Category: Arts

  • Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

    Software is an art. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Project SNOWFLAKE is an experiment to prove this through beautiful, minimalistic user interfaces. By suggesting alternate designs to some of most popular sites, this project wants to raise awareness on quality, beautiful, elegant human user interfaces.

    In many ways, this project is a bold attempt to refine our taste in software. Whenever I come across applications that mock a cockpit at best, I wonder if many of us really do appreciate good, quality software – especially the user interfaces? Quality on user interface can instill a sense of pleasantness, and many of us instinctively know that this year 2013 has been marked pronouncedly by responsive user interfaces.

    As part of SNOWFLAKE, I target some popular sites, some topics as a part of this independent experiment. Not surprisingly, meeting the basic requirements of any device, any browser support is no longer an issue. The time is perfect for fully responsive, and typographically adaptive user interfaces. Yet surprisingly, it is not a norm yet. It will be evident that fluid, beautiful, elegant user interfaces will prevail over geeky, complicated designs. Snowflake’s showcase demonstrates how elegant a user interface can be while retaining all of it’s usefulness. As is often the case, many beautiful user interfaces do exist. Some notable mentions will continue to get added in showcase, and I am delighted on this personal pursuit on beauty in human user interfaces, both spiritually and intellectually.

    Through SNOWFLAKE I strive for beauty conveyed through human software user interfaces, endeavoring to promoting human user interfaces towards a status equal to that of art or music.

  • Few handmade sketches by me

    This has been such a long time. Drawing was one my interests, and passion when I grew up. It was refreshing holding a pencil, and drawing a sketch. My daughter Amrita inspires me with her sketches to keep at it, and draw more as I improve my sketches, paintings to more beautiful things around me.

  • Javascript image slideshow

    My Impressive Animations blog is a collection of impressive images as the name suggests :-). I keep on adding images, in-spite of the fact that the blog page grows longer, and takes a while till all images are shown. This was a problem. Could all my images just become a slideshow without any changes to my blog?

    This made me search on WordPress, and on Internet for any simple, easy to use slideshow tools. In fact, I found quite a few, but these were a little over-complicated to use. Some were using Flash, some pure Javascript, but the trouble I had was (perhaps due their maturity) too many options, or few installations to get them using. Being somewhat impatient, I thought maybe I could create this for myself. And that’s what I did.

    I give you Image SlideShow (Javascript, CSS). It’s very easy to use, just follow these 3 simple steps-

    1. Add jQuery
    2. Add Image SlideShow (Get Javascript, CSS here)
    3. Change your existing <img> tags to include class=”slideshow”
    4. [Optional] For multiple separate slideshow blocks on same page, enclose your set of images with <p></p>, or <div></div> tags
    5. That’s it!

    Take a look at my blog where I’ve used this, and you’ll get the idea on how it works. This has made it a lot easier for me to add new images to my blog, and let everyone enjoy the slideshow.

  • Jazzersice Performance by Amrita, Nicolas at Lala Garden, Tsukuba on Mother’s Day

    Mother’s Day, May 13th was a celebration in Lala Garden, Tsukuba. The junior jazzersice group had a dance performance where Amrita, and Nicolas gave the public a short sweet performance on music.

  • Gaarwa for drunken masters

    A parody on original Gaarwa by Milind Ingale. Especially for all drunken masters out there.

    दारवा

    दारू जरा कमी पडतेय, दर वेळी वाटतं,
    रिकाम्या पेल्याच्या भीतीचं, आभाळ मनात दाटतं,
    तरी पावले चालत रहातात, मन चालत नाही
    व्हिस्कीशिवाय शरीरामधे कुणीच बोलत नाही..
    तितक्यात कुठून एक मित्र बाटली घेऊन येतो
    तितक्यात कुठून एक मित्र बाटली घेऊन येतो
    चकण्यातला काही भाग घशाखाली घालतो
    दुसरा मित्र उनाड मुलासारखा सैरा वैरा पळत रहातो
    पाना फुला झाडांवरती छपरावरती चढून पहातो
    दुपार टळून संध्याकाळचा सुरू होतो पुन्हा पेग
    पेग मागून चालत येते गार गार बीअरची वेळ
    चक्क डोळ्यासमोर कोणी एक उलटी करून येतो
    गांधी जयंतीला ग्लास मध्ये कोण दारवा भरतो

    दारवा…………
    दारवा…
    वार्‍यावर भिरभिरभिर बेवडा नवा नवा
    प्रियेsssssssss दारूतही गोडवा नवा नवा
    दारवा….
    खोलीत सारे झुलतायत कधीचे
    खोलीत सारे झुलतायत कधीचे
    वोडक्यात सोडा ओततायत कधीचे
    वोडक्यात सोडा ओततायत कधीचे
    सोडा नको अता चला नीटच मारा भरा भरा
    प्रियेsssssssssss मनातही ग्लास हा भरा भरा

