"I'm afraid I have some bad news. You're dying and you don't have much time," the doctor says.
"Oh no, that's terrible. How long have I got?" the man asks.
"10..." says the doctor.
"10? 10 what? Months? Weeks? What?!" he asks desperately.
"10...9...8...7..."
A young woman went to her doctor complaining of pain.
"Where are you hurting?" asked the doctor.
"You have to help me, I hurt all over", said the woman.
"What do you mean, all over?" asked the doctor, "be a little more specific."
The woman touched her right knee with her index finger and yelled, "Ow, that hurts."
Then she touched her left cheek and again yelled, "Ouch! That hurts, too."
Then she touched her right earlobe, "Ow, even THAT hurts", she cried.
The doctor checked her thoughtfully for a moment and told her his diagnosis, "You have a broken finger."
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Japan in the 1990s:
The early 90s saw the Japanese filled with euphoria. Inflation was an all time low, Japanese exporters were churning out automobiles and household electronics as if there was no tomorrow, and the stock market was finally steady and actually climbing. And then came November 1997, a D-Day for the Japanese economy. Japanese Banks, in a chilling reminder for today's policymakers and bankers, went in freefall while the government stood by, helplessly watching the carnage. There were three main reasons why this happened. Firstly, the stricter supervisory regime that came with the Japanese government handouts to banks meant the banks were both less able and less willing to lend. And faced with depleted capital and concerns over borrower credit quality, banks also aimed to shrink the amount of loans outstanding, and vastly cut down on the amount of loans, which decreased liquidity. Lastly, the weaker economy, which was still hurting after the recession of the early 90s, also caused loan demand to fall.
The lessons for today's policymakers are stark: the stricter rules that come with bail-outs, and the economic weakness that will ensue as banks stop lending so liberally, will feed on itself and reinforce the collapse of credit availability we're already seeing in economies around the world today. Japan may have made its own situation worse by hiking the sales tax from 3% to 5%, but Obama and Co, the default economic leaders of the world, would do well to continue on the path that they have already taken: stimulate consumers with a number of tax incentives while at the same time prop up the banking system and sending a strong disincentive against speculative borrowing and lending.
The Great Depression of the 30s:
You've probably heard of comparisons of the current crisis with the Great Depression in one way or the other: the stock market crash, rapid jumps in unemployment and of course banks falling like a house of cards. Like the Depression, the tentacles of the current economic crisis have crept throughout the world. The causes too are strikingly similar: a housing bubble that no one anticipated bursting, weak government regulations and a weak Washington leadership (at least at the beginning) that paralyzed the financial and legislative system. Fortunately, with the help of hindsight, the solutions look pretty clear as well.
For one, governments all across the world have to be more pro-active now. The Great Depression was caused by a lethargic US Government that allowed both money supply to fall drastically, causing a mass shortage of credit, while at the same time allowing banks to die leading to a general sense of gloom that permeated very quickly. This time around, governments have already got a head start and have started using both fiscal and monetary policy to combat the problem. Governments also haven't made the same mistake of raising taxes to fund public spending. It's true that the debt to finance government spending has to be paid off eventually; taxing the poor while they're down is simply not an alternative. Leaders should also take note that although the Great Depression was ameliorated by the Second World War, this was not a sustainable solution. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the larger self-declared War on Terror has greatly bogged down the US economy and its partners' finances. Simple arithmetic means that every single penny going into the war efforts mean a penny diverted from mending the financial catastrophe.
