Both on the Playstation. Resident Evil2 scared the bejeezuz outta me. It was so dark and moody, and the first time that... that thing fell down from the ceiling, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Damn that was good....
Final Fantasy Nine is still the greatest game I've ever played because I got so into the characters. Someone once asked me what the game was about -- all I could say through tear-filled eyes was that it was about... friendship, and love. By the end of the game, I was bawling like a baby because Square had done the impossible and animated the most subtle of expressions on Zidane and Garnet -- you could actually see the love for each other in their eyes. I don't think ANYTHING has ever done that to me, not even a good movie.
So, yeah, that game affected me.. But in a good way.
You forgot to mention that Oscar-winning performance he gave in an Episode of Star Trek Voyager, where he played (get this,) A WRESTLER. Wowzers, what an acting tour-de-force. Such range. Certainly, he makes Brando look like he's standing still.
I want to see "The Rock" cast in the role of a nerd. If he can pull that off, then we can talk.
Wait, you're going to have a bunch of spammers together in a single room? Anybody know where and when this is happening? Myself and a few large friends would like to meet with these people and BREAK THEIR ARMS...
I mean, what better way for them to learn the errors of their ways than to be in AGONIZING PAIN? I'm sure *I* could reduce the amount of spam in the world if I could have just a few minutes alone with these people....
D'oh, talk about Pop eating itself. Because you known that after the movie comes out, some idiot will option the comic rights to the movie. And then we'll have the comic book of the movie of the anime of the Manga (comic book).
Didn't "Road to Perdition" have a comic come out, based on the movie, which was based on the comic book?
Check out http://www.anime.com, scoll down to the bottom, click on Feb2003, and the first pick will be Lupin for all those who want to get the DVDs.
I don't normally write reviews about Star Trek films, as I usually don't feel strongly about them -- I consider them to be an entertaining way to waste a few hours and some of them are even somewhat decent -- usually the even-numbered ones. However, after having my intelligence insulted for two hours straight as I watched this abomination that is merchandising in action, I felt compelled to warn others that might want to waste $10 and 2 hours of your life that you'll never get back, and say "stop!".
Star Trek Nemesis succeeds at being a 2-hour rollercoaster of action that is about nonsense. Nothing in the movie makes the least bit of sense, and the more you try and think about what you just saw, the more you realise that Paramount has just given up, and they figure if that if they make enough stuff blow up, the fans will still buy the crap at the conventions.
Okay, so here's the plot (what little plot I could pick up). The Enterprise finds some pieces of an android that looks like another "Data". It is another Data, but it's a crude prototype of Data - more like an autistic child. This actually has nothing to do with the plot (much). The plot is, The Enterprise gets sent to Romulus, because the Romulans want to talk peace. Actually, they don't, but they have a new government, one that is controlled by people from Remus, which is a twin planet of Romulus.
Now, listen carefully, here's where it gets complicated (and apparently, two more pages into the script, the writers forgot everything they tell us here). The Remuns are slaves to the Romulans, mining Dilithium, but their planet doesn't rotate, so they live only on the Dark side because the light side is too hot (huh, isn't Romulus in nearly the same orbit? (nevermind!)). Okay, so, these guys look like Nosferatu and they have extreme sensitivity to light (feel a plot point coming? Uh, no sorry, it was just gas...).
Anyhow, their leader is a guy claiming to be a clone of Picard, and all through the movie, you're told these two look very similar. Except that they DONT look similar at ALL! (close your eyes, now they look similar, right?) I mean, yeah, they are both bald, but that's about it.
Okay, so these guys also have a spaceship about the size of the Enterprise times 4, armed to the teeth with 80 gazillion photon thingies and 27 bazillion phaser guns and stuff. It also has a cloak. This guy sez he wants peace and to free his people on Remus, and he needs the help of the Federation. And Picard doesn't trust him.
Wait a minute. This guy just overthrew the Romulan government and controls a spaceship big enough to defeat 5 Borg cubes, hasn't he ALREADY freed his people? (don't think, don't think!).
