One day, he will hold up the championship trophy, the roars will be for him, and the haunting emptiness for someone else.
One day, he'll win. He has to, if the gods of tennis have any sense of decency and justice. They owe him a happy ending.
:Mike Lopresti on Andy Roddick
Monday, July 6, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Photography Jargons
Artifacts
Artifacts are unwanted aberrations caused by sensor, optics or internal image processing algorithms of a camera. The most common artifacts are blooming, maze artifacts, chromatic aberrations, moiré, jaggies, JPEG compression, noise, and sharpening halos.
Aliasing
Ever wondered why diagonal lines appear jagged rather than straight or smooth in some images? This is because of aliasing, which happens due to the square nature of pixels - the minutest component that any picture is made of.
Aperture / f-stop
When you click a photograph, the lens opens to certain degree so that light can pass through it and onto the camera's sensors or film. The size of this opening is referred to as the 'Aperture', and it directly effects the photo's 'exposure' and depth of field.
Aperture Priority
Aperture Priority (also known as Aperture Value and denoted by Av on the camera), is a mode where the photographer selects an aperture value and the camera decides the shutter speed according to lighting conditions, so that you get optimal results. It's different from 'manual mode' which allows you to set both aperture and shutter speed settings.
Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio of an image is the value of the width of an image/frame, divided by the height of it and denoted in the form of a ratio such as 16:9, 4:3 or 16:10.
Barrel Distortion
Barrel Distortion is a common for of distortion in wide angle lenses where images tend to get 'spherized' or rounded towards the sides. Such distortion is more prominent in images which have many straight lines.
Burst
The "burst" or "continuous" mode allows you to take multiple shots one after the other. The number of shots taken are measured via fps or frames per second, and are different in different makes and models of cameras. To be a little more technical: the fps decides how many times the shutter releases and an image's processed in a second, defining how many pictures are taken in a short span of time.
Depth of Field
The effect generated when the areas on the focal plane (at the focal length) of a camera in a photograph remains in focus (sharp), while other areas stay 'out of focus' (or blurry), is known as Depth of Field. It is enhanced by keeping the aperture small.
Digital Zoom
Unlike optical zoom (which uses a 'zoom lens' that alters its focal length to achieve the desired result), Digital Zoom re-sizes a part of an image digitally in order to fake actually zooming into it.
EXIF
When photos are stored on digital cameras, a lot of additional details apart from the image itself are stored on the resulting file. This data (which is also called Metadata) is stored in the "header" of the file and may include everything from when the picture at hand was take (date, time), shutterspeed, aperture, ISO, and most other settings. This header is usually in the EXIF format (Exchangeable Image File), which was created by JEIDA (Japan Electronic Industry Development Association) as a universally accepted format so that all sorts of imaging devices could access it. This data can be used as a powerful learning tool since you can analyze shots taken by you, check the settings, and decide what settings work best for which type of shots.
Exposure
The amount of light received by the film or sensor of a camera is known as exposure. The exposure of an image can be altered by changing the camera's aperture settings and shutter speed.
Exposure Compensation
Even after selecting an aperture value and shutter speed to fit the lighting of a scene perfectly, an image may be underexposed. In this case the Exposure Compensation (or EV Compensation) found in prosumer and professional level cameras can be tweaked to fix the exposure.
Focal Length
The focal length of a camera (or an eye for that matter) defines the distance from the lens at which objects remain sharp or in focus. In other words, focal length is the distance (in millimeters - mm) between the optical centre of a lens and the focal point.
Histogram
A histogram is a pictorial representation of the tonal distribution in an image. It shows the photographer whether a picture he's clicked has captured all the tonal details or its has areas that have been blown-out due to over-exposure.
Interpolation
Interpolation is a method used to increase the number of pixels in a digital image. It basically adds in extra pixels to increase the size of an image intelligently. While it's not as good as actually having an image of higher resolution, it's not as bad as just resizing an image without the addition of extra pixels.
