This is a weekly blog that puts forward my thoughts, and my point of view.
You may agree with some. And probably disagree with most. And we can agree to disagree. After all, wouldn't life be boring if we all thought the same way.
A little over a week ago, I had the privilege of landing in Mumbai a few hours after the new airport commenced operations. A picture speaks a million works and I'll let pictures speak about how nice the airport is.
The image above is the swanky Customs Helpdesk. However even though everything is new, our Indianness stands out. We may not know what we have to do, but we always know what we do not have to do as shown by this shoddy printout, on Day 1.
February 13, 1994 is when the hole in my heart became whole. This year we were celebrating 2 decades of awesome happiness. Since I was in the US with Reia, and Freia was in college at NYU, Ivy was going to be alone on the occasion.
A few days before the event, a thought popped up. What if I could fly over and surprise Ivy. And before I realized, my brain spewed out the thought in the presence of Reia and Freia. And that started a chain of events.I had a zillion reasons why it would not be practical.
From expensive tickets, to who will look after Reia, to is it worth it for just a day, ...
That's when Reia said, "Dad, just do it", and Freia ensured it happened by pointing out something that had completely eluded me. "Dad, in times to come, you'll have no memory of the cost of the ticket or who looked after Reia or any of the other zillion issues you think are issues. But Mom and you will remember that you flew half way around the world to spend your 20th anniversary together.
Its interesting how everything fell in place and I made the trip. No one knew. And as I rang the bell at 7 p.m. on the 13th, Ivy opened the door, and her face lit up. And made everything worth while.
The next 2 days were amongst the most memorable days of our lives. And whilst I could go on, the best things in life are those that remain unsaid. Except of course a BIG Thank You. To Reia and Freia.
In the last few months metadata has become a buzz word especially with the Edward Snowden disclosures. The response of the establishment has consistently been that the US Government and its agencies, specifically the NSA do not monitor calls and e-mails but only the metadata to determine if the risk of any threat is present.
The question that comes to mind is what exactly is metadata and how useful is it. I found an interesting and thought provoking article which definitely merits a read.
And then I came across this YouTube video that is amazing. It not only answers the question of metadata, but also shows its application in real life and then provides a web software that will do it for you. A must watch.
The Power of Metadata: Deepak Jagdish and Daniel Smilkov at TEDxCambridge 2013
by TEDxTalks
MIT Media Lab graduate students Deepak Jagdish and Daniel Smilkov share some surprising insights from Immersion, a tool they built to make sense of email metadata. Try out Immersion yourself and learn more about the team behind it at https://immersion.media.mit.edu
Once a year, the US comes to a standstill. Its Game Day, and the festivities start 1 week before the event. Today was Game Day and this year the Superbowl was being held in the home stadium that the 2 New York teams, the New York Giants and the New York Jets share. Ironically the stadium of the New York teams is not in New York, but is the Metlife stadium in New Jersey.
Festivities for the game started last week with celebrations in New York, and all over the country. Several stores as well as malls were decorated with a football theme. New York city was full of football related events. Times Square had a football look and of course it had its own name. The events were labelled "Super Bowl Boulevard" and included events such as a live concert, several television driven events and the star was a specially designed toboggan. Interestingly, they were all FREE and a huge success.
The game was to begin at 6.30 p.m. The live coverage started at 2.00 p.m. It was a Hollywood like event with the red carpets and interviews with stars, trips down memory lane. The live telecast of the game is on different channels every year, and this year it was on Fox. Fox is known to be Republican and so never ever gets an interview with President Obama. The power of the Superbowl is evident that they got an exclusive 1 on 1 interview with the President.
The interview, I assumed would revolve around the festivities. I was wrong. Bill O'Reilly of Fox News who conducted the interview was not going to let this opportunity slip by. And managed to get in questions about the failure of Obama Care, the failure of the website, the now infamous line, "If you like your plan, you can keep it", Benghazi and so on. President Obama to his credit kept his cool, took a few digs at Fox and repeated the standard lines. The Super Bowl question was the final 3 secs, and in true politician fashion. the President predicted that it would be a close game refusing to pick a winner.
The pregame on field activities started around 6, with the teams being introduced, a rendering of America the beautiful by Queen Latifah.
and the national anthem by Renee Fleming.
And then the main event started. If ever there was a anti climax this was it. Within 12 secs of the start the Denver Broncos were down 2 points with a safety. This was the first time I was seeing a safety, which is what happens when a team is tackled with the ball in their own end zone. From them on it was Seattle Seahawks all the way and it was probably a relief to the Denver Broncos when the game finally ended with the score at 43-8.
The Super Bowl in addition to the game has 2 connected events that are as anxiously watched as the Super Bowl. The first is the half time show. And the second is the ads. The half time show by Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was a little disappointed but the consensus was that Bruno Mars delivered whilst the Red Hot Chili Peppers disappointed.
The ads were once again disappointing. At 4 million per ad, it seems like ad agencies feel compelled to create an ad for the Super Bowl and ended up with an ad that did neither. Appeal to the audience on the occasion or communicate the message. My favorite ad was the Coke ad and least favorite was probably shared by Maserati and Chevrolet. There were several competitors for this category and most were very close and I suspect will be on several worst lists.
At the end of the Super Bowl, guess what was the next topic of popular discussion. Super Bowl 2015.