AT this point, the copy of Data comes back into the story, and downloads some data from the Enterprise into himself. The Real Data is onto him of course. In the meantime, Jordy figures out that the spaceship is one giant weapon that can shoot a ray of some kind of super deadly radiation -- so deadly, the a human will die instantly from even the tiniest exposure to it (remember this point, because the writers forget it as well).
So, turns out the bad guy Picard clone is with Romulan hard-liners that want to destroy the Federation by killing everyone on Earth with this Radiation. And, using the data from the copy of "Data", they can cloak, fly by Federation fleet ships and Radiate them too.
Oh yeah, and Docter Crusher figures out that the clone is dying unless he gets a transfusion of blood from Picard -- how this is crucial to the plot, I was never able to figure out.
So the Enterprise takes off and races back to Earth to warn them of the doom that is about to befall the Federation unless they act quickly. However, Picard is captured but escapes with the help of the Data Copy, who turns out to be the "real" Data, who switched with the copy and provided the bad guy with false information about the Fleet. Picard and Data make their escape rather easily (and pointlessly -- it feels like this part of the movie got made to fill up some time).
Foolishly, the Enterprise flies right into a section of space where long range communication is impossible (but just about everything else works), and it's here that they get attacked by the cloaked ship the bad guy has. Now the movie goes from just plain silly to downright insulting stupid.
The Enterprise can't target the bad guys because they are cloaked. Nevermind that Scotty figured out who to do that several trek movies ago, the Enterprise gets the shit kicked out of it because the bad guys have that super-duper array of weapons and they can fire while cloaked. Some bad guys beam onto the ship, presumably, to take Picard becaue they need his blood. So, do they beam onto the bridge? No, they beam into some hallway. So Worf and Riker go to stop the bad guys.
Now, the bad guys are sensitive to strong light, remember? If Riker had said "Computer, raise light level in hallway to 250 percent" and blinded the bad guys, I would have never written this review. But Noooooooo, instead, we are treated to a stupid firefight in the hallways of the Enterpise, and yes, the bad guys are using lazer guns that shoot bright beams of light and cause blinding explosions to everything those beams touch, and not a single bad guy has any vision problem with that!
Meantime, two Romulan warbirds show up. They are here to help the Enterprise kill the bad guy. They don't want to have the blood of everyone on earth on their hands. Sure, sure.... Great, first Star Trek ruined the Borg, now they ruin the Romulans. The Romulans are now nice guys. Yeah.
The Bad guy dispatches both Warbirds pretty quickly, and then, in the one cool scene of the film, blows out the front portion of the bridge of the Enterprise, sucking Esign Red-Shirt into space before a force-field seals the breach. The Bad guy de-cloaks so he can gloat. At this point, the Enterprise has little power and no weapons. So Picard orders ramming speed.
Now, if both ships had been destroyed and the movie ended with everyone dead, I would have said this was the best Star Trek film ever, and I would not be writing this review. But Nooooooo, instead, the ships do a little damage to each other, just their front sections are crumpled and intertwined. In fact, they do a nice effect to show you that the two ships SEEM locked together. But I guess the writers forgot that as well 2 more pages into the script (can I even call it a script at this point? Maybe I should say "Napkin")
Now, if Picard had lead a team of commandos through the damaged sections and into the bad guys ship, since they are now joined, I would not be writing this review. But Nooooooo, instead, the bad guy just backs out, and the Enterprise just sits there and is "stuck to space" because the two ships come apart. Okay, you've just have millions of tons of metal crashing into each other and the two ships come apart like they are greased. Hasn't anyone in California ever been in a car accident? (forget it, don't try and think, this is a Star Trek movie)....
So, the bad guy now has his ship crippled, none of the weapons work -- except, of course, for the big radiation gun. That's undamaged. Sure.... So, he decides the fire the big gun at the Enterprise. But guess what, it takes 7 minutes to charge up the big gun. Can anyone say Death Star? When are the bad guys going to learn that your main weapon should always be ready to fire instantly? And isn't everyone tired to death of this type of plot?
