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[each member of the team makes a request in return for the decryption chip]

Whistler: I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
Bernard Abbott: Oh, this is ridiculous.
Martin Bishop: He's serious.
Whistler: I want peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
Bernard Abbott: We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Martin Bishop: You're just gonna have to try.
Bernard Abbott: All right, I'll see what I can do.
Whistler: Thank you very much. That's all I ask.

- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...

Found it on imdb. Slap Shot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Robot Wars (1998) was based on BattleBots (2000)?

If Craig Charles had a way to go back into the past, why didn't he tell his younger self to invent the Tension Sheet? (or warn him not to do drugs or what got him thrown into jail)

If you want the obvious sign, look at how many Brits were competing on BattleBots, and how few Americans were on the early seasons of Robot Wars.

Oh ... and 'minibots' were allowed in the original BattleBots -- you were allowed extra weight, but the bots had to be able to start out joined, and have some way to re-join, if I remember correctly. (I considered entering years ago, but it'd been a decade since I read all of the rules about gas engines vs. electric drive, wheeled vs. walking, etc.)

Robot Wars (1998) was based on BattleBots (2000)?

If Craig Charles had a way to go back into the past, why didn't he tell his younger self to invent the Tension Sheet? (or warn him not to do drugs or what got him thrown into jail)

If you want the obvious sign, look at how many Brits were competing on BattleBots, and how few Americans were on the early seasons of Robot Wars.

Oh ... and 'minibots' were allowed in the original BattleBots -- you were allowed extra weight, but the bots had to be able to start out joined, and have some way to re-join, if I remember correctly. (I considered entering years ago, but it'd been a decade since I read all of the rules about gas engines vs. electric drive, wheeled vs. walking, etc.)

V for Vendetta, great comic, great movie and so very relevant to today's society.

There are good quality affordable journals, run by professional societies or universities, which are an excellent alternative to Elsevier and other expensive for-profit journals. For the health of science, it is important that people choose to submit there.

Actually I'd say the Journal model of publishing is outdated and backwards in today's interconnected society. They made sense back in the day when both publishing and buying (shipping) published copies cost a substantial amount of money. It was fiscally prudent to filter out the papers before publishing to a few judged to be "worthy" in the field.

Nowadays, publishing (on the web) and shipping (over the internet) is for all practical purposes free. There is no longer any need to filter prior to publishing - filtering can happen after. Researchers should just "publish" their papers on their own or school's website. "Journals" need to be replaced by some sort of search engine which reviews new papers and ranks them according to "worthiness". Something like an IMDB of scientific papers, with a running "top 10 papers in the last month" list for each field with rankings based on reviews by researchers in the field. That top 10 list for each month could be archived as the equivalent of a "Journal", while the entire database and ranking is accessible and searchable as a replacement for browsing through the journal section of the library.

For brownie points, you could even make the searches customizable. So if you think Prof. Henry Higgins is a quack, you can specifically tag him as such in your account, and the ranking algorithm would exclude all his votes in the paper rankings that are displayed to you.

Definitely. I'm for this. The strong, witty characters are already basically a requirement on tv shows these days, so it makes sense to put the characters in an environment in our Star Trek universe where they need to be strong and witty. With the Klingons, it's sure to be action. I would watch almost anything with Star Trek in it, but I already like action shows. This show should be set after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis so we can see what keeps happening in the Prime universe. I vote for a human woman, and a [half-human, we learn about that later] Andorian. Guest stars should include Captain Nog and Dr. Bashir and Admiral Riker.

I can't speak for the A-list actors. Just for everyone else listed on IMDB. All of those pictures are uploaded by the person listed or an agent of that person. I have a profile as a lowly Grip. You can't add a picture unless you are an IMDB pro paid user. At least not that i have found yet.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm689...

So grips don't have agents? (Just kidding)

I thought it would be something like that, agents need their booty. A-listers can probably afford it. and you wouldn't want to get into
legal trouble by just pasting any old picture in there.

I do dislike the watermarked images though.

I can't speak for the A-list actors. Just for everyone else listed on IMDB. All of those pictures are uploaded by the person listed or an agent of that person. I have a profile as a lowly Grip. You can't add a picture unless you are an IMDB pro paid user. At least not that i have found yet.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm689...

I remember when I first encountered IMDb. Downloaded it from aminet.
It was fun playing around with a reasonably large dataset, picking out movies the same two actors had been on and such.
The webpage, is much less fun, but it seems like you can still download the data from http://www.imdb.com/interfaces
It claims to be a subset but doesn't specify what is missing.

I'll be ok, my son's name is God & no one would ever expect that to be his name.

I find Kodi/XMBC to be god-awful, UI wise. I use it because it came on a device (http://fiveninjas.com/) but it's a struggle every time I want to do something like add a new source, or correct some incorrect info it's attached to a DVD rip, etc.

The UI is mostly pretty decent (I can testify to it having considerably greater WAF than MythTV), but letting it manage your metadata is a bit of a crapshoot. Tell it to use "local data only" (or however it's worded), and use other software to manage it. Sick Beard handles metadata for TV shows pretty well. For movies, MediaElch takes forever to start up, but once it's running, it's easy to make sure that (for instance) your copy of the original version of The Flight of the Phoenix doesn't get tagged as the remake.

I find Kodi/XMBC to be god-awful, UI wise. I use it because it came on a device (http://fiveninjas.com/) but it's a struggle every time I want to do something like add a new source, or correct some incorrect info it's attached to a DVD rip, etc.

The UI is mostly pretty decent (I can testify to it having considerably greater WAF than MythTV), but letting it manage your metadata is a bit of a crapshoot. Tell it to use "local data only" (or however it's worded), and use other software to manage it. Sick Beard handles metadata for TV shows pretty well. For movies, MediaElch takes forever to start up, but once it's running, it's easy to make sure that (for instance) your copy of the original version of The Flight of the Phoenix doesn't get tagged as the remake.

Ah yes, I saw this before in Sneakers.

"I cannot spy on my friends."

[turns to NSA]

"Spy on my friends."

Forgotten work of genius that ended the previously Academy Award nominated director's career - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Jaws 19, no

Oh, really?

Some nitwits with far too much time (and alcohol) on their hands in Ufa, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, in south central Russia, near Kazakhstan, came up with this putrid Jaws satire, obviously titled after the joke in Back To The Future part II, and obviously filmed on someone's cell phone. And allegedly on a budget of 100 Rubles, which, as of this writing, converts to exactly US$1.62.

Suddenly I want to see this.

The latter scenario is the plot of "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Seriously, why 23GB? Why not 20GB? Or 25GB? What's with that random number that makes it so special?

I saw a documentary about that:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt04...

Damn straight they'll have the tools handy.

If you are a recreational sailor then you should have at least one of these aboard for when the unthinkable happens.

Even if you're stuck at sea in a liferaft with no means to propel yourself, just knowing where you are can have a remarkable impact on your morale. See this movie for a passable example.

You can bet that any military vessel worth its salt has a locked box with at least one premium quality sextant, all the books, and a chronometer, all ready to go.

The distinction is fluid. Tupperware parties are mostly sales and a little advertising. Inbetween is affiliate marketing, and of course your friends might also get paid just to show their stuff around, with no immediate connection to conversions. That would be advertising. Multipliers, the well-connected nodes in the social graph, could monetize some of their popularity that way. For another vision of the future of advertising, see The Joneses.

At the end of the day, a review is a professional opinion.

There are tons of movies the critics loved, but the public hated. Likewise, there's a bunch the critics hated, but the public loved. Then you get movies like Gigli, which everybody hated, and which IMBD says i the 50th worst movie of all time.

You take your tastes, combine it with the reviews of critics and any other sources, and decide if you want to see it or not. Then you figure out how you really thought about it.

Critical review often has nothing to do with box office success.

At the end of the day, a review is a professional opinion.

There are tons of movies the critics loved, but the public hated. Likewise, there's a bunch the critics hated, but the public loved. Then you get movies like Gigli, which everybody hated, and which IMBD says i the 50th worst movie of all time.

You take your tastes, combine it with the reviews of critics and any other sources, and decide if you want to see it or not. Then you figure out how you really thought about it.

Critical review often has nothing to do with box office success.

Well, look closely at that:

Ratings: 9.0/10 from 1,515,627 users Metascore: 82/100
Reviews: 4,406 user | 636 critic | 39 from Metacritic.com

When 1.5 million people say they liked it, the rating is saying "lots of people liked this film"

Now, contrast that with Shawshank Redemption, which is currently rated #1 on IMDB:

Ratings: 9.3/10 from 1,539,960 users Metascore: 80/100
Reviews: 3,773 user | 192 critic | 19 from Metacritic.com

At least they tell you how they got there.

Like Dark Knight or not, it was a wildly popular movie, which brought a very well known graphic novel to the screen. It also got Heath Ledger an Oscar, if you place any value on that.

If you expect such ratings to 100% match your own opinion, you have an over inflated sense of self importance. ;-)

Well, look closely at that:

Ratings: 9.0/10 from 1,515,627 users Metascore: 82/100
Reviews: 4,406 user | 636 critic | 39 from Metacritic.com

When 1.5 million people say they liked it, the rating is saying "lots of people liked this film"

Now, contrast that with Shawshank Redemption, which is currently rated #1 on IMDB:

Ratings: 9.3/10 from 1,539,960 users Metascore: 80/100
Reviews: 3,773 user | 192 critic | 19 from Metacritic.com

At least they tell you how they got there.

Like Dark Knight or not, it was a wildly popular movie, which brought a very well known graphic novel to the screen. It also got Heath Ledger an Oscar, if you place any value on that.

If you expect such ratings to 100% match your own opinion, you have an over inflated sense of self importance. ;-)

You mean don't use social networks.

"social media" is a name make up by the big old corporate media companies in a hope to try and sound relevant. They have renamed it and shoved it down everyone senses on their own mediums and online in the hope that people will forget its just networking like the movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt12...

Imagine if the movie was called "The Social Media", doesn't sound right does it?

Please don't ever call it social media ever again.

> a video game can be artistic when judged for their artistic elements, but since they have primary functions beyond art, they cannot be wholly works of art

The word is called super set. As in Form + Function designed to bring out emotions.

Guess what, most movies at the box office have a function beyond art too: Too make money.

This is a red herring.

> I don't think something can be art in the traditional sense if it is digital.

You're going to tell me all those artists who used to shoot pictures/movies in analog, such as photographer Sebastião Salgado, and now shoots digitally are now magically not creating art?? i.e. Salt of the Earth

1. That's completely disrespectful to them, their craft, and their skill.

2. How fucking retarded can you get???

Why the hell does the medium even matter??

It doesn't for painting.
It doesn't for photography.
It doesn't for film.
It doesn't for sculpting.
It doesn't for acting.

So why single out the digital medium??

Video game programming also can involve creative use of the hardware in solving problems. Writing efficient code is an art form, in contradistinction to it being just a purely deterministic process.

> Art must have the potential to be a failure.

1. Says who?? Who died and made you king of definitions???

2. Whether the medium is analog or digital **both** have the potential for failure:

Oh look! My memory card died and I lost my pictures.
Or, my hard drive died and I lost my pictures.
Or, the program corrupted my picture.
Or, I over-wrote my original and I no longer have it.

Gee, room for failure in the digital world too.

> Digital photography captures images and editing alters those images whereas film captures single, uneditable moments. /sarcasm Riiiight, because there was zero variation or control in exposure, shutter settings, or in the darkroom film developing process. NOT.

How about _actually_ educating yourself about photographers such as Ansel Adams instead of making ignorant claims.

Adams developed all his own film, using a small space in his parents home, and while in the field. He first used matte and changed to glossy paper to increase the tonal values. He spoke often about using the natural light and small apertures with long exposures. Adams also suggested to "visualize" each image before taking it. This means, taking your time, walking around looking at things from different points of view.

Adams, was a promoter of "pure photography" "Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form.' Soft focus lenses were prohibited, but in Adams earlier work of the Monolith, he used a strong red filter to create a black sky. Adams mounted a camera platform on the top of his station wagon, to get a better vantage point over the immediate foreground and a better angle for expansive backgrounds. Most of his images from 1943 forward were made from the roof of his car.

Whether you use filters pre-processing or post-processing is completely irrelevant. The effect is the same. You are still _interpreting_ and _presenting_ a representation of the scene that _you_ find interesting. Whether this is done chemically, or digitally, this doesn't change the intent.

To present a beautiful picture.

Bullshit excuses like "soft lenses were prohibited" doesn't change this fact.

--
Why is always the people who have never written a game are always the one trying to make excuses for why games "can't" be labeled as art???

I could swear there was an episode of Babylon 5 with a Nazi scientist. Some favors come with too high a price.

The Israelis are actually from the Simon Wiesenthal center - they're hunting for the Nazis that have been hiding on the dark side of the moon since 1945. They'll chase the Nazis from the moon to Argentina in 2018. I think I saw this in a movie, so it must be true.

Hence validation of the bro-culture seemingly more evident in tech. I'm starting to feel there's was more diversity back in the 90's--heck even Sandra Bullock was cool in a tech movie.

Honestly, folks on the dev team respect Linus, he could have just said:
Do this in user land on a trusted machine. There is zero excuse for
doing it in the kernel." and that's it, though entertaining, I want my 10sec of reading that 1st 80% of the paragraph back as it provided ZERO information (even didn't express his emotions cause we all know Linus at this point) aside from stirring up the community.

... and here I thought Microsoft was actually smart for once and have tie-ins with the sci-fi show

I guess Apple had a bigger influence on product placement.

That film has already been made (albeit on a mountain on earth, not in a cave on Mars). It's called Touching the Void and it's a true story.

I have so called "geek" friends who keep insisting this is the best show ever.

Please, check out The IT Crowd instead. Not only that show is hilarious in ways BBT simply cannot be, but it is also a much more accurate portrayal of the geek life.

I think this is a good premise for a new scifi film like "Children of Men" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt02....
You know, virus gets out, most of the world loses the ability to have children.
Come on, what could possibly go wrong?

