Spiderman in Indian Elections 2014!

Just wondering where would Spiderman stand in this largest human drama called "The Great Indian Elections 2014"..And it goes like this:
Our friendly neighborhood spiderman decides to contest this elections and nominates himself under a new red-blue color party called "Spiderman Party", with the abbreviation SMP.
What would be the reactions of some parties?

Congress: "His web is going to be a threat to the indian society and disturb India's secularism!"
CPM/CPI: "His roots lie in the capitalist USA and thus a bigger danger to India than Modi!"
BJP: "SMP is helping the minority appeasement by signing a secret deal with congress!"
AAP: "SMP is funded by Ambanis and Tatas in a joint venture and Spiderman will be used to market their products. This will increase the prices!"
TRS: "Endi raa bhai veedu. Godalekke vaadiki mana kashtaalem telusthaayi? jai telangana"

So our spiderman keeps campaigning under the spider symbol with the Red and Blue color flag and gets a huge applause and huge crowd for all his meetings.
And lets say he wins the elections. What will be his priorities then?
* Make spider the national animal of India!
* Spider Universities to improve their breed and a spider serum will be created that will improve people's health!
* A spider force that will impart spider sense to the investigators of crime and corruption.
* Encourage more skyscrapers so that people can swing through them using their webs!

As the spiderman mania peaks, lets hope we dont hear our netas pumping out spiderman slogans like "with greater power comes greater responsibility".
#amazingspiderman #spiderman

With love.. Anil

Laddu babu: An under rated movie

Watched Laddu Babu yesterday and it was an amazing movie which was well handled by the director Ravi Babu. The film brings to the fore a new Allari Naresh who seems to have got into the role with ease.
It may not be the comedy that we expect from Naresh, but it certainly has a different feel to it.
I disagree with some reviews which said the story is too predictable. Sure the story is not completely new, but the way the story was told is good. It has a good message to the society.
Music is a letdown, but I dont think it matters anyway since songs doesn't suit this type of genre.
Missamma(2003) was a movie in similar genre and Laddu Babu in comparison is better in terms of comedy.

The way Naresh transforms into the insanely obese character is worth appreciation and applause.
I dont think this is an experimental movie, but certainly a fresh movie.
It may not be the movie which can draw crowds to the theater, but maybe an official DVD release would do well.

With love.. Anil

Banyan Tree vs Coconut Tree

Last evening, I was reading an article on banyan tree from a blog at http://drgauravpradhan.blogspot.in/. I liked the way the author described the world. I would like to take it further:
I realized that people have different ways of growth. Some like to grow as banyan trees: Spread their roots all over and shelter many others in their shadow. They may not have much height but the roots are strong that not even a massive tornado can destroy them.
Others like to grow like coconut trees: They may not hate or destroy others but would like to grow up to larger heights alone without giving shelter to others by the way of love, support and respect. They may grow tall or taller, but fail to live up in times of adversity. And when I mean "alone", it doesnt mean alienating themselves from the society, but it means keeping their interests at the top and always suspecting others. They even hate being under the shelter of the banyan tree, since they feel they are being dominated and choose to grow away from it. But the fact is that the banyan tree is not a hinder to their growth at all and in fact it helps them in being rooted and remain strong during the times of adversity.
This is not to say that coconut tree is inferior to banyan tree. In fact coconut tree has more uses than banyan tree, especially its commercial value is higher, signifying a higher status in the society by reaching greater heights, even though people use banyan tree's shadow to relax.
Ultimately, it is a matter of personal choice as to how one wants to live their life.

With love.. Anil

EVMs: How rugged are they?

A thought came across my mind:
So more than half the nation has voted for the 2014 Parliamentary Elections by the time I have written this article.
Are the EVMs(Electronic Voting Machines) being used water proof, Dust proof, shatter proof, bullet proof and theft proof? Is there any testing done by banging it with a large hammer? This type of ruggedness is important in a nation like India where conditions can go to extremes like ink/water being thrown, EVMs being stolen, etc.
Lets take a situation where a person, angry with the elections goes in and tries to damage the EVM with H2SO4(sulphuric acid), failing which he/she bangs it hard with a hidden hammer, or steal the EVM as a final option. Who knows, there might even be a gang around the polling booth just waiting to destroy it by shooting it with a gun by expert snipers. This might not have happened yet, but may happen anytime and the EC needs to be prepared for the worst.

1. Does the EVM withstand acid attack of the highest intensity? If so for how long can it withstand immersion in water or acid?
2. How are the results stored? Are they stored locally inside their circuitry? If so is the storage medium a sensitive hard disk or the latest SSD(Solid State Drive)?
3. Is there any backup storage like saving in an encrypted form in the cloud?
4. How will the police track a stolen EVM? Does it have GPS that cannot be turned off and with an embedded battery that is always on and how long can the batteries survive before draining out?
5. How secure are the databases and the memory that store all the votes? Any AES-256 bit encryption?
6. What is the body made up of? Cheap plastic or unbreakable carbon fibre that can withstand even a bullet attack?


I just wonder how they are all built and how well are they tested and if tested, by whom.

As an after-thought, India is still awaiting internet voting and it remains a dream(Gujrat has implemented it in 2011 for the Municipal elections in Gandhinagar, but nothing was heard since then).

With love.. Anil

Amazing Photospheres!

Photospheres are a tricky form of photos. Even though I took only 1 photosphere, I still feel a lot can be done to enhance the app and improve the stitching logic used by Google. It is a good one nonetheless and once we get a good hold of the shooting procedure and follow them meticulously, we can be rest assured of a good photosphere.
Some of my favorite photospheres are shown below:

Views: Ceremonial South Pole by Google Maps

Views: Lake Lure, NC by Tamjit Kumar

With love.. Anil

Main tera hero..A good rehash of Kandireega!

