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May 1, 2005
Yaadein (2001) is a Bollywood film directed by Subhash Ghai. It is filmed throughout India, Malaysia and the UK. The movie goes like this: (Jackie Shroff) is left with three young girls to raise and to marry off when his wife is suddenly killed in a police chase. The girls find love through different ways, but the last daughter (Kareena Kapoor) encounters the biggest problem when her lover (Hrithik Roshan) is engaged (conveniently by force) to someone else. The film definitely bites much more than it can chew, thus leaving only moments of brilliance. Ghai's script, though dialogue-heavy, is much too predictable and overlong, concluding with a less-than-satisfying tie-up. Roshan is ok; Shroff does very well with a poorly-defined role. Look out for the blatantly annoying Coca Cola and other brand name advertisements placed throughout the film; it heavily cheapens the integrity of the film. Another drawback of the film is the constant disparagement of foreign-born Indians. Although this is typical of Ghai's films (see Pardes for complete disparagement of Western civilization), it really irks the viewer. Ghai fails to understand that Westerners have a completely different set of values and a different lifestyle altogether.
An example of this generalizing occurs during the encounter between Roshan, his wife-to-be and Shroff at the restaurant. Roshan completely hams the scene and Ghai's portrayal of foreign-born Indians is cheap.
Ghai has since gone on record defending the film, stating that he originally developed it as solely a story of a father and his three daughters (their love interests were secondary). However, distributors apparently put pressure on him to showcase more of Hrithik Roshan in the film (whose popularity skyrocketed during the making of this film). Kareena Kapoor has also since gone on record supporting the film in spite of its debacle, thanking Ghai for giving her a role that allowed to her showcase a lot of range. Critics would decidedly argue against that point.
Filming locations include:
[[Apex Bar and Restaurant, Raddison Hampshire, Leicester Square, London, England, UK]], Ascot, Cliveden House (Roshan's family's house), Eagle Square, Langkawi, Malaysia, Harefield,UK, King's Arms Pub, Harefield, Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia, Lake Palace Hotel, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Langkawi Langkawi Yacht Club, Langkawi, Malaysia, Panchkula, Piccadilly Circus, Queensmere Shopping Centre, Slough, Thames Embankment, Thorpe Park, Tower Bridge, Windsor Great Park
Posted at 10:32 pm by volleyandvalee
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Wen Ho Lee (ÀîÎĺÍ, pinyin: L¨« W¨¦nh¨¦) (born 1939) is a Chinese American computer scientist who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was accused of stealing secrets about the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal, though later acquitted.
The investigation into whether China had conducted successful nuclear espionage occurred after an intelligence agent from the People's Republic of China (PRC) gave U.S. agents papers which indicated that they knew the design of a particularly modern U.S. warhead (a compact thermonuclear design used for MIRVed warheads). In particular, Lee was suspected for having given the PRC copies of "weapons codes," computer code used for simulations of nuclear testing. The advantage of such codes would not be that they would necessarily tell a PRC scientist how to develop a weapon, but would have given the PRC the results of many American tests, which would potentially allow them to make up for the fact that they had performed a relatively few number of tests before halting their testing program.
It was soon determined that the design data the PRC had obtained could not have come from the Los Alamos Lab, because it related to information that would only have been available to someone like a so-called "downstream" contractor, meaning one involved in the final warhead production process, and this information was only created after the weapon design left the Lab.
After an intensive forensic examination of Lee's office computer, it was determined that he had backed up his work files, which were not classified at the time, onto tapes, and had also transferred the files from a system used for processing classified data onto another, also highly secure, system designated for unclassified data. With this in hand, the government then retroactively redesignated the data Lee had copied, changing it from its former designation of PARD (Protect As Restricted Data) to a new designation of Secret, giving them the crime they needed for a formal charge. Lee was arrested in December 1999 but freed in August 2000 after he accepted a plea bargain from the federal government.
Wen Ho Lee pled guilty to one felony count of improperly downloading classified data. In return, the government released him from jail and dropped the other 58 counts of illegally downloading classified data from the computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab. The judge assigned to hear the case apologized for Lee's nine months of incarceration.
Born in Nantou, Taiwan, Lee got his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Cheng Kung University. He received a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1969.
Posted at 10:30 pm by volleyandvalee
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