Welcome

Hi ! "I miei pensieri" means "My thoughts" in italian. I use this space to convey some of my thoughts on some interesting topics.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Interstellar

Space, Time, Worm Holes, Black Holes, Singularity are all extraordinary concepts and the widest food for an imagination. Combine that with one of the master storytellers of our time and the boundaries of imagination are stretched.
First, the negatives.
The movie Interstellar is almost 3 hours. It is quite lengthy considering Nolan brothers’ reputation to keep screenplay tight and keeping audience continually engaged.
One must not go in with any expectations whatsoever. Especially, Nolan diehard fans. Interstellar cannot be compared with other movies of his like Dark Knight or Inception. Interstellar is a movie of a completely different dimension. And those who have seen this movie, you will agree. J
Few dialogues, mostly while Mathew McConaughey was still on Earth, sounded more like bumper stickers. Not of the usual Nolan quality.
And lastly, few characters were not allowed to essay much scope in this movie, especially, a versatile actor like Casey Affleck.
Now, for the positives.
Plot: The story revolves around a final space mission attempt to find habitable worlds for the future of human kind. Now, although this plot can be attempted by any director and any actor. This could be a Singham 3 script for Bollywood and for Kollywood, Vijaykanth would be the ideal candidate.
But, this is Christopher Nolan.  Naturally, it would be a whole different breed.
The movie is visually superb, just incredible. Top of the mind, would be the visualization of black hole and showcasing time as the further dimension was a superb treat. The second world that they visited was also superb. Although, similarities could be drawn between this and the stunning visuals of Alaska shown in the movie Insomnia. The robot TARS is also definitely worth mentioning.
All the characters in the movie have acted incredibly. And just when I searching for Nolan’s usual stamp of grey, Matt Damon and his role in the second world that the crew visits provided just that. It was really nice to see Matt Damon don a darker role than his usual characters in other movies of his.
And the last but not the least, the concept in itself is definitely worth pondering upon. Gravity cutting across space and time. What would a black hole look like? What would be like to go through it? Powerful stuff indeed.
Summing it up, if you are a dreamer, a thinker and a wanderer, Interstellar is definitely worth it!


Sunday, November 2, 2014

Copenhagen Consensus Centre

Just now listened to a Freakonomics podcast titled ‘Fixing the World – Bang for the Buck’. In it, Bjorn Lomborg, a member of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, when asked what the Centre actually does, started with the following example,
If, $1000 is the cost for curing malaria in one patient, and $10000 is the cost for curing AIDS in one patient, then it can be translated that for the cost of curing AIDS in one patient, 10 cases of malaria can be cured.
He further explained that what the Centre works towards is for cost estimation and doing a cost benefit analysis for any program or initiative. This is done by commissioning top economists and field experts to do studies based on facts and figures and estimating the probable benefits and assigning a figure for the same.
While doing the Cost Benefit Analysis, at the rudimentary level, is assigning a real world value to a vision or a dream. It is definitely worth being part of a discussion than doing a discussion without it. As the speaker illustrated with an example, imagine sitting in a restaurant with all the items listed but with no prices against them. Now, the activity that the Centre does is like assigning a price for each item. Though you may end up ordering the champagne, you will at least understand the balance you may have at the end of the champagne for ordering dessert.
The Millennium Development Goals is an initiative by the UN to list down action items for a 15 year period and then tracking progress. Countries around the world use this as a fulcrum to design their long term initiatives and take them forward. The last set of goals was designed for the period 2000-2015 and they included Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, Improving maternal health and 5 others. With 2015 around the corner, it will be interesting to see the next set of goals for the year 2030. Definitely, sustainability, renewable energy, reducing carbon footprint, climate change will be among the contending topics. 
It will be even more interesting if the aforementioned Copenhagen Consensus Centre is part of this discussion to gravitate the achievability of probable topics that are currently being discussed for finalizing Action 2030.
Quoting from an excerpt from an article in the Tribune on August 8th, 2014, by Dr. Pervez Tahir,
"The selection of goals and targets for 2030 needs to be more focused than they were for 2015, with prioritisation of key areas of weaknesses. An example of this has been provided by the Copenhagen Consensus Centre by prioritising the possible goals on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. It recommends only five goals - nutritional supplements, expanded immunisation, anti-malaria programmes, control of intestinal worms and the prevention of tuberculosis."
Let's wait and see the Millennium Development Goals 2030.