Movie Review - Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino is a genius. And though I can't resist to count him among the likes of Spielberg and Polansky and Coppola; he unmistakably has a thoroughly different and somewhat whacky style of film direction. The guy just throws the conventional film making norms out of the door. He creates his own norms and however unorthodox they seem, they actually turn out to be quite effective. An example would be the character introductions that he gives, like the ones in Kill Bill (which even had a animated strip as Gogo's intro, if I remember her name correctly) and the Stiglitz's character intro in Inglorious Basterds. His style is refreshingly different and I have high regards for him especially because he dares to swim against the tide and makes it successfully more often than not.

The kind of violence he shows in his movies, would drive the public aways ouf of disgust; but he takes the risk. The kind of non-linear story-lines he chooses for his movies, would confuse the masses; but he takes the risk. His movies are violent, but they bear hallmarks of great direction despite the violence. High-speed artistic photography, pacy action, puking-point violence, lively screenplay, intriguing dialogues - all bear the hallmark of a genius director. And now with Inglorious Basterds, one more Tarantino special - fictional storyline which twists the world history involving high-profile characters like Hitler himself!

The Inglorious Basterds story is about an anti-nazi Jewish-American gorilla group that existed in real-life history; but Tarantino takes it from there, and depicts a fictional plot to kill the higher echelons of Nazi political circle, including Hitler himself. The story and the screenplay is very intense and would catch and keep your full attention till the end. All the interrogation scenes are so well-thought out that you can actually feel the tention building up in the air. The direction, photography and acting, especially the facial expressions, are just remarkable. The opening scene of the interrogation of the farmer who is hiding jews; or the one in randezevous basement where the gestapo officer catches the bluff of the undercover british agent; are masterpieces.

Apart from Tarantino, the credit for the extra-ordinary appeal of Inglorious Basterds, also goes to Christoph Waltz for his powerful depiction of Colonel Hans Landa. The character is so intense and powerful, that in my opinion it's next only to Heath Ledger's surreal Joker from The Dark Knight. Given my not-so-good knowledge about hollywood actors and films, I haven't seen Waltz' any other film, so I didn't know him before the movie. But I am going to remember his performance for a long time for sure. The character depiction is just as good as it gets.

So all in all, Inglorious Basterds is a Tarantino classic, and a must watch. If you aren't familiar with Tarantino's style or haven't seen his other movies like Kill Bill, I would recommend to watch his movies on an empty stomach. His movies contain puking-point graphic violence. To his credit though, Tarantino knows to stop just before the public would start puking! So if you can digest that, you are in for a treat.

Little fun with GIMP

After buying a new Canon EOS 450D along with EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, it was but obvious for me to waste clicks at whatever I could point the camera at. So I clicked. And luckily got few interesting images with it. Interesting - from my perspective; ofcourse. Anyways. One of the image was of an evening sky just around/after sunset; and the other was of my window - the result of my attempts to get a smooth bokeh.

After seeing the images, it struck me that the combination was almost an invitation to try some simple but cool photoshop techniques on. So, the aim was to replace the blurred background of the window, with the sky; i.e. as if the evening sky was captured from the window (with small aperture setting). Here is what I achieved finally -

Pretty cool huh? If you are new to photoshop techniques, I am sure, it impressed you. ;)

And this was done using what? Some costly softwares like Photoshop? Nah! It was all an open-source affair.

Removed the SD card from camera. Inserted into my laptop, which is running Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04. Imported the card contents on my laptop using F-Spot photo manager (used like photoshop-bridge software). Opened the chosen images from F-Spot, into GIMP - another super-powerful opensource software which gives photoshop a run for it's money. That too for free!!

Here is how I achieved the final result -

1. Open window.jpg in GIMP (through F-Spot photo manager, which has thumbnails of all recently imported photos)
2. Create a duplicate layer from the window layer, and bring the duplicate layer in the front. Let's call it a maskImage.
3. De-saturate the maskImage layer (Colors->Desaturate) and apply threshold transformation (Colors->Threshold)
4. Adjust the threshold such that you get an outline of the black window-bars. Use the eraser to rub out unwanted black spots from the image.
5. The final maskImage looked something like this -
6. Then drag the sky.jpg image from F-Spot photo manager, and drop it on GIMP window. GIMP will add it as a new layer. Let's call it a sky-layer.
7. Right click this new sky layer, and click Add Layer Mask. Keep the mask fully opaque (white).
8. Now go to the maskImage layer and select all of the image (Select->All). Copy it (Edit->Copy)
9. Select the layer-mask added the sky layer. There should be a white box around the layer-mask.
10. Paste the selected maskImage (Edit->Paste)
11. It will show up as floating paste layer. Now go to Layer menu and select Anchor Layer option.
12. If everything works fine, the layer-mask of sky-layer will now have the maskImage as it's contents.
13. Now make maskImage layer invisible, and keep rest of the two layers (sky-layer and window-layer) visible.
14. Make sure sky-layer is on top of window-layer.
15. And that's it! Now go back and check the final-image above, once again. Sweet fruit all these efforts!
    

