R.I.P

The female of our species has often been a bone of contempt for the largely unaware and blissful male populace. I am no exception. And should any reader apart from myself, stumble upon this post, neither will he. But that is not my topic. It was simply a means to draw your attention. (apologies).
I recently watched the movie everyone's rambling about. Yeah, if you haven't guessed it right, you're probably from Lesotho or some place where they don't have electricity. Every bit of praise I hear from all corners, every accolade attributed to the movie, is because of one person. Heath Ledger. R.I.P. A posthumous oscar awaits, I am sure, but lets look at it from a wider perspective.
Christian Bale as the Batman does not have much scope for improvisation. How can he show facial expressions behind his mask. Batman is a cult, and you have to stick to the script. Probably as Bruce Wayne, yeah. The Joker however, is an entirely different ball game. He is a crazy, maniacal, normal man, defeated by circumstance. Plenty of scope for personal touches. This is where Ledger scores. His ruthless, careless, brilliantly on the edge performance endears him to the masses. But Christian Bale was good as well.
The only grievance I had in the movie was Maggie Gyllenhall. She looked more like an old woman, and Katie Holmes is a tough act to follow anyways. But the way the story moved is fantastic. Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, awesome as usual, and Aaron Eckhart as Two-face Harvey Dent manages to hold his own.
I am soon planning to watch this movie a second time.
P.S: Top of the IMDB lists within 2 weeks of it's release is something. Considering that it even beat the Godfather series to reach the spot, amazing.
In any case, movies like these make my life, anyone still raving about the movie referred to in the post below?

HappYness in Chaos.

Thomas Jefferson and the chaos theory aren't two names one would expect to hear in the same breath(figuratively which is saying that they aren't expected to be seen in the same sentence).
The pioneer and the chief author of the American Independence, while drafting the Declaration of American Independence, chose these very words and here I quote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The pursuit of Happiness, the American Dream. I watched a movie starring Will Smith with the title The Pursuit of Happyness. The spelling error being a deliberate reference to an incident in the movie. Despite all cliches about people having to fight and ultimately win and all other bull crap, this movie is brilliant. Will Smith for one moment does not strike you as Will Smith. From the minute the movie starts, to the end, he is Chris Gardner. He blends into the role seamlessly and displays all the emotions of a man who is a victim of circumstance, stricken with poverty, homeless, yet with the fight, the bottle, the conviction and the courage to claim his federal, his divine right, The pursuit of happiness. There is no divine intervention in this movie, not for one second do you feel like, " aw...there you go, that never happens does it". Everything real, all the emotions, the situations and the characters.
Watching such movies makes you feel so much better about your lives. Must watch.
Now I come to the latter name in my opening sentence. The chaos theory.
The Chaos theory, in principle, explains the behavior of certain systems whose state evolves with time. It can be explained in a gist as "Something as tiny, as inconsequential (to the unaware) as the flutter of a Butterfly, can have an effect as gigantic as a typhoon halfway round the world." Now simply, I state this because I watched another movie today, called "The Butterfly Effect". Now if I could, I definitely would like to give a spoiler of this movie, but this sci-fi fantasy flick is so brilliantly written that I could go on and there would be no end. So simply check out the story on Wiki.
All I'd like to comment is, Ashton Kutcher is one dude who can play such roles effortlessly. I've watched a few of his movies, and believe me, this guys got much more behind him than just being Demi Moore's boyfriend.
Another movie to catch.

Two movies heavy on EQ definitely seem to have taken their toll on my emotional well being. But watching such movies makes me view our people as generally shallow.
People wallowing endlessly about a Hindi movie I paid 180 bucks to watch the other day. It stars the nephew of a prominent star and is a teenie flick. Everyone around me left, right and centre has being harping about the movie and people even have their Orkut display names proclaiming the name of the movie. I frankly did not find the movie to be an intelligent one or for that matter brilliant. The only brilliant actor in the movie was in a bit part role playing the brother of the leading lady.
Such movies put into perspective the depth of thought of the people of my generation. But these people form the vast majority. Makes me wonder who watches the kind of films like the previous ones anyways.

Manmohan Singh - Duke Nukem Ph.D?

Over the past few months, all the media and the common man on the street have been talking about ( apart from the occasional babes and inflation) is the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Absurd though it may appear, I at the outset, firmly believed (with utmost conviction) that the deal was a horrible brokering of our country's Nuclear Independence and Development.
It kind of felt like Manmohan Singh was Yudhisthir, India was Draupadi, and the IAEA as Duryodhana egged on by the evil mamu Sakuni, Uncle Sam. Remember the epic dice game!
I do have a very vivid imagination, and I do exhibit a blatant exhibition of it in the above citing.
Point to be driven home being that, something wasn't right. I was of the opinion that since the deal would inhibit the nuclear sovereignty of the nation, we should have rejected it at first go.
Week after week, I heard opinion after opinion, still unable to form one of my own.
Until recently that is. When Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam comes out and says that this deal should go through, I guess it is hard to speak out against it. Not only because of the undoubted brilliance of the man, but also his unwavering integrity and his credibility. A man of his stature does not comment on any issue without putting in serious thought.
That for me was enough to swing my vote the Nuke deal way. I admire and completely respect Dr. Kalam and for me his word is final. Period.
Circa July 2008, the left shake their collective fists (pun on the word collective) at the congress and withdraw support. Enter Vote of Trust.
Now, as a first time voter, I ought to be enthralled and excited by the possibility of the nation going to polls so early.
But, if truth be told, I am not. The elections will cost the nation a bomb, destroy the image of the country in the International Community and worst of all, give all the unsocial elements free reign to wag their puny tails.
A few crores will change hands ( and probably bags) reach the homes of certain people ( read MP) and the vote of trust will become a farce.
Either ways, the trust is directly proportional to the number of Gandhi's in the bag. And there's two Gandhis on the outside who can affect that. All that remains to be seen is will the Green Gandhi's turn the tide in favor of their namesakes or against them.

Singularity

Just the other day, I recieved the June copy of IEEE spectrum. Apart from some thought provoking and some ultra techno-crap-call it what you may stuff, the cover story read Singularity. Now this was something that caught my eye.

For the uninitiated, singularity is a concept which is applicable in a wide range of topics. Basically, a plethora of conceptual pot-pourri. Singularity, for example, can mean a mathematical singularity wherein a mathematical object cannot exist at a given point. ( Learnt that in semester 4, I did). It can also mean a Gravitational singularity wherein it refers to a point at which an object has infinte mass and zero volume due to gravitational peculiarities. Apologies for the digression.
But as I read on, I soon learnt that the singularity in question here was the one pertaining to artificial intelligence. The article said that over the years, as humans have ceaselessly worked to create A.I, we have slowly but surely increased the capabilities to such an extent, that soon it will be beyond the ken of man to control these machines. The singularity will occur when Artificial intelligence matches human intelligence.
That had me thinking. It's all okay to say that A.I. will not reach our I.Q levels for a long time. But that refers to us (bless me) higher intellectuals. What about those unfortunate few who have brains the size of walnuts and could probably draw a game of chess with a grizzly?
The singularity has passed for these citizens and they are being over-awed by these machines.
We should talk to these victims of the Intelligence shift and gauge the effects of the singularity. It would be a momentous thesis, enabling us higher mortals to endure the celestial A.I. singularity if and when it exists.
If this does go through, will I, like Hawking before me, enter the realms of science history as an immortal. It's up for debate. Don't bet against it though.