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Also check out the Nova special, The KGB, the Computer, and Me , which appears to be on Youtube for the moment. It stars our friend Mr. Stoll.

I remember being particularly enthralled that video when I was around 10 or 11. I went on to find and read the book, learned a lot, and enjoyed the hell out of it.

What if the fictional character is Matilda?

The point of a Chihuahua is that is just the right size to boil in a pot and make a single family meal without having to take the time and effort to butcher it and preserve the left over meat.

Would have made a much better Beverly Hills Chihuahua if you ask me...

Yeah right, oil shale and tar sands... just the thing we need in our collective backyard. If we're lucky that would only be as bad as hydraulic fracturing for gas. The actual oil listed in the Kiplinger piece (OCS, Bakken, ANWR) totals about 200 billion barrels... enough to supply the USA's needs for about 30 months. Yay!

And if we do go for the shale/sand play, we'll get a paltry 3-to-1 return on energy inputs. Seriously, there are better ways to solve our petro-fuel problems.

As for the original topic (nukes), we need to get beyond the 1950's technology. If we're going to use them, at least we should use the safest designs possible.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138510/ Makes me think this is not such a good idea. Especially with Sony doing it...

Recall the movie Shooter http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0822854/ ?
No more messy machines needed to set up a "suicide".

So what about the male versions?

OK, sorry, I get it. You poor dude. She got sole custody, didn't she? Can I have the talking stick now? Is it time for the sweat lodge yet? How's that "Ladie's Night" lawsuit going?

Brotherhood is powerful, dude. You're in a safe place here. We understand.

Bitches, man.

Got the quote wrong. But you can read it here.

Dave Moss: What's your name?
Blake: Fuck you, that's my name.

The above quote is quite famous. If you were referring something else then that other quote was likely inspired by this one.

I can't be 100% sure what's in my milk for fucks sake.

While you may not know what each ingredient is, you still know that it is in the milk and can look it up.

The Prestige

cool movie, bro.

You, Sir, never saw the shower scene in Half Baked

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082926/

With "smell-o-vision" you would avoid the need for the scrath-and-sniff Odorama card.

He's been saying this for years. 2029 = computers reach human intelligence, 2040 = Singularity, where we either merge with them, or we get left behind. It's all in the 2009 documentary Transcendent Man. So... why is this news?

Real Genius http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/

I think you're thinking of The Informant.

The movie Master and Commander had a somewhat similar scenario where the ship doctor performed a surgery on himself. I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of research into maritime history turned up a few cases of self performed surgeries.

Mij

Sounds like you, too, are ready to move on to Indy Cinema - those films where you have good cast, good direction and a story which could end in any way possible. Much more impressive than anything at the corporate cinemas these days, where you see the trailer, you see the film.

Or, you end up watching something like Enter The Void, and wishing you could have the last 161 minutes of your life back.

It may have been a good film, but it was well over 2 hours of film what was a cross between Midnight Express, Trainspotting, and something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel ... all while having had a generous dose of peyote. The 5 minute cut scenes of nothing but sound and light, for instance, left me wanting to stop the DVD.

Sometimes Indy films are art-house and fringy to the point that everyone else finds themselves wondering WTF they've been watching -- while die-hard cinema geeks talk about imagery and subtext the rest of us never saw, and sneering how the uneducated masses can't appreciate a film like that.

I'm the first to admit my film tastes run to the mindless action film -- because I hate watching a movie that at the end I don't know anything more about than before I watched it. Give me car chases, giant robots, spaceships, and girls in tight spandex. I'm sure the fault lies in me, but I've decided I'm OK with that.

Unfortunately, the list of "critically acclaimed" indy films that I've watched and simply didn't "get" has pretty much soured me on them. It's like post-modernism -- if you're not deeply involved in it, it just sounds like gibberish.

If you go watch a movie, what you see is what it is, literally. Not a bit more, not a bit less.

I'm not sure that's exactly true. A lot of better movies have quite a bit of stuff going on in them. Sometimes you have to watch them quite a few times to get all the nuances of the film. A good director will leave quite a bit to the imagination of the person watching the film. Sure you don't have to imagine what the people look like, or what the people sound like, or what places look like. That doesn't mean that everything is exactly is as presented in the film. How is reading Romeo and Juliet any different from watching the play, any different from watching a filming of the play any different from watching a complete movie adaptation.

