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Dr. Lathrop is hiring Hilary Swank to drill into the core of the sodium to get it spinning ... for added realism. yup

... on how old they are and what they are interested in.

Something like this?

This reminds me of the Star Trek: TNG episode, "The Measure of a Man"

Quote taken from: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001459/quotes

Capt. Picard: Data, I understand your objections. But I have to consider Star Fleet's interests. What if Commander Maddox is correct - there is a possibility that many more beings like yourself can be constructed?
Lt. Commander Data: Sir, Lieutenant La Forge's eyes are far superior to human biological eyes, true?
Capt. Picard: Mm-hmm.
Lt. Commander Data: Then why are not all human officers required to have their eyes replaced with cybernetic implants?
[Picard considers this, pauses, then looks away from Data]
Lt. Commander Data: I see. It is precisely because I am *not* human.

Avi Bryant gave a fascinating talk about bringing technology developed for Smalltalk into the Ruby world at RailsConf 2007. Apropos of nothing, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Jeremy Davies (Daniel Faraday on "Lost").

Basically he's saying that many of the performance issues with the much-maligned Ruby VM were solved years ago in Smalltalk implementations, and that Ruby ought to incorporate those ideas. Maglev is a big step in this direction.

counter-example: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

Please do yourselves a favor and watch Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's an enlightening movie. And yes, Steve did even worse things, but they're too shocking to be mentioned in public.

After painfully watching the TV remake of The Andromeda Strain, I've given up hope for deep Sci-Fi movies as were made in the 1960's / 1970's. What will be interjected and hammered home into the script includes, but is not limited to (a) some theme about how we are destroying our natural resources (bonus points for global warming), (b) rights of various groups of people whether it has anything to do with the story line or not, (c) stereotypical casting of various characters, (c) HAVE to explain EVERY ASPECT of the plot instead of leaving it to the imagination of the viewers (since they now don't have any) to the point of the explanation being absurd (wormholes apparently solve all movie plot problems), (d) US Government is evil, all other foreign governments are great, (e) reporters will save us, (f) movie events have absolutely no correlation with real world science, military policy, or government policy. After the movie is made, go back and see how many movie elements I mention are in it.

This reads like something Microsoft would do!

You can have a look at their portfolio of which I recognise only two (Son of Rambow and The Magic Flute) and both were determined art-house flicks. Perhaps there is a cinephile on /. who can give us a quick overview of the quality of their portfolio?

Anyway, go ahead and put a tick in the box for "Art House/European production company".

Probably the most important group will be the team comprising the scriptwriters, director, reps from the PKD estate and the prinicipal storyboard artists. They will literally have to make the most amazing comic ever created before a single frame has been filmed.

[SPOILER]

To those who couldn't understand Ubik, it helps if you've read VALIS first and alot about PKD himself, particularly the period of time right after he recovered from being certified insane.

VALIS mixes fictional elements with real life experiences of his own becoming a bizarre self-referential story with one theme being how we take reality, particularly the model we hold of 'reality' in our heads, for granted. PKD noted that while he was apparently insane, he recalled that he never once stopped in mid-thought and assessed that what he was perceiving or thinking was crazy or mad. His perception and thoughts while "mad" were indistinguishable from when he was "sane". He could not point out a boundary separating the period of insanity from sanity. It just didn't exist. There is no built-in internal yardstick despite what a lot of us may believe. Its something you model during the process of living and it gains 'rigidity' upon adulthood. When you've apparently fallen off the edge and broken that yardstick, someone else has to tell you its broken. Someone else has to give you a new yardstick. Someone else has to 'reset it/re-model' for you. In his case it was his doctors. But then, who is checking the doctors' yardsticks aren't broken either? What if they are mad too and no one knows better? The mad healing the mad? This revelation profoundly affected him.

To the gentleman earlier who seemed to have the definitive opinion that Ubik was just a dying man's hallucinations, I can assure you I never felt sure about the ending as it seemed perfectly within PKD's twisted sense of humour for the ending to be just another misleading lie, further compounding that you just can't take what's presented to you for granted. I see Ubik as partly an attempt to share what it was like being insane. Imagine that you are directly involved in the events of the book and that when the book ends - right when you close the back cover - that you are suddenly looking into the kind blue eyes of a distinguished looking man in a white coat congratulating you on your recovery.

But that's just my 2 cents.

[END SPOILER]

Neuromancer might be better :D http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037220/ Even though its gonna have Darth Vader in it.

How the hell did we get into the position where there's such a concept as 'the powers that be' ?

