Freeze…

… NOT you! The OTHERS.

That may give you a vision of some robbery/heist-comedy movie like this but here I’m talking about MS Research’s new endeavour with photos: Cliplets.

Look at this video to see what it does.

Cliplets Tutorial

Watching these tutorials is sort of crucial because the GUI itself is not so user-friendly i.e. self-explanatory (unless I guess you’re into non-trivial video editing) but once you watch these videos you will feel at the top of the world!

So who, in their sane minds, wouldn’t want to give this ‘app’ a try themselves? That’s what I thought, so I downloaded it and started to make a cliplet. But I was stuck at that point because I don’t have any good videos from which something even remotely interesting could be made.

After searching through 3-4 highly shaky videos, I settled on this one (the video below is no longer shaky because YouTube asked me if I wanted to stabilize the video and I agreed):

Pigeons at KTM

After 5 minutes of trying to choose a suitable portion in the video to animate (you can import only 10 seconds of a video into this app) and another 10 minutes to get the mask right, I finally had the following cliplet in my hands (metaphorically) to call my own! [Points or well-wishes or phone call(s) from me if you can figure out the animated interval of the cliplet correctly in the video above…]

Jam-packed

That’s what Sketchbook’s just-released 2 chapters are… Jam-packed with jocular situations! Though Sora doesn’t appear till the very end of the second chapter, other club members along with Minamo take a great jab at the job of delivering endless jokes!

Here are 3 sample strips from those 2 chapters (it was very hard picking these out of the equally hilarious other strips):

I wish I could take compliments as well as Juju Sasaki!

Hahaha… “that person!” This strip made my day!

Considering I now own a tripod too, this strip has hit more than one spot!

When my superpartner first read this strip, She thought Nagisa was trying to click some shots in the air. When I heard of that, I could hardly contain my contempt-filled-laughter and told Her so: “Sketchbook is not your cup of tea”!

She didn’t like that… She Really didn’t like that! So I thought I would give Her some space in this post to make up for my bragging (which I even do on my G+ profile). She says, “I particularly like this strip:

because it reminded me of the Engineering days, when students who were not part of any Club or Department were called something similar to the ‘Going Home Club’. The beauty of this strip is the expression in the last panel.”

Anyway, care for some more

JAM

Dandelions

It’s been a while since I posted anything about photography. So this is the perfect time to post something on that topic because I bought a tripod (this one) last week… even if (not) just to show my new tripod! Here’s me shooting a mirror image of myself with the camera stabilized on the tripod:

Let me show you one dandelion that survived the summer and made it to the fall. This one was in the lawn just outside my current apartment. I wanted to capture the silky / puffy nature of the cotton-like threads or to be more philosophical: the ‘fragility of existence’.

These two photos are shot in macro mode. And although the focus is not that sharp over the full whiteness of the head, I think they’re quite acceptable. At least I’ve accepted them!

These two shots were shot in iAuto mode where I set the Live Guide’s ‘Express Motions’ setting to the minimum at ‘Stop Motion’. So this setting basically does a freeze frame when the flower is rocking back & forth in the wind, which also explains the slight blurring in the photos shot in the macro mode above. But so what, I hear you say? These 2 shots are more interesting because the top shot is highly crisp at the center of the flower-head and the bottom one is crystal clear at its periphery. I guess that is because I messed up by being too close so that the focus area was small. This slight error in judgment made me wish I could have done ‘Focus Bracketing’ and then I could have stacked those photos such that the whole flower-head was crisp & crystal clear! That’s wishful thinking on so many levels (as in I don’t have any software that is able to do that, for starters) but most importantly because the camera’s battery ran out…

Power Outages

Real vs. Virtual

It’s sometimes unnerving to work as an offshore partner and when you visit a Real branch, you realize how far you are from the actual world and reading data is just a small part of the whole game. The customer representative asked me to show her my account details on one of the fancy screens she had in the branch. I saw people picking up the phones and directly contacting the call centre guys. The representatives could speak decent English and most importantly, knew whom to ask about the problems at hand.

The customer representative took me to the cabin of the Branch manager. He asked me why was I not primarily banking with them and shared some investment ideas he had for me. He laughed and giggled at the current Political affairs. I saw that he read Economic Times and was comfortable discussing his opinions. May be because I was sitting in the Branch Manager’s office that people served me with drinks (I realized that later). Something astonishing happened as I was planning to leave the room along with the representative. An old man walked in without permission, looked at the representative, gave a stare which meant something like “Get lost while I'm talking here” and announced to the manager ‘I have great news for you’. He talked about his selection as a health minister, how he stood second in the elections and how difficult it was fighting the cut-throat competition. The Branch manager was delighted, his face started glowing all of a sudden. He preferred ignoring us, the existing inhabitants of the room and continued the conversation with the old man. While they were talking, I noticed that there were a few awards given to the branch for their great service, for customer experience, for crossing 1000 crores in deposits, for being one of the best in a quarter, etc. I felt that the old man must be one of those ‘Big-shots’ as people call them here. I sneaked out and as expected, no one noticed.

