″ sensor (Nikon Coolpix P510) – 6 mm x 4.5 mm
  • iPhone 4S – 4.5 mm x 3.4 mm

You can see more details on this Wikipedia page – Image Sensor Format.

So Nokia’s engineers have put in a big sensor that’s capable of capturing 41 million pixels of data.  This information is used to produce images of different dimensions.  One can shoot in “full resolution” (which equates to a 34 megapixel image if you’re shooting in 16:9 aspect ratio, or 38 megapixel if in 4:3), or in “PureView” mode.  PureView mode produces images of 8, 5 or 2 megapixels – but in order to generate these images, the phone actually crunches all the data that the sensor captures, which means that the smaller dimension images are actually very detailed and noise-free, and in this mode, you have 2 or 3x lossless zoom.  This is what they call “oversampling”.  Video quality is also great, because this oversampling is used in video also.

Nokia is going to put in PureView technology in their upcoming phones too.

The lens on this camera is an f2.4 lens, as compared to f2.8 on the N8.  This means that the lens can open wider (smaller f number = larger opening), and therefore let in more light into the camera.

So what can you do with the camera?

You can use this camera as you would an 8 megapixel compact camera.  It’ll produce very nice images, and works well in low light thanks to the lens and the PureView oversampling.  But you can also put it in the full resolution 34 or 38 megapixel mode, and shoot images with lots and lots of details.

This gets you thinking differently.  It’s like having a wide angle prime lens attached to a huge-resolution camera.  In this full resolution mode, I like setting it to take 16:9 images as I find the wide aspect ratio interesting.

Enough talk, let’s see some sample images – below is one of the early images I took with this camera.  This is Cyber Towers at Hitech City, Hyderabad.

Click the above image to see a larger version.  Of course, that is about 2000 pixels wide and not the actual 7728 pixel wide version that came straight from the camera.

Below are some sections (100% size crops) extracted from the full image – where you can make out text on signs, license plate numbers, you can see faces of the people in the crowd, and two people standing on the roof of the building.  You cannot get images like this with any other mobile phone on the planet!

With a little editing, below is the final image.  I boosted the contrast and colours in Photoshop Elements.  The lens produces a very pronounced pincushion distortion when you shoot it at the wide aspect ratio (I think the distortion would be reduced if shot in 4:3 ratio, I have not tried this much so can’t tell exactly), so I got rid of that too.

I have uploaded the full size image at deviantART here – Cyber Towers at Dusk by ~karthik82 on deviantART.  You can download the 7728 x 4354 pixel image from there (it’s big in terms of file size – approximately 7 MB) and see all the little details for yourself.

One more bit of trivia about the image above – the text I put in is in the typeface Nokia Pure – which is Nokia’s new font that they’re using for all their branding (their earlier font was called Nokia Sans).  This is the font used on the packaging of their phones and also on their websites.  You can read about it here and even download the font file from this page.

One more picture which I shot with this camera, this is a tall one as opposed to a wide image –

As you can see, I am illuminated and enlightened by the light!  This was taken at Prasad’s Multiplex when I went to see the night show of Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur.

This is another image I took with the camera, that I am proud of –

This was taken on a rainy night, and shows off the low light capabilities of the camera.  This is also an edited image, but even the image straight from the camera looked great.  This one, I shot in the 8 megapixel PureView mode.

On 23-Jun-12, pretty soon after I got this camera, I went on a Photo Walk.  I had carried along my Canon EOS 550D, but decided that I’d take all my photos that day with the PureView camera only!

Here is the full album of photos on Facebook: Photo Walk by Karthik and Vikram Jammula (21 photos).  Apart from resizing and a little auto-contrast boosting, no other editing is done to the images in that album.

Recently, I attended Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Volume 9.  As it has been for the past 4 volumes, I was the ‘unofficial’ photographer at that event.  This time though, I took photos using both by Canon EOS 550D as well as the Nokia 808 PureView.  (To understand what this event is all about, you can read my detailed post here.)

