Revival of a "superstar"

Revival of a "superstar"

One of the key moments in the Academy Award nominated film Juno is a discussion about the value of a version of the song "Superstar" by legendary art-punk band Sonic Youth. The song has a history nearly as fascinating as the film itself.

"Superstar" was written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell. It was inspired by a suggestion from Rita Coolidge that they write a song from the perspective of a groupie. Rita Coolidge has said that rock legend Eric Clapton was the specific inspiration. When Richard Carpenter, of the brother and sister group the Carpenters, heard the song, he says that he instantly thought it could be a hit and would be perfect for the Carpenters.

The subject matter of "Superstar" may seem somewhat unusual for a mainstream act like the Carpenters. However, with Karen Carpenter's voice, the tone of melancholy in the song was emphasized in gripping fashion. It was not their biggest hit, but "Superstar" reached #2 on the pop singles chart and has been strongly tied to the duo ever since.

In 1994, a tribute album to the Carpenters titled If I Were a Carpenter featured a version of "Superstar" by the band Sonic Youth (pictured). This recording has been both treasured and reviled by fans of the band. After 14 years, the film Juno has pulled the recording out of obscurity and made it the subject of discussion for another generation of music fans.

"Superstar" has gone on to have life in numerous other cover versions. Perhaps most notable of these is a version by Luther Vandross. Usher also recorded the song in a tribute to Luther, and "Superstar" was a key performance by American Idol champion Ruben Studdard.

hey my new entry on threadless !!

hey my new entry on threadless !!

Adeona : Laptop Thieves Beware

Adeona is the first Open Source system for tracking the location of your lost or stolen laptop that does not rely on a proprietary, central service. This means that you can install Adeona on your laptop and go — there's no need to rely on a single third party. What's more, Adeona addresses a critical privacy goal different from existing commercial offerings. It is privacy-preserving. This means that no one besides the owner (or an agent of the owner's choosing) can use Adeona to track a laptop. Unlike other systems, users of Adeona can rest assured that no one can abuse the system in order to track where they use their laptop.

Adeona is designed to use the Open Source OpenDHT distributed storage service to store location updates sent by a small software client installed on an owner's laptop. The client continually monitors the current location of the laptop, gathering information (such as IP addresses and local network topology) that can be used to identify its current location. The client then uses strong cryptographic mechanisms to not only encrypt the location data, but also ensure that the ciphertexts stored within OpenDHT are anonymous and unlinkable. At the same time, it is easy for an owner to retrieve location information.

How do you use it?

Using Adeona only requires downloading and installing a small software client. Adeona is free to use.

Why Adeona?

With the growing ubiquity of, and user reliance on, mobile computing devices (laptops, PDAs, smart phones, etc.), loss or theft of a device is increasingly likely, disruptive, and costly. Internet-based tracking systems provide a method for mitigating this risk. These tracking systems send, over the Internet, updates regarding the current location of the device to a remotely administered repository. If the device is lost or stolen, but maintains Internet connectivity and unmodified software, the tracking system can keep tabs on the current whereabouts of the device. This data could prove invaluable when the appropriate authorities attempt to recover the device.

Unfortunately, with current proprietary tracking systems users sacrifice location privacy. Indeed, even while the device is still in the rightful owner's possession, the tracking system is keeping tabs on the locations it (and its owner) visit. Even worse, with some commercial products, even outsiders (parties not affiliated with the tracking provider) can "piggy-back" on the tracking system's Internet traffic to uncover a mobile device user's private information and/or locations visited.

But if you're not as important that FBI wants to seek you out go ahead and try it ...I have too..you want to get your hands onto anyone who tries to rob you off your lappy , dont you ??

Adeona (click here to download)

“Cool”

Coolness in everything is time based occurrence. It is very difficult to say what is cool, more difficult than predicting earthquakes. Cool as in the appreciation or expression of being good, good NOT best. Many things can be cool, correction many antagonistic things can be cool; some at different instances of space time and some together.

Also coolness is a very endemic trait. What may be cool somewhere may be a taboo some place else. I am not talking about geographical places here, it may be any user/consumer/practitioner
group/sub-group/hypothetical set of thoughts, people or cultures.

Now, we may also reach a point where we ask what can be cool, YOU can be cool or nothing can be cool ! A “thing” can be cool or an action or mannerism (thingy) or just the absence of the same. If you can make anyone believe that it exists (other than you of course) then it can be cool or the opposite.
Depends on how you think about it. When many of us were young, imaginary friends were cool. They don't exist but still they were cool.

How to make something cool? Million dollar question half of the people working on the web 2.0/3.0 and many many more in the Hollywood will pay through their noses to know this answer. Not the answer I am sharing right now but a … hypothetical...actually true answer. The best way and the most easiest way to do this is to make others believe it is cool. This is by assumption that you can make other people believe. Many times being cool yourself (in the eyes of others) helps but being totally uncool may also help. How? …. lets see if you are totally uncool and you dont do the thing then it is not uncool , hence cool.

Many of us might be locked in an unending cycle of trying to be (make) cool. By the time we end up doing cool things they aren't cool anymore. I will not comment on this. I will just say this blog is going to be cool.

Yes I might add that, if you'd tried hard enough cant reach the “cool” state try making it “hot” or “good shit”.

Earth Quake in India


An earth quake hit India at around 3:19 am IST
i was just sitting on my bed and it started to vibrate real bad ... first i thought it was just me but it got really really strong ....

maybe i'll check in the morning papers .....

Now thats classy .....


I would love to do this in Symbiosis intitute of design.....

Folly In The Dark


Stepped, trampled and crushed to dust,
But would you find it unruly , unjust,
If you were to know, that it killed me too.


Folded, crumpled and torn apart,
But would you believe, that i wasn't acting smart,
If you were to know that i was befuddled too.


Burnt, depleted and turned to ash,
Should you peep around the corner and see,
The pyre, amid the scores of "me".


Askew, careening and off balance,
My lines of thought now fail to comply,
The eddies of emotions just absorb them in.


Sorry, distraut and glum, I am ;
Though it makes litttle sense or warrants pardon,
But its still a truth to behold and admonish
That i broke your heart once too many, Though

Its a Folly In The dark.


-Apurv Ray