The Asian Financial Crisis of the late 90s:
The very recent financial crisis that affected mostly countries in East and South-East Asia should provide us with another opportunity to study, learn and combat the current crisis. Once again, the parallels between today's crisis and that of just a decade ago couldn't be more similar: the Asian crisis was based on bursting of asset price bubbles, which led to insolvencies of financial intermediaries and further asset price deflation, akin to (although much simpler than) what occurred in the US housing market today. There are some key differences to note though. One is the fact that the Asian crisis emanated from a cluster of several East Asian countries, and was more or less restricted to that region. This is in stark contrast to today's crisis which started from the US housing market which exported poisonous derivatives which ultimately afflicted all developed and some developing countries. The centrality of the source of the problem makes today's crisis trickier: it's tougher to battle your way out of a crisis when the world's largest economy is struggling with its own macroeconomic, financial, and exchange rate problems whereas the regional hub is in good overall shape (Canada and Mexico haven't tasted the same degree of panic). But the lessons that the Asian crisis provide can be utilised perfectly in this era as well: rapid expansion of bank and nonbank credit (far in excess of the growth of the real economy), cum high concentration of credit to the real estate and equity markets, is almost always a harbinger of trouble, in developing and industrial countries alike. This lesson was perfectly applicable a decade ago, in a region far, far away. It's just that sometimes economists (and more importantly, politicians) are just very poor historians.
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THE words were still loud, banging against her eardrums but they now seemed a little distant mixed with various other thoughts creating a cacophony which Lisa herself couldn't comprehend. It seemed as if the earth has toppled down on her and the weight of it was going to make her head explode. She had never imagined that a pain so excruciating existed. Her soul seemed ablaze and her body felt the warmth too, not a comforting one at all. The early April sun was bright and warm outside casting its amiable golden rays of which a few streaks managed to peep inside the room. On other similar days Lisa would have enjoyed the hide and seek game of light but on this very day she was not even aware of its presence. The soft breeze emerging through the half opened window caressed her face which had been drained out of its color but that also made Lisa ache as she lay curled on her bed like an abandoned centipede. She felt herself drowning into a chasm of abysmal depth. 'I can only be your friend and nothing else', the voice had said. The voice she so much loves and adores….the voice that probably won't be saying sweet nothings into her ears anymore. Her senses felt numb by the anguish of it all and she wondered how powerless she was that the decision that would completely transform her life from being everything to empty nothing did not depend on her, it was in someone else's hands. It was in the hands of her better half. She almost laughed at the irony though no sound came out of her mouth…the same hands that had held hers and promised to do so forever was now digging a grave to bury her love....their love with those same hands of his. Suddenly all those years of love seemed like a shattered piece of wild fantasy. And Lisa herself felt like a mirage in the dry desert….real at one point, solitary and imaginary at another. She doubted her own existence, feeling completely vulnerable and desolate. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was this all a chimera of her own thoughts? She didn't know…she did not know anything.
But hadn't she said sorry for her repeated mistakes? Hadn't she begged for his forgiveness and put forth innumerable apologies? She really was sorry…she never wanted to hurt him. She wished he knew that her love for him was unadulterated. She wished she could tell him how much it hurts to be without him and how much she misses him. Lisa knew that Rubio is adamant in his decisions and her attempts to win his heart and trust back were mere futile ones. Her life now depended on the clemency of the Almighty who has set Rubio as the arbiter to announce the verdict and which he already did with amazing finesse. Still somewhere deep down a tinge of hope remained which cajoled her to believe that the Almighty will answer her silent prayers. She now let the tears flow along with her breathe which came as deep, heavy gasps and felt hot against her pale flushed cheeks.
Even in the midst of this debacle she decided not to capitulate to the hands of fate because she knows that he loves her and therefore their fairytale is bound to have a 'happy ending'.
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The University of Dhaka is the oldest university in Bangladesh. the university worked hard to build up an outstanding record of academic achievement, earning for itself the reputation for being the 'Oxford of the East'. The university contributed to the emergence of a generation of leaders who distinguished themselves in different occupations in East Bengal.Though DU is the root cause of our independence strange as it might seem we have yet failed to express our gratitude to this university. The families of these great warriors are now leading the worse lives than anyone can imagine. Most of them even find it difficult to afford a day's meal. And what about the DU? What else could be said? It is no longer the Oxford of the East. The sole reason is the increasing corruption of this country. It remains as a forgotten part of the country. The DU which made the existence of this country possible is now increasingly criticized by the country folks. In fact, it no longer remains an educational institute. It is now the grounds of politics. Even the students who are living in the DU halls are among the ones who are badly reputed in the country. So parents even if they are happy that their children are the students of this infamous university yet again they are worried for the same reason.