Here is the full album of photos on Facebook: Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 9 (78 photos).  The last 20 photos in this album (beginning from this one) were taken with the 808 PureView.

In retrospect, these images aren’t probably the best that the 808 can produce.  I took all of those in the 34 megapixel mode, at ISO 1600 (since it was a very low light environment).  I should have taken them in the 8 megapixel mode, where PureView oversampling would have kicked in and made the images cleaner (I’d still say these images are pretty decent, since many cameras don’t even go up to ISO 1600).  Well, it’s a learning for next time.

Okay, one more image before we wrap up talking about the camera.  I don’t think you can take a picture like this on any other mobile phone camera on the planet –

This is blasphemy… this is madness!  Madness?  This… is… PUREVIEW!

Let me explain a little about how I took this shot.  Earlier, I had taken a photo of the Supermoon.  That experience taught me that when taking a shot like this, you actually have to cut the amount of light entering the camera, since if you keep it in the auto mode, all you’ll get is a white circle.  I also knew that I’d have to zoom as much as possible.

So, I put the camera in the PureView 2 megapixel mode (so I could zoom), set it at ISO 100 (so that the image would have less noise) and zoomed in all the way.  I reduced the exposure as much as the camera would allow (I think I’d put it at -4.0), to cut the light so I don’t lose shadow detail.

I set the focusing mode on the camera to either hyperfocal or infinity (now I don’t remember which one), and then took a bunch of shots.  I selected the one that was the best out of the lot, then cropped the image and darkened it further in Photoshop Elements.  Added text in the elegant Nokia Pure font, and there you have it.

If you want to see the image straight from the camera, it’s below –

Some more tips on using the camera on the 808 PureView

The user interface on the 808 PureView’s camera, I think, is really nice.  It’s very intuitive.  There are three modes in which you can use the camera.

  • Automatic – Camera decides all the shooting settings, provides you with no options at all, excepting the shutter button and an option to turn on / off the flash.  Very simple to use.
  • Scenes – You just decide the scene mode – landscape, portrait, low light, sports, etc, and the camera will decide the settings suitable to that scenario.
  • Creative – Here’s where you can select all the shooting options.  Automatic and Scenes both shoot only in the lower resolution PureView mode.  In Creative, you can select whether you want to use PureView or shoot in full resolution, you can select the aspect ratio (16:9 or 4:3), adjust contrast, saturation, sharpness.

One thing I’d advise you to do is, go into the Creative menu, scroll down all the way and click on Preferences.  There, you can turn on the Viewfinder Grid and enable Video Stabilisation.

The Viewfinder Grid is very useful as it will enable you to apply the Rule of Thirds while shooting stills and recording video.  Also, in the video mode, it provides you with guides to compose your image for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio (crop marks), so if you are going to crop your video later on to a Cinemascope-type widescreen format, you can be sure that you are not placing anything of interest in an area that’ll be cropped off later.

While taking a picture in Creative Mode, the icons on the left allow you to choose the following options (in order) –

  • Flash On/Off
  • Exposure – To brighten / darken the image.  Default is set at 0.0, you can go to -4.0 at one extreme and to +4.0 at the other extreme.  This is what I was talking about in the Moon photo example.
  • White Balance – Sunny, Cloudy, etc options.
  • ISO – This camera goes from ISO 50 all the way to ISO 1600.  And it has relatively less noise even at ISO 1600 for a camera in its class.
  • ND Filter – The camera (like the N8) has a neutral density filter which can cut light (for example, if you’re shooting directly into the sun, you’d obviously need to have it on, else you’ll get a fully white image).  You can set it on, turn it off or leave it in automatic mode for the camera to decide.

There’s another parameter you can set which you might not readily be aware of, since it’s not accessed by any of the above-visible options – Focusing mode.  You access this by long-pressing on the screen (touch and hold for a second or two till the menu pops up).