ISO Sensitivity
ISO followed by a number (ISO 80, ISO 120, etc.) was used to denote the sensitivity level of camera film as specified by the International Standard Organization. The term 'ISO' stuck around for digital cameras too, where its used for the same purpose - i.e. to specify how sensitive your camera should be to incoming light. At higher ISO settings, your camera's sensor are more receptive towards incoming light, but this also adds more image 'Noise' than lower ISO settings.
Macro mode
A mode in a camera that's optimized for clicking picture of small objects from up close. This mode is usually denoted by the icon of a flower.
Noise
The unwanted grainy artifacts in the dark or uniformly colored areas of an image is called 'Noise'. In photographs, this happens due to the same pixels on the camera's sensor being exposed to different levels of light or different temperatures. Noise is considerably higher in images clicked with higher ISO (sensitivity) settings.
Pincushion Distortion
Pincushion is the opposite of the barrel distortion, where an image gets pinched in the middle and lines around the sides curve inwards. This form of distortion is most common with zoom lenses.
RAW
RAW is an image format used by high end cameras - that unlike JPEGs - actually captures the 'raw', 'unprocessed', and 'uncompressed' data off the camera's sensors. It's the digital equivalent of the 'negative' image you get on film cameras, which means its the highest quality you'll get from a camera, hence its the most post-process friendly.
Sensors
Just like the human eye, cameras have sensors which detect incoming light and are sensitive to the three primary colors - red, blue and green. Any color on the visual spectrum can be broken down to a mix of variable values of these three primary colors, and conversely these three colors can be used to form any color. Traditionally, cameras used film that had three seperate layers, each sensitive to a seperate primary color. In digital cameras however, the sensors percieve values digitally and convert them to a universally accepted file format such as JPEG or RAW.
Shutterspeed
Shutterspeed is the amount of time the mechanical shutter of a camera stays open, so that light can pass through it and on to the sensors or the film. The shutterspeed is measured in fractions of a second such as 1/2s, 1/4s, 1/8s, 1/15s, 1/30s, 1/60s, 1/125s, 1/250s, 1/500s, 1/1000s, 1/2000s, 1/4000s, 1/8000s, which basically defines how long the shutter will stay open.
Shutter Priority
Like aperture priority, shutter priority is a mode in prosumer and professional level cameras where the user selects the shutterspeed and the camera decides the amount the aperture should open according to the scene at hand. This mode is ideal to capture moving objects where the photographer wishes to have one or more elements of a scene blurry.
Viewfinder
The viewfinder is the "window" of a camera that allows you to look through it and preview what a picture would look like before you click it. The optical path of the viewfinder always runs parellel to the lens, so that you can see exactly how much of the scene you can capture in a still.
Vignetting
Another form of distortion found in Zoom lenses, Vignetting occurs when the barrel of the camera becomes visable in the corners of images.
White Balance
Not all light sources that we perceive as 'white' are pure, since they have a certain color temperature that adds a yellow or blue tint to it. The human eye usually compensates for these color variations automatically, but digital cameras don't. In digital cameras, the white balance picks a shade in the image that's closest to white (indiscriminate of what tint it has) and balances the color palette of the image accordingly. So if the light source in the image has a slightly yellow, blue or any other tint, it might disrupt the entire color palette making it look warmer (more yellow-ish), cooler (more blue-ish), dull or more saturated than the actual scene.
source internet
Artifacts are unwanted aberrations caused by sensor, optics or internal image processing algorithms of a camera. The most common artifacts are blooming, maze artifacts, chromatic aberrations, moiré, jaggies, JPEG compression, noise, and sharpening halos.
Aliasing
Ever wondered why diagonal lines appear jagged rather than straight or smooth in some images? This is because of aliasing, which happens due to the square nature of pixels - the minutest component that any picture is made of.
Aperture / f-stop
When you click a photograph, the lens opens to certain degree so that light can pass through it and onto the camera's sensors or film. The size of this opening is referred to as the 'Aperture', and it directly effects the photo's 'exposure' and depth of field.
Aperture Priority
Aperture Priority (also known as Aperture Value and denoted by Av on the camera), is a mode where the photographer selects an aperture value and the camera decides the shutter speed according to lighting conditions, so that you get optimal results. It's different from 'manual mode' which allows you to set both aperture and shutter speed settings.
