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• CMUQ co-hosts international conference in US

• 10 best selling books • Robert Lautner on guns,

endings and writing

• Transcendence: Plugged in and implausible

• Yoga may help women ease PTSD symptoms

• Sony Xperia Z2: A powerhouse with great camera and big screen

inside

Learn Arabic • Learn commonly

used Arabic wordsand their meanings

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i3 slips easily into a big-city state of mind

Fashion trucks are rolling around the Washington area, including a former FedEx carrier, a onetime church van and an old delivery truck for vending

machine refills. Will the fashionista descendants of food trucks change the way people shop?

FASHION ON FASHION ON

WHEELSWHEELS

2 COVER STORYPLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

By Stephanie Merry

Most women have an understandable aversion to getting into unfamiliar vehicles. Which

explains why Donna Hundley has watched as people circle her busi-ness — once, twice, three times — as they decide whether to stop and step inside. Some have snapped pictures.

“I will stand outside and wave people in and they still pull up and say, ‘Uhhhh, can I come in?’ “ she said. Hundley owns Curvy Chix Chariot, a gray fashion truck with sparkling red letters and a chalk-board bumper that often reads, “Come see what’s inside.” Her truck, specializing in clothes for plus-size women, is one of the mobile fashion retailers — the sartorial cousins to food trucks — that have taken to Washington area streets over the past year and a half.

At last count, there were a dozen fashion trucks rolling around the Washington area, including a former FedEx carrier, a onetime church van and an old delivery truck for vending machine refills. “When I was cleaning it out, I found $23 in change,” Hundley said of the first small return on her $2,200 truck investment. Will there be a point when the fashionista descendants of food trucks are as commonplace as the banh mi and bibimbap sellers?

Most of the local sellers are more like do-it-yourselfers. Nearly all have kept their full-time jobs and most struggle with everything from convoluted regulations to harsh weather.

Georgette Littlejohn, who runs the G Truck (new and vintage fash-ion), still works nights as a police officer in the District. Over at the Thread Truck (bohemian styles for less than $75), co-owner Brooke Jordan spends most of her day as an executive recruiter, while busi-ness partner Stacey Kane has kept her job as “global director of buzz” — that’s her real title — for a large restaurant company.

Most opened their shops on a whim. Myss Stephens, who owns the Glamourholic Curbside Fashion Truck, full of accessories and jewel-lery, was saving up to buy a Porsche convertible when she came across New York’s “tricked out” StyleLine fashion truck. Instead of a Boxster, Stephens plunked down less than $5,000 and bought a van once owned by the Loudoun County school system.

For these women — and all of the proprietors thus far have been women — trucks are a way to dip a toe into the business world. There is some overhead: Truckers have to buy commercial auto insurance on top of standard business liability insurance, and it costs between $100 and $200 to fill the gas tank every week. But it’s still a fairly cost-effec-tive way to sell clothes, even if it’s not exactly what some had in mind.

Fashion trucks hope to match success of food trucks in the US

3

The rules are complicated, and Sharlia Lee, who owns Street Boutique — a former Washington Post delivery truck now selling ear cuffs and fash-ion harnesses — recently started the DC Fashion Truck Association and enlisted the libertarian small business advocates at the Institute for Justice to help. They found that Arlington, Virginia, is fairly hands-off for mobile retail vendors, while Prince George’s County, Maryland, makes it nearly impossible to sell anything except ice cream out of trucks on public land. And the District Department of Transportation is in no rush to amend regulations they just made for food trucks, which bar streetside sales from vehicles larger than 18 feet. Most fashion trucks are larger than 20. One alternative is festivals, although those can be competitive to get into and often charge hefty entry fees.

There are also the more eccentric challenges. Last summer, Stephens’s truck had a stinkbug infestation; and the women have noticed that manoeu-vring a van full of hanging garments often results in a pile of crumpled clothes on the floor. Jordan once had to have the truck towed because she thought it had broken down. Really, she just didn’t know how to work a diesel engine.

One fashion trucker seems to have avoided the common problems. Shelley Sarmiento bought a 16-foot bread truck a year and a half ago to keep her inven-tory manageable, which coincidentally allowed her to bypass the regulatory headaches of longer trucks. She laid down a wood floor and lined the ceil-ing with crown molding. Two strips of track lighting spotlight seven rods of

eclectically patterned blouses, pants, dresses, purses and skirts, six shelves of on-trend sweaters and jeans and a framed sheet of chicken wire display-ing brightly coloured jewellery. Almost everything is in the $19 to $79 range. In one corner, a small dressing room is cordoned off by a curtain of yellow fabric, and on the front seat, a genera-tor powers the lights, outlets and, when necessary, air conditioning or heat.

Looking at Sarmiento’s business model for Little White Fashion Truck, it’s not hard to imagine an era where the clothes come to you, the bou-tiques are side-swiped and no more than a dozen people can shop at once. Sarmiento has had success in the fash-ion industry before. She once owned

the clothing chain White House Black Market, which she and her then-hus-band sold to Chico’s FAS in 2003.

She’s approaching her business with industry knowledge, and she’s now up to four trucks and three part-time employees. One truck rolls around Severna Park, Maryland, where she lives; one travels around Northern Virginia; and another wends its way through Nashville. She also uses an old landscaping truck as a pop-up shop she can park at festivals, such as Bonnaroo and Firefly, for days at a time. On an average warm weather weekend, Sarmiento says she brings in about $5,000 per truck, and replenishes the 500 hangers of inventory every two to three weeks.

“We’re coming in with a chain men-tality,” she said. “It’s set up so we could have 150 trucks. That’s way too much, but I don’t think that 10 is out of the realm of possibility.”

On a recent Saturday, she was parked in a gravel lot outside Gypsy Faire in Lothian, Maryland, a once-a-month vintage furniture empo-rium. Business was booming. A steady stream of customers, who were there to spend money anyway, didn’t seem put off by the sight of a boutique on wheels.

“I’m supposed to be buying horse feed,” admitted Kim Gomoljak as she browsed, “but this is so much more fun.” She was driving by when she noticed the Little White Fashion Truck in the lot.

“I just had to stop,” she said.Why does a fashion truck make

a driver pull over in one part of Maryland and invite confusion in another? Consistency has been key for Sarmiento. People recognize her truck now, making them more inclined to take a peek inside.

A number of the other entrepre-neurs are hoping to do the same by teaming up with the Rosslyn Business Improvement District for Fashion Truck Fridays. With a bunch of mobile businesses in one place, they might look less like novelties worth photographing and more like shops worth visiting. It worked for food trucks, after all.

“Think about the history,” Hundley said. “It used to be that the only food truck was the hot dog stand on the corner, and I’m not eating from that thing. And now look at them.”

WP-Bloomberg

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 20144 CAMPUS

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ)co-hosted the fourth annual Undergraduate Conference in Information Systems along-

side Carnegie Mellon University and the Qatar Association for Information Systems (AIS) chapter.

Attracting nearly 50 of the world’s brightest stu-dents as well as internationally renowned experts, the conference highlighted how technology can be used to improve an organisation’s business models.

Commenced by Ilker Baybars, dean and CEO of CMUQ, the conference was established at CMUQ in 2011 and was held on the Pittsburgh campus for the first time this year.

During his opening remarks, he recognised that the conference programme was a collaborative effort with input from faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon in both Pittsburgh and Qatar.

The conference was co-chaired by Selma Limam Mansar, director of the Qatar Information Systems programme, and Divakaran Liginlal, associate teach-ing professor of information systems at CMUQ; and Jeria Quesenberry, associate teaching profes-sor of information systems in Carnegie Mellon’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences in Pittsburgh.

According to Mansar, the conference creates a venue for students interested in research to con-vene, discover and augment their knowledge about information systems.

“The first conference was organized and run by the Information Systems programme in Qatar together with the Qatar Association of Information Systems students’ chapter. We started with a local conference,

reached out to regional universities for the follow-ing two years, and expanded this year to the United States.”

By organising the conference in Pittsburgh we intend to nurture the exchange between the main campus and the Qatar campus, to enhance the vis-ibility of the Qatar campus internationally, and to expose our students to another level of competition,” Limam Mansar added.

