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I'm reminded of the TV series by James Burke. They really affected my young and impressionable mind. His various shows celebrated both the serendipitous and the slow-building contributions of knowledge and technology that led to modern things and thoughts. I can still picture the chains of wooden "punch cards" controlling the weaving pattern of a water (maybe steam?) powered loom, and the "Connections" between so many old and new things. If you can find them, his "Connections" and "The Day the Universe Changed" series are great.

I think it boils down to a lack of history. We learn history for the first 20 or so years of our lives, we live/make history for another 50 years, and we try to teach OUR history to the young'uns for our last 10 or 20 years. How would the world be different if we all lived 200 years? The gap of generational knowledge would be longer, but would still exist. We'd still be left with "When I was a kid, 190 years ago, all we had were internal combustion engines. And we LIKED 'em!"

yes, Peter Cheung is the animator/creator of Aeon Flux. I remember seeing interviews with him on MTV. I believe he is only credited with "characters" for the movie.

"In the near future, the Navy develops a fighter jet piloted by an artificial intelligence computer. The jet is placed on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific to learn combat manuevers from the human pilots aboard. But when the computer develops a mind of its own, it's the humans who are charged with stopping it before it incites a war" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382992/

You should watch the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated . It's about the movie ratings and how NC-17 works. Basically, the ESRB just ripped off that system and are using it in seemingly an identical fashion. NC-17 was basically created so the people who run the ratings can keep their movies in and other movies out. Sure, porn is the largest section, but it's also for all the indie movies that distributors don't want in their theatres, 'cause they don't want the potential blowback from disquieting themes/scenes. I think after GTA IV the game industry is sending R* a little message. You're games are too much; scale back and play nice or you'll never see the inside of a walmart again.

The AO or NC-17 rating has nothing to do with keeping children from games, they have R and M ratings for that, it's about keeping games those industries don't want from consumers. Yes, you can still rent NC-17, but not at blockbuster. The studio movies that have a couple extra titty scenes might still play, but the original NC-17 movies are still chopped up if they're gonna get any shelf space in blockbuster. And even that's b.s. The unrated versions are very often re-edited by blockbuster. They make sanitized unrated versions of movies for sale at walmart as well. They aren't the NC-17 equivalents. It's a 3rd version of the movie; there's theatrical, unrated, and unrated/sanitized. This last category being the most horrendous of them all, 'cause they're basically trying to steal their customers money by preying on their desire for more graphic sex/violence and then not giving it to them, because they deem it morally corrupting. Now, that's the movies way of having their cake and eating it too.

IMO, R* has been trying to show the games industry for years that there are grown-ups who want to play grown-up games. Sure they're happy to make money off teenagers too, but R* could have a sick niche if they were allowed to really make good adult games and there was actually a way to make them buyable only by adults without the straight store ban that AO entails, but the entire game industry (at least the parts where the money comes from) have absolutely no desire to make a single parent start questioning whether their child might get subjected to inappopriate material playing their shiny new ps3/360/wii. Hence, warning shot across the bow for R*. The probably better make their next game a Harry Potter port or something.

Minority Report? I immediately thought of the spiders in Runaway ... what? Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Kirstey Alley ... killer robots, bullets that fly around corners ...
damn, y'all make me feel old.

Did these people learn nothing from the film Runaway? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/

of a certain couple of movies that deal with a similar-ish thing.

We also know how insane even scientists and researchers get during a several-month physical isolation from the rest of the world.

I'm hoping that Red Mars was required reading before they designed this kind of an experiment... I would assume that a similar level of precise requirements are being put into place here, as were found in that book.


Geek power unite! We've already been shown how to colonize space... just read the extensive manuals published by Issac Asimov, James Blish, and Robert A. Henlien!

of a certain couple of movies that deal with a similar-ish thing.

We also know how insane even scientists and researchers get during a several-month physical isolation from the rest of the world.

I'm hoping that Red Mars was required reading before they designed this kind of an experiment... I would assume that a similar level of precise requirements are being put into place here, as were found in that book.


Geek power unite! We've already been shown how to colonize space... just read the extensive manuals published by Issac Asimov, James Blish, and Robert A. Henlien!

To those of you who may be wondering: Put Sneakers on your netflix queue. You are not welcome here until you have viewed it.

Reminds me of the movie The Man Who Sued God. One of the best movies I've ever seen.

i just knew they use them to watch bad movies. or even better.. porn with a million Teraflops???