These modern remakes always change things for no good reason. I much preferred Robinson Crusoe on Mars. After all, you gotta love the plot:

Stranded on Mars with only a monkey as a companion, an astronaut must figure out how to find oxygen, water, and food on the lifeless planet.

And it even has Adam West in it (and no - he's not the Monkey)

I think we've shown conclusively that we know exactly what to do: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...

Back in the real world, The Martian was mastered in 2K and hardly anybody noticed. I have a UHD monitor and using RAW still photos I can tell the difference between a photo natively cropped to 3840x2160 and one that's between downscaled to 1920x1080 and back at my typically sitting distance but you need to watch some fine detail. There's no way I'd see anything past 4K. In theory a person with 20/10 vision (yes, they do exist) sitting in the middle of a large screen cinema should be able to see 7K, but that's only when trying to read one of those eye charts at maximum contrast.

Most of the comparisons you see are not apples-to-apples comparison, they show you one 4K screen and one not-4K screen and surprise surprise the one they want to sell looks much better. I look forward to 4K BluRay though, in addition to resolution with HDR, Rec. 2020 and 10 bit color it will improve contrast, colors and banding All three of those are probably just as noticeable as the change in resolution, though I suspect it'll take a while before we have TVs that can take full advantage of it.

GP poster back, glad you liked the suggestions, even if you've seen most of them. I found Tim's Vermeer to be absolutely fascinating, but see how you go.

Another strong recommendation would be Paradise Lost though it's a bit depressing. I watched the documentary before they were released, and it was tough going, but perhaps it's a different experience watching it now knowing that they've been released and are no longer on death row.

I also enjoyed Touching The Void, which really hits you afterwards when you realise these two guys couldn't be put in the same room for the interviews to make the documentary. The tension between them must be incredible.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out, and not just because I'm Aussie :)

PS: Yes, unfortunately people do suck.

GP poster back, glad you liked the suggestions, even if you've seen most of them. I found Tim's Vermeer to be absolutely fascinating, but see how you go.

Another strong recommendation would be Paradise Lost though it's a bit depressing. I watched the documentary before they were released, and it was tough going, but perhaps it's a different experience watching it now knowing that they've been released and are no longer on death row.

I also enjoyed Touching The Void, which really hits you afterwards when you realise these two guys couldn't be put in the same room for the interviews to make the documentary. The tension between them must be incredible.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out, and not just because I'm Aussie :)

PS: Yes, unfortunately people do suck.

There are some incredible documentaries.

Man on Wire

Grizzly Man

Deep Water

A Class Divided: aka Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Tim's Vermeer

The Challenger Disaster (More a dramatization, but accurate and very very good)

Enjoy! :)

There are some incredible documentaries.

Man on Wire

Grizzly Man

Deep Water

A Class Divided: aka Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Tim's Vermeer

The Challenger Disaster (More a dramatization, but accurate and very very good)

Enjoy! :)

There are some incredible documentaries.

Man on Wire

Grizzly Man

Deep Water

A Class Divided: aka Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Tim's Vermeer

The Challenger Disaster (More a dramatization, but accurate and very very good)

Enjoy! :)

There are some incredible documentaries.

Man on Wire

Grizzly Man

Deep Water

A Class Divided: aka Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Tim's Vermeer

The Challenger Disaster (More a dramatization, but accurate and very very good)

Enjoy! :)

There are some incredible documentaries.

Man on Wire

Grizzly Man

Deep Water

A Class Divided: aka Blue Eyes Brown Eyes

Tim's Vermeer

The Challenger Disaster (More a dramatization, but accurate and very very good)

Enjoy! :)

Just watched the excellent The Salt of the Earth

Doctors Without Borders are truly doing humane work.

America: The terrorists of the new millennium.

/sarcasm Because Might makes Right; Fuck-Yeah for the Iron Rule!

Now what is needed is to show how the government teamed up with their captured space aliens in order to change Earth's atmosphere for their alien overloads!

So you saw that documentary with Charlie Sheen too?

Or watched any awesome Movies, like Ip Man, with Donnie Yen, or Legend with Jet Li.

Or watched any awesome Movies, like Ip Man, with Donnie Yen, or Legend with Jet Li.

@Anonymous Coward: "And yet it's popular, it influences the public's perception of technology and will in turn influence lawmakers. No tech article, no website and no blog post will ever claim a hundredth as much. Old media is ripping the internet to shreds with a vengeance and nobody is going to stop them."

Mr. Robot managed to be 'thrilling' and yet technically accurate at the same time. Except most techies don't want to bring down the financial system and have and invisible friend :)

Then again, maybe we shouldn't be basing mission planning on a bunch of cheezy fucking sci-fi movies. Just a thought.

Right. I think we should stick to parody.

Previous post was right. It was an A&E and Granada production. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...

-R C