Hi, I'm Ramkumar Shankar.

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn’t become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we’ve ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

hughandcrye:

One of my favourite outtakes from the engagement! Also, a certain mister @ramkumarshankar looking pretty spiffy in his #hughandcrye #carnegie shirt! by vaidehi http://bit.ly/15Za9Su

Vaidehi wanted to do this since the moment we knew what we’d be wearing at the engagement. She thought the contrast between her traditional silk sari and my shirt and trousers would be amusing. She also wanted a funky pose to go with. That isn’t something I’m good at unfortunately, so she made her exasperation known. The fact I did manage a smile did not count for much.

The H&C shirts are great by the way (hat tip to Venki). I am now extremely frustrating to shirt salespersons everywhere.

I was talking to my cousin the other day, a girl of 10. At one point, she asked me if I cook at home here in Bangkok. I do but she didn’t believe me.

“I’ve never seen a boy cook. I’ve never seen a boy in the kitchen,” she said. There are many other chores she has never seen a man do at home - cleaning up after a meal, doing laundry or helping her with homework.

This makes me sad.

I just finished this book a couple of days ago. It’s great. Jim Holt takes the reader on an eye-opening tour, discussing the various answers that have been proposed to what he posits as the most essential question about this world: “why is there something rather than nothing?”

We typically tend to identify more with one of two possibilities - that there is a scientific explanation for the existence of the world, or that it exists because of a creator or god. What was especially interesting to me as I read this book is the realization that having to choose between these two sides is profoundly mistaken. Drawing from various philosophical. religious and scientific thinkers, Jim Holt tells us that, in fact, a large number of rather extraordinary explanations are possible and have been put forth for the existence of a world.

In these pages, you will read about faith, philosophy, mathematics, quantum physics and exercises in logic. It’s the equivalent of a satisfying mental workout. Throughout the book, he never fails to respect the people he talks to and their views, and behind his almost child-like inquisitive nature is humility - something we would all do well to emulate.

Doom metal is not something I listen to on a regular basis. But few genres have as much power to move. This is how Wikipedia describes doom metal:

Doom metal is an extreme form of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much “thicker” or “heavier” sound than other metal genres. Both the music and the lyrics intend to evoke a sense of despair, dread, and impending doom.

Paradise Lost is well-known for their stellar brand of doom, and later in their career, gothic metal. I first heard the band in the album “Symbol of Life”. This album, with its catchy electronic sound, is arguably the most removed stylistically from the rest of their work. Although the lyrics seldom stray from the dark pessimistic themes common to the genre, the experimental electronic music obfuscates the emotional weight the lyrics carry. But it was an accessible album, and a great entry point to the genre. And as I’d find out later, it was also not even close to what doom metal was capable of.

That happened when I listened to Katatonia’s “Dance of December Souls”. The sound was nothing I had heard before. It was incredible. I did not know such emotion was possible in music. There were sides to the human psyche that I did not know of, and feelings complex that their existence came as a bit of a surprise to me. Even today, nearly 20 years on, there are blasphemous songs, and there is Katatonia’s “Without God”.

Doom metal digs deep. It is exhausting music to be sure - ‘Velvet Thorns (of Drynwhyl)’ is not a song you simply sit down and listen to one fine sunny day. Doom metal is crushing. It’s the musical equivalent of having your spirit slowly drained from your veins. But there is incredible beauty as well. When it comes to conveying an emotion in its purest and most essential form, doom metal is unmatched.

The genre employs a slow, dense and calculated approach that is both measured and purposeful. According to a dictionary definition, depression is ‘a disorder marked by sadness…feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidical tendencies’. But there are many shades to depression. It can result in anger. Before giving up, you can try or not try at all. Doom metal understands that depression is complicated and it respects that. It explores these emotions, the road leading up to them and the spaces in between.

In some ways, doom metal is an exercise to express emotions that defy understanding. Wonderful things happen when this exercise succeeds. It is an attempt to answer questions that simply do not have answers. What can a parent who just lost their only child do to cope? How does one get to the point where they feel the only option left is suicide? The songs are lengthy, thick and dense. They are anything but accessible, but these feelings are never simple either. The music demands a willing and attentive listener to peel the layers back to get to a nebulous core. Condense these topics to a typical 4 minute song and it might be very moving. But more often than not, the emotion remains at the surface. There is certainly a point to be made for the heavy, drawn-out approach, for doing things the hard way.