May be he was the guy whom I like analyzing when he makes an entry into the dataset – huge Asset balance, some n-number of Savings and Current accounts, Investable balance greater than XX INR, attended by a relationship manager or an Independent Financial Advisory, Mortgages in the best parts of the country, a perfect Credit history, brilliant behaviour Score and high Lifetime Economic Profit. Maybe I should re-think about this incident when I get excited about studying them from next time.

The bank’s punch line means that they understand a customer’s world. In a way, I think they do!

Witty…

… or at wit’s end. The following two scribbles at YITP’s B&W-boards illustrate the two concepts in a fairly humorous manner:

And while we are here, let me inform you that QI’s 10^th series (Series J) has started and what a start with Victoria Coren as one of the panelists alongside Bill Bailey and Jimmy Carr. Well, this episode takes innuendos, minced oaths and rude/dirty/naughty words to a whole another level with VC getting visibly ‘irritated’ at least twice, Stephen Fry ‘facepalm-ing’ (is that even a word) himself more than that, BB & Alan Davies ‘indulging’ half-heartedly and JC having the most fun he has ever had on this show (as he himself confessed)!

To keep with the ‘witty’ theme, let me leave you with one of the most-uttered word in this series’ first QI episode with the intended meaning being the first one in the list of possible definitions:

ejaculate

Hilarity

Android marketplace offers a bunch of applications, most of which are free, at least the basic versions. Apart from the very popular Watsapp, the one that I’m currently amused with is the “very funny Talking-Tom”. It repeats whatever you say and reminds you of the neighbourhood parrot of your childhood. And there is the latest version of the same where the cat Tom tries to impress the cat Angela. As I look into the created videos, I see that Tom has the capability to perform the following: Gifting, Blinking, Poking, Falling, Regaining, Singing, Listening, Staring, Reacting, etc. Lets watch a few glimpses of these acts.

This is where Tom tries gifting something and faces unimaginable repercussions:

Gifts

This is where Tom tries to shower Angela with a flying kiss:

In the air

This is where Tom’s attempt at gifting is successful:

Success finally!

This is where Tom is trying to show chivalry:

Yoohoo

Can you guess what Tom is trying to say in the video? I’m not sure myself – though I was the one who recorded it … Well all I wanted to say was ‘You are so cute, appreciable, etc.’ and see Tom goofed it up!

This is where Tom and Angela are singing together:

Merry with Music

and these are the lyrics:

You get me and I get you,
Together there’s really nothing we can’t do,
I got your back and I got yours too,
You get me and am pretty sure that I get you.

This is where their eyes get locked:

Words unnecessary

Enjoy!

Happiness…

… is recognizing the fact that you’ve SuzuKaze Combo around you to cheer you up!

As always, here’s that page to compare the above sketches.

If you are sort of wondering why the two faces look so similar, let me remind you of this strip:

But still I think my sketch of Fuu is much better than Ryou’s because Ryou’s sketch feels a bit unbalanced… Anyway, they both look much better than some of my earlier sketches so I’m satisfied with the hours I spent. I’ll leave you with some random link on

Sketching

Essence

Second scanlation of Sketchbook’s Volume 8 has arrived and they don’t disappoint apart from typo(s) (once again). Here’s a corrected strip:

Sketchbook & Physics… Well, it’s just a mention of a name but exciting enough! As exciting as Nagisa being upset after accidentally dropping discharged & charged batteries (for her camera) and being unable to sort them out!

The title of this post is due to the following strip, where our most beloved Sora does what she does best – get shocked by her own thoughts:

This strip is the epitome of the simplicity that Sketchbook is so keen on demonstrating without being so relentlessly forceful about it! What the hell does that mean? No idea but it is supposed to mean something good about this manga.

Anyway, how can one miss our most least-appearing Ooba! By that definition, one can surely guess that her entry is not as entertaining as her exit:

Definitely, a brilliant exit… As brilliant as the famous Cartoon character uttering that unforgettable phrase:

Exit – Stage Left

Bitter-sweet

It is an oxymoron, a Great one and the following is what I could interpret of the lyrics after listening to the very wonderful song by Spencer Schmidt.

It is, kind of bittersweet,
Like the smile one would have,
When they know they've given it their all,
But the smile can't change,
The game has been lost,
That smile is the only thing you've got,
But it's enough, to move on.
And I could spend forever in your eyes,
I could spend forever here tonight,
And even if you never care for me,
I will share wish cherish every memory,
I spend with you.

It is, kind of bittersweet,
Like the fire-flies five lines previous,
And the fire-flies feeling felt right now,
Like if you heard, that a loved one had been lost,
But their last words were,
I know this is my time,
I am strong.
And I could spend forever in your eyes,
I could spend forever here tonight,
And even if you never care for me,
I will cherish every memory,
That I spend with you.
That I spend with you.

And I could spend forever in your eyes,
I could spend forever here tonight,
And even if you never care for me,
I will cherish every memory,
And though I know it's kind of bittersweet,
Sometimes we have to accept the feat defeat,
Then ensues the peace like falling snow,
Take a deep breath in and let it go,
I am free.
I am free.
And I could spend forever in your eyes.

And you might like to listen to it here.
Enjoy!!