Aspect Ratio
The aspect ratio of an image is the value of the width of an image/frame, divided by the height of it and denoted in the form of a ratio such as 16:9, 4:3 or 16:10.
Barrel Distortion
Barrel Distortion is a common for of distortion in wide angle lenses where images tend to get 'spherized' or rounded towards the sides. Such distortion is more prominent in images which have many straight lines.
Burst
The "burst" or "continuous" mode allows you to take multiple shots one after the other. The number of shots taken are measured via fps or frames per second, and are different in different makes and models of cameras. To be a little more technical: the fps decides how many times the shutter releases and an image's processed in a second, defining how many pictures are taken in a short span of time.
Depth of Field
The effect generated when the areas on the focal plane (at the focal length) of a camera in a photograph remains in focus (sharp), while other areas stay 'out of focus' (or blurry), is known as Depth of Field. It is enhanced by keeping the aperture small.
Digital Zoom
Unlike optical zoom (which uses a 'zoom lens' that alters its focal length to achieve the desired result), Digital Zoom re-sizes a part of an image digitally in order to fake actually zooming into it.
EXIF
When photos are stored on digital cameras, a lot of additional details apart from the image itself are stored on the resulting file. This data (which is also called Metadata) is stored in the "header" of the file and may include everything from when the picture at hand was take (date, time), shutterspeed, aperture, ISO, and most other settings. This header is usually in the EXIF format (Exchangeable Image File), which was created by JEIDA (Japan Electronic Industry Development Association) as a universally accepted format so that all sorts of imaging devices could access it. This data can be used as a powerful learning tool since you can analyze shots taken by you, check the settings, and decide what settings work best for which type of shots.
Exposure
The amount of light received by the film or sensor of a camera is known as exposure. The exposure of an image can be altered by changing the camera's aperture settings and shutter speed.
Exposure Compensation
Even after selecting an aperture value and shutter speed to fit the lighting of a scene perfectly, an image may be underexposed. In this case the Exposure Compensation (or EV Compensation) found in prosumer and professional level cameras can be tweaked to fix the exposure.
Focal Length
The focal length of a camera (or an eye for that matter) defines the distance from the lens at which objects remain sharp or in focus. In other words, focal length is the distance (in millimeters - mm) between the optical centre of a lens and the focal point.
Histogram
A histogram is a pictorial representation of the tonal distribution in an image. It shows the photographer whether a picture he's clicked has captured all the tonal details or its has areas that have been blown-out due to over-exposure.
Interpolation
Interpolation is a method used to increase the number of pixels in a digital image. It basically adds in extra pixels to increase the size of an image intelligently. While it's not as good as actually having an image of higher resolution, it's not as bad as just resizing an image without the addition of extra pixels.
ISO Sensitivity
ISO followed by a number (ISO 80, ISO 120, etc.) was used to denote the sensitivity level of camera film as specified by the International Standard Organization. The term 'ISO' stuck around for digital cameras too, where its used for the same purpose - i.e. to specify how sensitive your camera should be to incoming light. At higher ISO settings, your camera's sensor are more receptive towards incoming light, but this also adds more image 'Noise' than lower ISO settings.
Macro mode
A mode in a camera that's optimized for clicking picture of small objects from up close. This mode is usually denoted by the icon of a flower.
Noise
The unwanted grainy artifacts in the dark or uniformly colored areas of an image is called 'Noise'. In photographs, this happens due to the same pixels on the camera's sensor being exposed to different levels of light or different temperatures. Noise is considerably higher in images clicked with higher ISO (sensitivity) settings.
Pincushion Distortion
Pincushion is the opposite of the barrel distortion, where an image gets pinched in the middle and lines around the sides curve inwards. This form of distortion is most common with zoom lenses.
RAW
RAW is an image format used by high end cameras - that unlike JPEGs - actually captures the 'raw', 'unprocessed', and 'uncompressed' data off the camera's sensors. It's the digital equivalent of the 'negative' image you get on film cameras, which means its the highest quality you'll get from a camera, hence its the most post-process friendly.
