Mumbai is the worst city to drive in says report
by Staff WriterAlong with being ranked the worst city to drive in the world, Mumbai also ranked fifth from last on incidents of road rage.
If you're fond of driving, the financial capital of India should be the last place to indulge in your passion. European car parts retailer Mister Auto, which is part of the PSA Group, has released a comprehensive study that reveals the best and worst cities in the world to drive around in. The study, which surveyed 100 cities globally, ranked Calgary (Canada) as the best city for driving, due to low congestion, fatalities and affordability, while Mumbai (India) is the worst, scoring low on the same factors and ranking 100 out of 100 worldwide. While Mumbai was also ranked a low 95th on incidents of road rage, it’s placed higher than Lagos (Nigeria), Kolkata (India), Karachi (Pakistan), Moscow (Russia) and Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). Survey results show that Osaka (Japan) experiences the least road rage.
Oslo (Norway) has the most expensive petrol at $1.91 per litre (Rs 135), while Lagos (Nigeria) has the cheapest at $0.40 per litre. These, and more, are the very interesting findings of this new study.
Considering that drivers spend an average of two years of their lives behind the wheel, the vehicle parts specialist decided to take a deeper look into the numerous elements that impact the driving experience. In fact, the company says that drivers lose over 200 hours a year commuting in the US alone. From infrastructure and congestion, to associated driving costs and driver behaviour itself, the result is a comprehensive study that reveals the cities which are successfully utilising infrastructure and legislation to improve driving conditions for their citizens.
Kolkata and Mumbai rank lower than Lagos
A quick glance at the 2019 Driving Index's scoreboard shows that, among the combined score using the 15 parameters covering infrastructure, safety and costs used by the study, Mumbai is at the bottom of the chart with a pitiable score of 1.00, while Calgary (Canada) aced the table with 100 points. Kolkata (rank 98) with a score of 29.99 is just above Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, which managed a score of 20.30. Among the various parameters where Mumbai lost points are – least affordable city in terms of petrol price and annual road tax, high fatality rate per 1,00,000 inhabitants, cities with worst congestion, city speed sample score and high average car age.
KEY FINDINGS OF THE STUDY:
Costs
- Most expensive cities for parking for 2 hours (price):
1. Sydney ($39.23)
2. New York ($38.54)
3. Brisbane ($30.87)
- Least expensive cities for parking for 2 hours (price):
1. Mumbai ($0.45)
2. Kolkata ($0.61)
3. Lagos ($0.63)
- Most affordable petrol (score):
1. Boston (100)
2. Dubai (99.89)
3. San Antonio (99.7)
- Least affordable petrol (score):
1. Ulaanbaatar (1.00)
2. Kolkata and Mumbai (9.18)
- Most affordable annual road tax (score):
1. Miami and Orlando (100)
2. Philadelphia (99.86)
- Least affordable annual road tax (score):
1. Copenhagen (1.00)
2. Mumbai (39.12)
3. Sao Paulo (49.87)
Safety
- Most incidents of road rage (score):
1. Ulaanbaatar (99.12)
2. Moscow (98.46)
3. Karachi (98.13)
- Least amount of road rage incidents (score):
1. Osaka (1.00)
2. Tokyo (2.54)
3. Singapore (2.65)
- Highest fatality rate (per 100,000 inhabitants):
1. Lagos (26.20)
2. Orlando (23.40)
3. Mumbai (22.6)
- Lowest fatality rate (per 100,000 inhabitants):
1. Manchester (0.80)
2. Stockholm (0.90)
3. Oslo (1.00)
Infrastructure
- Highest air quality (score):
1. Brisbane (100)
2. Salvador (99.53)
3. Stockholm (98.55)
- Lowest air quality (score):
1. Lagos (1.00)
2. Karachi (25.09)
3. Beijing (26.05).
- Most cars per capita:
1. Athens (0.77)
2. Seattle (0.68)
3. Turin (0.67)
- Least cars per capita:
1. Karachi and Kolkata (0.05)
2. Tel Aviv (0.07)
- Best daily average congestion (score):
1. Malmo and El Paso (100)
2. Detroit (99.54)
- Worst daily average congestion (score):
1. Mumbai (1.00)
2. Kolkata (55.17)
3. Ulaanbaatar (62.95)
- Best road quality (score):
1. Geneva, Zurich, and Basel (100)
- Worst road quality (score):
1. Lagos (1.00)
2. Bogota (59.31)
3. Rio de Janeiro (59.70)
- Best public transport (score):
1. New York (100)
2. Singapore (99.86)
3. Tokyo (98.89)
- Worst public transport (score):
1. Karachi (1.00)
2. Bogota (16.94)
3. El Paso (60.77)
- Best city speed sample (score):
1. Calgary (100)
2. Glasgow (95.24)
3. Seattle (94.08)
- Worst city speed sample (score):
