I propose an “I <3 Chennai” campaign of sorts…

So much has been talked, analyzed, argued and debated about Lonely Planet and its fiasco of screwing around with biased and subjective review of Chennai. All said and done, the fact remains that neither have they responded in a positive manner, nor is the general perception of “Chennai is toned down, small set of villages with nothing much to see or it has to offer” sort of opinion go away.

Some of the participants commenting mentioned about not having the campaign or the marketing spin that other cities have like for example Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai etc., So here is an idea. Why not do some marketing for Chennai? No, im not talking about huge billboards or events. I’m sure we do not have the resources or time for it.

Why cant we simply have T-Shirt campaigns? Something like “Stay Away: Karpagambal Filter Kaapi Addict” sort of slogans on T-Shirts? I’m sure if we can afford good designs, they will get copied and get spread far and wide around the city. Lets open it up to everyone. Lets walk wearing such stuff on Photowalk. Lets wear it at events like Madras Week, Sangamam and so on.

We can have mugs, Stickers on Bikes, Wallpapers on PC’s, Notebook Skins etc., These are things one can make in their spare time and easily get done with it with very little money.

What say? I don’t wanna say much. I would just like to open the Comment stream for opinions and ideas.

The Safe Road’s Awareness Project

I thought i would write what we discussed today so that we can stay on the same page. The Safe Road’s awareness project is all about one thing. Making people realize the importance of safe and quality roads. Roads are a critical component of our public infrastructure. Roads are fundamental to our everyday survival. No matter who is in power, what government is ruling, the requirement of safe and usable roads is a fundamental need.

Sadly, as far as Chennai is concerned we have seen our roads deteriorate big time, especially post the last rainy season due to the floods. What’s more ironic is the effort that we see from the government body(s) to repair and restore such roads which is hardly visible.

Even if roads are repaired the quality of the repair is so bad that it makes little difference. An apt example would be the brand new road leading to NIFT and IT Expressway from Ascendas. The road has been laid recently but its not flat, there are so many variations on the levelness of this road and major drainage lines which are risen above the road level and the new tar laid over it to accommodate it leading to a huge hump like a mountain that is dangerous when driving in the night, since streetlights don’t work consistently here.

So what can we as small timer citizens do about this? Well, for once we can get our act together and make people vote. We can highlight this issue to everyone on the roads and make them approach their zonal/ward office to lodge a complaint about the poor quality of roads. We need to capture the attention of the common man to make him act.

So how can this be done? The idea is simple but is not without risks:-

1. Get a can of red paint/paint spray.
2. Spray a circle around potholes, road problems, ditches, uncovered manholes, illegal speed breaker… you name it.
3. Take a picture of this.
4. Have an exhibition of these images.

The red paint will get people to notice the problem. It acts as  deterrent and people can stay away from potholes and other problems on the road. Flyers can be handed out to educate people on what they can do, where they can lodge a complaint, when we paint the roads.

Sounds as easy as it may, as good as our intentions are it is not without problems we can do this. The law may find the red circles as a nuisance issue. More importantly, this may bruise the ego of politicians/govt. which may lead to potential issues/problems.

No process is without its risk, change does not come easy. Our forefathers died in the process of getting us freedom from the British. I think its just to say we can risk being yelled at or be questioned for mischief if we can change our roads, make them safe and create awareness.

We will have a meeting to discuss this on the coming Saturday 21st of march, 2009 at "The Madras Terrace House" at 6 PM.

Fantastic TED 2009 Speech

Here are two TED speeches i loved the most. The first one is by Sir Ken Robinson about Education.

The Second one from Bill Gates, again on education, disease…

Fantastic speech by both. I love them.

The Photo Thief Seminar (post 12th Photowalk)

Hello Everyone,

Owing to weather issues our Workshop did not go well last weekend hence for the benefit of the crowd and for easier attendance i intend to run this workshop again immediately after the Photowalk.

Please reserve about an hour and a half past the photowalk.

We will convene at a location that is convenient after the walk.

So in a nutshell after the walk we could convene at a place convenient for all of us, probably somewhere quite close by and indoors with as little ambient noise as possible and do this.

Tentatively this shall be around 10 AM (hoping the walk is done by this time) and go upto 11 AM and a 30 minute session for questions.

Agenda:

1. Overview of the Copyrights Law
2. What the Law lacks?
3. How vulnerable are you images?
4. How to protect your images?
5. You’ve been robbed, what to do?
6. You’ve been robbed, what NOT to do?
7. Fair use rights, what’s hot and what’s not
8. Future plans for legal action and reforms on the law.
9. Q & A session.

Who needs to attend?

If you have a camera and you have displayed your images in a public space, you should come listen to this stuff. Its scary and its re-assuring as well.

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A handbook of exceptional quick lies

Yes, exclusively for the Indian family as well. Are you anything post 13 and below 30? Are you Single? Are you the one who happens to have girl friends? Are you the one that happens to be from a conservative tambram, catholic or muslim family? Do you find it painful to find explanations everytime you step out of the house?

Well if you have been answering yes to atleast 2 of the above questions then you are in deep shit?

