Then of course there's version 2, which preemptively attacks any remote hosts that could conceivably pose a threat. Inspired by official US Foreign Policy. Ba-dum-ching.;)
Am I the only one sick of every single year listening to cynics like you announce how worthless the Oscars are because THEIR personal favourites don't win?
"Why does LOTR deserve best picture over Master and Commander, Lost in Translation, or dare I say (even though it wasn't nominated) The Last Samurai? Because it had a bigger budget and was hyped more?"
Jackson and co. deserves their accolades. The entire trilogy is one of the most breathtaking and painstakingly crafted achievements in cinematic history, and deserves some recognition for the monumental scope, art, dedication, blood sweat and tears and LOVE that went into making these films. Quite frankly it infuriates me to listen to people like you suggest it's only because of the budget or hype that these movies won. Thousands of incredibly talented people from all over the world came together and poured their heart and souls into this thing for FIVE YEARS, the end result is awesome (4 years ago everyone said LotR COULD NOT be adapted to the screen, period), and it deserves some respect.
There, I answered your question. Now why don't you answer it yourself? (Instead of just saying "X was better") What exactly does Master & Commander, Lost in Translation, and Last Samurai have that proves superior "artistic merit"?
Mega-hyped massive-budget blockbusters do NOT win every year. Is that what you would call "A Beautiful Mind"? Or how about "American Beauty"? What about "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Rainman"?
In my opinion, Gladiator WAS a better movie than Chocolat. It wasn't better than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but that was a foreign language film, and it won in its appropriate category.
I also read a rumour that Disney wants Jim Carrey for Zaphod. I like Carrey, but don't think he'd be right for the role... he's certainly zany enough, but also a bit too wholesome. Zaphod is a devious, underhanded, slick-ass son of a bitch.:)
Well apparently Keaton was the late Mr. Adams' first choice. And really, he's going to have a second head, so they could probbaly make him look any age they want.;)
"And so you talk about popularity but then deny a sample the size of the IMDB? Where about 80,000 people have voted for each of the top 250 movies? The statistical error of such a ranking not reflecting common opinion is probably pretty low."
You are wrong. To be truly representative, the sample must be selected randomly from a broad cross-section. First rule of polling. Doesn't matter if there's 80 or 80,000 or 8 million, IMDB votes are no more representative of overall opinion than are Slashdot polls. They're probably a good sampling of tech-saavy movie lovers, and that's it.
Saying LotR is better than Star Wars is a simple reflection of the popular opinion I have encountered, not an unquestionable declaration of Absolute Truth(tm). But then that's the crux of our little debate, isn't it? I take popular opinion as a decent metric and you seem to rally against it.
You're absolutely right (oh wait. no absolutes. you're probably right) that most people haven't seen most films. Do you expect that to ever change? Do you expect everyone to see every movie of a year in order to express an opinion?
Of course not. There's idealism and then there's reality. So we have to rely on popularity (read: demand) to spread the "best" movies around. Is it perfect? Good lord, of course not. Some films will be overhyped, others will be criminally underappreciated (like your City of God). But what else do we have? Seriously? It's up to the filmmakers to get their film noticed. Everyone can't watch everything. So we're left with popular films as the real contenders. Just the way it is.
But then we get people who resent this system because it doesn't reward THEIR favourites, and so they start to rail against popularity itself, like it's to blame or something.
"The same for Gandalf. He is a Maiar spirit, but in the movie he is just a kindly old man who might be a bit impotent in the ways of magic."
I think he is depicted as far more powerful than that in The Two Towers.. not only from his fight with the Balrog, but his reappearance later. I think "Three hundred lives of men have I walked this earth and now, I have no time." nicely establishes him as an immortal.
Woulda been cool though to have him call the Balrog and Sauron his 'kin' or something.. since they're all Maiar.
Chronologically speaking, Shelob belongs in RotK. In the book, Frodo and Sam look back while ascending the stair, and see Minas Tirith beseiged.
This follows Jackson's pattern of showing us things as they happen, for example Gandalf's confrontation with Saruman, which is told entirely in flashback in the book.
I for one applaud this approach.. the movie has enough threads without screwing around with time.
LOL, I just read in the paper at lunch that Murray has been going around trying to convince people not to nominate or vote for him, since he says he's just "playing himself" in LiT.:)
"No where did I say that popularity wasn't a good metric. Just that to use it as the only one is foolish."
