Stake Five

In case you’re wondering why I’ve been so quiet of late… ColdFusion 8 aka Scorpio is coming!

Mea culpa, I’m a programmer, not an artist.

Apologies all for the sparse posting - things have been crazy busy in Scorpio land.

For the moment, here’s a little something to keep you entertained. It made me laugh out loud!

The Temple of Java

In case you’re looking for me next week, you’ll find me relaxed, disconnected and generally bereft of digital devices (save perhaps a camera) on the sunny beaches of Goa. See ya!

Around the time I put up my first post on privacy, I started noticing conversation on the topic in the blogosphere. Oddly enough, I had started writing that post before I noticed the attention that was being paid to the issue.

After I read Jon Udell writing on the politics of data control, I was absolutely certain something was in the air; how could I possibly anticipate information flows on the Net? Of course, there had to be an explanation, so I settled for the most obvious one - we are approaching the boundaries of the Singularity, that remarkable union of the collective human consciousness and the mass of information and processing power that is the Internet.

Then again, there is all that beer to be considered… and Technorati stats. Did you know that they provide a very cool embeddable trends graph?

With that, we return to our regular scheduled programming. Have a great weekend, folks!

Artist’s impression of Ray nuking Ashwin ;-)

Having finally got our own web space seems to have persuaded Anasuya to enter the blogosphere; it’s been a wonder watching her go from tentative first steps to absolute glee at seeing her work online. She’s a committed feminist who’s dedicated to combating injustice wherever it might be, and in my own (admittedly biased) view, a very original and balanced voice within the womens’ movement. Check her out!

Welcome to Stake Five, my new home on the web, my virtual stake in the ground! I’ll be updating it as frequently as I can, with musings on technology, music, politics, and whatever else might catch my fancy.

In case you’re wondering where the name came from, my lovely wife is to blame - she suggested munging something to do with music, and this is what popped out…

While the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five may indeed be one of the most overplayed jazz tunes ever (a saxophonist friend of mine claims that a little bit of him dies every time he hears it!), there is an undeniable magic to the original, which I revisited after reading Tim Bray’s post on it a few weeks ago. If you’re reading this, Tim, thanks for the reminder! When I was getting into playing jazz, it was definitely one of those formative tunes that helped guide the way I thought about music - apart from the wonderful original, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh’s magnificent cover in particular got me thinking about how original forms can be stretched to accommodate the new.

And so I hope to do here as well - we stand on the shoulders of giants, after all!