"Plan 9?
Ah, yes. Plan 9 deals with the resurrection of the dead. Long distance electrodes shot into the pineal and pituitary gland of the recently dead."

Apparently, you've never seen The Matrix!

Unfortunately imdb says that Coraline will come out in 2008.
But still : all this Gaiman movie news gave me goose pimples.

But they're not the only options for service, even if they're the only ones bringing wire to your house. There are lots of non-facilities-based broadband carriers that provide the upstream Internet connectivity and resell the telco access - I use Sonic.net, and a number of friends use Speakeasy, and there are numerous others. And there are other carriers like Covad who rent the copper from the telco and provide their own DSLAMs over it, either selling directly or selling to the non-facilities-based carriers who offer them as well as telco service.

For basic service, the resellers and niche ISPs usually cost more than the telco, though they're usually giving you a real price and not some three-month-trial rate. But if you want static IP addresses, you'll find that most of the telco services end up charging just as much as the resellers, even though their actual _costs_ are probably lower. Another big difference is policies about things like running servers; many of the resellers are quite upfront about "yes, we're giving you *Internet* access, not just couch-potato consumer service", and you can do anything except spam and maybe run some kinds of IRCbots. By contrast, telco and cable broadband providers used to have policies against using multiple computers on the same connection, or using wireless, or required you to use PPPoE which they wouldn't support on Mac or Linux (even though there's perfectly adequate Linux client.)

They also tend to give you better customer service - more responsive and more competent. It's not always faster for repairs - I've had DSL go out three or four times in the last 5 years, once because the DSL modem failed (they helped me diagnose it, and shipped me a replacement box next day), and a couple of times because some telco installer did something in one of the junction boxes down the road (the ISP was probably a bit slower at getting it fixed than going directly to the telco would have been, but reaching the ISP's techs was a lot faster which helped make up for it, and the last time that happened I could use a neighbor's wireless to stay on the net.)

In some places, there's cellular-phone wireless data (everybody hates their cellphone companies also, and most of them want to charge you old-pager-service pricing per KB, or not let you connect your phone to your PC.) And there's satellite service (which has technical limitations due to the geosynchronous-orbit hop, but I'm not going to say they suck, because you knew it was satellite when you ordered it, and you probably bought it because it was the only thing you could get other than paying business prices for a telco T1 circuit.)

Well at least they won't let Roger Corman do any more Marvel flicks... The Fantastic Four (1994)

Yes, really! Although the bit about Interworld is somewhat interesting, this would have been a much better article if it explained the surrounding context: Neil Gaiman is hitting the silver screen in a BIG way right now. His graphic novel Stardust is coming this August, loaded with an astonishing number of name actors. And for the money shot, Gaiman's adaptation of Beowulf follows up in November, with another big batch of stars.

Yes, really! Although the bit about Interworld is somewhat interesting, this would have been a much better article if it explained the surrounding context: Neil Gaiman is hitting the silver screen in a BIG way right now. His graphic novel Stardust is coming this August, loaded with an astonishing number of name actors. And for the money shot, Gaiman's adaptation of Beowulf follows up in November, with another big batch of stars.

I think that a RPG based movie would have some potential

One of the reasons Spider-Man is roundly regarded as the best of these movies is because it stays reasonably close to the source material. I just saw the new Fantastic Four movie and was left with the impression that they didn't grok the fundamentals of the series at all...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did the original Invisible woman actually have ANY personality outside her role of useless housewife stereotype? All I could see about her in the original cartoons was something like "Oh, Reed, what's going to happen to us now?" while waiting for hubby to save the day. Compared to today (a Britney), I'd say the movie did a wonderful adaptation of the role :P

But yes, I completely agree with you about Dr. Doom. Another thing I didn't quite like about Fantastic 4, is that Mr. Fantastic sometimes reminded me too much of Chandler from 'friends' (specially in the movie posters). Perhaps it has to do with the new comedy scenes in the latest movie? :)

--Now why do I get an image of Slim Pickens in my mind when you say that?
;-)

http://imdb.com/title/tt0071230/

Don't forget Higgy Baby (as TC called him) from "Magnum, P.I.".

This is a misquote, "Dynamite" is a brand of not French but Italian CANDLES...
i.e. Dee-na-mee-tay in Italian http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443536/quotes

I think you mean Sleeper, which also showed the flotation ability of the Beetle.