OK, so what other metrics should we be using? Professional reviewers? Sure, why not. RottenTomatoes has City of God with a 92% approval, RotK with 96%.
"Now, by your logic, we should just be able to search down the list to find the top movie of 2003. According to the list it would be #4 RotK."
No, that'd be the top movie of 2003 as currently identified by IMDB users. Which it is.
"Now although 'best' is subjective, over a given period of time, there seems to be an exponential averaging effect that forces a piece of art's excepted quality to a pretty static point. Hindsight's 20/20. In time all things become clear."
I see. Things must age before they can be subjected to a valid comparison with the "all-timers". Sure, I'll go with that, but how does this pertain to picking a top movie for 2003? They're all new. Maybe your appreciation of City of God will wear off in a few years too.
"And I think the best example is on that Top 250 list at #2, Shawshank Redemption. This movie spurted at the boxoffice (barely making back its small 25 million budget), even though it was loved by critics."
Once again, you are mixing popularity with initial market success. I cannot count the number of people I know who list Shawshank as one of their favourite movies. It engenders a nearly universal positive reception. So does Lord of the Rings.
"In 1994, it wouldn't have even cracked the top 250."
That is a completely unfounded assertion. It very well may have, had IMDB's voting system existed back then. It doesn't take massive quantities of votes to give a film a high rating, which seems to be what you're implying here.
"I assume we agree that "Best Picture of 2003" means the Best, barnone. Not the one people liked most on the date December 31st, 2003."
What do you propose? Should we hold Oscars for 2003 films, in 2013?
Your point about Titanic is an anecdotal exception, not a convincing argument. (Do you really think RotK will vanish from the top 250 in the next few years? I sure don't. They're easily better than the original Star Wars trilogy, and those are all still up there.) Titanic became a victim of its own commercial success, much like an overplayed radio song. It suffered massive backlash, because it couldn't live up to its own hype. LotR has, IMHO.
But "best" means different things to different people.
Maybe you loved "City of God", but Joe Somebody would hate it. "Best" (or "good") is about as subjective a term as they come. I just read some reviews of it, most say it's a very shocking and disturbing film. I'm sure it's very effective. Does that make it "best?" Maybe to some.
So in light of that, why exactly do you denounce popularity as a good measure of a film's value? And I'm not talking about sales figures here. Pearl Harbour made tons, but most people didn't like it. Ditto your Windows example.. it's ubiquitous, but people hate it.
Popularity is simply an averaging of what people consider "good".
Something that is nearly universally loved is a great thing.
"But in all of them, [...] Babylon 5, [...] writers weem to find the need to create these all-encompasing good-vs-evil plots that, to me anyway, are boring."
Have you seen enough of B5 to understand what the Shadow War is really about? (I don't want to ruin it, but I will say it really has nothing to do with good versus evil, that's just how one side WANTS it to be seen..)
In addition, the secondary saga arc is concerned with a corrupt Earth government sliding into fascism, repressing freedom and information, persecuting critics without due process for "sedition", in order to protect the citezenry from "alien plots". The parallels to post 9/11 America can be quite stunning (and scary) at times.
If you like that Riker episode, do yourself a favour, go borrow/rent someone's copy of B5 Season 4 (came out two weeks ago) and watch "Intersections in Real Time".
Why exactly is a comparison between Hitler and Bush stupid or ignorant?
You seem to be saying ANY similarities between them is absolutely unthinkable.
Nobody is accusing Bush of being a genocidal lunatic, but the Bush administration has done a very good job of suppressing liberties and grabbing power in the name of protection from foreign terrorism. (Did you know Germany's invasion of Poland was sold to the public as a "pre-emptive strike" to protect themselves from terrorists?) Bush also constantly appeals to emotion and nationalistic pride in his speeches. These things were hallmarks of Hitler's reign, and they are worth observation and discussion.
If you have counter arguments, please present them. It's far more productive than telling people they're stupid or ignorant for even bringing them up.
I've been looking at the Fuji 602 for a while now... it is one of very few digicams that has all the features I am looking for: CFII support, AA batteries (I have batallions of NiMH AAs), and an excellent hi-res 30fps movie mode with sound.
