• Comics and moral signs

    Though many claim that most comic book – movie adaptations completely spoil the original work, I still find them fascinating, simply because of discovery. Many a time, I have realised that comics are an amazing representation of culture, whether it’s popular, alternate, counter or even imaginary (eg. different renditions of myths, accommodating the changing ethos), either overtly or through subtext. So they work like a time portal for me, giving me a vicarious experience of a different era. (just like some books, music, cooking, smells etc)

    I’d never have known about Watchmen if not for the movie. Since I don’t want to miss out on references and subtext, I always try to read up on the characters and original work before watching the movie. And that’s how I came across the concept of moral absolutism, while reading about Rorschach, an amazing character, made more so by a class performance by Jackie Earle Haley. Wikipedia defines moral absolutism as the ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of other contexts such as their consequences or the intentions behind them.

    I’ve wondered many a time about the concept, without knowing about the existence of a term, so it’s good to find it and read up more. With morality in a constant state of flux, who would be objective enough to give an absolute perspective, and would it matter at all? I guess not. So maybe, in some later rendition of Rorschach, his moral absolutism might shift to consequentialism, (holds that the morality of an act depends on the consequences or the context of the act) and a future reader would get a sense of how the times have changed.

    Late night. Red Signal. No vehicle or human in sight. Stop or Proceed? 🙂

    until next time, moral abdication

  • Dalma

    The Oriya cook is quite good, but the side-effect is that we kept shifting our ‘odyssey’ to Dalma, despite it being only a short walk away from home. Dalma specialises in Eastern India cuisine, and is located on the Intermediate Ring Road, at the junction with 8th Main. Zomato has the map as well as the menu. They have some parking in front of the restaurant, but that’s minimal. You should probably park on one of the side lanes nearby, especially if you have a 4 wheeler.

    Though it has a bright setting, comfortable seating and other such necessary ingredients necessary to make it a functional restaurant, there’s something about the place that  makes it a ‘home away from home’. I confess to not having any knowledge of Oriya homes, despite this boy and this girl being among my best buddies, but for those who’re familiar with the erstwhile “Ravi’s Kitchen”, perhaps you’ll get an idea. The smiling and helpful staff only add to this.

    We started with a Chicken Pakoda, which didn’t turn out great. It got the pakoda part right, but the bones spoiled the dish. For the main course, we ordered a Chicken Kasha with Luchis. The luchis were thicker and I felt it was better than the Bengali versions I’ve had. It also went very well with the thick chicken gravy. We also ordered a ‘Saguati Khechudi – Chicken’ and a fish fry. The former is a rice dish, reminiscent of the Biriyani, but only in basic form and the latter turned out to be Rohu, cooked very well. And then the real main course – Pahala Rasgulla, and Chhenapoda. I liked the former much more than the familiar sponge rasgullas and the latter, with its burnt crust and made from cottage cheese was also awesome!

    All of the above cost us just over Rs.450. A visit is highly recommended, for a simple yet different cuisine experience.

    Dalma, #37, 100ft Ring Road, Koramangala Ph: 41660921

  • Weekly Top 5

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  • Data beyond social

    A couple of weeks back, when I wrote about location based interactions, I’d said that the limits of my imagination prevent me from thinking of anything beyond brand ‘controlled’ interactive sensors in individual products as a way for non-retail brands to directly connect with their consumers – at the point of consumption.

    Thanks to RWW, I found this extremely interesting presentation which gives perspectives on the future of social media analysis and how brands will capture and use the data to increase business value – for itself and hopefully consumers too. I also remembered a McKinsey “Internet of things’ report from last year in this context.

    Augmented Research

    View more presentations from Face

    “social media is still viewed by many as just a tool rather than as an immersive environment.” Must admit I hadn’t thought about it that way. Meanwhile, there is indeed a lot of focus on the data we can get from social networks. But that’s only one source of data. There are many others too, including those which don’t even involve a consumer’s active communication. One look at the RFID wiki page will give you a perspective on the possibilities.

    If brands can take cognizance of the rapid advancements in technology, and work on how they can capture, analyse and apply data, then the contexts and ways they can interact with their consumers will substantially increase. Perhaps their dependency on existing communication platforms will decrease too, especially if they consciously build their own platforms. One old but still relevant example, which I have used earlier too, is Nike+, which uses popular social tools to augment the fundamental data capture.

    until next time, data entry barriers?

  • Running for eternity

    I must confess that I didn’t like Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays with Morrie” as much as his other book “The Five People you meet in heaven“, but writing anything negative about a non-fiction book such as this is not in good taste, so I refrained from doing a review. I also think that it is not so much a bad book and this takeout is more to do with my evolution than the writing or the concept itself.

    The good thing though is that it does have quite a few nuggets that you can chew on for quite some time. 🙂 This is my attempt to thread together a few. To be precise, three of my favourites.

    At least a couple of times in the second half, Morrie talks about how people run after the next house, vacation, car, job etc because they think that this will grant them the elusive ‘meaning, and how our culture has ‘forced’ people to feel threatened when they stand to lose their materialistic gains. This is what makes money God, and them mean. This is, of course, completely debatable, but I brought this up only for context. It led me to think that how, in infancy and in old age (from several instances I have seen, read about) and perhaps sickness, we are more concerned with needs, and at all times in between, it moves towards wants.

    On a tangent, I remembered the ‘proof of good times’ thought that I’d shared earlier, more than a year back, in ‘Progress Report‘, and how we capture images and notes, sometimes for ourselves, and sometimes for others. Ourselves, for memories, and perhaps posterity, and others, because, I thought ubiquitous social connectivity is perhaps making us inadvertently live a life we want to portray to others. I discovered a nice usage in the book that connected to this thought of eternity attempts “And tapes, like photographs and videos are a desperate attempt to steal something from death’s suitcase“.

    And while on posterity and eternity, the last one, a quote from Henry Adams “A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops”. I think, in that sense, every being is a teacher, and thus lives on.

    until next time, wednesdays with manuscrypts, okay? 😉