    दारवा…
    आकाश सारे हलते का रे, आता सुगंधी झालेत वारे..
    आकाश सारे हलते का रे, आता सुगंधी झालेत वारे..
    पेलाभर भरभर रम भर पामरा जरा जरा
    प्रियेsssssssssss बर्फातही गारवा जरा जरा

    दारवा….
    वार्‍यावर भिरभिरभिर बेवडा नवा नवा
    प्रियेsssssssss दारूतही गोडवा नवा नवा
    दारवा….
    दारवा….
    दारवा

    दारू जरा कमी पडतेय, दर वेळी वाटतं,
    रिकाम्या पेल्याच्या भीतीचं, आभाळ मनात दाटतं,
    तरी पावले चालत रहातात, मन चालत नाही
    व्हिस्कीशिवाय शरीरामधे कुणीच बोलत नाही..
    तितक्यात कुठून एक मित्र बाटली घेऊन येतो
    तितक्यात कुठून एक मित्र बाटली घेऊन येतो
    चकण्यातला काही भाग घशाखाली घालतो
    दुसरा मित्र उनाड मुलासारखा सैरा वैरा पळत रहातो
    पाना फुला झाडांवरती छपरावरती चढून पहातो
    दुपार टळून संध्याकाळचा सुरू होतो पुन्हा पेग
    पेग मागून चालत येते गार गार बीअरची वेळ
    चक्क डोळ्यासमोर कोणी एक उलटी करून येतो
    गांधी जयंतीला ग्लास मध्ये कोण दारवा भरतो

    दारवा…………
    दारवा…
    वार्‍यावर भिरभिरभिर बेवडा नवा नवा
    प्रियेsssssssss दारूतही गोडवा नवा नवा
    दारवा….

    खोलीत सारे झुलतायत कधीचे
    खोलीत सारे झुलतायत कधीचे
    वोडक्यात सोडा ओततायत कधीचे
    वोडक्यात सोडा ओततायत कधीचे
    सोडा नको अता चला नीटच मारा भरा भरा
    प्रियेsssssssssss मनातही ग्लास हा भरा भरा

    दारवा…
    आकाश सारे हलते का रे, आता सुगंधी झालेत वारे..
    आकाश सारे हलते का रे, आता सुगंधी झालेत वारे..
    पेलाभर भरभर रम भर पामरा जरा जरा
    प्रियेsssssssssss बर्फातही गारवा जरा जरा

    दारवा….
    वार्‍यावर भिरभिरभिर बेवडा नवा नवा
    प्रियेsssssssss दारूतही गोडवा नवा नवा

    दारवा….
    दारवा….

  • Inspirational Quotes on Architecture

    Inspirational Quotes on Architecture

    Came across a wonderful book 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick, and couldn’t resist the urge to jot down some wonderful concepts, key ideas. The book is more about architecture as in construction, buildings, but I find it useful to consider in Software Architecture in an abstract sense too.

    PS: These are open to your own interpretation in a positive sense 🙂

    • Architecture begins with an idea
    • Be more specific to increase appeal
    • Any design decision should be justified in atleast two ways
    • An architect knows something about everything. An engineer knows everything about one thing.
    • Science works with chunks of things with continuity presumed, but an artist works with continuities having chunks presumed
    • Good designers are fast on their feet
    • Good designers aren’t afraid to throw away a good idea
    • Being process oriented, not product driven
    • Seek to understand problem before chasing solutions
    • Slow to fall in love with your ideas
    • Making design investigations and decisions holistically
    • Making design decisions conditionally i.e. awareness they may not work as presumed
    • Knowing when to change
    • Accepting that anxiety comes from not knowing what to do
    • Always asking “What If …?” regardless of how satisfied you are
    • Favor improved design process over perfectly realized architecture
    • Three levels of simplicity
    • Simplicity
    • Complexity
    • Informed Simplicity aka Pattern Recognition
    • Professional experts know how to communicate their knowledge to others in everyday language
    • Less is more
    • Design in perspective!
    • No design system is or should be perfect
    • Success of masterpiece seems not to lie so much in their freedom from faults, but persuasiveness of mind
    • Forget about what you want the design to be, instead ask design what it wants to be
    • Always design a thing by considering it in it’s next larger context
    • Limitations encourage creativity
    • Problems are opportunities to be embraced not overcome
    • Just do something while waiting

    A few others that I’ve come across from known acquaintances, about character

    • Don’t wait until everything is just right.  It will never be perfect.  There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions.  So what.  Get started now.  With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.

    • Success is not final, failure is not fatal:  it is the courage to continue that counts.

    • I have not failed 1,000 times.  I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to not make a light bulb.

    • I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

    • One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline – and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck.

    • I don’t believe you have to be better than everybody else.  I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

    • The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

    • Be miserable.  Or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

    • We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

  • Impressive animations

    Some animations are breath-taking, maybe it’s a good time to collect these here