There are four options here and here’s what they mean –

  • Automatic – The normal mode of operation – you touch on an object to focus on it.
  • Close-up – Similar to the previous one except this allows you to focus closer.
  • Infinity – Set the camera to focus at the farthest distance.  This way, when you press the shutter button the camera won’t spend time trying to focus on anything.
  • Hyperfocal – Focuses the camera at the hyperfocal distance – essentially meaning you get the maximum depth of field possible (one explanation is here).  This means that excepting for objects that are very close to the camera, everything will be sharply in focus.  The “Sports” scene mode uses Hyperfocal focusing.

Again, referring to the Moon shot, I used either Infinity or Hyperfocal focusing (I don’t remember which), since when I kept the camera in Automatic focusing mode, it had trouble focusing sharply on the moon.

Video and Audio

The 808 PureView can shoot full HD video in 1080p.  You can zoom when recording video too, and the quality is amazing, much better than what you’d find in any other camera phone.  The video camera also has Automatic, Scenes and Creative options (just like in stills).  If you put the camera in 360p resolution, you can really zoom in a lot (enough for filming the moon)!

When you’re filming video, the audio quality in your clips is really, really good.  Nokia has put in something called Rich Recording in this device, and it really produces very nice audio.

You can take advantage of this even when you’re just using the Sound Recorder.  Put it in “High Quality” mode and you’ll get really nice audio.

Take this piece, for example –

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52199117″ iframe=”true” /]

This is a short theme music that I made, for the Galacticast audio podcast on my cousin Girish’s blog Galactica.  Listen to it with headphones – the quality is great.

A couple of things about that file –

  • My cousin’s name, his blog’s name as well as the name of the podcast all begin with the letter “G”, therefore, this theme music uses the G#7 chord, and I simply played 3 of the strings!
  • Broken Plectrum is a name I came up with.  A few days before, the plectrum I was using broke.  That’s what led me to come up with this name, and I even made an image for it (as you’d expect, I shot that with the Nokia 808 PureView camera as well).

Nice, isn’t it?

That about wraps it up for this post!  As and when I come up with more interesting stuff to post and talk about, I’ll write about it.  I have an album on Facebook for 808 PureView Photos, I’ll keep adding to that.  And of course, any videos I shoot with this will be uploaded and written about later.

More Video Links

Items of Interest – 4-Mar-12 to 18-Mar-12

I couldn’t post an “Items of Interest” update last week since the Kahaani and John Carter posts took quite a bit of time to write (and besides, it took me time to get comfortable with the drawing tablet to make that picture of Vidya Balan).  So this time you have a double-sized issue.

Before I get to the tweets and other links of interest, allow me to write about two awesome things that were recently unveiled.

Prometheus Trailers

This morning, the full trailer for Prometheus went online, in HD.  Take 2 and a half minutes to watch this –

Incredible, right?  The video page also includes the plot synopsis –

In the distant future, two superpowers control Earth and fight each other for all the solar system’s natural resources. When one side dispatches a team to a distant planet to terraform it for human colonization, the team discovers an indigenous race of bio-mechanoid killers.

Ridley Scott, director of ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner,’ returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

Somehow, I think I preferred knowing less about the movie, this explanation of the story somewhat demystifies Prometheus for me.  Nonetheless, it’s still a terrific trailer and I can’t wait to see the movie this June, in IMAX 3D.  I just hope our censor board guys won’t cut anything from the movie.

There was another trailer that preceded this, which came online yesterday.  This post on FirstShowing has it.  It’s also great and has some footage which isn’t in this complete trailer.  A friend of mine aptly described this as “one big ‘Holy Shit’ moment that is 1:30 long”.

The Raid: Redemption Soundtrack

In my earlier post about the movie The Raid: Redemption, I mentioned that the American release of the movie features a music score by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park and Joseph Trapanese.  At TheRaidSoundtrack.com, one can pre-order the soundtrack album, and one can also listen to five tracks from the album.

The music in the above video is the opening bit from the track “Razors.Out”, which is also the music used in the Red-Band trailer of the movie.  The track is by Shinoda with vocals by Chino Moreno.  You can listen to it here (that’s a SoundCloud link, you can listen to the other tracks from the sampler too.  The track “Drug Lab” is the one used in the most recent official US Trailer).

