The Post. Relevant, but boring.

 

Yes. The 2017 movie. Directed by 'Sir' Steven Spielberg. Starring 'Sir' Tom Hanks, and that lady who has all the oscar nominations. I finally got around to watching it. Been very busy lately. And finally got a good print. This movie was tipped to win at least a few oscars. Ended up winning none.

I could see why it did not win the best picture or director awards. But I could not see why it did not win anything at all.

This has to be the most...hmm...boring Spielberg movie I have watched. No offense, but it is not the kind of subject matter young movie goers would want to watch nowadays. But it discussed a very relevant topic, that of the freedom of the press. That of accountability of the government to the people. This is a serious topic which will be discussed for generations yet to come.

Inspite of being boring, I loved it. It has the Spielberg stamp everywhere, in the direction, photography, the way people react, even lense flares. Yes, there is a scene when a kid runs across the street and there is a lense flare in the pan. There are some nice dialogues, and good charachters . Hanks again plays a nice guy,that guy can NEVER play a baddie. There is tension in the scenes, short war scene in the beginning was unexpected. And has great music. And since its a speilberg movie, you know that it will have a happy ending. The press wins, and there is a moment of triumph, highlighted by John Williams music. "The press was to serve the governed. Not the governors". That scene.

But the thing that kept bothering me the whole time was that, I felt they chose to tell the wrong story. It was not the Washington Post, but the New York Times which broke the story of the Pentagon papers. I really really really wanted to know how they did it. How did they research the material for over 3 months, and ultimately took the decision to publish it. Who where those charachters, what all did they stand to gain from it. How did the , allegedly, 'Failing New York Times' discuss their options and take the risk of going against their Federal government. And how did they react when a case was filed against them.

And , who the hell delivered that shoe box of copies to the post ? Was it somebody from NYT ?

But instead, we see a story of another press trying to keep up in the competition. And then alloting a lot of time to discuss the legal repercussions of what they are about to do. Not bad, but there is hardly anything happening there. At some point this movie was more about lawyers than about reporters. And the whole dull lighting and grey-color palette was off.

Today the media has a more active and faster role in spreading information, people no longer wait for their morning newspapers. They get it fresh off the internet, often spreading it via posts and likes. In the past few years there have been numerous instance of media barons NOT doing their jobs, or simply overdoing them. Spreading news without indpendently verifying them. The media back home in my my country are notorious for over dramatizing events and discussing non-relevant topics just for the airtime. So watching the story of people responsible in The Post thinking ten times before publishing underscores the roles reporters play in modern democracy. Yes, they have the freedom. But then they also have the responsibilty of reporting it neutrally, without taking any sides.

So do watch how they did it at the Post.

People vs Facebook

 

First there was fake news on facebook. Now there is bad news. The fact that the tirade agains facebook has been trending for weeks now is sheer irony. Educated, literate, smart, intelligent facebook users just woke up theo the fact that everything they shared on the social media site was shared with countless companies without their ‘consent’ or knowledge. Bah, humbug !

Look at all the articles popping up on and around this topic. Each word in this last sentence points to a new, trending article.

All of these people blaming facebook still do not realize that the ultimate fault lies with they themselves. How can these people be so naive ? Facebook was always sharing user data, this was known for at least a decade now. That was their business model all the way. That one sentence on their banner “It's free and always will be.”, should have looked creepy, but people embraced it. The thought of a free for life service to manage your social life was too good to be true.

And so the revolt against one of the big-tech continues now, spilling over to India’s already  complicated political battlefield.

I have never been on facebook. Everytime I move jobs, or make new friends, one of the first questions people ask me is ‘what is your facebook id ?’. And everytime I say I am NOT on the network, I get this puzzled look. At work, in any social gathering, once even on a train. They find it uneasy that can stay away from this ponzi scheme of data.

I have always been wary of sharing personal information on the internet. Because I spend so much of my time building internet and integration applications, I know how unsecure the whole system is. I am also wary that I am sharing a tonne of information on google, but I am already dependent on them. The least I could do is to stay away from other networks. Everytime I have thought of getting on facebook, I read another article about a privacy breakdown, or data leak. Not being on the network meant sometimes I missed out on some friends and events, mostly in personal life. The upside was that I could sleep peacefully knowing that nobody knows my first pet’s name, or the name of my first school. (Back in 2005, a celebrity’s account was hacked because she shared too much information the wrong way.)

 

So, what next ? The problem with leaving facebook is that people still like facebook. And so people will still stay. We also have a short attention span, so everything will be forgotten. Facebook will get back its billions, and will also get a billion more users. And all will be fine …until the next bad news.

Poor Chidu’s airport coffee

 

Woke up to this absurd trending news on Indian media. This is what happened.