1. Mumbai (1.00)
2. London (28.80)
3. Kolkata (28.99).
- Highest average car age:
1. Mumbai, Kolkata, and Athens (15.00)
- Lowest average car age:
1. Dubai (5.20)
2. Singapore (5.46)
3. Tokyo (6.00)


THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: THE X-FILES is just an elaborate episode of the television series done large for the screen. There are some nice visual touches and some good character actors, but the plot lacks the intelligence to make the film more than just a throwaway. Mulder and Scully are buffeted like corks until the script contrives to put them at the right place and time. You can get by seeing the series and not the film or vice versa. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
THE X-FILES is, of course, a screen version of the popular television show. The first thing that people will want to know is if they are not fans of the TV series, will the film make sense to them. Well, I can say only what my experience was. I would say that I am not particularly a fan of the X-FILES show. I probably have seen in the range of six to ten episodes and have not seen anything that would make me want to be a more regular viewer. So not keeping up with the series was I confused by the film? I would say only in the right places. An feel at a loss to understand what was going on for any lack of following the television series. I think that if the viewer only knows that the series is about two FBI agents who battle government efforts to cover up paranormal phenomena, he is ready to see this film and, as far as I know, will not miss a lot of what is going on. How about the other side of the coin? Will regular viewers who miss the movie miss a lot of the arc of the story line? Again my guess is that the answer is no. In spite of claims in the coming attractions that all will be revealed; it would be too radical a departure from the X-FILES formula to tell much of anything helpful. That highly successful formula keeps the viewer tantalized but never reveals enough to really clear up the basic mysteries. The film appears to me to be no more and no less than a very deluxe version of an episode of THE X-FILES television series, one with good special effects and a few very respectable character actors.
The problem with THE X-FILES is that as political thrillers go it really does not cut the mustard. In a really good political thriller, say SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, the characters do intelligent things and it makes the film all the more compelling. It is clear from the script (written by series creator Chris Carter) that Mulder is supposed to be a very clever agent of the FBI, and certainly his continued (albeit limited) success at keeping his investigations going would lead one to believe that he should be fairly bright. In the film he never gets to exercise much intelligence. The plot is repeatedly moved forward by people who are privy to secret information dropping Mulder surreptitious clues as to what is really going on, or by Mulder making extremely lucky guesses. Remove his lucky hunches and his Deep- Throat-ex-machina informants and Mulder really does not do a lot besides going through the obvious motions. In fact the only time we really get to see his professionalism is when he blurts to a barmaid that the FBI is covering up an alien invasion. Carter would like us to believe that Mulder is intelligent, but apparently Carter has no idea how to write Mulder that way.
Toward the end of the film Mulder's incredible luck becomes almost laughable. He has what amounts to a needle-in-a-haystack-within-a- haystack quest. Suddenly Mulder falls through a hole, drops a long way, and lands amazingly uninjured within a few feet of exactly what he is searching for. This guy Mulder must have friends in much higher places than the cloistered rooms of conspirators in which the film glories. Mulder must be friends with "the Guy Upstairs"... Chris Carter, that is.
But I am getting ahead of myself. The film opens with the familiar eerie whistle and almost immediately the plot twists start coming thick and fast, though this may be "thick" may be in the sense of "stupid." We start with a short prolog taking place in a glacier- bound Texas of 35,000 BC (more or less). Somewhere deep inside the ice something scary is happening. We cannot really see it well, but it is something with a lot of sudden jumps and loud noises. When the same violent thing happens again in present day Texas (minus the glacier, of course), the government finds itself with some dead bodies. And it would want nobody to ask too many questions about them. In one of those great government conspiracies it tries to conceal the deaths. And you should hear the absurd way they try to cover it up! I discuss some of the problems with the government plan in the spoiler section below. Part of the cover-up uses agents Mulder and Scully and sends them looking for answers to all the most embarrassing questions. It will lead them to the edges of a new conspiracy bigger than the ones before, a conspiracy to change our whole future.
In addition to series regulars David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully we have some impressive character lending their talents: Martin Landau, John Neville, and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Glenne Headly is present for a single scene as the barmaid...Long on style and visuals, but short on story THE X-FILES rates a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. ).
