so altering the chip by blowing additional fuses could only lower the stated speed.
Now you have to make sure that you leave enough fuses for future speeds, what do you do... start at 2000 MHz and blow fuses down to your current TOL at 1000?
I don't disagree with way you say. My point had a couple different assumptions that I guess I didn't make clear.
a) the (ha/cr)acker is not out to intentionally kill prople by shutting down critical life support systems. He attackes the system generally, which results in critical systems failing. I can imagine this scenario more closely matching the NASA one then 'damn, there is an old lady on the 12'th floor on a respirator, now if I get into the main network box and turn off the remote montior at the nures' station then send a command to the respirator to shut itself off...' more like 'gee, I just scanned an NT host that has port xyz open... let's see if they've applied the current patches...' -- 'wow, I just got into NASA's spaceflight medical monitoring system, let's see if I can kill a couple astronauts' or 'hmmm, wonder what this system I just got into is? What would happen if I start doing _this_?'
b) even in the case where there was pre-meditated intent to cause death, my question is - how can you prove it? If someone marches in with wire cutters, witnesses will come forward to say that at 8:03 pm you marched into Room 112 and started slashing at the wires. Pretty obvious you intended to shut of the guy's life support. Different from a Sysadmin pulling logs and saying at 8:03 someone from 24.131.129.71 started sending ICMP fragments to our main network host which failed over and made all the life support systems crash. I guess I'm just saying you have to go quite a bit farther to prove that the attacker knew in advance that he wanted someone dead.
>Now, a cracker may not get the chair for these kind of crimes, but geez...if a cracker kills a ward full of people, there's got to be something more than a few years in prison for simple stupidity, no?
Oh, I'm not saying he walks of scott-free. Someone asked the question using the word 'Murder'. That has a specific legal connotation to me. Being convicted of first-degree Murder takes a fairly high burden of proof. Killing a bunch of people though your own actions should likely net you a few decades in prision, I just was arguing about if that qualifies as 'Murder' (in the legal sense)
Causing death is not always Murder (capital 'M' - first degree, premeditated homicide - punishable by death). "death caused by illegal action" is too broad a statement to apply to the legal definition of 'Murder'.
Union Carbide breaks the law by releasing cyanide gas which kills 50,000 people. They commited an illegal act, they killed lots of people, no one is charged with 'Murder'. Negligent Homicide, Manslaughter, whatever the legal definition is (Not a Lawyer) is when someone dies because of something you did, but you didn't set out with the intent of killing innocent people. You screwed up.
If you rob someone by holding a gun to their head, your intent is to scare them into giving you money. If the victim dies, you have not committed Murder. You have killed them and will be punished, but probably will not be charged with first-degree Murder. If you shoot someone in the back and then take their wallet, that is Murder.
Right, my point exactly. Hacking a Hospital, taking the network down which causes everyone in the ICU to die is not murder. It's stupid, you made people die, but you won't get the chair.
Sitting out in from of you wife's lover's house waiting for him to come home and then running him down in the driveway is murder.
Getting loaded and driving through a 7-11 at 2am and killing a bunch of people is manslaughter (or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!):-)
Where does it say in the article that the hacker got to the system through the internet? I didn't see that. Are you assuming that's the only possible way?
Hmmm, I didn't see any mention of 'internet' or 'public network' in that article. I assumed he got in through some other means like tapping into a private network link or something.
Cheesy movie, but at the time (late 70's - early 80? ) it seemed really cool (hell, I had an acoustic coupler just like that! Probably around the same age too).
That's right -- the WOPR was dialing him back to play a game. 'Global ThremoNuclear War, anyone?':-)
Have to stop by the local video rental hole on the way home and see if I can pick it up. A bowl of popcorn, 3 or 18 beers and Ally Sheedy might just make my night!
>I guess I can believe that there's still a modem somewhere buried in NASA's huge computer network.
How else does an engineer dial in from home to get work done? Only thing I'm wondering is what kind of authentication system was in place and how the cracker defeated it.
Here in my office(we're not NASA, but we are a Billion dollar billing company), we use products from Axent to perform authentication for remote users. Each programmer has a hardeare 'token' which is a physical device about the size of a calculator. When you attempt to log-in, you get a challenge key. You key that number into your 'token' which generates a response which you then key into the log-in session which then lets you into the network where you still have to get past user/pass to login. I'm sure there are much more secure systems available, wonder what NASA was using (if it was dialup) and what they have since put in it's place?