From the top to the end
You’ve got your razors out
To the end, til you stop
You cut the frames apart

Here are the lyrics to “Razors.Out” (perhaps not 100% accurate).

Two Facebook Statuses

This one from Kartheek P S K –

That sudden sense of kinship I felt when my phone rang to the tune of Hans Zimmer’s “Discombobulate” from Sherlock Holmes in a bus, and ONE person somewhere amidst the crowds snaps around with a glimmer in his eyes… One of Life’s moments… 🙂

and this one, from Vinit R –

…so Hades comes to Zeus and says “Yo bro. Im gonna tell u a joke thts gonna get u KRAKEN”

I liked both, so thought of sharing them.

B&W Shooting Challenge

I was reading an article on Ken Rockwell’s site, called Making Great Photos in Crappy Locations – where he talks about locking yourself up in a bathroom (a literally ‘crappy’ location?  Heh heh) and taking pictures –

Many photo classes have an assignment to lock yourself in your bathroom and shoot a whole roll of film. Your first reaction is “this is stupid.” Then things start dawning on you as you start seeing details. Eventually you make so many photos you wish you got to use more film.

That inspired me to try taking some photos under self-imposed constraints.  No, I didn’t go into a bathroom, and I didn’t lock myself in – but I took some pictures in my room only, and decided that I’d only use my 50mm f1.8 lens.  Till now, I really hadn’t used the “Monochrome” picture style on my camera, so I thought it’d be interesting to strip away colour and then shoot.

I ended up with some pretty interesting photos.  Not too dramatic, but not too bad all the same.  You can check out the album on Facebook (10 photos).

One of those photos has me holding up two pens, one labelled “Black” and the other labelled “Red”.  I tried being clever there, though I’m not sure it comes across effectively!

The above image is one of the discarded photos that I didn’t upload on the ‘official’ set. (sort of like a “deleted scene” on a DVD).  Again, this is me trying to be clever.  The “on” light on my laptop is green, but you can’t see it since the photo is not in colour!  Wow, how dramatic!

Other Links to See

  • This is a nice blog post about “Less is More”, from Mike Shinoda.  He also writes at the end about a kind of extreme example of “Less is More”, with this piece of art.
  • I’d posted two nice music tracks from Final Doom: Evilution on Facebook – Legion of the Lost and Death’s Bells.  I remembered these tracks from my Doom mapping days, so posted them.  One of my favourite pieces of music by TeamTNT is the theme from “Bloodlands” – which I couldn’t find on YouTube.  You can listen to it on this page (I know, embedded MIDI music is so 1990s, but still).
  • Interesting article in last week’s Economic Times about Nikon vs Canon and how they’re competing in India.
  • Wilbur Sargunaraj shows us How to use an Eastern Latrine.  Very funny stuff.
  • Kung Fu Balayya – also very funny video.
  • Sungha Jung performs Canon Rock – Great Stuff!  I guess this is his first electric guitar video.
  • A friend told me about this song called “Looking Glass” by the band All Hail the Silence.  An interesting thing is that you can get this song for free, by tweeting or posting on Facebook about it!  Here is the ‘Tweet for a Track’ Page for it.  It’s an 8 MB MP3, and a very retro / 80s style piece.  As my friend said, it wouldn’t have been out of place in Nicolas Refn’s Drive.
  • In my review of The Artist, I had commented about the typography in the movie, and I mentioned that someone like Mark Simonson would be able to do a proper analysis of that.  Well, a few days later, Mark Simonson did do a post on it from a typography perspective.  A very interesting read.
  • Vincent LaForet’s post about Setting up your Canon HD DSLR for filming video.  Unlike the more advanced Canon EOS DSLRs like the 7D and 5D Mark II, my EOS 550D doesn’t allow me to set ISOs like 160, 320, etc.  Does anyone know if that’s possible, or do I just go with ISO 200, 400, and so on?