Daniel Cheweiky, an information systems stu-dent from CMUQ was awarded for the best paper, “Evaluating the Use of Emerging Technologies in Education.”

Cheweiky’s paper examined the use of Augmented Reality as an effective means of instruction in edu-cation. Instead of relying on traditional teaching methods such as lectures and textbooks, this emerg-ing technology allows children to explore concepts like geometry by interacting with 3-D models on a computer or tablet.

“Educational tools are changing rapidly, and this could be another step that will help take education to a different level that is fun and engaging for students. Further research could involve how can we localise Augmented Reality educational materials to suite a specific culture or region, such as Qatar and the Middle East,” Cheweiky said.

The following students from CMUQ were selected to showcase their work at the conference:

Daniel Cheweiky, Evaluating the use of Emerging Technologies in Education; Sarah Mustafa, Accessible Website is Usable: Framework for Usability Assessment; Maahd Shahzad, Identification of

Biomarkers for Diabetes in NMR data; Haya Thowfeek, Flipped Learning for educational con-tent delivery: application to programming with Python; Muhammad Jaasim Polin, On the relevance of Cultural Intelligence for Technology Acceptance; Afrah Hassan: Studying the sociotechnical barriers to AR; and Haris Aghadi, Pinpoint: An Efficient and Effective Way to Manage Events.

The Peninsula

CMUQ co-hosts international conference in US

Daniel Cheweiky and Professor Robert Moore.

QatarDebate – member of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development – organised

the Qatar Universities Debate League Nationals, which took place recently at Student Center.

Dr Hayat Maarafi, Executive Director of QatarDebate, was impressed with the level of par-ticipating students in the national championship, which reflected positively on the competition.

This year’s Nationals had 24 teams participat-ing from nine universities.

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) team of Arwa El Sanosi and Sarim Zia, coached by Sara Berhie were crowned champions.

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar stu-dents Mountasir El Tohami and Farah El Sayyed, coached by Rodney Sharkey finished runner-up.

The Best Speaker Overall award went to Ahmed Al Meer from Weil Cornell Medical College Qatar. The Peninsula

SFS-Q wins debating competitionSFS-Q wins debating competition

MES pupils attended a special screening of an Indian 2D anima-tion film under the patronage of Doha Film Institute, held at Katara recently. The World of Goopi and Bagha directed by Shilpa Renade, was screened exclusively for school-age young people as part of the Ajyal Youth Film Series initiative. The institute officials assured their continuous support to the school by extending training sessions in short film making. Manmadhan Mambally, Chief Coordinator, Literary Activities of the school, accompanied the team.

MES at Ajyal film screeningMES at Ajyal film screening

5COMMUNITY PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

The Qatar-UAE Exchange conducted its first draw of “Transact & Win “promotion. Winners of 15 air ticket discount vouchers (each worth QR500), 5 eight gramme gold coin, 11 Nokia Lumia mobiles, 5 LED TV and 5 Digital cameras were picked during the event. Qatar-UAE Exchange country head Edison Fernandez and other company officials were present. Akbar Travels Qatar, CGC Nokia and BPI are the sponsors of the promotion. The draw was held under the supervision of Mohammed Al Naimi, Inspector from the Ministry of Business and Trade.

City Lifestyle brings JWorld to Middle East

A popular New Yorker, JWorld makes its entry into the Middle East at the City Lifestyle. A

leading international backpack and luggage brand offering an extensive variety of functional yet fashionable products since 1983, JWorld marks its Middle-East entry with latest designs in ‘Campus’, ‘Travel’ and

‘Kids’.For those who

like to make a statement on campus, back-packs in viva-cious colors and designs will do the trick. Functional cas-ing with inter-nal straps keep belongings intact while various

compartments help to stay super organized.

The Peninsula

Indonesian expatriates hold sports day in Al Khor

Indonesian Ambassador Deddy Saiful Hadi and the Embassy Staff attended Indonesian Qatar

Gas Family Gathering at Al Khor Community Sport Complex recently for a Fun Bike event.

As part of the event they organised cycling race, slalom and various other games for children.

In his opening speech Ambassador expressed his happiness over the various initiatives undertaken by the Indonesian Community in Al Khor.

Klaus Tiel, Head of Club and Recreation Al Khor Community, was present at the occasion. He said that this event could be included in the agenda of Qatar National Sports Day Fun Bike next year.

In addition to the sport activities, there was also art and crafts. Winners of Fun Bike and Children Games were given away prizes.

The Peninsula

W Doha Hotel & Residences visited Doha College to present competition winner, Jacob

Dean, with a voucher that entitles the fourth year student to an all inclusive weekend stay at the hotel with his family. Jacob had participated in a competition held among fellow students to recycle as many plastic bottles and cans in the space of three-months. In total, Jacob recycled 11,490 bottles and cans with the help of his friends and family.

The competition was part of a larger initiative for the British school who partnered with W Doha and environmental solutions provider averda to carry out a environmental campaign to raise awareness of the importance of recycling by engaging both students and parents in a number of competitions to recycle plastic bottles and cans using averda’s reverse

vending machines. Doha College managed to recycle a total of 103,416 bottles and cans in just three months, of which second place winner Mille Davda collected 9,235.

Winner, Student Jacob Dean commented: “I asked a lot of people to help me recycle for this school competition, they asked me lots of questions about why I was recycling, and I spoke to many of my family’s friends, neighbours and even to my Dad’s work Madina & Shell. I went around collecting all the bottles and cans left after my football games with Evo Soccer and after my rugby tournaments. I even asked at the clubhouse where I live if they could save their bottles for me to collect. It took a long time to collect and then I had to wash them all as well. I am so excited to win, my brother Luca and I are really looking forward to swimming in the pool at the W Hotel.” The Peninsula

Doha College student honoured in environmental competition

The winner with his family and officials.

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 20146 WHEELS

By Jason H Harper

Automakers love concept cars and, as per usual, you’ll find an oddity or two at this week’s New York

International Auto Show. Of those concept vehicles, few are unlikely to ever get off, or rather on, the ground.

Bayerische Motoren Werke has teased its own oddity at various auto shows for the past three years, a snub-nosed electric vehicle called the i3. It looked as akin to a regular Bimmer sedan as a duck to a platypus.

Go figure that the i3 heads to US showrooms in May. Officially a five-door model that seats four, it’s roughly the same size as a Mini Cooper Countryman. With a starting price of $41,350, it’s far pricier than the Mini despite a limited range of 100 miles (161km) or less on a full charge.

Urban dwellers from Shanghai to London, this one’s specifically for you.

Manhattan is the kind of place one might suppose the i3 would be in its glory, so I spent a few days around town in a pre-production i3 just before the auto show. I was curious how BMW-like this car really was.

Would BMW’s city car and Manhattan be a marriage made in heaven, or more of a regular matri-mony — with requisite ups and downs?

Designers at Munich-based BMW went for full-on funky. The novelty factor is announced in every angle and detail. A jarring juxtaposition of irregularly shaped body panels, shiny glass and tall skinny tires, the i3 is a free-form jazz composition, sometimes groovy, other times squealing and dis-sonant. Passersby do an amusing dou-ble take, but time will tell whether the i3 will age gracefully or grate on the eye.

The only real clue to its origin as a BMW is the faux (and tiny) twin-kid-ney grille in front. A grille usually lets in oxygen to allow a gasoline-burning engine to breathe, but no need for that here. The electric motor is in the rear and produces 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. A 22- kilowatt-hour lithium battery pack that weighs 450 pounds (204kg) runs under the floor.

The vehicle has two full-size doors and two sub-doors with rear-facing hinges that open suicide style. The front doors have to be opened first. When you do open the doors, you’ll notice that the sill is an unpainted strip

of carbon fibre, one of the car’s exotic calling cards. Along with aluminum, this material keeps weight down and helps to improve range.

The interior is as novel as the exte-rior. My test model had the Giga World-level interior, a $1,700 surcharge over the base i3. It’s an unlikely mix of unvarnished eucalyptus and wool cloth infused with recycled plastic. Think of a science-fiction design seen through a 1950s lens. Steampunk for the “Mad Men” set.

