varunnangia.com

I’m completely and utterly overwhelmed with a few things, including the news from CES. Fortunately, the madness ends in a couple of days (January 10th, to be precise for CES) and so I’ll continue then. Sorry if you were looking forward to something right now…

How long does it take to get a movie just right? If you’re Ridley Scott, the answer is “about 25 years“. But what a great “right” it is!

I first watched what I now know to be the Workprint Version of Blade Runner in my first year of college. The changes from there to this were so dramatic that I actually yelped, “He’s a replicant?!” half-way through the movie. But beyond the changes to the dialog and content of the movie, the real draw of the Final Cut is the remastering. Before that, a word about the movie itself.

Loosely based on Philip K. Dick‘s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?“, Blade Runner is set in a dystopian Los Angeles in 2019. The first shot is in fact of this dystopian landscape and long before it became fashionable to talk about climate change, genetic engineering or globalization, Blade Runner‘s Los Angeles is a globalized multicultural city struggling to cope with its pollution and poverty. Watching it today, I’m reminded how much a staple of modern science fiction storytelling involves this trifecta of issues, but how rare it was 25 years ago and how ahead of its time it was. Even more amazing now are the sets which could be CGI generated today, but are in fact 25-year old props that are heavily inspired by Metropolis and, in turn, heavily inspired the modern cyberpunk movement. The combination of a suitably dark atmosphere and the Gothic and foreboding sets gives the movie realism that I sometimes find lacking in modern science fiction epics.

As for the plot itself – blade runners are special detectives who are tasked with executing replicants, genetically engineered beings that are virtually indistinguishable from humans, and are banned on Earth after an off-world insurrection leaves humans dead. Deckard is one such blade runner, who is called out of retirement to eliminate four of the escaped beings who are implicated in the murder of a fellow blade runner. Even as he eliminates the replicants one by one, he falls in love with a prototype replicant whom he meets while refining a test designed to detect replicants, and is forced to question what the difference between a human and a replicant is.

While the plot itself was truly mind blowing in 1982, given the current staple of dystopian science fiction movies (including some truly excellent ones), it no longer stands out amongst the crowd. Where the work truly shines is in the remastering of the film. The earlier version that I saw suffered from underexposure, lost detail because of the ambient darkness and had a number of inconsistencies. Fortunately Ridley Scott has not been infected with Lucasitis and redone every single visual effect; in fact, almost every effect remains the same. However, 25 years of technological progress means that it’s now possible to edit out wire lines holding up props like the flying cars, blend out stunt suits and fix dialogue that was either missing or just plain wrong. In fact, considering that the movie is 25 years old, it’s amazing how much like modern, HD -recorded and -processed video it looks like. Excepting the occasional graininess, the film looks like a contemporary of the first Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, and not ET. Even Vangelis‘ haunting, synthesizer heavy soundtrack has been redone and it’s now possible to hear the music in your home better than it was possible to hear it in the best theatres of 1982. I am hard-pressed to find fault with this version, and am saddened only by how much time it took for this, the truly definitive version, to come out.

If you have an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player – this is a no brainer: this is one of the best discs you can get to show off those next gen players (ironic, considering how old Blade Runner is); if you have only a DVD player, then I would recommend at least a rental, if not shelling out for the four disc collector’s edition. The only reason I hesitate to recommend the DVD version is because I have not seen the quality of the DVD version, and if that version is at all underexposed, then your viewing experience will be correspondingly diminished.

Be aware that there are versions with a suitcase and without; there really is no reason to get the suitcase that I can think of. But it’s definitely worth watching: whether it’s the first time you’re watching the cult classic, or your nth viewing, the version is truly definitive in every way imaginable.

Yesterday, I wrote about getting my licence in Virginia, and previously I’ve written about American vehicles. Today a few stories about driving in northern Virginia, southern Maryland and Washington, DC.

