Egypt Soccer riots: One more reason not to like Football

Riot during a local match in Egypt is responsible for the death of 74 people with as many as 1000 injured badly.
I often come across discussions where people not into football are considered lame. Or people like us who prefer Cricket over Football are always suggested to grow up and start loving real game like Football and give up Cricket.

The reason most of the time given is unlike Cricket, Football is a fast and exciting game that finishes in a small period of 90 minutes. In comparison it is said that cricket is a lazy game that take up your whole day's time which results in most of the working people working less and concentrating more on the match.

There might be some sense in the reasons given to show how Cricket is not as awesome as Football, but I still feel, Football is a worse game than Cricket.

It is said that Football is a fast game full of excitement. I don't agree. Frankly speaking how many events are worth watching in a football match?
a perfect field goal, a fantastic free hit,  a good save by goal keeper, nice tactics and passes among players etc.
But how much of time these events take up in 90 minutes match? Hardly 5 mins. For rest of the 85 mins actually nothing happens. Goal keeper hits a ball to some player. He hits it to other then third person. The moment somebody come to defend, ball through different passes returns to the goal keeper. If by chance some team scores a goal, then that team surely spends time trying to keep the control of the ball by this method. Most of the matches end up in score 0 - 0 or they are too one sided to enjoy them. And if it is an important decision making match, it will 98% of the time ends in penalty shoot out.
I remember I had started following football way back around 92's and 96's. There were some world cup matches. I remained awake for all the night to watch some of the quarters, semis, finals that used to start sometime around 2.00 AM. To the best of my memory, I do not remember any match where any team scored a single goal. All matches used to end in penalty shoot out. And there hardly were any moments that make you feel excited. May be it was a very odd time to watch a match or I don't find it very exciting if players lazily keep passing ball between themselves, but I decided I am done with watching Football.
Inspite of that last year I decided to give it a try to France-South Africa match  in world cup, 2010. I was in Paris and went with my friends in my Institute's cafeteria to watch the match along with all the students crowded to watch the match on big, wall size screen. The mood was there, people were there, but the match was too pathetic. I went to support France, but by the half time, S. Africa had scored 2 easy goals. People lost interest and after the half time there was hardly any crowd left to watch the match, so the channel was changed to some rock music channel.
 If compared to Cricket, it has three versions. Depending on their taste, fans can select their version of cricket and watch. Unlike earlier days, now even the test cricket are result oriented. Every ball can be an interesting event. Their could be 20 fantastic balls converted into wickets. Forget sixs, even a well guided boundary or a good defending shot earns a "WOW" from fans. The swinging ball, bouncers, Shane Warne's special 90° spins takes your breathe away. In addition fielding nowadays have added extra bits to make the the game more interesting. Since Jonty Rhodes era, when you watch a great catch, or a run out or a good dive to stop a boundary, you wait for a minute to munch on those pop-corns  in your hand.

Cricket might appear lazy apparently but its every ball could be equally exciting unlike the hopeless passes in football.
When you follow football, you have to spend entire 90 mins to watch the match because there hardly are any events in the match and if you miss those then there is nothing left in football. In contrast, cricket is so much eventful that depending on your taste and available time you can decide which part of the match can be skipped and which one is must watch. Those who only like hard hitting can check the beginning and the end of the inning while those who like the technical shots and good running converting ones into twos can watch intermediate overs. But sure enough every and any ball can turn the mood of the match.

We can compare the two games on many more aspects, but one aspect I want to highlight here, is the associated riot-like situation with the respective games. While riots among fans is a very common  thing with soccer, similar situations are hardly heard of in case of Cricket. I understand  that people are passionate about their team, but kind of brutality you come across during these riots are really scary.
I happened to watch some videos on youtube of riots that took place during a local match in Argentina. That totally pulled me out of this game. Now I don't really care how fantastic Beckhams free hit looks. No wonder, the players of the Egyptian local club immediately decided to retire from the game after the incidence.
I stay near a football where european football leagues matches take place quite regularly. I decided to watch one of those, but I was suggested to stay away from going to the stadium which is hardly 10 mins walk from my place. And I realised why on the day of the match, when it was a total chaos and I for the first time saw the city's riot control police  marching right from the corner of my house to the stadium.