So Picard beams over to kill the bad guy and stop the weapon. Except that the Transporter dies right after, so he's got no way of getting back. So Data decides to jump out an open hole in the Enterprise (caused by the crash earlier), and catches a handy-dandy protrusion on the bad guy's ship. Data's got some emergency Transporter gizmo that was shown earlier in the film.
Meantime, the Enterprise starts trying to get away from the bad guys so that they don't get fried by the radiation gun. So Picard beams over and does battle with the bad guy but loses his hand phaser as they roll and tumble about. After Picard kills the bad guy with some sharp piece of spaceship, Data shows up, beams Picard out and then points his own hand-phaser at the radiation beam just as the ship is about to fire.
Wait a minute. These guys were fighting right next to the Radiation beam building up to fire. Didn't they say that the slightest exposure was instantly fatal? Sorry, my mistake. I guess I was listening earlier to the dialog instead of just ohh'ing and ahhh'ing at the effects.
So Data shoots the radiation beam just before it fires. The ship instantly explodes. Data dies. Isn't the Enterprise still in danger from the radiation? Ahh forget it, there's no science in Star Trek anymore.
Everyone drinks a toast to Data, and then Picard has a heart-to-heart talk with the autistic version of Data from earlier in the film. -- i.e. the cheap copy of Data. And that's the end of the film.
Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.....
What's so sad about this film is that there were several germs of ideas that were never followed through on. #1) Germ of an idea one is that with this clone, Picard was supposed to be doing battle with himself. Several times, each one says about the other "I know how he thinks" -- except that they don't. Neither predicts the other's moves in the slightest. This germ of an idea was handled FAR BETTER in the Original Series Episode "Balance of Terror" and was done with one one-millionth of the budget.
#2) Germ of an idea number two is that both the Picard Clone and the Data Clone can't seem to rise above what they are, and do more than is expected, and become "human", even though Picard makes impassioned pleas to both to do so. Neither does so, so the audience learns nothing from this exploration of our humanity. What was the point of introducing this concept if there's no follow through? Data shows a glimmer of hope at the end, but what they should have done was have the Data clone progress throughout the film, so that HE rises to the occasion and sacrifices himself to kill the bad guy. That would have made a nice irony as well, since the bad guy built the Data clone, and if his creation had killed him, that would have made for a better script, and I would not be writing this review.
#3) Germ of an idea number three was all the build up about who and what the Citizens of Remus are like, and how harsh their world is, and how they are slaves, and how they are sensitive to light, etc. Yet, there was zero follow through on that, and in the end it seemed like a waste of time to even talk about it in the film. For that matter, how the hell did a slave civilization build a spaceship bigger than god without anyone noticing?
Ah screw it. The MOVIE SUCKS -- PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
John Markoff made his living from you...
on
Ask Kevin Mitnick
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· Score: 1
Kevin;
I'm curious as to how you feel about John Markoff, a man that seemingly owes his journalistic career to exaggerating your exploits.
Between the book "Hackers" and outrageous lies he printed in the New York Times (I'd swear there was one piece he wrote where he claimed you had codes to launch missles), do you feel that you might have gotten a less abusive punishment by the legal system had Markoff *not* made you out to be the Great Satan of the computer world?
Gosh doesn't anyone read the SF of children's writer Eleanor Cameron?
She wrote "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet", but in "Mr. Bass's Planetoid", she created a tiny asteroid that allowed the two young protagonists to view the Earth while having landed their spaceship on this asteroid.
Next thing you know, the BBC will report that we've discovered Lepton! Watch out Mushroom People, we're coming!
I don't think you understand how important you were to the Junkyard Wars show, in that, as the host of the show, you were the only one so far in a long string of hosts and co-hosts that actually seemed to understand what each team was building as they built it.
