Vaastu for websites???

Wow. Just wow.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/06/26/vaastu.web.sites.reut/index.html

It would be interesting to see what changes the websites make to confirm to vaastu. And how much of the changes actually makes the website more usable.

Personally, I think technology used in a tool or website or anywhere should be non obtrusive and work towards the objective, not be the objective by itself.

From the article:
"A Web site where the colors hurt your eyes, the music offends your ears or has too much information is probably too cluttered and does not give a positive flow of ch'i," says Vikram Narayan, a Mumbai-based feng shui practitioner.

Perfect. Call it whatever. Just remove the clutter.

Google tech talks.

If you're curious about the latest meteor findings in Antarctica or interested in high-end computing and scientific visualization at NASA or Opportunities For Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine or The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less do check
Google Tech talks

Movies & technology

Watched two movies - Cars (by Pixar) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Amazing how one can be so well made and the other - well less said the better. Cars. The animation. The story. The opening sequence just knocked me off .Recovering, I wore a big smile. That remained till the end of the movie and continued well after the movie. Ah. The after taste. The folks at Pixar have done an amazing job. The technology behind the movie was extremely well hidden behind the well crafted story. If this story was made into a regular movie it would have been a bit cheesy. But with cars as characters, it was brilliant. The movie is a perfect demontration of using techonogy to enhance a story. There was no attempt to show off technology or the effort that went into the making. In true Steve Jobs style, the movie was elegant, clean, smooth with cutting edge animation wrapped around a nice interface in the form of a well told story.

Tokyo drift. What were they thinking? You can watch someone drift once. Ok. Twice may be. But all through the movie? It is really stupid to use technology or technique as a center piece and then bend and twist a story around it. Looked like the director was trying to create scenes just to show cars drifting. Again and again and again. The people behind this movie should have their artistic license revoked.

Vacations

"We leave home tired; we come back exhausted."

That is from an article titled "Just Sit Back and Relax!" in The Time magazine talking about vacations in the US.

With a lot of my friends not too far from where I live, I have been spending a lot of weekends with them doing a lot of outdoor stuff. Like went skiing a couple of times, white water rafting, wine country tour, etc. This weekend, at the height of central California heat, we played tennis, went go karting, played basketball and then poker - all on the same day. Whenever visiting a place, it is very tempting to do as much as possible.

As the article alludes to, we work too hard towards relaxing. Yes I enjoyed every one of those weekends. I did lots of fun stuff I would probably not if not for my friends. Whenever we plan on a vacation, we invariably plan and try to do more than what could be realistically achieved, hoping to get more fun for the buck, only to end up tiring our self. And we try to call that vacation. Why do we do that?

A lot us like to beat the system by doing more in a shorter period of time - just like at work. We like to be efficient. But vacations are not work. They are not about efficiency, getting things done, checking things off a list. If you want to cover every attraction in NYC, don’t take a vacation. Go on a city exploration trip. Don't expect to come back charged. Expect to be exhausted.

That brings me to my favorite vacation spot - the city where I live. On a weekend, I am most relaxed at home or close to home. Not certainly the most enjoyable or fun filled weekend, but certainly the most relaxing. There is no pressure to visit a zillion places or do a million things. I can do as much or as little as I want.

Or better still, draw inspiration from Seinfeld and let our vacations be about nothing. It could be thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing, just like Seinfeld. But staying put, doing nothing could also sometime make us tired.