A Nihilist Interlude

Nihilism has been a feature of our culture for a while: this past weekend, I saw Cruel Intentions, a 1999 film which drove the point home. [AMAZONPRODUCT=B00001PE4D] This film recasts the 18th century French novel, “Les Liaisons dangereuses” (by Pierre Choderos de Laclos) in a modern setting. Perhaps predictably, the film is set among the […]

The Green PC Option: Build Your Own

No matter how efficiently one uses a computer, it is bound to wear out at some point. A colleague of mine has an old Windows XP desktop, and apparently it’s showing its age. I asked him, “How bad is it? Has it completely packed up?” He responded by quoting “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”: Ferris Bueller: […]

The Best of Times?

This has been a tense weekend in a number of ways; if the news is to be believed, the folks down at the U.S. Treasury Department have been burning the midnight oil, trying to ensure the biggest dominos of the American financial system – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – don’t fall over. If they […]

DVD Review: “There Will Be Blood” starring Daniel Day-Lewis

[AMAZONPRODUCT=B004XBOG48] “There Will Be Blood”,starring the Academy award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis (as oil man Daniel Plainview) has recently been released on DVD in the United Kingdom. Given how the oil crisis has recently intensified, its re-emergence could not be more timely. The film is loosely based on the book “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair. This […]

Just When You Think…

…President Bush couldn’t shock you with yet another gaffe, he goes and does it again. As yesterday’s newspaper said: George Bush surprised world leaders with a joke about his poor record on the environment as he left the G8 summit in Japan. The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to […]

Wuthering Prime Minister

It was reported in the papers today that Gordon Brown sees himself as a latter day “Heathcliff” from Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”. However, as one newspaper reported: Andrew McCarthy, the acting director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire, told The Daily Telegraph: “Heathcliff is a man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, possibly murder, and […]

This is Not the Enemy

The other day, I was wandering around the British Museum, and I happened across the Islamic Art exhibition, which is tucked into one of the building’s many discreet corners. I happen to have a fondness for Islamic art; as a rule, it tends to stay away from visual representations of individuals, and rather, goes towards […]

The Exploding Toilet of the Modern Media

Slavoj Zizek, the philosopher, supposedly said that visiting the cinema was rather like watching a toilet bowl in anticipation of it exploding excrement at the viewer. When I first heard this, I took this as just another provocative statement from him, one of his little ways to shock anyone listening into thinking about the world […]

Full Wallets, Impoverished Souls

In addition to studying towards my Phd, I work in the technology industry as a medium-level manager. My speciality is in managing teams that develop websites. It’s a reasonable job, it pays the bills, and allows me sufficient space for me to do my academic work: however as Legion said in Stephen King’s “Storm of […]

Hey, Good Lookin’

Honda’s hydrogen fuel-cell powered FCX Clarity is due to debut in the United States this month. Its sole emission is water vapour. While not all the kinks in it have been worked out, it looks promising – here’s a road test: Refuelling is a problem at the moment, as there aren’t too many gas stations […]

Me And My Blog

Picture of meI'm a Doctor of both Creative Writing and Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, a novelist, a technologist, and still an amateur in much else.