Slashback: Lamo, Trilogy, Searching

Slashback tonight brings updates on the recent Google hiccup, LookSmart and the FBI's note-snooping in the Adrian Lamo case, as well as (at long last!) a list of the theaters whose seats will soon be smooshed for far longer than usual under the weight of those dedicated enough to sit through 10 hours of Lord of the Rings. Read on below for the details.

Microsoft thinks LookSmart looks less smart. securitas writes "Internet search company LookSmart was dropped by Microsoft's MSN service today. MSN has decided not to extend its licensing contract with LookSmart beyond January 2004. The news is devastating for LookSmart since, 'Microsoft accounted for approximately 65 percent of listings revenues, and all of LookSmart's licensing revenue in the second quarter of 2003,' according to a company press release not listed on LookSmart's site. The move comes after LookSmart recently launched its own Overture-style pay-per-click service and indicates Microsoft is close to launching its new search engine technology designed to unseat Google for the search crown. All of this is against the backdrop of acquisitions by rival Yahoo. More coverage at SearchEngineWatch and a Reuters mirror at CNN Money."

They could have fixed this if they'd googled for an answer ... powerg3 writes "This follow-up, explains the Google wackiness posted yesterday. Here's the quote from the Google Weblog: '...when a spam result comes up in a search, Google not only blocks the spam, but every result after it. This means that for searches where spam results manage to rise to the top, very few -- sometimes zero -- results will be returned....It's pretty amazing that such a serious bug made it past Google's tests. It will be interesting to see how quickly it's fixed.'"

Pardon me, mum, can I borrow your hard drive? AndreL writes "The Guardian has an update about the BBC's digital archive plans. They're considering using P2P technology to avoid bandwidth bottlenecks. The bad news: because of technical, financial, and legal problems nothing will happen until 2006 at the earliest."

Please arrive in costume if at all. KTecumseh writes "The list of theaters showing the extended editions of LOTR as been revealed. You can check out the list at the official website, and before you look, pray that you live somewhere close by to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. For those that can not make the full 10-hour saga, they are also showing the first two extended additions on different dates, but who wants to miss out on an entire theater of sweaty LOTR fans."

Shamus Arrigan asks plaintively "There is no mention of these ticket sales in any other country. Does anyone know when and where these tickets will be sold at? (Canada especially)"

Wait, are you fellas press? Dangnabbit! ccnull writes "Good news from the inquest against hacker Adrian Lamo. According to a paragraph in a Washington Post column (buried about 3/4 of the way down the story), the FBI appears to be backing off from pursuing reporters' notes in the case. Relevant quote: 'A Justice Department official says the FBI agent "acted out of turn" by not seeking approval from the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and Attorney General John Ashcroft's press office. "The agent did not follow standard procedures," the official says. "We're just not going to pursue it. It is the policy of the Justice Department to exhaust all other means before seeking information from members of the media."'"

Eh, what's a few orders of magnitude? Grant hayes writes: "It seems the decimal point in the Mono story you ran is being a bit ambitious. We should be reading Mono 0.28, not Mono 2.8. Check the link below as well as links there to other Mono resources; I see 0.28 throughout." Here's the Mono site -- guilty as charged. Thanks for the correction.

Comments

Toliet breaks

[rf0]

You have to wonder if with the LOTR there will be breaks or will people just have to step out in the middle of films. Now if they were cut together as one large epic that would be cool.

Rus

Re:10 hours of LOTR?

[l810c]

I don't know how many of theaters have these, but the new theater opened up ~18 months ago near us. It has a VIP room with Fat Leather Recliners, separate sound system and private, close bathrooms. $200 for 16 seats. Definatley might be worth it for something like this.

We got it for LOTR TTT. Tried to get it 3 weeks before Matrix2 and it had been booked for months. We went ahead an booked LOTR ROTK back in June.

What's happened to the concept of Intermissions?

[TPFH]

400 lb weight of your average LOTR nerd
Avarage?
Average meaning mean I'm guessing.....
If 400lb is the mean, what does a relatively heavy LOTR Nerd weigh? (Especially considering that some are quite skinny.)

And 10 hours.... (and this is not a comment on the weight joke.) it's not just bathroom breaks but meal breaks that will come into play there. And no, eating junk food while watching the movie isn't a meal. Need good protein.

In the past when a movie was 3 hours long you had an intermission in the middle. It is nice to get up and walk around every hour or so. I remember being suprised when Malcolm X didn't have an intermission. When they re-released Laurance of Arabia there was an intermission. I have not seen it yet but I heard that Shoah had more than one intermission.

So what happened?
Did we go through the 80s without any (mainstream) 3 hour movies and after so long a time movie studios forgot the concept?

Re:Not just with Lamo

[Hard_Code]

Pretend I'm naive here and explain to me how it's an abuse of power. Is this just public info, or are they invading some sorts of "press" protection of sources rights? Does this apply in all cases?

what about the ROTK Extended Edition?

[r5t8i6y3]

sounds a bit annoying to me. sitting through the FOTR Extended Edition then the TTT Extended Edition and then the finale - the ROTK squeeze me into a tolerable amount of time for most people Edition. talk about a let down. after i see the ROTK the first thing i'll be speculating about will be what scenes were missing that will be on the ROTK Extended Edition DVD.

Re:Never understood why the "extra" footage...

[Zillatron]

The shorter the movie is, the more times the theater can show it. The more times the theater shows the movie, the more tickets they can sell. The more tickets they sell, the more money the studio makes. Movie studios tend to do things that they think will make them money.

Too true. This is why Quentin Tarantino's new movie Kill Bill got chopped in half.