This again shows the power and reach of opensource technology, where there is a tool for every need, however complex the need may be.

So kudos again for all those freedom-loving wizards taking efforts to create awesome tools like GIMP which are an amazing replacement for as costly a software as Photoshop.

Really difficult to imagine a life without opensource.


[Reference: How to use an image/layer as a layer-mask]

Fed Up Big Time with Idea Cellular - Part 3

Continued from part 2. This is about the status as of today, 6th March 2010; and further course of action to reduce my reliance on Idea.

After going through the harrowing times with the Idea fiasco, even though the services have resumed and are stable now, I have been feeling that I was over-loyal to Idea and was almost at their mercy due to this over-reliance. And then there is not a single written reply from Idea despite my 3 emails.

So I am thinking it's time I move on to a different service provider and then eventually discontinue this Idea number after forwarding my calls to the new number for a month or two.

So after a bit of star-gazing, I short-listed few options - Virgin, Tata Docomo and BSNL.
I liked Virgin's youth-friendly whacky style, but Virgin calls them Einstein-types who understand OS names and a little tech details. So it didnt look like they will understand what GPRS is ;) .
I liked Docomo's simplified 1p/s billing schemes and GPRS is also available. But was not sure about coverage, and there were way too many negative vibes about bad billing practices regarding GPRS. Holy cow! I dont want a Deja Vu!

I really like what BSNL is offering. And I had quite a few positive vibes about going with BSNL -

1. Govt company, so more or less nobody cares sooo much about profit that they would tweak the system to exploit customers. Good and bad both.
2. Have had very good prior experiences with BSNL, landline and broadband both. Have high regards for BSNL broadband.
3. Govt company, so RTI applies. If something seems fishy, you can ask questions and can be *assured by law* for a reply.
4. If you dont agree, take RTI info to consumer court, and make your case. A lot easier than dealing with a private company which can manipulate info.
5. Coverage - no matter whether you are on the Lakshmi road or on the top of Harishchandragad, chances are very high BSNL will cover you up there. In fact more chances in the later case where all cellphone networks will be dead ... except BSNL. ;)
6. Excellent 1p/s billing scheme -

• Plan Costs: Not more that Rs.150/-, yearly.
• Billing: 1p/s all over India for BSNL cell/landline and 1.2p/s for all other networks.
• Roaming: Same charges as normal!! Except only incoming calls are charged at 1p/s which is still a lot reasonable.
• GPRS: 1p/10KB!!!! That means Rs.1/MB which is AWESOME. Just what the doctor ordered for me.

This is just way too cost efficient as compared to my current Idea scheme, where my regular bills are to the tune of Rs.500/month. Here with the BSNL prepaid card Rs.500 will suffice me for a whole year for god's sake! I was unnecessorily blowing money just because I wanted to keep the number and the service was satisfactory till date. Didnt care enough to check what other service providers were offering! And that spells a very important lesson for any business - when you have a high-paying loyal customer, keep him happy all the time. Dont give him even the slightest of a reason to check out what others are offering. It's a recipe for losing him to your competitors.

Anyways, here are few links worth pondering over -

1. BSNL tariff charges
A little difficult to make out anything at the first glance, due to govt style presentation. But hang around and you will get a hang of it. ;)

2. National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
Official Indian govt site about consumer courts. Contains full text of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and other related rules and regulations.
This case of Idea Cellular denying me access to a service which I have already paid for, I believe, comes under unfair trade practices as defined under Chapter I, section 2.c.(i) and 2.c.(iii) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

3. Consumer Advocate
Success/failure stories for different parties who went to consumer court; and a short case analysis. Must read.

4. International Consumer Rights Protection Council (ICRPC)
Claims to be an NGO helping consumers in presenting their case without the need for a lawyer. Charges a token membership fees of Rs.250/- Havent gone into details of it. But worth checking it out while in need.


[UPDATE: 7th March, 2010]
For once, Idea did reply, yesterday late evening. But no prizes for guessing what it would be. Wothless business words. No acknowledgement of the problem, neither any assurance about non-recurrence.