Incidentally, even in the worst of the Ice Age the glacier did not extend south to Texas. Remember that the glacier tore up the ground in the North, leaving that region good only for industrialization. It did not roll over the South, which is why they later could remain agricultural. That was a big part of the cause of that ruckus we Americans had in the 1860s.
Spoiler...Spoiler...Spoiler...
The initial cover-up with the building explosion could not have worked. First, I am sure the fire department knew to where the firemen had been dispatched and it was not where they supposedly died. The black-eyed boy's mother also would have known her son was not by chance in the exploded building. And it is very unclear why the bomb expert was willing to commit suicide for the good of the cover-up. Also given that they had worked out all those problems, the last people they would have wanted involved with the cover-up would be their two star paranormal investigators Scully and Mulder. It is within minutes of the start of the film that it starts losing its credibility.
Mark R. Leeper<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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Other assumptions are stated more directly. This means that the assumptions are made explicit. When we make explicit assumptions, we speak them directly. An example of a directly spoken assumption would be the following quote,"We see that criminalization is not as much about the behavior of the individual, but the individual itself and the identities that they hold. We know that Black and Latinx and other folks of color are more likely to be criminalized by our criminal legal system. We know the same thing is true for young people, LGBTQ folks, undocumented communities. So the risks are high for criminalization overall. We are seeing this play out in the reproductive health care space right now and it's going to get worse."-Jamila Perritt, MD, MPH, FACOG—President & CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health [1.12.7]
in-context


The first step towards deploying a trained model is to export this model from TensorFlow. This guide demostrates how to export models from: TensorFlow, tfestimators and keras.
One can train MNIST as described by MNIST For ML Beginners and track the model’s inputs and outputs named x
and y
under that particular article. For convinience, we can run instead:
library(tensorflow)
library(tfserve)
sess <- tf$Session()
mnist_model <- mnist_train(sess)
Once trained, the model can be saved with SavedModelBuilder.
if (dir.exists("trained")) unlink("trained", recursive = TRUE)
model_path <- file.path("trained/tensorflow-mnist/1")
builder <- tf$saved_model$builder$SavedModelBuilder(model_path)
builder$save()
## [1] "trained/tensorflow-mnist/1/saved_model.pb"
dir(model_path, recursive = TRUE)
## [1] "saved_model.pb"
However, saving the model is not sufficient when using Tensorflow Serving, see Serving a Tensorflow Model.
Instead, we need to create a signature for the model, which will require references to the input and output Tensors for the model which we retrieved from the model:
mnist_model
## $input
## Tensor("Placeholder:0", shape=(?, 784), dtype=float32)
##
## $output
## Tensor("Softmax:0", shape=(?, 10), dtype=float32)
with them, we can use the following convenience function to retrieve the signature for the model:
signature <- mnist_signature(mnist_model$input, mnist_model$output)
This signature can be used in combination with SavedModelBuilder.add_meta_graph_and_variables
to provide a model usable with Tensorflow Serving:
tfserve_save <- function(sess, model_path, signature, overwrite = FALSE) {
if (overwrite && dir.exists(model_path)) unlink(model_path, recursive = TRUE)
builder <- tf$saved_model$builder$SavedModelBuilder(model_path)
if (!is.null(signature)) {
legacy_init_op <- tf$group(tf$tables_initializer(), name = "legacy_init_op")
builder$add_meta_graph_and_variables(
sess,
list(
tf$python$saved_model$tag_constants$SERVING
),
signature_def_map = signature,
legacy_init_op = legacy_init_op
)
}
builder$save()
}
tfserve_save(sess, model_path, signature, overwrite = TRUE)
## [1] "trained/tensorflow-mnist/1/saved_model.pb"
dir(model_path, recursive = TRUE)
## [1] "saved_model.pb"
## [2] "variables/variables.data-00000-of-00001"
## [3] "variables/variables.index"
A sample model using the mtcars
data frame is trained using tfestimators
. The resulting model is the one that will be saved to disk. To train, we can follow the TensorFlow estimators Quick Start; or for convenienve, run:
library(tfestimators)
mtcars_train <- function () {
mtcars_input_fn <- function(data) {
input_fn(data,
features = c("disp", "cyl"),
response = "mpg")
}
cols <- feature_columns(
column_numeric("disp"),
column_numeric("cyl")
)
model <- linear_regressor(feature_columns = cols)
