It's not going to happen, but I think the only way to do Watchmen is as a trilogy. There's just too much information to fit into a traditional Hollywood three act structure.
The first movie deals with romance between Laurie and Dan Sets up Rorsharch's serial killer conspiracy. Ends with Dr. Manhattan leaving earth and Rorscharch's arrest.
The second deals with Rorsharch's psychosis Shows Laurie's appeal to Dr. Manhattan on Mars Ends with the realization Ozymandias is behind things
The third focuses on the complex resolution of Ozy's plan Resolves with Dan and Laurie's happy relationship Has a scene post-credits that portrays the cliff-hanger of Rorscharch's diary.
I used to work at a check printing company. My gut feeling is that this smacks of a manipulative urban legend rather than a real technology.
Yes, I'm sure that it is feasible with today's technology, but the expense of doing this on all color printers in the low profit margin color printer market makes me dubious. It will take a law to get all the suppliers to comply and create an "even-playing field" of expense for everyone. The patriotism Xerox demostrates may be commendable that their products are more trackable but it isn't profitable.
Looking at the problems with the coordination of the ISBN book publishing numbers or the social security numbers makes coordiantion of a secret serial number system that's shared between international suppliers even more absurd. "Oops, we accidentally re-used the secret id numbers for the Xerox printers with these knock-off Zerox printers for Tiger Direct."
Finding the serial number is a good first step. Refill an empty toner cartridge with black toner. This will not tell you the serial number (you'll have to do comparisons between printers of the same model to get that), but the presence of the serial number should be easier to find. If it's not there with the black toner then it's either a more subtle technology (modulating the laser itself?) or it's not going to be found.
The great thing about color laser is its comparative cheapness. Dye Sublimation printers were what the check people would use for very impressive mock-ups, but the dye refills were very, very expensive compared to the laser printer refills. Still, when someone in the art department wanted to make a fake United Federation of Planets Passport, they'd go for the dye sub printer when the boss wasn't looking.
And you call yourselves geeks. I expected the slashdot crowd to be more concerned about the next "sequel" to the Pixar Renderman software than the demonstration and advertising files that they show to promote it.:-)
Actually, I have to wonder that if Pixar has the right of first refusal to do the sequels why they don't just make a really crappy wireframe version of the film. Something that no one could possibly sell as anything resembling the previous work (even straight to video). "Oh no! the Superman doll suddenly can't turn off his X-ray vision! Everything is but contours and outlines!" Try to get anyone to buy this one Disney.
A comic book collector who gets every issue of his favorite super-group. Then decides to get every cross-over. Then starts collecting each character's individual books. Then gets obsessed by the size of his own collection. Does he read all these books? Nope. Sealed away in vacuum sealed mylar bags. Could he read all of these books if he tried? Possibly, but reading them is long since become a secondary or tertiary goal. The collecting and justifyig his collecting is number one.
A television show collector who starts with her Happy Days video tapes made off of their antenae. Then starts collecting all of the merchandise (lunch boxes, records, etc). Starts collecting the spin-off series like Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Joanie Loves Chachi, and Mork & Mindy. Winds up paying huge sums of money on eBay for the missing episodes. She never actually seems to watch her tapes (or she might notice the horribly low quality of her recording). She just becomes obsessed. You can't buy her a birthday gift because if its at all related to these shows she wouldn't admit to not having one already, yet she claims no interest in practically anything outside of this realm.
I have a friend who has a compact Mac collection. He attempts to own at least one of every compact Macintosh ever made (like the Mac SE form factor, not like an iBook). His collection is huge. It takes up multiple rooms in his house. He has every "flavor" of iMac color produced. He has the extremely rare, black MacTV with its remote. He is missing a working Macintosh Color Classic II that was released only in asian markets, but he's on eBay constantly looking for it. Many of these machines he won't actually turn on because they were in working order and he's too nervous about blowing the built in monitors. It's an impressive collection, but it's only a collection and not an array of machines he will use.
Collecting is nifty, but when it starts being the end in itself it's time to find something else to do. You will not be satisfied with the collection itself. You will spend huge amounts of money trying to get ever more obscure items to add to it and you won't be satisfied until you get the Yak-Face action figure. What's worse is if you are able to actually finish the collection, if you haven't amassed something that you can use or enjoy on its own then you don't realy have anything but a collection that will only be appreciated by another collector (if then).
Collecting music may be different, but if this person starts a separate group just for the things he enjoys listening too then that's may be indicative of a collection obsession.
I thought the animation was great but there were some things that seemed off.
Some possible spoilers
I was admiring the flame effect on the burning building and the campfire in the cave. But when Dash picks up a torch from the fire, it looked very fake for some reason and in the same scene with the campfire. My eyes didn't like that torch at all. The shape shifter at the end of the movie that turned into buring sulfur or something also seemed to be have an odd look to the flame.
The Tiki Head and the doors made out of volcanic rock in Syndrome's dining room were extremely well done. Yet the grapes and fruit on the dining table looked like they were made of wood to me. I thought they were decoration until Mirage actually mentioned that they were grown on the island. Admittedly we're talking two different materials and lit with a very odd lava light, but it was still very odd.
The water effects were amazing. I thought their work on Nemo had helped nail them, but the scene were mom and kids hit the water had a very odd look. It almost looked like they were covered in KY jelly rather than water. The waves looked great and their uniforms looked fine, but their hair and skin made the scene really seem to be the only one where the animation took me "out of the moment" so to speak.
But all in all there were so many things that were really well done. The different types of ice effects. Anything made of metal (from the manhole covers to the giant sewing machine). And a number of the cloth materials (like Tony's sweater or Bob's suit when he's examining the hole) The glass effects (stained glass windows or the limo windows). All really nice and very well done.
Ayn Rand had accusations of her work being white supremecist and hyper capitalist. Ms. Rand may have had such feelings in her, but this movie is really only talking about a "lite" version of Objectisvism. "Be all that you can be"
Mild spoilers follow but I'm wary to cut out as much as irrelevant as possible...
This is not a story that you could really tell unless you use superheroics or some other form of "artificial" divide between superior and inferior. Nothing in the movie suggests that the divide applies to any aspect such as race or gender or culture. And there would definitely be cries of race baiting or gender discrimination in a more conventional story.
ElastiGirl seems to have a strong sense of guilt and shame about being exceptional. She is embarassed to talk to Edna as ElastiGirl. Her expression is much more about forgetting the past and just trying to fit in to the expectations of the "normals".
Mr. Incredible has a much more frustrated sense. He see's the normals (he actually uses derogatory terms like "mediocrity" to describe them) as holding him back. This boils up repeatedly in little arguments from the graduation attendance to the sports arguments and finally boils after an incident where his boss demands mediocrity from him.
Syndrome is the worst result. His attitude is that he didn't have the gifts and that those with them "owed" him in some way. His first appearances in the movie especially were about him demanding extra compensation. Later in the movie, you learn in a very subtle computer montage that he's been getting his power this way by beta testing on the supers with very grisley results.
By the end of the movie, Syndrome's point of view is the one seen to be most incorrect, but neither of the hero points of view is resolved as being "correct", but both of them appear to have come significantly closer to each other's point of view. Other people are normal, that's not a bad thing but with greater gifts come greater responsibility. The happy finish line result seems to describe this "happy compromise" better than words could.
I think a real Ayn Rand Objectivist would not enjoy the compromise at the end, but it is a far deeper and more controversial subject than I ever expected to see in a children's action film.
There's also a scene toward the end of the movie where one character is holding a large sphere while laying on the ground. The character then flips over with the sphere on his back in the classic pose of "Atlas holding the earth"
Apple did get it's old Unix-for-Mac product "A/UX" certified as a real Unix. But for a long time Apple described Mac OS X as "Unix-like", later it used the term "Unix based" technology. The Open Group filed a lawsuit against Apple for using this terminology back in 2001 and this was still winding its way through the court and negotiation system as late as June 2004. I have no idea what the state of things is today, but Apple got very nasty during these "negotiations" claiming that the word Unix itself doesn't denote a strict set of standards. At some point people were talking about Apple having to pay huge fines or the Open Group losing the use of Unix as a trademark as the only two outcomes of this trial.
Whatever happened, I doubt Apple will go after the certification of Unix 2003.
Just for clarification, are you referring to the series of Samuel Youd childrens' books (writing under pen name of John Christopher) about alien invaders who ride in tripods and the young teenagers who still have free will (no pun intended)?
The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire
When The Tripods Came (A prequel added later to the original trilogy)
There have been adaptations of this story to other media, of which the BBC production is probably the most famous. There is a website that talks about these stories including a page on the Touchstone pictures movie attempt a few years ago.
While these are good stories on their own, I'm not sure they'd make good Hollywood plots for movies. The teenage boys would need love interests. The technology could be easily shown with special effects of today, but its likely to be reworked as a special effects extravaganza (which the stories were not). I can also see the stories being called derivative of V and sense that movie makers would have to make changes to distinguish themselves from that story. All in all, it sounds like the Tripod stories are better off if they aren't soiled by Hollywood to me.
The Boba Fett action figure was available in some Kenner promotion before The Empire Strikes Back came out. It was hyped as a new character from the next Star Wars movie and it had some ridiculous requirement (mail order only with 5 barcodes from other figures plus money or something like that).
While I may not recall the details of that merchandising campaign well, it WAS Lucas or his licensees that hyped Boba Fett as a big character before the movie came out. I think that he's being a bit coy by saying he didn't expect Boba Fett to be a popular character. Maybe he's telling the truth though, maybe the sales indicated a low interest in this guy and so Lucas had his part minimized in the movie. Who knows.
Re:yet more confusion between ibook and powerbook
on
Apple Announces New iBooks
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I live near a big college campus. The coffee houses are packed with Apple gear both iBook and PowerBooks of all varieties. I'm actually guessing that the two factors that help the sales here are the popularity of the iPod and the ease of hookup to a wireless network. The current styles of white 14" iBook and 12" PowerBooks are the most popular. Maybe because of price, maybe because of portability (the 17" PowerBooks are great but they are bulky).
While I haven't looked in a while, I recall some points about the PowerBook seemed better than the iBook for video uses. The ability to plug in a second monitor at home was one (Final Cut loves screen space).
Powerbooks have their downside though. The metal case on mine has become very scratched and ugly (definitely get a case designed for a PowerBook to carry it in if you get a PB). The thin DVD drive right below the palm rest seems succeptible to skipping when I have my hand on the rest and typing away. The metal case does seem to offer slightly worse WiFi reception that the iBook (not by much, but it is noticable). And the plastic feet just never, ever stay on (which probably leads to more scratches on its bottom). None of these are horrible defects, but that tough, shiny motorcycle plastic body on the iBook is actually a very good thing if your machine is constantly on the move.
Honestly, I think either iBook or PowerBook will work well for college tasks of writing papers and so forth. I think the iBook is better constructed for the rough college life, but the PowerBook has a bit more oomf and video versatility that may make video editing more comfortable. Both seem quite fashionable on my campus though.
Implant subcutaneous device below the skin of the chest above the heart which the patient will be unable to remove without surgery (profit potential for doctor and hospital)
Make an interface port through the nipple where medicinal refills can be added on an approximately weekly basis. (profit potential for doctor and druggist).
Using the scheduling services of Windows CE, device infuses portions of the medicine into the blood stream on a regular basis.
A secure 802.11b device will allow software updates to be applied when in close proximity to your doctor and once an update fee has been paid. (profit potential for Microsoft and doctor.)
Make a subscription license available for the richer corporate customers.
Pass legislation requiring "Microsoft BreathOfLife" device to be the required treatment option for all people who may be suspected of having TB.
If patient exhibits symptoms of "Blue Scream of Death", remove device and implant in next patient.
Sorry, I don't want to drag this off-topic into another screed about the evils of extended copyright, but it is mildly relevant.
My grandfather was a well-respected medical researcher. The works that he developed his fortune and reputation have been superceded, but toward the "mature" part of his career in the 1930's he did a lot of work on tuberculosis especially with animal tests on cattle. The articles my grandfather wrote are still under copyright. He's been dead for decades, and tuberculosis has been a non-issue for most Americans for years. Now that a more vicious strain of TB is starting to emerge, I find it disturbing that this material is still illegal to share.
If you can't see what I'm talking about, look at the two-digit year rollover problem framed in the media as Y2K. All of the research into the causes, identifications, and solutions to the "millenium bug" will remain under copyright for close to 90 years under current copyright law. Imagine though that copyright was extended yet again and these works weren't public domain until AFTER the next two digit rollover in 2100.
Just as people have already started to build two-digit years into databases again, so have people given up on many practices that might minimize the spread of TB. Some people can't even identify these practices or understand why they're at issue.
I realize that the research into Y2K and bovine tuberculosis isn't "gone" that it's still around under lease, but it seems that having only the choice of paying for out-of-date information on a tangential problem or recreating the works someone else did is a waste of resources (money or time) that could be better applied toward whatever problem is causing researchers to look back on these old issues.
I'm thinking about digging into my grandfather's work papers (what's left anyway) and trying to digitize some of his data, notes, and private letters on the subject of bovine TB. Some of this data probably can't be collected today because of regulations on animal testing that didn't exist in the 1930's. I know full well that it would be irrelevant to the current threat of drug resistant tuberculosis strains, but it might let some researchers or problem-solvers keep their money and time focused where the real problem is rather than paying/recreating old research.
While I'm not against people making money from their research and creative works, the length of time that this stuff remains under protection is absurd. The money made either for my family or the publishers trailed off to nothing decades ago. The potential monteary profit of his work is far outweighed by my own interests in not becoming a victim of a drug-resistant version of this affliction. The benefit of this work today is only as part of a contextual frame or foundation for research into other communicable diseases.
Clip 3 - Talks about an actor who's had parts in the Pixar movies
I think these were the clips that were shown just before three of the commercial breaks in the television airing of "Toy Story". If you want them in chronological order I think it was Clip 3, then Clip 2, then Clip 1.
The animation is rough. Very rough. You can see that some of the characters have undergone some design refinement so you can probably count on very little of what you see as something that will definitely be in the movie.
Clip One has the most potential for spoilers. It also has the most material from the movie itself rather than people talking about the movie. Here's an intentionally vague and rough description of the content:
Character delivering two word line to another character indicating self-assurance.
Behind the scenes view of render station. Very rough render of an action scene. Unable to determine OS or Window manager being run.
A character not shown in other trailers or clips delivering a two word line of either brown-nosing or self-assurance. The impression is of a toss-away extra or practice animation.
Low resolution, limited movement, oddly lit scene of two characters in possibly dangerous situation.
A character gives a look of self-assurance to the camera. No lines.
A character face extpresses a determined effort to do something, but the context is unclear.
A voice actor shown in the recording studio recording a two word line. The voice is similar to a character in the promos. The line has no context other than a vague expression of urgency in the actor's voice.
Some black and white storyboards shot from a distance. On pause you can vaguely make out some superheros using their powers.
A different voice actor recording a 4 word line indicative of impatience.
A character's face demonstrating unexpected suprise.
Two characters sitting and watching something vaguely antrhopomorphic that appears to be vaporizing/disappearing/teleporting.
A voice actor shown recording a ten word line (used in the two trailers) indicative of a self-assured attitude.
Eight very fast (under a second) shots of characters in motion (and various stages of finished/rough animation)
Actor saying nine word line indicative of either self-confidence or boredom (no context). This voice actor hasn't had lines in other trailers, but some posters in studio indicate what character this actor may play (not sure if that's a spoiler or not).
An eight second assembly of different scenes. It is apparent that beyond a perhaps thematic relation, most of these are shown out of context. A conversation between two characters dominates the soundtrack which may or may not be a composite of different conversations.
A character concluding one of the lines started by one of the voice actors. In context it may indicate slightly different gender roles (or his perception of gender roles) in the superhero universe.
Five word line from one character indicative of suprise and frustration. May reveal a plot point not mentioned in other trailers but hard to tell not knowing who she is talking with.
A one word reaction shot from a character indicating possible emotional immaturity being juxtaposed with the previous scene, but may be out of context.
Concludes with a number of rapidly changing scenes of superheroics and superpowers.
After a John Ratzenberger wrap up, a gadget parodying a popular superhero prop appears as t
What did you think of the teaser trailer? I call it "In the Attic". It's pretty much one scene, one character, contextual background presented in scenery. If you want a feel for the animation with only a small bit of movie context, this is the only one I'd recommend.
The first trailer (with the "pixar" city flyover opening) had many of these single character scenes edited together in a frenzied collage. The only direct indication of the plot I get is if I start speculatively assembling the pieces in my own mind. I count only three one-liner jokes that I'll be expecting (i.e. may still be funny but not suprising). There's very little we see of the plot though to put this stuff into context, but it's edited into a fast paced frenzy.
The second and newest trailer which opens with "car trouble" opening has much more in the way of plot and characterization points. Some of my speculative assembly of the pieces I made of the first trailer was incorrect. It seems that the point of this trailer is to indicate that this won't be a typical superhero movie. There's very little focus on the antagonists, but many subtle character quirks are given a lot of focus.
I'd call the teaser (in the attic) to be spoiler insignificant. The first trailer (pixar city opening) to be an adrenaline rush to get kids excited and has some characterization spoilers. The second trailer (car trouble opening) is a pitch to the adults of the kids that this movie will be fun for you too and has some plot and many characterization spoilers.
Watching any preview reveals something about the movie. I hope this gives you some idea of what you might expect if you're up at two in the morning and just breakdown and have to see something.
They're both pictures of *apples* for ****'s sake!
Mickey Mouse, Jerry Mouse, Speedy Gonzales, Mighty Mouse, Fievel Mousekwitz, Danger Mouse, Pinky, and the Brain are all mice trademarks created for use in the animation industry, owned by many different entities, and used in many similar markets (animation, toys, action figures, underroos, McDonalds collectible glasses, lunchboxes, bobble-head dolls, coloring books, etc.)
These "mice" can be trademarked even though they are rodents in the same market exactly because they visually don't resemble each other. If this were strictly a trademark case, there would be almost nothing that Apple Corps could litigate against the computer company. The visual design of their iconic trademarks are significantly different even if it's found that the two may overlap in the markets they are selling to.
The issue that no one can grasp is whether the 1991 contractual agreement signed when Mr. Jobs was in exile from Apple made further stipulations about just what could and couldn't be done with markets, advertising, and so forth. It's those contracts that are still not public and thus we know nothing more than we did in 1991 about what Apple stipulates that Apple can and can not do.
Private Contractual Agreements
on
Beatles vs Apple
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The article says that the lawsuit is about a contractual agreement between the two companies. This is the same agreement that purportedly forced renaming of the System 7 sound to the "Sosumi" name. But aside from nterpretations by engineers of the interpretations of Apple's lawyers, these contracts haven't been publicly disclosed.
The rumored agreements perhaps explain why the computer company relies on advertising with the iconic bitten fruit logo in iPod and GarageBand ads rather than by plastering the word "Apple" in its Garamond-like-typeface. The pictoral trademarks of the two companies are quite different. But whether the agreements being litigated covered all trademarks or just trademarks with the words Apple hasn't been publicly disclosed.
Perhaps AppleCorps' insistence on litigating these agreements is because its being puppeteered by a larger computer competitor. Perhaps in some backroom deal Sony offered partial control over the 159 of the 260 songs now controlled by Jackson-Sony. But the agreements (if any) between a well-funded compteitor and AppleCorps haven't been publicly disclosed.
There's a lot of speculation about this case, but beyond the stalest of rumors and FUD being kicked up (yet again) there's very little that's actually new here.
My guess is that they are selling something which legally fulfills their legal claims. Of course what we're seeing are their marketing claims which sound like they were written by the good witch of Oz.
A disassembler that pulls apart certain binaries, applies a transformation matrix that the user defines to compensate for the difference in processors, and then re-assembles a binary sounds like something that could be done in very limited circumstances while laying the success or failure of the transformation (along with the legal liability) on the customer's shoulders. What about their performance claims? The legalese may claim the speed is of the transformation process and not the speed of the re-assembled transformed binary.
Just one example of why you might want to see the legal speak rather than the market speak.
I don't think the feature itself is at all controversial. It is a matter of security to be able to block external devices to unauthorized users on your machine. There are ways to do this today in current versions of Windows with third party products.
Two things come to mind however:
1. Who will actually implement this feature? We're talking about something that really digs into the hardware/firmware/low-level-OS hooks of a system. For all practical purposes MS could simply shove most of the hard work off to the hardware makers saying that it provides a standard configuration panel in Windows and an API to unify the diverse hardware standards for features like this. Of course, it'd be up to the headaches of the hardware makers to make sure that things like firmware upgrades / hard resets / external booting are available but respect the settings of this API.
2. Is this something that software programmers will encourage? Before it became popular to mount USB cameras as FAT partitions on your desktop, digital cameras had to use a serial cable and follow an elaborate, non-standard syncing APIs and mechanisms. The simplicity from the programmer perspective of having a simple data repository that acts like a file system device lets them spend their time on many other things rather than handshaking and querying acrobatics. Unless MS is also implementing an extensible sync architecture which will allow them to properly screen out the "true" hardware storage devices but allow things like cameras and PDA's to be read into the computer, then I forsee most users turning off this security feature as the first or second step in the instruction manuals of most devices (just as turning off the MS firewall appears to be the first step of many Internet enabled programs).
Well, the President of Diebold did claim in 2003 that his company was
committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.
I suppose the California officials are upset that Diebold didn't include their state in the obvious corruptions of an opaque and unmonitorable voting system.
The first amendment says that the message is not relevant. There can be restrictions placed on the manner of expression, but the content of the message is irrelevant.
If a school girl wrote "Principal Skinner Stinks"... If a Republican wrote "Boycott Heinz politics"... If a Democrat wrote "When Clinton Lied No one Died"... If an asylum escapee wrote "We should bottle purple"...
Their content is not punishable. Only the methods of expressing that content are. If they let school kids chalk protests to their school board, there's nothing they can do about another political message taking the same form.
Since about midnight last night, Earthlink appears to be ahead of this "internet meltdown" curve. Their DSL service has been slow when it's working at all.
"Since the conclusion of the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' our lawyers have concluded that all potential variations on super-peril have been written and are owned by AOL Time Warner. Variations which ABC, Fantagraphics, and Marvel continue to publish are simple rehashes of these plot lines."
"Because of court rulings such as the decision that all Fawcett superheroes (Captain Marvel, the wizard Shazam, Mr. Tawky Tawny, etc.) were rip-offs of Superman Intellectual Property rights, this sets a dangerous precedent in comic book publishing."
"BusinessWeek advises that all future comics not owned by AOL Time Warner should include a license that allows other publishers free use of your work, as is or with modifications, with only a notice in the fine print and without compensation."
If the military or CIA likes these they could have a variety of subversive uses. With a little bit of plastic explosive an undercover agent could deliver all sorts of subversive destruction (blow out a structural support in a mosque without having to get too close, an assassination tool that could be launched such that it appears to frame someone else, etc)
Of couse if the military or CIA doesn't want to spend the money, they'll frame them as a "terrorist tool" until the market disappears and the price comes down.
While you probably meant this as a joke, changing end credits would be much harder to do than to change the content of the movie itself.
Cameramen have guilds and unions (e.g. IATSE) that will raise a royal stink if the credits for their members were changed. Unless the names are in alphabetical order, the order of names for a position indicates clout of the person or significance of their contribution to the movie.
I think that fighting a few "purist librarians" and changing the order of the alphabet would be an easier task than fighting a union.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not going to happen, but I think the only way to do Watchmen is as a trilogy. There's just too much information to fit into a traditional Hollywood three act structure.
The first movie deals with romance between Laurie and Dan
Sets up Rorsharch's serial killer conspiracy.
Ends with Dr. Manhattan leaving earth and Rorscharch's arrest.
The second deals with Rorsharch's psychosis
Shows Laurie's appeal to Dr. Manhattan on Mars
Ends with the realization Ozymandias is behind things
The third focuses on the complex resolution of Ozy's plan
Resolves with Dan and Laurie's happy relationship
Has a scene post-credits that portrays the cliff-hanger of Rorscharch's diary.
I used to work at a check printing company. My gut feeling is that this smacks of a manipulative urban legend rather than a real technology.
Yes, I'm sure that it is feasible with today's technology, but the expense of doing this on all color printers in the low profit margin color printer market makes me dubious. It will take a law to get all the suppliers to comply and create an "even-playing field" of expense for everyone. The patriotism Xerox demostrates may be commendable that their products are more trackable but it isn't profitable.
Looking at the problems with the coordination of the ISBN book publishing numbers or the social security numbers makes coordiantion of a secret serial number system that's shared between international suppliers even more absurd. "Oops, we accidentally re-used the secret id numbers for the Xerox printers with these knock-off Zerox printers for Tiger Direct."
Finding the serial number is a good first step. Refill an empty toner cartridge with black toner. This will not tell you the serial number (you'll have to do comparisons between printers of the same model to get that), but the presence of the serial number should be easier to find. If it's not there with the black toner then it's either a more subtle technology (modulating the laser itself?) or it's not going to be found.
The great thing about color laser is its comparative cheapness. Dye Sublimation printers were what the check people would use for very impressive mock-ups, but the dye refills were very, very expensive compared to the laser printer refills. Still, when someone in the art department wanted to make a fake United Federation of Planets Passport, they'd go for the dye sub printer when the boss wasn't looking.
And you call yourselves geeks. I expected the slashdot crowd to be more concerned about the next "sequel" to the Pixar Renderman software than the demonstration and advertising files that they show to promote it. :-)
Actually, I have to wonder that if Pixar has the right of first refusal to do the sequels why they don't just make a really crappy wireframe version of the film. Something that no one could possibly sell as anything resembling the previous work (even straight to video). "Oh no! the Superman doll suddenly can't turn off his X-ray vision! Everything is but contours and outlines!" Try to get anyone to buy this one Disney.
I've run into a number of these types of people.
A comic book collector who gets every issue of his favorite super-group. Then decides to get every cross-over. Then starts collecting each character's individual books. Then gets obsessed by the size of his own collection. Does he read all these books? Nope. Sealed away in vacuum sealed mylar bags. Could he read all of these books if he tried? Possibly, but reading them is long since become a secondary or tertiary goal. The collecting and justifyig his collecting is number one.
A television show collector who starts with her Happy Days video tapes made off of their antenae. Then starts collecting all of the merchandise (lunch boxes, records, etc). Starts collecting the spin-off series like Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Joanie Loves Chachi, and Mork & Mindy. Winds up paying huge sums of money on eBay for the missing episodes. She never actually seems to watch her tapes (or she might notice the horribly low quality of her recording). She just becomes obsessed. You can't buy her a birthday gift because if its at all related to these shows she wouldn't admit to not having one already, yet she claims no interest in practically anything outside of this realm.
I have a friend who has a compact Mac collection. He attempts to own at least one of every compact Macintosh ever made (like the Mac SE form factor, not like an iBook). His collection is huge. It takes up multiple rooms in his house. He has every "flavor" of iMac color produced. He has the extremely rare, black MacTV with its remote. He is missing a working Macintosh Color Classic II that was released only in asian markets, but he's on eBay constantly looking for it. Many of these machines he won't actually turn on because they were in working order and he's too nervous about blowing the built in monitors. It's an impressive collection, but it's only a collection and not an array of machines he will use.
Collecting is nifty, but when it starts being the end in itself it's time to find something else to do. You will not be satisfied with the collection itself. You will spend huge amounts of money trying to get ever more obscure items to add to it and you won't be satisfied until you get the Yak-Face action figure. What's worse is if you are able to actually finish the collection, if you haven't amassed something that you can use or enjoy on its own then you don't realy have anything but a collection that will only be appreciated by another collector (if then).
Collecting music may be different, but if this person starts a separate group just for the things he enjoys listening too then that's may be indicative of a collection obsession.
I thought the animation was great but there were some things that seemed off.
Some possible spoilers
I was admiring the flame effect on the burning building and the campfire in the cave. But when Dash picks up a torch from the fire, it looked very fake for some reason and in the same scene with the campfire. My eyes didn't like that torch at all. The shape shifter at the end of the movie that turned into buring sulfur or something also seemed to be have an odd look to the flame.
The Tiki Head and the doors made out of volcanic rock in Syndrome's dining room were extremely well done. Yet the grapes and fruit on the dining table looked like they were made of wood to me. I thought they were decoration until Mirage actually mentioned that they were grown on the island. Admittedly we're talking two different materials and lit with a very odd lava light, but it was still very odd.
The water effects were amazing. I thought their work on Nemo had helped nail them, but the scene were mom and kids hit the water had a very odd look. It almost looked like they were covered in KY jelly rather than water. The waves looked great and their uniforms looked fine, but their hair and skin made the scene really seem to be the only one where the animation took me "out of the moment" so to speak.
But all in all there were so many things that were really well done. The different types of ice effects. Anything made of metal (from the manhole covers to the giant sewing machine). And a number of the cloth materials (like Tony's sweater or Bob's suit when he's examining the hole) The glass effects (stained glass windows or the limo windows). All really nice and very well done.
Ayn Rand had accusations of her work being white supremecist and hyper capitalist. Ms. Rand may have had such feelings in her, but this movie is really only talking about a "lite" version of Objectisvism. "Be all that you can be"
Mild spoilers follow but I'm wary to cut out as much as irrelevant as possible...
This is not a story that you could really tell unless you use superheroics or some other form of "artificial" divide between superior and inferior. Nothing in the movie suggests that the divide applies to any aspect such as race or gender or culture. And there would definitely be cries of race baiting or gender discrimination in a more conventional story.
ElastiGirl seems to have a strong sense of guilt and shame about being exceptional. She is embarassed to talk to Edna as ElastiGirl. Her expression is much more about forgetting the past and just trying to fit in to the expectations of the "normals".
Mr. Incredible has a much more frustrated sense. He see's the normals (he actually uses derogatory terms like "mediocrity" to describe them) as holding him back. This boils up repeatedly in little arguments from the graduation attendance to the sports arguments and finally boils after an incident where his boss demands mediocrity from him.
Syndrome is the worst result. His attitude is that he didn't have the gifts and that those with them "owed" him in some way. His first appearances in the movie especially were about him demanding extra compensation. Later in the movie, you learn in a very subtle computer montage that he's been getting his power this way by beta testing on the supers with very grisley results.
By the end of the movie, Syndrome's point of view is the one seen to be most incorrect, but neither of the hero points of view is resolved as being "correct", but both of them appear to have come significantly closer to each other's point of view. Other people are normal, that's not a bad thing but with greater gifts come greater responsibility. The happy finish line result seems to describe this "happy compromise" better than words could.
I think a real Ayn Rand Objectivist would not enjoy the compromise at the end, but it is a far deeper and more controversial subject than I ever expected to see in a children's action film.
There's also a scene toward the end of the movie where one character is holding a large sphere while laying on the ground. The character then flips over with the sphere on his back in the classic pose of "Atlas holding the earth"
Atlas shrugged?
Apple did get it's old Unix-for-Mac product "A/UX" certified as a real Unix. But for a long time Apple described Mac OS X as "Unix-like", later it used the term "Unix based" technology. The Open Group filed a lawsuit against Apple for using this terminology back in 2001 and this was still winding its way through the court and negotiation system as late as June 2004. I have no idea what the state of things is today, but Apple got very nasty during these "negotiations" claiming that the word Unix itself doesn't denote a strict set of standards. At some point people were talking about Apple having to pay huge fines or the Open Group losing the use of Unix as a trademark as the only two outcomes of this trial.
Whatever happened, I doubt Apple will go after the certification of Unix 2003.
- The White Mountains
- The City of Gold and Lead
- The Pool of Fire
- When The Tripods Came (A prequel added later to the original trilogy)
There have been adaptations of this story to other media, of which the BBC production is probably the most famous. There is a website that talks about these stories including a page on the Touchstone pictures movie attempt a few years ago.While these are good stories on their own, I'm not sure they'd make good Hollywood plots for movies. The teenage boys would need love interests. The technology could be easily shown with special effects of today, but its likely to be reworked as a special effects extravaganza (which the stories were not). I can also see the stories being called derivative of V and sense that movie makers would have to make changes to distinguish themselves from that story. All in all, it sounds like the Tripod stories are better off if they aren't soiled by Hollywood to me.
The Boba Fett action figure was available in some Kenner promotion before The Empire Strikes Back came out. It was hyped as a new character from the next Star Wars movie and it had some ridiculous requirement (mail order only with 5 barcodes from other figures plus money or something like that).
While I may not recall the details of that merchandising campaign well, it WAS Lucas or his licensees that hyped Boba Fett as a big character before the movie came out. I think that he's being a bit coy by saying he didn't expect Boba Fett to be a popular character. Maybe he's telling the truth though, maybe the sales indicated a low interest in this guy and so Lucas had his part minimized in the movie. Who knows.
I live near a big college campus. The coffee houses are packed with Apple gear both iBook and PowerBooks of all varieties. I'm actually guessing that the two factors that help the sales here are the popularity of the iPod and the ease of hookup to a wireless network. The current styles of white 14" iBook and 12" PowerBooks are the most popular. Maybe because of price, maybe because of portability (the 17" PowerBooks are great but they are bulky).
While I haven't looked in a while, I recall some points about the PowerBook seemed better than the iBook for video uses. The ability to plug in a second monitor at home was one (Final Cut loves screen space).
Powerbooks have their downside though. The metal case on mine has become very scratched and ugly (definitely get a case designed for a PowerBook to carry it in if you get a PB). The thin DVD drive right below the palm rest seems succeptible to skipping when I have my hand on the rest and typing away. The metal case does seem to offer slightly worse WiFi reception that the iBook (not by much, but it is noticable). And the plastic feet just never, ever stay on (which probably leads to more scratches on its bottom). None of these are horrible defects, but that tough, shiny motorcycle plastic body on the iBook is actually a very good thing if your machine is constantly on the move.
Honestly, I think either iBook or PowerBook will work well for college tasks of writing papers and so forth. I think the iBook is better constructed for the rough college life, but the PowerBook has a bit more oomf and video versatility that may make video editing more comfortable. Both seem quite fashionable on my campus though.
Sorry, I don't want to drag this off-topic into another screed about the evils of extended copyright, but it is mildly relevant.
My grandfather was a well-respected medical researcher. The works that he developed his fortune and reputation have been superceded, but toward the "mature" part of his career in the 1930's he did a lot of work on tuberculosis especially with animal tests on cattle. The articles my grandfather wrote are still under copyright. He's been dead for decades, and tuberculosis has been a non-issue for most Americans for years. Now that a more vicious strain of TB is starting to emerge, I find it disturbing that this material is still illegal to share.
If you can't see what I'm talking about, look at the two-digit year rollover problem framed in the media as Y2K. All of the research into the causes, identifications, and solutions to the "millenium bug" will remain under copyright for close to 90 years under current copyright law. Imagine though that copyright was extended yet again and these works weren't public domain until AFTER the next two digit rollover in 2100.
Just as people have already started to build two-digit years into databases again, so have people given up on many practices that might minimize the spread of TB. Some people can't even identify these practices or understand why they're at issue.
I realize that the research into Y2K and bovine tuberculosis isn't "gone" that it's still around under lease, but it seems that having only the choice of paying for out-of-date information on a tangential problem or recreating the works someone else did is a waste of resources (money or time) that could be better applied toward whatever problem is causing researchers to look back on these old issues.
I'm thinking about digging into my grandfather's work papers (what's left anyway) and trying to digitize some of his data, notes, and private letters on the subject of bovine TB. Some of this data probably can't be collected today because of regulations on animal testing that didn't exist in the 1930's. I know full well that it would be irrelevant to the current threat of drug resistant tuberculosis strains, but it might let some researchers or problem-solvers keep their money and time focused where the real problem is rather than paying/recreating old research.
While I'm not against people making money from their research and creative works, the length of time that this stuff remains under protection is absurd. The money made either for my family or the publishers trailed off to nothing decades ago. The potential monteary profit of his work is far outweighed by my own interests in not becoming a victim of a drug-resistant version of this affliction. The benefit of this work today is only as part of a contextual frame or foundation for research into other communicable diseases.
I think these were the clips that were shown just before three of the commercial breaks in the television airing of "Toy Story". If you want them in chronological order I think it was Clip 3, then Clip 2, then Clip 1.
The animation is rough. Very rough. You can see that some of the characters have undergone some design refinement so you can probably count on very little of what you see as something that will definitely be in the movie.
Clip One has the most potential for spoilers. It also has the most material from the movie itself rather than people talking about the movie. Here's an intentionally vague and rough description of the content:
What did you think of the teaser trailer? I call it "In the Attic". It's pretty much one scene, one character, contextual background presented in scenery. If you want a feel for the animation with only a small bit of movie context, this is the only one I'd recommend.
The first trailer (with the "pixar" city flyover opening) had many of these single character scenes edited together in a frenzied collage. The only direct indication of the plot I get is if I start speculatively assembling the pieces in my own mind. I count only three one-liner jokes that I'll be expecting (i.e. may still be funny but not suprising). There's very little we see of the plot though to put this stuff into context, but it's edited into a fast paced frenzy.
The second and newest trailer which opens with "car trouble" opening has much more in the way of plot and characterization points. Some of my speculative assembly of the pieces I made of the first trailer was incorrect. It seems that the point of this trailer is to indicate that this won't be a typical superhero movie. There's very little focus on the antagonists, but many subtle character quirks are given a lot of focus.
I'd call the teaser (in the attic) to be spoiler insignificant. The first trailer (pixar city opening) to be an adrenaline rush to get kids excited and has some characterization spoilers. The second trailer (car trouble opening) is a pitch to the adults of the kids that this movie will be fun for you too and has some plot and many characterization spoilers.
Watching any preview reveals something about the movie. I hope this gives you some idea of what you might expect if you're up at two in the morning and just breakdown and have to see something.
Mickey Mouse, Jerry Mouse, Speedy Gonzales, Mighty Mouse, Fievel Mousekwitz, Danger Mouse, Pinky, and the Brain are all mice trademarks created for use in the animation industry, owned by many different entities, and used in many similar markets (animation, toys, action figures, underroos, McDonalds collectible glasses, lunchboxes, bobble-head dolls, coloring books, etc.)
These "mice" can be trademarked even though they are rodents in the same market exactly because they visually don't resemble each other. If this were strictly a trademark case, there would be almost nothing that Apple Corps could litigate against the computer company. The visual design of their iconic trademarks are significantly different even if it's found that the two may overlap in the markets they are selling to.
The issue that no one can grasp is whether the 1991 contractual agreement signed when Mr. Jobs was in exile from Apple made further stipulations about just what could and couldn't be done with markets, advertising, and so forth. It's those contracts that are still not public and thus we know nothing more than we did in 1991 about what Apple stipulates that Apple can and can not do.
The article says that the lawsuit is about a contractual agreement between the two companies. This is the same agreement that purportedly forced renaming of the System 7 sound to the "Sosumi" name. But aside from nterpretations by engineers of the interpretations of Apple's lawyers, these contracts haven't been publicly disclosed.
The rumored agreements perhaps explain why the computer company relies on advertising with the iconic bitten fruit logo in iPod and GarageBand ads rather than by plastering the word "Apple" in its Garamond-like-typeface. The pictoral trademarks of the two companies are quite different. But whether the agreements being litigated covered all trademarks or just trademarks with the words Apple hasn't been publicly disclosed.
Perhaps AppleCorps' insistence on litigating these agreements is because its being puppeteered by a larger computer competitor. Perhaps in some backroom deal Sony offered partial control over the 159 of the 260 songs now controlled by Jackson-Sony. But the agreements (if any) between a well-funded compteitor and AppleCorps haven't been publicly disclosed.
There's a lot of speculation about this case, but beyond the stalest of rumors and FUD being kicked up (yet again) there's very little that's actually new here.
My guess is that they are selling something which legally fulfills their legal claims. Of course what we're seeing are their marketing claims which sound like they were written by the good witch of Oz.
A disassembler that pulls apart certain binaries, applies a transformation matrix that the user defines to compensate for the difference in processors, and then re-assembles a binary sounds like something that could be done in very limited circumstances while laying the success or failure of the transformation (along with the legal liability) on the customer's shoulders. What about their performance claims? The legalese may claim the speed is of the transformation process and not the speed of the re-assembled transformed binary.
Just one example of why you might want to see the legal speak rather than the market speak.
I don't think the feature itself is at all controversial. It is a matter of security to be able to block external devices to unauthorized users on your machine. There are ways to do this today in current versions of Windows with third party products.
Two things come to mind however:
1. Who will actually implement this feature? We're talking about something that really digs into the hardware/firmware/low-level-OS hooks of a system. For all practical purposes MS could simply shove most of the hard work off to the hardware makers saying that it provides a standard configuration panel in Windows and an API to unify the diverse hardware standards for features like this. Of course, it'd be up to the headaches of the hardware makers to make sure that things like firmware upgrades / hard resets / external booting are available but respect the settings of this API.
2. Is this something that software programmers will encourage? Before it became popular to mount USB cameras as FAT partitions on your desktop, digital cameras had to use a serial cable and follow an elaborate, non-standard syncing APIs and mechanisms. The simplicity from the programmer perspective of having a simple data repository that acts like a file system device lets them spend their time on many other things rather than handshaking and querying acrobatics. Unless MS is also implementing an extensible sync architecture which will allow them to properly screen out the "true" hardware storage devices but allow things like cameras and PDA's to be read into the computer, then I forsee most users turning off this security feature as the first or second step in the instruction manuals of most devices (just as turning off the MS firewall appears to be the first step of many Internet enabled programs).
The first amendment says that the message is not relevant. There can be restrictions placed on the manner of expression, but the content of the message is irrelevant.
If a school girl wrote "Principal Skinner Stinks"...
If a Republican wrote "Boycott Heinz politics"...
If a Democrat wrote "When Clinton Lied No one Died"...
If an asylum escapee wrote "We should bottle purple"...
Their content is not punishable. Only the methods of expressing that content are. If they let school kids chalk protests to their school board, there's nothing they can do about another political message taking the same form.
Since about midnight last night, Earthlink appears to be ahead of this "internet meltdown" curve. Their DSL service has been slow when it's working at all.
What a service provider!
"Since the conclusion of the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' our lawyers have concluded that all potential variations on super-peril have been written and are owned by AOL Time Warner. Variations which ABC, Fantagraphics, and Marvel continue to publish are simple rehashes of these plot lines."
"Because of court rulings such as the decision that all Fawcett superheroes (Captain Marvel, the wizard Shazam, Mr. Tawky Tawny, etc.) were rip-offs of Superman Intellectual Property rights, this sets a dangerous precedent in comic book publishing."
"BusinessWeek advises that all future comics not owned by AOL Time Warner should include a license that allows other publishers free use of your work, as is or with modifications, with only a notice in the fine print and without compensation."
If the military or CIA likes these they could have a variety of subversive uses. With a little bit of plastic explosive an undercover agent could deliver all sorts of subversive destruction (blow out a structural support in a mosque without having to get too close, an assassination tool that could be launched such that it appears to frame someone else, etc)
Of couse if the military or CIA doesn't want to spend the money, they'll frame them as a "terrorist tool" until the market disappears and the price comes down.
While you probably meant this as a joke, changing end credits would be much harder to do than to change the content of the movie itself.
Cameramen have guilds and unions (e.g. IATSE) that will raise a royal stink if the credits for their members were changed. Unless the names are in alphabetical order, the order of names for a position indicates clout of the person or significance of their contribution to the movie.
I think that fighting a few "purist librarians" and changing the order of the alphabet would be an easier task than fighting a union.