The Good Ol’ days..

Wouldn't this be a great way to celebrate the 'good ol' days':

Auwwa, auwwa to you, Bang Bang!

Horn OK Please

Here’s a lovely clay animation of a Bombay taxi driver’s day. He’s working hard to save money to buy an air-condtioned taxi...

Description: "HORN OK PLEASE" is a film directly inspired by director Joel Simon´s journey in the heat and frenzy of Mumbai, India. It follows a monotonous day in the life of an Indian taxi driver whose goal is to earn enough rupees to buy the air-conditioned taxi of his dreams... The film was made over a 10 month period by Irish and Indian animators and Joel simon, a Belgian director. It´s a combination of claymation and hand drawn backgrounds. Here´s some of the awards it has won: 24 FPS 2006; New Delhi, India – Best Animation Studio Film Award FICCI BAF Awards 2006; Mumbai, India – Best Animated Short ECU Festival 2006; Paris, France – Best Editing + Best Animated Short Belfast Film Festival 2006; Northern Ireland – Special Commendation Cine Jeunes de L’Aisne 2006; France – Best Animated Film Kerry Film Festival 2006 – Best Animation

Must see!

An air guitarist’s dream!

All those skills learned playing air guitar can be put to use now! A scientist in the Australian government organisation CSIRO has demonstrated a shirt that has sensors that respond to the motion of the arms, to play music!

See the videos here and here.

CSIRO Research engineer Dr Richard Helmer is interviewed about the wearable guitar which works by recognising and interpreting arm movements and relaying this wirelessly to a computer for audio generation. It then shows him demonstrating it.

Now if they could only get him to look as if he was enjoying himself!

More on the Wagah ritual

Apparently the BSF has decided it will do away with it!

"What was performed earlier was not the correct drill but a kind of drama enacted on both sides of the border," said IG, frontier, Arvind Ranjan, while justifying the toned-down drill.

He said various body movements, including vigorous shaking of head while gazing in the eyes of jawans of the opposite country were unwarranted movements which had no place in the routine drill.

Ranjan said since both countries were trying to a forge friendly relationship, they decided to do away with these 'provocative' gestures.

A video of the ritual from Michael Palin is at YouTube

Related post: The face off at Wagah

Blooming Sydney

It's late winter here, of course, and the flowers have started blooming. The most spectacular part of this in August is the variety of Magnolias that are in full bloom. Most of them are the pink ones but there are some spectacular red ones in the neighbourhood too. Most of them have gone past the stage where the whole tree is just branches and flowers with no leaves visible but there are still a few late-blooing plants that are creaking under the abundance of flowers...