Burfi ! - What I felt about the movie

I want to use all the superlatives I know but, I want to keep it simple and crisp...

1. One of the finest Bollywood movies I have seen, I would rank it No. 1
2. Enjoyed watching Ileana d'cruz in every frame she was in. She was picturized beautifully. I am sure, her fan base would have grown exponentially
3. Priyanka was at her best in acting, without any second thought
4. Rabir kapoor again proved himself as one of the talented actors
5. I enjoyed it because I was unable to guess what would happen next. Surprise tickles  "movie part" of my brain.
6. Presentation and story telling I give full marks

Its worth watching once, for sure...

Keywords: Burfi, Burfi review, ileana, Priyanka, Priyanka chopra, Arjit singh

Gachibowli Pincode is 500030 | India passport application

Cut the crap!
If you are selecting Gachbowli as your permanent or present address and passport application is spitting out below error.  1. Use 500030 as pin code 2. Do not use xml upload , choose fill application online option.
Did I hear a Thanks?! I know... do not mention it.

The crap!
For reasons known to Govt. of India and TCS (which maintains the website) the pin code of Gachibowli is not 500032, its 500030. It took a while for me to realize this fact.

Mythbusters

Myth:
You know about XML
You know the postal code of Gachibowli
Google has answer for any question you type




Now that Google does not know this fact I am feeding my finding to it. :)



Key words:
Present address - Entered PIN Code does not lie in the selected district. Please retry using another PIN code of nearby location.
Please retry using another PIN code of nearby location.
Passport application, passport application Hyderabad India
Gachibowli pincode, Gachibowli pincode is 500030, Passport application not allowing Gachibowli pincode
Gachibowli pincode is not 5000032, I hate passport application website, Who developed passport application website,  TCS does it again

Data Analytics: My two Cents

I was going through an article from IBM press release the other day.  The title read “Charleston Police Department Aims to Reduce Crime Using IBM Predictive Analytics” [1]. Three things which came up to my mind at that point were,
                             
  1. The movie “Money ball” –The good
  2. Crash of AF 447 – The bad
  3. The movie “Minority report” – The quintessential question


Money ball[2] movie is the poster boy of “Data Analytics”. This movie is based on a true story where Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) takes help of Sabermetrics[3]  (read “Data  Analytics”) which helps his team winning 20 consecutive games, an American League record.  Gee! Which gives an impression that, why can’t this strategy be implemented by all team coaches?  Wait a minute! there may be a catch, lets park this question for now.

On 9th June 2009 an Air France passenger jet crashed into Atlantic ocean, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew. One of the reasons for the crash is stated to be faulty instrument reading. One thing that caught my attention is,

[4] “Despite the fact that they were aware that altitude was declining rapidly, the pilots were unable to determine which instruments to trust: it may have appeared to them that all values were incoherent”

     “Data Analytics” is analogous to instruments which help us in our decision making. Personally, I feel Analytics are spit out using algorithms which use some correlations, most of the time. Now comes the red herring, you are responsible for, how much to depend on this data and how to use the data.  This answers our parked question.

     In the movie “The Minority Report”, Spielberg –The director- tries to address a quintessential question of   “free will vs. determinism”.  To put it in plain English, are all the actions we intend to perform, pre-determined or is there anything like "free will". Also, if and when, ‘data analytics’ attains the ‘holy grail’ of predicting the future, can the State use such data to punish the would-be guilty before they actually commit crime and other things around it.

     Personally, I would put my buck in  “Data Analytics”  where the end result is not used to decide on life and death, in anyway. If it’s related to life and death, first I would rely on instincts, judgment and training later, think about what “Analytics”say.

    It sounds logical to me, for a cop to wear his bullet proof vest and residents to lock their homes, even when the neighborhood is “statistically” stated as zero crime area for past several years.