DU is increasingly used by our beloved politicians for their own benefits. It is now the cause of the regular strikes, conflicts between the students and the police and all other crisis in the country. The country has long been failed to encourage foreign investment for all these reasons and that's why our country is still one of the poorest and the least developing countries in this world. DU once encouraged the students to protest and claim their rights. Today, DU is discouraging them to do so. The first years fail to get a place in the halls because of the session jam the students of the previous batches have not yet left the halls.
Furthermore, even the students who have graduated from the DU but yet they are poor, having been failed to get a proper job, bribe the authority so that they do not lose their place in the DU hall. For instance, recently a first year student raised his voice against the seniors claiming his right over a room in the hall. The seniors instead threatened him and threw him out of the hall. Now he has to come all the way from Narayanganj to do the class and then leave after his classes end. NO other students protested and I doubt whether anyone would ever again because who wants to face the same outcome?
Strictly speaking, Bangladesh is still alive because of the existence of the DU. Bangladesh is still alive because of the DU. But what a pity? It is the DU for which there is a fear in each and every one of our hearts as anything violent might happen at any instant.
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THE early symptoms of the contagion were not easily noticed. MSN personal messages started carrying statements like 'sigh...Edward!' The words 'vampire' and 'twilight' kept cropping up in conversations. And then yours truly noticed the book review last week, sitting smugly where she'd been expecting to see her review on a Stephen King thriller. Stephanie Meyer's series was getting infectious. New Moon is the second book in the series, and continues the travesty that one found in Twilight. The angsty relationship between the teenage drama queen Bella Swan and her broody vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen hits the rocks when Bella cuts her finger during her eighteenth birthday party, and the scent of her blood sends Edwards 'brother' Jasper into a frenzy, which Bella narrowly escapes. Convinced that he'll only cause trouble for his love by being with her, Edward promptly dumps her, and the entire Cullen family pack up and leave Forks. A heartbroken and depressed Bella manages to alienate all her human friends with her endless moping, until she discovers that she can hear Edward's voice whenever she attempts something risky. In a very masochistic frame of mind, she begins to seek out danger, just to hear that voice. In order to get her fix of danger, she seeks out old childhood friend Jacob 'Jake' Black, the whiz mechanic, and talks him into fixing up a motorcycle for her to ride. Jake's sunny personality turns out to be a welcome distraction from her pain, and so she keeps running back to him, well aware of his growing attraction to her, as a sort of antidote to her depression.
An encounter with a vengeful vampire from the previous novel leads Bella to a startling discovery about Jacob; her new best friend is actually a werewolf. Jake is trying to deal with his rather recent transformation, and come to terms with the fact that the girl he loves is in love with his mortal enemy, and Bella is wondering if she should finally give up on Edward and go for Jake, when she decides to try one last dumb stunt, and jumps off a cliff.
While this doesn't kill her, it brings back another complication. Edward's sister Alice comes back to tell her that Edward believes Bella is dead, and is now seeking his own death in Italy. Can Bella get to her love in time? You'll have to read the book to find out.
Stephanie Meyer takes up a concept that's been done to death, and tries to put a new spin on it. Sadly, the characterization falls short of the mark and may just be the undoing of what might have been something worth reading. Bella was probably intended to be one of those girl-next-door types whose strength of character shines through under extraordinary circumstances. Instead, she ends up as an overly dramatic, manipulative masochist. In trying to paint Edward as broody and mysterious, Meyer has left him with no personality, and despite the repeated declarations of 'love' and 'destiny', there is no actual chemistry between the protagonists.
The Romeo and Juliet references in the second book also felt rather superfluous. This is one of those books that you absolutely cannot put down because of its 'oh my God, what was she thinking?' factor, perhaps the same kind of attraction that makes those Hindi serials so popular. If you're not a vampire legend purist, and are looking for a light fluffy read you can pick apart without guilt, this is definitely the book for you.
