Permission Interfaces for better dialogs

We loose our innocence every passing day..we call it learning the ways of the world...
so is designer goes through this maturity curve, he learns the ways of the world; undones all the notions when he was fresh out of design school. We used to have these rosy ideas about appropriate design... we still do but in more pragmatic frame of mind.
I was under the the deep influence of design bible "design for the real world"by victor papanek. I used to look at the marketing efforts and their right hand mercenaries for all the dirty work - the advertisers, in utter disdain. I still think its a bad use of creativity.
As papanek opens his book with a line - "advertising is world's phoniest profession which tries to influence people to buy things they don't need with the money they don't have and to impress the people who don''t care."
And now here I am reading this book "Permission Marketing". It teaches you how to bait a stranger to be a friend, and then a customer.. of course I am not out there to sell anything. My whole focus is this books emphasis to use of the web for 1:1 with masses as against traditional interruption marketing techniques of the conventional mass media.
But it is good to learn from things you feel unethical and immoral, right? so When sachin says he wont endorse cigarettes one feels good about him..
neways...in this book Seth Godin succinctly take you on to changing nature of marketing efforts with time and media...what amazon did to web and how its changing the ways businesses are done.No, its not going to be another dotcom dud. Web is mature now if it is not already said enough. Core values and mores of the permission marketing is so very relevant to UXD since its finally the UIs that get influenced by this pitch and approach. And finally out there on web and its clutter and overload of information - you are in a selling business..may be not a commercial product or but of course an idea or a sequence to do things.. wherein step by step permission interfaces are more desirable than in your face interruptions.

Little Miss Sunshine : Time to look back...

Its not one more in the crowd of character comedies, in fact I wont call it comedy at all. There is some good characters and pretty eccentric in their own standards too.

Our protagonist the kid who wants to participate this pre-teen beauty contest, a self-help teacher and really PITA (pain in...) practitioner at home, an adolescent and restless brother of miss sunshine who is focused to the edge of craziness to become a fighter pilot, a scholar and depressed to clinical levels uncle who just had a break up with his gay partner, mother who is trying to cope all the pressure, and the old school grandpa.

This jamboree creates this tremendous possibilities of friction, tension and drama. I mean once you have a good 'elements' identified what's left is pretty much their 'placements',...as one theater director likes to call his characters as my 'walking-talking props'.

It is of the kind of a film where you go in, have heartiest laughs without realizing that laugh is at you..the audience. In fact it ridicules the conditioning of us by mass media to have the Best in our lives and thereby making ourselves miserable. We 'all' want the best personalities and features illustrated over and over by glossy magazines, education that is intellectually stimulating and work that is rewarding and socially relevant, spouse that is sexually, emotionally stimulating and comforting, kids that listen to you and have some of your unfulfilled ambitions...anything below than this is failure and No NO. This movie has lot to say about how American living has turned into. This finds it place alongside "American Beauty" , "Requiems for a Dream" and "Ghost world". If you liked those, go for this one.

Our Indian urban-scape is slowing gonna be like that, an eventuality of set of distorted ideas that we follow about modernity and being a developed nation. Reminds me of the Eddie Vedder's song" Society" .... society, you're a crazy breed I hope you're not lonely without me ....When you want more than you have you think you need ...

Gorge at George

If you are a foodie, then ultimate pleasure is discovering new joint and planning it for a nice occasion.
Being in Pune and especially in Aundh had been a so far not that adventurous but of late there is some renewed activity and some surprise discoveries. I have been a regular at Idlicious, a breakfast joint to go to with half sleepy eyes and eat till you drop those typical southee dishes and hang around with a steaming cup of filter coffee. Moving on to the midday, if you are a hard core non-veggie, ‘Tareef” is one such place on your list of never-to-miss eateries, especially for Paaya soup and raan (lamb leg piece nicely roasted) and their tenderly cooked mutton biryani. It reminded me of my days at Hyderabad and those late luncheons after a sweaty volleyball games and quarrels thereafter. Talking about mutton “George” is on such restaurant near MG road. Have a good walk on MG road and then take it out all on those crisp mutton chops followed by Pishta Kulfi. If you little more foolhardy in your culinary explorations, radio will take you to new high with kheema pav and seekhs. MG road is a place full of such close to my heart joints. You enter Hotel Diamond with tired legs and you have at your disposal gulps of chilled beer and mooh lagan ke liye Surmai fry. ... List is endless...watch out for more on this ...till then let me go and relish homemade aamras and rice papads.

Starting out in the evening

I have this special place for the American Jewish scholars and writers. They would give you the best piece of literary work, may it be Charlie Kaufman, Spielburg or here in this case Andrew Wagner... this is so far the best screenplay, and it gets its due nomination to some ivy league critic award as well.

The four corners of the plot, these four characters are so well balanced and keep the things tight. A less understood writer in his last years, his daughter on the wrong side of 30s who has her own issues with her relationship with a guy who carried some priorities of his own ahead of anything and last the catalyst of change in this story, the university student completing her thesis about this writer who comes and "shake things up".
There are some good conversation when this student probes in to bring out the writer's take on her understanding of his novels. The film is replete with dinner table quotable and some deep enough to be just quotes..

"..To sit across a table and talk to someone you love is itself a complex engagement...to go to bed with someone and carry the conversation to the realm of body, a realm of insecurity and vulnerability and fear as well as pleasure, is fraught with the sad evidence of how difficult it is to understand a person and to make yourself understood."

When she say.." I find few men of my age interesting. They are like chewing gums, few minutes of flavor followed by a bland repetition..."

Eloisa to Abelard -- Alexander Pope

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;