How good a photographer are you?

This is really child's play but is good for beginning photographers to understand shutter speed and aperture.
http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/

How to write a story?

I have been quiet for a while now; I am writing down a script for a short...
So here I am back to square one!!

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Script has some basic info on how to write a story. Writing as story is such an organic act which is an art in itself but this link puts a framework to work off of. Browse through that link for details but here is the gist:

1. Write a short sentence of the fundamental concept which drives the plot.
2. Create a basic road-map of what will happen in your story. 
3. Flesh out your story. Easier said than done!
4. Write it down in proper format.
5. Polish your work. 
6. Get feedback. 
7. Revise as necessary. 

Here are a few links that I think can help you get off the writer's block and kick start you with some ideas:

• http://shortstoryideas.herb.me.uk/index.html
• http://www.creative-writing-now.com/short-story-ideas.html
• http://www.writingforward.com/writing-ideas/23-fiction-writing-ideas
• http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-writ.php
• http://www.storitel.co.uk/beatmachine/

Here are few tips from WritingForward that I like - again fundamentals that we all forget when we take a deep dive:

• Deepen the plot. Most plots are actually pretty simple, but things get really interesting when you introduce subplots or make the plot richer by complicating it: the hero’s goal is to save the girl but what if he will gain something great if he doesn't save her?
• Add a twist. Some plots plod along pretty predictably. Give your story some zing by tying the plot up in knots. Nothing keeps readers glued to the page like plot twists and cliffhangers.
• Enhance the dialogue. Are all the characters speaking in the same voice? It’s probably your voice. Give each character distinct expressions. Maybe one character says “dude” a lot while another is constantly assigning pet names to everyone he meets.
• Push conflict to the brink. There’s a reason the hero never diffuses a bomb until one second to detonation. Get your characters so deep into conflict, readers start to believe there’s no way out. Then, save the day!
• Strengthen the themes. You can plan which themes will be threaded through your story, but if you don’t, themes will emerge on their own. Identify the themes, then strengthen them. If you notice redemption is a theme, have a character humming “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley.
• Introduce an archetypal character. These characters stand out and feel familiar. Introduce a mentor or a trickster or give one of your existing characters some archetypal qualities.
• Give your story greater meaning with symbols and symbolism. A white rabbit marks the beginning of an adventure, water indicates birth and rebirth, winter symbolizes death. Create your own symbols (like the mocking jay in Hunger Games) and look for objects of importance that can become symbols, such as a pen, pendant, or some iconic image.
• Add tension and intrigue to the plot by making a deal. One character wants something that another character has. To get it, she has to strike a deal. The higher the stakes, the more riveting the read.
• Use repetition for emphasis. Repetition works especially well with symbols. A boy gives a girl a pen when he goes away to college and says “Don’t forget to write.” She writes, but he never writes back. She holds on to the pen and the hope that he’ll come back for three years. Then, she loses the pen. As soon as she loses it, she meets someone else. The pen makes repeat appearances, emphasizing its relevance to the story.
• Make the story emotional by killing off a significant character. Some authors have a hard time with this one, but death is part of life. In fact, it’s the one thing we can all count on. Killing a character is almost necessary when your cast is constantly facing danger of a life-threatening variety.
• Plant a red herring in your story. It confuses readers in a delightful way. It looks like the heroine will fall for the charming doctor but it turns out the man she really loves is a dreamy architect. Red herrings work especially well in mystery stories.
• Let your characters be affected by the events that unfold. The point of a story is to show characters experiencing something significant or meaningful, something important enough to change them. By the end, the characters should undergo attitude adjustments, adopt new philosophies, or otherwise evolve from who they were when we first met them.
• Engage readers with irony; it makes people think. The atheist experiences a miracle. A fugitive on the run gets captured because he saves someone’s life. A fire station burns down.

