In the last episode of Ask Wil Wheaton, you said that you were hoping to produce some of your own video stuff with a tool like iMovie. I'm interested if there's any progress on that front, but that's not my question, really...
Recently, my hometown was host to a Tromafest of local filmmakers strutting their sometimes trashy but always dedicated homegrown video and film projects. Some were feature-length opuses, others were short flash animations or sketch comedy types. I was really impressed with the quality that went into some of the projects, especially since everyone was professional at heart if not in portfolio.
So the question is: Do you get approached to work on video projects of the independant, micro-budget stripe? What kind of considerations do you.. um... consider... if/when such a project comes your way? Any thoughts you may have about independent filmmaking's strengths and weaknesses on the production side of the equation would be appreciated as well.
OSX got window focus absolutely right. I took a class of Final Cut Pro a few weeks ago, and even though I was juggling an Instant Messenging client and a web browser, typically calling a function in one app and jumping to another before tasks were completed, I never had a window unexpectedly bully its way to the front. When something required my attention, the icon on the dock would humbly peek its head up from the bottom of the screen until I chose to grant focus myself.
Coming from Gnome 2.6, XFCE4, and less recently Windows, I found OSX's focus handling undeniably superior and unobtrusive. It is a particular point of envy for me when I evaluate a new desktop environment for *nix, and I hope it inspires some developers to bring some sanity to the current chaos of window focusing.
The question-and-answer section on this page are certainly informative. It looks like the security technology will be self-updating so that after a particular player's key is gained and resultant piracy detected, future HD-DVDs will not play on that model.
There are a lot of states SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS to address that problem.
However, at no point (that I could detect) does the Q&A bring up a SYSTEM REQUIREMENT for the following scenario: What happens to legitimate purchasers of a given player that gets hacked, and therefore locked out, by somebody else?
In other words, is the locking out of particular players specific to a particular player (by serial number or whatever) thereby locking out only one person, or does the entire set of like models get locked out thereby locking out everyone who purchased that model?
Um... Babylon 5 might not be the best example for your argument that episodically-told shows don't get a second chance on the little screen.
TNT picked up the show after its cancellation at the end of season 4, and not only did JMS manage to make the 5th season go, he also got a number of movie deals *plus* a spin-off show. And the show hadn't even hit DVD yet.
Webster's Unabridged from 1913 defines propaganda: 1. A congregation of cardinals, established is 1622, charged with the management of missions. 2. The college of the Propaganda, instituted by Urban VIII (1623-1644) to educate priests for missions all over the word.
It's ironic that you clarify the definition of the word "propaganda" in the context of this legislation because the pre-WWI definition of the word is strongly associated with its root "propagate," as in to duplicate and distribute. Which is what P2P is all about.
It's only after WWI that the word takes on more manipulative overtones.
Hey Slashdotters in Albuquerque NM! You can learn more about propaganda at the UNM Undergraduate Creativity and Research Symposium on Monday the 22nd! 4:40PM in the Acoma A room at the SUB.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, and the only addition I would make would be this: The facts are hard to come by in any case, spin or no. What I like about blogs is that there is no implicit assumption that the blogstory is without spin.
The traditional reporting media have portrayed themselves for decades as unbiased (or at least counter-biased in all the right ways, thank you Mister Murdock). That's their credibility, and it's also where they're stuck. The depend on covering all sides "fairly," but are limited in what they can tell (by time, editors, commercial concerns, etc). They can only shotgun ideas at you, the audience, in rapid-fire mode before they have to move on to the next story.
What emerges from traditional media guys is a schitzophrenic regurgitation of fact and counter-fact which is unable to admit that perhaps it doesn't have its thought processes screwed in quite rightly.
Blogs, on the other hand, take that kind of weird warpage as part of their natural process. It is understood that the writing is the result of a thinking process that may or may not have its facts straight, but wants to be straight-up about its portrayal. What results is a more pure expression of where that blogger is coming from and what stand is being taken. Bloggers -- the good ones -- elaborate themselves into their writing.
In other words, blogs have a harder time masquerading than traditional media does, because the blogging medium is more honest about having no clothes. It's easier to see the wool going over your eyes.
In fact, as I recall, Fox called it back and forth for several hours before admitting "well, we just don't know." I remember that pretty well, because it was my first indication that I couldn't trust Fox News to get their facts straight.
They were new back then, it was their first time covering a major election, and their tendency to jump the gun disturbed me so much that I haven't laid eyes on them in 4 years, unless you count what I happen to catch in bars.
And no, I haven't seen that movie by that one guy.
Then you get bands like Chumbawamba who, after decades of singing subversive anti-corporate rhetoric, manage to prove their point most eloquently by writing a single album designed to be a one-hit wonder -- as a JOKE.
Now it's tough to find their good old albums because the stores only stock the sucky one-hit wonder album. Seems that the older stuff just doesn't fit the band's image anymore.
Single White Gentoo-Using Male seeks chique Mandrake-Using Female for late-night RPGing...
So, what, now instead of knowing that my Sun Sign is Leo with Mercury in ascention, I instead have to be able to recite my USE flags with/etc/portage/package.mask?
With the Jedi Academy engine backing the mod up, surely you can use the cheat codes to give yourself a light saber. I can't imagine that the modding folks would leave that out. If they did, well, that's another story.
The first demo was awesome, lots of fun to play with the updated graphics and behaviors. I went out and found Dark Forces in the $5 bin at my local software dealer so that I could play the whole game through, only to find it to be completely unplayable at GHz speeds.:) This mod is a nice compromise.
In addition to tear gas, pepper bullets, sonic weapons and microwave beams, the riot police will in the near future use the slashdot effect to knock down any nearby wireless nodes. "Look at this cool page!" they will post, pointing to some poor activist's IP number. With wireless disabled, they will proceed to bust some heads.
And they'll do it time and time again without Timothy getting any wiser. Who notices dupes any more?
This wouldn't be too hard to do (in all seriousness), would it? Just flood the wireless frequencies with noise before calling in the Riot Squad... You can build that kind of gear from spare parts at Radio Shack and mount it in back of a van.
"Spyware" describes a broad category of software that can be installed through unsafe e-mails or Web pages. It sometimes is bundled with other software that consumers download and install, such as file-sharing programs that can be used to download music and movies illegally.
That statement makes it appears as if only people doing illegal things are at risk from spyware. If that were the case, then I doubt that this kind of government response would be such news.
The article's journalist might have done better to include seemingly innocuous software as a possible source of spyware, including stock ticker, weather monitors, automatic desktop wallpaper changers, and so on.
Well, I consider myself to be part of the regular/. crowd...
A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the demo of VMWare for Linux to see how it treated the Windows applications I have to run here at work. I created a nice big virtual drive and got to installing Windows. After running through the setup off CD, I connected to the network to install the required work apps.
Within moments, I was getting pummelled by popups, before I could even apply SP1 and the usual host of security patches. Later that day, Adaware and Xcleaner found over 400 critical instances of evil, and there were some instances that just would not go away. This was with the Windows firewall turned on as part of our install procedure. Something snuck in just under the wire, is all I can figure.
One day, sometime soon I hope, Windows will ship in a secure configuration out of the box. Until then, you practically have to install the OS inside of a clean room wearing an EPA haz-mat suit.
Civil disobedience hinges on making your actions blatantly open to the public, and to law enforcement as well. You invite them to come arrest you in the act, because the real crime is not your actions, but the fact that you get arrested for them.
People who are quick to claim civil disobedience while hiding in the shadows make me sick.
Slashdot Mirror
Hi Wil,
In the last episode of Ask Wil Wheaton, you said that you were hoping to produce some of your own video stuff with a tool like iMovie. I'm interested if there's any progress on that front, but that's not my question, really...
Recently, my hometown was host to a Tromafest of local filmmakers strutting their sometimes trashy but always dedicated homegrown video and film projects. Some were feature-length opuses, others were short flash animations or sketch comedy types. I was really impressed with the quality that went into some of the projects, especially since everyone was professional at heart if not in portfolio.
So the question is: Do you get approached to work on video projects of the independant, micro-budget stripe? What kind of considerations do you.. um... consider... if/when such a project comes your way? Any thoughts you may have about independent filmmaking's strengths and weaknesses on the production side of the equation would be appreciated as well.