Really? How would you ever prove intent? If I walk into a hospital room with wire-snippers and disable a life-support system to a specific individual, no doubt there they throw the book at me.
If I am attacking a computer system remotely, how could you prove that I even knew anything about the system other than it's IP, let alone pre-meditated intent to kill? I'm probably not targeting life-support systems, just fscking with whatever infrastructure appears vulnerable. I crack into the system and wreak havoc and as a result, somebody dies. I done a bad thing and should be punished, but murder? Seems hard to prove unless the prosecution can show intent. Don't you usually have to show things like motive and pre-meditation and somesuch to get a charge of M1?
Seems to me you would get some 'criminal mischeif' kind of charge, then the family of the dead guy would sue you out of existance in civil court.
Didn't you ever watch that move with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy? (crap, what was that called?) They broke into the DoD's Amrageddon control center through a dial-up conenction into a back-door that some programmer left in the system, no internet used in the making of WW3!:-)
Oh Shit! What if the Earth were to imact some poor uninhabited piece of space debris? Imagine the potential for bio-contamination! Geez, we better crash it into the Sun before anything bad happens!
Seriously, this came up a while ago on/. (too lazy to look it up at the moment, maybe later if someone hasn't already) and the discussions were identical.
a) probablilty of Galileo crashing into IO - 0.00000000(some few million zeros later) 0001 b) probablility that some few microbes present on the craft still viable - 0.00000(who really knows)0001 c) probablilty that viable microbes present on spacecraft will survive impact on Io and cause bio-contamination - 0.000(even more zeroes right of the decimal)0001 d) given the alternative to destroy the craft in the Jupiter atmosphere and the even more remote probability of doing any damage there, my problem with the whole idea - 0
The caption on the picture of Vader says something about being voiced by James Earl Jones.
I know he did the voice in at least in ANH, (probably also ROTJ) but I thought he didn't for ESB (which the picture seems to be from). Does anyone else remember this or am I imagining things again? (Too lazy to dig out the VHS and look for myself -- DAMN Lucas for not releasing those on DVD!)
That's pretty cool that he got his MBE, but what is up with getting it now for something he had been doing from 76? Do they usually award these this far after the fact?
Yeah, remember that too. Leia's comment about 'little short for a stormtrooper, aren't you?' is really funny in the context that the ST's were all supposedly clones (probably of the same individual). Seems they were going for quantity and consistency rather than quality when they decided to make an entire army out of clueless dimwits who couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn! Man the guy they picked must have been someone's nephew or something.
Supposedly Palpatine is a clone as well. This is one of the few reasons I probably will stick it out and see the next two movies, to see where this whole Empire/clone wars/Jedi mass extinction thing plays out. Hope I won't bee too dissapointed.
You know, I gave up on discussions like this a long time ago (explanations of how the empire could be so inept and incompetent as to be defeated by Ewoks and rag-tag rebel fleets and half-assed Jedi-wannabe's).
I always thought it was interesting how people try to inject reason and facts into a ficticous universe to try and justify the plot. This isn't a slam, BTW --- I've done more of this than I care to admit.:-)
In short, let me respond to the question in your post:
>So why WERE they wearing that armor, anyhow?
Because they looked cool in the first movie when we all saw it for the first time, Lucas stuck with it through all 3 movies.
The only apparent benefit of the ST 'armor' is the menacing appearance. There is apparently no protection for the wearer from laser blasts, sticks, stones or being thrown to the ground. There is obviously no mechanisms to enhance vision or weapon aim or any other feature that enhances the effectiveness of the wearer.
The overgrown teddy bears are able to defeat "an entire legion of [the emperor's] best troops" because Lucas wrote it into the script.
Sorry, but the whole idea that the imperial troops would march the rebels outside where the ewoks could mount an 'ambush' in the first place is ludicrous. Shoot first, round them up into a clearing later.
Sorry, Solo doesn't get a second chance to blow up the shield generator because he has an 8" burn hole in his back 12 seconds after he is captured.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy watching these movies. It used to really bug me with some of the gaping plot holes and it is natural to want to close some of them. But, after a while, it is a lot less work to just take the movie for what it is and enjoy it on that level.
That's true, Leno is the biggest car-freak I've ever heard of. Think I remember him doing a bit part on 'Home Improvement' and there was a background story on ET or one of those flyffy shobiz shows about how Leno was a big buff.
But somehow I get the impression that he wouldn't want something like this because a) it is not an original/andor/vintage car and b) cause he wouldn't be able to take it for a spin on Topanga Canyon road.
