Star Wars - The Force Awakens

I watched the Star Wars –The Force Awakens. I liked the movie, but it is basically a huge marketting gimic at work. The story is 90% same to the story of Episode 4. New actors portraying younger version –2s of those iconic charachters from the original trilogy, complete with a new droid. I am surprised the movie is not receiving flak for reusing ealier storylines. Guess people just wanna be transported to that galaxy far far away.

Honestly, I have never been a fan of the Star Wars movies. I was born the year the last movie of the original trilogy came out. And by the time I grew up, those movies were only on casette. Then I had to wait till the new millienium for the god-awful prequel trilogies. The only thing I remember from those movies is the beautiful Natalie Porter. I could never understand why anyone would want to bring swords to gun fights, and how every planet in the movie had the same gravity and breathable air. And then there were the coincidences. All the charachters in the movies meet up in coincidence, when the actual chances of them meeting was one in millions. Leia sends C3PO and R2D2 on a mission, they have to escape with the plans and they just run into Luke ? Of the thousands of planets there, how come they meet on the same planet in the same area ? And the brith of Anakin cannot be explained?

Well, the same thoughts came to me when I watched Force Awakens. The BB8 droid just runs into Rey ? And then they run into Han ? And then she finds Luke’s light saber ? Of all the planets there, how come the light saber was right where it was supposed to be ? How come Poe Dameron escapes and comes back ? And how can Rey use the force better than Ren ?

But then, these movies were never for the thinkers. They are for kids. And they are best enjoyed as such. The graphics has definitely improved, and the sound and music are top notch. The light saber duels are fiercer. The acting and writing is a joke, but the story flows steadily. We get to see new planets, younger versions of all those charachters. We meet the new Luke, new Solo, new Kenobi, new R2D3, new Darth Vader and the new Palpatine and see the new Death Star. If you have not watched the original movies, you might enjoy this one the best. I surely did.

Watch the Force Awakens. Witness the marketting machinery at work.

Dilwale is not for the Dimaagwala

 

I just watched this movie. It is an insult to the intelligent movie watcher. The only way to watch this movie is to leave your brain at home.

Its Live !! Open Live Writer now works with Blogger !

 

The OpenLiveWriter project has just released a new version, it now works with blogger !  I am using it to write this post as well. Download the new version from the site and run the installer. During the installation, choose Google Blogger as your account type if you want to use it with Blogger.

 

The installer will prompt you to sign in, and will open up the authentication page on your browser.

 

Once you grant access in the browser, return to the installer to finish.

Awesome ! It works, and the interface is pretty much the same as Live Writer (though I found the tags option missing).

Thanks ! to the good folk at the OpenLiveWriter project !!

Jimmy Fallon, The Roots & "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Cast Sing "Star Wars" Medley (A Cappella) - YouTube

Climate change is Real

 

Chennai is recovering now. For two weeks, the city had been hit by the heaviest rainfall it had seen in a hundred years. And this was enough to bring it down. Not only was the city flooded, but it was also totally cut off from the rest of the nation. And while the state government itself failed miserably to handle the crisis, it was the common people, the citizens, who handled the crisis and saw the city through. The deluge was proof enough that climate is changing.

India is witnessing multiple migrations that are unprecedented in its history. Millions are moving into literacy, similarly staggering numbers are migrating out of poverty and malnourishment, thousands are migrating to the IT world, and several millions are moving to urban centres.Blaming excessive rain or unauthorised construction for the latest misery is a very lazy analysis, ignoring the significant contribution of government institutions and political masters to the mismanagement of Chennai, and other cities. The adverse role played by them in creating havoc has grave security implications for the country at various levels.

Further North, another city, the capital New Delhi is putting together a plan to control its own ridiculous pollution levels.  From 2016, Delhi  will  implement a new rule to make sure private cars with odd and even number registration numbers get to drive in the city on alternate days. On one hand this decision is now being ridiculed on social media , logic dictates that right now any plan is a good plan. The time to think up and come up with a grand plan is long gone, and even the courts are getting in line to support the government move, dismissing PILs against the new law.

I chanced upon this website which tracks air pollution levels in cities around the world: plumelabs. They measure air pollution from agencies of countries and collate them all.

Check out Chennai's pollution levels in real time.

Delhi:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And my own city of Bangalore is far better than Delhi.

 

    

 

 

But what surprised me was that most cities in developed countries were much better off than us. Check out New York.