I liked it. There is no centre con-sole separating driver from passenger -- an advantage of an electric vehicle’s mechanical design -- so there’s copious foot room. The roof is tall and the front window large. The airiness is one of the most desirable aspects of the car.

The back seats are cramped, though, and the rear windows don’t roll down. Rear storage space is also compromised.

In fact, the car is a series of com-promises. While Tesla Motors Inc, has proved that it’s possible to make a desirable electric sports sedan — the Model S is a competitor with the BMW M5 — the i3 is a different proposition altogether. As a city vehicle, its man-date is circumscribed. With the smaller (and easier to park) footprint, comes less space, a smaller motor and battery pack, and reduced range.

I picked the vehicle up at BMW’s North American headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and drove the 20 miles to Manhattan over the George Washington Bridge. The

computer told me I had a starting range of 88 miles.

Range is dependent on the type of road, driving style and weather. After our “Game of Thrones”-worthy win-ter, it was finally temperate out, so the greatest enemy to range was my leaden right foot.

In the future, the i3 will also be available with a 34- horsepower, two-cylinder gasoline engine expressly used to recharge the batteries on the go in emergency conditions. The range extender option will cost about $3,800.

Unlike, say, Daimler AG’s tiny Smart, the i3 does fine on the high-way, though top speed is limited to 93 mph. (The doors clunk with authority; this feels like a real car.) It’s even rear-wheel drive, like any BMW should be. Less pleasing was the synthetic and twitchy electric steering.

Owners of the i3 will need to change their style of driving, as the system relies heavily on regenerative braking. In effect, every time you take your foot off the accelerator pedal, especially in slower traffic, the car radically slows, sending extra juice to the batteries. The upside is you find that you’ll usu-ally drive using just the accelerator pedal and only using the brake for sud-den stops. It’s quite elegant.

As far as BMW-worthy thrills, the electric motor delivers its full torque from the moment you step on the accelerator, so the car is very quick up to about 40 mph. This is brilliant in New York City traffic, where zip-ping into spaces is an art. The turning

radius is also tight. No question, the i3 is a fabulous city car.

Over several days, I ran errands I’d normally do by foot or subway, without guilt, since I wasn’t burning gas. I got groceries at the Fairway in Harlem. A friend was hungry for Peruvian food, so I picked him up and we went to a place on the Upper East Side. We slipped into a tiny street parking spot.

But I was parking in my regu-lar garage, which had no facilities to recharge, and my range was rapidly slipping away. The BMW’s standard navigation system lists charging points under the points-of-interest menu. But I found that most garages near me listed the type of charge as “household socket.” In other words, pretty much useless.

The nearest place listed with a 220-volt, 32-amp charge point was a garage on Columbus Avenue. When I got there, it was broken.

I still had 20 miles left, but the car had to go back to New Jersey, and preferably not on the back of a flat-bed truck. So I turned south and shot down the West Side Highway, whisper-ing through traffic and to Chelsea. A garage near the Tesla showroom on West 25th Street had a charge point that I’d used before.

Finding a good garage is always a chore in Manhattan. If I owned a car like the i3, I would surely figure it out. The question is, do I really need a BMW for running city errands?

WP-Bloomberg

At a glance:Engine: Electric motor with 170

horsepower and 184 pound- feet of torque, and 22-kilowatt-hour lith-ium battery pack.

Transmission: Single speed.Range: 100 miles or less.Price as tested: $49,325.Best feature: Zippy city car

that’s easy to park and manoeuvre.Worst feature: Some consumers

will find range and compact size too limiting.

BMW’s all-electric i3 slips easily into a big-city state of mind

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BOOKS 7

10 BEST SELLING BOOKS(Non-Fiction)

My Autobiography by Alex Ferguson

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow

A Child Called ‘It’ by Dave Pelzer

People of the Book by Zachary Karabell

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

Say You’re One of Themby Uwem Akpan

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Love in a Headscarf by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed

Eat, Pray, Love. Movie Tie-In by Elizabeth Gilbert

Aladdin’s Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World

by John Freel

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By Nicholas P Brown

Novelist Robert L a u t n e r chron i c l e s the adven-

tures of a young boy and the impact of the inven-tion of Samuel Colt’s revolving handgun in Road to Reckoning, a coming-of-age tale set during the great depres-sion of the 1830s.

Lautner’s story fol-lows 12-year-old Thomas Walker as he tries to make it home to New York after losing his father on a sales trip to market the first line of Colt Paterson revolvers.

Thomas forms an unlikely alliance with Henry Stands, a drifter and part-time bounty hunter, and the two face a barrage of hur-dles, including pursuit by a killer, as they work their way through the turnpikes and trails of Pennsylvania.

Lautner, who is British, owned a comic-book store and worked as a merchant before becoming a writer. Road to Reckoning is his debut novel.

He spoke about his research, his interest in guns, and how the revolver changed the shape of warfare.

How did you nail down the voice of 1830s America?

I had to find a traveler’s dictionary, which was for English travelers in America in the 1850s, kind of like a slang dictionary. I also read American Notes for General Circulation (a travelogue by Charles Dickens of his 1842 trip to North America). Reading that was a great boon. I had to get the tongue correct but also make it understandable to the modern reader. I picked it up quite natu-rally, I think. The easiest thing is just to remove contractions.

Talk about your interest in the revolver.I’ve always been interested in guns. That’s a

childhood thing. I knew the legend of Samuel Colt carving his first model out of a block when he was 16. I always thought that would be a romantic thing to put into a novel — you’ve got this model of a gun that represents the world’s first successful repeat-ing weapon. So, as a boy growing up, and being around guns, it seemed logical to me.

Your setting is characterized by a combina-tion of economic hardship and lots of gun vio-lence. Did you intend to draw a parallel with today’s world?

It’s a bit spooky, isn’t it? I didn’t realise it as I was writing, but I eventually realized that Colt making an assembly line weapon was really the

start of an industrial revolution almost. People were going from horses and canals to steam and locomo-tives. And going from single-action guns to a repeating firearm, that was kind of the start of gun violence.

In the narra-tive, you hint at the depression rather than explicitly discuss it. Why?

I did pull it back from the narrative. I was wanting that to be underground, some-thing you might pick up on a second read. You can hear it in Thomas’ voice when he hears things, sees things. Even Henry Stands is almost a hobo really, getting piecemeal work collecting prison-ers who’ve run away. I originally wrote it as a young adult story, and when I presented it to an agent, they said it was a literary fiction

piece, so it’s something a father and a son could both read and get different things from.

Henry Stands tells Thomas, “If you can scare a man, you can beat him.” How does that saying apply in today’s world?

In the story, there is a wooden model of a revolver, and the idea was that just the shape of a gun could instill fear. I thought, ‘What kind of man could go into a room with armed men, carry-ing just a wooden gun?’ We’ve got to a point where people think just having a gun is enough to scare people off.

Did you know how you wanted the book to end?

I didn’t have an end. I never do. I think if I don’t know the end of the story, then the reader doesn’t either. I always have an outline based on scenes I want to get to. I have these scenes, and I will get to them, but the story I will let develop itself. If you over-plot, you’re not really entertaining yourself, so how can you entertain anyone else?

The book is dedicated to your brother, John, whom you call “The Actual,” a descriptor also used in the story. What is “The Actual”?

There was a book on desperadoes of the 19th century called The Story of the Outlaw, written by Emerson Hough. He used the phrase “The Actual,” as in, there can be a guy who looks like a bad man, as with the gun and the boots and the hat, but he’s just showing off.

“The Actual” would be a rougher version, a guy who doesn’t talk a lot but will get the best of you.

Reuters

Robert Lautner on guns, endings and writing

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014 ENTERTAINMENT8 9

By Michael O’Sullivan

The dystopian future envi-sioned by last year’s criti-cal darling Her reappears in Transcendence, albeit with a

lot more testosterone. You could even call this new thriller — in which a god-like artificial intelligence, played by Johnny Depp, starts building an army of cyborg zombies — Him.

