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I just cancelled my cable. The cable company's subscription model meant I was spending $$$ every month for half a dozen programs, spread across three different tiers of channels. Since I can get everything I want over the air, streamed or on iTunes, I pulled the plug. I supplement this with (mainly overseas) DVDs. Anna Pihl can arrest me any time she wants. :-)

Unlike others around here, I actually like Pan Am. It passes an important test, though without ads, the run time is a paltry 40 minutes. That's an awful lot of ads in an hour. Ouch!

...laura

I wouldn't sully that name by calling anything out of Hollywood by it. They barely manage 'fiction', never mind 'science'.

Last night I saw a wonderful counterexample, an adaptation of Heinlein's Destination Moon (1950). Of course actually having Heinlein involved in the writing and acting as a technical director probably helped.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042393/

If I had not caught that 1950s classic last night I probably would have offered 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Of course it had Arthur C. Clarke's involvement.

Perhaps the secret is to have "real" science fiction authors involved in a meaningful sense. I'm not suggesting that they can necessarily write screenplays, that is a different art than novels, but there can be serious collaboration. In such an environment CGI can be a great tool.

I agree with your point, but the 1982 movie (assuming that's the one you are referring to) probably shouldn't be called "the original".

C is probably the sequel to 1, a movie with an equally genius name that helped its popularity a lot because it's so easy to search for.
( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408060/ )

I hope that's a +5 insightful for political satire.

The FED most definitely scored political points. Wall street is a huge political donor machine, a lot of favors were called in to let the banks play with free money. Setting aside the fact that the FED is a private bank controlled by the mega banks, created in secret by wall street and the big banks, the FED is not worthy of being cheered for their actions. If they had saved the economy from implosion then perhaps - ignoring everything else the FED is. Instead the decades of screwing over everyone in the name of making money has continued.

• The too big to fail are even bigger
• The FED will loan money to big banks at 0% Interest. The banks take this money and buy treasury bonds which pay interest. The government is paying banks to loan them its own money
• The credit default swaps were a ponzi scheme. Buying insurance against stock recommendations were a ponzi scheme. Years later and where are the charges for malfeasance? Oh right, banks get away with everything and never get in trouble.
• The FED handed out money to everyone and their brother if they have connections. Or Wives of bankers with a guarantee to make money, and keep all profits.
• The FED allowed a huge financial crisis to allow a significant transfer of wealth into the banks pockets. Never let a crisis stop you from profiting!

Those actions are the the reason people are complaining about the 1%. It's not about the smart business person, lucky inventor who made it big, or dotcom startup - but the bankers who profited from their connections, and continue to do so, at the expense of everyone else. All allowed by the continued failed policies of the FED.

Too Big to Fail was an interesting look at the collapse. A modern day horror story. Here's a fun quote :

Michele Davis: They almost bring down the US economy as we know but we can't put restrictions on how they spend the $125 billion we're giving them because... they might not take it!

[the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Affairs upon hearing that the 9 bank CEOs may refuse to take free money from the federal government if they had to be held accountable for how they spent it]

There are those in high places that are very happy to see America being handed up to the world on any platter. The problem that is not so obvious is that they carry US Credentials and are being paid massive amounts of old money to further their agendas. This is no secret. Anything to make us look stupid or corrupt is a bonus for them.

We need those sunglasses from the movie, "They Live" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/

~then we'd have something!

I got my first capture card around 2000

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I had a TV tuner card for my PC in 2001... But I was living in India and getting cable TV was such a pain. After two months of it the cable broke or the something went wrong with the signal. The cable guy refused to fix it until I paid the bill and I refused to pay the bill until it was fixed, so at an impasse there I gave up with my new, novel experience of having a television (and gave up watching Tu Tu, Main Main to try and learn some Hindi from a funny sitcom without complicated dialogue...)

Imagine just getting on a plane while carrying this superflu in say London? How far would you have it spread before you were no longer able to continue?

I'm reminded of TwelveMonkeys

Don't you love it when a bill has bi partisan support. How else would we get fantastic bills like this one, the patriot act, and SOPA?

When is everyone gonna wake up to the fact that there are no parties anymore. Elephant or Donkey is irrelevant. The only thing that influences our government representatives, Republican or Democrat, is who happens to be paying them the best on a given issue.