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THE winds blew hard against her face and she wrapped the jacket tighter against her body. She stood in the middle of the vast desert. All those past memories flooded her mind and she could recall each and every one of them with unusual clarity as if they where happening right in front of her. She saw a girl in her early teens dressed up in a pretty summer dress standing in front of a mirror. The girl was trying her best to look pretty and she constantly changed her posture to see which one of them suited her the most. But then when she showed her self to her friends they all seemed to have hysterics and they said to her that nothing would ever suit her. The girl suddenly halted on her tracks. She pretended as if it was normal to laugh at some one and laughed along with them, mocking her own self.
She then saw a girl in her mid teens smiling up at a boy of her own age. The girl's eyes were glittering with hope and apprehension and then the boy spoke and he asked her if she could arrange for him the number of her best friend. For an instance the smile faded from the girl's lips but then she forced a grin on her face and showed him the thumbs up.
Her trail of thoughts then stopped at another incident where she saw the same girl who was now in her late teens standing in front of a guy. The guy was repeatedly telling her sorry. The girl had a card clutched in her left hand and when she heard the guy say sorry the card fell from her hand but she laid a friendly punch on the guy's shoulder and said ' we will still be friends, right?' and with that they both laughed out.She sighed. Through all those years the girl had coated all her sorrows with laughter because she did not want to lose her friends. But now that they were all gone, the girl had no reason to hold back her tears.As she looked up and saw the stars appear one by one in the night sky, a tear rolled down her cheek.
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There are lot of ways that makes computer unusable - hardware burnage, software corruption, viruses, spywares and other malicious softwares (malware). Here are some tips and tricks which will make computer run in safe and sound mood.Virus:
A virus cannot operate or function unless it has been permitted to do so. How then is a computer infected by one? Obviously, no self-respecting virus would call itself a virus. More often than not, a virus works under a guise. It'll assume the name and file type of something and trick users into executing the file. For example, a mail attached with a .zip file. Given the .zip is a virus, running it will execute the virus and give it permission to light a match on your system. Thus kablowie. Thus death. More or less, sort of.
Impornant note:
Most malicious softwares and files work under guises. No self-respecting computer user would willingly invite in the death of their machine.
Spyware:
As the name suggests, a spyware is usually installed discretely (once again, not without the user's execution), taking a ride on the backs of softwares like Kazaa or some shady toolbar that apparently features amazing searches. Effects are usually heavy duty performance degradation, extreme system usage, and network traffic, among other things making your PC slower than a snail.
Spywares are often used to gather information about the user- browsing habbits, important numbers, etc. Spywares will sabotage your computer, much like a spy would- unplugging that power cord here, lowering the back gates there to make way for more, slipping chilli down gun nozzles, and so on forth- uh, only metaphorically of course.
Trojans:
A sort of malware that takes on the guise of something of useful to gain access and permission to, again, play with fire in your system. It's usually the beginnings of a great big headache- the name is derived from the story of the Trojan Horse. And we all know how that turned out, right?
Messenger infection:
Don't ever easily submit your email and password to any website that asks for it. The site will use your account credentials and login to your account, sending the same link (or a virus file in the form of archives) to everyone online. The links are apparently about sites to find out who blocked you, or may pretend to house interesting pictures. Unwitting users may find themselves infected. This particular case with the messenger can usually be solved by simply changing your password.
Antivirus:
One of the questions that everyone asks everyone else is about anti-viruses. What anti-virus should I get? Is it good? Do I have to upgrade it? How often? Does it protect from spywares, too? Where can I get it? Etc.
In my long run of computer using history, I've used Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro PC Cillin and several others, popular as well as less known. The first three mentioned are in no way an efficient solution. It'll usually take up a huge chunk of your hard drive space, CPU and memory usage bogging down performance. Ironic, right? Free anti-viruses and anti-spywares aren't always enough and they always run the risk of being malwares, themselves. ESET's Nod32 works very good, though. It needs to be upgraded to a full version to allow more than 31 day trial, however.
Important tips and suggestions:
Although defragmenting your hard drive can seem like a bother, it's very important that you do it regularly. The more cluttered your partitions are the slower the response you'll get. Just start the defragmentation when you go to sleep, or go out for lunch, or whatever. Every little bit helps.