How did these asshats get to do whatever they like to us; monitor our every move with us all quaking in fear should we wish to live as free people?

Why do we play along? If we didn't, they're not gonna run the stupid system themselves, are they?

Of course, they can do this because they take all those societal-outcasts with an axe to grind and 'elevate' them by giving them a crappy uniform and some power. Maybe if our society wasn't so fractured, there'd be no 'them and us' situation so noone would be a 'security' guard and enforce every stupid rule they're told to without thinking.

It makes me despair that society has reached some dead-end where 'terrorist attack' would actually be a blessing. Something to break up the mindless drivel interspersed with gradual erosion of our freedom to just be. Maybe 'our leaders' secretly know that the 'terrorists' have a far freer society and the people have a better way of life. I mean; it can't be worse than this, can it? Are they coming to rescue us rather than kill us?

I never thought it would come to this. I'm utterly sick to death of living in the UK. All the land has been grabbed by some asshole, 1400 years before I was even born. They set up some bullshit and blatantly unfair 'legal system' to keep the power where it 'belongs' and we sheep are to suck it up until we die in our inner-city box after paying out of our ass just for the privilege of existing our whole lives. Turn on the radio and what can I hear? Radio four plays a 24-7 rolling American political party propaganda message. The interviewers suddenly blurt out their anti-muslim propaganda in a totally off-topic manner. What the fuck is going on? We're moments away from the society presented in V for Vendetta without the dashing nazi-inspired uniforms. Where will it end?

Is it just me or does this all suck? Discuss, five words or less.

Just drop a Coke bottle with a GPS receiver or a mini cam. Let's see how they react to it.

In reading this story, all I could think about is that their status as "uncontacted" is kind of a catch-22.

In today's world, even in Peru/Brazil, you have to try REALLY HARD to stay "uncontacted", actively avoiding any contact. Hard enough that, as a tribe, you probably wouldn't expend the resources to do it unless you felt like you had a really good reason to.

Which begs the question: what is their reason? Are they just really paranoid? Or is it something akin to The Village (SPOILERS AHEAD)---




---and the tribe "elders" really know exactly what's going on out there and really want everyone to stay away from it all?

When Jim Elliot flew a small, single engine yellow airplane over an "uncontacted" tribe, they began to call it a big bee. I quoted uncontacted because they had contacted other tribes, to kill them.

No, Guy Fawkes masks http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/.

Remember Tom Selleck in Runaway back in 1984! Those robots were creepy - but not as creepy as Gene Simmons or as cool as the homing bullets!

Penny Arcade

Better?

Would that pool be the Judaic concept of the "Guff", as mentioned in the movie "The Seventh Sign", or a Wathan stored in the tower at the north pole in "Riverworld"?

Pedophiles make me sick. The sooner a law is instated that allows us to slaughter the lot of them, the better. Computer generated child porn is still child porn. Snuff movies are still snuff movies when nobody really dies. It's the idea of it, not the act.

I haven't seen that, but have you seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space.. or what about The Chicken From Outer Space. Of course there are others but..

P.S. I have nothing against chickens but.. what were we talking about again?

I haven't seen that, but have you seen Killer Klowns from Outer Space.. or what about The Chicken From Outer Space. Of course there are others but..

P.S. I have nothing against chickens but.. what were we talking about again?

(I know im gonna get modded to hell, but...)

Ever seen Gayniggers From Outer Space

Ever watched it? http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/gayniggers_from_outer_space.php

P.S. I'm not racists, or homophobic, nor is the movie... but its also not really that ammusing either...

its just the first thought that crossed my mind... hmm...

Ever seen Gattaca?

That explanation is a fruitless as John Bigbootay's from The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai. You're STILL getting teased on the playground with that name!

Umm,... that's been done before. ;-)

I love that movie. It's better than the book.

"Nowadays if a movie is good it makes a profit within a few weeks of its release. If it's not good, stop making bad movies then."

A commonly held belief used to justify piracy, but unfortunately it's untrue. Let's look at the new Iron Man movie, which most people would say has been a smashing success (all stats taken from the film's IMDB profile)

Production cost: $220 Million
Marketing budget: $80 Million (Est.)
Total Cost: $300 Million

Gross to Date: ~$300 Million
Distributor's cut of gross (remember the theatre's need to pay their bills!) ~50%
Net: ~$150 Million

So, two weeks after the biggest blockbuster of the summer, you're at a net loss of $150 Million.

In the film business, money is made in DVD sales / PPV / merchandising. You're lucky if you even break even from theatrical sales.