 This is written for my office magazine. Thought to publish on my personal blog




Sources:
1.       Charleston Police Department Aims to Reduce Crime Using IBM Predictive Analytics
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37985.wss
2.       Moneyball (film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball_(film)
3.       Sabermetrics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics
4.       Air France Flight 447
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

Baby Pigeons’ story

Background:

For some reason, we had to remove our window AC from our bedroom. We felt sad to find two baby (~3 weeks old ) pigeons siting in a corner . We decided not to bother them much and expected their parents to take care of them by evening.  We waited till late evening but no sign of parent pigeons.  We continued to ignore the baby pigeons but, somehow, we were not ready to leave them to die. Its scorching summer season here and those birds would stay no chance of making it till next day afternoon.

Hail Google !

Software psychology kicked in, we google-ed and youtube-ed for few educational material on how to feed and take care of baby-pigeons.  We realized that, its tough and time consuming task to nurse baby birds. After some time, we got carried away to an extent that, we tried to get in touch with one of our relative veterinarian.

Predicament

Darwin said nature will take its own course but, our minds were not ready let those poor chaps die out there. 

At around mid-night we decided to dare and get them inside home with an intention to give them to animal orphanage in our city. Yes, we could not believe the fact that our city has one in local zoo.

I already bought a pair of rubber gloves and a disposable syringe in case we decide to implement what we learnt over Internet.

It took around 15 minutes to bring both of them in. We tried to feed them but poor ones were scared.  We gently took them and put them in a soft cloth placed them in a tub. We put them in closed dark place, they looked cozy. We waited for next day to break.

Pleasant surprise

We woke up early and tried to make calls to local animal orphanage. Probably, it was too early for them to pick up our phone call.  Meanwhile something miraculous happened. An adult pigeon came and we felt it came looking for the baby pigeons. We waited just to make sure if our hunch was right. Chances are it’s a stray pigeon looking for new place to nest. After 15mins or so we observed two pigeons standing at that window.

We decided to place one baby pigeon and see if they accept it. We did so and it was anxious few moments before they touched each other with their beaks. Thank Heavens ! We felt so relieved. We put the other baby pigeon and waited for the parent pigeons to accept them, it happened. Again, so relieving! One of the websites had it absolutely right - the pigeons will not abandon the babies just because humans touched them...
We put some bean seeds and water and left them alone. Occasionally, we observed the silhouette (through the curtain) of three to four pigeons.

Conclusion

We thought over and over again if we did the right thing to bring baby pigeons into our home the previous night. We comforted ourselves saying all is well which ends well.

Agent Vinod - My review

Every time I watch a formula (read, routine) Hindi movie I think, why cannot they make a movie for sake of movie and not for the audience. Recently, I am surprised and impressed after watching 'Kahani' movie. Now, I am astounded after watching 'Agent Vinod'. Standard of Bollywood movies has improved a lot in all departments.

Coming to plot of the movie, I put it this way... It reminded me of James Bond movies,MI series, Bourne series movies and Sidney Sheldon action novel plot. Hero roams all over the world to save the world from a nuclear bomb. Might sound routine, trust me it takes guts to conceptualize, make and release such movies in Bollywood.

My rating:

Screen play: 4/5

Story telling: 3.5/5

Plot: 3/5

Action (Saif): 4/5

Over all 4/5

I know my friends will hate me for these ratings. Honestly I am impressed and I can tolerate goof ups here and there...movie reached my expectation

More details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Vinod_(2012_film)

Image: http://celluloiddiary.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/agent-vinod-so-what/

Police Verification Form For Tenants in Pune

Dont get robbed by the paying for this form (u will get robbed anyways after submiting it in police station :P).

Print this in the office.

Esha slides on her own

It has become a ritual now. After the day-care hours. We have to take Esha to playground. She shouts on us if we try to take her home directly.

When we slide her the first time she was bit scared but enjoyed it. After few days she graduated, she slides on her own. She claps and giggles once she is done with sliding.

She demands more time to be spent with her. We happily oblige her.

Bottom line: Parents enjoy more (by giving) once kid starts expressing what she/he wants.