Not only were you explaining to the audience how each contraption was supposed to work, you CLEARLY had a better idea of how it would go together than the teams did themselves.
Some of the best parts of the show is where you would amble up to a particular team and make a suggestion or ask a question as to whether or not they were going to deal with a particular issue.
It seems to me that the current crop of epsiodes doesn't have a "gearhead" host, and neither of them contribute to the build process of the teams. As such, discounting the amazing work of the Kentucky Fried Family, almost all the builds have been somewhat lackluster and devoid of any imagination.
If anyone should be a host of the show, it should be Bowser Munson. Seriously, you need a gearhead host or the show falls flat.
Please come back to Junkyard Wars. Do I have to grovel???????
Can't wait until the Russians finally figure out that a PORN STAR in the ISS will make for better ratings. Zero-Gee sex will have millions throwing $$$$ in the direction of the Russians.
I mean, *somebody* out there has to be willing to pay $1.00 for that old cell phone. Hell, I've got friends that can afford the service, but are nervous about paying $100 for a phone.
Yeah, sure, everyone advertises the "free" phone for when you sign up, but amazingly, they are always out of that model when you ask.
I'm always amazed at how industry commentators have re-written history, particularly when it comes to the computer industry.
For example, in Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidental Empires", he tells the story of how the personal computer grew from a hobby toy to one of the most important devices ever made.
But it's a decidedly left-coast "californa-centric" point of view. Very little mention of IBM is ever made, except how they screwed up and gave the golden key to Bill Gates, and computer industry pioneer Commodore doesn't even seem to warrant a paragragh, although at one point in the early 80's CBM held over 33% of the market.
So, my question is: Do you feel that the number of reporters hovering around Silicon Valley have distorted the view of the rise of the industry?
While I also believe that Woz is due saint-hood, I also have tempered that view with the knowledge that both Commodore and Clive Sinclair did more to raise the bar on the Personal Computer than most others, despite the Mac being "insanely great".
When I watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley" I can't help but feel that we're cheating ourselves by allowing the "pundits" to dictate how this industry came to where it is now.
It does appear at times that the those reporting on technology are often just cheerleaders for whatever large software/hardware company pays the advertising bills for the magazine that reporter works for.
Yeah right we're going to stand up for our rights? Most of us can't even stand up in front of class! We were outcasts in school, and I'd say most of us are still outcasts in life as well. We have few friends, even fewer dates, and, even fewer of us have ever had sex.
With that kind of total lack of self-confidence in everything except geek activities (such as/.), I have to say "duh" -- what were you thinking? That as complete outcasts from society we somehow represent some kind of organized social group. Hardly.
I'll bet if we saw each other on the street, we'd each be so embrassed of the other and embrassed of ourselves, we wouldn't even try to talk to each other.
That's not exactly the strong foundations for a revolutionary movement.
AFTER the big rock falls out of the sky and kills almost everyone, Congress will propose a bill that will enact a subcommitte to discuss the solution.
Assuming bipartisan agreement, it should only take a few millenia after that to arrive at possible defense, which will be to bomb Iraq, or jail hackers, or something similar to the DCMA, but for asteroids....
I hope you're reading this. I'd like a greater variety of clients, and preferably, more command line clients. I don't want to waste CPU cycles generating a pretty screensaver on my PC or Mac, I want to fly through work units.
Secondly, I believe that some time ago (around version 3) you DROPPED support for Sparc Linux, which cut the number of machines I can devote to SETI in half. I believe I have 1 Mac, 2 Windows machines and 1 Intel Linux machine still working on SETI (I have about 9500 work units done), but, if the Sparc Linux client returned, I could double the number of machines I have doing SETI.
Also, please make them stand-alone clients, and not dependent upon a library I may or may not have. Download time of the client isn't a factor, getting it to run, and run easily is the goal.
Back when the internet (as we now it) was being developed, it was a government military project.