Sensors
Just like the human eye, cameras have sensors which detect incoming light and are sensitive to the three primary colors - red, blue and green. Any color on the visual spectrum can be broken down to a mix of variable values of these three primary colors, and conversely these three colors can be used to form any color. Traditionally, cameras used film that had three seperate layers, each sensitive to a seperate primary color. In digital cameras however, the sensors percieve values digitally and convert them to a universally accepted file format such as JPEG or RAW.
Shutterspeed
Shutterspeed is the amount of time the mechanical shutter of a camera stays open, so that light can pass through it and on to the sensors or the film. The shutterspeed is measured in fractions of a second such as 1/2s, 1/4s, 1/8s, 1/15s, 1/30s, 1/60s, 1/125s, 1/250s, 1/500s, 1/1000s, 1/2000s, 1/4000s, 1/8000s, which basically defines how long the shutter will stay open.
Shutter Priority
Like aperture priority, shutter priority is a mode in prosumer and professional level cameras where the user selects the shutterspeed and the camera decides the amount the aperture should open according to the scene at hand. This mode is ideal to capture moving objects where the photographer wishes to have one or more elements of a scene blurry.
Viewfinder
The viewfinder is the "window" of a camera that allows you to look through it and preview what a picture would look like before you click it. The optical path of the viewfinder always runs parellel to the lens, so that you can see exactly how much of the scene you can capture in a still.
Vignetting
Another form of distortion found in Zoom lenses, Vignetting occurs when the barrel of the camera becomes visable in the corners of images.
White Balance
Not all light sources that we perceive as 'white' are pure, since they have a certain color temperature that adds a yellow or blue tint to it. The human eye usually compensates for these color variations automatically, but digital cameras don't. In digital cameras, the white balance picks a shade in the image that's closest to white (indiscriminate of what tint it has) and balances the color palette of the image accordingly. So if the light source in the image has a slightly yellow, blue or any other tint, it might disrupt the entire color palette making it look warmer (more yellow-ish), cooler (more blue-ish), dull or more saturated than the actual scene.
source internet
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Ghalib: conquering, superior, most excellent
Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan -- known to posterity as Ghalib, a `nom de plume' he adopted in the tradition of all classical Urdu poets, was born in the city of Agra, of parents with Turkish aristocratic ancestry, probably on December 27th, 1797. As to the precise date, Imtiyaz Ali Arshi has conjectured, on the basis of Ghalib's horoscope, that the poet might have been born a month later, in January 1798.
The death of his father and uncle during his youth left Ghalib with no male-dominant figures. He then moved to Delhi.
Ghalib's early education has always been a matter of confusion. There are no known records of his formal education, although it was known that his circle of friends in Delhi were some of the most intelligent minds of the time.
Around 1810, he was married into a family of nobles, at the age of thirteen. He had seven children, none of whom survived (this pain has found its echo in some of Ghalib's ghazals). There are conflicting reports regarding his relationship with his wife. She was considered to be pious, conservative and God-fearing while Ghalib was carefree, unconventional without any scruples, and arguably not very religious, in the strict sense of the word.
Ghalib was very fond of drinking and gambling (in this respect, he himself admitted he was not quite a strict "Muslim"). Gambling used to be an offence in Delhi at that time and he was even apprehended once for having indulged in it in his own backyard. Ghalib also had an affair with a courtesan who quite admired his poetry. There still exists the First Information Report filed against Ghalib in Kotwali ( "Police Station" is a more convenient term in modern (English) language), Daryaganj, New Delhi that relates his rivalry with the then Kotwal when it came to the courtesan.
Ghalib never worked as such for a livelihood but lived on either state patronage, credit or generosity of his friends. His fame came to him posthumously. He had himself remarked during his lifetime that although his age ignored his greatness, it would be recognized by later generations. History has vindicated his claim. He also is arguably the most "written about" among Urdu poets.
He died in Delhi on February 15th, 1869.