Dunno about there, but adopting babies almost impossible in US. There simply is not enough to fulfill the need.

I have some relatives that tried to "save the world" as they put it, and adopt kids (not babies). These are very intelligent parents, one has masters in nursing, the second a masters in mathematics and education. The kids were not emotionally stable when they got them at ages from about 8-10 years old. 30 years later one killed himself after losing total visitation rights to his kids, a second has also lost total visitation rights and pretty much hangs with teenagers doing drugs, a third has never been able to keep stable relationships and therefore has never had a family. As a control, their own biological kids turned out great. They also say with hindsight they would not do it again.

Aye, correct. In the US, there would be many Americans who would gladly adopt from within the US if they could adopt a BABY. The problem is that couples seeking to adopt are hard pressed to find BABIES to adopt, the demand far exceeds the supply, as you have stated. This is largely due to the fact that the vast majority of children in the US foster care system were no longer babies by the time they entered the foster care system. As you pointed out, those big hearted couples who do adopt these older children often end up with a lot of extra emotional and legal baggage that comes with the children, especially if the adoption is not a CLOSED adoption... all in addition to the other risks that come with adopting any child (disabilities, mental illness, birth defects, etc.). This is why you find couples going outside the foster care system to adopt within the US, like in the movie Juno.

I am a product of a foreign adoption by American parents back in the 80s. I was only an infant when I was adopted from Korea. My adoptive parents, the only parents I have ever known and care to ever know, largely decided to adopt from Korea because of the ease of adopting a BABY from there. Back then, there were a lot of stigmas and prejudices (and probably still are to a lesser degree) because of a historical emphasis on blood lineage in Korean society, making it difficult to find even Koreans willing to adopt other Korean babies.

I am grateful every day of my life for the opportunities I have been afforded because my birth mother had the strength to put me up for adoption. Sometimes I ponder what my life would have been like had my birth mother kept me... I for sure know that I would not have the education, financial stability, career, etc. etc. that I have today.

I wonder if they are using algorithms derived from bees.

Gosh I hope not! There's a documentary with Michael Caine that shows this would be a bad idea.

Chuck Norris

Companies that did a 360 on their products and did OK:
Motorola

Are you trying to quote Tony Vivaldi? http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0010514/

I think you mean that they did a 180. Doing a 360 would put you back in the same direction as if you stood still.

Yay, Nazis again. Computers are what got them to the moon! I saw it in a movie, it must be true! (btw: The movie looks like loads of fun)

It's not a troll -- it's just old news.

The WTO did a presentation on this very subject several years ago.

Mmmmmm... you do know that that video is part of this documentary, no?

Well, read the synopsis or the storyline (emphasis mine):

Storyline
A comedic documentary which follows The Yes Men, a small group of prankster activists, as they gain world-wide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization on television and at business conferences around the world. [...]

YHBT. HAND!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096438/

You did note that it is an education program for teachers, designed to give them material to teach to public school (primary / elementary and secondary school) level students, that is under 18.

And because it is important to stress this point, this material is intended to be taught by teachers, not programmers, to any student. The goal of such a program should be basically to look behind the curtain of prepackaged applications and understand the basics, in general terms, of how computer systems (hardware and software) work. Whether they become programmers (or do other IT job) is irrelevant, the first goal of education is knowledge. It is also an opportunity for students to try to experiment, and to be creative, where students with strong mathematics, logic and analytic skills may find easier to express themselves creatively rather than in essay writing assignments in English (or other language) classes where linguistic and writing skills are more ambiguous and subjective when it comes to evaluation.

Motivational agents for children include: social contact (& status), monetary, and entertainment. Most kids don't have much real-work that needs to be done / automated. Of course there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions.

Similar Donald Knuth stopped issuing his reward checks for finding errors in his books because people were so proud of receiving them that they posted pictures of the checks online. The information visible on the front of the check in some of the pictures was enough to enable someone to steal money from his bank account. The moral of the story? The entire banking system is mostly insecure.

I'm not sure that much has improved since the events depicted in the movie Catch Me If You Can happened. It seems like the banks don't bother fixing anything until after it has been used to steal a significant amount of money.