indices <- sample(1:nrow(mtcars), size = 0.80 * nrow(mtcars))
train <- mtcars[indices, ]
test <- mtcars[-indices, ]
model %>% train(mtcars_input_fn(train))
model
}
model <- mtcars_train()
The export_savemodel()
will create the pb file and the variables folder
# Create an input spec
input_spec <- regressor_parse_example_spec(feature_columns = feature_columns(
column_numeric("disp", "cyl")
),
label_key = "input",
label_dtype = tf$string)
# Parse the spec as an input receiver
input_receiver <- tf$estimator$export$build_parsing_serving_input_receiver_fn(input_spec)
export_savedmodel(model,
export_dir_base = "trained/tfestimators-mtcars",
serving_input_receiver_fn = input_receiver)
model_folder <- list.files()[1]
dir(model_path, recursive = TRUE)
## [1] "saved_model.pb"
## [2] "variables/variables.data-00000-of-00001"
## [3] "variables/variables.index"
First train a keras
model as described under R interface to Keras, for convinience, run instead:
Notice
set_learning_phase(TRUE)
to prevent ‘You must feed a value for placeholder tensor ’dropout_1/keras_learning_phase’ while serving set learning phase (see stackoverflow.com/q/42025660, keras/issues/2310, keras/issues/7720, /tensorflow/serving/issues/310).
library(keras)
tf$reset_default_graph()
backend()$set_learning_phase(TRUE)
model <- mnist_train_keras(epochs = 1)
## $loss
## [1] 0.2248618
##
## $acc
## [1] 0.9344
Then save using export_savedmodel()
as follows:
export_savedmodel(model, "trained/keras-mnist/1")
## [1] "trained/keras-mnist/1/saved_model.pb"
dir(model_path, recursive = TRUE)
## [1] "saved_model.pb"
## [2] "variables/variables.data-00000-of-00001"
## [3] "variables/variables.index"


Malaysian government working hard to bring Jho Low back: PM Mahathir
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia government is working hard to bring back fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, to face justice over his role in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) corruption and bribery scandal, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Thursday (Nov 7).
But information on Jho Low is not easy to get, Dr Mahathir said.
"I am told that he may carry several passports and (may have) undergone alterations to his face. (But) all these things are rumours.
"We have no proof, but it could happen. And that makes it difficult for us to trace him,” he told reporters.
READ: Malaysian authorities investigate report saying Jho Low has a Cyprus passport
READ: Malaysian police say 1MDB fugitive Low seeking to buy Cyprus properties
On Monday, news emerged that Low was in possession of a Cyprus passport. A report in Greek-language newspaper Politis said Low had arrived in Cyprus in 2015 and obtained the passport through a citizenship-for-investment scheme.
On Wednesday, Malaysian police said Low was attempting to purchase properties in Cyprus under a different name.
However, police chief Abdul Hamid Bador said the authorities believed Low was not in Cyprus, but hiding in a "remote country". He did not elaborate on the said country, but expressed disappointment over the lack of assistance it was giving to Malaysia.
READ: Commentary - Jho Low’s fantastic Houdini disappearing act
Dr Mahathir said the police chief would update him on the authorities' search for Low from time to time.
"He has not told me where he has found him, so I wouldn't know. But it's not every time when he knows where Jho Low is supposed to be. Once in a while he reports to me," the prime minister said.
He added Malaysia has no intention to go to war over Low.
"We can go to war but we will lose the war; we will lose Jho Low too. We are conscious that we're not a strong nation. Sometimes people are nice to us, sometimes they are not," he said.


CrankyCritic® movie reviews: Eyes Wide Shut Rated [R], 2 hours 40 minutes Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Frederic Raphael Inspired by the novel "Traumnovelle" by Arthur Schnitzler Directed by Stanley Kubrick website: http://www.eyeswideshut.com
BEFORE WE BEGIN: American movie theaters will show a CGI censored version of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. It has nothing to do with a lack of corporate cajones on Time-Warner's part.  To attain a commercially viable [R], a couple of computer generated bodies, some clothed some not, were inserted (sic) with permission of Kubrick's producer (his sister-in-law). You try to figure out the MPAA thinking on this. "Thrusting" is OK when it's, like, a spear through an eyeball (pick a slice 'n' dice flick) or a fireplace poker through (and castrating) a man's genitals (Carrie 2).  Naked homosexual touchy feely and tongue entwining (Edge of Seventeen) is OK for [R] but simulated breeder bump and grind is perverse? Someone at the MPAA needs a reality check.