[edit] Contemporaries and disciples
Ghalib's closest rival was poet Zauq, tutor of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the then emperor of India with his seat in Delhi. There are some amusing anecdotes of the competition between Ghalib and Zauq and exchange of jibes between them. However, there was mutual respect for each other's talent. Both also admired and acknowledged the supremacy of Meer Taqi Meer, a towering figure of Urdu Poetry of 18th century. Another poet Momin, whose ghazals had a distinctly lyrical flavor, was also a famous contemporary of Ghalib.
Ghalib's poetry
Although Ghalib wrote in Persian as well, he is more famous for his ghazals written in Urdu. It is believed he wrote most of his very popular ghazals by the age of nineteen. His ghazals, unlike those of Meer Taqi Meer, contain highly Persianized Urdu, and are therefore not easily understood or appreciated by a vast majority of people without some extra effort. Before Ghalib, ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love but he expressed philosophy, the travails of life and many such subjects, thus vastly expanding the scope of ghazal. This, together with his many masterpieces, will forever remain his paramount contribution to Urdu Poetry and Literature.
In keeping with the conventions of the classical ghazal, in most of Ghalib's verses, the identity and the gender of the beloved is indeterminate. The beloved could be a beautiful woman, or a beautiful boy, or even God. As the renowned critic/poet/writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqui explains, since the convention of having the "idea" of a lover or beloved instead of an actual lover/beloved freed the poet-protagonist-lover from the demands of "realism", love poetry in Urdu from the last quarter of the seventeenth century onwards consists mostly of "poems about love" and not "love poems" in the Western sense of the term. Ghalib's poetry is a fine illustration of this. Ghalib also excels in deeply introspective and philosophical verses.
The first complete English translation of Ghalib's love poems (ghazals) was written by Dr. Sarfaraz K. Niazi(http://www.ghalib.org) and published by Rupa & Co in India and Ferozsons in Pakistan. The title of this book is Love Sonnets of Ghalib and it contains complete roman transliteration, explication and an extensive lexicon.
His Letters
Not only Urdu poetry but the prose is also indebted to Mirza Ghalib. His letters gave foundation to easy and popular Urdu. Before Ghalib, letter writing in Urdu was highly ornamental. He made his letters "talk" by using words and sentences as if he were conversing with the reader. According to him "sau kos say ba-zabaan-e-qalam baatein kiya karo aur hijr mein visaal kay ma-zay liya karo" [ from hundred of miles talk with the tongue of the pen and enjoy the joy of meeting even when you are separated] His letters were very informal, some times he would just write the name of the person and start the letter. He himself was very humorous and also made his letter very interesting. He said "main koshish karta hoon keh koi aisi baat likhoon jo pa-rhay khoosh ho jaaye" [ I want to write the lines that whoever reads those should enjoy it] When the third wife of one of his friends died, he wrote... "Allah allah aik woh log hain jo teen teen dafah iss qaid say chhoot chu-kain hain aur aik hum hain keh aik ag-lay pachas baras say jo phansi ka phanda ga-lay mein parha hai to nah phanda hi tut-ta hai nah dum hi nikalta hai" [Allah Allah, there are some among us who have been freed from this prison three times and I have for the past 50 years this rope around my neck; neither this rope breaks nor it takes my life] Some scholars says that Ghalib would have the same place in Urdu literature if only on the basis of his letters.They have been beautifully translated into English by Ralph Russell, The Oxford Ghalib.
His Takhallus
His original Takhallus (pen-name) was Asad, drawn from his given name, Asadullah Khan. At some point early in his poetic career he also decided to adopt the taKhallus 'Ghalib' (meaning all conquering, superior, most excellent).
Popular legend has it that he changed his nom de plume to 'Ghalib' when he came across this sher (couplet) by another poet who used the taKhallus 'Asad':
Asad us jafaa par butoN say wafaa ki
mire sher shabaash rahmat Khudaa ki
(Asad worshipped idols after being betrayed.
my poems(thankyou)are, the mercy of GOD.