Whatever antivirus you get, keep it regularly updated. Keep firewalls always turned on to block incoming network attacks. Confirm that your antivirus can handle spywares too. Some are two-in-one packages. Never open up a flash drive or an mp3 player without scanning and cleaning it first. Almost all computers these days are infected with something, and easily spreads via portable devices. If you're about to visit a website, and your instincts say that it's shady, look it up on Google. McAfee's http://www.siteadvisor.com/ is actually pretty handy. Their automated system sucks, but the user reviews are plenty helpful. Oh, and try to steer clear of crack sites, unless you really need it. A single click on an 'okay' button can spell disaster.
It's probably useful to keep your important documents and files away from the system drive. Just in case something goes kablowie, you won't have to lament over very important and very lost documents.
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IT's always been known that young children are very good with technology. They can program electronic devices that make adults pay money but leave baffled as how to use. But one particular young person has taken the mastery of electronics to new heights. Marko Calasan, from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, has become the world's youngest certified computer system administrator. "I'd like to be a computer scientist when I grow up and create a new operational system," he said.
Marko, whose favourite subject at school is mathematics, learnt to read and write at the age of two, which was when his interest in computers began.
The news of his achievement has turned him into a celebrity in Macedonia.
His mother Radica, 37, said that her son displayed "exceptional learning abilities at a very early age" and that she and her husband, who run a computer school, call on Marko to help solve technical problems when they crop up.
"He is obviously extraordinary gifted, but children above the age of six could learn much more about computers than generally assumed," she said.
Marko is also fascinated by physics and astronomy and struggled to sleep the night before the launch of the Big Bang experiment at the underground facility of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Switzerland.
Marko said: "The media said it could cause the end of the world, but there was never any danger of that."
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IT is estimated that we are going to die pretty soon, like about in quarter a century. It's really sad, since a lot of us will not get to see our grandchildren, become really old and filthy rich. The question is, will we die from a giant meteor incident on earth by the aliens? Or will be dying from the expansion of the sun? It's nothing extravagant really; the earth will just become a huge puddle of water, as global warming hits the charts. The Arctic becomes Smoking Hot
Temperature change in the Arctic is happening at a greater rate than other places in the Northern Hemisphere, and this is expected to continue in the future. Once again, we're going to drown.
Taken together, the size and speed of the summer sea-ice loss over the last few decades is highly unusual compared to events from previous thousands of years, especially considering that changes in Earth's orbit over this time have made sea-ice melting less, not more, likely.
The next thing you'll see is beach parties in the Arctic, barbecues and chicks in…er you get the point.
CO2 makes the sea creatures depressed.
Deep-sea animals may be highly sensitive to environmental changes in carbon dioxide concentration and pH, the predicted consequences of deep-sea carbon confiscation. A study by researchers exposes the need for more research on the biological impacts of CO2 injection in the ocean. We might as well stop exhaling. Hey, it's for the sea creatures!
In a survey of the relevant literature, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) marine ecologist Brad Seibel and his colleague Patrick Walsh of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science summarize how deep-sea animals respond to the physiological stress caused by increased carbon dioxide in their environment.
“We set out to synthesize and disseminate what is known about deep-sea life physiology in the context of the environmental changes that are likely to result from carbon sequestration," said Seibel, a marine ecologist. Increasing CO2 causes a decrease in seawater pH, creating an acidic environment that must be compensated for by physiological responses in living organisms."
Decreased pH can result in metabolic suppression which can inhibit growth and reproduction. Previous studies have established that deep-sea fish and invertebrates have low metabolic rates. Consequently, they lack the metabolic machinery required to compensate body fluid pH changes.
Fueling up global warming
An insecticide used to sterilize termite-infested buildings is a strong greenhouse gas that lives in the atmosphere nearly 10 times longer than previously thought, UC Irvine research has found. And there we were going to stop exhaling CO2
Sulfuryl fluoride, UCI chemists discovered, stays in the atmosphere at least 30-40 years and perhaps as long as 100 years. Prior studies estimated its atmospheric lifetime at as low as five years, grossly underestimating the global warming potential.