I keep thinking of a scene from the movie Moon Over Parador. 2 guys are discussing who they're going to vote for where the choices are blue or red. One says, "Vote for whoever you want. It's a free dictatorship." The government of the United States no longer represents the people. It represents the corporate interests that pay them the best. The constitution has been trampled so bad it's pretty much immaterial at this point. The fact that a blatant censorship bill like SOPA/PROTECT IP can even be considered is proof of that.

I agree about mentioning the good stuff on TV these days. Unfortunately it makes up about 1% of all the content currently being pushed out at us. I prefer to buy shows like this on DVD or download them, then at least I get the full show, and I am spared the endless advertising breaks. IMHO its the onslaught of advertising that is driving people from TV.

* Sons of Anarchy - the trials and tribulations of the members of a motorcycle gang in California. Its kind of soap opera-ish, but its got some great characters and a great storyline. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1124373/
* Fringe - the best compilation of bizarre psedoscience I have seen, with a very convoluted plot that spans across all of the seasons. About the only thing I haven't seen them mention so far (as of season 3) is the Voynich Manuscript, but I imagine that's coming up at some point. John Noble (Denethor in Lord of the Rings) as Walter Bishop is hilarious. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/

I agree about mentioning the good stuff on TV these days. Unfortunately it makes up about 1% of all the content currently being pushed out at us. I prefer to buy shows like this on DVD or download them, then at least I get the full show, and I am spared the endless advertising breaks. IMHO its the onslaught of advertising that is driving people from TV.

* Sons of Anarchy - the trials and tribulations of the members of a motorcycle gang in California. Its kind of soap opera-ish, but its got some great characters and a great storyline. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1124373/
* Fringe - the best compilation of bizarre psedoscience I have seen, with a very convoluted plot that spans across all of the seasons. About the only thing I haven't seen them mention so far (as of season 3) is the Voynich Manuscript, but I imagine that's coming up at some point. John Noble (Denethor in Lord of the Rings) as Walter Bishop is hilarious. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/

And the must-not-miss: Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter

Dammit, I forgot to mention the end of http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/

"Burzynski The Movie: Cancer Is Serious Business" puts quite a different spin on things. From the IMDB plot summary: Ph.D biochemist, Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, won one of the largest legal battles against the Food & Drug Administration in U.S. history. Dr. Burzynski and his patients endured a treacherous 14-year journey in order to obtain FDA-approved clinical trials for a new cancer-fighting drug. His groundbreaking medical and legal battles have brought revolutionary cancer treatment to the public. Upon completion, his treatment will be available the world over - sending a shock wave through the cancer industry

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060666/

"If people were giving Manos 10s just so that some rival could snatch the #1 worst movie title then that is truly sad. Manos is morally the true winner here in that respect."

So apparently it makes a lot of people feel ill but not quite in the same way.

Of course, I am just a layman and certainly not a climatologist, so my initial, and admittedly superficial interpretation could be way off.

Oh, come on, didn't you see The Day After Tomorrow? Hollywood overdramatization at its most extreme, to the point of making a joke out of the subject. Still, there are lots of "white planet" simulation results that get to white quickly (how quickly depends on the models used) and either never recover, or recover very slowly.

No realistic climate models have the Earth long-term stable like Daisyworld

Is this your favorite movie?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430334/

i

based on real events...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1131729/

A Red Dawn game could be pretty cool. Hey, look, we have an opportunity for one coming up next year!
There was a Fortress America board game, but that's about all I could come up with.

You mean like in this documentary from 1988?

Fool, they are also in France!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081027/
(Oh, such a horrible, horrible movie)

I must have missed the article about the government forcing/nudging/encouraging people to do triple-X, and refusing to give money to people who don't. Interesting.

I'll just forward you to the documentary about it, then: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295701/

Wasn't that a Twilight Zone?

What? And let it fall in the hands of the zombie Nazis?

We all know that zombie Nazis only exist in Norway

Maybe the hardcore pirates. That's not what companies care about, they care about the general public.

Then the general public will just go to the hardcore pirates to get their shit for them, and sneakernet will return as the dominant form of file sharing once again.

Back in the early Napster days, I made a pretty good amount of spending money just downloading music for people and making mix discs for them. When nobody knew how to download music or burn CD's I was able to get $5-10 a piece for them, and with our cable connection (most everyone else was still on dial-up) I was downloading hundreds of songs at a time, they would be finishing faster than I could add new songs to the list. And it wasn't limited to us pesky kids, either; parents and teachers were actually my biggest customers.