Seems they built it for promotional use for whatever that children's charity thing is. The auction on eBay seems to be a promo gimmick as well, probably just to get free pub. Notice that the buyer has to agree to let them continue using it for their promotional tour.
This car wasn't built for the purpose of auctioning on eBay to make a profit, it seems. A collector with lots of cash would be 'dumb' enough to buy it (but not so far, it appears).
My understanding is that it was commissioned for some promotional use that required the purchase of a license from whoever holds the rights to the 'Speed Racer' thing. They say if you are going to use it for commercial purposes, you have to negotiate a separate license agreement. I would imagine if you started using the 'Mach 5' in commercials, the owners of 'Speed Racer' would come after you with C&D.
It's not street legal, so personal use seems to be limited to keeping it in your garage to impress visitors and towing it to the local track and paying $100/hr to drive in ovals. Not very practical, but I guess if you had gobs of cash and had already built your own petting zoo, amusement park and whatever else... MJ, anyone?
Oh good, I'm not the only one. I don't get that. No doubt she is very attractive, but the hair coloring is very distracting. I'm not put off by colored hair - just badly colored hair. Plus, she would probably look better as a brunette anyway. Chrissakes, if you're going to pose in a $300,000 automobile, at least go get your hair re-colored for the picutre, eh? (or is that some new in-style look that I'm just not aware of?)
Hmmm... the one we have in the office here looks like a Sea-Lion.
Re:Ridiculous Review/Hopeless Comparison with Shaf
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 1
>Indeed, consider whether or not Jon Katz' review wasn't itself a derivative and wooden remake of all negative reviews of genre films. Haven't we seen all of these criticisms before, written in almost the same old way?
Thank you. My thoughts exactly. Seems Katz could have written his review without actually watching this movie.
My bottom line...
I had fun. I went with my son (7) and we had a blast. He really enjoyed it and we talked a lot about it afterward.
I can't see taking my wife to go see this, it's not that kind of movie, didn't expect it to be. I'll buy it when it comes to video and watch it again with my kids. Not too many movies out there that are entertaining enough for me to sit through multiple times and still be suitable for single-digit-age children.
Re:(warning: little bit of a spoiler here-in)
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 1
>first he doesn't give a rat's-ass for earth, then he's suddenly gung-ho (this sealed by meeting Pellea's grandkids, or somesuch thing.)
This was my biggest gripe as well. I was expecting a much bigger plot element to draw him into the spirit of the 'save the titan/human race' thing. I got the impression that some large 10-minute segment of the movie on new-hong-kong got edited out and that lame soccer-ball scene got inserted as a place-holder. The plot elements of Cane's reformation from a bitter-abandoned-orphan to saviour of the human race fell flat and I didn't believe his motivation for the remainder of the flick. (that he wanted to get into the girl's pants was a more likely motive).
This was a fun flick and I got my $$ worth for cool visuals and all, but the dialoge and plot could have been so much more (IMO).
>Ad executives already know that if sales for their soft-drink jump 15% while they are running an ad campaign, that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the campaign.
This is best-case, though. More typically, they tend to rule out anything they can't measure. My field is wireless billing, and I've seen many marketing campaigns over the years try to either sell phones, sign up subs or get subs to generate more minutes through different types of promos.
I can tell you that many times the execs focus on the short-term revenue numbers as a direct barometer of the success or failure of a particular campaign.
"The 'get your grandma a phone' campaign has failed miserably! This month's revenue compared to same period last year is up only 1/2 a percentage point!"
"Er, but the net sub adds are up over 20%? I think the program was wildly successful in getting subs to sign up, but it is the wrong demo because grandma's leave the phones in the kitchen drawer."
"Go away, you are bothering me with useless statistics (translation: my bonus is contingent on an un-achievable revenue goal of 300% last year's!)"
Reminds me of Reagan on the stand in the Iran/Contra thing. "No.. I don't remember. No... I don't recall."
At the time it seemed like he was just dodging questions by pretending to not remember. Turns out he really does have Alzhimer's (sp?) and it is possible that he really didn't remember at that point?
Ol' Jack is either
a) dumb as dirt b) playing dumb to avoid goofing up his case c) really losing his braincells to advancing decrepitude d) all of the above
Slashdot Mirror
well, kind of my point actually. If you use binary, someone could come along and burn the next high-oder fuse to up the clock
0001 = 1Mhz
could be altered by burning the next higher order digit
0011 = 3Mhz
My question was about coming up with a encoding scheme so that any tampering to burn additional fuses would result in a lower stated speed.