1. About two weeks ago, while driving to Whole Foods to get groceries, about a ten minute drive, I was behind a car driven by a gentleman on a phone. There are precisely four stop signs, each marked very clearly by both ground lettering and giant signs. The gentleman zoomed along at 35 mph on the 25mph road until he got to the first sign. He stopped for a good five seconds on the first. He drifted at 15 mph next. He ran through the second stop sign without stopping, upon when he slowed to a near stall. He halted until I caught up and honked him on the third. And on the fourth, he did an abrupt U-turn, startling all three drivers who were at their respective stop lines. Getting to Whole Foods, a person who was apparently driving behind me came up to me and said, “Did you get that guy’s plate? Call the cops on him.” Insane.
2. Some months ago, I was driving to my aunt’s place in southern MD from my place in northern VA, I was overtaken by two vehicles speeding along I-495 – a black SUV and an equally black limo. Since I was driving pretty near the speed limit and they shot past within a few seconds, they were driving at least 20-25 miles above the speed limit. I giggled as they zoomed around a corner which almost always has a police car hidden within and closed in to spot the chase. Sure enough a police car raced out of its hiding spot, lights flashing, siren blaring, chasing the cars. Now, typically, one of two things happen: 99% of the time, the car slows down and pulls over; 1% of the time, a chase ensues. This time, neither happened. Both speeding cars switched on their own lights and continued speeding, causing the police car to turn off its own lights a few seconds later, slow down and get off at the next exit.
3. Driving to Baltimore to see Opera Vivente’s Alcina was interesting. After the usual loonies departed when I got off the Beltway, I was cut off at 75mph by a jerk with less than five feet of clearance. I honked him, to which he proceeded to flick me off and then slowed to drive behind me with his lights on high beam. I proceeded to slow to 45 mph. He eventually gave up and drove around me.

What I’m trying to get at is how inconsistent drivers are in this area. Manila and Delhi are no better – probably worse, in fact – but the difference is in speed and vehicle size. In those megacities, speeds rarely exceed 60kmph and vehicles are generally relatively small. By contrast, here not only are the vehicles huge and lumbering – particularly this American fetish for SUV – but speeds are twice those typical of Manila or Delhi. Moreover, while everyone in those cities drives in the “if your car costs more, you drive more carefully” fashion, a large portion of the drivers here drive as they please, leaving road safety to those of us who do want to live to see a new year. Finally, there is the issue of older drivers – in those countries, the solution is to either to ask family or to get a driver. Over here, older drivers with much slower reflexes continue to drive, increasing the potential for accidents immensely. The one near run in I’ve had has been because an old lady swung out of an exit only lane less than three feet from the front of my car, because she didn’t see me. For this last issue, I don’t see a ready answer – given the near complete lack of public transportation in this part of America, and the cost of engaging others to drive you, there’s likely no solution.

Then again – wherever you live, that’s where the worst drivers are, right?

A while back, I went to get a Virginia driver’s licence. The procedure for foreigners is slightly different than that of Americans, but given a decent person on the counter, the effective difference is minimal – one extra document, in fact.

Of course, given my luck, I not only didn’t get a decent person, I also got a cranky Indian lady.

Now one thing about Indians – almost all of them, and I say this as one – is that power gets to the head. The slightest say in the affairs of another person is sufficient to trigger glee and is, in my humble Indian opinion, the root cause of the corruption that is endemic back at home. Thus, while I wished and wished during the hour I waited to be served that I would have any of them other 15 people up and serving customers, I had the fortune of getting the one person I wished not to get. This was off to a great start.

After an exhausting process of looking through my identity papers and verifying that I was eligible for a licence – over the age of 15 years and six months, check; lives in Virginia, check – I was told that my papers were not sufficient. I was unable, in this case, to prove that I was the person whose passport it was. After staring in disbelief at her insistence that a letter from the US State Department was trumped by state law and going over the lists, we concluded that my long expired work authorization permit was sufficient, I got the card from home. (I should also add that the document insisted that only currently valid work permits were acceptable ID.)

I was again stuck with the same cranky Indian lady. This time, she discovered that my proof of residency was not sufficient, since it had to be within two months; I presented a utility bill that was issued precisely two months and three days and the three days were the cause of the problem. I had anticipated this and pulled out a notarized copy of my lease. She refused to accept it because it was not – and I quote – “the usual form of residency we accept”. In the end, her plaintive mews were trumped by my showing her that a lease was a valid way of proving I lived in Virginia – from a piece of paper she had used to deny me my licence to begin with.

On that livid note, she angrily proclaimed that she was just doing her job, and not trying to harass me.

Really?

I wonder what gave her that idea.