Unlike that earlier film about a man who falls in love with a computer operating system, which was a poetic, melancholic meditation on the failure to connect, Transcendence is a kind of high-tech horror story. In this case, the bogeyman is the Internet. The extent to which it succeeds in frightening depends on your philosophical align-ment with, say, Ted Kaczynski.

People living in cabins without run-ning water or WiFi, in other words, will probably love it, because it con-firms their deepest, darkest fears. All others, proceed with caution.

The story gets underway when Will Caster (Depp), a scientist specializ-ing in artificial intelligence, narrowly survives a shooting by a member of a radical anti-technology group. When it

becomes clear that Will has been poi-soned by a polonium-tipped bullet, his wife, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), and his best friend, Max (Paul Bettany), hit upon the idea of uploading Will’s fad-ing consciousness to a supercomputer.

Will, who is now merely a collection of ones and zeros, decides to surf the Web, vacuuming up all human knowl-edge and power — including WebMD, cat videos and access to the global financial system — into his electronic brain. In short order, he has morphed from a mild-mannered computer nerd into a version of Oz the Great and Powerful, reigning, via video screen, over a fortified bunker in the desert, where his arms and legs have been replaced by a cadre of humanoid automatons created, through robotic nanosurgery, in his futuristic subter-ranean lab.

And how, exactly, is all of this accomplished?

Considering that the setting of the film is the present day — based on the look of the cars people are driving — it’s a mystery. A perfunctory shot of a dying Will reciting, in alphabeti-cal order, the contents of the Oxford English Dictionary while his bald head

is hooked up to electrodes is meant to aid in our willing suspension of disbelief.

Any other questions? Look people, we’ve got a movie to get through here.

Directed by cinematographer-turned-filmmaker Wally Pfister, from a script by first-timer Jack Paglen, Transcendence wastes no time with such details as logic or credibility. It’s the kind of movie in which people shout stuff like, “The incoming queries have all been anonymized!” — hoping, pre-sumably, that most people will be so surprised to learn that “anonymize” is a word that they won’t stop to wonder what that sentence means.

Never mind that artificial intelli-gence of this level, by even the most optimistic estimates, is still decades away. The concept of a mighty cyber-brain being able to transcend our puny human ones — what some futurists call the “singularity” — isn’t due before 2045, at the earliest, according to many prognosticators.

The problem with Transcendenceisn’t that it’s an utter crock. At times, the tale, like Her, betrays flashes of genuine insight into our love-hate rela-tionship with technology. And the act-ing, while wooden on the part of Depp

— who appears throughout most of the film on a monitor, like a high-def Max Headroom — is decent enough.

Even the love story sort of works, in the way that Evelyn’s yearning for Will blinds her to the fact that the “Will” on screen, who isn’t above embezzling other people’s money to finance the con-struction of his lair, isn’t remotely like the man she married. She’s no differ-ent from a widow who saves her late husband’s voicemails so that she can still listen to him. That’s touching, even if her husband’s pillow talk these days consists of statements like, “The bal-ance of oxytocin and serotonin in your system is unusual.”

No, the real trouble with Transcendence is that it just isn’t all that scary — at least not in the way that it wants to be.

The movie opens with a prologue, set five years in the future, in which there is no more Internet, no more Facebook, no more Google. This post-apocalyptic vision of an unplugged tomorrow is supposed to be horrifying, but in truth, the thought of a world that has hit the restart button, however reluctantly, is actually kind of refreshing.

WP-Bloomberg

HOLLYWOOD NEWS BOLLYWOOD NEWS

Lady Gaga getting engaged?

Singer Lady Gaga’s boyfriend and actor Taylor Kinney is reportedly planning to propose to her soon, after two years of dating.

Kinney is said to be desperate to pop the question, but he hasn’t found the right engagement ring yet, reports contactmusic.com.

“Taylor was considering proposing over her birthday, but he hasn’t found the right ring in time. He wants to find something unique that will suit her personality,” said a source.

Gaga’s 28th birthday was March 28.“Taylor’s been looking at engagement rings for Stef (Lady Gaga) for

a couple of months. He has told a couple of his close guy friends that he wants to propose soon. Despite her whole Lady Gaga persona, Stefani is really traditional. Taylor wants the proposal to represent that,” the source added.

He said: “My grandparents have been together for some 50 odd years. I know a lot of happy marriages.”

2 States: A magical north-south love story you wish wouldn’t endBy Subhash K Jha

Film: “2 States; Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Ronit Roy, Amrita Singh, Revathi, Shiv Subramaniam; Directed by Abhishek Varman

Magically, 2 States ends with a beautifully staged wedding where the film’s culture-crossed couple finally get their wish.

Sigh of relief? Not quite. This is a film you don’t want to end. It’s a story....but wait, it doesn’t seem like a story!! Not in the sense of ‘Once upon a time when Boy Met Girl’. You know exactly where our two-some, the gorgeous Ananya and the diffident Krish are going...But you get so sucked into their journey, their courtship, conflicts, tiffs and buts, that you feel after a point that you aren’t watching them in a film. They are people we know. And love. Some come, fall in love.

These are people whom you’ll carry home and keep in some corner of your heart. Not just (gorgeous) Ananya (who incidentally is played by the very gorgeous Alia Bhatt) and her other-half Krish, but also their parents, specially Krish’s father a man so misunderstood all his life he fears being recognised for some deeply-concealed goodness in his heart that comes out towards the end of this film (that you wish would never end).

Indian marriages, they say, are the marriage of two families. Sure enough, when the shy repressed Punjabi Krish meets the spunky spirited chicken-chewing Ananya, there is hell to pay from both sides.

The thing about cultural stereotyping is that it very often does exist in exactly the forms that we see them exist in films and books. Chetan Bhagat’s lively novel from which this film is adapted, harps on the stereo-types in a way where we don’t see the characters as “types” but as individu-als who conform to a type. This delectable game of slotting the individual is best illustrated by Krish’s loud-brassy Punjabi mom who behaves likes a cross between Kirron Kher and what Vidya Balan in Rajkumar Gupta’s Ghanchakkar would have been had she grown older and had a son.

Oh yes, Revathi as Ananya’s graceful Tamil mother is also outstanding, though Amrita’s performance would easily shout her down in the Who Is The Better Mother contest.

Amrita Singh’s true-to-type Punjabi housewife’s character (you know the kind who has given herself the liberty to say the most insulting things to people who are not like her) gradually melts down in the narrative as her dark secret shame - “a drunken abusive husband” - comes out in the open.

Ronit Roy, that fine actor is no stranger to playing the abusive father. It’s amazing how empathetic he makes the discernibly brutish character in Udaan and now this film without taking the character’s arc through the filmy range from villainy to repentance. Thanks to Roy’s dignified damned Dad’s act, 2 States is as much a father-son story as a girl-boy thing.

Not every sequence works here. I found Revathi’s singing per-formance (arranged by Krish) a little too syrupy and Alia’s anti-dowry speech at a brassy Punjabi wedding a little too contrived. Minor slip-ups.

Most of the time cul-tural differences are articulately pinned down in the film. Debutant direc-tor Abhishek Varman knows how to tell a story embedding individual scenes with a distinctive personality without straining for effect. The nar-rative traverses a number of cities - Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai - searching out enchanting pockets of storytelling for the couple to grow into.

This is a film that never forgets to surprise even when going about the task of telling a story that can only end one way. Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt ensure that their mutual participation in the rites of courtship, conflict and reconciliation yields a harvest of hefty scenes. Their perform-ances display a natural flair for understatement underlined by a deep understanding of the language of commercial cinema. And yes, they look so made for each other, their compatibility is almost karmic.

Bieber tried to gatecrash Bell’s party Singer Justin Bieber reportedly attempted to crash singer Drake

Bell’s album release party to steal his thunder at the Grove here.Bieber’s chauffeured van drove by the front entrance of the venue

where Bell’s party was taking place. The singer rolled down the windows of the van, causing fans to rush to the car in the hope of seeing the pop star. Bieber then shook hands with the crowd, reports eonline.com

A photo of Bell looking at the crowd was posted by Bieber with the caption: “Why is @JustinBieber sprinter van getting more attention than my album release party.”