A couple of days back, I was watching the Hindi movie "Main Tera Hero" and was surprised to see that it was a remake of Telugu hit film "Kandireega". the storyline of the film and the setting is obviously different, having a David Dhawan look to the film, but overall, the story closely resembles that of Kandireega. The comedy that goes alongwith the story is good to watch and makes you want more.
The interval twist was a good one and keeps the audience guessing. Production values are good as expected and the director has used the actors well.
Coming to the actors, when we see the hero's characterization, we get reminded of Govinda for whom these kinds of roles would have been a cake walk. Dhawan's obsession with Varun's body makes us feel if we are seeing the rise of another young Salman Khan, with so many shirtless scenes! Illeana feels short of energy as she looks to have lost too much of weight and it is visible even in her expressions. Nargis Fakri looks like a wooden piece with not much scope for performance, similar to the role in the Telugu original.

Overall, when we compare these two films, we feel this is a lot more better and well adapted to the north-Indian audience. The film has been narrated very well with no boring scenes at any point of time and kept the story crisp and entertaining with witty dialogues. Music is so-so and nothing much to write about.

With love.. Anil

Media's new habits.

There is this strange habit in the media that when Kejriwal criticizes Modi more than Rahul, they start talking of a secret deal between AAP and Congress. AAP is like an honest child. Its nice, good choice but not the right choice to vote(atleast not in the present circumstances) for if we want a strong, stable govt at the centre. After what happened at Delhi, AAP needs to mature. Once it matures in the right direction and grows in strength, no one can stop it since it's basics are solid: it's candidates are corrupt-free, and I admire it for that. It is more like a beta version of the latest android OS. Needs more testing and stability trials before making an impact at the national level.
As far as BJP is concerned, this has to be their best chance at the centre. Any mistake or loss in 2014 would be a big blow to not only Modi but the whole party. 2009 was the last chance for Advani and 2014 will probably be the same for Modi. It is not because of his age but due to the analysis that will most probably happen in case of a failure.
I just hope there is a change at the center and Modi seems to be the best option right now. As usual there will be the so called secularists who know nothing about civic sense. Appeasing minorities is not secularism and in fact any undue appeasement just negates the meaning of secularism, which in any way cannot be considered real. As long as all religions co exist peacefully, secularism really doesnt matter and the media needs to explain to the public the real meaning of secularism.


With love.. Anil

The fake concept of "Mr. Perfect"

Yesterday I was watching the movie "Mr. Perfect" in the evening and a few thoughts came to my mind:
The logic shown in Mr. Perfect is nonsense. Pure nonsense. No one can change for someone in this world and feel the same after years of relationship. A compromise can never be a basis of any strong relationship.
The movie is good for the glamour of Prabhas, Kajal and Taapsee but people who take examples of sequences from that movie should stop the stupidity of taking useless
examples from fictitious stuff. Emotional blackmail and emotional games just dont make the world. True, some compromises are necessary, but both need to
compromise without any internal disappointment or an empty feel. Else what we get is fake smiles, show-off parties and master-slave combos. If the relationship was born out of compromise, it will either disintegrate in a short time span or it will perpetually remain in the master-slave model, where one of them will continuously fire the shots and the other just obeys, and get used to it over a period of time. That is dangerous for the family and society at large.

With love.. Anil

An illusion called secularism

Whoever coined the concept of "secularism" would have committed suicide if he/she were to be alive today and witnesses how the term is being abused by one and all. First of all secularism is an unnatural concept. Nature has never been secular and never will. There has always been inequalities and will exist in the future too. It is only because of inequalities and differences that the world is moving and the economy growing. For instance, economical growth is nothing but flow of money from one point to another and this is only possible if there is a difference in the levels like the flow of a river. Life on this planet is in itself a constant struggle between the strong and the weak. We cannot curb the natural instinct of any living thing.
So when the congress keeps patting its back by calling itself a secular party and calling all secular parties to come forward to defeat its opposition, it is merely trying to paint a fake picture of the society.
It takes pride in meeting a minority community and calls the meeting secular meeting whereas others who refuse to support them are termed communal.
The society remains peaceful not because it chooses to be secular but because it chooses to be warm towards others. As long as there is no hate-speech, every nation is and will remain peaceful and we don't need an overly abused term called "secularism" here.


With love.. Anil

The logic of mobile co-processors

I have always had a fascination about how much a device can become a part of our lives and after so many years of wandering through the technology reviews, user reviews, spec-war and heavy apps, I have found a kind of holy grail of mobiles that will soon emerge as the top feature in every phone that will come up: The mobile co-processor.
A mobile co-processor, as the name itself suggests is a processor that handles sensory data or contexual data that is fed to it from multiple sensors of a mobile.
Why not have all done by the quad-core or octa-core processors coming up in the mobiles these days? The main advantage of this system over the normal setup is that it consumes very low power and keeps the main processor in hibernation mode as it takes care of the continuous monitoring of activities like voice, movement, proximity sensor, etc. The uses are innumerable and Moto X was just a beginning. Others that followed suit are:
iPhone 5s(With its M7 motion co-processor)
Sony Xperia Z Ultra, Z1, Z1 Compact and the upcoming Z2(With Sony's sensor co-processor)

Of course all the above had different ways of integrating co-processors with their main processor, but the way Moto X integrated the hardware and software is amazing to say the least.
Soon we may see similar features from others like samsung, htc, lenovo, etc..

With love.. Anil