Pinocchio, Not Star Trek
on
Review: A.I.
·
· Score: 2
I went into this movie expecting something more along the lines of hard science fiction, with robots, computer science jargon, and some kind of Frankenstein scenario. Sure, the movie does contain stuff like that, but not a lot. It really is more like a modern Pinocchio. Don't go into this movie expecting something very techno-ish like the Matrix. Some have told me how genius this film is and how profound Kubrick is, but this movie simply wasn't entertaining. I was upset that it explicitly drilled the Pinocchio theme into the minds of the viewers. The people at my showing were laughing because the movie was so corny, babyish in its desire to showcase a modern e-pinnochio, if you will. I guess I would say that everyone should see this movie at least once. Some think its a masterpiece, others simply think its garbage.
By the way, the thing that irked me most was its construction. (Spoiler?)... It has three distinct parts to it. When the movie transitions from one part to another, it practically severs any relation between them other than the main character and his sidekick. It made the movie seem like three distinct stories sown together at their tangents. Maybe they could have served as three different storylines aching to be completed. One last thing... The third part.. The characters it involves is simply rediculous (back to that childish idea).
So, all in all... Maybe it is deep. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. But it wasn't entertaining. Haley Joel Osment was great, he's an excellent actor. But I don't feel this as a box office smash. Try Fast and Furious if you like an entertaining movie with import cars.
Clippy is basically the office version of Microsoft Bob, the family oriented inferface to Windows 3.1 (remember that?). With that, I don't think Clippy was all that bad, even though the majority of voices on/. tend to differ. Please keep in mind that the majority of/. members consists of many experienced computer-users. I think, for the family-oriented novice to a computer, Clippy (or any of the other Microsoft Agents) was a good thing. It was meant to make Office a user-friendly application. You have to admit, learning all of the shortcuts and buttons and functions and menus takes a long time for someone who doesn't even know what a URL is. If the user didn't know what to do, he would simply ask Clippy, in English, what or how to do something. Clippy would then *try* to answer the user's question. I obviously don't know anything about the specs behind Clippy but I'm sure that requires some amount of artificial intelligence (or just grepping the help file). And, I guess Clippy was good because it gave life to Microsoft's Agent project. You know, Agent. Those little animated characters that annoy you. But think. For someone who isn't good with a computer and may get nervous as a result, it's relaxing to see a funny animated character help you use a complex piece of equipment.
This was a blog entry so I just copied it straight...
What Part of Compliance Don't You Understand? Some of those Slashdot users really don't get it. Maybe one would have to be a web designer to truly see the whole picture. What picture? This one. The issue of urging users upgrade to more standards-compliant browsers isn't about making pages inaccessible. It's quite the opposite. Standards compliant HTML will work fine in almost any browser. If I typed out my research paper in XHTML 1.1 (or whatever) I bet Mosaic 1.0 could still view it. Why? Because the spec was written for backwards compliance. Display information isn't a problem if good HTML is used.
The real problem is all of those nasty bugs in older browsers. Internet Explorer 3 claims to support CSS 1.0 but it really doesn't. So what those Slashdot people are telling me is that IE 3.0 is perfectly capable of displaying CSS 1.0 compliant pages. Well IE 3.0 isn't as compliant as it sounds. It has bugs. Now, it's the software company's responsibility to get the word out to their users and make them upgrade to a more stable and compliant client.
"Oh it doesn't look right in my 5 year old crap browser." Times are a-changin'. Sure, you can use a black and white TV to view any color-based channels, but don't complain that it doesn't look right. There are many color TVs available everywhere. So ha.
Another example would be Perl. Sure, HTML isn't a programming language, but I'll make it fit. I bet most modern Perl scripts don't care about squat when it comes to Perl 4. Why? Everyone writes for Perl 5. Every system should come with Perl 5. What? Don't have it? Upgrade! Recompile! Do something! It's the user's job to keep up. Being an end-user doesn't give one the excuse of being completely ignorant, helpless, and stupid.
Has anyone ever heard of auto-install? Sure, there probably isn't one for the browser of choice on a Unix-based system, but guess what? Most Unix users are educated enough to take it upon themselves to go upgrade manually. Mom and Pop Wintel users can go ahead and press that big ol' button that says auto-update, that's all it takes. And I don't want to hear any of that crap, "Oh my computer can't support the newer browsers, they're too bulky." What are they talking about? Can a full-fledged home-style desktop computer be so old that it can't support newer applications? Guess what, time to upgrade. Normal people wouldn't stand for large performance hits and would thus be willing to shell out some money for a newer computer. If you're computer can't handle the Big Two, then use Opera. Hell, use Lynx! Just quit your bitchin'. I bet most people aren't web designers. That's why they don't get it... It's just sad.
Uhh this makes me so angry. No one is seeing the big issue... It's just sad. It really is. And I want to do this kind of thing for a living. But then, whene I become successful at my job and accomplish my goals of a well-oiled Internet, I'll be out of a job.
Slashdot Mirror
I went into this movie expecting something more along the lines of hard science fiction, with robots, computer science jargon, and some kind of Frankenstein scenario. Sure, the movie does contain stuff like that, but not a lot. It really is more like a modern Pinocchio. Don't go into this movie expecting something very techno-ish like the Matrix. Some have told me how genius this film is and how profound Kubrick is, but this movie simply wasn't entertaining. I was upset that it explicitly drilled the Pinocchio theme into the minds of the viewers. The people at my showing were laughing because the movie was so corny, babyish in its desire to showcase a modern e-pinnochio, if you will. I guess I would say that everyone should see this movie at least once. Some think its a masterpiece, others simply think its garbage.
... It has three distinct parts to it. When the movie transitions from one part to another, it practically severs any relation between them other than the main character and his sidekick. It made the movie seem like three distinct stories sown together at their tangents. Maybe they could have served as three different storylines aching to be completed. One last thing... The third part.. The characters it involves is simply rediculous (back to that childish idea).
By the way, the thing that irked me most was its construction. (Spoiler?)
So, all in all... Maybe it is deep. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. But it wasn't entertaining. Haley Joel Osment was great, he's an excellent actor. But I don't feel this as a box office smash. Try Fast and Furious if you like an entertaining movie with import cars.
If you look on the interactive demo page (http://www.halfkeyboard.com/propaganda/hkb.html), there are CTRL and ALT keys.
Clippy is basically the office version of Microsoft Bob, the family oriented inferface to Windows 3.1 (remember that?). With that, I don't think Clippy was all that bad, even though the majority of voices on /. tend to differ. Please keep in mind that the majority of /. members consists of many experienced computer-users. I think, for the family-oriented novice to a computer, Clippy (or any of the other Microsoft Agents) was a good thing. It was meant to make Office a user-friendly application. You have to admit, learning all of the shortcuts and buttons and functions and menus takes a long time for someone who doesn't even know what a URL is. If the user didn't know what to do, he would simply ask Clippy, in English, what or how to do something. Clippy would then *try* to answer the user's question. I obviously don't know anything about the specs behind Clippy but I'm sure that requires some amount of artificial intelligence (or just grepping the help file). And, I guess Clippy was good because it gave life to Microsoft's Agent project. You know, Agent. Those little animated characters that annoy you. But think. For someone who isn't good with a computer and may get nervous as a result, it's relaxing to see a funny animated character help you use a complex piece of equipment.
phew...
What Part of Compliance Don't You Understand? Some of those Slashdot users really don't get it. Maybe one would have to be a web designer to truly see the whole picture. What picture? This one. The issue of urging users upgrade to more standards-compliant browsers isn't about making pages inaccessible. It's quite the opposite. Standards compliant HTML will work fine in almost any browser. If I typed out my research paper in XHTML 1.1 (or whatever) I bet Mosaic 1.0 could still view it. Why? Because the spec was written for backwards compliance. Display information isn't a problem if good HTML is used.
The real problem is all of those nasty bugs in older browsers. Internet Explorer 3 claims to support CSS 1.0 but it really doesn't. So what those Slashdot people are telling me is that IE 3.0 is perfectly capable of displaying CSS 1.0 compliant pages. Well IE 3.0 isn't as compliant as it sounds. It has bugs. Now, it's the software company's responsibility to get the word out to their users and make them upgrade to a more stable and compliant client.
"Oh it doesn't look right in my 5 year old crap browser." Times are a-changin'. Sure, you can use a black and white TV to view any color-based channels, but don't complain that it doesn't look right. There are many color TVs available everywhere. So ha.
Another example would be Perl. Sure, HTML isn't a programming language, but I'll make it fit. I bet most modern Perl scripts don't care about squat when it comes to Perl 4. Why? Everyone writes for Perl 5. Every system should come with Perl 5. What? Don't have it? Upgrade! Recompile! Do something! It's the user's job to keep up. Being an end-user doesn't give one the excuse of being completely ignorant, helpless, and stupid.
Has anyone ever heard of auto-install? Sure, there probably isn't one for the browser of choice on a Unix-based system, but guess what? Most Unix users are educated enough to take it upon themselves to go upgrade manually. Mom and Pop Wintel users can go ahead and press that big ol' button that says auto-update, that's all it takes. And I don't want to hear any of that crap, "Oh my computer can't support the newer browsers, they're too bulky." What are they talking about? Can a full-fledged home-style desktop computer be so old that it can't support newer applications? Guess what, time to upgrade. Normal people wouldn't stand for large performance hits and would thus be willing to shell out some money for a newer computer. If you're computer can't handle the Big Two, then use Opera. Hell, use Lynx! Just quit your bitchin'. I bet most people aren't web designers. That's why they don't get it... It's just sad.
Uhh this makes me so angry. No one is seeing the big issue... It's just sad. It really is. And I want to do this kind of thing for a living. But then, whene I become successful at my job and accomplish my goals of a well-oiled Internet, I'll be out of a job.