Earlier, Bell accused Bieber of sending fans a “gross, awful, terrible message” during an interview with BuzzFeed.

Responding to Bieber’s tweet, Bell tweeted: “Dude! Thank you for coming to my party I didn’t know you were down stairs sorry they didn’t let you in.”

Brown, bodyguard face trial for assault

Singer Chris Brown and his bodyguard Christopher Hollosy have been accused of attacking Brown’s fan Parker Adams outside a hotel here.

They have been charged with misdemeanour assault.Hollosy, if convicted, will face six months behind bars.Adams, the alleged victim, told the court that he had approached the

singer outside W Hotel with two female friends. Brown agreed to pose for a photograph with the girls, but made an alleged derogatory remark when Adams asked to join in.

Adams said that Hollosy broke his nose in the fight and Brown lashed out at him after refus-ing to have his picture taken with him. But it was blows from Hollosy that left the 20-year-old with head and face injuries.

“As I put my dukes up, that’s when the bodyguard stepped in between us and he slugged me in the face,” he said.

Both Brown and Hollosy reportedly have pleaded not guilty.

Brown was jailed in March after violating his probation when he was dismissed from a rehab facility in California, where he was receiving court-ordered anger-management treatment.

The singer was on probation when he was arrested for the latest inci-dent. He will face continued jail time if convicted - because the assault would violate his parole.

Transcendence: Plugged in and implausible

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

USPLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 201410

© GRAPHIC NEWSSources: UNCLOS, Chinese Defence Ministry Picture: Getty Images

President Obama's four-nation Asian tour aims to reassure scepticalleaders that the long-promised “rebalancing” of American policy

towards Asia is on track, and that the U.S. is genuinely committedto countering an increasingly assertive China in the region

Apr 23, Japan: Obama arrivesfor first state visit by U.S. presidentsince Bill Clinton in 1996

Meets Prime Minister Shinzo Abe inattempt to break deadlock in talkson Trans-Pacific Partnership tradedeal, stalled over access toagricultural and auto markets

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Apr 26, Malaysia: Meets PrimeMinister Najib Razak during firstvisit to Malaysia by sitting presidentin nearly 50 years

Apr 28, Philippines: Expected tosign security pact that will allow forincreased use of military bases byU.S. ships, aircraft and troops

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HEALTH / FITNESS 11

By Shereen Jegtvig

Women enrolled in a small study reported a reduction in symptoms

of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a series of yoga classes.

However, women in a compari-son group that didn’t take the classes also reported a similar decline in symptoms, researchers found.

“The yoga group did well — they improved in their PTSD symptoms — and our control group actually did well, which we didn’t expect,” Karen Mitchell told Reuters Health.

Mitchell, from the National Center for PTSD at the VA Boston Healthcare System, led the new study.

“I do emphasize that the yoga (group) definitely didn’t do worse,” she said. “Yoga could potentially be triggering for people with trauma, so while that’s not as exciting a finding, I think it is important to say that.”

About one in 10 US women is affected by PTSD, according to the authors. Many say that alternative and complementary therapies — such as yoga — help them cope with the symptoms, which can include trouble sleep-ing and having flashbacks related to the traumatic event, known as re-experiencing.

“It can be very debilitating and in the general population it affects women about twice as often as men,” Mitchell said. Her team’s findings were published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

A total of 26 women with PTSD completed the study. The women were an average of 44 years old and included both civilians and military veterans.

Fourteen of the women attended weekly yoga sessions for

12 weeks or twice-weekly sessions for six weeks. Each session was 75 minutes long and focused on mind-body connections, breathing and physical postures. Women also filled out a symptom questionnaire each week.

Twelve women in the compari-son group met once per week for 12 weeks in small groups to com-plete the same questionnaires.

All participants completed a follow-up assessment one month after the sessions ended.

Mitchell and her colleagues found that women in both groups had significant improvements in their symptoms. The yoga par-ticipants showed decreases in re-experiencing and hyperarousal symptoms, while the comparison group reported improvements in re-experiencing symptoms and anxiety.

“Both groups were doing assess-ments, coming in every week, and interacting with us - doing these kinds of things that might have been helpful for both groups,” Mitchell said.

Studies that include more women will be needed in the future, she added.

“There are several proposed mechanisms on how yoga may help reduce PTSD symptoms,” Julie Staples said.

Staples led a previous study on the same topic at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System in New Orleans. She was not part of the new research.

“Simply stated, yoga may reg-ulate aspects of the endocrine

system and the nervous system that are out of balance in PTSD,” Staples said. “Yoga also reduces the stress response which plays a role in PTSD symptoms.”

Two of her colleagues, Michelle Hamilton and Madeline Uddo, said veterans’ responses to the Louisiana yoga program have been very enthusiastic and they report an immediate benefit - feeling bet-ter when they leave the class as well as noticing a positive impact on their daily life.

Mitchell said people who are interested in trying yoga but don’t know much about it should shop around to find a style they like.

“It varies so much in terms of style and pace - some people might do better with a slower style that gives them space to meditate and think,” she said. “Some people need the faster pace to help them focus - their minds might wander too much and they start thinking about their to-do list with a slower pace class.”

Yoga instructors vary in their personality and style and that’s important too, Mitchell added.

“You want to feel comfortable with your instructor, especially if you’re new to this - you want to know that they’ll come around and help you align and feel com-fortable with them doing that so you don’t hurt yourself and also you have a more positive experi-ence if you feel connected with the instructor,” she said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/1gQDNhf Journal of Traumatic Stress, online March 25, 2014.

Reuters

New drug to protect unvaccinated people from measles: Report

A novel oral drug may protect unvaccinated people who are exposed to measles from

getting sick and prevent them from spreading the virus to others, an international team of researchers said, Xinhua reported.

Like the flu, measles spreads through the air by breathing, coughing or sneezing. There is typically a two-week window between becom-ing infected with the virus and the onset of symptoms like skin rash, runny nose and fever.

The novel drug, termed ERDRP-0519, is specifically designed to work during this two-week window, when vaccination can no longer protect from disease.

“This post-exposure therapy application determines the desired characteristics of the drug, which are: orally available, cost-effective manufacture and ideally, high shelf stability,” said Richard Klemperer, professor of Georgia State University.

“With these criteria in mind, we have devel-oped over the past years a small molecule drug that blocks the measles virus RNA polymerase enzyme, which is essential for replication of the virus.”

The researchers tested the drug in ferrets infected with canine distemper virus, which is a close relative of measles virus.

They found that all of the infected ferrets treated with the drug survived the lethal infec-tion, showed no clinical signs of disease and developed a robust protective immune response.

The drug could be used to treat friends, fam-ily and other social contacts of a person infected with measles virus, who have not developed symptoms yet but are at risk of having caught the disease, Plemper said.

“The emergence of strong antiviral immunity in treated animals is particularly encouraging, since it suggests that the drug may not only save an infected individual from disease but contribute to closing measles immunity gaps in a population,” Plemper said.

The researchers emphasised the drug is not intended as a substitute for vaccination, but as an additional weapon in a concerted effort to eliminate the measles. They planned to test the drug’s safety and efficacy in larger animals, before moving into clinical trials in humans.

“If our next series of studies confirms that the human situation mirrors what we have seen in ferrets, then this drug may make a major contribution to measles eradication by sup-pressing local outbreaks, and helping to close the existing gaps in population immunity,” Plemper said.

Despite the existence of an effective vac-cine, annual measles deaths worldwide have remained constant at around 150,000 since 2007, without further progress toward the eradication goal.

The reasons for this are the highly infec-tious nature of the virus and insufficient vac-cine coverage, in the developing world largely due to issues of access and resources, and in many developed countries in particular in the European region due to parental concerns regarding vaccination safety.

The study, which also involved research-ers from the Emory Institute for Drug Development and the Paul-Ehrlich Institute in Germany, was published in the US journal Science Translational Medicine. IANS

Simply stated, yoga may regulate aspects of the endocrine system and the nervous system that are out of balance in PTSD. Yoga also reduces the stress response which plays a role in PTSD symptoms.