The legend says that upon hearing this couplet, Ghalib ruefully exclaimed, "whoever authored this couplet does indeed deserve the Lord's rahmat (mercy) (for having composed such a deplorable specimen of Urdu poetry). If I use the taKhallus Asad, then surely (people will mistake this couplet to be mine and) there will be much la'anat (curse) on me!" And, saying so, he changed his takhallus to 'Ghalib'.
However, this legend is little more than a figment of the legend-creator's imagination. Extensive research performed by commentators and scholars of Ghalib's works, notably Imtiaz Ali Arshi and Kalidas Gupta Raza, has succeeded in identifying the chronology of Ghalib's published work (sometimes down to the exact calendar day!). Although the taKhallus 'Asad' appears more infrequently in Ghalib's work than 'Ghalib', it appears that he did use both his noms de plume interchangeably throughout his career and did not seem to prefer either one over the other.
source:net,history books
The death of his father and uncle during his youth left Ghalib with no male-dominant figures. He then moved to Delhi.
Ghalib's early education has always been a matter of confusion. There are no known records of his formal education, although it was known that his circle of friends in Delhi were some of the most intelligent minds of the time.
Around 1810, he was married into a family of nobles, at the age of thirteen. He had seven children, none of whom survived (this pain has found its echo in some of Ghalib's ghazals). There are conflicting reports regarding his relationship with his wife. She was considered to be pious, conservative and God-fearing while Ghalib was carefree, unconventional without any scruples, and arguably not very religious, in the strict sense of the word.
Ghalib was very fond of drinking and gambling (in this respect, he himself admitted he was not quite a strict "Muslim"). Gambling used to be an offence in Delhi at that time and he was even apprehended once for having indulged in it in his own backyard. Ghalib also had an affair with a courtesan who quite admired his poetry. There still exists the First Information Report filed against Ghalib in Kotwali ( "Police Station" is a more convenient term in modern (English) language), Daryaganj, New Delhi that relates his rivalry with the then Kotwal when it came to the courtesan.
Ghalib never worked as such for a livelihood but lived on either state patronage, credit or generosity of his friends. His fame came to him posthumously. He had himself remarked during his lifetime that although his age ignored his greatness, it would be recognized by later generations. History has vindicated his claim. He also is arguably the most "written about" among Urdu poets.
He died in Delhi on February 15th, 1869.
[edit] Contemporaries and disciples
Ghalib's closest rival was poet Zauq, tutor of Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the then emperor of India with his seat in Delhi. There are some amusing anecdotes of the competition between Ghalib and Zauq and exchange of jibes between them. However, there was mutual respect for each other's talent. Both also admired and acknowledged the supremacy of Meer Taqi Meer, a towering figure of Urdu Poetry of 18th century. Another poet Momin, whose ghazals had a distinctly lyrical flavor, was also a famous contemporary of Ghalib.
Ghalib's poetry
Although Ghalib wrote in Persian as well, he is more famous for his ghazals written in Urdu. It is believed he wrote most of his very popular ghazals by the age of nineteen. His ghazals, unlike those of Meer Taqi Meer, contain highly Persianized Urdu, and are therefore not easily understood or appreciated by a vast majority of people without some extra effort. Before Ghalib, ghazal was primarily an expression of anguished love but he expressed philosophy, the travails of life and many such subjects, thus vastly expanding the scope of ghazal. This, together with his many masterpieces, will forever remain his paramount contribution to Urdu Poetry and Literature.
In keeping with the conventions of the classical ghazal, in most of Ghalib's verses, the identity and the gender of the beloved is indeterminate. The beloved could be a beautiful woman, or a beautiful boy, or even God. As the renowned critic/poet/writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqui explains, since the convention of having the "idea" of a lover or beloved instead of an actual lover/beloved freed the poet-protagonist-lover from the demands of "realism", love poetry in Urdu from the last quarter of the seventeenth century onwards consists mostly of "poems about love" and not "love poems" in the Western sense of the term. Ghalib's poetry is a fine illustration of this. Ghalib also excels in deeply introspective and philosophical verses.