Does it take impossible amounts of convincing to get your girl friend out of the house and in the last minute she banks out and excuse’s herself "parents won’t allow me to go out in weekends" sort of unbelievable shit!

Well wonder no more. The answers to your prayers are right here. I shall soon come up with a paperback book called "A handbook of exceptional quick lies". 20000 right lies you can fling right out of your pocket and not only get out of your house post 7 PM. Not only that, this WILL get your girl friends out too! Yes, its true and its time tested and it hardly fails.

For example, you plan a night show movie with a gang of friends at work. Living in chennai or any city for that matter you know how hard it is to get evening show or matinee tickets. Now your gal friends wont come out of the home because anything post 7 PM is taboo.

Well here is the deal. Call your girl friends Landline number. As always her dad, the bloody villain will pick up the phone. Now quickly tell her dad "Hello uncle, how are you? I’m fine. I could not reach sheetals mobile so called the land line. Can you take a message?"

At this point of time the curious bastard will be more than happy to know what the hell you are going to tell his beautiful daughter. Now comes your nuke…

"Please ask sheetal to get the Black Mamba Project report for the meeting with Vice president we have tonight at 9 AM PST"

Now her dad is like "What meeting? She never told me?"

"Oh yes uncle, we have a performance review meeting and our team has won the award for the best performance for this quarter. We may probably get a pay hike if we impress the VP in the meeting with our presentation and sheetal has done all the ground work."

Two things. Daughter will probably get a pay hike, daughter may get an award. This sucker will do anything to get his daughter to go to office.

Infact you can also use this opportunity to go pick up your girl friend from her house since it will be late in the night.

Imagine this, 8 pm pick-up from home. Dinner + movie at 10.45 pm and then go clubbing at 3 AM after the movie and back home by 6 am next morning.

The only small downside is you need to wear formal clothes when you start out of the house. That’s okay. We are all used to carrying different set of clothes and changing in the restroom. Women are experts at this and you can take advise from your girl friend.

This is just ONE EXAMPLE, one of the more inefficient ways to get the girl friend out and you out of the house. Imagine how the super efficient ones that are available only when you buy the book, would sound like. Buy my book and you have 19,999 more of this wonderful treasure of knowledge.

So hang tight and watch this space. Arriving in a blog near you….

As for NRI folks, dont worry. Amazon deals are underway to sell atleast 87 million copies in the USA and Europe alone.

Bookmark:

How to Live Life

Two Words, Fantastic Lecture.

Bookmark:

The Photo Thief Seminar

Okay, so i think i’ve made up my mind on what to do and where to do stuff about this seminar.

Place: Barista, G.N. Chetty Road, T.Nagar
Time: 12 Noon
Date: 12th Oct, 2008 -  Sunday

Agenda:

1. Overview of the Copyrights Law
2. What the Law lacks?
3. How vulnerable are you images?
4. How to protect your images?
5. You’ve been robbed, what to do?
6. You’ve been robbed, what NOT to do?
7. Fair use rights, what’s hot and what’s not
8. Future plans for legal action and reforms on the law.
9. Q & A session.

Who needs to attend?

If you have a camera and you have displayed your images in a public space, you should come listen to this stuff. Its scary and its re-assuring as well.

Flickr Copyright Meetup at Mocha

Off late we have been extensively hearing more and more of the Indian media flicking images from flickr and not agreeing to compensate or even provide credit in almost all cases.

I would like to organize a peaceful human chain, possibly hold play cards too for display and let the people know what is happening. I’m confident the media will not cover this but even if we can get one news channel to do a small piece on this or the local community free news papers like say "mambalam times" or "t.nagar talk" to write about us, we could reach out far and wide.

I’m also planning to file a "Public Interest Litigation" in the high court against the rampant press abuse of copyrighted flickr work and lack of clause in copyright laws from the dimension of internet and technology as well.

I would like to schedule a meeting this sunday at 3.30 PM at Mocha in Khadar nawaz khan road, nungambakkam. Please attend this meeting. This will be an informal start-up to get this moving and we intend to discuss everything. Right from the human chain event to the PIL to our rights in terms of copyright.

Sorry if you are outside chennai. I would love to see some of you if at all you are travelling to chennai this sunday. I will keep my blog updated and keep you out of chennai’ers posted on this.

Bad Questions to ask a transsexual.

Awesome Video. I can’t relate to this more than now.

It’s funny how many of those dumb asses there are really who would really ask such fucked up questions in the first place. I know this personally I get some really fucked up questions all the time. gggawwhh! I wish the world was filled with more smart people who had brains the size of a common ground squirrel and would have the basic moral judgement to know what questions are ok and not ok to ask.

Bad Questions to ask a transsexual.

Awesome Video. I can’t relate to this more than now.

It’s funny how many of those dumb asses there are really who would really ask such fucked up questions in the first place. I know this personally I get some really fucked up questions all the time. gggawwhh! I wish the world was filled with more smart people who had brains the size of a common ground squirrel and would have the basic moral judgement to know what questions are ok and not ok to ask.