Yoga may help women ease PTSD symptoms

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

TECHNOLOGYPLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 201412

By Samuel Gibbs

Sony’s Xperia Z2 is an update to the Z1, its flagship released just six months ago. It's slimmer, lighter and stretches the screen

all while adding 4K video capture.The Sony Xperia Z2 is quite clearly

what its predecessor should have been the first time round. It's also Sony's latest weapon in its war with Apple, Samsung and HTC — more the latter than the former two.

Monolithic designSony has stuck to its "omni-balance"

design for the Xperia Z2, with a front and back slabs of glass surrounded by aluminium edging. It looks simple and well-designed and feels solid in the hand.

There are clear elements of design pulled from Sony's other products such the multi-coloured LED-strip notifica-tion light on the top, reminiscent of the PS4's controller, and the slab-like design, pulled straight from Sony's TVs.

The screen and back glass plates are sunk into the aluminium edging, keep-ing them off the deck when laid flat on a table. The texturised metal overhang also provides a slightly sharp ridge that makes the Xperia Z2 much less slippery to hold than its predecessor and some other glass-clad smartphones such as the LG-made Google Nexus 4.

All of Sony's high-end smartphones and tablets have been waterproof for the past couple of years and the Xperia Z2 is no exception. Its IP 68 rating means it will resist a 1.5m submersion for up to 30 minutes, rather than simply immer-sion to 1m like the competing Samsung Galaxy S5, but that comes with some design compromises.

While the headphones port is open, the micro-USB charging port and the microSD and micro-SIM slots are pro-tected by rubber-sealed doors. The gas-kets fit snugly, but charging the device every night will inevitably lead to wear and a break of the seal over the lifetime of the phone. Opening the door and plug-ging in the connector is also quite fiddly - but the Z2 has Sony's magnetic charg-ing port, for those that want to avoid having to hook up the phone via micro-USB each night. You can slot the phone into a charging dock, removing the need to fiddle with the door - but you have to buy it separately.

Screen: Big, bright and boldThe Xperia Z2 has the largest screen

of the big new three flagship smart-phones. Its 5.2in size means the device is very wide indeed - a good 5mm wider than the HTC One M8 for instance - which makes holding on to the Z2 and reaching its entire screen area with the

same hand a challenge. I found it just a bit too big for comfortable use, which its blocky, monolithic design exacerbates.

If you're looking to upgrade from an iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy S2 or 3 after a two-year contract, the Z2 will feel gargantuan. But the same could be said for the majority of the flagship smart-phones available today.

Forgetting its sheer size, the Z2's screen is fantastic. It has very wide viewing angles, the colours are crisp and rich, and it's sharp and accurate, making text easy on the eyes. The details and colours in videos and photos look espe-cially good. The gap between the glass cover and the display beneath is also very thin, making the screen feel much closer to your fingers as you touch it - reminis-cent of Apple's newest iPhones which use IPS (In-Plane Switching) touchscreens.

Sony has followed HTC's lead. The Z2 has stereo front-facing speakers bracketing the screen which are loud, clear and a big step forward - if a bit tinny compared to the HTC One M8’s larger BoomSound speakers.

Powerful with a massive batteryThe Sony Xperia Z2 uses the same

chip from Qualcomm (the Snapdragon 801) as the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 making it just as quick.

That means the Z2 is powerful, fast and lag-free, with graphically inten-sive games running smoothly and apps launching almost instantly. It is also relatively light on the battery: I found it lasted a good day and half on a single charge under heavy usage without acti-vating any of the power-saving modes.

The large 3,200 milliampere-hour (mAh) battery - 400mAh more than the Galaxy S5 and over twice the size of the iPhone 5S's 1,570mAh battery - can be extended much further. When you activate Sony's Stamina mode, a bat-tery that's 50 percent full will provide an estimated three days life by freezing background apps and turning off Wi-Fi and mobile data when the screen is off. A separate "low battery" mode is also available which will turn power-hun-gry features off to eke out even more time once the battery charge is below 20 percent.

For the storage-minded, the Z2 also has a microSD card slot for adding up to 64GB more storage for movies, photos and music.

Attractive, useful tweaksSony makes some subtle customisa-

tions to the standard Android experi-ence on all of its devices. While most are cosmetic, the small functional tweaks are almost uniformly useful. There aren't unnecessary lag-inducing animations, and the overall look of the interface is clean and understated.

Sony has integrated "theming" into its additions to Android, so the look and feel of the device can be cus-tomised way beyond simply changing the background. Menu buttons, status bar, lockscreen and lots of small interface elements can all be changed using down-loadable themes. Some are improvements and some are simply hide-ous, but there's no accounting for taste.

The Xperia Z2 also has an added tap-to-wake gesture - double- tap the screen to wake the device. The HTC One M8 also has this, and it's easily one of my favourite features for large screen smartphones.

Sony's apps also come preinstalled on the Z2, including the Walkman app and Sony's music and movie subscrip-tion services. They're decent, but can be safely ignored if a user already has Netflix subscription or other preferred app or service. One app worth mention-ing is Sony’s Smart Connect app, which automatically puts the Z2 on silent when plugged into the mains at night - or at any other time-, hardware- or event-defined quick settings. You can define a whole host of custom actions to speed up everyday tasks such as switching from silent vibrate to a "loud" sound profile when you plug in headphones, or turning on Wi-Fi when you get to work.

CameraThe Xperia Z2's camera is one of the

best available. Its 20.7-megapixel sensor might seem like overkill on a smart-phone, but the images look stunning.

By default, the Z2 takes care of the settings. Simply point and shoot, using touch to focus or the dedicated shut-ter button using "Superior Auto" mode.

Manual mode provides adjustments for a whole host of settings including the white balance, ISO, HDR and metering.

Sony's also included a load of fancy camera apps that allow fun effects like background defocus (very similar to Samsung's selective focus), insert dinosaurs into a picture, or use the "Timeshift" burst mode (which captures about 30 frames per second) to capture a series of images in rapid succession before and after the user hits the shutter button to grab the best shot. (How does it know when to start capturing before you touch the button? Because it begins capturing as soon as it's activated, but only saves footage from the second before you touch the button.)

There are also boosted video camera features, including the ability to capture 4K ultra-high-definition video (though that isn't the default) and slow-motion video. For most people, 4K will be overkill (and quickly eat up storage); it's more a gimmick than a feature.

Noise cancellingThe Xperia Z2 is the first smartphone

with active noise-cancelling technology integrated into its body for use with a special headset. The headset contains microphones that monitor incoming noise and send it back to the Z2, which then blends in noise cancellation to whatever is being played.

Active noise-cancelling is not a new thing, but normally it requires headsets with a bulky battery and electronics pack attached to the headphone wire. Sony has squeezed the circuitry and software into the Z2, removing the bulk that normally makes noise-cancelling earphones bulky or heavy. Because the noise cancelling control system is built into the phone, you can select an appropriate profile for the noise to block out - the options are planes, trains, buses and the office - which makes the technology much more effective.

PricingThe Xperia Z2 costs £560 [price in the

UK] in black, white or purple. Pros: Great screen, waterproof, pow-

erful camera, long battery life, built-in noise cancelling, premium materials

Cons: Fiddly doors for ports, wide footprint makes it difficult to hold one handed, heavier than some competitors

The Guardian

SpecificationsScreen: 5.2in full HD IPS LCDProcessor: 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801RAM: 3GB of RAMStorage: 16GBOperating system: Android 4.4 “Kitkat”Camera: 20.7MP rear camera, 2.2MP front-facing cameraConnectivity: LTE, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 with BLE and GPSDimensions: 146.8 x 73.3 x 8.2mmWeight: 163g

Sony Xperia Z2: A powerhouse with great camera and big screen

COMICS & MORE 13

Hoy en la HistoriaApril 20, 1999

1889: Adolf Hitler, founder of the Nazi Party and dictator of Germany from 1933-45, was born in Austria-Hungary1990: The Soviet Union cut off 85 percent of gas supplies to Lithuania to quell demands for independence2007: Indian film superstars Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan married in a private family ceremony in Mumbai2010: An explosion on a oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico triggered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history

Two teenagers shot dead 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, before turning their weapons on themselves

Picture: Associated Press © GRAPHIC NEWS

ALL IN THE MIND Can you find the hidden words? They may be horizontal,vertical, diagonal, forwards or backwards.