Edible Actors

Sometime back on Twitter, #edibleactors was trending.  I found it very funny, so here are some of the names of actors that sound like food items –

Antara Thali, Bruce Chilies, Jackie Chana Masala, Prawn Connery, Cheese Witherspoon, Curry-shma Kapoor, Imran Naan, Milkshake Bachchan, Anuttapam Kher, Curryna Kapoor, Sean Bean, Al Cappuccino, Aamir Corn, Christian Bhel, Rajma Kapoor, Benedict Cucumberbatch, Daniel Breadcliffe, Salmon Khan, Katrina Cafe, Bread Pitt

None of them are my own – they’re the property of whoever tweeted them.

Now, onto the collection of tweets from the past two weeks.  I am not re-posting tweets about stuff that I already linked above.

Tweets 18-Mar-12:

  • RT @mihirfadnavis Just watched ‘Beyond the Black Rainbow’ – a moody ultra trippy film that grabs you by the head & SKULL FUCKS YOU INTO SUBMISSION. Brilliant!
  • Used Kdenlive to edit a video yesterday. Just trimming and colour correction done but it’s the first video I edited on Linux.
  • Kdenlive has presets to export video for YouTube at 1080p, 720p, 480p etc. That’s pretty cool. I must try with a bigger project soon.
  • RT @GDBALA 7 Words That Only Bad Movies Have in Their Titles http://zite.to/wLxiN2
  • RT @funnyhumour Want an anagram of “Rodeo incidents”? Consider it done.
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 ‘Dongala Mutha’ – A … http://timehop.com/m/sK3k
  • I totally tweeted this 1 year ago TH @karthik82 Going to watch RGV’s… http://timehop.com/m/RS7b
  • RT @funnyoneliners Being sick can really affect your grades in school. The kid my son cheats off of was out all last week. RT @technopriest5
  • RT @omgthatspunny Wanna hear a joke about pizza? Nevermind.. its cheesy #punny
  • RT @timcarvell “One question about your film in which two dozen children murder one another: Do any of them use the F-word? No? Here’s your PG-13, then.”
  • RT @kruttikaS I draw and I feel okay.
  • Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hyderabad Blues 1 (http://www.youtube.com/movie/hyderabad-blues) and 2 (http://www.youtube.com/movie/hyderabad-blues-2) are both available on YouTube.
  • I don’t know whether those videos would be viewable outside of India or not, but sharing them anyway.
  • RT @Canon_Camera Canon celebrates 25 years of photographic expertise http://ow.ly/9Aycq
  • Ebook? 🙂 RT @justkalpana note to self: do it right now! “@NiceHappened: Switch off your screens and switch on a book. Do it.”
  • RT @NiceHappened Shaun Of The Dead. RT @mojorojo: What do you think is the most criminally under-watched film ever?
  • RT @sickipediabot My friend suggested I should prepare for the brutal lighting storms we’ve been forecast. So I’ve changed my name to “Twice.”

Tweets 17-Mar-12:

  • @Galactica_gk You asked today why I wasn’t watching Hugo, it’s because I was working on a drawing. Posting it now, I think you’ll like it.
  • Just got my Vedam DVD that I ordered from @Flipkart.
  • Finished reading all of “Y: The Last Man”. It was a good series.

Tweets 16-Mar-12:

  • RT @kruttikaS Brilliant illustration! Sarah and the Seed, a comic by @hey_ryan_a (Ryan Andrews) http://shar.es/pfTHv
  • RT @Kahaanithefilm Kahaani smashes another record! It’s #12 on IMDB’s Top Rated “Thriller” Titles and going higher!! Thank you ALL! http://fb.me/XxttTuDR
  • RT @vemana If you are too daft to learn, no amount of ‘experience’ will help you.
  • RT @FarOutAkhtar Read today: those who are capable of admitting they made a mistake are the ones capable of growth.
  • RT @sunielwadhwa: @ankash1009 Yes Sir first releasing Mumbai Cutting Then Paanch will keep you posted 🙂
  • RT @ravsriram Gonna start with #micro this weekend.will b 15th #michaelcrichton #book I ll read.
  • RT @FarOutAkhtar Baby Falak. RIP. We should all be ashamed to be part of a society in which violence like this is no longer uncommon.
  • RT @RGVzoomin Today is the 1st day of shooting of the most important film of my career `The attacks of 26/11 `
  • RT @Kahaanithefilm Hot Running Water =
  • RT @josephradhik My new weapon of choice. Nex-5N + Voigtlander 35/1.4 Leica M mount. Joy. http://pic.twitter.com/J4AYQS3m
  • Seeds of Truth http://bit.ly/xXceDc