“Sulfuryl fluoride has a long enough lifetime in the atmosphere that we cannot just close our eyes,” said Sulbaek Andersen, a postdoctoral researcher in the Rowland-Blake laboratory and lead author of the study. “The level in the atmosphere is rising fast, and it doesn't seem to disappear very quickly.”
Kilogram for kilogram, sulfuryl fluoride is about 4,000 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, though much less of it exists in the atmosphere.
Sulfuryl fluoride blocks a wavelength of heat that otherwise could easily escape the Earth, the scientists said. Carbon dioxide blocks a different wavelength, trapping heat near the surface.
It all adds up to the fact that we are doomed, as always. Still hoping all of us plant trees rather than cutting and burning em up…
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ALMOST everyone wants a nose piercing but nobody wants the pain. The good news is: once you're finally done with the whole piercing process, you can actually wear lots of nose rings and studs which actually add a whole new trendier dimension to your look.
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We don't know how true any of this is, but it made interesting reading.
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight & sleep tight."
It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based; this period was called the honey month or what was known today as the honeymoon.
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language. |
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Any given program, when running, is obsolete.The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer to maintain it. Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.
Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that will do them in. Weinberg's Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. Hoare's Law of Large Programs: Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
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I bet almost everyone who is reading this article has facebooked once already, is going to today or has done so very recently. Facebook's monstrous growth is truly overwhelming and it seems like every Mintu, montu and motu have a facebook account; anyone who has a legitimate email address.Many post almost every detail of their life on facebook; their feelings, what they did over the weekend and the image they want to purport to the world. However, facebook users should be aware how popular the site really is. An article in the September 16 edition of the Wall Street Journal, “College Applicant, Beware: Your Facebook Page is showing“noted how not just your friends and family were looking at your profile but possibly prospective employers and colleges as well. This new survey included feedback from 320 selective schools, of which 10 percent use social-networking sites to evaluate applicants and a fair amount who admitted to being negatively influenced by what they find. While 10% may not seem much, for someone whose future depends on being admitted into a good college, it's a lot. Admission committees may do some background checking to see what sort of applicant they have on their hands and many employers have been found to do so too. The Director of the Career Development Center (CDC) Lance Choy confirmed in an article on the Stanford Daily that employers routinely conduct Web searches to find background information on job candidates. Companies have furthered this practice by using Facebook. “Employers might be able to confirm background information,” he said. “Some students write about their interests, and employers might want to check on whether this supports their job application. Some employers might try and learn something about the student's personality and whether it would be appropriate for the job. However, there is information on Facebook that is not relevant to the job but may be used inappropriately by employers to assess a candidate.” Obviously if your email address is drunkgirlxoxo@yahoo.com or have a lot of wild pictures doing inappropriate things, you may not be considered so right for the job/college after all.
Then there are those incidents of actually being caught red-handed on FACEBOOK. In November 2008, a restaurateur in Australia was left with a large unpaid bill as five of his young customers snuck out without paying. However, he and another employee searched for them on facebook, got one of the culprit's contact information from his profile, called up his employer and explained the situation. Within hours, the guy returned and paid the money back including large tip, but was later fired from his job.
And one of my favorite 'caught on facebook' episodes is this: a bank intern, Kevin Colvin emailed his boss that he couldn't come to work for a few days because he had to fly back home for what his boss assumed was a family emergency. The next day, his co-worker found pictures of Colvin dressed up as a fairy for some sort of party on his Facebook page and showed it to the boss. The boss then charmingly replied to Colvin's email, attached Colvin-dressed-as-a-fairy photo and send it to everyone at the office to see including Colvin himself.
Ergo, what you have on your facebook or MySpace pages and who is able to see them is extremely important. After all these are wildly popular networking sites with a view to connecting to people. You don't want all those good grades, hours of community service and top notch essays to do down the drain just because some admission committee takes a dislike to the videos you've uploaded. And at least if you're going to call out of work to enjoy a party, don't post pictures of it online the next day.