Ever seen Eliminators ('86 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091003/ ) ? That's much like it. http://www.badmovies.org/movies/eliminators/eliminators1.jpg

In the USA the EPA forced all the engine makers and truck makers to only offer 2007 emissions rated engines in all trucks made after October 2007. Now the 2007 rated engines add another six to eight thousand dollars to a truck so guess what happened? Thats right, in 2006 trucking companies scrambled to purchase pre-2007 trucks not only because they were cheaper but the reliability of 2007 engines was unknown and untrusted. So now you have plenty of 2006 sales but sales were dead in 2007 threatening truck makers here in the states. If the EPA did what the EU did they would have eased the pain in transitioning and we would have more cleaner trucks on the road.

Sounds to some extent like a replay of the transition to unleaded gasoline. In 1975, manufacturers were required to start installing catalytic converters; cars so equipped can only run on unleaded as lead-based anti-knock compounds inhibit the operation of the catalyst. This created a seller's market for unleaded gasoline, which throughout the second half of the '70s and into the '80s a bit was almost always of lower quality and higher price. (Remember how, in addition to the "cop motor" and "cop shocks," one of the Bluesmobile's features was that it'd run on regular (leaded) fuel?) The auto industry and the oil companies eventually wrapped their heads around the performance characteristics of unleaded and started shipping products that worked well together, but the first few years were painful.

Contrast that with how the Europeans managed the transition. AFAIK, nothing was mandated until (maybe) fairly recently. When I moved to Germany in 1986, unleaded was just beginning to show up at gas stations. It tended to be a bit cheaper than leaded fuel, so there was an economic incentive for you to buy it if your car ran well enough on it. Over time, more and more cars on the road were capable of running on unleaded. At some point (late '80s or early '90s), they started installing catalytic converters. I think they're now selling only unleaded fuel, just as we've been doing since the mid-to-late '80s, but their path to getting there has been less painful than ours.

Beauty and the Beast? What do you define as an "old Disney film"? That one came out in 1991.

You've got to be kidding me. The interfaces of Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros and The Legend Of Zelda don't work? Well, these guys disagree and so do I. I doubt that you actually tried playing these games recently, because I really don't understand what problems you could be having. Screen and controller are basically the same as in present games. I play lots of games that are 10 years or older on a regular basis and the stuff created by Shigeru Miyamoto stands the test of time without a doubt. The fact that the graphics and sounds are outdated doesn't mean the games are not a lot of fun to play.

I'm pretty sure Ivan Reitman at least copyrighted Evolution.

What happens to your cognition once you stop taking it, after you've gotten used to taking it? Do you get a tolerance, so you not only need higher doses for a smarts boost, but you also just return to your base performance after getting used to it?

What's the withdrawal like?

I suspect that maybe the many kids given Ritalin while growing up learn to depend on it for their baseline. When they outgrow their "hyperactivity" (AKA "childhood"), they quit the drugs, and sink into an unfamiliar dullness in which they can't think at their previous baseline without the artificial stimulation. And how much do they just get burned out from the steady drugging?

Something's got to explain the evident steady decay in average intellect as the years wear on, despite these synthetic boosts.

Her name is Nancy Cartwright

As Lawerence Lessig argues (in part) in his book Free Culture, movie companies don't care about piracy, what they worry about is a reduction in the barriers to market. P2P enables anyone with a $200 camera and a $1500 computer to be a movie producer and seen by anyone almost instantly with no restrictions to geographic region.

A good movie is a lot more difficult. Far more expensive.

"The Blair Witch Project" proves that's wrong. It was made on a budget of $22,000 yet grossed $248,639,099. Though it was made with $1,000,000 "Kissing Jessica Stein" grossed millions more, it's lowest grossing month in 2002 was almost $500,000 while it's highest month was more than $7,000,000 in the US alone. If they weren't any good then they wouldn't have made money.

You mean, a sequel to this?

Part of the reason that DVD sales continue is that Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores almost never have the Special Edition for rent. Those who are real fans of a movie end up wanting the SE. Similar for Netflix where you get a single DVD at a time -- if you want that second DVD it is an extra request. And, if you kept the Netflix DVD of Hot Fuzz around long enough to listen to all six commentaries (on the Special Edition DVD anyway), you are probably spending more back-to-back-to-back -to-back-to-back-to-back time than you would like watching the same movie. In other words, it would work better for you to own the SE and watch it whenever you want, with whatever commentary you want. Ownership makes sense (at least it did for me).