For more information on the context of whats going on in Venezula, check out the docco Chavez - Inside the Coup. It shows how the oil corporates attempting a coup manipulated the public. This is the people that lost their broadcast license not long ago.

Chavez may seem like a bad man to some, but really is a result of the grass roots organising - aka The Bolivarian Circles.

I think active athiests see how much damage is done by religion. I would like to suggest you watch The Root of All Evil by Richard Dawkins.

Although somewhat terse and often rude[1] the documentary highlights some serious problems with accepting religion and giving it the respect that it sees as being an inherent right.

[1] Not necessarily a bad thing - this is Richard Dawkins through and through :)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

I'd be more worried about Alien probes vaporising earths oceans with their whale communication devices.

You forgot to add Is it safe?

When?

Real Soon!!!

th

I think you inadvertently just advertised that new Bruce Willis flick, you just forgot to include hard.

But, other than The Faithful, who is going to buy one of these now?

Inventors: Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick

First publication: 2001 A Space Odyssey (Released 1968). Heywood Floyd checks in to the space station:

Female voice: "Thank you. You are cleared through Voiceprint Identification."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/quotes

Adiabatic sun-protection-factor 10^8 membrane is more like it.
In other words, a 1990's style blackhole is required for macroscopic quantum entanglement.

Great ending, btw. Good tunes, good times. Thanks, writers for re-working the #1 movie.

The confusion here appears to be between Weta Digital and Weta Workshop.

Weta Digital is the _digital_ effects house, with all the computer support that entails, however, it is actually the younger of the two companies.

Weta Workshop is a _physical_ effects shop and has always been into hardware and robotics/animatronics.

As another poster mentioned, Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and Meet the Feebles predate the Digital side of the business and more recent films, like Black Sheep, are more animatronic than CGI.

To Bring things back to topic, here's the page on Workshop's site: Ollie The Tuatara

The confusion here appears to be between Weta Digital and Weta Workshop.

Weta Digital is the _digital_ effects house, with all the computer support that entails, however, it is actually the younger of the two companies.

Weta Workshop is a _physical_ effects shop and has always been into hardware and robotics/animatronics.

As another poster mentioned, Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and Meet the Feebles predate the Digital side of the business and more recent films, like Black Sheep, are more animatronic than CGI.

To Bring things back to topic, here's the page on Workshop's site: Ollie The Tuatara

The confusion here appears to be between Weta Digital and Weta Workshop.

Weta Digital is the _digital_ effects house, with all the computer support that entails, however, it is actually the younger of the two companies.

Weta Workshop is a _physical_ effects shop and has always been into hardware and robotics/animatronics.

As another poster mentioned, Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and Meet the Feebles predate the Digital side of the business and more recent films, like Black Sheep, are more animatronic than CGI.

To Bring things back to topic, here's the page on Workshop's site: Ollie The Tuatara

The movie The Final Cut posits a similar world, where people are implanted with "Zoe" chips at birth that record everything they see and hear throughout their entire lives. When a person dies, the Zoe chip is extracted and given to a "cutter", whose job it is to turn all of those years of memories into a brief "highlight reel" for the bereaved to remember him by. It's actually a pretty good movie, even though it stars Robin Williams. Really, I promise. ;-)

Gleemax makes you feel like it's 72 degrees in your head... all the time!

it could be that you can't send messages back any earlier than the time the message was created, effectively only slowing time down so it take less time for the message to arrive. Less time could be no time at all so the message arrives when it's sent.

This won't allow you to send messages 'back' in time though.

Excellent! Then John Cusack wouldn't need an empty room "full of computers" to insert the 7-second delay for a financial transaction to cross the Atlantic!

Acting on information that's only slightly faster (milliseconds, most likely, and this doesn't include the time it would take to encode the message and "spin up" the communications device) might be a bit more difficult...

I think Darkman would really have appreciated this

We can do that live action version of The Polar Express

They have them now. The going price for them in is the neighborhood of Six Million Dollars.

Yeah, we real hackers have crazy 3D interfaces and fly through machines and networks in VR. None of this silly GNU/Linux nonsense!

See also: Hackers

, but The World Is Not Enough.

It's an occasional fantasy of programmers that wiring visually functional blocks together is easier than programming.

The Sopranos premiered in January, 1999.

Analyze This! was released in March, 1999.

Given production lead times, it's hard to say which one "ripped" the other, if at all.

The Sopranos premiered in January, 1999.

Analyze This! was released in March, 1999.

Given production lead times, it's hard to say which one "ripped" the other, if at all.