“It is sometimes forgotten that all art is contemporary at the time it is made, and that the character of modern art is to continually challenge and reinvent the works that came before.”

Same goes for programming, and everything we do in life that is important, I reckon.

I’d strongly recommend anyone who’s not seen the JJ Abrams talk at TED to give it a view. Captivating.

p.s. Has Lost been out for that long already?

Image by Banksy. Behold Apatheism.

On the cab today, my casual remark of the evening traffic was met with a lengthy self confession from the over enthusiastic driver. As if feeling a need to defend himself, he went on for the entirety of the 20 minute ride about how the June 4 Tiannman massacre incident should be regarded, twenty-one years later.

“Leave it to the authorities.” he began.

“To be honest, we all know what that was all about…but these people out there marching on the streets, they don’t have a clue what they’re doing it for.”

The scenery of thickening lunch time crowds hurriedly making their ways flew past outside the speeding car.

“They’re fighting for a lost cause, and are being taken advantage of by low rate, votes-scurrying politicians.” he went on.

“And as a matter of fact, those were troubled times. And under extreme conditions, extreme measures have to be taken. It’s too bad that someone got hurt, but hell, everyone who was involved got hurt one way or the other.” So went his rational analysis on why bloodbaths and human cruelty are tolerable.

I stayed mute.

“If there wasn’t a crackdown, China would become fragmented, just like Russia. People would still be as poor as they have been 20 years ago, so there was no other way. No other way, man.” He said as if reciting the most natural phenomenon of nature…how the hell could this kind of fuzzy logic became regarded as fact? Violent suppression as an effective glue for holding a country together. I started glancing at my watch.

As an effort to answer to his conscience, or for the fear of being pigeonholed as a susceptible backbone-less coward, the cab driver made his verdict:

“When the dust has settled, by which I mean twenty or thirty years later, when the officials related to the event were long dead, there could then be a vindication. Until then, it is impossible for them to step up and admit to their own mistakes…..Hey, can I drop you off round the next corner? It’s a tricky area to stop.”

And within seconds, the vehicle got swallowed in the sea of afternoon traffic. A perfect analogy to the tale of the malleability of human nature and susceptibility to opinions popular to the minute. The most pathetic thing is how human would go to lengths to defend their own apathy and ignorance. The arguments they put up in maintaining that last bit of self-righteousness are often incredibly thin and contradictory in itself. If extreme times called for extreme measures, wouldn’t every involved be victims of the times, and if so, why would there be a need to apologize and vindicate?

“Democracy passes into despotism.” – Plato.

…Democratic self-government does not work, according to Plato, because ordinary people have not learned how to run the ship of state. They are not familiar enough with such things as economics, military strategy, conditions in other countries, or the confusing intricacies of law and ethics. They are also not inclined to acquire such knowledge. The effort and self-discipline required for serious study is not something most people enjoy. In their ignorance they tend to vote for politicians who beguile them with appearances and nebulous talk, and they inevitably find themselves at the mercy of administrations and conditions over which they have no control because they do not understand what is happening around them. They are guided by unreliable emotions more than by careful analysis, and they are lured into adventurous wars and victimized by costly defeats that could have been entirely avoided.

Excerpt from http://faculty.frostburg.edu/phil/forum/PlatoRep.htm

At the end of the day, tyranny, one-party states and dictatorship are not the most evil inventions of human nature. Apathy and Ignorance are. May shameful history whitewashing be condemned.

Google Accessible Search

Paying lip service or fanning out the occasional pity penny is one thing, but going behind the psyche of those in need and offering something solid is another, however trivial it may appear.

Today I got to meet one of the talents behind Google’s Accessible Search, which, to the unknowing eye, is completely identical to its standard counterpart and not worthy of a mention. In fact, that was the initial impression I had. Coming from a world where even visual reality with layers of information thrown on top is not enough, the mantra that “less is more” has long been discarded as a myth and an excuse for laziness. It takes people who have had extraordinary experiences to grasp that simple truth and put it to use when it’s most effective.

Briefly put, the Accessible Search is Google’s search with its rankings tweaked by giving higher relevance to screenreader friendly sites, plus features such as keyboard navigation and ability to strip graphics from search results. And that’s it. No fancy realtime text to braille conversion utilities, no expensive unwieldy equipments. Just a minor algo tweak and some CSS tricks – and the lives of millions made slightly more tolerable by an immense degree. Take a look at Victor Tsaran’s intro to screen readers and you’ll share the pain of what visually impaired users are putting up with when they use the computer.