Doom metal slowly but surely twists the knife. The melodies linger and take their time. The vocals can fall anywhere in the spectrum from morose dejection to maddening disdain and despair. As far as music goes, the genre can be very cathartic because it gives shape and form to emotions had as yet remained unexpressed. The lyrics can be exceedingly dark (My Dying Bride’s “The raven and the rose” comes to mind) and while they may not always be personally relevant, the stories reflect on the many forms of depression and continue to broaden my emotional vocabulary.

The official Transformers: Fall of Cybertron cinematic trailer.

Gorgeous. At least we have this, while Michael Bay takes the franchise down the drain with the movies.

Todd Alcott with a terrific analysis of the Avengers movie screenplay.

He has also been writing a multi-part take on The Dark Knight Rises screenplay over at his blog.

You’re supposed to post about them…somewhere. Most of the time, they add nothing to the conversation.

Insight and astute analysis doesn’t come from being first. As if being first means anything. When you’re first, you react. And when you react, the less you think. This struck me when I was listening to the Linux Action Show the other day. I figured it’d be interesting to hear what they might have to say about the Ubuntu phone OS. In short, they reacted to the news. They didn’t think about it. The same angles and stories kept repeating themselves all too often in the show.

This urge to react has made me tired and cynical. I see it mostly in tech punditry, but you find it elsewhere too. In the news. On twitter and facebook. You’re supposed to post about things. React.

In technology, I think about John Siracusa’s intelligent discussion of Microsoft in an episode of Hypercritical. The fact that he can talk about toasters and game controllers in just about the same way says a lot. Or Horace Dediu on product trajectories when comparing the iPad to the Kindle Fire. The lazy take would simply conclude that the iPad will fail because the Kindle Fire is cheaper.

Sadly, that latter story is the norm.

I guess my point here is you can’t just react to things. Bring some art to it. Thought. And passion. Because we really, really need that. Let’s have topics stay in our heads longer, and not spitball a reaction in the form of an unedited first draft.

Vaidehi got me the Apple TV as a birthday gift. I like it a lot so far.

As you’d expect, it works very, very well for movies and music. The picture quality is great. Vimeo, and its wonderful library of short films, is particularly enjoyable to watch from the couch. And that’s also because I tend to browse Vimeo, rather than use the search. YouTube is different. But since you can use an iOS device as a remote, typing really is a non-issue. I only had to enter my wifi password and Apple ID details during setup, before I got the remote app set up on my phone.

Talking about setup, it was a breeze. I’m using iTunes Match, all my music showed up ready to play on the device a few minutes after I enter my Apple ID. Unfortunately, my podcasts didn’t which was strange. That’s probably coming soon. But currently, Airplay doesn’t let them run in the background either.

Airplay is lovely though. When games take advantage of mirroring (like The Incident), the result can be a lot of fun. The choices for content on the Apple TV is quite limited, and Airplay helps a lot here. There are a couple of movies I’ve been meaning to watch but even within the iTunes store, the selection in this part of the world tends to be meager. Hope that improves and tv shows get here sooner too.

Regardless, since I am already invested in iTunes and iOS devices, it’s been well worth it for me.

I proposed. She said yes.

A few minutes into the first day of the new year, I was down on one knee with a bouquet of roses and holding a ring in my hand. On the table, there was a cake. The writing in chocolate read “marry me”.

I’d made a reservation at a rather fancy rooftop bar. During a visit to the place, I sat outside for a few minutes because I was shy to ask. I spoke to the manager to tell her of the plan, hoping that she would help me out. And she did by arranging a lovely bouquet of flowers and the cake.

Our not-so-surprise gifts were amusing. Vaidehi forgot hers in Singapore (duh!). And I couldn’t get my card ready in time (double duh!). That evening at home, we were both sitting at opposite ends of the living room writing our separate cards. The ring, we got that made together as well. So when she saw it, it wasn’t new to her.