Talking of cricket, there might some incidences, but except for one that happened in 1996 semifinals in Calcutta, I struggle to remember any incidence that marks black spot on this game's history. And most of the time it is viewers who are upset with their teams  who burn lights and their hardly are clashes between the fans of the rival team. Atleast I am yet to hear of it. Imagine if the Egypt's soccer ground would have been as big enough as Eden Gardens with a capacity of over 100000 people at a time, the death would have crossed 1000's.

It feels great to play football, but its much more pleasure to play cricket. Same holds while following these games. One thing is for sure, now nobody should suggest that Football is awesome. My answer: No thank you, feel sorry for such awesomeness.

Agneepath and Chikni Chameli

Remake of Agneepath is released.
Haven't yet watched the movie. But I have good feeling for the movie and expecting that it is atleast one time watch. Well the reviews aren't that bad.

 

I am no great fan of old Agneepath. Hardly remember the movie as a whole. Only thing that I remember about it is the way Amitabh said "Vijay Deenanath Chauhan, Haai".
Rest I was not even impressed by Amitabh in it. His overall getup in the movie did not matched the image of Amitabh I had in my mind at that time .
 Further the voice was horrible. One thing I liked till then about Amitabh was his dialogue delivery and voice quality. Both  were absent from the movie.

Recently I heard a joke: If the director so desperately wanted that kind of voice in Agneepath, he should have taken Rani Mukherjee and not Amitabh.I just wondered when I read Amitabh received National Award for that role.  I don't even remember the female cast in the movie forget talking about heir acting.



Rohini Hattangadi playing Vijay's mother reminded me of her role as Kasturba Gandhi in the movie "Gandhi".

 

I know Danny normally play villian well in his movies. But hardly remember his Kancha china in Agneepath


Coming to new version of Agneepath, most promising thing I found about it is Sanjay Dutt's get up. He looks scary, hope he has acted well enough to make one feel scary.

Another interesting piece is Rishi Kapoor's role. I am expecting some good shades of villianness in his role.

Overall Hrithik Roshan appears good. He looks angry, but is he angry enough?
Action sequence or the environment and sound track during Ganapati procession did make an impression while watching the trailor.
I hope Hrithik has worked on his dialogue delievery which otherwise I don't find effective. I am just wondering and curious how spelled the magic words "Vijay Deenanath Chauhan" . Did he add "Haai" in the end like Amitabh.

Fortunate that there is no counter role of Mithun or Neelam in this version.

I heard a lot about "Chikni Chameli". Today checked the song on Youtube. But it was a total disappointment. Its just the same marathi famous song "Kombdi Palali"!  There is no fun in listening this song, infact it is lot troubling to ears since we already have  enjoyed "Kombdi Palali".

It was a total appointment. Plus I just wondered why Hrithik is so angry while listening to Katrina singing "Chikni Chameli". I guess even he did not liked how she brutely dissected the famous "Kombdi Palali" ending up with hopeless "Chikni Chameli".

Except for this song, I am really looking forward to this new version of Agneepath.

KODAK AD that flashed few years back

In continuation to previous post about KODAK, I found this photo someone forwarded to me few years back. Just thought to share. Found it hilarious then.

Eastman Kodak Filing for Bankruptcy: End of an era?

Don't remember when exactly did I come across the term "photography".
My initial encounter with this concept connects to the mention of my father taking some photography courses. But I never witnessed him actually doing it because by the time I grew up to understand it, our camera was broken and all his notes were dumped in some corner of the storage.
When I met my friends Nitin and Aamod in college, I was included in their gang of five(Aamod,Anup,Abhijeet,Nitin and Rahul), to make it six who loved to go wander aimlessely in the old forts in Sahyadri. None of us I believe was rich enough then to carry a camera of his own. Many of our talks then revolved around photography. I was usually the listener being totally newbee to the concept of photography while others used to share their expert views full of words like angle, aperture, lens and what not.