However, after the internet revolution (of the early 90's) freed it from being Arpa-Net, we had a "golden age" where anyone could connect, and anyone with enough technical know-how could run a server and become a permanent part of the system.
But now we see a day looming in the future where large media conglomerates control it all through draconian service agreements that dis-allow private individuals to run servers in their homes, as well as "linking lawsuits", and patents of obvious business methods, all resulting in an internet where the vast majority of the people can only passively view information rather than interactively take part in providing information.
Do you think it's a "good thing" for everyone to run servers (an internet of the people), or do you believe that it's better for the government and corporations to control the flow of information to citizens (an internet for the people).
While it seems an obvious choice, remember that the situation we have now, where the internet is the "wild west" and mailboxes are littered with spam, and internet rumours become accidental news stories, is a direct result of an internet "of the people".
So there are pros and cons either way. Basically the question boils down to "do you prefer the wild west" versus "do you prefer a controlled, moderated internet?"
Heck, IE only works sometimes under Windows 98 as well, so it's not any more broken there as it is under Lindows!
Perhaps the problem is not the OS but IE?
Hell, I'd care more about IE crashing and killing the entire computer (as it often does with mine), than if IE only worked some of the time under Lindows.
My current problem with Windows is that I have to start Outlook 2000 in "safe" mode if I want to actually open and read Emails. Otherwise, opening mail in it's own Window locks up the computer and I have to pull the plug out of the wall to shut it off. That's how good Windows works -- so if Lindows isn't any better, than it's as least as good as Windows!
The image of using the mouse to copy a file from the screen of your desktop machine to the screen of your laptop just shows that they are way behind.
There is no desktop anymore -- not for Cube workers. The Laptop is the desktop, either via a docking port connected to a keyboard and screen, or just using the Laptop in your cubicle, and then taking it home with you at night.
Most people I know carry their laptop everywhere as it's essentially their entire "office" in a bag. First of all, many people are temps. Also, with businesses being bought and sold like daily bread, you're likely to move cubicles more than twice a year, either because you're changing departments or the department itself is moving.
Very few people have the kind of "permanent office" that allows a 6 foot screen, surround sound, and the other luxuries, unless there's going to be a sudden decrease in the population, and a sudden abundance in office space.
Try living in a city, Microsoft, instead of a Suburb. Remember those things called cities? They are where most of your customers are!
Would student protests against the Vietnam war have been illegal? Would the school sue their own students for *daring* to change societal issues?
It's nice to see that the former hippies of the Baby boom are now more conservative, and have screwed up the world more than their predecessors have. They have *become* extactly what they were protesting against. There's an irony there that just makes me smile.
It's going to take a social revolution like the 60's to change the wacky way things are now. It'll probably take the death of 4 in Ohio over filesharing to spark that revolution however.
Oops, can I say the word revolution anymore? I think that's illegal...
The Space shuttle uses much less than a 486 in terms of processing power.
The Stealth Bomber, a much newer craft, has a computer in it not much more powerful than an Amiga 1000.
The Shuttle is working more like an Apple II -- it's just that there are 7 Apple II's working in parallel, with redundancies all over the place.
In a previous Slashdot story (I won't bother linking, you go find it yourself!) NASA was looking for old chips which aren't made anymore -- chips that are so old, they might as well have come from those Radio Shack 100 in 1 experimenter kits.
The 486 is circa 1990. The shuttle first flew in 1980, ten years previous, and was designed 20 years previous and built in the 70's. Your wristwatch probably has a more advanced CPU than the shuttle.
Slashdot Mirror
Both on the Playstation. Resident Evil2 scared the bejeezuz outta me. It was so dark and moody, and the first time that ... that thing fell down from the ceiling, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Damn that was good....
... friendship, and love. By the end of the game, I was bawling like a baby because Square had done the impossible and animated the most subtle of expressions on Zidane and Garnet -- you could actually see the love for each other in their eyes. I don't think ANYTHING has ever done that to me, not even a good movie.