Nonetheless, I’m glad with the way it all turned out. The flowers and cake were still unexpected, and I was very pleasantly surprised by the thought that had gone into the message she meant to convey, even if the accompanying gifts were back in Singapore. More importantly, we were both ready - no part of it felt like “we’re doing this because we have to.” We could laugh at our little mistakes leading up to the night, but make up for it with the knowledge that there was more to the message than the element of surprise alone.

Near midnight, people were gathered around our table near the edge of the rooftop bar to get a view of the fireworks. Moments before the cake and bouquet arrived (luckily for me, she was busy snapping pictures to notice them), I felt like I was up on stage. But in a funny case of missing the moment, everyone was too busy peering into their phone screens and camera viewfinders to notice what was happening right under their noses. So despite the crowd, we were alone.

I proposed. She said yes.

Earlier today, Canonical unveiled Ubuntu for phones. Not an entirely new operating system, but it’s an interface for Ubuntu that’s suited for smart phones. Because it runs the same Ubuntu underneath, it can double as a full pc when docked. There is a shorter one minute trailer too:

The most interesting bit for me is the phone interface. It’s also great to gradually see the various pieces that Ubuntu introduced on the desktop come together on the phone. I’m talking about things like indicators, the messaging menu, web app integration and the HUD. Some of these, like the web app integration, help give Ubuntu a leg up as it’s getting started - Ubuntu on phones can at least have some native-looking-but-not-native apps at the outset. This could be especially important to show those facebook and twitter icons in the launcher and fill in some checkboxes to get people to give the OS a chance, before native apps make their way to the store.

The interface looks clean and crisp, and it coheres with Ubuntu on the desktop. Lag is definitely something that will have to be fixed by the time the phone is released. Even today, lag in high-end Android phones continues to bug me. Back to the interface. There may very well be discoverability issues here, but I disagree that a purely gesture based interface is a loser from the outset. The iPad, despite the presence of a home button, is a great example of a gesture based interface that works. I hardly use the home button on my iPad. And I think the reason why it works is because it lets me form a spatial model in my head as I’m using the device - push the screen up with four fingers to reveal running apps. Pinching with five fingers to minimize the app and return to the home screen is also memorable - the animation of opening an app is the inverse of it.

Of course, creating such a purely gesture based interface (while keeping accessibility in mind) will admittedly require more thought on a device with a smaller screen, but they’re trying. If they can create a well thought out spatial model, the interface will fell less like keyboard shortcuts and such a comparison will be misplaced. Still, many questions around usability remain. And how do the edge swipes work in landscape mode? But let’s not write it off before we have used it.

I wish Canonical shipped more. That’s partly because I am excited and therefore impatient when it comes to this project. But we have also heard a lot about Ubuntu running on phones and tablets for some time now, with little to show for it. Ubuntu for Android, which to me remains an interesting hobby/experiment, still isn’t something that can be downloaded and installed on phones readily. And the Ubuntu phone OS has an even harder road ahead to market. But now we do have a glimpse of a how Canonical plans to bring Ubuntu and Unity to multiple devices and form factors. It’s looking pretty good to me.

(Hands-on videos at The Verge and Engadget)

I picked up this new Terra chips pack at the supermarket today. How they make such amazing chips I do not know.

The evolution of the Batman logo spanning over 72 years from 1940 to 2012.

This is great.

(via Dressed Like Machines)

thegodfounder:

Black Friday/being different: Everlane’s way of doing business today. None.

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This is what I saw when renewing my VPN subscription at WiTopia.

You are usually required to uncheck to unsubscribe. Or the wording of the label might suggest that you check the box to subscribe. WiTopia goes the other way. It’s an opt-out box and they check it for you.

A simple change that makes a big difference. And it also helps that I’ve had no problems at all with their service.

Much is made of metal’s fascination with and celebration of primeval nature. Nature in a most pristine form exists as the night sky, a night sky that everyone the world over can access. The sky is filled with beauty, and a range of entities, both strange and wondrous, inhabit the cosmos. Metal, as a celebration of nature, is one of few musical forms that have the ability to resonate with celestial wonders and astronomy as a pursuit. A number of objects in the universe both near and far push the boundaries of today’s knowledge and continue to have a hand in forever casting religion from the study of nature. These objects are perfectly suited to explore within the context of metal.

Incredible list. The sheer scale of what is out there in space boggles the mind.