Thanks!
OSX got window focus absolutely right. I took a class of Final Cut Pro a few weeks ago, and even though I was juggling an Instant Messenging client and a web browser, typically calling a function in one app and jumping to another before tasks were completed, I never had a window unexpectedly bully its way to the front. When something required my attention, the icon on the dock would humbly peek its head up from the bottom of the screen until I chose to grant focus myself.
Coming from Gnome 2.6, XFCE4, and less recently Windows, I found OSX's focus handling undeniably superior and unobtrusive. It is a particular point of envy for me when I evaluate a new desktop environment for *nix, and I hope it inspires some developers to bring some sanity to the current chaos of window focusing.
The question-and-answer section on this page are certainly informative. It looks like the security technology will be self-updating so that after a particular player's key is gained and resultant piracy detected, future HD-DVDs will not play on that model.
There are a lot of states SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS to address that problem.
However, at no point (that I could detect) does the Q&A bring up a SYSTEM REQUIREMENT for the following scenario: What happens to legitimate purchasers of a given player that gets hacked, and therefore locked out, by somebody else?
In other words, is the locking out of particular players specific to a particular player (by serial number or whatever) thereby locking out only one person, or does the entire set of like models get locked out thereby locking out everyone who purchased that model?
Um... Babylon 5 might not be the best example for your argument that episodically-told shows don't get a second chance on the little screen.
TNT picked up the show after its cancellation at the end of season 4, and not only did JMS manage to make the 5th season go, he also got a number of movie deals *plus* a spin-off show. And the show hadn't even hit DVD yet.
I'm not worried about Firefly. Faith manages.
Webster's Unabridged from 1913 defines propaganda:
1. A congregation of cardinals, established is 1622, charged with the management of missions.
2. The college of the Propaganda, instituted by Urban VIII (1623-1644) to educate priests for missions all over the word.
It's ironic that you clarify the definition of the word "propaganda" in the context of this legislation because the pre-WWI definition of the word is strongly associated with its root "propagate," as in to duplicate and distribute. Which is what P2P is all about.
It's only after WWI that the word takes on more manipulative overtones.
Hey Slashdotters in Albuquerque NM! You can learn more about propaganda at the UNM Undergraduate Creativity and Research Symposium on Monday the 22nd! 4:40PM in the Acoma A room at the SUB.
No more of this quote. Please. Ever.
Both sides ignore and laugh at each other anyway. Who wins?
And when *I* dream, I have a pony.
More specifically, I prefer news outlets that don't offer election bullshit to begin with.
Yeah, I'm still looking...
Not really. You can have it printed on a t-shirt, you just can't sell it.
Feel free to give it away, though.
Journalism isn't dead, it just smells funny.
We miss you, Frank!
Your code isn't running because old code tends to be found near the bottom of the printout, and new code near the top.
Glad to be of help.
Sure. Go nuts with it. I'd put it on cafepress.com, but nobody's ever bought the shirt I have there to begin with...
In fact: I hereby license the phrase "Live Free or Diebold" to anyone who wants to use it under the Creative Commons license, thus:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
I don't know if you can get any Slashdottier than that.
I agree with a lot of what you've said, and the only addition I would make would be this: The facts are hard to come by in any case, spin or no. What I like about blogs is that there is no implicit assumption that the blogstory is without spin.
The traditional reporting media have portrayed themselves for decades as unbiased (or at least counter-biased in all the right ways, thank you Mister Murdock). That's their credibility, and it's also where they're stuck. The depend on covering all sides "fairly," but are limited in what they can tell (by time, editors, commercial concerns, etc). They can only shotgun ideas at you, the audience, in rapid-fire mode before they have to move on to the next story.
What emerges from traditional media guys is a schitzophrenic regurgitation of fact and counter-fact which is unable to admit that perhaps it doesn't have its thought processes screwed in quite rightly.
Blogs, on the other hand, take that kind of weird warpage as part of their natural process. It is understood that the writing is the result of a thinking process that may or may not have its facts straight, but wants to be straight-up about its portrayal. What results is a more pure expression of where that blogger is coming from and what stand is being taken. Bloggers -- the good ones -- elaborate themselves into their writing.