This would work if the blown fuse scheme only lowered the stated speed only with blowing further fuses.
000000000000 = 1000 Mhz
100000000000 = 950
110000000000 = 900
etc..
so altering the chip by blowing additional fuses could only lower the stated speed.
Now you have to make sure that you leave enough fuses for future speeds, what do you do... start at 2000 MHz and blow fuses down to your current TOL at 1000?
I don't disagree with way you say. My point had a couple different assumptions that I guess I didn't make clear.
a) the (ha/cr)acker is not out to intentionally kill prople by shutting down critical life support systems. He attackes the system generally, which results in critical systems failing. I can imagine this scenario more closely matching the NASA one then 'damn, there is an old lady on the 12'th floor on a respirator, now if I get into the main network box and turn off the remote montior at the nures' station then send a command to the respirator to shut itself off...' more like 'gee, I just scanned an NT host that has port xyz open... let's see if they've applied the current patches...' -- 'wow, I just got into NASA's spaceflight medical monitoring system, let's see if I can kill a couple astronauts' or 'hmmm, wonder what this system I just got into is? What would happen if I start doing _this_?'
b) even in the case where there was pre-meditated intent to cause death, my question is - how can you prove it? If someone marches in with wire cutters, witnesses will come forward to say that at 8:03 pm you marched into Room 112 and started slashing at the wires. Pretty obvious you intended to shut of the guy's life support. Different from a Sysadmin pulling logs and saying at 8:03 someone from 24.131.129.71 started sending ICMP fragments to our main network host which failed over and made all the life support systems crash. I guess I'm just saying you have to go quite a bit farther to prove that the attacker knew in advance that he wanted someone dead.
>Now, a cracker may not get the chair for these kind of crimes, but geez...if a cracker kills a ward full of people, there's got to be something more than a few years in prison for simple stupidity, no?
Oh, I'm not saying he walks of scott-free. Someone asked the question using the word 'Murder'. That has a specific legal connotation to me. Being convicted of first-degree Murder takes a fairly high burden of proof. Killing a bunch of people though your own actions should likely net you a few decades in prision, I just was arguing about if that qualifies as 'Murder' (in the legal sense)
I think it's an issue of semantics...
Causing death is not always Murder (capital 'M' - first degree, premeditated homicide - punishable by death). "death caused by illegal action" is too broad a statement to apply to the legal definition of 'Murder'.
Union Carbide breaks the law by releasing cyanide gas which kills 50,000 people. They commited an illegal act, they killed lots of people, no one is charged with 'Murder'. Negligent Homicide, Manslaughter, whatever the legal definition is (Not a Lawyer) is when someone dies because of something you did, but you didn't set out with the intent of killing innocent people. You screwed up.
If you rob someone by holding a gun to their head, your intent is to scare them into giving you money. If the victim dies, you have not committed Murder. You have killed them and will be punished, but probably will not be charged with first-degree Murder. If you shoot someone in the back and then take their wallet, that is Murder.
Right, my point exactly. Hacking a Hospital, taking the network down which causes everyone in the ICU to die is not murder. It's stupid, you made people die, but you won't get the chair.
:-)
Sitting out in from of you wife's lover's house waiting for him to come home and then running him down in the driveway is murder.
Getting loaded and driving through a 7-11 at 2am and killing a bunch of people is manslaughter (or at least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
Where does it say in the article that the hacker got to the system through the internet? I didn't see that. Are you assuming that's the only possible way?
Hmmm, I didn't see any mention of 'internet' or 'public network' in that article. I assumed he got in through some other means like tapping into a private network link or something.
Oh riiiight! WarGames, how could I have forgot!
:-)
Cheesy movie, but at the time (late 70's - early 80? ) it seemed really cool (hell, I had an acoustic coupler just like that! Probably around the same age too).
That's right -- the WOPR was dialing him back to play a game. 'Global ThremoNuclear War, anyone?'
Have to stop by the local video rental hole on the way home and see if I can pick it up. A bowl of popcorn, 3 or 18 beers and Ally Sheedy might just make my night!
>I guess I can believe that there's still a modem somewhere buried in NASA's huge computer network.
How else does an engineer dial in from home to get work done? Only thing I'm wondering is what kind of authentication system was in place and how the cracker defeated it.
Here in my office(we're not NASA, but we are a Billion dollar billing company), we use products from Axent to perform authentication for remote users. Each programmer has a hardeare 'token' which is a physical device about the size of a calculator. When you attempt to log-in, you get a challenge key. You key that number into your 'token' which generates a response which you then key into the log-in session which then lets you into the network where you still have to get past user/pass to login. I'm sure there are much more secure systems available, wonder what NASA was using (if it was dialup) and what they have since put in it's place?
Really? How would you ever prove intent? If I walk into a hospital room with wire-snippers and disable a life-support system to a specific individual, no doubt there they throw the book at me.
If I am attacking a computer system remotely, how could you prove that I even knew anything about the system other than it's IP, let alone pre-meditated intent to kill? I'm probably not targeting life-support systems, just fscking with whatever infrastructure appears vulnerable. I crack into the system and wreak havoc and as a result, somebody dies. I done a bad thing and should be punished, but murder? Seems hard to prove unless the prosecution can show intent. Don't you usually have to show things like motive and pre-meditation and somesuch to get a charge of M1?
Seems to me you would get some 'criminal mischeif' kind of charge, then the family of the dead guy would sue you out of existance in civil court.
Didn't you ever watch that move with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy? (crap, what was that called?) They broke into the DoD's Amrageddon control center through a dial-up conenction into a back-door that some programmer left in the system, no internet used in the making of WW3! :-)
Oh Shit! What if the Earth were to imact some poor uninhabited piece of space debris? Imagine the potential for bio-contamination! Geez, we better crash it into the Sun before anything bad happens!
/. (too lazy to look it up at the moment, maybe later if someone hasn't already) and the discussions were identical.
Seriously, this came up a while ago on
a) probablilty of Galileo crashing into IO - 0.00000000(some few million zeros later) 0001
b) probablility that some few microbes present on the craft still viable - 0.00000(who really knows)0001
c) probablilty that viable microbes present on spacecraft will survive impact on Io and cause bio-contamination - 0.000(even more zeroes right of the decimal)0001
d) given the alternative to destroy the craft in the Jupiter atmosphere and the even more remote probability of doing any damage there, my problem with the whole idea - 0
The caption on the picture of Vader says something about being voiced by James Earl Jones.
I know he did the voice in at least in ANH, (probably also ROTJ) but I thought he didn't for ESB (which the picture seems to be from). Does anyone else remember this or am I imagining things again? (Too lazy to dig out the VHS and look for myself -- DAMN Lucas for not releasing those on DVD!)
That's pretty cool that he got his MBE, but what is up with getting it now for something he had been doing from 76? Do they usually award these this far after the fact?
Yeah, remember that too. Leia's comment about 'little short for a stormtrooper, aren't you?' is really funny in the context that the ST's were all supposedly clones (probably of the same individual). Seems they were going for quantity and consistency rather than quality when they decided to make an entire army out of clueless dimwits who couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn! Man the guy they picked must have been someone's nephew or something.
Supposedly Palpatine is a clone as well. This is one of the few reasons I probably will stick it out and see the next two movies, to see where this whole Empire/clone wars/Jedi mass extinction thing plays out. Hope I won't bee too dissapointed.
You know, I gave up on discussions like this a long time ago (explanations of how the empire could be so inept and incompetent as to be defeated by Ewoks and rag-tag rebel fleets and half-assed Jedi-wannabe's).
:-)
I always thought it was interesting how people try to inject reason and facts into a ficticous universe to try and justify the plot. This isn't a slam, BTW --- I've done more of this than I care to admit.
In short, let me respond to the question in your post:
>So why WERE they wearing that armor, anyhow?
Because they looked cool in the first movie when we all saw it for the first time, Lucas stuck with it through all 3 movies.
The only apparent benefit of the ST 'armor' is the menacing appearance. There is apparently no protection for the wearer from laser blasts, sticks, stones or being thrown to the ground. There is obviously no mechanisms to enhance vision or weapon aim or any other feature that enhances the effectiveness of the wearer.
The overgrown teddy bears are able to defeat "an entire legion of [the emperor's] best troops" because Lucas wrote it into the script.
Sorry, but the whole idea that the imperial troops would march the rebels outside where the ewoks could mount an 'ambush' in the first place is ludicrous. Shoot first, round them up into a clearing later.
Sorry, Solo doesn't get a second chance to blow up the shield generator because he has an 8" burn hole in his back 12 seconds after he is captured.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy watching these movies. It used to really bug me with some of the gaping plot holes and it is natural to want to close some of them. But, after a while, it is a lot less work to just take the movie for what it is and enjoy it on that level.
This box will be back once mu.current.nu is back to normal.