It was seriously like the movie Blow, I was pretty much the go-to guy for anyone that didn't want to spend $20 buying a CD at Tower Records. Until the war on Napster started ramping up and people started having to name songs all sorts of weird shit to get around the filters they put on towards the end due to Metallica's lawsuit, I was cleaning up. Once it started becoming more of a pain in the ass to find the right files without digging (greatly increasing the time it took to assemble a mix disc) I stopped doing it, plus I was getting ready to graduate so I just didn't have time for it anymore.

Still, it was pretty lucrative for a while there, and the harder they make it for laypeople to download, the more lucrative they make it for us again. Hell, I'll make even more money, due to not needing to buy spindles of CD's anymore.

age of copyrights is over
That is wishful thinking. This *is* the age of copyright, and it is about to get 100x worse. Thanks to our bought and paid for politicos.

This movie was supposed to be a comedy not a documentary...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104114/

actually it was called speed

Feces

or surgically implanted behavioural modification devices, a la "Intestinator".

I am such a geek.

Source: HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

Sort of...

"let's use this dry picric acid/expired ethers to blow something up" "good idea, i'll get the Hilux and we'll load it in the back before driving down this bumpy road"

Have you seen Four Lions?

Malcolm in the Meth Lab

Been done already.

I see nothing in the quote 'regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration' that indicates only bottled water can do that.

As a matter of fact, it boggles my mind that this statement needed any kind of "Food Standards Authority" approval in the first place.

My new favorite Ideocracy quote:
"Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration."

So a person says "I can't recall my password," and there's not a lot that can be done.

I've always liked this exchange from the 1998 film Ronin :

Sam: Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.

Vincent: Who taught you?

Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.

But what damn fool race would be idiotic enough to actually attempt to construct an entity from a DNA sequence received via radio signals from space?

Cool. Everyone's aged 10 years so we can have a 29 year old Jewel Staite trying to pass herself off as Kailey. Imagine similar scenarios for all actors involved. Surely nobody will notice the 10 year seam.

Hell, if they can make Johnny Depp look like a chameleon, then ILM can make Jewel State look 20 years old again.

(Goes back to dreaming).

or about the mass of a human soul.

Sorry they are currently stuck in a time loop from computer chips that turn back time when they are destroyed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101500/

Big Lunar Arachnids?
Or something else?

Big Lunar Arachnids?
Or something else?

Perhaps Assimo will finally be put to work.

Or perhaps the movie "Moon" was quite prophetic.

look like John Carroll Lynch? A relation, perhaps?

Good points but I think you got whooshed XD

No, he just didn't quote the appropriate source:

[discussing the Doomsday machine]
President Merkin Muffley: How is it possible for this thing to be triggered automatically and at the same time impossible to untrigger?
Dr. Strangelove: Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the FEAR to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling, the Doomsday machine is terrifying and simple to understand... and completely credible and convincing.

One of the more interesting movies that showed this was The Peacemaker where Nicole Kidman renders a nuclear bomb ineffective by sabotaging one the charges before it went off. Where the movie wasn't as accurate is that the nuclear bomb then became a dirty bomb and this wasn't brought up during the movie as a consequence. She and George Clooney just walked away from the scene as if nothing had really happened to them.

No, think more along the idea of Rango - an animated film that used human actors as guides for the animators in terms of facial expressions and posing. Took quite a while to do.

Hopefully this will bring some creativity to the genre as opposed to simply cranking out more Shrek reruns.

Howard Wolowitz tried that same repetitive motion with a robot hand in The Big Bang Theory ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1632224/ ). That robot sort of got stuck when it froze. He's lucky it didn't go all the way over his head.

Applauding Jobs as a visionary for an idea that failed on technical and financial merit is kinda stupid.

Recommended viewing: The Aviator

Applauding Jobs for anything is just nauseating. He hit a niche in the market and made it work for him, he stuck with a philosophy that happened to resonate with a big pile of discretionary income in the U.S. That's it. Bauhaus did it first and did it a lot more daringly than Apple did. I don't begrudge him his success, but I don't put his genius up there with Einstein, Feynmann, or da Vinci. I'd more name his vision of Apple the Porsche or Gucci of tech.