ACCOMPLICE, ALIBI, ARREST, BAIL, CHARGE, CLUE, COPS,CRIME, CRIMINAL, CROOK, DETECTIVE, EVIDENCE, EXTORTION,FELON, FINE, FORGERY, FRAUD, FUGITIVE, GANGSTER,GUILTY, HOMICIDE, HOODLUM, ILLEGAL, INNOCENT, JAIL,JUDGE, JURY, LARCENY, LAWYER, MOBSTER, OFFICER,OUTLAW, PATROL, PENALTY, PERPETRATOR, POLICE, PRISON,PRIVATE EYE, PROOF, ROBBER, SHERIFF, SLEUTH, SUSPECT,THIEF, WITNESS.

LEARN ARABIC

Baby Blue

Zits by Dennis Young and Denis Lebrun

Hagar The Horrible by Chris Browne

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

At the Pharmacy

Medicine Dawa'

Cotton Qou�oun

I want a cough medicine Oureedou dawa' �idda alsouçal

A tranquilizer Dawa' mousakkin

Suppository Ta�meela

I feel I have a temperature Ašçour bi�arara

Vitamin Veetameen

Aspirin packet Çoulbat aspireen

Do you have a medicinefor diarrhea? Ayoo�ad çindaka dawa'ou lil'ishal?

Pain Alam

Give me an antiseptic Aç�inee mou�ahhiran lil�ourh

What doctor shall I go to? Ila ayyi �abeeb çalayya an a�hab

Note: ç = ‘a’ in ‘agh’ when surprised

HYPER SUDOKU

CROSSWORD

CROSSWORDS

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER

How to play Hyper Sudoku:A Hyper Sudoku

Puzzle is solved

by filling the

numbers from 1

to 9 into the blank

cells. A Hyper

Sudoku has

unlike Sudoku

13 regions

(four regions

overlap with the

nine standard

regions). In all

regions the numbers from 1 to 9 can appear

only once. Otherwise, a Hyper Sudoku is

solved like a normal Sudoku.

ACROSS 1 Back order? 7 Main means of

defense?15 First city bombed in

W.W. II’s Baedeker Blitz16 Opted to duck17 1954 Audie Murphy

western18 Prom amenity19 It comes with lots of

extras21 “Every hero becomes a

___ at last”: Emerson22 W’s is 7423 Not hunched over24 Biased writing?: Abbr.25 Pounded side26 Scrooge’s portrayer in

“The Muppet Christmas Carol”

27 Soul28 Pens30 Jaguar, for one31 Classic brand in men’s

apparel32 Occur33 Occur

36 Christ the ___ (Rio de Janeiro landmark)

40 Grace41 Small, round and shiny42 Letters on some

overseas packages43 Person taking drugs44 Dark green?45 Automotive �plural

selected in a 2011 promotion

46 Court position47 They’re off on casual

Fridays49 ___ chicken51 Indignant denial52 Frozen treat with

Alexander the Grape as one of its flavors

53 2010 U.S. Open winner McDowell

54 Setting of the Levant55 Tito’s successor as

head of the Non-Aligned Movement

DOWN 1 Superman accessory 2 Apply to

3 Of pions and kaons 4 When clocks are set

back for the end of daylight saving time

5 Pi Day celebrant, perhaps

6 Late October to March, in West Africa

7 Malaria enlarges them 8 It might be in a jam 9 Not satisfied10 Midori on ice11 “White Christmas”

singer, informally12 Beyond silly13 Obama descriptor14 Show reverence to, in a

way20 Called out26 Deceive27 “Revelations”

choreographer29 Expert in facial

recognition?30 Recall reason32 They may be stoked

33 Jazz legend who turned the Benny Goodman Trio into the Benny Goodman Quartet

34 Worship35 Cornmeal mush36 It often comes with a

“Thank You”37 Devil dogs38 Height39 Whoop it up

41 Unpaid mine workers44 One of two components

of the drug Sinemet45 Some athletic shoes48 Manhattan’s �___ D.

Roosevelt Park50 A heavy metal band

may have it

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18

19 20 21

22 23 24

25 26 27

28 29 30

31 32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45

46 47 48

49 50 51

52 53

54 55

J U S T A D R O P S T A R KA N T O N I O N I R E G A LC R A N K C A S E S M O T EK E Y H O N E S T P U R EP A S S T S R R A T T A NO D I O U S V E I L I C ET Y N A N G E N T L E S E X

R U S E D E B SS W I S S A L P S U N D E RH A S E L S E E T E R N EO R E I D A R N A S I C SO W E D D E S O T O V A TT O Y E D M O D E L L E R SA R O S E I N O R D E R T OT N U T S L A Z Y S U S A N

How to play Kakuro:The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers.However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number.Within each collection of cells - called a run

- any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once.

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER

14

EASY SUDOKUCartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate

Easy Sudoku PuzzlesPlace a digit from 1 to 9 in each empty cell so everyrow, every column and every 3x3 box contains allthe digits 1 to 9.

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

CINEMA / TV LISTINGS 15

TEL: 444933989 444517001SHOWING AT VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

12:30 Futbol Mundial

12:45 Spanish League

Almeria V Celta

Vigo

15:00 Wonderful World

Of Rugby

16:00 Rugby Aviva

Premiership

Northampton

Vs London Irish

18:00 European Tour

18:30 World Wide Sport

19:00 Dutch Cup Pec

Zwolle V Ajax

21:00 World Of

Atheltics

21:30 Fiba Basketball

22:00 NBA Basketball

First Round

02:30 Atp Magazine

03:00 Rugby Aviva

Premiership

Northampton

Vs London Irish

08:00 News

09:00 Lifelines: The

Quest For

Global Health

10:30 Inside Egypt

11:30 Talk To Al

Jazeera

12:30 Artscape -

Poets of

Protest

13:00 NEWSHOUR

14:30 Inside Egypt

15:00 Al Jazeera

World

17:30 Listening Post

18:00 NEWSHOUR

19:30 101 East

20:30 Inside Story

21:00 NEWSHOUR

22:30 Talk To Al

Jazeera

23:00 The French-

African

Connection

12:30 Epl Review

13:45 Premier League

Norwich V

Liverpool, Hull V

Arsenal, Everton

V Man United

20:30 Electronic

Premier League

21:30 UEFA Champio-

ns League

Magazine

22:00 Spanish

League

Barcelona V

Athletic

24:00 Footballs

Funniest

12:00 Inside Combat

Rescue

13:00 The Border

14:00 Sea Patrol

15:00 Wild Russia

16:00 America The Wild

17:00 Aftermath

20:00 Access 360

World Heritage

21:00 Known Universe

22:00 Alaska Wing

Men

23:00 Shark Men

13:45 The Last Lion

Of Liuwa

14:40 National Parks

Australia: Kakadu

16:30 Nick Baker's

Beautiful Freaks

17:25 Cheetah: Race

To Rule

20:35 Shamwari: A

Wild Life

22:00 Leopard Fight

Club

10:00 Hit List

12:00 The New Guy

14:00 Dark Shadows

16:00 Hit List

18:00 Damsels In

Distress

20:00 Rock Of Ages

22:15 Jackass: The

Movie

13:15 Destroyed In

Seconds

13:40 How Stuff's

Made

17:00 Auction

Hunters: Pawn

Shop Edition

19:30 Border Security

- Series 6

Specials

19:55 Head Games

20:45 Ben Earl: Trick

Artist

21:35 You Have Been

Warned

22:25 Gold Rush

23:15 Klondike

12:10 Mythbusters

15:10 Da Vinci's

Machines

16:00 Mega Builders

16:50 Human Body:

Ultimate Machine

18:30 Freaks Of Nature

21:00 You Have Been

Warned

21:50 Penn & Teller

Tell A Lie

22:40 Bang Goes The

Theory

13:50 Animal

Superpowers

16:35 America The Wild

17:30 Cheetah:

