It signifies a new era in coding, where, instead manually searching stackoverflow etc to help code, the tool auto displays docs and code examples etc as you type. It's like name completion to the next level.
I paused a video in YouTube's app for Android and got this message: "paused videos keep buffering if you leave the app". There's a background buffering feature and YouTube shows the how much data has been buffered. For example, "buffering 11.8/39 MB". YouTube videos are actually cached, so that's the reason why YouTube's cache can become huge.
When YouTube caches the entire video, you'll receive a notification which shows that the video is "ready to watch".
This is useful if you have a slow Internet connection: play a YouTube video, pause it, leave the app and wait until the video is cached. Then you can watch it.
An article from Indian Express mentioned in December that "Google will introduce pause buffer feature soon allowing users to pause video, leave it to buffer, even leave the app or site and let it continue buffering". Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered a keynote speech at a Google India event in New Delhi and announced a lot of interesting features: "tap to translate" will be released this year, "Google will crowd source the data for its translate feature", "1.4 billion Android users in the world", "free WiFi at 100 railway stations in India by December 2016", "Internet access to Indians in their own language is the focus for Google in India".
The Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 (CCOA) would undermine Americans’ privacy, make encryption illegal and force companies to weaken the security of their products and services. We need to make sure this dangerous legislation doesn’t gain any traction in Congress.
Photos of women with lips pursed. Texts that said “Love you,” and “Happy Birthday.” A photo of a bottle of “Big Bottom” whiskey. More women. More lips and kisses. And one telltale reference to the 1992 rap hit “Baby Got Back.”
On Monday, the space agency opened the Planetary Defense Coordination Office to study how to detect and stop big asteroids and meteors from hitting Earth.
It’s no secret that Disney has had tremendous success with its live action cartoon remakes, even if they usually come at the expense of better storytelling than what’s appropriated for new takes on Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.
But The Jungle Book, a remake of the 1967 animated classic (well, classic soundtrack at least), is the first of these live-action films to rise above what came before it. It solves many of the issues fans have had with the original for years, even if it does stumble from time to time due to its own limitations.
Directed by Iron Man and Chef‘s Jon Favreau,The Jungle Book is among the most gorgeous movies in recent years, discounting computer and hand drawn animation. But it’s strength really is in how immersive its jungle is without having to computer animate the characters. Granted, the majority of The Jungle Book was made on a computer, and it was filmed thousands of miles away from any real jungle.
Based on Rudyard Kipling’s series of tales set in India (mostly Mowgli’s Brothers like the rest of these adaptations), The Jungle Book is a coming of age story about a boy named Mowgli (Neel Sethi), who was raised in the jungle by wolves and overseen by a stern, but loving, panther named Bagheera (Ben Kingsley).
Unlike past iterations, The Jungle Book fully explores the role of a “man cub” living amongst animals, as he has to familiarize himself with the politics of said society and decide once and for all where he truly belongs. At times, Mowgli is given opportunities to set himself apart for the good of the animals around him, while at other times, his mere presence causes disaster, brought on in large part by this film’s excellent new rendition of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), who will do whatever it takes to kill Mowgli before he becomes a true threat.
Like the “red flower” that defines human dominion, Mowgli has the potential for both life and destruction in this world. It’s a simplistic story, but not a thin one, in that Mowgli’s agency as a character provides ample motivation and purpose for the various creatures he meets throughout the film. Making their believability as characters (both visually and narratively) all the more impressive.
The vast majority of audiences will be enamored by the surprising depth of The Jungle Book, but it’s not a perfect film that will convert everyone. There are several scenes that feel aped (no pun intended) from other Disney stories like The Lion King. This film crosses the line from homage to ripoff by the third act.
There is also an inconsistency with how this film deals with the popular song numbers from the animated classic, which were critical to its lasting memory. Only two of them make it into the film, and only one comes off as a harmless tribute. The other is quite out of place and nearly ruins a fantastic scene featuring the well-realized King Louie as an extinct giant ape (Christopher Walken).
Thankfully, nearly everything else in The Jungle Book is extremely solid and even brilliant at times. You’ve probably never seen talking animals appear so convincing and true to life on the big screen, yet so mystical at the same time. And they’re balanced nicely by a set of valid themes that raise great questions for children, such as man’s place in nature and what it means to respect the environment, without putting them to sleep with a preachy message.
Grade: B+
Extra Credits:
OK, let’s nitpick. Neel Sethi did a fine job, but at times, his performance was bizarrely over the top, far removed from what you would expect from a boy raised by wolves.
I’m not sure where I stand on the film’s intense action scenes. Mowgli is in a constant state of peril at times, and it all seemed rather frightening for a PG kids film. It’s about as violent as something like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for example.
I didn’t get to mention Baloo, who was voiced by Bill Murray in what I believe is his best role in years. He doesn’t show up until about 40 minutes into the movie, but his impact on the darker tone of the script is felt almost immediately.
I wish I could lend the same praise to this film’s handling of Kaa, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. She has a lot of fun with the character, but it’s far too brief to get excited about.
Disney has a new opening logo treatment that I hope lasts into future films. It has a unique transition that looks great in 3D, and it’s hopefully not the last we’ll see of this technique.
The end credits are also fun to watch, as we see a literal book unfolding one of the dance numbers. I’ve always thought it was weird that these movies are called The Jungle Book rather than The Jungle Movie.
I’m Jon and thanks for reading this. You can subscribe to my posts by clicking “Follow” in the right sidebar. Or just say hey on Twitter! @JonNegroni
Haven’t completed that Rosetta Stone course? Don’t have reception for a translation app? Maybe you just want to communicate something simple very quickly while traveling. That’s where the IconSpeak t-shirt comes in. The shirt features 40 universal icons for common things such as “hotel,” “airport” or “food.” Just point to the appropriate icons on your shirt, and you should be good to go in nearly any part of the world!
The Catskill/Delaware watershed, which extends 125 miles northwest of the city, provides more than 90 percent of the city's supply. The rest comes from the Croton watershed.
It can take 12 weeks to a year for water to wind its way to the city from the streams, tunnels, dams and reservoirs in the Catskills. All of it is delivered to the city by gravity alone.
"Gravity's an important friend of ours," said Mr. Rush, the deputy commissioner, explaining that it "works nonstop" and is "energy efficient."
Whoa, I had no idea the aqueduct tunneled 1000 feet under the Hudson River. Water systems have been in the news lately, both in Flint, MI and here in NYC, where Mayor de Blasio postponed work on Water Tunnel #3 and then, a day later, responding to public concern over the postponement, announced that he was going to accelerate the work on Tunnel #3.
See also David Grann's classic 2003 New Yorker piece about the NYC water system, City of Water.
The author accompanied a group of sandhogs and nine cases of dynamite six hundred feet down a shaft leading to a segment of the tunnel that lies below Tenth Ave. and 13th St. New York's invisible underground empire goes as deep as the Chrysler building is high. Tunnel No. 3 has been under construction since 1969; it will extend sixty miles, from the reservoir in Yonkers to the end of Manhattan, with various redundant loops.
Tired of being Jacqueline's assistant, Kimmy moonlights as a Christmas elf and an Uber driver. Titus finds love, and Lillian fights gentrification.