How good is the movie mode? Is it MPEG2? Can you zoom while shooting a movie?
Personally I plan on sticking with solid state. No moving parts generally means faster, more reliable, and lower power consumption. Of course, they're more expensive per gig, too. (The 4 GB CFII is going for $1500)
I was recently with a devious-minded friend of mine, and we walked past some kid selling poppies or flowers or chocolates or something.
His instant reaction?
"You know... that'd be a PERFECT way of pawning off counterfeit bills. Here you go kid, I'll take a whole crate of chocolates. Hell, have a box for yourself, on me. No, really."
As other have already pointed out, your concept of median is wrong.
Furthermore, medians are used all the time, and are not the "least useful" (I would humbly sumbit that mode average is the least used). Median is a great way of getting a nice representative average. (ie something that values actually TAKE, as opposed to mean, which usually gets you some fractional value that no value actually equals), Another benefit of median is that is largely unaffected by eccentric large or small values. (You throw one gigantic value into a pool, and it will knock the mean for a loop, but the median will stay relatively stable)
"They [banks] have been asking us [Diebold] to ship ATMs with Windows because of the graphics capabilities. They want a common look between the ATMs and Web-banking sites,"
OK pardon my French, but WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCK!? What kind of horseshit is that??
ANY modern OS can display graphics and standards-compliant web pages.
Well, in theory, to eliminate human counting errors.
It's also faster of course, and eventually it could be EASIER too, which could persuade more people to vote, which is a Good Thing. Imagine being able to vote from home?
Slashdot Mirror
Then of course there's version 2, which preemptively attacks any remote hosts that could conceivably pose a threat. Inspired by official US Foreign Policy. Ba-dum-ching. ;)
Am I the only one sick of every single year listening to cynics like you announce how worthless the Oscars are because THEIR personal favourites don't win?
"Why does LOTR deserve best picture over Master and Commander, Lost in Translation, or dare I say (even though it wasn't nominated) The Last Samurai? Because it had a bigger budget and was hyped more?"
Jackson and co. deserves their accolades. The entire trilogy is one of the most breathtaking and painstakingly crafted achievements in cinematic history, and deserves some recognition for the monumental scope, art, dedication, blood sweat and tears and LOVE that went into making these films. Quite frankly it infuriates me to listen to people like you suggest it's only because of the budget or hype that these movies won. Thousands of incredibly talented people from all over the world came together and poured their heart and souls into this thing for FIVE YEARS, the end result is awesome (4 years ago everyone said LotR COULD NOT be adapted to the screen, period), and it deserves some respect.
There, I answered your question. Now why don't you answer it yourself? (Instead of just saying "X was better") What exactly does Master & Commander, Lost in Translation, and Last Samurai have that proves superior "artistic merit"?
Mega-hyped massive-budget blockbusters do NOT win every year. Is that what you would call "A Beautiful Mind"? Or how about "American Beauty"? What about "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Rainman"?
In my opinion, Gladiator WAS a better movie than Chocolat. It wasn't better than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but that was a foreign language film, and it won in its appropriate category.
Actually, now that you mention him, Tim Curry has my vote for the Vogon captain, under a few pounds of prosthetics of course. :D
"Oh freddled gruntbuggly thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee."
- Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz
I also read a rumour that Disney wants Jim Carrey for Zaphod. I like Carrey, but don't think he'd be right for the role... he's certainly zany enough, but also a bit too wholesome. Zaphod is a devious, underhanded, slick-ass son of a bitch. :)
Well apparently Keaton was the late Mr. Adams' first choice. And really, he's going to have a second head, so they could probbaly make him look any age they want. ;)
You should start with that wholly remarkable book, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". And get yourself a towel.
Once upon a time I read that Micahel Keaton was their choice for Zaphod. I think he'd be great. :) This was years and years ago though.
"And so you talk about popularity but then deny a sample the size of the IMDB? Where about 80,000 people have voted for each of the top 250 movies? The statistical error of such a ranking not reflecting common opinion is probably pretty low."
You are wrong. To be truly representative, the sample must be selected randomly from a broad cross-section. First rule of polling. Doesn't matter if there's 80 or 80,000 or 8 million, IMDB votes are no more representative of overall opinion than are Slashdot polls. They're probably a good sampling of tech-saavy movie lovers, and that's it.
Saying LotR is better than Star Wars is a simple reflection of the popular opinion I have encountered, not an unquestionable declaration of Absolute Truth(tm). But then that's the crux of our little debate, isn't it? I take popular opinion as a decent metric and you seem to rally against it.
You're absolutely right (oh wait. no absolutes. you're probably right) that most people haven't seen most films. Do you expect that to ever change? Do you expect everyone to see every movie of a year in order to express an opinion?
Of course not. There's idealism and then there's reality. So we have to rely on popularity (read: demand) to spread the "best" movies around. Is it perfect? Good lord, of course not. Some films will be overhyped, others will be criminally underappreciated (like your City of God). But what else do we have? Seriously? It's up to the filmmakers to get their film noticed. Everyone can't watch everything. So we're left with popular films as the real contenders. Just the way it is.
But then we get people who resent this system because it doesn't reward THEIR favourites, and so they start to rail against popularity itself, like it's to blame or something.
"The same for Gandalf. He is a Maiar spirit, but in the movie he is just a kindly old man who might be a bit impotent in the ways of magic."
I think he is depicted as far more powerful than that in The Two Towers.. not only from his fight with the Balrog, but his reappearance later. I think "Three hundred lives of men have I walked this earth and now, I have no time." nicely establishes him as an immortal.
Woulda been cool though to have him call the Balrog and Sauron his 'kin' or something.. since they're all Maiar.
Just to defend one point:
Chronologically speaking, Shelob belongs in RotK. In the book, Frodo and Sam look back while ascending the stair, and see Minas Tirith beseiged.
This follows Jackson's pattern of showing us things as they happen, for example Gandalf's confrontation with Saruman, which is told entirely in flashback in the book.
I for one applaud this approach.. the movie has enough threads without screwing around with time.
"I hope Murray wins this one, he deserves it."
:)
LOL, I just read in the paper at lunch that Murray has been going around trying to convince people not to nominate or vote for him, since he says he's just "playing himself" in LiT.
"No where did I say that popularity wasn't a good metric. Just that to use it as the only one is foolish."
OK, so what other metrics should we be using? Professional reviewers? Sure, why not. RottenTomatoes has City of God with a 92% approval, RotK with 96%.
"Now, by your logic, we should just be able to search down the list to find the top movie of 2003. According to the list it would be #4 RotK."
No, that'd be the top movie of 2003 as currently identified by IMDB users. Which it is.
"Now although 'best' is subjective, over a given period of time, there seems to be an exponential averaging effect that forces a piece of art's excepted quality to a pretty static point. Hindsight's 20/20. In time all things become clear."
I see. Things must age before they can be subjected to a valid comparison with the "all-timers". Sure, I'll go with that, but how does this pertain to picking a top movie for 2003? They're all new. Maybe your appreciation of City of God will wear off in a few years too.
"And I think the best example is on that Top 250 list at #2, Shawshank Redemption. This movie spurted at the boxoffice (barely making back its small 25 million budget), even though it was loved by critics."
Once again, you are mixing popularity with initial market success. I cannot count the number of people I know who list Shawshank as one of their favourite movies. It engenders a nearly universal positive reception. So does Lord of the Rings.
"In 1994, it wouldn't have even cracked the top 250."
That is a completely unfounded assertion. It very well may have, had IMDB's voting system existed back then. It doesn't take massive quantities of votes to give a film a high rating, which seems to be what you're implying here.
"I assume we agree that "Best Picture of 2003" means the Best, barnone. Not the one people liked most on the date December 31st, 2003."
What do you propose? Should we hold Oscars for 2003 films, in 2013?
Your point about Titanic is an anecdotal exception, not a convincing argument. (Do you really think RotK will vanish from the top 250 in the next few years? I sure don't. They're easily better than the original Star Wars trilogy, and those are all still up there.) Titanic became a victim of its own commercial success, much like an overplayed radio song. It suffered massive backlash, because it couldn't live up to its own hype. LotR has, IMHO.
But "best" means different things to different people.
Maybe you loved "City of God", but Joe Somebody would hate it. "Best" (or "good") is about as subjective a term as they come. I just read some reviews of it, most say it's a very shocking and disturbing film. I'm sure it's very effective. Does that make it "best?" Maybe to some.