Tweets 15-Mar-12:

  • RT @vemana When you are driving on the highway with the sun in your rear view mirror, you are literally leaving the day behind. Quite picturesquely too
  • RT @krishashok If one is a developer, Stackoverflow is pretty much philosopher, friend, guide, techsupport and a shoulder to cry on
  • RT @atulkasbekar A chubby colleague of mine insists she’s been doing her ‘GM’ diet for yrs to no avail. Since her GM is ‘Ghee Maida’ its no surprise 😉
  • RT @MillaJovovich thank you @chrissbrenner 4 this pic me w wearing @LOrealparisusa “telescopic” mascara! my lashes r SICK, right ladies? http://pic.twitter.com/k1i3kAJT
  • RT @omgthatspunny To write with a broken pencil is pointless. #punny
  • RT @Canon_Camera How to photograph flowers http://ow.ly/9Ay0M
  • “Y: The Last Man” – 46/60 done.

Tweets 14-Mar-12:

  • I’ve pre-ordered the “Don 2” DVD from @Flipkart. A tweet from @FarOutAkhtar indicated that it would be an extended version.
  • Just bought “Vedam – Movie – DVD” from @flipkart http://bit.ly/w4snim
  • Here you go – “Vedam” DVD on Flipkart for Rs 155. http://www.flipkart.com/vedam-movie/p/itmd6zcvbkkze7y4 I will go home and place an order.
  • RT @Galactica_gk Must Read!! Why Hugo wont be released in India Mumbai Mirror http://www.mumbaimirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=172&contentid=201203142012031403250134047fab3e4
  • Vedam (2010) appears to be out on DVD/Bluray! Time to buy it, will search on Flipkart & order, if not available will go to a store and buy.
  • RT @Galactica_gk 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993 751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480 Happy Pi Day!!
  • RT @designersays Have any of you ever gone to the bathroom to do a no. 2 and forgot to bring your phone? I know, boring right?
  • The Nokia N8 has a close-up mode while recording video – had I known this earlier, my drawing videos would have had better focus!
  • Lesson learnt – know your tools.
  • RT @BrettSahuri: @edgarwright You’re a fucked up individual, that’s for sure.
  • Ram Gopal Varma and Puri Jagannadh are doing a remake of “Businessman” with Abhishek Bachchan. Make of that what you will…
  • RT @arocks Simple way to make a wireless presenter. Tape off the bottom of a wireless mouse. Works beautifully…
  • RT @RGVzoomin “@theMadhuShalini: Being selfish is gud..if u urself don’t think abt u urself, then who else will?”
  • RT @arocks Biggest irony of 2012: Twitter takes more time to load than Facebook
  • RT @RGVzoomin Finally its confirmed..Me nd puri jagan together are making the remake of the block buster telugu hit `Businessman’ with Abhishek bachchan
  • “Y: The Last Man” – 32/60 completed.
  • “Y: The Last Man” – finished reading 25/60 issues. This reminds me of when I was reading “Preacher” in 2005 or 2006.
  • I get broadband bill notifications to my email from Airtel, Reliance and Idea, though I use none of those services! I ignore those mails.
  • But I wonder whose bills I am getting 🙂
  • Reading “Y: The Last Man” by Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Finished 10 issues out of 60. It’s brilliant stuff so far.