One day I came across an advertisement by Kodak that informed about the chepaest camera available KODAK KB10.

This surely was in my range of purchase capacity. I discussed this with my expert friends who were already aware of the ad but not interested since it offered no features other than just clicking the photo. But that was not the case with me. My intention was just to create memories of what ever wild adventures we do and may be also sometimes use it to capture some family function moments.
So, one day I brought KB10 home.For me it was a great experience. With no previous camera handling experience and vision, I learnt a lot about angles and light effect, since those were the only options available to change.During the expeditions, my freinds also handled the camera and guided me on making a picture better. My friend Nitin even showed how a panoramic photo can be created out of simple photos taken from KB10, which was a realization for me.I was impressed with the quality of the picture and overall performance of KB10. I never wasted even a single day to develop the role as soon as they finished.
One technical problem I always encountered was how to put the new role in the camera. Initially the shop keeper installed it while buying the camera. But later on every time I had to put new role, I had to run for my friends help. They everytime taught me how to do that with all the associated technical information and also non technical loopholes.
I followed their advice and many a times successfully installed the role, but it was never a confident attempt like my friends and I always had to pray to turn it into successful attempt. I must add the "God of Photography" surely heard my prayer everytime. But even till today I remain confused on how  to install role in camera.
Over the years, lot of water has passed under the bridge. I moved on from KB10 to Canon powershot A460 to Canon SX1S now.



These new digital cameras have a lot of functions and options to offer. I try my best to make use of them. My expert friends also finally have their high end SLR cameras with variety of lenses in their pockets.They regularly try to literate me with the technicalities and advantages of SLR camera over my camera which I sincerely listen and try to understand but always end up with some confusion.

Using these added advanteges of my freind's SLR or new options in my camera, our snaps might have improvised 100 times, but lessons I learnt on KB10 on angles and light arrangement still helps me to make a strong base for a good picture.

Over a period of 131 years, KODAK helped people like me to capture moments worth cherishing in their lives. Today, KODAK has filed for Bankruptcy, struggling to keep its name alive. It surely feels sad for a company with so big and wonderful history. I wish KODAK succeeds in its attempts and regain its position among people.

Happy New Year

Wish you all a Very Happy New Year

Recreating the Big Bang: For an Evidence of God Particle

                Its some time since words like "Higgs Boson", "God Particle", "Large Hadron Collider" are falling on our ears. It automatically generates curiosity in anybody's mind. Now, the recent news is that the search for this "God Particle" is almost over and the scientists working on it for last so many years will come out of those deep tunnels to reveal its existence or absence.

The story associated with these experiments goes as follows:

               Long back some time around 1964, a bunch of scientists including Peter Higgs were banging their heads to understand from where the hell all the sub-atomic particles like protons, electrons, neutrons get their masses.

               It was suggested that, after the Big Bang, the space was contained by an invisible field called "Higgs field". Every particle in our universe "swims" through this Higgs field. Any individual particle will experience a drag because of this field which can be referred to as a mass of the particle. The strength of this drag vary from particle to particle. As a result, some particles are heavier in nature than others. There are exceptions where the particles like "photon" do not interact with the Higgs field. Such particles experience a state of no mass. Hence, they are travel at such high speed. In absence of Higgs field, all particles will experience state of no mass and should travel with the speed of light.

              It is not possible to verify the presence of the Higgs field. So, for a better understanding of how the field interacts with the particles and impart them with their masses, it has been considered that there must be a particle present in this field which acts as a "mediator" responsible for transferring the force from the field on to all the particles. These force transferring particles which act as a "mediator" were termed “Higgs Boson” or more recently known by term "God particle". These particles gain their mass from the Higgs field and on interation with other particles imparts them their respective masses. The Higgs Bosons are like the dense spots in the field with heavy masses which are very unstable and readily decay into particles with relatively lower mass like protons.

