Chuck

Chuck is an action-comedy television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working in the CIA; the message embeds the only remaining copy of the world's greatest spy secrets into Chuck's brain.
Produced by College Hill Pictures, Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros. Television, the series premiered on September 24, 2007, on NBC, airing on Monday nights at 8PM/7c leading into Heroes. On November 26, NBC announced that Chuck received a full season pickup. On February 13, 2008, NBC announced that Chuck had been picked up for a second season in 2008/2009. The second season started on September 29, 2008, with a full 22-episode season order. NBC released the first episode of season two a week before its air date via multiple online distribution methods, and cable on demand. The status of a third season has not yet been officially announced.

Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) is a socially awkward twenty-something in Burbank, CA who works as a computer expert at the Nerd Herd at his local Buy More (a parody of Best Buy's Geek Squad), a large retail consumer-electronics chain, with his best friend, Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez). Chuck's sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) is a doctor who is constantly looking out for his best interests and wants to help him find a girlfriend. Also joining the cast is Ellie's fiance, Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb (Ryan McPartlin), also a doctor looking out for Chuck's social life. On the night of his birthday party, Chuck receives an e-mail from Bryce Larkin (Matthew Bomer), his former Stanford University roommate, who is now a "rogue" CIA agent. When he opens it, the entire database of all the US government's secret information — a neural supercomputer called The Intersect — is subliminally embedded into his brain. Both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency want the intelligence returned to them and dispatch agents of their own — Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin) and Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) — to retrieve the data.
Since the disk with the government information was stolen by Bryce and destroyed in his attempted escape, and since Chuck experiences "flashes" of information from the database activated by certain triggers around him (such as faces, guns, watches, and other objects), he must use the knowledge he now possesses to help the government thwart assassins and international terrorists — upending his previously uneventful life. In order to preserve their safety, Chuck must keep his new-found occupation a secret from his family and friends, forcing Casey and Walker to establish an uneasy alliance and secret identities; Walker poses as Chuck's girlfriend and takes a cover job at the local restaurant next to the Buy More (formerly Wienerlicious, currently Orange Orange) while Casey gets a job at the Buy More, with the shared goal of protecting Chuck at all costs.
In the meantime, the government is in the process of rebuilding the Intersect computer. As it nears completion, Casey is ordered to kill Chuck as soon as the new Intersect is ready. However, in the premiere of season 2, it is destroyed using a computer virus, keeping Chuck alive. As the series progresses, it is revealed that Bryce is still alive and that a rival agency called "Fulcrum" is in search of the Intersect, which they believed to still be in the possession of Bryce, not Chuck. It is also discovered that Fulcrum are the ones who destroyed the new Intersect. In the episode "Chuck vs. Santa Claus" (season 2, episode 11, aired December 15, 2008), a Fulcrum agent known as Mauser discovers that it is Chuck, in fact, who is the Intersect. This discovery, however, does not last long, as Sarah kills Agent Mauser before he is able to notify anyone else in Fulcrum. (This sparks a subplot in the following episode involving Chuck coming to terms with the shooting.)
In the episode "Chuck vs. The Suburbs" (February 16, 2009), the collection of all secrets from Fulcrum's own Intersect testbed project was implanted into Chuck's head. Eventually, all of the intersect information is removed by Chuck's father and the Intersect's inventor, Steven Bartowski (aka "Orion"); however, in the second season finale "Chuck vs. The Ring" (April 27, 2009), Chuck voluntarily uploads the newest version of the Intersect into himself which allows him to flash on combat skills a la The Matrix, rather than just the raw information of the earlier Intersects.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, thereby arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.
After its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival and subsequent screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success. It later had a nationwide grand release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009 and in the United States on 23 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on 31 March 2009.
Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Original Song. It also won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film. Slumdog Millionaire has stirred controversy concerning language use, its portrayals of Indians and Hinduism, and the welfare of its child actors.

