The Imitation Game

A burglary at Professor Alan Turing's house reported by one of his neighbours prompts the Scotland Yard to dig deeper into his life.  The inspector becomes suspicious of the victim instead of the suspect; he forges a signature to obtain military records of Alan Turing, but to his astonishment there is none, the envelope is empty.  The irony is that the movie about Alan Turing's life is as empty as that envelope appearing in the movie.

The let down of this movie, for me, was its glossing over the Turing the inventor and his invention*.  It lacked knowledge and substance.  Instead of celebrating the life of a man who invented the first machine that can "think", the audience left the theatre feeling sad and sorry for him.  Thank you very much Black Bear and Weinstein company for taking the life of a 20th century inventor and turning it into nothing but a sorrowful story. Now we all feel sorry for Alan Turing; he was chemically castrated to avoid prison and took his own life with cyanide at the age of 41 because he was a homosexual.  

The movie did have a climax, however, and that was when the team realized they can't use the decrypted Enigma code. I could hardly breath at that moment.  These men had just solved the biggest problem of the 20th century, yet they could not use their findings to save lives, because it meant turning the clock back to the beginning; more mathematics and statistics were needed to determine how the information should be used.

The movie benefits immensely from brilliant, talented cast.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Turing

Alex Lawther, Young Alan Turing

Keira Knightly: Joan Clark, Matthew Goode: Hugh Alexander, Allen Leech: John Cairncross, 

1. *A Turing machine is a hypothetical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a computer.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed

It's nice to hear someone else tells a story you can so identify with, because of the state of mind you are in, or life experiences you have had. That's how I felt, at times, reading this book; at other times I felt encouraged.
With so little preparation and know-how, her decision to walk the Pacific Crest Trail is as rash, and reckless as her turning to heroine. But this time she is earnest to find a way out of the pain she has been carrying for four years, since she lost her mother. She was 22, and her mother 45 then.
Hiking through wilderness alone is no joke, and Cheryl details the seriousness and intensity of doing such a thing well. Plus, having an untrained body, shoes that don't fit properly, and a huge pack, a.k.a Monster, makes her survival through the journey and arrival at her destination, Oregon, incredulous. From black bears, fox, and humans she has encounters with all species and as significant as it may sound, they are amazingly non-life threatening.
She neither philosophize, nor dramatize; she chronicles her journey the way it happened. This, I appreciated very much.


Awards: Goodreads Choice Aware Memoirs and Autobiography
Published: March 2012
Adaptation: 2014

 

The time keeper, Mitch Albom

The book is a fiction about what has become of us since we learned to measure time; and our desire to do more in less time.

The author develops two vastly different characters, one who wants too little time, and the other who desires eternity. They have been picked to be given the chance to see the consequence of their decision and revert it.

Our time here is not ours to choose, the book concludes. It is neither early nor late, but it is always when "it is is supposed to be". When the time comes, at that very moment, is the time that earth joins heaven...

Sweet book. It ends with hope!

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

You don't reach 100 without having seen a thing or two exciting things in the world.  For some it is the World Wars, for others is landing on the moon, for Allan it is being the center of discovery and building of the atomic bomb.  For the protagonist of "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared" book by Jonas Jonasson, the list of exciting things is long enough to fill a book of 400 pages.

Allan Karlson a centenarian climbs out of the window of his room in a senior home on the day of his 100th birthday in his casual clothes and pee slippers, hours before his birthday party.  When he arrives at the bus station he has no idea where he is heading.  All he knows is that he doesn't want to stay in that city and at that home any longer.  When he is given the task to chaperon a black suitcase, of a man with long, greasy blond hair, a scraggly beard and a denim jacket with the words Never Again on the back, while the man visits the washroom, he acts on his instincts, and drags the suitcase with him to the bus leaving the station while the man with long, greasy blond hair, a scraggly beard and a denim jacket with the words Never Again on the back, is still in the washroom.  It is May 2nd 2005!

This is how the book starts.  As Allan's adventure in present unfolds.  He shares his life since he was a little boy.  Both of Allan's life, present and past, are filled with zest and adventure.  His expertise with explosives brings him a life of convenience, adventure, hardship, extensive travel on foot, meeting the many important political figures.  No matter how convenient or how hard the situation is, how important or common the person is, Allan's attitude towards it all remains the same, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

This book is a great read!

What's next for Canada in the next four years? 2011 - 2014

This will be the last post on politics, at least for a while. the past election was an opportunity to dive into an unfamiliar area of knowledge; I gathered information about policies and understood less, because one contradicted the other. How could we cut deficit when we want to spend billion dollars on, unfortunately, stuff that in no way and shape boost our GDP?! How could we cut deficit when we intend to reduce corporate taxes?! Where is the revenue going to come to balance the spending?

I am befuddled!

Rick Mercer, Canadian political satirist, encouraged all of us to vote; his vote rant to, specially, encourage the young demographic was quoted in newspaper, on Facebook and other places. Here is a quote from the rant:

So please, if you're between the age of 18 and 25 and you want to scare the hell out of the people that run this country, this time around do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day and do what young people all around the world are dying to do.

Quite true. There are people who are giving up their lives to earn the right to vote for the future generation of their country. Voting has been the symbol of democracy.

I voted!

Once all votes were counted and results were announced, I felt no one heard or cared about what I voted for. My one vote had very little effect on the outcome.

What now? Well, Mr. Mercer we need a follow on rant to tell us what is the next step for us "in the country with one of the greatest democracies on earth." :)

Mr. Stronach suggests “people representatives” that will work alongside the elected parliamentarians to vote on the legislation proposed. This is a start to thinking beyond the once in a four years chance of influencing the future of the country. It high lights the need to understand how democracy can lead to prosperity and security. This proposal is made by a man who has built a company of $25 billion a year in sales which started its humble beginning in Toronto forty years ago.

I hope some one is listening; especially the educators. It's important to build a knowledgeable body who understand business in the context of policy making. And it's important to encourage this body of knowledge to then proceed into policy making jobs in government. This will, hopefully, put an end to making conflicting promises just for the sake of being re-elected.

What's next for Canada in the next four years is, what we want it to be. And this is not an idealistic rhetoric. There are many grass roots movements in this country that tackle the real issues.

Democracy is definitely NOT what this cartoon says!