Sultans of design, originally uploaded by desinole.

Pininfarina is one of those design companies that gives birth to every other Ferrari. This is a fact that most car aficionados know, but did you know they do way more?

The MUNI trains in SF for example are designed by these guys and they did not stop there. Most good looking car’s were born in their studios, including the Tata PR1MA.

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A Ferrari chases down a Datsun, originally uploaded by desinole.

I’ve been to Laguna Seca a couple of times, but it’s not everyday that you see a Datsun being chased down by a Ferrari.

Fear not, this was a high performance driving school event. A friend of mine was the instructor and was leading a bunch of super cars around the track.

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Statue of Liberty from another angle., originally uploaded by desinole.

Everyone has seen the classic shots from the front, I wanted a very different angle and yes, a lot of negative space.

Straight from the camera.

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Lady Liberty., originally uploaded by desinole.

I’ve always wanted to try shots with a lot of negative space and this is as close as I could get to it.

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From the rumors and hints being dropped, India will have another reason to celebrate, maybe as early as this weekend.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the new torch bearer deserves this honor. But before we go all out, let’s remember the person who started it all, when the climate was very different.

Back in 2005, Narain Karthikeyan became the first Indian driver to get a seat in F1. And 2005 was a very different time period. Sponsors in India were still weary of the international scene, there was no Force India F1, there was no Indian GP and there certainly was no chartered course for an Indian driver. I do not know of any other drivers from India who decided to pick a driving school like Elf Winfield and then went on to compete in the international scene, even in the junior races.

But braving those odds, Narain managed to secure a ride. Driving for a back marker team, I did not expect too much from him, but he did shine. Call it blind faith, but I did and still do believe that Narain would have done well had he found a stronger team.

In the following days and weeks when the Indian media hails the new blood, celebrate, but spare a moment for the man who made it there, with a much smaller fan base, a much smaller group of sponsors and managed to create history.

As much as I hate Nascar, I know this. If Narain does start racing in that series, I will be there cheering him. The man deserves it and that’s the least I could do as his fan.

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Google has finally reacted to the FB acquisition of Friendfeed, by launching Google Buzz, it’s version of Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed all in one. Just like with the launch of the iPad, the world went crazy, for a little while, I did too.

People like Jason Calacanis are way too excited and if you follow me on twitter, you should already know that I do not agree with his view.

Not everyone is on Gmail, even if they are, not everyone uses all its features. Case in point, my parents. Between them, they have 3 email accounts on Gmail. They religious check their email and although they are signed into Gtalk, they still use Skype for video conferencing with me. Gtalk offers the same exact features and I’m signed into Gtalk always, yet they do not associate Gmail and talking, to them it’s where they check their email.

“Who the hell are these people?” was the thought when I saw random people following me. Google is smart, most of the time. But the choice to automagically add followers is pretty crappy and even creepy. “Friends”, family and other people now are automatically following me. With FB, I pick and choose who I want to add and then give them appropriate rights to view my stuff. With twitter, since anyone can follow me, I am careful about what I’m saying. But with Buzz, they added people automatically and I have to do the legwork to remove people / block them. Besides the fact that I’m going to look like a rude a-hole from removing them, they automatically show up on my google reader. So my options are to stop doing things they way I used to, filter people and then continue. Or make everything private until I can find the time to fix what google broke.

I am annoyed by the Farmville requests on FB, although I do not play the game, but FB still gives me the option of reading up on what my friends have been upto and join groups that interest me. Some of these people are people, I’d never email, have never emailed and how the heck am I supposed to follow these people on Buzz.

By integrating Buzz with Gmail, Google has managed to annoy the heck out of me. I have 800 odd “unread” emails and to add to that, I’m going to have a bunch of Buzzes to read. It’d be different if it was in a different page, but nope, it’s right there. Updates show up straight in your inbox to boot. This is going to get more annoying as I start following more people. The profile pages are clumsy and I cannot get to the profile pages of certain people who are following me. Add to that the UI inspired by Windows 3.1. Granted its version 1.0 and they are going to update things soon, that’s how they do it, but until then, its just clumsy. And whoever thought that double populating the Google reader and Buzz would be a good idea? Seriously, I have to click “mark as read” twice?

With twitter you get to catch up on what the world has to say (depending on who you follow of course). With FB it’s catching up on your not so close friends are up to . With Buzz, its those top 20-30-40 people you email all the time, people you probably know and hang out with. By now, you are probably already “friends” with them on FB and are following them on twitter.

