The H Factor » Experience

Forging the font @ Chennai

hiran — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:32:00 +0000

Thanks to have a wonderful time, the accident, the food, the class and the fonts. I am still at MIT, just after concluding my two day full-fledge hands on session on font designing with font forge. The slide was same as what I used earlier for Letter Made Better talks which is available here.

Yesterday, just before entering the campus, I had a pact with Tamilnadu Roadways by having a small accident. It was also from amachu who coordinated all the thing here, from my tickets to food. At night me and he had to watch the film “dham dhoom“, which is really horrible and the lack of a Jeeva, who died in an accident while the shooting is specifically seen over the film – infact what he directed and what others did can be simple understood over watching the film. Any way having a film from Chennai, the city of film was an experience in many way

Back to the font designing – the team here has done something over by now which includes making up of a mailing list, a group in lauchpad (all those ubuntu guys are always with that stupid thing!) and planning to register at savannah. Well, All the Best and Thanks for all!

Note : This is for the first time I am writing a blog over projector!!

At MIT with font

hiran — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:47:00 +0000

Forge the font session is now on fire at Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai. The day one is over and was a wonderful experience for me. A train trip from Palakkad to Chennai with lot of fun, a bike accident sponsored by Amachu and the session for 10+ people, (which includes Kevin!) on fontforge – it was wonderful. All loved font designing and was much eager to learn the idea…

The day1 contained with very basic things, introduction of fontforge, unicode, inkscape and designing and a hands on session to development of font. The next day contains indic font issues, substitution and developement concepts. Will blog after that.

Web Banners, stickers, t shirts for the show!

hiran — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:58:00 +0000

Yesterday I blogged on my greatest contribution to the Say No To Software Patent event to be held at Bangalore – a piece of web banner. Today there is something more. A sticker and t-shirt design!
Laptop sticker. A4 size containing eight sticker available here. without date here.
White Tshirt design Backside. All designed using Inskcape and GIMP.
Be there for the program! Make the event a success…

No to Patent – Web Banner for the show!

hiran — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:47:00 +0000

The first protest in Indian history against Software Patents. Initiated by Free Software Users Group Bangalore and FOSS Community India. The Candle light vigil to “Say No To Software Patents” is a occasion to raise civil society voice against this back door Trojan to Indian patent system is on 23rd August 2008 in front of Town Hall near Corporation Circle, Bangalore.

I cannot be there, as I have certain other functions here and due to financial crisis. So here is a small work from my side. A button (in fact a poster!) for the promotion of this event which will look like the image below.

Background image is a photograph by puremango on flickr under CC(BY-NC-SA).Link.
Copy the code below and paste it on your web logs. pages. and even in emails! Spread it out!!

Its all for a biriyaani

hiran — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:11:00 +0000

It was raining, we walked over rain, we ran through the main street of Secunderabad, we entered a bus, took platform ticket for walking through railway station and picked auto – just to have a hyderabadi biriyaani from Paradise Hotel, Secunderabad! We contains Myself, Shyam, Praveen, Pavi and Hemand.

At the hotel Riyas along with his friend was waiting for us – for a time of 1 hour plus. It was great to have such food from a place. Riyas told that its impossible for a person to eat one plate full and its convention to share one between two. We, me and pravi broke the convention – by sharing a mutton and a chicken biriyaani.

riyas, looking at stickers printed for mukt.in

It was great to have such a food and we where there till 11!

shyam surrounded by paradise staff, as he was not stopping his eating

hiran — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:21:00 +0000

It finally happened. The talk was schedule for 11PM and started at bit moment before noon. The slides where same as old just with some of my font screen shot. A new slide was introduced – ” I am a film addict – if you have some good films, give me right NOW!” just for the fun of it. The session was a long, in fact the longest that I had done on font designing, about 100+ minutes. The number of students where less compared to old talks and was quite when compared to total participants for the mukt. Some guys came in the last odd minutes and told that the lunch was ready, making the session to have a sudden death. That was really an experience! Any way it happened!

Night, at Secunderabad

hiran — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:03:00 +0000

After ending the day1 of mukt.in, as all other ‘geeks’ moved to Hussain sagar, I changed my plan to see Jayamama instead of going to my room. Shyam had already decided his travel to IIITH and all, hence I went alone. As per the command from Lt.Jayamama, I was supposed to be at the car parking centre, near Passport Office, Secunderabad. The city was full of lights, vehicles, and decorations. I could understand what was happening there. The time was past seven at night and the street was getting populated. It was some religious program of Sikhs. The mobile was showing area as Secunderabad, making me sure that I am not at Punjab. The songs, celebrations began – typical Punjabi style. I become an odd man out there and was surrounded by them. I cant see any familiar face near by. The place where I was standing become congested of vehicle parking, and it took nearly five minutes for me to get out of that vehicle-maze. A good looking (in fact great) modernly dressed girl was standing near to me there. She was giving a stunning look with her big red eyes. The intention was to make me feared, and she was success on that job. I was feared and irritated!! Is it the same this girls feel when we make a look at them?

Half hour with complete strangers. I was completely lost. The sky was ready to shower a rain, and breeze where working as catalyst for the rain. I walked to the left side a bit – and I saw some faces that I could recognize – Rajnikanth and Nayanthara! Actually, seeing the poster of film was a great relief for me. It was a talkies named Prasanth, where Kathanayakudu the remake of Kadaparayumbol was released. By the time Jayamama reached there and picked me to his house.

The rain welcomed me to his home. It was my first trip to there. In fact none from our home had went there. The home was lovely and had a great food, thoughts and jokes. The was great. The wonderful food made me to sleep as i reached the bed and the sleep continued for upto 12 hours. Just reached the mukt.in for the day2. I need to make some modification in slide! Wait for more.

