Last Music Session at Houston !

Here are the videos of last music session at my apartment in Houston. Damn !!!  I miss my friends …

One more …

Dramatic Weather in Seattle…

I had heard that the Seattle weather is unpredictable, today experienced it…

Seattle Skyline

This is my attempt at shooting the beautiful Seattle skyline. Nikon D300S has performed really good even when I didn’t have great lens to back it up. It was windy night, so a little camera shake is present in the picture. The trees in the front initially seemed like an obstacle, but after much deliberation I decided to include them in the composition. It turned out to be a good decision.

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Sujit

Once in a blue moon !

This is my attempt at capturing the blue moon. It took me a while to get things right, but after couple of hours of fiddling I got what I wanted. I would have liked a mirror locking scheme, because of the wind and the shakiness of the platform, but decided against it. Since the moon was still near the horizon, you can see that beautiful natural reddish-brown tint clearly. Also, I would have been really benefited by some extra zoom, but didn’t wanna wait till another blue moon…:) 500px link:
http://goo.gl/5x1JE

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Sujit

Is India really so bad for Women?

This is a rant about this recent article in The Guardian. As an Indian, I feel ashamed and embarrassed of all these incidences. But we need to consider few things before defaming an entire nation because of the situation in few cities or states. In any civilization such demonic characters exists and we need to curb those with stricter laws and stronger punishments. After reading the article and reading some of the comments, I wondered, is really the country, that I grew up in, so bad for Women? There is a problem with collective reporting in journalism. Reporting all of such horrifying incidences collectively, it is bound to give you a very gloomy picture of the country. It seems to indicate that Indians approve of those acts and civilization’s attitude towards women is demeaning.

Points raised by the article about journalism and political systems are true. Yes, it is absolutely pathetic to see the issues raised by politicians and the way things have been handled by media. Visiting this website of India’s leading newspaper should give you an idea about disgraceful journalism.

Well India has its issues like population, corruption, weak judicial system, excessive religious influences, caste system, illiteracy, etc. With recent growth, India is facing growing wealth disparity, which is unleashing some of the worst characters of human nature on either sides. Despite all of this, India is bad for women, is the argument I refuse to accept. I agree that life in few cities and some states have degenerated drastically for women. But those places can still be regulated.

India is fighting a battle against old customs at the same time it is trying to adjust with ethics of 21st century. I would say India has made so much progress in last 60 years on both fronts than any other country. I am proud to say that Indian women enjoy equal rights, educational benefits, tax benefits, etc. There are so many policies to help women in social circles. I do accept that India can do much more than this.

I am generally a strong critic of my own country. But, I felt writing this rant because India’s impression made in this article is really false. Collective conscience of India as well as individual conscience of Indians does not approve any of such acts against women. These acts are as unacceptable and embarrassing for India as they are for any other country. Such behavior infuriates Indians as it does non-indians.

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Sujit

Google+, Focused or Confused?

This post started as a response to one of the posts on Google+ and developed into this rant. I don’t think Google understood the value of sharing until Facebook took off. Google is playing catch up game with Facebook as they are with iOS, Amazon Cloud, etc. Now, above it and around you can go forever debating, but facts remain. Steve Yegge’s rant probably was the best demonstration of how Google really viewed social concept and in general development plan of Google+. I personally like Google+ over Facebook, because I’m tired of baby pictures and Mafia wars. But also, I am tired of people on Google+ promoting Google+ and explaining how it is better than Facebook, because it is not. These days Google+ feels more like a cult, cult of people who hate Apple and Facebook and just loves stupid Android phones. It is just too much shit out there on Google+ as well lately.

Facebook has a clear goal of becoming your default personalized network, though they are struggling to make money out of it and in the process, making some dumb moves. Twitter wants to be your information sharing platform, like a news feed. But in both these case – and many others like, Quora, Pinterest, and Instagram – there is a single entity to be. Their goals are clear and they can put all there resources towards achieving those. I would like Google to stop running around chasing and focus on few simple goals, but start with defining those first. I am not sure what are those, they seem to want everything –

• Make Google+ ‘information feeding’ source for Google’s search engine.
• Make Google a socially rooted company, where everything revolves around sharing.
• Take on Facebook and be your personalized networking platform.
• Become social gaming platform?
• Become information sharing source like Twitter.
• Become the ad deliver platform, using shared personalized information.
• Or something else?

What I have seen so far, I believe Google is still stumbling in the dark, trying to figure out what to make of Google+. If they want to be successful, Google needs to stop playing this catch up game and think social in completely different way, the way Apple did with iPhone. Also, stop thinking about ads in every product and every feature they are developing. Larry needs to remind himself of the advice that Steve Jobs gave him - What are the five products you want to focus on? And apply that to the individual products as well and ask, What are the five things that he wants to focus on in Google+?

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Sujit

India – Photographer’s Paradise

I recently visited India after almost two years. Mostly, my  visit was about meeting friends and  family, still I was able to take out my camera on few occasions. There is so much activity in India, that almost any click has the potential to become a great picture. Here are few that I could click.