I have always felt that Google was overdoing things. Search, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Voice, Andriod, Nexus one, Orkut, Blogger, Picasa, Google News, Finance, Google Docs, You Tube, that secret project with NASA and now Buzz. I for one would be very disappointed if Google becomes another Yahoo.

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With Schumi going to race for Mercedes GP, he essentially stole the headlines. At least in the rest of the world.

While I’m excited that he is back, I’m torn between picking him, giving up my allegiance for Ferrari and Massa. It’s as difficult as picking a Belgian beer at Monks Kettle.

To make matters more shitty, Narain is now talking about Nascar. No seriously.

I do understand that there are lot of idiots fans who pay good money to watch people drive in circles. Add the possibility of tapping the Indian market for fans, advertising opportunity and having the first Indian in Nascar, it all makes sense. Narain could be making good money, but by driving in the most barbaric racing series, he would be pushing fans like me away.

Arghhh! This is supposed to be fun.

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A couple of days ago, I wrote about how F1 might turn into the new A1GP, if Button decides to go the McLaren route. And it looks like that’s happening while I type.

Earlier today, James Allen had this to say on twitter

See update on Button story, reports he’s on verge of signing £6m a year deal with McLaren

Later this event PST, like clockwork, The Guardian ran the story.

Add that piece of the news with Brawn GP, which will now be Mercedes GP, are looking to sign Nick Heidfeld. Mercedes GP have already signed Rosberg, who races under the German flag.

This leaves us with two teams, both of which have drivers from their country. Lotus is still in search of that elusive Malaysian driver and so is Force India. If both those teams go the national route, almost half the grid will look very different.

As I see the situation right now, this cannot be very good for the sport. But stranger things have happened. What are your thoughts?

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Apple took cellphones to the next level with the iPhone. Tom, Dick, Harry and my grand mother have one and they created a great revenue generation scheme with their apps. One of the parts where they screwed up was with the camera.

If you are one of the few people, who does not own one, a google search will tell you about how bad the camera is, so I’m not getting into the details.

To give you a rough idea, I’ve always found myself in the “Never edit a photo” crowd. I took pride in composing “good” photos and sticking to that. There have been times, when I’ve cropped pictures and played with the RGB settings, but they were rare.

All this changed when I had a bad camera on the iPhone.

Over the course of the past few months, I’ve managed to play with a few free photo editing apps for the iPhone. Darkroom, ArtCam Lite iEasy Photo Lite, PS Mobile and Best Camera. It’s true that all those apps, save Best Camera, are free, but I find myself going back to Best Camera over and over again.

The reason I’ve noticed is a) the ease of use. The filters are easy to apply, easy to access and there are just enough filters to not get lost. It’s an iphone and Best Camera keeps it simple.

b) Their integration with Social Networking sites. As paranoid as I am with Facebook stripping off copyright information and trouble with their TOS, I like people to see my photos. Best Camera make it easy and quick. FB, Twitter, Flickr (via email) all happen in one place. No more downloading the photos and uploading them individually to every site.

If you still are contemplating getting the iPhone or the App, head on over to the site and check out the photos. If you really are interested, check out my flickr set of Best Camera photos.

Oddly enough, this little app has made me take a second look at programs like iPhoto and Lightroom, which I previously would not have considered. Now that to me is a successful product.

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Yesterday the news outlets reported that the 2009 Champion Jenson Button was on a tour of the McLaren HQ.

While it sounds like a dream team at McLaren and without any doubt would make for an exciting season next year, I have doubts about this in the long run.

The reason is simple, I for one do not want F1 to turn into a World Cup.

While it can be argued that Super Aguri and Mallya were the first ones to “introduce” the concept, having a Japanese / Indian driver for the team, Their thoughts made sense then. Both Japan and India have a very large F1 following and having a national driver on board would open doors to the sport. However, things have changed.

The new Lotus team flirted with the idea of having a Malaysian driver for their team and now McLaren could end up with two British drivers. If the model proves successful in the short term, I see other back marker teams jumping on board with this idea, specially given the volatility of the sport and the financial industry in general. Anything to make a few more cents.

In the long run, we might end up with a World cup and each driver getting a medal. While they are at it, might as well make the sport a part of the Olympics.

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