Well, you need some anecdotal background first, thoughtfully provided by director Peter Bogdonavich whose oral history of Kubrick ran in the http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+site+78135+0+wAAA+stanley%7Ekubrick" target="_blank">New York Times Magazine (the link is free, but registration is required). In it, Jerry Lewis recounts a conversation he and Kubrick had when they were in adjoining editing suites, Kubrick working on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lewis on something only the French would like. Lewis said to Kubrick "You cannot polish a turd". Kubrick responded "You can if you freeze it."
IN SHORT: A highly polished turd.
 It moves as slow as molasses, and the damn piano thumping (heard in the teevee commercial) soundtrack is incredibly annoying. As for the performances, my colleague, Harvey Karten, put it better than I ever could when he wrote: "Conversations ... are almost painfully deliberate, as though Kubrick were petitioning his audience to lean on each word as though concocted on Mount Sinai." Cranky cannot praise or condemn the work of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman or Sydney Pollack because the heavy hand of Kubrick's direction has squashed any emotional nuance they could have delivered to the density of a black hole.
That being said, those film students inclined to see Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut will do so regardless of what any critic says so, in deference to them: As with The Shining, the cinematography is outstanding. That Kubrick intentionally shifts to a grainy look at the very end of the flick is a symbolic move that is in keeping with the meticulous production planning he is known for. The title of the movie itself is itself symbolic, as researched and explained by Entertainment Tonight as psychologically indicative of a waking dream state. Cranky's real time experience indicates that "Eyes Wide Shut" is more indicative of his struggle to keep his eyes open while waiting for the film to make its point, which it does only in the final line of dialog, nine thousand seconds or so after the initial, visual revelation that Nicole Kidman's character is adverse to wearing underwear. By the time that final line of dialog hit, Cranky didn't care.
 It is definitely a waste of your time.
Dr. William Harford (Cruise) and his lovely wife Alice (Kidman) have been invited to a Christmas party, they are not sure why, by the fabulously wealthy Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack). At the party, Bill sees his wife dancing way too closely with a smooth-talking Hungarian Sandor Szavost (Sky Dumont). Alice sees her husband flirting with, and disappearing with, models Gayle and Nuala (Louise Taylor and Stewart Thorndike).  Post party, fueled by a couple of tokes on a doobie, the couple get into an argument about marital fidelity and Alice reveals that, once, she thought about cheating with a naval officer she met in a holiday hotel. Bill is shocked (Shocked!
When presented with the opportunity to do something about it (ie. cheat with a damn fine looking street whore, played by Vinessa Shaw, who comes on to him after he's been assaulted by some drunken collegiates who assume this good looking guy wandering down Christopher Street, a known gay area in New York, is gay), he doesn't. In short order, Bill is tempted by a teen slut (Leelee Sobieski); crashes a super-exclusive orgy in which the emotionally vacant super-rich, all in masks and robes, watch the hired help copulate; is threatened with great bodily harm for crashing said orgy; is again tempted by the teen slut, this time with full encouragement of said slut's father (Rade Sherbedgia). Then his friends get beat up and various acquaintances start dying, all in a 24-hour period. It may be coincidence. It may be conspiracy. It may be someone screwing with his brain.
Cranky wonders if Kubrick is cackling from the Great Beyond at the critics who have missed the point of Eyes Wide Shut; that point being you can read way too much into any situation and blow your perceptions up into a delusion bordering on the epic. Having worked on big budget films, I report from experience that no professional filmmaker that I've met intentionally sets out to make a bad film but, based on what I saw at the screening, I'm wondering if Kubrick did just that. In his best work (Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining) he pushed genre and expectations far beyond any previously conceived boundary. So why not create a plodding, tedious, emotionally tight-fisted two hour and forty minute endurance test just to see how many film critics would write knee jerk acclamations based on non-existent symbolism they interpret to have a greater meaning? Having set the high bar for political satire, SF, horror and war flicks, why not out do Ed Wood? It's the only explanation that makes sense.
Wood's final film masterpiece, I Woke Up Early The Day I Died, starring Billy Zane, will probably take the title back when it's released in September.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Eyes Wide Shut, he would have paid...
$0.00
For what you would spend on a pair of tickets, you could buy legitimate Kubrick masterpieces on VHS
Cranky Critic® is a Registered Trademark of, and Copyright © by, Chuck Schwartz. All Rights Reserved.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews