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I think I'm more influenced by Larry Niven and _Barbarella_, and maybe _Play-Mate of the Apes_.

I think I'm more influenced by Larry Niven and _Barbarella_, and maybe _Play-Mate of the Apes_.

So if that slap-dash story can actually happen, how can any plan counter one of the many *serious* long term Fictional problems??

* Alien, Crimson Tide - Superuser has too much power
* Stark - Everyone hates it and commits suicide
* Celebrity Big Brother - One group starts picking on another
* Robocop 2 - First prototype mission works, but subsequent missions/models cannot *recreate the magic* ?

If things go wrong, will they stop the daily messages back from the deranged crew??

-Eric

The movie is probably the 1982 epic masterpiece (...) "Firefox", starring Clint Eastwood as the former POW Vietnam veteran who steals the USSR's newest toy: An incredibly high tech fighter jet. I don't recal iff the scene is part of the film, but i do recall a scene from the original book where the built in brain wave detectors in Mjr. Gant's pilot helmet picks up his desperat wish to shoot down a plane behind him, thus firing the anti-anti-air flares system and downing (!) the pursuting jet. The film is an exelent example of why actors should leave the director's chair to someone else by the way... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/

This is slashdot, not alt.sysadmin.recovery -- not many people are likely to spot the reference here unless it involves Star Wars or Zero Wing.

Or Charly

It doesn't help the German case that in the last story they sought to connect separate murder and kidnapping charges to the alleged perpetrators playing a turn-based RPG. I mean, apart from their aliases, how the hell did it inspire them; did they and their victims take turns attacking each other?

BTW, don't mention RPG Radiculopathy; I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it all right.

I wonder if there was a rash of teenagers jumping their cars through buildings would Germany finally have a backlash against David Hasselhoff?

You know that the X-71 is ready and waiting for any REAL emergency.

&#928

Little Girl: [looking at a Magic Eye poster] Wow. It's a schooner.
Willam Black: Ha ha ha ha. You dumb bastard. It's not a schooner... it's a Sailboat.
Little Boy: A schooner IS a sailboat stupid head.
Willam Black: [becoming enraged] You know what. There is NO Easter Bunny. Over there, that's just a guy in a suit.

Check out "Allegro Non Troppo" for some pseudo live action animation.

Once again, Hollywood is way ahead of ya =)

My first reaction was "Good because wading through terrabytes of useless data will really help win the war on terrer!" However on sober reflection I realize that the very technical infeasability of this is part and parcel of the problem.

For those of you that haven't seen Terry Gilliam's Brazil you must it is an essential requirement for anyone who would just react with the snarkiness I mentioned above.

They can't parse all of that data. A single major ISP on a single day would generate terrabytes of data if everything was logged. In that event any actual law enforcement methods would be swamped by the sheer beureucratic waste of it all. Massive computer systems performing continuous number crunching would still come up with garbage.

But that doesn't matter!

It isn't necessary for this to work. What is necessary is for them to make people perceive that it works at least enough to get it put in place. At that point the system becomes self feeding. Don't like it, well that can get you put on the short list for a check of your habits. Because they can look at a single person's habits, they may be wrong but they can and will do it. But in general the system will be a large self-feeding monstrosoty and any "errors", because there are always errors will be dealt with in the same way that the no-fly-list errors are handled: "not my department, next please!"

Eventually success of this process ceases to be the object only its continuation. Once a large enough beureucracy is established staffed with enough place-men and place-seekers to protect themselves then this will take over. Consider the Drug war as an example. Yes it hasn't hit full steam but think of ho many things today are justified by means of the "Drug War". And take a look at the way justifications for the war are handled. Money for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (led by America's Drug Czar) is spent convincing us to back the drug war or not to vote for legalization. In turn the DEA's budget (paying America's Drug Czar) goes up and who the hell cares if the drugs are stopped. And they aren't even fighting "Terrorists".

In many respects it reminds me of East Germany. At the height of their power the East German Stasi employed one in fifty members of the population as full or part-time spies. This doesn't count the large beureucratic staff that they had or the massive infrastructure that was built and run just to sort through it all. The social costs were enormous as any infraction was targeted for no good reason. The economic costs in turn were insane and deprived the state budget of much of the money that might have been spent say building an infrastructure or feeding the population. No nation on earth had more complete information on its citizens and no nation on earth spent more obtaining it.

Ultimately crime was still committed and even the dissident groups grew because they a) hated the government that much, b) were often flooded with spies sent in by the Stasi, and c) could get away with it. None of the objectives of the Stasi were acheived and East Germany fell, it fell and noone misses it.

This "Law and Order" bull must be stopped, and it must be stopped now! We cannot sit back and think that this is okay or that it will "work its way out. Those of us with a technical mindset are in the best position to explain why this will not work and what a costly destructive system this will be, and we cannot put it off.

For those in the U.S. go Here to find your house rep and place a phone call or send a letter. Then for good measure go Here and tell the Senate not to go there either. Following that try sending a letter to you local paper's letters to the editor. While many of us no longer read the dead-tree press it can and will make a big impact for those that do (read: most people over 35).

The only thing you are missing is the Rowdy Roddy Piper quotes I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum. or even better, "Wooo. It's like a drug. Wearing these glasses gets you high, but you come down hard."

I think I know what inspired at least parts of Resident Evil 4:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089243/
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/gymkata/

The Canadians. They walk among us. William Shatner. Michael J. Fox. Monty Hall. Mike Meyers. Alex Trebek. All of them Canadians. All of them here.

Time for Andy Griffith and the boys to put this to a real test.

Check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078681/

Imagine what the movie industry would be like if Hollywood only made blockbuster action flicks.

Umm. . .

Imagine what the movie industry would be like if Hollywood only made blockbuster action flicks.

Umm. . .

Ever see the movie Spaceballs? There was that big vacuum robot maid-thingy that sucked up the air from Planet Druidia. Maybe some geeks at MIT could borrow that and modify it to suck up the debris?

I hope no-one shows Boston PD the movie Robot Carnival. They'll be blowing up abandoned Teddy Ruxpin dolls next.

"If they can provide as good a security model for protecting identity and financial information as Apple..."

So long as we can download such classics as 'Weekend at Bernie's' (http://imdb.com/title/tt0098627/) do we really care how secure it is :P

I'm sure I won't be the only person to reply and point out that hours of national TV exposure (and subsequent stories, etc) are worth at LEAST $2M. As they say, "no press is bad press.."

Furthermore, think about how many people (on the fringes of their target demographics) that hadn't heard of ATHF are now keenly aware of the show? With the movie coming up.. yea.. $2M is cheap.

FTFA: "Ms. Coakley said the amount was more than the state would have obtained through litigation. The settlement shields the companies from civil or criminal liability by state and local agencies, Ms. Coakley said."

..and frankly, in the end, they may not have been liable for any of this anyhow.. since it was mostly just the Boston police/whomever being semi-retarded. But $2M is a small price to pay for the publicity they got, and now the goodwill of paying "more than their fair share" towards homeland security and what the authorities even term as "goodwill funds."

Too bad ATHF jumped the shark a bit (IMHO) after season 3. And even more bad that the two poor schmucks working for the ad agency are still charged with crimes. They should be set free, and whatever moron phoned in a litebrite as a "bomb" (and the corresponding police moron who agreed with him) should be looking at potential liability. WTF is wrong with our government. Does anybody remember the post-9/11 homeland security debacle with Tom Ridge reccomending people use duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from terrorists.. and then several people dying by asphyxiating themselves in their own homes? The sad fact is that our society has become so stupid and centered around sensationalist events that terrorists don't even need to make bombs anymore.. just scatter throughout several major cities a few dozen briefcases with litebrites affixed to them, and watch the panic ensue.

Not trying(very hard) to flame here, but how did you feel after watching Signs?

I mean, SIGNS?! I got conned into seeing that by a pair of old friends who were visiting town and wanted to go out to the movies... Hell, Signs was very nearly enough to ruin movies for me. I needed to watch a bunch of real classics to get my love for film back after that. It was an abortion of creativity and intelligence. Only uglier and smelled worse.

http://poll.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/quotes "Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western."

"We have ALL kinds of music. We have country AND western"

...Orgazmo

Gattaca

I remember when we used to settle our disputes through dance.

You Got Served

And if this goes to court & gets appealed, we can Bring It On Again

Then, when the case finally makes it to the Supreme Court, one party can say to the other: Bring It On: All or Nothing

I'm not sure what they're going to call the next sequel, maybe "Bring It On - Cheerleaders Lobbying Congress"

Maybe that would work better as a Girls Gone Wild video...

And if this goes to court & gets appealed, we can Bring It On Again

Then, when the case finally makes it to the Supreme Court, one party can say to the other: Bring It On: All or Nothing

I'm not sure what they're going to call the next sequel, maybe "Bring It On - Cheerleaders Lobbying Congress"

Maybe that would work better as a Girls Gone Wild video...