However, triumphantly, I proceeded with my application. Until – and here it takes a turn into the surreal – she looks at my application as she is entering into the computer and the following conversation ensues:

Her: “You have misentered this information!”
Me: “What information have I misentered, ma’am?”
Her: “Your eye colour.”

I stared at the form which clearly states that my eye colour is “Black”. I look at her and politely say: “The eye colour is quite correct. As it is written in my passport and my work authorization permit.”

Her: “That is not true! Your eye colour is dark brown!”

(Here, insert a full ten seconds of confused bewilderment.)

Me: “Ma’am – perhaps the light here is strange, but my eye colour has been black since the day I was born and will be till the day I die. If you do not believe me -”
Her: “I’m not saying you are lying! You are just misinformed!”
Me: “If you disagree with this assessment, then let’s go out into the natural sunlight and you can verify my eye colour. In addition, if you enter it as dark brown, your documents will be inconsistent with every other document in existence about me. You are welcome to enter it as you feel fit.”
Her: “I’m just telling you, your eye colour is dark brown, it is not black. However, if you wish to put this incorrect information on your record, I am not responsible for it!”

With this biting rejoinder, she recommenced fuming and entering the information. A mere twenty minutes later (had I mentioned it was now 4.30PM – a full two hours and thirty minutes after entering the building), she was done and stiffly informed me it was too late for me to take the driving test as the center did not accept driving tests thirty minutes before closing.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should always read the fine print.

“Ma’am, perhaps this is another case of misinformation – but I notice that here it says you are open till 5.30pm today. That means I have a full thirty minutes to proceed with my driving test.”

Openly glaring at me now, she sent me on my way to get my knowledge test and driver’s test. While I was not scared about the driver’s test – where I had one of the nicest testors I have ever met – I met this prize question on the knowledge test:

“Approximately what percentage of fatal motorcycle crashes involve automobiles?”
a. 10%
b. A third.
c. 50%.
d. All.

That was the sole question I got wrong for a test I did not study for at all. However, at precisely 45 minutes after 5PM, I walked triumphantly out of the DMV, driver’s licence in hand.

Morals/take away:

1. Stay clear of cranky Indian ladies behind the desk at the DMV.
2. Always read the fine print.
3. See #1 above.

I’ve been writing a primer on backups for a few people who have asked me and for my own reference when I go out and build my next backup system. Hidden behind the snip is the article itself (almost exactly correctly formatted) – some things don’t translate well from RTF format. I’ll share details of my next backup system when I’m ready.

Also available as a PDF if that sort of thing interests you.

Read the rest of this entry »

I started making a list of things that I wanted to do in 2008. I suppose some people would call them “resolutions”, but for me, this is just another list of thigns to do, albeit a little more long-term and ambitious in scope than most of my to-do lists. In the interests of forcing myself to do everything on it, I decided to share it, and have people watch and check off things with me.

Education/work:

• Get into a master’s program either part-time or full-time.
• Find a full-time position.
• Redo my GRE and nail that 800 that I so narrowly missed last time.

Things to learn:

• Learn either Spanish or German.
• Learn to sight read music.
• Learn to play the piano.
• Learn one new programming language – Python, perhaps?

Cyclic things:

• One blog post a day, excepting a break a quarter.
• Read at least one book a week.
• Learn to cook one new dish a month.
• Build one new Lego robot a quarter.
• Teach the kitten one “trick” a quarter.

Travel:

• Go to Manila once.
• Go to Delhi once.
• Go to Chicago once.
• Go to San Francisco once.
• Go to New York at least twice.
• Plan a late-December 2008, early-January 2009 Eastern Europe tour.

Other things:

• Sell or otherwise halve the number of gadgets in my possession.
• Sort out all the clothes in my closet and give away what I don’t need.
• Finish reading every currently unread book in my library.
• Save at least 30% of my earnings each month; 50% preferable.
• Develop and use some way to manage parts of my life better.
• Develop a new backup system that requires less conscious thought.
• Start using at least two new FOSS applications on a daily basis.

Potential things:

• Investigate and possibly buy a car for not more than $5000 by July.
• Not owe any money on the car by December, if I do buy a car.
• Investigate a flying club.

That’s it for 2008. It seems like a lot, actually, now that I think about it, but one way or another – it shall be done!