Rajasthan Police has released check exam district for the post of Constable 2019.
Sunday, October 25, 2020
The new adaptation of The Witches is almost too much fun
The trailer for The Witches
Roald Dahl's 1983 children's fantasy novel The Witches begins with a simple declaration: "This is not a fairy tale." Witches, the unnamed boy narrator claims, are real. They live among us, demons indistinguishable from real women, hell-bent on murdering children. The boy is matter-of-fact about this frightening reality, but also urgent—he is relaying the immediate threat of a global network of bloodthirsty child predators. It's an intimate, conspiratorial opener, drawing readers in by whispering the secret truths grown-ups usually don't want them to know: not only is the world not safe for the young, it's unfair, treacherous, and cruel.
As the story progresses, the narrator recounts his fateful encounter with the wicked Grand High Witch—the big, bad boss of all the witches around the world—along with every witch in England, a run-in that shapes his life. While on vacation with his grandmother at a seaside resort, he stumbles into a hush-hush witch conference, where the Grand High Witch explains a plot to turn all the world's children into mice. (The witches disguise themselves as a society against cruelty towards children.) In classic Dahl fashion, there's a surfeit of jokes about bodily functions, an unkind depiction of a fat kid as a greedy idiot, and vividly drawn villains who speak in rhyme. The boy and his grandmother ultimately foil the witches' scheme, but the ending is more melancholic than happily-ever-after: the narrator is transformed into a mouse by the witches; even after outwitting them, he cannot change back. He takes his predicament in stride, comforted by the knowledge that he won't outlive the only person in the world who loves him, but still—it's a children's story where the hero is doomed to premature death. Dark! It's a macabre, gripping tale, one which has remained a perennial favorite for kids since its debut more than 35 years ago. The Witches, like Dahl's best work, taps into a wavelength that acknowledges the dark edges of childhood in a way that so much young adult literature does not: puerile and mean and honest. People who hate children think they smell like shit. Strangers with candy have bad intentions. Parents die. And sometimes kids do too.
The new adaptation of The Witches, out on HBO Max this week, doesn't totally carry this brutal worldview forward. It begins with a monologue modeled after the book's opener. It's narrated over a slide show that even includes snippets of Dahl's original text (including "Witches are REAL!"). But even though many of the words are the same, the tone is quite different. The narrator begins by sputtering out a cough, then says, "Alright, where were we?" as though he's a substitute teacher trying to figure out which slide of the presentation he's on. He also sounds unmistakably like Chris Rock. Because he is voiced by Chris Rock. No knock to Rock, who has an excellent voice—his "Lil' Penny" commercials should be playing on a loop in the Louvre—but his jocular, bemused timbre here conjures a much different atmosphere than the book's prologue. Instead of tugging viewers aside to offer a warning, it opens like a classroom lecture about something that happened long ago. It's the first of many signs that this version of The Witches, directed by Robert Zemeckis, is a substantial departure in sensibility from its source material.
Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Q&A with Vint Cerf, who has been working on building an internet for space, using disruption/delay-tolerant networking (DTN) protocol, an alternative to TCP/IP (Susan D'Agostino/Quanta Magazine)
Q&A with Vint Cerf, who has been working on building an internet for space, using disruption/delay-tolerant networking (DTN) protocol, an alternative to TCP/IP — Vinton Cerf helped create the internet 40 years ago, and he's still working to connect people around the world — and off it.
Weibo users describe how political discussions on the platform have become even more muted amid pervasive censorship, as some resort to using burner accounts (Shen Lu/Rest of World)
Weibo users describe how political discussions on the platform have become even more muted amid pervasive censorship, as some resort to using burner accounts — Thousands of Weibo accounts have been deleted as China's government cracks down on free speech.
Facebook Demands Academics Disable Ad-Targeting Data Tool
Academics, journalists, and First Amendment lawyers are rallying behind New York University researchers in a showdown with Facebook over its demand that they halt the collection of data showing who is... https://ift.tt/3mkvEGZ
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee Dies at 78
Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee, who transformed the South Korean firm into a global tech titan, died at the age of 78 on Sunday, the company said. Under Lee's leadership, Samsung rose to... https://ift.tt/3osamce
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Profile of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and the controversies around Palantir's trustworthiness; Karp claims his progressivism offsets Thiel's relationship with Trump (Michael Steinberger/New York Times)
Profile of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and the controversies around Palantir's trustworthiness; Karp claims his progressivism offsets Thiel's relationship with Trump — The tech giant helps governments and law enforcement decipher vast amounts of data — to mysterious and, some say, dangerous ends.
Dussehra 2020: How to download and send WhatsApp Stickers
Dussehara or Vijayadashmi is here and just like any other festive season most people must have started searching for a way to send wishes to friends and family. In addition to emoticons, GIFs or regular text messages, you can also send Dussehra WhatsApp Stickers. https://ift.tt/2TpRs7E
Zest AI raises $15M for its AI-powered tech that it claims can help financial institutions reduce bias in loan portfolios, bringing its total VC funding to $87M (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Zest AI raises $15M for its AI-powered tech that it claims can help financial institutions reduce bias in loan portfolios, bringing its total VC funding to $87M — Zest AI, a company developing AI-powered loan decisioning products, today closed a $15 million funding round led by Insight Partners.
FinLocker, whose software helps consumers expedite the mortgage approval process, raises $19.8M Series A and announces a commercial agreement with TransUnion (David Nicklaus/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
FinLocker, whose software helps consumers expedite the mortgage approval process, raises $19.8M Series A and announces a commercial agreement with TransUnion — FinLocker, a Clayton-based financial technology company, has raised $19.8 million in venture capital and reached a commercial agreement with a major credit bureau.
Zoom deleted events planned for Oct. 23 on alleged censorship by the company after Zoom canceled an SFSU talk in Sept.; Zoom says the events violated its TOS (Jane Lytvynenko/BuzzFeed News)
Zoom deleted events planned for Oct. 23 on alleged censorship by the company after Zoom canceled an SFSU talk in Sept.; Zoom says the events violated its TOS — Zoom shut down a series of events meant to discuss what organizers called “censorship” by the company.
What you will pay for iPhone 12, 12 Pro in these countries
The iPhone 12 Pro range, at least in India, starts at Rs 1.19 lakh whereas the iPhone 12 (not the mini) is close to Rs 80,000. Apple has to pay customs and taxes in India which does make the iPhone expensive than most other countries. Buying an iPhone from other countries — if possible — has always been a cheaper option. https://ift.tt/2TnatYv
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
As researchers talk about the arrival of supersmart AI, far fewer voices are trying to envision and articulate what a world awash in AI might actually look like (Ethan Mollick/One Useful Thing)
Ethan Mollick / One Useful Thing : As researchers talk about the arrival of supersmart AI, far fewer voices are trying to envision and ar...
-
Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist : Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage...
-
Lorena O'Neil / Rolling Stone : A look at the years of warnings about AI from researchers, including several women of color, who say ...
