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User: adpowers

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  1. Re:did you see the oscars? on Movies Losing Popularity at Box Office · · Score: 1

    Many people carry cameras with them at all times, in case something interesting happens. This is becoming even more common now that so many cell phones have cameras on them.

    Also, the few movies I see are the ones folks tend to dress up for (like LotR) or ones that we make an event of going to see (hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the theatre for three ours (again, for Lotr)), so I want to have a camera to capture images of folks dressed up.

    And honestly, who the fuck watches theatre rips? Those are horrible and I can't imagine ever wanting to watch those. The bigger threat is people in the movie industry itself that leak screener DVDs which are high quality and easy to make duplicates from.

  2. my experience on Movies Losing Popularity at Box Office · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A year and a half ago some friends convinced me to go see The Village with them as a group. We went to a Regal Cinemas, one of those huge multiplex deals. Anyway, we get there a little early so we can get seats together and everything. It had been a while since I'd seen a movie in the theatre, so I didn't know about "The 20" yet. The slideshow was bad enough, now they are playing 20 minutes of video (and sound) commercials before the show! Not only that, but these and the trailers are all spoilers for other things I might want to see. Trailers today give away all the good jokes and all the interesting plot twists, leaving no reason left to go see the movie. Anyway, after I suffer through that, then they play the television ads that were blown up to theatre size (although, I think they may have gotten better at this, and refilmed/remastered ads to make them work better in the theatre setting) and trailers. Finally, after 50 minutes of commercials, the movie begins. Some woman is on screen in one of those old-timey outfits and some stupid teenager shouts "She's hot" and then all the other little douchebag teens start giggling. I hate the standard teenager. This happens for a little while. Now, here comes the first scene where something interesting is about to happen and the fucking fire alarm goes off! We leave and come back 15-20 minutes later. The movie starts and we missed the whole sequence! Whatever happened we just missed out on. That was it, I got up and left. I went to the ticket counter and got my refund. The guy told me that the movie was continuing inside, but that wasn't why I was getting the money back. What a horrible, horrible experience. I will never go back to that theatre. The huge multiplexes are horrible, especially if they are in the suburbs.

  3. Re:did you see the oscars? on Movies Losing Popularity at Box Office · · Score: 1

    Another thing I forgot to mention, it no longer has the romantic appeal it once may have held. Most movie theatres these days are huge corporate chains that all look the same and don't have any spunk or individuality.

    Also, when we do fork over our money to see movies in the theatre, they treat us like criminals: trying to prevent us from having cameras and other perfectly reasonable devices.

  4. did you see the oscars? on Movies Losing Popularity at Box Office · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think two of the people speaking were trying to convince the audience to go see movies in theatres, "There is nothing like being part of the a community and watching a great film on the giant silver screen" or whatever. This made me a little sick. I rarely see movies in theatres these days because the other viewers are often inconsiderate (mainly by being loud and obnoxious), the tickets are expensive, and the theatres are often of poor quality (dirty, bad sound, poor projection, etc.). For the price of sending two people to the theatre, you can buy the freakin' DVD in a few months (I'm very thankfully for the quicker DVD release turn around these days).

  5. Re:watch out for that aspect ratio on Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions · · Score: 1

    Just an update for those without iTunes or too lazy to check, yesterday's Daily Show is also in the wrong aspect ratio.

  6. Re:watch out for that aspect ratio on Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions · · Score: 1

    iTunes restricts the aspect ratio, as does QuickTime. I'm not sure if any media player that can play iTunes files lets you change the aspect ratio. Maybe a 3rd party player that calls the QT API might work.

    It wouldn't be a big deal if the video was encoded properly. Also, I would prefer to watch purchases through iTunes because it keeps track of playcounts, which I am fanatical about.

  7. watch out for that aspect ratio on Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was about to buy the 16 episode plan, but I previewed the episode and noticed that both TDS and TCR both have problems in the encoding. The videos are are 320x208 resolution, which is horribly non-standard and causes the stretching of both videos (well, more accurately, squishing, but they have the same end effect), making everyone look fat. I have a blog post with picture comparing Jon Stewart's head in the video with how it should look.

  8. intel macs use EFI on Apple Announces Wonderful Toys · · Score: 1

    The new Intel machines all use EFI, so what woks in Open Firmware might not necessarily translate over to EFI, alas. I haven't played around with EFI (or even OF for that matter) so hopefully more knowledgeable will step in :).

  9. Re:Stick a better GPU in it, and you have an XBox on Apple Announces Wonderful Toys · · Score: 1

    But while I was wondering about the whole gaming thing, I was wondering if the new Mini (specifically the dual core) would be able to play recorded HD content recorded with Apple's H.264 codec. I love H.264's quality/size capabilities, but am unable to play them on my current PVR outfit (an aging, but still more than capable AMD1600 mated with a 8500DV vid' card).

    Unfortuntaely, it doesn't look good.

  10. mod parent up on Apple Publishes Ruby On Rails Tutorial · · Score: 1

    I used Locomotive when I was playing with RoR a few months back and it is amazingly simple. Locomotive is easy to install, run, and even easy to get rid of if necessary (just drag it to the trash like everything else).

    Andrew

  11. wutchyou talking about Toby? on Why 7.1 Surround Sound is Overkill For Most Homes · · Score: 1

    Just imagine you are wearing some weird glasses that severally block your field of view and cover up one eye. Sound still comes from around you, just like on TV.