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Despite cashing its check as a movie that depicts the struggles of a young boy in the Mumbai slums, Slumdog Millionaire is quite shamelessly a post-modernistic fairy tale. It is a good movie by any standard, mind you. In fact, it is probably one of the best movies of the year. Yet it's neither the sugarcoated second half of the movie, nor the exaggerated ending that steals your applause. The movie owes its immense success to the quintessential directions of Danny Boyle and a rather prodigal performance by the child artists. The movie begins under unlikely circumstances, and then spirals into fantastical and grotesque world. The police are viciously interrogating Jamal (Dev Patel) an eighteen year old who is on the verge of winning the jackpot on India's version of the TV quiz 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' and nobody believes a barely educated kid from the slums of Mumbai could ever have got this far without cheating. So he takes his skeptical inquisitor (Irrfan Khan) through each of the questions he has answered correctly, and in doing so, the film recounts the story of Jamal's life from rags to rupees millions of them, possibly.
Artfully constructed by screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, the movie operates in a triangle: the televised duel between Jamal and the patronizing quizmaster (Anil Kapoor), the police interview room, and the tragicomic episodes of a slum dog's life.Slumdog Millionaire does not lack humor.
It is fast-paced, well edited into shape and with just enough hard-nosed reality to make at least some sense of the fantasy. But then fantasy is what this is, and, despite the fierce and truthful-looking role of of Irrfan Khan as the police inspector charged with extracting the truth from Jamal, the film is ultimately lacking in a resonance that would make us think rather than simply laugh and possibly cry.
It seems entirely appropriate that it should end with a silly Bollywood dance that sends all seriousness right out of the window.
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THE guys at Shelby SuperCars, having taken down the mighty Bugatti Veyron to claim the title of fastest car on the planet, are challenging Tesla Motors for electro-supremacy with an EV which promises to put down 1,000 horsepower. The boutique automaker caught our attention when it first mentioned the Ultimate Aero EV last summer, and now it has come through with some specs. They are pretty outlandish with a speed of zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds and a 10-minute recharge time but we will suspend our skepticism long enough to clear some space in the Autopia Fantasy Garage.
Shelby says the Ultimate Aero EV will showcase the company's "All-Electric Scalable Powertrain," which it says can be tailored to suit a wide variety of vehicles, from compact city cars to heavy-duty trucks and even military vehicles.
For the uninitiated, Shelby SuperCars builds insanely overpowered and absurdly fast cars. The fossil-fuelburning 2009 Ultimate Aero produces 1,287 horsepower and is said to be capable of 270 mph. That oughta be enough to retain the "world's fastest car" title Shelby took from Bugatti back in 2007 when an Aero hit 256.18 mph.
As for the car's electric twin sister, Shelby says it'll feature twin liquid-cooled motors that together produce 1,000 horsepower and 800 pound-feet of torque. The Tesla which, it should be said, favors agility over brawn, having been born of Lotus DNA puts out 248 horsepower and 276 pound-feet. The twin-motor approach is not unusual: Fisker Automotive is using it in the Karma plug-in sedan it showed off at the Detroit auto show.
That power will flow through a three-speed automatic transmission that is electronically controlled to shift gears in less than a quarter of a second. Shelby says the Ultimate Aero EV will do zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds and top out at 208 mph. The battery is presumably made of lithium-ion, but Shelby does not say if it will be good for 150 to 200 miles on a single charge. That seems reasonable, given that Tesla claims 224 for the Roadster. But Shelby's claim that its "Charge on the Run" on-board charging system recharges the battery in 10 minutes (at 220 volts) leaves us dubious.
Shelby says the super EV will roll out of the factory by the end of this year. We are skeptical, because if there is anything Tesla has shown us, it is bringing a high-performance electric sports car to market on time and on budget is really tough. Still, Shelby says it will have a running pre-production model by the end of the second quarter and promises to bring it to "one of America's super-speedways to prove its claims" in front of journalists.
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"Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and late wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry ashes will be shot into space in about a year and a half, in accordance with their wishes, memorial spaceflight company Celestis Inc said on Monday.
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Researchers reported on Monday that a growing trend of curbing free time at school may lead to unruly classrooms and rob youngsters of needed exercise and an important chance to socialize.
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Parents in Britain who refuse to pay child maintenance could have their passports and driving licences confiscated without a court order under tough new laws aimed at cleaning up the welfare system.
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