An English Movie must watch for everyone

 

 If there is one English movie, which is a must watch for everyone, it has to be 12 Angry Men.

The legal link to watch it is :

https://ia800902.us.archive.org/5/items/12AngryMen1957/12%20Angry%20Men%20(1957).mp4

From Wiki :

12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in the process among this group of men whose range of personalities adds to the intensity and conflict. It also explores the power one person has to elicit change. The jury members are identified only by number; no names are revealed until an exchange of dialogue at the very end. The film forces the characters and audience to evaluate their own self-image through observing the personality, experiences, and actions of the jurors.

Minnal Murali Review

Minnal Murali is one movie i loved watching every moment of its runtime. It is available in Telugu on Netflix which made my viewing experience a lot better as i dont need to spend mindspace in reading the subtitles. 

First of all, i am proud of my Malayalam brothers and sisters that they are able to churn out such great scripts to the movie viewers. Stories like Drushyam 1 & 2 , Driving License , Ustaad Hotel, Minnal Murali are such a joy to watch it on screen. And coming to this film, i particularly like the way they took time to get the hero and villain story arcs in proper organic growth . The music was fabulous to augment the pace of the movie . 

I was super curious when i heard about this super hero film and my mind was wandering on how he became a superhero. We cannot show that he got some powers from an animal or an alien or he is super rich like our existing super heroes. I loved the trailer when i saw and was very intrigued to see the Thunderstorm angle . What blew my mind was the villain part of it and how they were able to make story with regular human touch in a village setting , ultimately bringing us to the hero super hero and Villain super hero to a faceoff towards the climax. 

I am now an fan of Tovino Thomas , loved his part in Lucifer and now this movie. 

My best uses for Alexa

 

I had bought the first generation of Amazon Alexa from US in 2015. I was very excited with it and wanted to explore it more and even code some skills for it. That coding part didnt go as per plan . However, Alexa has been part of the daily life since then . I wanted to list down some cool uses i use Alexa for. 

1. I added my home and Office location and used it ask Alexa how is the traffic every day just before starting from home to office. It would give the time taken and route which helped me guess the traffic without looking at maps. 

2. I had a routine setup ( Series of commands grouped ) to list down the weather, top news on that day when i got up and taking care of morning activities. 

3. I have a 3 year toddler now and i have a lullaby playlist which i play it in loop while he sleeps and there are some outside noises. 

4. In extension to above, we use the skill " Animal sounds" where i play with my kid listening to various animal sounds . 

5. Ofcourse, listening to music from Amazon music with voice commands is the best use in addition to setting up Alarms and Timers. 

6. My best and fun usecase is playing with Smart bulb . I have a wipro smart bulb setup and we play it almost every day with commands , changing colours , brightness and on/off.

Digitize old negatives of photos

 I am sure most of us have some old negatives of photos from our parents time lying at our home. I saw some posts that we can digitize them but after trying one or two things , they seemed difficult.

Until i encountered this app called Filmbox by Photomyne . It is simple to use and was able to digitize some of the negatives i had into colour photos. 

Links for app : Android , iOS.

The app is very simple to use . Just install, it gives instructions on how to create backlight (going to their website) , just scan and hold and voila you have your photos. 

My favorite podcasts

 

Podcasts have now become part of consuming edutainment . 

My favorite ones are : 

The Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma.

This is a national treasure . Host brings some great experts in a long format discussion around 3 hours and is a bliss every time we listen to it. There are lots of mindboggling episodes. I loved the ones with Jayaprakash Narayan, Chinmay Tumbe on Migration, Manu Pillai on his history books, the one on Kashmir, the one on Maharashtra politics , the one on CAA, the one with Ashwin Mahesh, the one with Madhavan of PRS and lots more. 

After Hours by HBR

This is my another favorite where some of the greatest minds from Harvard Business School discusses on the trends in the world and brings some interesting perspectives. They also give out some great reccos to watch and read. 

Finshots

5 minute size bytes on current economic affairs . A brilliant way of explanations that will calm down your curious brains.

Interpreting India

The episodes are of 30 mins and discusses some policy / governance implications related to India . 

Paisa Vaisa

A financial treasure to understand all the new products coming out in Indian financial space . 

ThinkFast Talk Smart

This one is from Stanford business school. Focusses on communication .

Harivillu

My latest favorite and this is in Telugu. Discusses some great topics and people from Teluguland . 

Climate Change - What can you do

 One of the biggest disasters we would be seeing in our life time , but very slowly in myriad ways is Climate Change. 

>> See how your city would become in future due to Climate Change.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/graphics/see-how-your-citys-climate-might-change-by-2070-feature

>> What Matters most : https://www.grid.news/roadmap-saving-planet/

>> Google has created a Timelapse to see how we can transformed our earth. 

Here 

>> Watershed is a software platform enabling companies to offset its carbon footprint. 

>> Klima is an app one can download and see how much you can offset the carbon footprint you create.

The Tech Magics

 Recently i came across the Paytm audio announcement box where it announces to the merchant that a payment has been received. This is so indigenous solution to avoid fraud , give a confirmation without much effort to the merchant and is a brand advertisement every time it speaks. And i marvelled at the people at Paytm for thinking such an awesome solution.

I was thinking what all other similar things i loved seeing in the tech world where it solved a problem with an awesome thinking.

My first on the list is Chromecast . I was blown away when i heard of it and experienced it in person. It was a simple thought that you can just use a small hardware piece and stream almost anything to the TV and make any TV connect to Internet. 

Next is the PayTm QR code payment and also its Audio announcement box. You can transfer the money by just scanning an QR code. It has decreased the transaction time , no touch and made it cool.

Next is the Airtel WiFi calling , this solves a bigger problem of cellular network availability using the Internet at home and is probably the biggest factor for me to continue with Airtel . 

Next is the UPI transfer mechanism ; This is mindblown . It is easier to remember an emailid than a number which is unique and be used for transferring the money. And that thought to implement the communication feature which revolutionized the world has been brought to be used for financial transactions. 

Next is the OneNote software from Microsoft. The most underrated and awesome software Microsoft has produced after Microsoft Excel. You dont need to save anything and it does tons of Auto formatting.

Next are the voice assistant devices, I know lot of work has to be done for these to work but whatever the progress done till now has been remarkable. 

What are your favorites ?

I got some answers that Google Docs . True. It has truly revolutionized the way we could collaborate.