Canon's 35mm full-frame sensor

Check out: http://www.canon.com/news/2013/mar04e.html

Java/Technology Tutorials

Here are a few websites that have good/simple tutorials on new technologies:

• http://javabrains.koushik.org/p/jsps-and-servlets.html
• http://javarevisited.blogspot.in/
• http://www.vogella.com/
• http://www.mkyong.com/all-tutorials-on-mkyong-com/

Game Theory for Crafting your Movie Scripts

One problem as a director or script writer you would face is to figure out if the ending of your movie that you have proposed will be liked by the audience. How will you figure it out?
Have you heard about the Prisoner's Dilemma? I recently got interested in exploring Game Theory though I have heard about it nearly a decade ago. I have already come across three central themes that are very different at the concept level but as you break them down they are non other than Prisoner's Dilemma in disguise! What is nice about Game Theory is that it offers a way to visualize the results/outcome/payoffs and determine if it will be something that the players would do and if indeed the players chose certain actions then will the onlookers like the result? Yes there is a branch that explores how the observers would react keeping the players aside! Interesting isn't it? Go explore more.
Anyway as I started to learn more I started to think why I hated the endings of some of the great movies of the past - like Butch Cassidy and theSundance Kid though this might have been based on real life incidents),Topkapi(1964), The Great Escape (1963), Italian Job and the like. These are great movies but I hate the endings and I couldn't figure out why. But after learning a little of Game Theory I am inclined to think that movies are like games and the endings are payoffs for various outcomes.When your expectations do no match with the outcome the director has presented then you don't like the ending.
On the flip side you can construct the central theme of your script as a game, explain the options and layout the payoffs - then let the players explore the options and figure out the best if I were to do that I would not end the movie with the option that is bad for both the protagonist and the antagonist!
Check out the Sheriff's dilemma which is nothing but the Mexican Standoff! But the thoughts and analysis would  send you thinking on the kinds of concepts one can imagine for their movies.
Let me know if you have successfully employed Game Theory to craft your movies. Was it successful?

On a philosophical note, life itself can be modeled as a Bayesian Game or a variant of Coalitional and Bayesian Games! And, again I think, as game players with an objective to score more points you have to play your best possible actions as often as possible to be continuously scoring! Have you been doing that with your life? 

And here is a list of movies that use game theory!! http://www.gametheory.net/popular/film.html

MediaPlayer in JavaFx and Processing

Here is a nice article on writing your own media player using Java and JavaFX.

That was from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWl98dhvf8Q
You can find the code at:
http://code.google.com/p/paul-gramming/source/browse/IDEA/MoviePlayer/src/player/MoviePlayer.java
I had been struggling to get started with JavaFX but somehow I could feel the entry barrier because of the slightly different syntax of JavaFX. However this sample does not look so bad!

Just a few days ago I also learnt that there was something called Processing (http://processing.org) which is popular among artists! And seems like folks use to write media players and what not with processing... so I was curious to see if this was equally powerful or was easier than JavaFX. So I went Google... Google... and found this:
http://itssmee.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/comparing-processing-to-javafx-via-a-processing-tutorial/
So now it seemed like processing is quite good! Check out the source at http://blog.blprnt.com/source-code-tutorial
http://blog.blprnt.com/about has some nice articles on Mobile programming too: http://blog.blprnt.com/blog/blprnt/processing-android-mobile-app-development-made-very-easy

BlueTooth and BlueCove - JSR 82

A while ago I had dabbled with ZigBee and wrote a sample to show how a thermostat can communicate via ZigBee to a PC which can graphically show the temperature; the idea was to develop a remote interface using which the homeowner can control various aspects(like security, thermostat, lights etc) all controlled and communication over ZigBee. But somewhere along the idea crumbled to a horrible death :) and I lost  the contact who was providing me with the ZigBee controllers and APIs etc.

Few years fast forward and still I find that there are opportunities and possibilities to develop interesting utilities using wireless technologies. BlueTooth is very promising  Here is an implementation on JSR 82 in Java - it is called BlueCove (http://bluecove.org/).

The latest implementation is available here:
http://snapshot.bluecove.org/distribution/download/2.1.1-SNAPSHOT/2.1.1-SNAPSHOT.63/

I just played with the samples and they worked fine...check it out... I have something in mind and once I am through I will share more...