Tweets 13-Mar-12:

Tweets 12-Mar-12:

  • Head, Ribs and Hips part 1 http://bit.ly/zUg69S
  • Day 50 #Gym
  • RT @mihirfadnavis The most epically epic thing you’ll read today – Harry Potter vs LOTR: The Final Showdown http://bit.ly/zQNrGa
  • RT @sarcasticapple What do you get if you cross an octopus with a cow? A stern rebuke from the Research Ethics Committee and an immediate cessation of funding.
  • RT @mihirfadnavis In case your Monday isn’t fuckall enough, let me remind you that ‘Hugo’ isn’t releasing in India. Cheers.
  • RT @SrBachchan T 678 – Just finished watching ‘Kahani’ on UFO at home .. Simply superb ! Sujoy, what the heck were you doing making films like ‘Aladin’ !!?
  • A line of dialogue from a “John Carter” and “Total Recall” mashup would be: “Get your ass to Barsoom” 🙂 I’m going to use that quote soon.
  • Letters & Stone http://bit.ly/yZP3W9
  • RT @omgthatspunny I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me. #punny
  • Lee Bermejo – Before Watchmen http://bit.ly/wScBhv
  • One year ago, this awesome thing happened: http://timehop.com/m/tEIB
  • One year ago, this awesome thing happened: http://timehop.com/m/hjdG
  • Mosquitos to all out and good night.. @AapChutiyeHain

Tweets 11-Mar-12:

  • Just finished my first digital artwork. Will be posting it online soon. Done with Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet in the GIMP on Ubuntu 11.10.
  • RT @ankash1009 Vidya is slowly emerging to be atrue successor of Aamir.. a great career is defined by choices one makes &courage to see it through
  • My friend Raaj Kumar’s portrait of his mother – drawn in 2011 – http://bit.ly/xZycqu
  • Amble http://bit.ly/yq44Z7 (via FontSquirrel)
  • RT @josephradhik You have not experienced joy as a photog till you have used a 35/1.4 lens properly. 🙂 Love this focal length and dof combo.

Tweets 10-Mar-12:

  • Trouble on the Internet http://bit.ly/zGXwaz
  • RT @Galactica_gk The movie is just awesome. One of the best Hindi movies I’ve see. Awesome acting by Vidya Balan. 9/10. #KahaaniMovie2012
  • RT @io9 Legendary French artist Moebius, the man who made The Abyss, Alien, and Tron even weirder, is dead at 74 http://on.io9.com/1fc0
  • RT @planet5D #noFilmSchool: Canon 4K DSLR Announcement Possible at NAB 2012 #HDSLRnews http://bit.ly/xomn1d
  • Kahaani – Loved it! Intriguing mystery, very nicely made and acted. Ending was great. Read as less about it as you can before seeing it! 9/10
  • John Carter – Enjoyable movie, little slow in the beginning but I liked second half and ending. Visuals were great, 3D not essential. 7/10
  • RT @RaaVi #WebDesign | Here is why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys: I was reading about vim the other day … http://bit.ly/zdgf2s via @DZone
  • RT @sandy_budhiraja “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”~Ralph Waldo Emerson #quote
  • RT @Nokia_Connects The Week in Pictures: 5 inspirational photos from around the world. http://nokia.ly/xH3lvk A new feature on Nokia Connects
  • Pickup Artist http://bit.ly/A8BQOz

Tweets 9-Mar-12:

  • RT @Oatmeal Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? Great food, NO ATMOSPHERE! *ba-dum-kssh*
  • RT @DamienFahey I was blown away by how realistic the raindrops on the new iPad wallpaper looked until I realized they were actually a Chinese child’s tears
  • RT @Mr_A36 Mr.A36 is a sucker for typography. Lo♥es Sans-serif esp Helvetica & Myriad typeFaces 🙂
  • RT @gurpreet_bhatia #mycrazyobsession photography
  • RT @clientsfh “Please let me know if you do not receive this email.” http://tmblr.co/Zh3FZyHgH8vT
  • Watched “Critters 4” after many, many years. Nice movie. I used to like this series a lot during school days.