Final Fantasy Nine is still the greatest game I've ever played because I got so into the characters. Someone once asked me what the game was about -- all I could say through tear-filled eyes was that it was about
So, yeah, that game affected me.. But in a good way.
You forgot to mention that Oscar-winning performance he gave in an Episode of Star Trek Voyager, where he played (get this,) A WRESTLER. Wowzers, what an acting tour-de-force. Such range. Certainly, he makes Brando look like he's standing still.
I want to see "The Rock" cast in the role of a nerd. If he can pull that off, then we can talk.
Genetic Engineering:
"GE, we bring good things to life!"
*rimshot*
I hadda do the joke. Don't ban me from Slashdot!
Wait, you're going to have a bunch of spammers together in a single room? Anybody know where and when this is happening? Myself and a few large friends would like to meet with these people and BREAK THEIR ARMS...
I mean, what better way for them to learn the errors of their ways than to be in AGONIZING PAIN? I'm sure *I* could reduce the amount of spam in the world if I could have just a few minutes alone with these people....
"Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40-Watt range."
"Hey, just what see here pal.."
"Uzi Nine-millimeter."
"You really know your weapons. This baby's perfect for home defense..."
This gonna make programmers freak.
Admiral Grace Hopper must be doing 45 RPM by now.
D'oh, talk about Pop eating itself. Because you known that after the movie comes out, some idiot will option the comic rights to the movie. And then we'll have the comic book of the movie of the anime of the Manga (comic book).
Didn't "Road to Perdition" have a comic come out, based on the movie, which was based on the comic book?
Check out http://www.anime.com, scoll down to the bottom, click on Feb2003, and the first pick will be Lupin for all those who want to get the DVDs.
I don't normally write reviews about Star Trek films, as I usually don't feel strongly about them -- I consider them to be an entertaining way to waste a few hours and some of them are even somewhat decent -- usually the even-numbered ones. However, after having my intelligence insulted for two hours straight as I watched this abomination that is merchandising in action, I felt compelled to warn others that might want to waste $10 and 2 hours of your life that you'll never get back, and say "stop!".
Star Trek Nemesis succeeds at being a 2-hour rollercoaster of action that is about nonsense. Nothing in the movie makes the least bit of sense, and the more you try and think about what you just saw, the more you realise that Paramount has just given up, and they figure if that if they make enough stuff blow up, the fans will still buy the crap at the conventions.
Okay, so here's the plot (what little plot I could pick up). The Enterprise finds some pieces of an android that looks like another "Data". It is another Data, but it's a crude prototype of Data - more like an autistic child. This actually has nothing to do with the plot (much). The plot is, The Enterprise gets sent to Romulus, because the Romulans want to talk peace. Actually, they don't, but they have a new government, one that is controlled by people from Remus, which is a twin planet of Romulus.
Now, listen carefully, here's where it gets complicated (and apparently, two more pages into the script, the writers forgot everything they tell us here). The Remuns are slaves to the Romulans, mining Dilithium, but their planet doesn't rotate, so they live only on the Dark side because the light side is too hot (huh, isn't Romulus in nearly the same orbit? (nevermind!)). Okay, so, these guys look like Nosferatu and they have extreme sensitivity to light (feel a plot point coming? Uh, no sorry, it was just gas...).
Anyhow, their leader is a guy claiming to be a clone of Picard, and all through the movie, you're told these two look very similar. Except that they DONT look similar at ALL! (close your eyes, now they look similar, right?) I mean, yeah, they are both bald, but that's about it.
Okay, so these guys also have a spaceship about the size of the Enterprise times 4, armed to the teeth with 80 gazillion photon thingies and 27 bazillion phaser guns and stuff. It also has a cloak. This guy sez he wants peace and to free his people on Remus, and he needs the help of the Federation. And Picard doesn't trust him.
Wait a minute. This guy just overthrew the Romulan government and controls a spaceship big enough to defeat 5 Borg cubes, hasn't he ALREADY freed his people? (don't think, don't think!).
