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I'd consider The Amateur Monster Movie more of a comedy than horror. It just takes place in a typical horror movie universe much like Shaun of the Dead. We have a second film in post production right now (hoping to release in a few months) called The Wayward Sun that would be classified drama. It's kinda a hard film to describe but it has a lot of similar elements to a film like Gerry.

I think the reason for so many low budget horror films is it's just really hard to do anything else. Horror fans are typically more forgiving of issues that would normally break credibility with a typical film.

Moon mining and huge advances in cloning announced on the same day.... Maybe Duncan Jones was onto something?

I still can't get past Corvette Summer.

yea, sure looks like Mark has been sitting on his but for the last 25+ years

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000434/

Have you ever seen But I'm a Cheerleader?

OK, you said a lot of things I agree with, and a lot of things I strongly disagree with. Each of your statements stand fairly well on their own, so I'll group them together for convenience of discussion.

The constitution is in place for a reason. Laws are made for reasons. . . Freedom does come at a price. Having what we have has come at the cost of many lives. . . I think people need to truly look around and understand why they have the freedoms they have today.

So far we're in perfect agreement. I'll return to this later.

If you constrain law enforcement and the military too much, bad things could happen to our country. . . Law enforcement is responsible for taking peoples lives when the bad American is going to do something bad, and there are no other alternatives other than to take the bad person's life. There could easily be a time when law enforcement cannot or does not have the ability to act against bad Americans, and the military with their drones may be the only thing able to deal with these bad people. By making a law that says drones cannot be used to kill an American could easily cost another 3000 Americans their lives. This is a very complicated world we live in. We sometimes need to do things we are not proud of to protect this country. . . You can be outraged at what Holder says, but at least understand why he is saying what he is saying.

Here we diverge almost completely after the first sentence. I'll go point-by-point:

• Yes, bad things can happen. Doing worse things to prevent anything bad from happening is not an acceptable alternative. At the risk of sounding trite, I'm with the Dory character from Finding Nemo: it's not the Government's job to make sure that nothing bad ever happens.
• Law enforcement's job is not to kill people before they commit crimes. Nor have The People of the United States given up their rights to self-defense; the use of deadly force is not restricted to the Executive Branch (under whose umbrella both the Military and Law Enforcement act). There is no department of pre-crime, nor should there ever be. Law enforcement's role is to uphold the law and prosecute violations. Your statement appears to support murdering suspects as a form of crime prevention, and you're frightening me.
• You speculate a hypothetical situation where somehow only use of U.S. military power against its own citizens will keep 3000 other citizens safe. I find this highly implausible, but even if it weren't then use of the military on U.S. soil would still be a frightening prospect to be avoided at all costs (even the lives of 3000 civilians). Armies and civilians don't mix well, and both the Declaration of Independence and the Posse Comitatus act were written in reaction to bad results from such.
• Yes, the world is complicated. I may agree that to address that complexity we need to do things we're not comfortable with, but I don't agree that we need to compromise our principles to live in a complex world. If such things as "innocent until proven guilty" and "freedom of speech" are ever important then they're important all the time, not just when it's convenient or simple.

• I think I do understand where Holder is coming from. I used to oppose the release of suspects whose guilt was proven via illegal searches. The fundamental question is this: "how much harm is done be releasing the guilty versus allowing Police more power to conduct searches?" I've moved over to wanting restricted police power, since I now believe that abuse of police power is the greater harm.

The constitution and our laws were written for a reason; it originally was to protect The People against abuses of power. The Ame

Mouse That Roared
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

An ok little movie, somewhat relevant.

Just a few days ago the new TV series "Vikings" started and they happened to feature a sunstone.. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2306299/

Well timed I'd say!

In case you missed it I'm sure it can be found at a certain viking torrent site.. ;) [which I don't condone of course]

From there to Jane Fonda. I didn't realize she was such a national treasure.

You obviously haven't seen Barbarella.

Neither have I. :p

The Light Bulb Conspiracy

Remember, best block, no be there.

If Sam Kinison were alive today, he'd apply his philosophy on world hunger and say:

You want to help end extinction-level meteors? Stop sending up shit to blow them up. Don't send them another one, send up huge orbit-altering rockets. Send the UN a guy that says, "You know, we've been coming up with a plan to blow up meteors for about 35 years now and we were blowing stuff up, and we realized there wouldn't BE extinction-level meteors if you people would live where the METEORS AREN'T! YOU LIVE INSIDE AN ASTEROID BELT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING ASTEROID BELT!! Stop wasting rockets by launching them at each other. You too, North Korea... don't give me that look. We're going to do this together in one shot.