The first complete English translation of Ghalib's love poems (ghazals) was written by Dr. Sarfaraz K. Niazi(http://www.ghalib.org) and published by Rupa & Co in India and Ferozsons in Pakistan. The title of this book is Love Sonnets of Ghalib and it contains complete roman transliteration, explication and an extensive lexicon.
His Letters
Not only Urdu poetry but the prose is also indebted to Mirza Ghalib. His letters gave foundation to easy and popular Urdu. Before Ghalib, letter writing in Urdu was highly ornamental. He made his letters "talk" by using words and sentences as if he were conversing with the reader. According to him "sau kos say ba-zabaan-e-qalam baatein kiya karo aur hijr mein visaal kay ma-zay liya karo" [ from hundred of miles talk with the tongue of the pen and enjoy the joy of meeting even when you are separated] His letters were very informal, some times he would just write the name of the person and start the letter. He himself was very humorous and also made his letter very interesting. He said "main koshish karta hoon keh koi aisi baat likhoon jo pa-rhay khoosh ho jaaye" [ I want to write the lines that whoever reads those should enjoy it] When the third wife of one of his friends died, he wrote... "Allah allah aik woh log hain jo teen teen dafah iss qaid say chhoot chu-kain hain aur aik hum hain keh aik ag-lay pachas baras say jo phansi ka phanda ga-lay mein parha hai to nah phanda hi tut-ta hai nah dum hi nikalta hai" [Allah Allah, there are some among us who have been freed from this prison three times and I have for the past 50 years this rope around my neck; neither this rope breaks nor it takes my life] Some scholars says that Ghalib would have the same place in Urdu literature if only on the basis of his letters.They have been beautifully translated into English by Ralph Russell, The Oxford Ghalib.
His Takhallus
His original Takhallus (pen-name) was Asad, drawn from his given name, Asadullah Khan. At some point early in his poetic career he also decided to adopt the taKhallus 'Ghalib' (meaning all conquering, superior, most excellent).
Popular legend has it that he changed his nom de plume to 'Ghalib' when he came across this sher (couplet) by another poet who used the taKhallus 'Asad':
Asad us jafaa par butoN say wafaa ki
mire sher shabaash rahmat Khudaa ki
(Asad worshipped idols after being betrayed.
my poems(thankyou)are, the mercy of GOD.
The legend says that upon hearing this couplet, Ghalib ruefully exclaimed, "whoever authored this couplet does indeed deserve the Lord's rahmat (mercy) (for having composed such a deplorable specimen of Urdu poetry). If I use the taKhallus Asad, then surely (people will mistake this couplet to be mine and) there will be much la'anat (curse) on me!" And, saying so, he changed his takhallus to 'Ghalib'.
However, this legend is little more than a figment of the legend-creator's imagination. Extensive research performed by commentators and scholars of Ghalib's works, notably Imtiaz Ali Arshi and Kalidas Gupta Raza, has succeeded in identifying the chronology of Ghalib's published work (sometimes down to the exact calendar day!). Although the taKhallus 'Asad' appears more infrequently in Ghalib's work than 'Ghalib', it appears that he did use both his noms de plume interchangeably throughout his career and did not seem to prefer either one over the other.
source:net,history books
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Bitrates : how they affect music quality
In digital multimedia, bitrate represents the amount of information, or detail, that is stored per unit of time of a recording. The bitrate depends on several factors:
* the original material may be sampled at different frequencies
* the samples may use different numbers of bits
* the data may be encoded by different schemes
* the information may be digitally compressed by different algorithms or to different degrees
Generally, choices are made about the above factors in order to achieve the desired trade-off between minimizing the bitrate and maximizing the quality of the material when it is played.
If lossy data compression is used on audio or visual data, differences from the original signal will be introduced; if the compression is substantial, or lossy data is decompressed and recompressed, this may become noticeable in the form of compression artifacts. Whether these affect the perceived quality, and if so how much, depends on the compression scheme, encoder power, the characteristics of the input data, the listener’s perceptions, the listener's familiarity with artifacts, and the listening or viewing environment.