"Someone didn't bother reading my carefully prepared memo on commonly-used passwords. Now, then, as I so meticulously pointed out, the four most-used passwords are: love, sex, secret, and...god. So, would your holiness care to change her password?" -Fisher Stevens; Hackers (1995)

Somehow I think the real lazy asses are the union members. Oh and for your research, Penn and Teller did it for me on Bullshit! episode 51.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0998877/

Watch it, and make up your own mind.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1715802/

How to Die in Oregon.

Very Very depressing (but good) movie. Don't expect to come out of it in a good mood.

From its opening scene, where a terminally ill cancer patient takes a lethal dose of Seconal and literally dies on camera, it becomes shockingly clear that How to Die in Oregon is a special film. In 1994, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. As a result, any individual whom two physicians diagnose as having less than six months to live can lawfully request a fatal dose of barbiturate to end his or her life. Since 1994, more than 500 Oregonians have taken their mortality into their own hands.

In How to Die in Oregon, filmmaker Peter Richardson (Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon screened at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival) gently enters the lives of the terminally ill as they consider whether—and when—to end their lives by lethal overdose. Richardson examines both sides of this complex, emotionally charged issue. What emerges is a life-affirming, staggeringly powerful portrait of what it means to die with dignity.

Rather sounds like a job for Neil Gaiman =P

Also, it kinda makes me think of the movie "pirates of silicon valley"

To put it in perspective, this applies to society and why people freak out, especially about nuclear power.

The Joker:..... Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
[Joker hands Two-Face a gun and points it at himself]
The Joker: Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/quotes?qt0499831

"The new rules make clear, for example, that if the person with such a role is a victim or a witness rather than a target of an investigation, extra supervision is not necessary."
Ah, wow. Another example of potential bad guys getting more rights than victims/witnesses. Making something up here- "Oh, he was a victim of wire fraud. Let's go investigate HIM!" The whole article is scary (and I probably just make some list by saying that). We know that are rights have been eroding due to things like the Patriot Act, but now they going to just release agents to roam wild with NO supervision. Every group has a few bad apples; what are the odds that at least some in the 14,000 agents are going to abuse these new rules? Ever see "Unlawful Entry?" IMDB- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105699/

That's strange, the guys from the Union Park basketball court

So the majority of them are black guys with huge penises? Shit, man, how can a lil' ol' white guy compete with that?

Back on-topic - Monkey Shines is a very relevant B-horror film with a great quadriplegic sex scene. See it now courtesy of Netflix' shitty new UI.

Or how about a jam with the disabled physicist Stephen Hawking.

Well, in my view, gaming's run into the same problem that faces people in general in other fields. Take movies, for an example: the latest X-Men movie was released recently. It's remarkable in that it wasn't a complete pile of shit like some of the other stuff that comes out. What do I mean by this? Well, one reviewer there mentions that it's a movie that doesn't condescend to the viewer; each character is presented as following their own motivations with less blatant kick-the-doggery than other general-audience flicks. The recent Star Trek reboot was a bit along these lines too.

And yet, neither is the audience particularly challenged by the film. Technical elements are filled with pseudoscience and only there as an aside to the main plot, which while ultimately formulaic (as anything must, by definition be once it's done), come back around to affirm things that the audience can relate to: normative interpersonal themes, traditional power structures, comedic relief, and so forth. So it is with games, too: they've found the way to do it. Always some new title following principles guaranteed to bring an audience, letting them come in and round the Skinner wheel a few times before running after the next shiny.

So, we'll get Call of Duty 15, and the big question in people's minds will be the controversy in some scripted scene where the player shoots American citizens. And of course the critical element lurking here is the social one: does it really matter, should it really matter (to myself, for instance) that this will be so? I don't have to play it, afterall, and it would probably serve me better to leave the topic well enough alone. I had some kind of "games ought not to be..." point, but I'm finding it a little distasteful myself.

Instead, here's a different one. Games, at their best (to me) can be the change they create, as a reflection, in the player. This is the whole e-sports subject again, but specifically, actually doing and discovering things in these games that relate to other fields of human knowledge; refining yourself. Finding unintuitive things that will help you competitively in that game, and learning a bit about procedural parts of the human system: reaction time, intuition, clumping together individual actions to create dominant sequences, inferring strategy from the game as it really is and so forth.

Here's an example of a game that's still played, by players who have played for over 10 years. And they play the same maps again and again, by and large.

