{"id":286,"date":"2010-02-14T00:33:49","date_gmt":"2010-02-13T19:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=286"},"modified":"2025-12-23T07:18:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T01:48:29","slug":"jai-ho-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"Jai Ho or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>|It&#039;s almost official now. The world has been cocacolised. <\/p>\n<p> <b>John Dvorak<\/b> , writing on technology in the USA, commented that &quot; <i>It&#039;s almost as if the collective brain of the American public has been put into neutral<\/i> .&quot; That  is just the tip of the iceberg.  <\/p>\n<p><b>Hype-mania<\/b>  is an international pandemic. Just look at the headlines. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Crippled-spec Netbooks are outselling laptops. AR Rehman has a couple of Grammy Awards to match his double Oscars. <\/p>\n<p>What are we to make of headlines exclaiming that <a target=\"_blank\" href=http:\/\/www.theonion.com\/content\/news\/science_channel_refuses_to_dumb>Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p><b>Avatar<\/b>  was a huge disappointment. The cutting-edge special effects experience quickly wore off, leaving the feeling of watching an interminable Discovery Channel documentary. The plot was ridden with every moth-eaten cliche in the book. <\/p>\n<p>A far better movie experience, IMHO, was the reboot of the  <b>Star Trek<\/b>  film series. In the seventies the Star Trek TV series was broadcast by PTV and Jammu was near enough the LOC to receive a faint signal. An ingenious combination of an antenna with a bicycle rim enabled grainy though quite watchable B&amp;W reception and we became avid  <b>Trekkies<\/b>. I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/bean-avatar.jpg\"><br \/>\n<i>Is this our future?<\/i><\/p>\n<p> <b>Netbooks<\/b>  are low- powered devices with ridiculously small squint-inducing screens, cramped keyboards and missing CD\/DVD drives. Tablet laptops that beat the pants off netbooks are available for similar amounts of money but everyone and their uncle are buying netbooks. <\/p>\n<p>Lower standards and expectations are not only acceptable but fashionable too.<\/p>\n<p>The enormously talented  <b> <b>A R Rahman<\/b> <\/b>  is accepting multiple  <b>Oscar<\/b>  and  <b>Grammy<\/b>  awards for the music of <b> <b>Jai Ho<\/b> <\/b>. I am sure that it takes quite an effort on his part to keep a straight face. Jai Ho is not his best work &#8211; not by a long shot.<\/p>\n<p>The starkest example is that of <b>Facebook<\/b>. The social networking site has taken over the world with millions of users all over the globe. Here is the result:<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=http:\/\/www.readwriteweb.com\/archives\/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php>Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Just go through the comments. Hundreds of people were trying to login to Facebook from a totally unrelated site called  <b>ReadWriteWeb<\/b>  and getting frustrated at their inability to do so despite the following message printed in bold letters:<\/p>\n<p> <b>Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services.<\/b> <\/p>\n<p>One commenter joked about removing these people from the gene pool. What about Twitter &#8211; and the  millions of people who are tweeting inanities this very moment? Don&#8217;t even get me started on the selfie mania.<\/p>\n<p>To their credit, till the sun set on their missionary\/capitalist empire, the British insisted on excellence. The strategy of the modern neo-colonist unipower is quite the reverse &#8211; the imposition of <b>dumbocracy<\/b> in every nation on earth. The world could not be converted but, like poor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coca-cola.com\/us\/en\/about-us\/faq\/did-coca-cola-create-santa-claus\" target=\"_blank\">Santa Claus<\/a>,  it sure as hell has been cocacola-ized.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/sign.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><b>Update:<\/b> The rules of <b>Scrabble<\/b> have been <a target=\"_blank\" href=http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/8604625.stm>changed<\/a> to allow the use of proper nouns like people&#039;s names, places, and company names or brands! Be sure to read the comments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Postscript <\/strong>: <em>&#8216;I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity.&#8217;<\/em><br \/>\nThis is the part where I eat my hat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>|It&#039;s almost official now. The world has been cocacolised. John Dvorak , writing on technology in the USA, commented that &quot; It&#039;s almost as if the collective brain of the American public has been put into neutral .&quot; That is just the tip of the iceberg. Hype-mania is an international pandemic. Just look at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1872,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}