    I don't know, I'd be hard pressed to give up the sound of bullet ricochets being me during the Matrix lobby scene. :)

    Andrew

  12. Re:One way to spend it... on Google.org to Spend an Initial $1.1 Billion · · Score: 1

    It made perfect sense to me. Also, are you some sort of industry shill? This is the second post of yours I've ran into in this thread encouraging spending the money on hydrogen vehicles.

  13. Re:Remind me one more time... on Google Stands Ground on Google.cn · · Score: 1

    Congress is so full of hypocrites. I don't mean to troll here, but the Democrats are giving me the same impression. They say they want oil independence and to be more environmental, but then they claim the oil companies are gouging the consumers and overcharging. You can't have it both ways. If they would let the companies charge what they want, then the higher prices would force consumers to consume less and make businesses more efficient.

    Andrew

    PS: And no, I'm not a Republican.

  14. Re:Not a Biologist But... on A Bathroom That Cleans Itself · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There still are potential problems. There was recently a report that Teflon-related chemicals are turning up everywhere, including 95% of humans tested. What if this gets into the bloodstream? Imagine this stuff comes off, gets into our bloodstream, and then we go outside. Would the UV from the sun penetrate deep enough to activate this? If so, I know I wouldn't want a bunch of oxidation catalysts floating around inside me.

  15. Re:Passing on the savings to us... on Apple Launches 1 GB nano, Slashes shuffle · · Score: 1

    I have a Rio PMP 300 SE sitting around some where. I brought it on a camping trip one time many years ago. I put it in the little side flap overnight, only to wake up and see it sitting in a fair amount of water. I took out the battery, let it dry out for a few days, and it still worked. That thing was dropped so many times and it just kept going. It still works to this day.

  16. iTunes contest on Apple Launches 1 GB nano, Slashes shuffle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Sort of offtopic, but if you are looking for new music for you nano, try to by near a round number. Apple is doing another countdown contest as they approach 1 billion songs. The person who gets the 1 billionth song gets an iMac, 10 iPods, and a $10k gift card.

  17. Re:Sony MDR-V6 on Headphones in Corporate Culture? · · Score: 1

    The Sony DRM rootkit. I should have just said rootkit, but I forgot what it was called because I'm not really following the story because I'm not on Windows.

  18. Re:Ripoffs from Wikipedia on Google Delists BMW-Germany · · Score: 1

    Well, they are providing the interface. Most of the companies with the information are probably in the B2B business, so, like a book publisher or music distributor, Answers.com is acting as a middle man.

  19. Re:Sony MDR-V6 on Headphones in Corporate Culture? · · Score: 1

    I third this. These are probably one of the best pairs you can get in this price range. Myself and a couple of my friends have them. Plus, you get the wonderful 80s aesthetic :).

    Andrew

    PS: I bought mine before the whole $sys$ thing was made public.

  20. Re:Ripoffs from Wikipedia on Google Delists BMW-Germany · · Score: 1

    Like dictionary.com, answers.com also gets their definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary by the Houghton Mifflin Company. I'm sure both companies pay for that right and answers.com didn't screen scrape them, or else that'd be in a heap of legal trouble. Also, the Wikipedia info is provided Free, just like OSS. While answers.com isn't creating any new content, they are licensing and aggregating content, which is a value added service and I believe justifies their existence.

  21. Re:Ripoffs from Wikipedia on Google Delists BMW-Germany · · Score: 1

    Except Answers.com has more value added content besides just the Wikipedia text. If it was just Wikipedia with ads thrown on, that would probably be frowned upon because of the duplicated content (which I believe Google gives a penalty to), but Answers.com provides information from other sources as well.

  22. Web Search for a Planet: The Google Cluster Arch.. on Understanding Search Engines? · · Score: 1

    You might want to check out the paper Web Search for a Planet: The Google Cluster Architecture. It is 4-5 generations old, but provides some interesting information about Google's previous cluster setup.

  23. Re:stop worrying and learn to love plutonium! on Bush Administration to Support Nuclear Recycling · · Score: 1

    Now if we could come up with an easily maintained method of transportation.........

    The bicycle is easy to maintain.

  24. Re:Pretty crappy page authoring... on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    There is a website full of Safari nightlies for the download. It is sort of a pain to get to, so I recommend bookmarking it or something.

    Unfortunately, I tried Safari first and it didn't work for some reason. I guess they aren't far enough along yet.

  25. Re:Nothing wrong with DVD or internet release on Independents Push For Second Firefly Season · · Score: 1

    Which also brings up that in the DVD method, titles need to be selected and paid for (either by renting or buying) before you watch them. I'm more of a try-before-you-buy chap.

    Uhh, how is this different from cable? You have to pay for cable before you are able to see what is on. Personally, I'd rather rent (or borrow from a friend) a show that sounds interesting than pay for a whole bunch of stuff I don't like (like 85%+ of Fox's lineup) just to discover a few good shows. Many of my friends were introduced to Firefly by me. I watched the DVDs with them (free for them), so they discovered a great show for free, even though most of them had cable (or antennas for getting Fox OTA) and were paying for Fox to preempt it and air it out of order.

    Cable and TV sucks for fiction (versus real life things like sports or news). I'd rather learn about content from friends and family and support quality entertainment (like Firefly) through DVD (or Blu-Ray) sales.