Moving on

I really don't know how you are here. Really. You never came when i was here and not doing anything and now I've moved on to brijeshtripathi.com/blog - probably I'll continue not doing anything there too (and pay for that).

anyhow, without babbling much, I'd end this post right here.

See you on the otherside

Transit of venus - June 6, 2012 - watch it upclose

So I just, through a tweet, got to this blogpost which explains step by step instructions to watch this phenomenon using binoculars.

Interesting - now only if I can spare some time, this looks like a good DIY project - it's not time consuming at all - to get to make this contraption.

What's this astronomical event? Well, go here for more info (again taken from Ian Musgrave's blog)

What, you don't have binoculars? Go get them - may I suggest playgroundonline.com for that - decent price ( at about 2k you can buy the one I bought a few weeks back - solognac 200) - will put the link later. Gotta go right now #ShutterDown, @dukaan band

Go go - you can also click some pics (says Ian's post) - let's see if I get to do that. If I do, you know where to find them ( hell, I need to stop talking to myself -- sometimes it's like no one's here and I'm still ranting about it - something like Google +)

Lanka - Bollywood movie

Saw the movie a few days back on YouTube - worth a watch if you ask me. If only for Manoj Bajpai. Story was more or less predictable but turned out to be different than what I'd thought, so yeah, not really as predictable.

There are new-comers Arjan Bajwa & Tia Bajpai in the movie (wikipedia tells me that she was the finalist of reality show sa re ga ma pa) - and naah, as I incorrectly thought, doesn't seem to have any relation with Manoj Bajpai.


Both have acted fairly well and look good on screen, Manoj Bajpai however, steals the show.

Then there's Yashpal Sharma (the Gangajal guy, besides his many other movies) and he is as good as always.




As you would gather after hearing the storyline, the name of the movie points to a story of a girl who is held captive by a gangster in a small town in UP - Bijnaur, and yearns for some saviour to rescue her from this Lanka.

 Sad part is that she has no 'Ram' to do that, 'Vibhishan' will have to come to the rescue. It really doesn't make sense the way I'm pitting it and yeah, that's not exactly the plot to be precise.

 
Go watch it, it's there on YouTube - here's the link

You already saw it? How did you find the movie?

the new iPad in India - launch & price

Okay, so the wait is finally over.

The new iPad (gasp, the revolutionary resolutionary Tablet) is finally here in India. Ok not yet, but by tomorrrow, it's here in India.

Good news is that it is here so soon, in about 40 days, after its global launch on March 16th, 2012 [this is like the fastest product to be launched in India after its global launch]

Man, really looking forward to it.

Ah, the bad news (or rather not so good news) is that it starts at INR 30,500/-, which is the base model - 16GB wi-fi only.

But you would do better to buy a 3G version (ummm, no 4G here in India, although I'd heard of rumours that 4G service has been tested/made live in Kolkata), which starts at INR 38,900/- for the 16 GB model.

Also, the iPad 2 costs have been cut and starts at INR 24,500/-for the 16GB model.

and frankly if you don't have an iPad (1 or 2), you would not really make out the great difference in resolution on the new iPad but if you do, then it's going to be really tough. The difference is same as between iPhone 3G/3GS and iPhone 4/4S - retina display (or as @vineetbhatnagar says, lickable display)

Retina display, some people wonder as and "is it just that it is better resolution, is that it?"

Well, yes, that's it!

And that's a lot - you have not seen anything as sharp or as fine as it.

To really get the essence of retina display - you need to see it. I saw it on the iPhone and trust me, no other phone display has ever looked as good till date. Now I see pixels everywhere - even on the computer!

So it's just about looking good, is it?

Well, yes - and that is remarkable.

oh, it's awesome and once you start using the retina display, everything else, even the devices that seemed so normal earlier (iPad 1/2, iPhone 3G/3GS) will look all pixelated. 

Retina display is seriously resolutionary - go for it. If you have any questions, shoot them at the comments.

Be warned though, once you lay your hands on it, it will be very difficult to stay away from it.

Darn, and just now @neosthrash tweeted that it's been postponed to 30th April...will be able to tell tomorrow only!

HDR on iOS

High Dynamic Range photographs - Simply put what it does is take a couple of photos, one under-exposed, one over-exposed and lay them on each other.

The effect, for some photographs, can be remarkable. The amazing part is that you have to do nothing extra, or as Steve would say, nothing new to learn. Just click and get that better picture.

Here are some examples, which, while may not be the best, do showcase the capabilities of HDR photography.

The normal picture, without HDR - looks fine (click on the photo for bigger version and toggle between the HDR & non-HDR versions):

Until you see this, HDR photo:

Another similar example, non-HDR photo:

The HDR version below 

A slightly different example, the non-HDR photo:

The HDR version of same photo:

Now for some moments (and i'll just show one note really that uncool example) when HDR may not be a good choice - movement - remember, it takes multiple photographs, of the same picture?

naturally, if there is movement in those multiple pics, the stitching of those different photographs is not really going to be beautiful (artistic in some cases, yes)

So, here's the normal one:

 and now for the HDR one, the birds are visible in this one (yeah, you can't see them on the Non-HDR one), but Sekhon's feet, they blur out.:

Just in case you are wondering where the pics are from, it's Lodhi garden in New Delhi.