AT this point, the copy of Data comes back into the story, and downloads some data from the Enterprise into himself. The Real Data is onto him of course. In the meantime, Jordy figures out that the spaceship is one giant weapon that can shoot a ray of some kind of super deadly radiation -- so deadly, the a human will die instantly from even the tiniest exposure to it (remember this point, because the writers forget it as well).
So, turns out the bad guy Picard clone is with Romulan hard-liners that want to destroy the Federation by killing everyone on Earth with this Radiation. And, using the data from the copy of "Data", they can cloak, fly by Federation fleet ships and Radiate them too.
Oh yeah, and Docter Crusher figures out that the clone is dying unless he gets a transfusion of blood from Picard -- how this is crucial to the plot, I was never able to figure out.
So the Enterprise takes off and races back to Earth to warn them of the doom that is about to befall the Federation unless they act quickly. However, Picard is captured but escapes with the help of the Data Copy, who turns out to be the "real" Data, who switched with the copy and provided the bad guy with false information about the Fleet. Picard and Data make their escape rather easily (and pointlessly -- it feels like this part of the movie got made to fill up some time).
Foolishly, the Enterprise flies right into a section of space where long range communication is impossible (but just about everything else works), and it's here that they get attacked by the cloaked ship the bad guy has. Now the movie goes from just plain silly to downright insulting stupid.
The Enterprise can't target the bad guys because they are cloaked. Nevermind that Scotty figured out who to do that several trek movies ago, the Enterprise gets the shit kicked out of it because the bad guys have that super-duper array of weapons and they can fire while cloaked. Some bad guys beam onto the ship, presumably, to take Picard becaue they need his blood. So, do they beam onto the bridge? No, they beam into some hallway. So Worf and Riker go to stop the bad guys.
Now, the bad guys are sensitive to strong light, remember? If Riker had said "Computer, raise light level in hallway to 250 percent" and blinded the bad guys, I would have never written this review. But Noooooooo, instead, we are treated to a stupid firefight in the hallways of the Enterpise, and yes, the bad guys are using lazer guns that shoot bright beams of light and cause blinding explosions to everything those beams touch, and not a single bad guy has any vision problem with that!
Meantime, two Romulan warbirds show up. They are here to help the Enterprise kill the bad guy. They don't want to have the blood of everyone on earth on their hands. Sure, sure.... Great, first Star Trek ruined the Borg, now they ruin the Romulans. The Romulans are now nice guys. Yeah.
The Bad guy dispatches both Warbirds pretty quickly, and then, in the one cool scene of the film, blows out the front portion of the bridge of the Enterprise, sucking Esign Red-Shirt into space before a force-field seals the breach. The Bad guy de-cloaks so he can gloat. At this point, the Enterprise has little power and no weapons. So Picard orders ramming speed.
Now, if both ships had been destroyed and the movie ended with everyone dead, I would have said this was the best Star Trek film ever, and I would not be writing this review. But Nooooooo, instead, the ships do a little damage to each other, just their front sections are crumpled and intertwined. In fact, they do a nice effect to show you that the two ships SEEM locked together. But I guess the writers forgot that as well 2 more pages into the script (can I even call it a script at this point? Maybe I should say "Napkin")
Now, if Picard had lead a team of commandos through the damaged sections and into the bad guys ship, since they are now joined, I would not be writing this review. But Nooooooo, instead, the bad guy just backs out, and the Enterprise just sits there and is "stuck to space" because the two ships come apart. Okay, you've just have millions of tons of metal crashing into each other and the two ships come apart like they are greased. Hasn't anyone in California ever been in a car accident? (forget it, don't try and think, this is a Star Trek movie)....
So, the bad guy now has his ship crippled, none of the weapons work -- except, of course, for the big radiation gun. That's undamaged. Sure.... So, he decides the fire the big gun at the Enterprise. But guess what, it takes 7 minutes to charge up the big gun. Can anyone say Death Star? When are the bad guys going to learn that your main weapon should always be ready to fire instantly? And isn't everyone tired to death of this type of plot?