Copyright infringement over choreography?!!?
Bring it on!

-

Maybe, what with budget cuts and all, we might just get a Minnie Driver

If you're really lucky you might even get a Mini Driver.

Maybe, what with budget cuts and all, we might just get a Minnie Driver

If you're really lucky you might even get a Mini Driver.

Maybe, what with budget cuts and all, we might just get a Minnie Driver

Sorry. I'll get my coat.

Andy Zebrowitz Andy Zebrowitz Andy Zebrowitz

Peter Hyams of course

Oh no! Reruns!

They should make an "I'm Linux" commercial.

They should cast John Roberts, the guy in the enzyte commercials, for windows, and Ellen Feiss for mac.

As for who would play linux? I'm thinking a /. poll for that...

New Poll: Who plays "Linux" in the commercial?

- The Geico Lizard
- Scarlett Johansson
- Jonny Lee Miller aka Zero Cool
- Carrie-Anne Moss
- CowboyNeal

They should make an "I'm Linux" commercial.

They should cast John Roberts, the guy in the enzyte commercials, for windows, and Ellen Feiss for mac.

As for who would play linux? I'm thinking a /. poll for that...

New Poll: Who plays "Linux" in the commercial?

- The Geico Lizard
- Scarlett Johansson
- Jonny Lee Miller aka Zero Cool
- Carrie-Anne Moss
- CowboyNeal

They should make an "I'm Linux" commercial.

They should cast John Roberts, the guy in the enzyte commercials, for windows, and Ellen Feiss for mac.

As for who would play linux? I'm thinking a /. poll for that...

New Poll: Who plays "Linux" in the commercial?

- The Geico Lizard
- Scarlett Johansson
- Jonny Lee Miller aka Zero Cool
- Carrie-Anne Moss
- CowboyNeal

There was a documentary made about what Ice Pirates do that you might find helpful. :)

My only problem with Shrek, and specifically Shrek 2 was that it was totally inappropriate to advertise it to children. Now, I think that if you want to let your 8 year old watch porn, it is your right as a parent to choose what is and is not appropriate for your child, but trying to trick people into taking their kids to movies that are loaded with sex is just not right. Many people try to tell themselves that 'it goes over the kids heads'. That is just plain wrong. Pretty much every kid that watched Shrek 2 knew that Puss'n'Boots was giving himself a blowjob when the princess walked in and thought he was Shrek.

Shrek 2 is no more appropiate for children than Fritz the Cat was in 1972. That being said, I think I was 8 the first time I saw Fritz the cat. My problem isn't kids seeing it. The problem is that kids are seeing it without their parents knowing or understanding what their kids are seeing, and the producers of the movie are going out of their way to keep it that way.

When did Billy Corgan gain weight, change his name to Alan Graham and start writing a tech column?

> I'm not really sure what .... Howls Moving Castle is either

Uhm, HELLO!!! --> Hayao __Miyazaki__ !!

Spirited Away ('01)
Princess Mononoke ('97)
Kiki's Delivery Service ('89) (Phil Hartman , we miss you :-(
Castle in the Sky ('86)

--
Yes, you will come back, suicide or not. Sucks to be you!

According to IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region =world-wide) the films have grossed the following world-wide (the numbers are their position in the all-time world-wide list):

  4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $968,657,891
  8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) $892,194,397
10. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $866,300,000
17. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) $789,458,727

The films are reckoned to cost ~$150,000,000 to make. Throw in $100,000,000 of marketing costs and still, each film has made over $500,000,000 profit!!!!

And this doesn't include the DVD sales & rentals and the merchandising rights!

Do you seriously think that the board of Warner Brothers is sitting there saying "You know what? We just don't need a guaranteed $1,000,000,000 profit from making two films over three years!"??? ;-)

The screenwriter for the first four, Steve Kloves, decided not to do the fifth book to pursue other work, and to spend time with his family. But after reading the sixth book, he call the producer, David Heyman, and asked if he could do it, who gladly resigned him.

The screenplay for the sixth book has been written and approved, and should start shooting soon, though I don't know exactly when. It was my understanding that the screenplays for the fifth and sixth book were being developed at the same time so that they could be shot close to each other, but since they haven't started shooting the sixth. And it seems that one of the leads, Daniel Radcliffe, is a little busy right now.

I would certainly count on a sixth movie. I believe the principles are all signed except for Daniel Radcliffe. Time will tell.

Exactly how unprofitable was it? Does anyone have the figures? Ballpark numbers even?