Monday, December 14, 2009

The king of delta blues

THE ONE for blues as far as I'm concerned. I came across this nice documentary on Robert Johnson which I'd like to share.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Back to the cradle

"I have one bit tonight that I do - I'll mull over what I'm going to do when it's my turn. But Eric doesn't even think. Jump on him at any time, say 'Go!' and he'll take you to another level. Then if you say 'Once more,' he'll take you even higher."
- Andy Fairweather-Low, 2001

From the cradle remains in my all time top blues album even after ten years. And watching EC play it live is one up. I do wish to see him live atleast once in my life time.

Watch out the first sustained note in intro .. Go!


Andy's got it right on the head. Go God!!!

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Remembering OP Nyyar

I came across this fantastic video on youtube, a kind of documentary on PO Nyyar recording songs with Asha and Rafi, my #1 music team.


Friday, October 09, 2009

Everything's Broken

Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.

Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.


Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,

Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',

Everything is broken.







Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.



Listen to Dylan singing this (I hope this ain't broken yet!)

Friday, August 07, 2009

New Tadka for delicious makes it delightful!

Delicious the social bookmarking tool has been a pioneer and poster boy for the social applications powering the web2.0. I have been a huge fan of this site since long and birdsIview has had few posts featuring delicious.
One major reason for Delicious's success is support for bookmark tagging which allows users to quickly locate the bookmarks they have saved. Tagging also allows aggregation of social data into very useful and exciting information. Over time bookmark search function has seen a lot of improvement such as Browser toolbar based search, director etc.
Recently delicious announced new exciting updates in the search interface which are quite an improvement.
New Search features include (see figure):
  1. Time Filters allow to filter results based on time,
  2. Delicious Trends Graph allows to visualize bookmarking trends for an item during the time interval.
  3. Tag filters This allows to filter results by adding specified tag to the search. This is an improvement over existing tag filter feature taking a leaf from the browser based search interface.
  4. Enhanced search suggestion implement a Google -Suggest like ajax suggestion facility.
  5. Result Thumbnails supplies previews for search results drawn from a number of popular websites.
  6. Tweeter Support.

Delicious Wishlist
These new delicious features are quite exciting and useful. However I believe that there scope for improvement in few areas such as:
  1. Search result sorting based on:
  • Number of times it has been bookmarked.
  • Date of bookmarks.
  • Users or networks


 



Reblog this post [with Zemanta]


Powered by ScribeFire.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Chew on this


“Over-indulgence in anything is wrong—whether it’s practicing 50 hours a day, or eating too much food. There’s a balance with me, as there should be with everything and everybody. I’ve tried to keep it so that I’m able to execute the ideas that come out, but practicing too much depresses me. I get good speed, but then I start playing nonsense because I’m not thinking. A good layoff makes me think a lot. It helps me get both things together—the creativity and the speed.”
— Jeff Beck

Saturday, July 18, 2009

How to: Survive Long Lonely weekend

Was really hoping to be allowed to go home this weekend to organize shifting from Pune to Bangalore (and be with apple to be honest).
That has been shot down by bossji and I'll have to wait till at least Wednesday to start. This means spending 2 more days by the dusty outer ring road of Bangalore doing absolutely nothing, I'm bored with cursing one and all responsible elements by now.

So what to do? Maaya Memsaab seems to have the best advice on this ...
I'd do the same I guess ..

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Motherless Children

Monday, February 16, 2009

Wow flickr widget

क्या आइटम है भीडू !!

I came across this cool widget which literally makes your flickr photostream images fly out.
Check it out, (try doing a mouse over... awsome!)!



Roy Tanck's Flick Widget requires Flash Player 9 or better.



There are more cool widget here which I'm still exploring.
Get your custom flickr widget here.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Ek baar muskura do


Song for myself and for everybody else who get the blues.
This is one real gem from Md. Rafi/O. P. Naiyaar which somehow didn't get the love and respect it deserves.

नफ़रत से जिन्हें तुम देखते हो ,

तुम मारते हो जिनको ठोकर ,
क्या उनपे गुज़रती है देखो,
इक बार कभी घायल होकर

ज़माने की आंखों ने देखा है यारों ,
सदा अपनी दुनिया में ऐसा नज़ारा, कभी उनको फूलों से पूजा है सब ने, कभी जिनको लोगों ने पत्थर से मारा ज़माने की आंखों ने देखा है यारों

पिसे न जहाँ तक, पत्थर पे मेंहदी,
किसी भी तरह रंग, लाती नहीं है,
हजारों जगह ठोकरे खा ने ले जब,
कोई ज़िन्दगी मुस्कुराती नहीं है,

बिना ख़ुद मरे, किसको जन्नत मिली है,

बिना दुःख सहे किसने, जीवन सवार
ज़माने की आंखों ने देखा है यारों

भावर से जो घबराके पीछे हटें हैं,

डुबोदी है मौजों ने, उनकी ही नैय्या ,
जो तूफ़ान से टकरा के आगे बड़े हैं,
बिना कोई मांझी, बिना ही खिवैया

कभी न कभी तो, कहीं ना कहीं पर
हमेशा ही उनको, मिला है किनारा
ज़माने की आंखों ने देखा है यारों

यहाँ आदमी को सबक दोस्ती का,

सिखाते हुए जो, लहू में नहाया,
मसीहा बना और गाँधी बना वो,
हजारों दिलों में, यहाँ घर बनाया,

उन्ही की बनी है, यहाँ यादगारें,
उन्ही के जहाँ में, चम्पका सितारा
ज़माने की आंखों ने देखा है यारों


Happy Weekend!!

Monday, February 02, 2009

CV Tagcloud

While looking for new data visualization tools on internet, I came across wordle which essentially is an online tag cloud creator.
Using wordle one can create tagclouds from any blog, web site or any chunk of text supplied by user.
Moreover, it is possible to fine tune the way tag cloud is displayed using various options like:
  • Tag orientations.
  • Tag Fonts.
  • Color schemes
  • Number of tags etc.
To see it action, I created a tag cloud based on my current Resume. Wordle generated tag cloud from this, shown below:


I think it's pretty cool application and is quite usefule with Tag Clouds gaining more and more popularity as an alternate way to quickly visualize information loaded in large chunks of texts.
I wish it offered a tighter control over the tags words which appear in the clouds. This way more the conveyed information can be more precise and relevant.



I think it's