Sheesh, guess there is something wrong with slashdot at the moment?
That's true, Leno is the biggest car-freak I've ever heard of. Think I remember him doing a bit part on 'Home Improvement' and there was a background story on ET or one of those flyffy shobiz shows about how Leno was a big buff.
But somehow I get the impression that he wouldn't want something like this because a) it is not an original/andor/vintage car and b) cause he wouldn't be able to take it for a spin on Topanga Canyon road.
Seems they built it for promotional use for whatever that children's charity thing is. The auction on eBay seems to be a promo gimmick as well, probably just to get free pub. Notice that the buyer has to agree to let them continue using it for their promotional tour.
This car wasn't built for the purpose of auctioning on eBay to make a profit, it seems. A collector with lots of cash would be 'dumb' enough to buy it (but not so far, it appears).
My understanding is that it was commissioned for some promotional use that required the purchase of a license from whoever holds the rights to the 'Speed Racer' thing. They say if you are going to use it for commercial purposes, you have to negotiate a separate license agreement. I would imagine if you started using the 'Mach 5' in commercials, the owners of 'Speed Racer' would come after you with C&D.
It's not street legal, so personal use seems to be limited to keeping it in your garage to impress visitors and towing it to the local track and paying $100/hr to drive in ovals. Not very practical, but I guess if you had gobs of cash and had already built your own petting zoo, amusement park and whatever else... MJ, anyone?
Oh good, I'm not the only one. I don't get that. No doubt she is very attractive, but the hair coloring is very distracting. I'm not put off by colored hair - just badly colored hair. Plus, she would probably look better as a brunette anyway. Chrissakes, if you're going to pose in a $300,000 automobile, at least go get your hair re-colored for the picutre, eh? (or is that some new in-style look that I'm just not aware of?)
Hmmm... the one we have in the office here looks like a Sea-Lion.
>Indeed, consider whether or not Jon Katz' review wasn't itself a derivative and wooden remake of all negative reviews of genre films. Haven't we seen all of these criticisms before, written in almost the same old way?
Thank you. My thoughts exactly. Seems Katz could have written his review without actually watching this movie.
My bottom line...
I had fun. I went with my son (7) and we had a blast. He really enjoyed it and we talked a lot about it afterward.
I can't see taking my wife to go see this, it's not that kind of movie, didn't expect it to be. I'll buy it when it comes to video and watch it again with my kids. Not too many movies out there that are entertaining enough for me to sit through multiple times and still be suitable for single-digit-age children.
>first he doesn't give a rat's-ass for earth, then he's suddenly gung-ho (this sealed by meeting Pellea's grandkids, or somesuch thing.)
This was my biggest gripe as well. I was expecting a much bigger plot element to draw him into the spirit of the 'save the titan/human race' thing. I got the impression that some large 10-minute segment of the movie on new-hong-kong got edited out and that lame soccer-ball scene got inserted as a place-holder. The plot elements of Cane's reformation from a bitter-abandoned-orphan to saviour of the human race fell flat and I didn't believe his motivation for the remainder of the flick. (that he wanted to get into the girl's pants was a more likely motive).
This was a fun flick and I got my $$ worth for cool visuals and all, but the dialoge and plot could have been so much more (IMO).
>Ad executives already know that if sales for their soft-drink jump 15% while they are running an ad campaign, that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the campaign.
This is best-case, though. More typically, they tend to rule out anything they can't measure. My field is wireless billing, and I've seen many marketing campaigns over the years try to either sell phones, sign up subs or get subs to generate more minutes through different types of promos.
I can tell you that many times the execs focus on the short-term revenue numbers as a direct barometer of the success or failure of a particular campaign.
"The 'get your grandma a phone' campaign has failed miserably! This month's revenue compared to same period last year is up only 1/2 a percentage point!"
"Er, but the net sub adds are up over 20%? I think the program was wildly successful in getting subs to sign up, but it is the wrong demo because grandma's leave the phones in the kitchen drawer."
"Go away, you are bothering me with useless statistics (translation: my bonus is contingent on an un-achievable revenue goal of 300% last year's!)"
Reminds me of Reagan on the stand in the Iran/Contra thing. "No.. I don't remember. No... I don't recall."
At the time it seemed like he was just dodging questions by pretending to not remember. Turns out he really does have Alzhimer's (sp?) and it is possible that he really didn't remember at that point?
Ol' Jack is either
a) dumb as dirt
b) playing dumb to avoid goofing up his case
c) really losing his braincells to advancing decrepitude
d) all of the above