Undoubtedly, Accessible Search leaves a lot to be desired – like one discussion board user pointed out it didn’t even have the option to invert the contrast, as looking at a black on white screen is akin to staring directly at sunlight. But when I was told that the project was initiated, implemented and deployed entirely out of the compassion a few individuals had towards visual impairment, largely due to their own personal encounters with the matter, all seems forgivable. No, you won’t get much credit for de-styling a search page or making the fonts bigger. And there’re no rewards for the perseverance put into garnering support from countless layers of management for your good cause. At the end of the day, that team of people made their 20% extra time (on top of a 70 hours working week) and did something which made the world a better place, and that’s all that mattered.

Except that was hardly the end. Check out videos of T.V. Raman ( the other core member of the Accessible Search team) and see how he’s bringing about the same changes to the mobile space and more.

Descartes asserted that “we can know our mind more readily than we can know our body”, that “we can use our senses to help us understand the true nature of things, but the senses alone are inadequate to determine truth (since they are often deceived)”. In this case, it is a visually impaired person and a Yahoo exec who urged me to see beyond the screen pixels and into the real needs of those less fortunate.

Extended Reading:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille
• http://www.w3.org/WAI/
• http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/servlet/event.showcfp?eventid=9574&copyownerid=2
• http://labs.google.com/accessible/faq.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/business/04blind.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS-ju61vOQw&feature=channel

"You're supposed to smile for the camera, dumbass". Image: guardian.co.uk

And if Cameron is indeed fearful that worst times are yet to come, he’s not hiding it. Take a look at the wordings in his first speech – I wonder if it was written with the sole purpose of curbing expectations and evading responsibilities in the first place. For instance:

And I think the service our country needs right now is to face up to our really big challenges, to confront our problems, to take difficult decisions, to lead people through those difficult decisions, so that together we can reach better times ahead.

One of the tasks that we clearly have is to rebuild trust in our political system. Yes that’s about cleaning up expenses, yes that is about reforming parliament, and yes it is about making sure people are in control – and that the politicians are always their servant and never their masters.

But I believe it is also something else. It is about being honest about what government can achieve. Real change is not what government can do on its own – real change is when everyone pulls together, comes together, works together, where we all exercise our responsibilities to ourselves, to our families, to our communities and to others.

If that didn’t sound hope instilling and upbeat, take a count and see how his speech was dominated by words that paint a picture of depression and urgency:

• “difficult” and “difficult decisions” – 4 matches
• “work” – 6 matches
• “challenge”, “hard” – 4 matches
• “problem” – 3 matches
• “rebuild” – 4 matches
• “stable”, “trust”, “strong” – 9 matches

Of course, it’s not Cameron or Clegg’s fault that the country isn’t in more healthy shape. Not that their parties or voters wished to be caught up in the predicament of a coalition government and a pissed poor economy anyways. It’s just that the rate at which events unfolded and the dramatic marriage of opposing forces gave a surreal air to the entire event – or should I say more “real”, because it clearly exposes how easily and quickly what claimed to be core values and fundamental differences can be set aside and forgotten, when it comes to a power struggle that decides who runs the parliament of a country.

Images of 10 Downing Street always remind me of a particular scene and a particular era. An era that in retrospect started off just as horribly but people were buying into a bubble and thus optimistic and cheerful. Now compare this speech excerpt with Cameron’s and try not to come to the conclusion that one of these speakers were under the influence of certain reality bending substances during the delivery:

“It’s been a great year for British music,” said Blair. “A year of creativity, vitality, energy. British bands storming the charts. British music back once again in its right place, at the top of the world. And at least part of the reason for that has been the inspiration that today’s bands can draw from those that have gone before. Bands in my generation like The Beatles and The Stones and The Kinks. Of a later generation: The Clash, The Smiths, The Stone Roses…”

Even though that was a speech made at the 1996 Brit Awards and not upon taking residence at Downing Street, once can’t help but reflect in awe how the circumstances have deteriorated. Compared to then, UK in the 2010 appears more like a torn apart war zone struggling to maintain its identity. And no-one, not even the guys at the NME, can focus on the music alone and not get distracted by the prevailing cries of distress and desperation.

Tony Blair and The Chief in 1997. Image: dailymail.co.uk

Uncharted 2 has been universally rated as the game of the year, and indeed, I have to agree after playing it twice (almost). In terms of gameplay, it surpasses even MGS4 as the most enjoyable and engaging single player experience ever. What sets it apart from other run-of-the-mill shooters is its intense attention to every minute detail. The production is so top-notch that there really isn’t anything to criticize.

It’s little things like the twitter integration (above) that shows the uniqueness of the Naughty Dogs team. Imagine the struggle the dev team has to go through to keep this feature in the final build. In a certain software company that claims itself “young”, “the center of the internet” and “speaks to its users”, such an ordeal that adds nothing to revenue would never have gone off the drawing board.

Wouldn’t it be great to get to work on a masterpiece like this, at least once in a lifetime?