Well, in my view, gaming's run into the same problem that faces people in general in other fields. Take movies, for an example: the latest X-Men movie was released recently. It's remarkable in that it wasn't a complete pile of shit like some of the other stuff that comes out. What do I mean by this? Well, one reviewer there mentions that it's a movie that doesn't condescend to the viewer; each character is presented as following their own motivations with less blatant kick-the-doggery than other general-audience flicks. The recent Star Trek reboot was a bit along these lines too.

And yet, neither is the audience particularly challenged by the film. Technical elements are filled with pseudoscience and only there as an aside to the main plot, which while ultimately formulaic (as anything must, by definition be once it's done), come back around to affirm things that the audience can relate to: normative interpersonal themes, traditional power structures, comedic relief, and so forth. So it is with games, too: they've found the way to do it. Always some new title following principles guaranteed to bring an audience, letting them come in and round the Skinner wheel a few times before running after the next shiny.

So, we'll get Call of Duty 15, and the big question in people's minds will be the controversy in some scripted scene where the player shoots American citizens. And of course the critical element lurking here is the social one: does it really matter, should it really matter (to myself, for instance) that this will be so? I don't have to play it, afterall, and it would probably serve me better to leave the topic well enough alone. I had some kind of "games ought not to be..." point, but I'm finding it a little distasteful myself.

Instead, here's a different one. Games, at their best (to me) can be the change they create, as a reflection, in the player. This is the whole e-sports subject again, but specifically, actually doing and discovering things in these games that relate to other fields of human knowledge; refining yourself. Finding unintuitive things that will help you competitively in that game, and learning a bit about procedural parts of the human system: reaction time, intuition, clumping together individual actions to create dominant sequences, inferring strategy from the game as it really is and so forth.

Here's an example of a game that's still played, by players who have played for over 10 years. And they play the same maps again and again, by and large.

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos.

- Joker, The Dark Knight
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/quotes?qt0499831

The same applies to energy production. People die from oil wars, oil accidents, coal pollution, smog, etc. etc. but that is "normal". Nuclear pollution from Fukushima is not suppose to happen. Even if no one dies. Even if no one is in current significant danger.

How many dead in Iraq oil war? 100,000+? How many dead from the Japanese tsunami? 25,000+? How many dead in because of the tsunami causing flooding and meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi? 0. How many dead because of Chernobyl? Less than 100. Yet, what are people worried about...

PS. Ignore the number strewn around by Greenpeace by Chernobyl. They take entire population of the world, apply a wrong model to it (LNT) and then they calculate that 300,000 people *must have* died. By that model, in the US 95+% of all cancers is caused by the CT scanners. UNSCEAR actually did the real research and found out the reality - small variations in radiation do nothing.

Although those exposed as children and the emergency and recovery workers are at increased risk of radiation-induced effects, the vast majority of the population need not live in fear of serious health consequences due to the radiation from the Chernobyl accident. For the most part, they were exposed to radiation levels comparable to or a few times higher than annual levels of natural background, and future exposures continue to slowly diminish as the radionuclides decay. Lives have been seriously disrupted by the Chernobyl accident, but from the radiological point of view, generally positive prospects for the future health of most individuals should prevail.

http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html

Not only did it make money, but it made enough to convince a studio to green-light a sequel.

Went to a party recently, my director on Dance of the Dead remarked that both his features now were available on FilesTube!

When you actually know and work with the people who are supposed to get paid for this stuff, and your paycheck comes from that money too, it sorta rubs you a different way.

... detailed files on human anatomy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes

... detailed files on human anatomy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes

Good movie, back in the pre-Guvernator-days.

Surely you meant the actual movie, Bad Taste. Peter Jackson's first film!

Well, this flimsy plastic movie made by a bunch of fat dudes in Kentucky or wherever may still pack a punch. Never underestimate bad taste.

I will see it!

If you want to see a great nerdy movie about australian space telescopes (Specifically, Parkes), make sure you see "The Dish". One of the great australian movies, IMHO. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0205873/

It's a true storey about the "Fun" that was had when a small group of Aussies and the Parkes telescope became pivotal in the apollo 11 moon mission.

Of course .. Because every office needs a Tom Smykowski

this will eat them then us : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/

multi-celled creatures living a mile and more below the planet’s surface,

There goes that certainty of apocalypse. We just don't do knowing very well.