Rock and Roll

This post is in response to Arnie's call for a poll on the greatest rock bands and songs:

I can't single out a single band as the greatest ever. Anyway, I believe that all 'greatest lists' are a farce. So, here are a few of my favourite bands:

Led Zeppelin
Arguably my favourite band. The best thing about them was that they disbanded when they were on top (when John Bonhom died). This band must have the largest number of memorable riffs. Immigrant Song, Communication Breakdown, Stairway.. , Dazed and Confused, Kashmir, Bron-Yr-Aur, Black Dog, ... the list goes on and on and on. The godly pair of Jimmy Page (whose brilliant leads sound like noise when you listen to them for the first time :)) and the inimitable Robert Plant (ever heard ANYONE sing like him?) make Led Zep one of my top 3 bands.

Metallica
If Metallica had stopped playing after they released Black Album, they probably would have been my favourite band of all time. After Black Album, Metallica went completely downhill. Firstly they cut their hair (heavy metal - short hair?? doesn't make sense :) ), then they released two shitty albums Load and Reload. Then the MI-2 song I disappear and St. Anger (an album without guitar leads(!) and drums sounding like someone is beating sticks on some homemade skins can hardly be called a heavy metal album). Finally Metallica showed us their greed in the Napster vs. Metallica imbroglio.
Still, Metallica made some awesome music in the 80s. It was a time when they were not afraid to make 'radio-unfriendly' long songs with ultimate guitar leads, bass, vox. All of their albums before Load i.e. Kill 'Em All, Ride the lightning, Master of Puppets, And Justice for all and Black Album are classics. These guys defined thrash music. Ah, those were the days. Die-hard 'tallica fans (like me :)) still hope for one last great album from them.

Pink Floyd
While other rock bands sing about stupid things like love, hate and other 'earthly' stuff, this band is above all of them. Which other band talks about astronomy, animals, money and other such wordly things? Anyway, for most of the junta I know, Pink Floyd is equal to Another Brick in the wall. Obviously, unless you haven't heard Dark Side.., Wish You Were Here and The Wall atleast a million times, you can't call yourself a Pink Floyd fan :-). Apart from these albums, I love The Piper at the gates of dawn, Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell. Funnily, I hated Piper at .. the first few times I heard that album. I just couldn't digest those wierd pyschedelic sounds.
Another reason I like Pink Floyd is that everything about them is GRAND, from the exquisite sets to the 20 minute epics like Shine on you crazy diamond.

I have much more to say on this topic and I will (hopefully) post more on this in the 'near' future.

Religion

Craig Finseth says in his book The Craft of Text Editing :

In the computer field, "religion" is a technical term that refers to the usually irrational and extreme preference of one program, style, or method to another. Although you cannot really do anything about this phenomenon, you can keep it in mind when analyzing comments on your design.

It has been observed that people often "get religion" over the first application (for example, a word processor) that they use. I can't recall the number of people who have tried to convince me that the program that they just discovered (i.e., the first one they used) is the best one in the world. This form of "religion" is normal and derives from the facts that (1) the move from manual to automated methods (e.g., from typewriters to word processors) involves a major increase in capabilities: even the simplest word processor provides vastly more capabilities than does a typewriter, and (2) new users do not have the experience to realize that all programs (e.g., word processors) are not equal. This form of religion usually fades away over time as new users gain experience.

In a hauntingly close parallel to the "second system effect" (Brooks 1982), the "second program users" are the ones to watch out for. These people started using one program, then gave that program up in favor of a second one. The problem is that they think that since the second program is better than the first one (which it usually is), it must therefore be better than all the rest.

There is nothing in particular that you can do about users that feel religious about a program: rational arguments are in general ignored. You can, however, be aware that such users exist, and recognize when you are dealing with one.

I guess my current fascination for Linux and Emacs can be explained by this theory!

Addition of blogroll:
Arnold: Rants about VIT, old professors, stupid programming contests and such other useless stuff.
Vinod G : Very humourous style of writing.