Aainaism

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated “if GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has,we would all be driving $2500.00 cars that got 100 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought “CarNT”, but then you would have to buy more seats.
6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would only run on five percent of the roads.
7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “General Protection Fault” warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.
9. The airbag system would ask “are you sure?” before deploying.
10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (Now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the cars performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Dept.
12. Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
13. You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

LOL, now THAT’s a witty response!

I enjoy logging on to Apple’s website once in a while and checking out the new ads they have. I love the attitude of these ads. They make a point apart from being funny and not to mention, witty. But there’s another side to these ads as well. It bothers me that Apple advertises it’s product by putting down it’s competitor, Microsoft. I mean, the ads are great but Apple can always advertise about how wonderful it is rather than telling people how bad their competitor is. Just a thought.

Here’s a cartoon I found based on Apple ads:

There’s a movie coming out (I don’t know when) called No Smoking. The director, Anurag Kashyap had a contest for a poster design for No Smoking back in December of 2006. I submitted three designs. We were told that the winner of the contest will be announced in February but it’s June now and there’s no response. I didn’t really mind that because directors and film makers have a ton of stuff to do, so, they must have been busy with something else. But I was furious when I saw that one of my concepts had been modified into something a little different and put on a poster for the movie and the poster was displayed at a conference. There were no credits or anything. I think that’s very unprofessional of the people that are related to this contest. I posted a comment on Anurag Kashyap’s blog. I don’t know how long it’ll stay there but here’s what I wrote:

“Hi Anurag

Let me first congratulate you on wrapping up your movie, No Smoking. I am one of the contestants of the contest you had on your blog for the poster of No Smoking. We were told that we would get a response saying who the winner is sometime in February but that, obviously, didn’t happen. I am very disappointed in the amount of professionalism that you showed towards this so-called poster contest. Not only did you not announce who the winner is but also went ahead and used one of my concepts for a poster design at a conference. I believe that your contest is a great platform for you to get a whole bunch of talented people to submit their brilliant designs and then rip them off and use them without giving the designer any credit. Very disappointing!”

Here’s my design and below it is the ripped off design (Also notice that the fonts are the same):

Here’s the reply that I got from Anurag: “hey aaina, the winners will be announced soon.. after the release date is locked.. seriously didn’t know your concept was ripped off..the conference poster was done overnight without any consultation by rahul nanda.. if your allegation is true , will rip him apart.. this can’t be happening.. will just get on to it.. and you can claim it.. write me a mail on the poster contest post, with reference to your entry number and i will take him to task.. serious apologies..” AND “AAINA_i am sorry, i saw your three designs.. i can’t see where it is ripped off.. is there something that you see and i don’t..”

So, here’s the deal: media has been way out of proportion lately as far as the Indian film industry is concerned. There are so many “journalists” (the quotation marks are to emphasis the fact that a lot of people today claim to be journalists when they know nothing about the media or its ethics) that constantly come up with news that is nowhere close to being true. Reporters from different magazines, newspaper or television channels come up with untrue news stories because they want their particular magazine/newspaper or channel to be number one and that pursuit gives rise to a bunch of false allegations or link-ups.

There have been reports about how John Abraham and Bipasha Basu are going to end their relationship soon. Where did this news originate from? Just because a “source” told some “journalist” that John and Bipasha haven’t been able to talk on the phone because of their hectic schedules doesn’t mean that they’re breaking up. All it means is that they have been busy of late. The media looks into everything too much, which ends up in a blown up controversy. Channels and newspapers even went on to saying that Bipasha is dating Saif Ali Khan, for the mere reason that he’s single and John is dating some model that he’s working with. This is what John had to say about this news: “All is fine between us. I wish people would let us preserve the sanctity of our relationship.” And Bipasha’s reaction: “Let them say what they want. I love only John, and no one else.” I think some “journalists” should relearn some of the ethics and rules of journalism. A reporter must and I repeat, must gather real sources and at least three of them, to prove his/her point. It’s a shame that the media these days is so loose about having any sources backing up what it reports. It’s up to the so-called journalists to have or not have a quote in their articles and even if they do have a quote, it’s from “a reliable source” who “chooses to be anonymous.” How do I even know there is a source?

The latest buzz all over the internet/newspapers and channels was that Rani Mukherjee and Aditya Chopra are engaged to each other. There were all kinds of stories about how Rani is the reason behind Aditya’s divorce with his ex-wife Payal and how his mom is not happy with Aditya and Rani’s relationship. The media even went on to claiming that Yash Chopra had asked Aditya Chopra to “move out of the business.” After one day of all this, the media reports the next day that what seemed like Rani and Aditya’s engagement was only a scene being shot for a Yash Raj movie, Laga Chunari Mein Dag. How ridiculous is that? I would assume that before reporting a big news such as this one, the “journalists” would have at least checked if it was true or not. But it seems like being on top means more to them than coming out with the truth. But isn’t that supposedly the media’s job? To come out with the truth and the real truth. Rumors and gossips should be left for the saas bahu serials.

The media is getting less reliable as the days pass and it reports news without even checking the authenticity of it.  Is media to be believed? I mean, tomorrow they will report that a certain actor has killed himself (and it has happened before) and two days later they’ll say that they were just kidding. I don’t think that’s media in its real sense and I hope that this will change in the days/months or years to come. Hope is what the world lives on, right?