Tweets 8-Mar-12:

Tweets 7-Mar-12:

  • RT @Nokia_Connects Nokia 808 PureView: your questions answered (part 2) – http://nokia.ly/zjTCMC
  • RT @Flipkart Some should answer this question on @Quora : http://www.quora.com/Are-we-missing-a-legal-MP3-download-website-in-India. Afterall, @Flipkart is headquartered in Quoramangala.
  • RT @DanielCamer “Tell me, I will forget; Show me, I may remember; but involve me and I will understand.” – Ancient Chinese… http://tmblr.co/ZFFgXxHbA4R2
  • RT @slashfilm Watch director @AndrewStanton’s TED Talk: ‘The Clues To A Great Story’ http://bit.ly/y2bAKn
  • It would be interesting to see the back of the Indian Censor Certificate for Piranha, detailed description of all the stuff they cut! 🙂
  • #NowWatching Piranha (2010) – including all the parts I missed when I saw in the theatre 🙂

Tweets 6-Mar-12:

  • Nokia 808 PureView: your questions answered – http://nokia.ly/xoaAdT
  • RT @firstshowing Got a second dose of The Raid, so damn good, so frickin’ badass. Gets your adrenaline pumping. Can’t keep recommending it enough!
  • Awesome!! RT @funnyoneliners I was playing my air guitar and accidentally woke up a mime. RT @luiki89
  • RT @MariaEolani Better a little fire to warm us, than a great one to burn us.
  • RT @justkalpana Death by PowerPoint
  • RT @rob_sheridan Download a PDF of JoyStix Magazine, April 1983 (they have some great tips for that new game Galaga): http://bit.ly/zwk1La -via @lostateminor
  • RT @designersays ME: You’re like a drug to me. FRIEND: You mean I’m addictive? ME: Please! I mean I can only take you in small doses.
  • NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED! RT @planet5D Fire and Brimstone – one guy’s reaction to the Canon EOS 5D Mark III http://bit.ly/xNm2pt
  • TV Release Groups Dump Xvid and Enrage the Internet http://bit.ly/xb3M8V
  • Outerra Engine Makes The Entire Earth Into An Open-World Game, Has A Free Tech Demo http://bit.ly/yirzd3

Tweets 5-Mar-12:

  • RT @IslamicThinking A friend cannot be considered a friend until he is tested in 3 occasions: in time of need, behind your back, & after your death. (Ali RA)
  • RT @funnyoneliners Dear Women, We’re not as dumb as you think we are. We’re dumber. Love, Men RT @yoyoha
  • RT @mihirfadnavis So tired. So much work. What to do ya.  #MundaneTweetsFromHotChicks
  • Tumblr http://bit.ly/y7fFzY
  • RT @alecbaldwin I’m going to the gym. I’m gonna sit in the parking lot and read the Times. But at least I’m going.
  • Day 46 #Gym
  • RT @josephradhik The problem with being a photog in the social media age is appreciation comes very easily. Enough to get a false sense of superiority.
  • RT @schmmuck In case of earthquake : Please tweet!! DO NOT go to an open area. DO NOT help ur neighbours & coworkers. The internet needs to know FIRST!!
  • Lytro Light Field Camera: This Is What New Feels Like [Photography] http://bit.ly/A73CY4
  • London Super Comic Con http://bit.ly/zwxdFI

That stuff I said about the close-up mode on the Nokia N8 – I plan to write a separate post with example images.

Exactly What it Says on the Box (Demo)

I made a short “theme song” (if you can call it that) for this site – taking the tagline as the name. I still have not mustered the courage to post guitar videos on YouTube, so this one video I have uploaded on Facebook. Here you go –

You must admit, it isn’t too bad, is it? The guitar chords are extremely simple: Am, G and C, E7.

I’ve called it a demo since it’s a bit rough around the edges. I will tweak it and plan to record a better version (both in terms of audio and video) later.

And I just realised that if I’m posting the video for public viewing on my blog, I might as well have uploaded it on YouTube 🙂