==============================================================================================
"Dear Mr. Kulkarni,

Greetings of the Day.

With reference to your e-mail and telecon with Ms. XYZ, we wish to inform you that services to your mobile number have been restored.

Should you require any further assistance feel free to contact our Customer Care Helpline number 9822012345 or e-mail us at 9822012345@idea.adityabirla.com

Thanks & Regards,
ABC
Idea Cellular Ltd.
Maharashtra & Goa

“Idea offers Customer Care through SMS, get complete information on Billed/Unbilled amt, Bill plans details and many more details with an instant SMS on your mobile. Type " CARE " & send it to 50505 (toll free number ).”

Disclaimer

All the tariff plans/services are subject to regulatory body approval. Company reserves the rights to modify/change/discontinue services/plans based on guidelines received from time to time."
==============================================================================================

Fed Up Big Time with Idea Cellular - Part 2

Continuing with the part one. This is what happened on the next day (i.e. on the morning of 5th March 2010)

In the morning again I received an SMS saying my services are barred for lack of payment. And indeed my outgoing calls were barred. GPRS was already barred. That was too much for me. So here is the 2nd email that I sent to Idea Cellular, to the same addresses. This company doesnt reply to any mails you write, neither does it have a mechanism to escalate the issue to somebody at higher position, like a nodal officer. You are absolutely at their mercy.

=======================================================================================
"I was expecting to get an official reply on this. But I didnt.

Now my outgoing calls are again barred. Second time since yesterday. And this is it for me.
You will spend crores on advertisements but you wont care a dime about long term postpaid customers who are regularly paying you at a higher rates than normal. In fact you will go out of your way to trouble them like anything. Nice business strategy.

I am a hell of a disgruntled customer now who used to be immensely loyal just a week ago. And I am not coming back. But ofcourse you dont care.

Please discontinue my GPRS service. I will confirm about discontinuing this number altogether in next few days.
I hope to get back the deposit that I paid at the time of getting this lifetime connection.

Shreyas Kulkarni
Sr Software Engineer,
XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX, Pune
Cell: +NN N NN NN NN NNN"
=======================================================================================

Then in an hour or two, I got a call from an XXX lady who worked at Idea's Sharada Centre office in Pune. She apologized literlly 100 times which was gross and unnecessory. When you have an irritated customer due to *your* fault, apologizing doesnt work. To cool him down, you should take corrective action and then convey the same. Apologies wouldnt bring my GPRS up again, nor would I be able to use those apologies to make calls.

She did tell me action is being take to correct the system and this problem wont occur in future. She also promised me a reply to the mail. I asked her to acknowledge the problem in the reply. And I guess that made her all nervous and I didnt get the reply! It's plain irresponsible and fraudulant to know that a customer has suffered from your own mistake and still not be open enough to accept the problem and commit root-cause resolution. I just dont trust these guys anymore.

My outgoing calls resumed in an hour but GPRS was still down by 4pm. So I wrote another mail clarifying the fact that mere apologizing and giving wordly promises wont work. I didnt mean to sound cocky but I wanted to send a message, loud and clear, that however sweet and sugary you talk, I wont take this sir-system-is-that-way BS again in future. I am paying hefty charges for the service and it's not wrong if I demand quality, reliability and some sense in return.

Here is the third mail -

=======================================================================================
"I did get a call in the afternoon from XXXX (Sharada Centre office). I was assured that the services will be restored and the system will changed to consider my GPRS prepayment.

My outgoing calls have resumed, but the GPRS is still down. And I was promised a reply to this mail, which is still missing. Please reply.

I am holding up my plans of switching the service provider on the precondition of immediate resumption of my services (both voice and data) and no reoccurance of this same issue in the future. And for that, I would like to have a written acknowledgement of the problem and a written assurance mentioning this issue wont occur in future. If the fix in the system is going tot take time, I would like to know how much. I have had (and still having) too much of an unnecessory trouble to trust any wordly assurances.

And please let me know by when I can expect my GPRS service to resume.

Shreyas Kulkarni
Sr Software Engineer,
XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX, Pune
Cell: +NN N NN NN NN NNN"
=======================================================================================

Fed Up Big Time with Idea Cellular

After being a very satisfied customer with Idea Cellular for last few years, recently I have started getting highly frustrated and annoyed at the ways of Idea. Especially with their approach of going out of their way to trouble the most loyal of their customers.