             Apparently the "Higgs Boson" has heavy mass around 100 to 200 times the mass of proton and so unstable in nature and immediately gets converted into other sub atomic particles like protons, electrons or neutrons. Till date we have experimental evidence for all other known sub-atomic particles but the " Higgs Boson" still exist in theory.

            Scientists have been working to come up with an experimental evidence of "Higgs Boson". Its discovery could help to reveal many secrets associated with the origin of the universe in the context that associates with the mass and so matter.

           The experiment to prove existence of "God Particle" involves a set up called "Large Hadron Collider". It consists of a circular tunnel buried inside the earth with a circumference of 17 miles extended under the Swiss-French border. Two beams of protons are triggered in opposite directions through the tubes of this tunnel. At a calculated meeting point in the tunnel, these beams will smash into each other at a speed as close as possible to the speed of the light. 

 

           Scientists are predicting that this collision between proton beams will ultimately produce "Higgs Boson". These "Higgs Boson" will be very unstable and will immediately decay into stable, lower mass particles. Scientists study these decay process and the products to infer the existence of the "Higgs Boson". A spike in the graph may also be recorded to prove its existence which requires the detectors capable of detecting particles with a lifetime of a millionth of a billionth of a second.

          The two groups working separately on different such detectors ATLAS and CMS apparently have recorded such bumps in their recordings. But there is a lot still to be done to declare it as a discovery and avoid a situation where the recorded peaks may be a matter of chance and not a real effect. In spite, the search of "God particle" has reached a point where people will start openly discussing its artifact and not just its existence.

  The LHC representation and the information shared were taken from following links: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8947263/Science-world-awaits-Cern-announcement-on-Higgs-boson.html 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/8952584/Q-and-A-Higgs-boson.html

About the righteousness of the Hazare movement

I came across a discussion on Lokpal and how good and right is agitation by Anna Hazare.
Some claimed that people are following him blindly without being aware of the issues in it. It was also claimed that Anna's movement is hocus and more on the lines of blackmailing the government. I participated in the discussion putting down these points:

Why people want to discuss pros and cons of "Lokpal Bill"?
Because everybody know this word "Lokpal bill".
Can anybody tell five other bills which have been passed in Indian Parliament in last one year and what are pros and cons of those? I doubt anybody can! Atleast I do not know.
        This is the contribution of Anna Hazare. Because of him and his agitation, almost every Indian is today aware of this bill. They might be not knowing the pros and cons completely but simply the knowledge enough of its existence is itself a big difference in India. Its different when a common man who otherwise don't really care, is actively trying to understand a bill.
        This also has brought awareness about corruption. Two years back, the discussion about corruption used to revolve around the negative thought " India is very corrupt,Nothing can happen". So Anna Hazare brought this change, we are now trying to move away from this negative thought.

       Questioning the credibility of Anna Hazare is something I would avoid. This guy has lots of good deeds in his pocket. He was partly resoponsible for the RTI act which played crucial role in bringing out all the present famous scams we here everyday.Not to mention he first uses all the legally allowed methods to make his point.

       I don't think hunger strike is a way of black mail. It is a way of quiet protest. It will appear strong for two reasons: your reason has to be worthy enough for people to consider it and you should be strong enough to pull it on.
otherwise: nobody would care even if you die.
      There is a lady in Manipur on hunger strike for last 10 yrs. How many people in "India" were aware of  her name and the reason behind it and why nobody feels blackmailed because of her strike. (because she is not a significant figure and nobody really cares for the eastern states of India and their problems.)

      For an instant, even if we consider it as a kind of blackmail, I would say it is a better way. because it gives you time to think and take actions and most of the time it ends with some futuristic propositions of considering the demands.Realizing that the bill is under discussion since some time around 1963, are 50 yrs not a long time even by Indian standards to make a decision and worth blackmailing?

      Looking at the incidence that happened few days back with Sharad Pawar, Are we waiting for a kind of Blackmail where somebody holds all the MPs on gunpoint saying "OK, you do it now or you are dead"

      I prefer to go with Anna Hazare, and I don't see a real need to dig in deep for all the pros and cons of the bill because what all I know about lokpal is a lot more information than I know about any other bill passed till date.