Note : I had got camera from Roshiba, but till this moment it was not working – as I put the battery in inverted

At Mukt.in

hiran — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Me along with Shyam reached Hyderabad today by 2PM as to attend Mukt.in I just entered to the venue, got a seat and wifi connection. My talk is supposed to be at tomorrow morning. Wait for more. Let me hear the talk by Ajay Kumar on Sahana DMS, GSoCer 2008.

at thrissur railway station, as the train arrives.

Yet again a talk, at MES

hiran — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 08:16:00 +0000

Yesterday I had a session on Inkscape, SVG, Fontforge and blah blah blahs that I could make at the Main Auditorium of M E S Engineering College, Kuttippuram. The program was fun and I was accompained by Shyam and Jineesh. Raju sir was also there. Thanks to those all supported to make the presentation especially Creative Contingencies.

Extra Bit: Unluckly, the news came to Media!

മിന്നാമിന്നിക്കുട്ടത്തിലെ സാരോപദേശം

hiran — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:34:00 +0000

��ംഭവം സിനിമയിലാണു്. ചിത്രം മിന്നാമിന്നിക്കൂട്ടം. നായികമാരില്‍ ഒരുവളായ റോമ വില്ലന്‍ എന്നു സിനിമ ഒരുപക്ഷെ അവകാശപ്പെടുന്ന മണിക്കുട്ടനുമൊത്തു് യാത്രചെയ്യുന്നതു് റോമയുടെ കാമുകനും സുഹൃത്തുമായ ജയസൂര്യ കാണാന്‍ ഇടയാവുന്നു. ഈ രംഗത്തിനു മുമ്പുള്ള രംഗങ്ങളില്‍ മീരാജാസ്മിനോടു് മോശമായി പെരുമാറുന്ന (അതിനാല്‍ ത്രിമൂത്തികളായ നായകന്മാര്‍ അടിച്ചുപരത്തുന്ന) മണിക്കുട്ടനോടൊപ്പം കണ്ടതിനു ജയസൂര്യ ശാസിക്കുന്നു. ജയസൂര്യയുടെ വാദത്തെ മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ പിന്തുണയ്ക്കുകയും റോമ പിണങ്ങിപോവുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നു. പിന്നിടു് സത്യാവസ്ത മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്ന മീരജാസ്മിന്‍ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ മനസ്സിലാക്കുകയും ജയസൂര്യയെ പറഞ്ഞു മനസ്സിലാക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നു. അതോടെ പിണക്കം മറന്നു സര്‍വ്വരും റോമചെയ്ത പ്രവര്‍ത്തിയെ ശരിയായി വിലയിരുത്തുന്നു. ത്രെഡ് അവിടെ തീരുന്നു.

ഇനിയാണ് ബ്ലൊഗ് പോയന്റ് – റോമ പറഞ്ഞ കാരണം ഡയലോഗ് രൂപത്തില്‍ (കൃത്യമായ ഡയലോഗല്ല, അതുപോലെ)

“നിങ്ങള്‍ പറഞ്ഞതു് ശരിയാ, ഞാന്‍ അവനോടൊപ്പം പോയതു് തെറ്റാ. അവന്‍ വൃത്തികെട്ടവനാ. പക്ഷെ ഞാനെന്തിനാ അവന്റൊപ്പം പോയതെന്നു നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കറിയുമോ, (പണിനടക്കുന്ന) വീടിന്റെ കറണ്ടു കണക്ഷനുവേണ്ടിയാ. ഞാന്‍ കൈകൂലി കൊടുത്തു മടിത്തു. അപ്പോഴാ ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌____ പറഞ്ഞെ ഇങ്ങേരു വിചാരിച്ചാല്‍ കാര്യം നടക്കുമെന്നു്. അതുകൊണ്ടാ ഞാന്‍ ചെയ്തേ, …… അയാളെ ഹോംമിനിസ്റ്ററിന്റെ മകന്റെ മാത്രം ഫ്രെണ്ടല്ല, എലക്ട്രിസിറ്റി മിനിസ്റ്ററിന്റെ കൂടിയാ”

എന്തുനല്ല മോറല്‍! ആവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ സ്വന്താമാണെങ്കില്‍ ഏതു് മറ്റവന്റെയും ഒപ്പം പോവാം! കാര്യം നടക്കാന്‍ ഏതു് വഴിയും സ്വീകരിക്കാം! പോയകാര്യം നടന്ന സ്ഥിതിക്കു ഈ തെറ്റു സുഹൃത്തുക്കള്‍ക്കു മറക്കാം!

മഴയെത്തും മുന്‍പെ, അഴകിയ രാവണന്‍, രാപ്പകല്‍ എന്നീചിത്രങ്ങളുടെ സംവിധായകനായ കമാലാണോ ഈ തത്വം ലോകത്തിനു മുമ്പില്‍ അവതരിപ്പിച്ചതു്.

അറബികഥയിലെ ശ്രീനിവാസന്റെ രീതിയില്‍ പറയുകയാണെങ്കില്‍ “ഐ.ടി. കമ്പനിയില്‍ ചാറ്റീതു കളിക്കുന്നതും, ഗര്‍ഭിണിയായ സംവൃത നൃത്തം ചെയുന്നതിലോ അനാവശ്യമായൊരു വില്ലന്‍ വന്നതിലോ ഒന്നും പ്രശ്നമ്മിലെങ്കിലും, ഇത്തിരി കഥയും ഇത്തിരി നല്ല സംഭാഷണവും സിനിമകളിലുണ്ടായിരുന്നെങ്കില്‍ കൊറച്ചുകൂടെ നന്നായിരുന്നൂ“