Their advertising campaigns are totally un-cool and give away their sense of urgency in getting new business. Their so-called social-initiatives all look like a fraud to me. The facilities they provide look like a mask to fool the public, the complaint-registration dialogue on their website, which just doesnt allow you to register your complaint by throwing error while submitting - a case in point. And then their unstoppable tele-marketing calls! When I tried to register for Do-Not-Disturb on their website, like other services, it didnt just work. As I said, it's there just to fool the public. Then I called up their customer-service to register for DND, and to my astonishment, I was charged 50p/min for that call. 50 paise are no big deal, but business-ethics is what I am trying to get at. And then again, when I told the guy to add me to the Do-Not-Disturb registry, he told me it would take 45 days!!!! Can it get anymore scandalous than that? Take this - the frequency of tele-marketing calls increased after that.

And with this bit of history, now, to my disbelief, they have barred my GPRS service for all the wrong reasons. Rather than mincing words in telling what happened, I think I would rather share the actual mail I wrote to all their email addresses I could find and find relevant. A first for me to publically share my email, but I think in these cases of customer-apathy, it makes a big sense to make it all public. Jago grahak jago.

===========================================================================================
"Hi

I have been using Idea postpaid connection since last 4-5 years i.e. since I bought my first mobile. I have never been late on bill payment for one single bill till date.

Recently my frustration with Idea has been growing by leaps and bounds.

My GPRS is not working since yesterday, and if I understand it correctly, it's barred. Why? Because my 'usage' has gone beyond my credit-limit. I got hundred calls for paying my bill in advance as the credit limit was exhausted.

I activated GPRS service couple of years ago. I pay Rs.200 for an allocated usage-quota of 500MB per month. The strange thing is I am charged for GPRS usage throughout the month, and then at the end the bill is generated with a GPRS charge of Rs. 200. When I activated GPRS I was charged Rs.200 in advance, before I even started using it. So that means it's advance-billing as far as GPRS goes. So effectively, whenever I use GPRS, I have already paid for the usage. SO I fail to see what kind of sense it makes to again charge me for the usage throughout the month!! Another really annoying side-effect of this non-sense is I cannot know my true usage during any time of the month, as the figure is swollen up with false GPRS charges. At the time of GPRS activation itself, I had raised this concern, loud and clear and I was shamelessly told - this is how the system is. What kind of company are you if you cant have a logical system in place for that single most important aspect of any business - billing!? and cant make amends when you know the system is doind wrong? *You* own the system right? Who do you think you are kidding?

Now I have explained this numerous times to all the 'customer-care'(!) people calling me up for bill payment in advance. Everybody assures me that I wont be troubled again. But then in next few hours there is this yet-another-customer-care-guy asking me when I will pay up. And the next day I receive an SMS saying my services are barred.

All this headache and trouble without even a single fault from my side. Effectively, I am being denied a service even after paying in full for it, which makes a good case if I approach a consumer court.

Is this a punishment for being a long term customer with Idea? Dont you guys have even enough business-sense to provide at least normal service to such long-term post-paid cash-cows?

I would better see some quick action in this regard. I want my GPRS activated and working ASAP and I want the system corrected such as to take into account my pre-payment for GPRS. When I do a *147# I want to see my real usage; not some figure blown up by charges for a service that has already been paid for. I am a software engineer myself and have seen enough complex systems to know this is easily doable; so spare me that sir-the-system-is-that-way BS.

Believe me, if I dont see anything convicing done in this regard, I will take it as total apathy, and will not hesitate to jump the ship and switch to some other service provider. And I wont even wait for number-portability.

Shreyas Kulkarni
Sr Software Engineer,
XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXX, Pune
Cell: +NN N NN NN NN NNN"
===========================================================================================

[UPDATE: 4 Mar 2010, 11pm]
By 2pm I realised not only my GPRS, but now my outgoing calls were also barred. Lost my temper. Blasted that poor customer-care guy. Outgoing calls were resumed in an hour. GPRS was still barred.
Got a call from a girl from Sangli office. This call was in response to the mail. The mail had reached Sangli office. This time gave her a gyan session on all this in Marathi, and got the same reply - sir-i-agree-u-shouldnt-be-charged-but-this-is-as-per-the-system. BS! You know it's wrong and rather than correcting it you expect the customer to pay interim bill amount in thousands of rupees to increase his credit limit??
I told her to discontinue my GPRS from the next billing cycle. Now I am on the lookout for a service provider with 1p/s plan with good GPRS. Tata DOCOMO, BSNL, Vodaphone and maybe Virgin are what I am targetting. I am done with Idea Cellular now.
By the way, the girl said she would reply to my mail, but I am still awaiting that official reply.