The bitrates in this section are approximately the minimum that the average listener in a typical listening or viewing environment, when using the best available compression, would perceive as not significantly worse than the reference standard:
[edit] Audio (MP3)
* 32 kbit/s — MW (AM) quality
* 96 kbit/s — FM quality
* 128–160 kbit/s — Standard Bitrate quality; difference can sometimes be obvious (e.g. bass quality)
* 192 kbit/s — DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) quality. Quickly becoming the new 'standard' bitrate for MP3 music; difference can be heard by few people.
* 224–320 kbit/s — Near CD quality. Sound is nearly indistinguishable from most CDs.
[edit] Other audio
* 800 bit/s — minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose FS-1015 speech codecs)
* 8 kbit/s — telephone quality (using speech codecs)
* 500 kbit/s–1 Mbit/s — lossless audio as used in formats such as FLAC, WavPack or Monkey's Audio
* 1411 kbit/s — PCM sound format of Compact Disc Digital Audio
[edit] Video (MPEG2)
* 16 kbit/s — videophone quality (minimum necessary for a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture)
* 128 – 384 kbit/s — business-oriented videoconferencing system quality
* 1.25 Mbit/s — VCD quality
* 5 Mbit/s — DVD quality
* 15 Mbit/s — HDTV quality
* 36 Mbit/s — HD DVD quality
* 54 Mbit/s — Blu-ray Disc quality
data source wiki
* the original material may be sampled at different frequencies
* the samples may use different numbers of bits
* the data may be encoded by different schemes
* the information may be digitally compressed by different algorithms or to different degrees
Generally, choices are made about the above factors in order to achieve the desired trade-off between minimizing the bitrate and maximizing the quality of the material when it is played.
If lossy data compression is used on audio or visual data, differences from the original signal will be introduced; if the compression is substantial, or lossy data is decompressed and recompressed, this may become noticeable in the form of compression artifacts. Whether these affect the perceived quality, and if so how much, depends on the compression scheme, encoder power, the characteristics of the input data, the listener’s perceptions, the listener's familiarity with artifacts, and the listening or viewing environment.
The bitrates in this section are approximately the minimum that the average listener in a typical listening or viewing environment, when using the best available compression, would perceive as not significantly worse than the reference standard:
[edit] Audio (MP3)
* 32 kbit/s — MW (AM) quality
* 96 kbit/s — FM quality
* 128–160 kbit/s — Standard Bitrate quality; difference can sometimes be obvious (e.g. bass quality)
* 192 kbit/s — DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) quality. Quickly becoming the new 'standard' bitrate for MP3 music; difference can be heard by few people.
* 224–320 kbit/s — Near CD quality. Sound is nearly indistinguishable from most CDs.
[edit] Other audio
* 800 bit/s — minimum necessary for recognizable speech (using special-purpose FS-1015 speech codecs)
* 8 kbit/s — telephone quality (using speech codecs)
* 500 kbit/s–1 Mbit/s — lossless audio as used in formats such as FLAC, WavPack or Monkey's Audio
* 1411 kbit/s — PCM sound format of Compact Disc Digital Audio
[edit] Video (MPEG2)
* 16 kbit/s — videophone quality (minimum necessary for a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture)
* 128 – 384 kbit/s — business-oriented videoconferencing system quality
* 1.25 Mbit/s — VCD quality
* 5 Mbit/s — DVD quality
* 15 Mbit/s — HDTV quality
* 36 Mbit/s — HD DVD quality
* 54 Mbit/s — Blu-ray Disc quality
data source wiki
Monday, June 16, 2008
New Exam pattern in India(Revised):
New Exam pattern in India(Revised):
1. General students - Answer ALL questions.
2. OBC - WRITE ANY one question.
3. SC - ONLY READ questions.
4. ST - THANKS FOR COMING..
AND.
5. Gujjars- THANKS FOR ALLOWING OTHERS TO ATTEND THE EXAMINATION .. !!
1. General students - Answer ALL questions.
2. OBC - WRITE ANY one question.
3. SC - ONLY READ questions.
4. ST - THANKS FOR COMING..
AND.
5. Gujjars- THANKS FOR ALLOWING OTHERS TO ATTEND THE EXAMINATION .. !!
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