The most-effective solution is don't be where the meteor is going to be. This worked well for me the other week. Giant meteor fell in Siberia and I wasn't there.

Nuh-uh! I've been watching Dollhouse, and it's clearly possible. Why would the cable TV lie to me?

Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes

"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."

##

"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio

##

"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)

##

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director

##

"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History

##

George Carlin:

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehous

Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes

"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."

##

"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio

##

"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)

##

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director

##

"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History

##

George Carlin:

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehous

I saw a documentary about this subject.

Break out the Moon-based neuralizer! Everyone has just found out about the "Ark Net" shield! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1409024/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl

I worked on this spaceship for ~3 years. Let me say that it's very gratifying that it found something, and especially that it found something nobody was expecting. I'm much relieved.

It's always a plus to find something you weren't looking for.

Obviously not a regular viewer of water based horror films...

I worked on this spaceship for ~3 years. Let me say that it's very gratifying that it found something, and especially that it found something nobody was expecting. I'm much relieved.

It's always a plus to find something you weren't looking for.

Obviously not a regular viewer of water based horror films...

I worked on this spaceship for ~3 years. Let me say that it's very gratifying that it found something, and especially that it found something nobody was expecting. I'm much relieved.

It's always a plus to find something you weren't looking for.

Obviously not a regular viewer of water based horror films...

I worked on this spaceship for ~3 years. Let me say that it's very gratifying that it found something, and especially that it found something nobody was expecting. I'm much relieved.

It's always a plus to find something you weren't looking for.

Obviously not a regular viewer of water based horror films...

As long as you don't sequence known pathogens, who care what kind of meat it is?

Anything like this? (IBDB).

Code.org doesn't have a messaging problem, they've got a core conceptual problem. Trying to teach more people to program, especially by making it part of a core academic curriculum, is amazingly foolish. Anyone that's taken an introductory programming class at a university can tell you it is foolish. Jeff Atwood pointed out this paper seven years ago that expands on this idea. The skinny is that 30-60% of computer science students fail at introductory programming classes and consistently do so despite changes in languages, IDEs, and teaching methodologies. Some students simply could not form mental models needed to be able to program effectively. Keep in mind this was a self-selected group of students, ones who had chosen to take up computer science as a major.

Based on this it seems apparent that if "everyone" was required to take programming courses then a majority of them would simply fail to learn the skill and only pass because schools don't like to fail students. No greater number of students would learn to program and they would have no deeper understanding of how computers or software works. Computer programming is a fine elective and is something that should be available to high school students but it is simply absurd to think that trying to teach everyone to program would lead to everyone magically enriching their lives.

Teaching advanced mathematics to students is unlike teaching programming despite the two being advanced skills. With mathematics there's a consistent domain specific language that can be used. The language of calculus builds on the languages of algebra and geometry which themselves build on simple arithmetic. If someone learns calculus (and continues to use it) it will be applicable for the rest of their lives. The language used for theory is the same one used for applications.

In computer science there's the theoretical topics where "language is an implementation issue" and then more practical topics where the language and platform is paramount. Teaching high school students high level computer science topics isn't going to leave them with practical skills since it is often non-trivial to apply those theoretical concepts (which back practical topics) to a specific language and platform. Teaching more practical programming is going to leave them in a lurch when the school's choice of language and platform doesn't end up the future of the industry. There's thousands if not millions of kids that learned BASIC on Apple ][s and C64s that have not only never used those skills since but have absolutely no conception of how to apply the core concepts learned in this classes to more modern languages and platforms.

If the goal of a programming curriculum is to teach critical thinking, problem solving, or logic there's much better ways to teach those things. Limited school budgets shouldn't be trying to cover programming for everyone. Kids would be much better off being taught how to balance a check book, plan a household budget, and if you want to use computers some basics like don't send naked pictures to your boyfriend or girlfriend because shit stays on the internet forever.. Kids interested in programming will take programming electives and focus in that area. Trying to get everyone to program simply is not going to work and it a waste of time and money that could both be better spent.

Silent Running was actually directed by the guy who did the FX for 2001, so there is a lot of cross-pollination there.

Confused the title with Cool Runnings, so I'm glad I double-checked:

Silent running:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756

Cool runnings
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106611

Confused the title with Cool Runnings, so I'm glad I double-checked:

Silent running:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756

Cool runnings
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106611

I'd prefer this one.

I was wondering when somebody would step up to the challenge and finally build a ship based on that wonderful movie from a few years back: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640571/?ref_=fn_al_tt_9

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640571/ For those who are interested, the expression on the ship's funnel indicates just how good a film this is.

Or a paid update to XP. XP service pack 4 $99.99.

It would be fun to see Balmer decide that the future of the employees that worked on windows 8 depended on them outselling XP service pack 4. (Well if you are the type of person that enjoyed the war of the roses anyways.)

Obligatory IMDB link: "Weekend at Bernie's"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098627/

I believe that Jason Bateman was in a recent documentary on this topic - seemed very factual, and you should probably consider his plan of action:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2024432/?ref_=sr_1

-jd

When they had the JSF contest between the X-32 (Boeing) and the X-35 (Lockheed Marting), they already saw the handwriting on the wall. A lot of people at those firms fought hard for the contract because they felt that this would be the last big run of manned warplanes, at least for the US (where the big money was). Boeing lost, and as consolation got some tanker contracts, knowing there wouldn't be many big expensive fighter planes for it down the road.

Mind you competition was decided way back in 2001, way before the Predator/Reaper entered our daily lexicon (and even some really bad movies). This has been coming for a while.

Of course there's always the 1983 gem Brainstorm starring creepy-as-always Christopher Walken as a researcher who develops a way to record a person's 'higher brain functions.' Naturally the tech is put to a whole variety of uses, both good and bad.

Plot Summary here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl

Of course there's always the 1983 gem Brainstorm starring creepy-as-always Christopher Walken as a researcher who develops a way to record a person's 'higher brain functions.' Naturally the tech is put to a whole variety of uses, both good and bad.

Plot Summary here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl

The Final Cut

the idea has been explored in depth

Yes, there are times in my life that I know are probably forever lost to me on account of the "fog of memory" (awesome term for it, by the way), and I have to admit that at times I really do wish I could remember some of those points in my youth far more vividly, but I'd be hesitant to hand responsibility of remembering my daily experiences to a computer, because that would mean I, myself, would not have as much need *TO* remember. And, as the saying goes, if you don't use it, you lose it; I am fairly certain that a user of such technology would find all too soon find that they wouldn't even be *able* to remember almost anything without, other than things which would ordinarily stand out in one's memory anyways.

I can't help but think of the ending of Stream of Consciousness.

Once terraformed Mars Needs Women

Opps meant here... Have you actually seen the first Episode??? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0562828/ [imdb.com]

Have you actually seen the first Episode??? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0562828/

I think you could be on to something. Just like the "Opti-Grab" handles in "The Jerk" movie (1979) where everyone ended up cross-eyed who used them because the eye was drawn to the little handle that held the glasses on the face. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367/synopsis

So this will be interesting to see what kind of ergonomic issues that will come up from using it.

According to the data in the paper, the increase in illness started about the same time that Gossip Girl premiered. Clearly that TV show made people sick.

My conclusion makes exactly as much scientific sense as theirs. In other words, their "science" is bullshit.

Have you any idea how many US cities and counties, let alone states, have Native American names already?

Don't forget Milwaukee, which is Algonquin for "the good land".

the definitive documentary on the subject

Food, Inc. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/

That would be awesome! It would be a whole new angle on the historic GIANT SPIDERS that roamed the Wild, Wild West!

I guess he must have seen Nanni Moretti's "Habemus Papam" ...

Islamic democracy functions like this: One man, one vote . . . once.

Once they get in power, the first order of the day is to kill off any opposition. There is never a real election again.

While this is a simplification, Revolutionary Sudan by Burr and Collins tells what went down in Sudan when the Islamists took power there through a coup and Persopolis gives a ground-level view of Iran, while the Islamists in Turkey have allowed elections after jailing their political opposition and eliminating opposition media.

I also have a feature film recently completed and to free download via TPB and stream via Youtube. It's a comedy/horror called The Amateur Monster Movie and is similar in style to Shaun of the Dead.

We have a second film in post production right now to be released in Spring 2013 and a third in preproduction looking for a 2014 release. Most likely they will be released for free as well. You can find more info on our website. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Nice, something else to watch tonight, thanks for the info. Sounds good! =)

I also have a feature film recently completed and to free download via TPB and stream via Youtube. It's a comedy/horror called The Amateur Monster Movie and is similar in style to Shaun of the Dead.

We have a second film in post production right now to be released in Spring 2013 and a third in preproduction looking for a 2014 release. Most likely they will be released for free as well. You can find more info on our website. Hope you guys enjoy it.