Against All Odds

18:25 Shark Men

20:10 Hooked

21:00 Animal

Superpowers

21:50 World's Deadliest

Snakes

22:40 America The Wild

11:00 Incredible Burt

Wonderstone

13:00 Muhammad Ali's

Greatest Fight

15:00 Sky Force

17:00 Dark Tide

19:00 Stuck In Love

21:00 The Impossible

23:00 Stoker

MALL

1

Rio 2 (3D/Animation) – 2.30, 4.30 & 6.30pm

The Quiet Ones (2D/Horror) – 8.30pm

Ring Master (2D/Malayalam) – 10.30pm

2

The Quiet Ones (2D/Horror) – 3.00pm

The English Teacher (2D/Comedy) – 5.00pm

Brick Mansions (2D/Action) – 7.00pm

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3D/Adventure) – 9.00pm

We Are What We Are (2D/Horror) – 11.15pm

3

Oculus (2D/Horror) – 2.30 & 9.15pm

Open Grave (2D/Horror) – 4.30 & 11.00pm

Ring Master (2D/Malayalam) – 6.30pm

LANDMARK

1

Rio 2 (3D/Animation) – 2.15 & 4.15pm

Ring Master (2D/Malayalam) – 6.15 & 11.00pm

We Are What We Are (2D/Horror) – 9.00pm

2

Open Grave (2D/Horror) – 2.30 & 11.00pm

The English Teacher (2D/Comedy) – 4.30pm

Oculus (2D/Horror) – 6.30pm

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3D/Adventure) – 8.30pm

3

The Quiet Ones (2D/Horror) – 2.30 & 11.30pm

Brick Mansions (2D/Action) – 4.30pm

Rio 2 (3D/Animation) – 6.30pm

Thenaliraman (2D/Tamil) – 8.30pm

ROYAL

PLAZA

1

2 States (2D/Hindi) – 2.30 & 8.00pm

Thenaliraman (2D/Tamil) – 5.15pm

Ring Master (2D/Malayalam) – 10.45pm

2

Rio 2 (3D/Animation) – 3.00, 5.00 & 7.00pm

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3D/Adventure) – 9.00pm

Oculus (2D/Horror) – 11.30pm

3

Brick Mansions (2D/Action) – 2.30 & 11.15pm

We Are What We Are (2D/Horror) – 4.30pm

The English Teacher (2D/Comedy) – 7.00pm

Open Grave (2D/Horror) – 9.00pm

13:00 Do Dil Bandhe Ek

Dori Se

13:30 Ek Mutthi

Aasmaan

14:00 Doli Armaano Ki

14:30 Jodha Akbar

15:00 Kumkum Bhagya

15:30 Pavitra Rishta

16:00 Aur Pyaar Hogaya

16:30 Qubool Hai

17:00 Word Match

17:30 Zee Connect

Season 4

18:00 Sapne Suhane

Ladakpan Ke

18:30 Ek Mutthi Aasmaan

19:00 Do Dil Bandhe Ek

Dori Se

19:30 DID L'il Masters

Season 3

21:00 Qubool Hai

21:30 Aur Pyaar Hogaya

22:00 Doli Armaano Ki

22:30 Pavitra Rishta

11:00 One Foot In The

Grave

11:30 The Weakest Link

12:20 Lorna Doone

13:10 Doctor Who

14:00 Doctors

14:30 Doctors

16:25 Doctor Who

17:10 Drop Zone

18:05 Upstairs

Downstairs

19:00 Me & Mrs Jones

19:30 Absolutely

Fabulous

20:00 Silk

20:50 Waking The Dead

21:40 Rev.

22:10 Alan Carr: Chatty

Man

22:55 Being Erica

23:40 Me & Mrs Jones

13:00 My Boys

13:30 My Name Is Earl

14:00 The Neighbors

14:30 Cougar Town

15:00 Two And A Half Men

15:30 The Daily Show

With Jon Stewart

16:00 Colbert Report

16:30 The War At Home

17:00 Late Night With

Seth Meyers

18:00 Dads

18:30 The Neighbors

19:00 2 Broke Girls

19:30 Two And A Half Men

20:00 Men At Work

20:30 Parks And

Recreation

21:00 The Daily Show

With Jon Stewart

21:30 Colbert Report

22:00 Saturday Night

Live

23:30 Men At Work

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014

PLUS | SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2014 POTPOURRI16

Editor-In-Chief Khalid Al Sayed Acting Managing Editor Hussain Ahmad Editorial Office The Peninsula Tel: 4455 7741, E-mail: plus@pen.com.qa / editor@pen.com.qa

MEDIA SCAN A summary ofissues of the daydiscussed by the Qatari communityin the media.

• There are complaints about some people using asphalt waste from road works to fill cracks or potholes in roads or build speed bumps in front of their houses. They say improper use of these materials is causing damage to vehicles and waterlogging during rain. The authorities should stop such practices and punish those responsible.

• People have complained about damage to the sports equipment on the Corniche, and asked if it is the result of poor quality or misuse.

• Seawater off the Corniche needs cleaning as tides bring a lot of waste to the shore.

• With the country’s population increasing and no places in government and private schools to absorb the increasing number

of children, people have urged the authorities to find a solution.

• People have complained about drivers of water tankers who are licensed to fill water from government water stations at nominal prices selling the same water to unlicensed trucks drivers at higher prices.

• There is talk in the social media about the Traffic Department’s decision to shut down a shop in Al Garrafa area for violating the traffic law by fixing sun shades and films on vehicles that do not meet the required standards.

• People have demanded that the authorities promote cultural and tourist activities in different parts of the country to encourage more families from other countries to visit Qatar and learn about its culture and heritage.

IN FOCUS

A view of Al Rayyan Interchange.

by Papsie Mags

Send your photos to plus@pen.com.qa. Mention where the photo was taken.

Khalid Mahdi Al Ahbabi,

Executive General Manager

— Chief Business Officer,

Barwa Bank

He has over 12 years of experience across all seg-ments of banking including

Retail, Commercial, Corporate, Investment and Islamic Banking. Khalid worked as Head of al khaliji al islami, the Islamic Branch of al khaliji Commercial Bank, where he set up the Corporate, Premier and Islamic Treasury businesses. Khalid has a Corporate Banking Diploma from the IFS School of Finance in UK.

Who’s who

If you want your events featured here, mail details to plus@pen.com.qa

2nd Katara QatART Handmade Market When: April 25, 3pm-8:30pm Where: Katara Art Center

What: Many different kinds of handicrafts are on sale ranging from jewellery to paintings, clothes to home decors, photography to hand crafted cards and party supplies. Free Entry

Richard Serra: Concurrent ExhibitionsWhen: Till July 6, 8:30am- 5:30pmWhere: QMA Gallery Building 10, KataraWhat: Richard Serra is among the most important contemporary sculptors. The exhibition organised by the QMA in Doha is one of Serra’s most ambitious ever in that it brings together sculptures and drawings from different periods, ranging from the seminal One Ton Prop (House of Cards) of 1969 (on rare loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York) to a new large-scale work, Passage of Time, especially created for this occasion.Free Entry

Plants of Qur’anic Botanic Garden Exhibition When: Till April 30; 10am-10pmWhere: Katara Gallery — Bldg 18 What: The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development organises, in collaboration with the Qatar Photography Society and Katara the first exhibition of its kind. The exhibition includes 58 artworks of all the plants mentioned in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah. These pictures have been captured in Doha, Indonesia, Yemen and other Arab countries. Free Entry

Kings and Pawns When: Till June 21Where: Museum of Islamic Arts What: This exhibition uncovers the history of board games in the Islamic world, from India to Spain between 7th and 20th century.Free Entry

VCUQatar Faculty Exhibition - Strange WondersWhen: Till May 6Where: Msheireb Enrichment Centre,

Sheraton Park, Corniche

What: VCUQatar annual faculty exhibition showcasing new work by current VCUQatar faculty and staff. This year’s exhibition takes its inspiration from Company House, one of the heritage buildings within Msheireb downtown area, which played an important part in the lives of Qatar’s original oil pioneers.Free Entry

Events in Qatar