In other words, blogs have a harder time masquerading than traditional media does, because the blogging medium is more honest about having no clothes. It's easier to see the wool going over your eyes.
In fact, as I recall, Fox called it back and forth for several hours before admitting "well, we just don't know." I remember that pretty well, because it was my first indication that I couldn't trust Fox News to get their facts straight.
They were new back then, it was their first time covering a major election, and their tendency to jump the gun disturbed me so much that I haven't laid eyes on them in 4 years, unless you count what I happen to catch in bars.
And no, I haven't seen that movie by that one guy.
Then you get bands like Chumbawamba who, after decades of singing subversive anti-corporate rhetoric, manage to prove their point most eloquently by writing a single album designed to be a one-hit wonder -- as a JOKE.
Now it's tough to find their good old albums because the stores only stock the sucky one-hit wonder album. Seems that the older stuff just doesn't fit the band's image anymore.
Irony is lost in the free market.
Anybody got a torrent?
Single White Gentoo-Using Male seeks chique Mandrake-Using Female for late-night RPGing...
/etc/portage/package.mask?
So, what, now instead of knowing that my Sun Sign is Leo with Mercury in ascention, I instead have to be able to recite my USE flags with
Sour grapes.
:) This mod is a nice compromise.
With the Jedi Academy engine backing the mod up, surely you can use the cheat codes to give yourself a light saber. I can't imagine that the modding folks would leave that out. If they did, well, that's another story.
The first demo was awesome, lots of fun to play with the updated graphics and behaviors. I went out and found Dark Forces in the $5 bin at my local software dealer so that I could play the whole game through, only to find it to be completely unplayable at GHz speeds.
In addition to tear gas, pepper bullets, sonic weapons and microwave beams, the riot police will in the near future use the slashdot effect to knock down any nearby wireless nodes. "Look at this cool page!" they will post, pointing to some poor activist's IP number. With wireless disabled, they will proceed to bust some heads.
And they'll do it time and time again without Timothy getting any wiser. Who notices dupes any more?
This wouldn't be too hard to do (in all seriousness), would it? Just flood the wireless frequencies with noise before calling in the Riot Squad... You can build that kind of gear from spare parts at Radio Shack and mount it in back of a van.
"Spyware" describes a broad category of software that can be installed through unsafe e-mails or Web pages. It sometimes is bundled with other software that consumers download and install, such as file-sharing programs that can be used to download music and movies illegally.
That statement makes it appears as if only people doing illegal things are at risk from spyware. If that were the case, then I doubt that this kind of government response would be such news.
The article's journalist might have done better to include seemingly innocuous software as a possible source of spyware, including stock ticker, weather monitors, automatic desktop wallpaper changers, and so on.
Is Microsoft in control of fucking everything now?
I don't know about *everything*, but I've felt pretty fucked by Microsoft for a while now.
Put three copies of it into your Horadric Cube ... that'll upgrade it from "flawed book" to just "book."
Anyone want to do the math on making a perfect book?
You'd think they would have figured out that the braking switch was in backwards when they saw Genesis's airbags deploy at liftoff.
3... 2... 1... *PFOOF*
Well, I consider myself to be part of the regular /. crowd...
A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the demo of VMWare for Linux to see how it treated the Windows applications I have to run here at work. I created a nice big virtual drive and got to installing Windows. After running through the setup off CD, I connected to the network to install the required work apps.
Within moments, I was getting pummelled by popups, before I could even apply SP1 and the usual host of security patches. Later that day, Adaware and Xcleaner found over 400 critical instances of evil, and there were some instances that just would not go away. This was with the Windows firewall turned on as part of our install procedure. Something snuck in just under the wire, is all I can figure.
One day, sometime soon I hope, Windows will ship in a secure configuration out of the box. Until then, you practically have to install the OS inside of a clean room wearing an EPA haz-mat suit.
Civil disobedience hinges on making your actions blatantly open to the public, and to law enforcement as well. You invite them to come arrest you in the act, because the real crime is not your actions, but the fact that you get arrested for them.
People who are quick to claim civil disobedience while hiding in the shadows make me sick.