Set in 2006, the film opens in Mumbai with a policeman torturing Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former street child from the Juhu slums. In the opening scene, a title card is presented: "Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it? (A) He cheated, (B) He's lucky, (C) He's a genius, (D) It is written." Jamal is a contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati) hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor). He has already won 10,000,000 rupees (about US$200,000) and has made it to the final question, for 20,000,000 rupees, scheduled for the next day. Following up on a tip-off from Prem Kumar, the police now suspect Jamal of cheating, because the other possibilities — that he has a vast knowledge, or that he is very lucky — seem unlikely. For almost every question, Jamal had a life experience that enabled him to answer it.
Jamal then explains that, while at least the question about Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was very simple, he knew the answers of most questions by chance, because of things that happened in his life, conveyed in a series of flashbacks documenting the details of his childhood. This includes scenes of him obtaining Bachchan's autograph, the death of his mother during anti-Muslim violence (rekindling memory of the 1993 anti-Muslim attacks in Mumbai in the slums), and how he and his brother Salim befriended Latika (Rubina Ali). He refers to Salim and himself as Athos and Porthos, and Latika as the third of the The Three Musketeers, the name of whom they never knew.
In Jamal's flashback, the children are eventually discovered by Maman (Ankur Vikal) while they are living in the trash heaps. Maman is a gangster (a fact they do not actually know at the time they meet him) who pretends to run an orphanage in order to "collect" street children so that he can ultimately train them to beg for money. Salim is groomed to become a part of Maman’s operation and is asked to bring Jamal to Maman in order to be blinded (which would improve his income potential as a singing beggar). Salim protects his brother, and the three children try to escape, but only he and Jamal are able to do so, catching up to a train which is departing. Latika catches up and takes Salim's hand, but Salim purposely lets go, and she is recaptured by the gangsters as the train accelerates away.
The brothers make a living, traveling on top of trains, selling goods, picking pockets, and cheating naive tourists at the Taj Mahal by pretending to be tour guides. Jamal eventually insists that they return to Mumbai since he wishes to locate Latika, which annoys Salim. They eventually find her, discovering that she had been raised by Maman to be a culturally talented prostitute whose virginity will fetch a high price. The brothers attempt to rescue her, but Maman intrudes, and in the resulting conflict Salim draws a gun and kills Maman. Salim then uses the fact that he killed Maman to obtain a job with Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), a rival crime lord. Salim returns to the room where the three were staying and orders Jamal to leave. Jamal, knowing his brother is here to claim Latika as his own, attacks his brother violently before being overturned by Salim and confronted by a revolver as Salim threatens to kill him. Latika intervenes and tells Jamal to leave, breaking his heart and sacrificing herself to keep him safe. With Maman's men searching for Salim, Salim and Latika flee to an unknown location, leaving Jamal alone to fend for himself.
Years later, Jamal has a position as a "chai wallah" (tea server) at a call center. When he is asked to cover for a co-worker for a couple of minutes, he searches the database for Salim and Latika and succeeds in getting in touch with Salim, who has become a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed’s organization. Jamal confronts a regretful Salim on tense terms. Jamal asks him where Latika is. Salim, annoyed and bewildered that his brother still cares about her, responds she's "long gone." Salim invites Jamal to live with him, and after Jamal follows him to Javed's house, he sees Latika (Freida Pinto) there, and she also notices him. He bluffs his way in, pretending initially to be a dishwasher and then later a chef. Jamal and Latika have an emotional reunion, but elation quickly turns to despair after Jamal discovers that Latika is with Javed. Upon discovering this, Jamal tries to persuade Latika to leave. She rebuffs his advances and insists that he forget about her and leave, but instead Jamal confesses his love for her and promises to wait for her every day at 5 p.m. at Mumbai's largest train station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (C.S.T.), until she comes. One day, while Jamal waits there, Latika attempts to rendezvous with him, but she is recaptured by Salim and Javed's men. Javed slashes her cheek with a knife as Salim drives off, leaving a furious Jamal behind with a crowd of onlookers.
Jamal again loses contact with Latika when Javed moves to another house outside of Mumbai. In another attempt to find Latika, Jamal tries out for the popular game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, because he knows she'll be watching. He makes it to the final question, despite the hostile attitude of the host who feeds Jamal a wrong answer during a break. At the end of the show, Jamal has one question left to win two crore, or 20 million rupees (about 400,000 U.S. dollars), but the host calls the police and Jamal is taken into police custody, where he is tortured as the police attempt to learn how he, a simple "slumdog," could know the answers to so many questions. After Jamal tells his whole story, explaining how his life experiences coincidentally enabled him to know the answer to each question, the police inspector calls Jamal's explanation "bizarrely plausible" and, knowing he's not in it for the money, allows him to return to the show for the final question.
At Javed's safehouse, Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal's miraculous run on the show. Salim gives Latika his phone and the keys to his car. He urges her to run away and to "forgive him for what he has done." The final question asked of Jamal is to name the third musketeer in the story of The Three Musketeers. When Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call Salim, Latika barely succeeds in answering the phone in time and they reconnect. She does not know the answer to the final question, but she tells Jamal that she is safe and (in unsubtitled Hindi) says "I am yours" before the phone connection cuts off. Jamal simply guesses the correct answer (Aramis) to the question of the one musketeer whose name they never learned, and wins the grand prize. Simultaneously, Salim is discovered to have helped Latika escape and allows himself to be killed in a bathtub full of money after shooting and killing Javed. Salim's last words are "God is great." Later that night, Jamal and Latika meet at the railway station and they share a kiss. It is then revealed that the correct answer to the opening question is "D) it is written," implying that it is destiny. During the closing credits, Jamal and Latika — along with dozens of bystanders and even the juvenile versions of themselves — dance in the C.S.T. train station to the song "Jai Ho," the title of which epitomizes victory.

Macbook Air

Detail Specifications
Platform
Portable Multimedia Notebook
Processor Type
Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Onboard
Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz
Standard Memory
2 GB DDR3 SDRAM PC-8500
Max. Memory
4 GB (2 DIMM)
Video Type
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
Display Size
13.3" WXGA TFT
Display Resolutions
1280 x 800
Audio Type
Integrated
Speakers Type
Integrated
Hard Drive Type
128 GB SSD
Optical Drive Type
Optional
Modem
Optional
Networking
Optional
Network Speed
Optional
Wireless Network Type
AirPort Extreme
Wireless Network Protocol
IEEE 802.11n
Wireless Bluetooth
Integrated
Keyboard
Full-size 78 keys
Trackpad
Solid-state trackpad
Slot Provided
Not Available
Expansion Provided
1x USB 2.0, Micro-DVI, Audio
O/S Provided
Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard
Battery Type
Rechargeable Lithium-polymer Battery
Avg. Battery Run Time
5 hours
Power Supply
AC Adapter
Dimension (WHD)
32.5 x 1.94 x 22.7 cm
Weight
1.36 kg
Standard Warranty
1 year Limited Warranty by Authorized Distributor
Others
Built-in iSight camera