 

It seems former finance minister P Chidambaram was ‘horrified’ when asked to pay 135 rs for a cup of tea-bag tea. The irony here is the fact that this guy was finance minister for more than 10 years, and he never once questioned or was aware of the over-inflation at Indian airports. Clearly, he has never paid for something like this from his own pocket the entire time he was in government.

This begs the question, if the finance minister was not aware of this, what else was the government sleeping on ? Everything is expensive on the air side of Indian airports. I have seen even foreigners refusing to pay the exhorbitant price and walking away. I have also seen business travellers asking for a receipt for the meal, obvioulsy to claim it back from their employers.

Its a different story outside India. Here in Australia, there is a range of restuarants and snack counters on the airside of the airport, and nothing is priced more than what they charge on the streets. It is simply cheaper to eat at the airport, than to buy food on the plane.

Anyway, he asked for twitter’s response. He got more than he asked for.

India’s GST is so complex, its a joke

 

And that is not my opinion, it is of the World Bank.  Their annual India development report paints a fuzzy greyish image of India’s  financial governance, not too patronizing, but not too harsh either. Here is the graph:

 

Its very weird seeing India featuring on the wrong side of the graph, while all the developed countries have a lower rate !!

The World Bank’ report provides that 49 countries employ single tax slab of GST, 28 countries use dual tax slab of GST, 5 nations including India apply four non-zero slabs of GST and rest of the countries (in list of 115 countries) enforce four or more slabs of GST. It was detected that as a consequence of the GST, firms are forced to bear increased administrative costs at a burdensome rate and the snail process of tax refund caused the firms to lock up the working capital.

The reason for high compliance costs is the prevalence of multiple tax rates mandating the firms the necessity to classify inputs and outputs based on the applicable tax rate.

Unfortunately, its already too late. They cannot make the system easier by adding more rules. Moroever , it is now a matter of political pride for the incumbent government to maintain the new rates system.

Professor Hawking continues to radiate

 

Yesterday was Pi day, and also the birthday of Einstein. So I was expecting to read all those nerdy articles they usually come up with. But later in the day, the devastating news of the demise of Prof Stephen Hawking upset us all. Very few scientists have attained the kind of cult status with Professor Hawking had attained. His persistent scientific approach, his zest for life was a inspiration to many.

But thinking of him now, I am reminded of my own childhood friend, who passed away years ago. His name was Krishnadev, and it was him who had introduced me to Hawking and his Hawking radiation. Way back in school days, physics was my favourite subject. Our school textbooks did not have the time to dedicate entire chapters to subjects like stars and universes, which honestly cannot be covered in a million chapters. The school course at that time, and I think even till this day, was backward in comparison to contemporary scientific knowledge. The 10th grade physice text book did mention black holes, but made no mention of Hawking radiation. It was ‘out of syllabus’. But there was a genius in our class who was always ten steps ahead of the class teacher. C Krishnadev, who would later end up in IIT Chennai, was the brightest mind I personally knew, and a kind hearted and good friend. He told me about this fantastic book called ‘A Brief History of Time’, which was available in our school library. And how that one book had more knowledge than all of the world’s religious books combined. I expected it to be a comic or science fiction of some sort, it was not. But it turned out to be so much more entertaining and fun than anything I had read at that time. I was surprised that none of that was in our ‘prescribed’ course syllabus at that time.

Anyway, thats when I started hero worshipping Prof Hawking. I have also downloaded and tried to read his doctoral Thesis , ‘Properties of Expanding Universes’, but frankly, I have now forgotten the little high school physics I had. The 1966 doctoral thesis by the world’s most recognisable scientist is the most requested item in Apollo with the catalogue record alone attracting hundreds of views per month. In just the past few months, the University has received hundreds of requests from readers wishing to download Professor Hawking’s thesis in full.  Not everyone can truly understand this work, his best selling book is a much more concise and simplfied read.

Up until that point, I had expected Hawking to be just that, a highly capable scientist, whos genius cannot be gauged by the common man. But later I was surprised when I saw this popularity continuing to rise, and the pop culture emerging around him. He showed no signs of resting. He gave more talks and appearances, he appeared on TV in the news as well as in TV shows. He was featured in cartoons and sketches. He even sang for Monty Python !

Along with Prof Tyson,  and Prof Brian Cox, he became one of our generation’s rockstar astrophysicist. Suddenly, science was cool !

Religion was an early attempt to answer the questions we all ask, why are we here ? Where did we come from ? Nowadays, science provides better and more consistent answers, but people will always cling to religion because it gives comfort. And they do not trust or understand science.  - Prof Stephen Hawking

And that is the truth about science, it has always been cool. As the generation of religous, superstitious and doomsday obsessed pessimists wither away, a new generation of young scientists will come in, to carry on the good work done by generations of past scientists. We may not understand the mysteries of our universe today, but mankind as a whole, will be able to do that at some point in future.  And scientists like Prof Hawking will continue to inspire them. A different kind of Hawking radiation, so to speak.

 

 

He did his part. It is upto us now.