So the boat building video guy needs to come out with a special edition. Make it longer, more DVDs, printed extras (and more restrictive or at least well-defined licensing terms in print and on-screen). For that matter, branch out into a related or new area, like backyard play structures -- we bought one of those -- a dealer "demo" at half price -- that still set us back almost $5K. There has got to be a way to teach people how to make one.

Purple Tentacle was (soon to be) LucasArts regular Danny Delk. IMDB says he also played Green Tentacle.

This is a classic example of how anonymous this talent is. This woman's performance was probably your entertainment experience of the month, yet you wouldn't recognize her on the street, and probably never bothered to learn her name: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0283253/ We enjoy it when it is good, but never notice it when it is slightly less remarkable. Publishers and producers know this.

...will some of them turn out really dumb?

But seriously, I think some people with more money than brains are going to extremely disappointed with the results. A cat cloned at Texas A&M didn't look any more like the mother than a normally bred kitten would. It also had a totally different personality--which most people wanting a clone of a particular pet would be to get the identical personality. Clones at this stage are not carbon copies--I suspect there's a lot more to the breakdown of the genome than we know. Or perhaps...there's the soul factor....

This guy made 100k for probably something that took him less than a year to produce.
Now I'm not sure about voice overs for feature films, but a voice over for a game is not a Hollywood blockbuster by no stretch.
He should be happy that he made out like a bandit, and run with what he got.
If he is upset about it or feels he was ripped off, he should either not do game voice overs or simply startup a movement to get that deficit changed.

By the way larger names than his appeared in the San Andreas installment and I didn't hear them complain.

The guy at the store assured me that it would be exactly the same because they'd imprint the memories and personality usingn a special brain scanning machine.

Have you seen the commercial?

Okay...I admit, this is from a movie. Clearly the idea of cloning our pets is the first one that's really going to sell the technology (other than the obvious - organs).

Presumably, a lot of instinctive behaviour (if not most) is genetic. So your cloned dog will be a lot more like your old one than a cloned person might be.

Of course, if you could accelerate aging, you'd getting exactly what you'd want from the cloning process if you cloned a hot babe. Beauty is only cell deep, after all. :)

If hollywood has taught me anything, we'll just get another Arnold Schwarzenegger.

At least then he can Terminate and Governate at the same time.

supermarkets in poor areas usually charge more than in rich areas because people in rich areas have more options.

And in a free market someone can step into the void and offer food for less in the poor area.

Also for the same reason, supermarkets in poor areas charge more at the register than the marked price more frequently.

Which I believe is illegal, by law an item has to be sold for the price on the label or in an ad, unless there is a sign by the items saying the advertized price is wrong.

Some types of goods are not voluntary purchases. Food, for instance. You can't go without it, so you have to buy it at whatever price it is available.

Sure it's a voluntary exchange, you may not like it but it is voluntary, no one's standing there with a gun pointed at your head saying you have to buy the food. You can also grow your own food. As I'm on disability and don't work I live on a small fixed income. Because of this I am a member of both Costco and Sam's Club, where I can buy in bulk at low prices. Though in the case of Sam's, it's not allowed to sale the same item as Walmart does at a lower cost. Also I garden even though I live in a city. I spent a few hours in my garden today, where I'm growing acorn squash, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, peppers, tomatillos, and tomatos. The end of summer and beginning of fall most of what I harvest I will be preserving. Most of it I will can or pickle. And for "desert" I'll have blueberries, rhubarb, and strawberries. For those who don't have the space for a garden, and all it takes to grow some things is a window, community gardens and city farms are growing. That's where many Cubans get their food.

As LouAnne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer) says in one of my favorite movies, "Dangerous Minds", "There are no victims in this classroom."

an unregulated free market supports and encourages tyranny, and takes away freedoms

How so?

What I specifically dispute is the idea that all trade is inherently fair.

Here I agree, it most definitely isn't fair that the US government gives billions of taxpayer dollars to hugh agricultural corporations so they can export and sell corn in Mexico and Central America cheaper than farmers there pay to grow corn. That however isn't free trade, under free trade there wouldn't be the billions of dollars in subsidies yearly. Just this year congress passed a $290 billion farm bill. Bush vetoed it, one of the very few things he did I agree with, but the House of Representatives overrode the veto. And more than likely Archer Daniels Midland, who the Libertarian CATO Institute ("Free Minds and Free Markets") wrote about in the study "Archer Daniels Midland: A Case Study In Corporate Welfare" will get billions of those dollars.

BAH! World War II with spaceships