Bond is back, with his characteristic charisma and the license to kill. Daniel Craig fills the place vacated by the impeccable Brosnan, and held earlier by biggies like Shean Connery and Roger Moore, and he does justice to this coveted throne, in style.
Based on the first Bond novel by Ian Fleming, it portrays a novice Bond, who has recently achieved his ‘double o’ status, but is yet to gain his cold blooded, emotionally disconnected self.
Take away the fancy gadgets and their father Q, exit sexy sirens; do we still get a great Bond movie? Yes, we do.
Judy Dench, plays M for the sixth time, acting as chaperone to the beginner bond, as he combs the globe in search of an international terrorist gang. From Uganda to the Bahamas, our valiant hero follows cold leads, shoots the bull’s eye and exchanges fisticuffs. Repeat; no gadgets to pull him out of nasty situations. The series of events culminates to a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale, so brush up your poker playing skills to follow Bond, as he beats a mathematical prodigy at his own game.
Eva Green plays Vesper Lynd, the treasury attaché with whom, Bond uncharacteristically falls in love.
With some beautifully written dialogues and great acting, this movie scores full marks, a deserving feather in the James Bond saga.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The Ig-Nobel Prizes
An article i wrote for the PT magzine
You are a researcher, but conventional research does not turn you on. Don’t worry, if you’re interested in explaining ‘why woodpeckers don’t get a headache’ or you wish to write the equations of motion of the hula hoop, you still get a prize, not the Nobel, but the Ig-Nobel.
These prizes, instituted in 1991, are given out by the scientific humor journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Originally concieved as a parody of the Nobel prizes, these prizes are given out by Nobel laurets, for genuine research in whacky areas. To give you a taste of the types of ‘research’ that wins an Ig-Nobel prize, here is a list of some recent winners:
PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults.
MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.
The prize ceremony takes place at Harvard every year, around the same time as the Nobel prize ceremony, and is marked by numerous comic antics. The ceremony traditionally closes with the following words: "If you didn't win a prize - and especially if you did - better luck next year!"
So, if you have a crazy research opening, an eye for the comic aspect of science, there are the Ig-Nobel Prizes for you.
You are a researcher, but conventional research does not turn you on. Don’t worry, if you’re interested in explaining ‘why woodpeckers don’t get a headache’ or you wish to write the equations of motion of the hula hoop, you still get a prize, not the Nobel, but the Ig-Nobel.
These prizes, instituted in 1991, are given out by the scientific humor journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
Originally concieved as a parody of the Nobel prizes, these prizes are given out by Nobel laurets, for genuine research in whacky areas. To give you a taste of the types of ‘research’ that wins an Ig-Nobel prize, here is a list of some recent winners:
PEACE: Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electromechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults.
MATHEMATICS: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
PHYSICS: Basile Audoly and Sebastien Neukirch of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, in Paris, for their insights into why, when you bend dry spaghetti, it often breaks into more than two pieces.
The prize ceremony takes place at Harvard every year, around the same time as the Nobel prize ceremony, and is marked by numerous comic antics. The ceremony traditionally closes with the following words: "If you didn't win a prize - and especially if you did - better luck next year!"
So, if you have a crazy research opening, an eye for the comic aspect of science, there are the Ig-Nobel Prizes for you.
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