So in light of that, why exactly do you denounce popularity as a good measure of a film's value? And I'm not talking about sales figures here. Pearl Harbour made tons, but most people didn't like it. Ditto your Windows example.. it's ubiquitous, but people hate it.
Popularity is simply an averaging of what people consider "good".
Something that is nearly universally loved is a great thing.
To dismiss that is elitism.
"But in all of them, [...] Babylon 5, [...] writers weem to find the need to create these all-encompasing good-vs-evil plots that, to me anyway, are boring."
Have you seen enough of B5 to understand what the Shadow War is really about? (I don't want to ruin it, but I will say it really has nothing to do with good versus evil, that's just how one side WANTS it to be seen..)
In addition, the secondary saga arc is concerned with a corrupt Earth government sliding into fascism, repressing freedom and information, persecuting critics without due process for "sedition", in order to protect the citezenry from "alien plots". The parallels to post 9/11 America can be quite stunning (and scary) at times.
If you like that Riker episode, do yourself a favour, go borrow/rent someone's copy of B5 Season 4 (came out two weeks ago) and watch "Intersections in Real Time".
Why exactly is a comparison between Hitler and Bush stupid or ignorant?
You seem to be saying ANY similarities between them is absolutely unthinkable.
Nobody is accusing Bush of being a genocidal lunatic, but the Bush administration has done a very good job of suppressing liberties and grabbing power in the name of protection from foreign terrorism. (Did you know Germany's invasion of Poland was sold to the public as a "pre-emptive strike" to protect themselves from terrorists?) Bush also constantly appeals to emotion and nationalistic pride in his speeches. These things were hallmarks of Hitler's reign, and they are worth observation and discussion.
If you have counter arguments, please present them. It's far more productive than telling people they're stupid or ignorant for even bringing them up.
... of people who can point fingers at space failures and say "I could to that better".
;)
You know, like most of Slashdot
I've been looking at the Fuji 602 for a while now... it is one of very few digicams that has all the features I am looking for: CFII support, AA batteries (I have batallions of NiMH AAs), and an excellent hi-res 30fps movie mode with sound.
How good is the movie mode? Is it MPEG2? Can you zoom while shooting a movie?
"if these micro drives are reliable enough, then the storage capacity they offer would be mighty attractive."
Of course... they already HAVE a 4 GB compactflash card. (Available in March)
Personally I plan on sticking with solid state. No moving parts generally means faster, more reliable, and lower power consumption. Of course, they're more expensive per gig, too. (The 4 GB CFII is going for $1500)
I was recently with a devious-minded friend of mine, and we walked past some kid selling poppies or flowers or chocolates or something.
His instant reaction?
"You know... that'd be a PERFECT way of pawning off counterfeit bills. Here you go kid, I'll take a whole crate of chocolates. Hell, have a box for yourself, on me. No, really."
Score +/-1: Depraved yet funny
As other have already pointed out, your concept of median is wrong.
Furthermore, medians are used all the time, and are not the "least useful" (I would humbly sumbit that mode average is the least used). Median is a great way of getting a nice representative average. (ie something that values actually TAKE, as opposed to mean, which usually gets you some fractional value that no value actually equals), Another benefit of median is that is largely unaffected by eccentric large or small values. (You throw one gigantic value into a pool, and it will knock the mean for a loop, but the median will stay relatively stable)
You're right of course, but in IBM's case I think it's fair to say that it IS actually "history", whereas M$ seems as abusive and underhanded as ever.
Babylon 5!
(Which lists The Prisoner as one of its inspirations, as a matter of fact. Witness Bester's "Be seeing you" finger salute as an homage)
"So far, the organization has distributed $11 million back to Canadian artists"
;)
Wow.. so that's like about what, 2.75 mil per Canadian artist then?
*ducks and covers*
From the parent's linked article:
"They [banks] have been asking us [Diebold] to ship ATMs with Windows because of the graphics capabilities. They want a common look between the ATMs and Web-banking sites,"
OK pardon my French, but WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCK!? What kind of horseshit is that??
ANY modern OS can display graphics and standards-compliant web pages.
Well, in theory, to eliminate human counting errors.
It's also faster of course, and eventually it could be EASIER too, which could persuade more people to vote, which is a Good Thing. Imagine being able to vote from home?