So Picard beams over to kill the bad guy and stop the weapon. Except that the Transporter dies right after, so he's got no way of getting back. So Data decides to jump out an open hole in the Enterprise (caused by the crash earlier), and catches a handy-dandy protrusion on the bad guy's ship. Data's got some emergency Transporter gizmo that was shown earlier in the film.
Meantime, the Enterprise starts trying to get away from the bad guys so that they don't get fried by the radiation gun. So Picard beams over and does battle with the bad guy but loses his hand phaser as they roll and tumble about. After Picard kills the bad guy with some sharp piece of spaceship, Data shows up, beams Picard out and then points his own hand-phaser at the radiation beam just as the ship is about to fire.
Wait a minute. These guys were fighting right next to the Radiation beam building up to fire. Didn't they say that the slightest exposure was instantly fatal? Sorry, my mistake. I guess I was listening earlier to the dialog instead of just ohh'ing and ahhh'ing at the effects.
So Data shoots the radiation beam just before it fires. The ship instantly explodes. Data dies. Isn't the Enterprise still in danger from the radiation? Ahh forget it, there's no science in Star Trek anymore.
Everyone drinks a toast to Data, and then Picard has a heart-to-heart talk with the autistic version of Data from earlier in the film. -- i.e. the cheap copy of Data. And that's the end of the film.
Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.....
What's so sad about this film is that there were several germs of ideas that were never followed through on.
#1) Germ of an idea one is that with this clone, Picard was supposed to be doing battle with himself. Several times, each one says about the other "I know how he thinks" -- except that they don't. Neither predicts the other's moves in the slightest. This germ of an idea was handled FAR BETTER in the Original Series Episode "Balance of Terror" and was done with one one-millionth of the budget.
#2) Germ of an idea number two is that both the Picard Clone and the Data Clone can't seem to rise above what they are, and do more than is expected, and become "human", even though Picard makes impassioned pleas to both to do so. Neither does so, so the audience learns nothing from this exploration of our humanity. What was the point of introducing this concept if there's no follow through? Data shows a glimmer of hope at the end, but what they should have done was have the Data clone progress throughout the film, so that HE rises to the occasion and sacrifices himself to kill the bad guy. That would have made a nice irony as well, since the bad guy built the Data clone, and if his creation had killed him, that would have made for a better script, and I would not be writing this review.
#3) Germ of an idea number three was all the build up about who and what the Citizens of Remus are like, and how harsh their world is, and how they are slaves, and how they are sensitive to light, etc. Yet, there was zero follow through on that, and in the end it seemed like a waste of time to even talk about it in the film. For that matter, how the hell did a slave civilization build a spaceship bigger than god without anyone noticing?
Ah screw it. The MOVIE SUCKS -- PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
Kevin;
I'm curious as to how you feel about John Markoff, a man that seemingly owes his journalistic career to exaggerating your exploits.
Between the book "Hackers" and outrageous lies he printed in the New York Times (I'd swear there was one piece he wrote where he claimed you had codes to launch missles), do you feel that you might have gotten a less abusive punishment by the legal system had Markoff *not* made you out to be the Great Satan of the computer world?
Do you feel that Markoff owes you an apology?
TTYL
Gosh doesn't anyone read the SF of children's writer Eleanor Cameron?
She wrote "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet", but in "Mr. Bass's Planetoid", she created a tiny asteroid that allowed the two young protagonists to view the Earth while having landed their spaceship on this asteroid.
Next thing you know, the BBC will report that we've discovered Lepton! Watch out Mushroom People, we're coming!
Cathy;
I don't think you understand how important you were to the Junkyard Wars show, in that, as the host of the show, you were the only one so far in a long string of hosts and co-hosts that actually seemed to understand what each team was building as they built it.
Not only were you explaining to the audience how each contraption was supposed to work, you CLEARLY had a better idea of how it would go together than the teams did themselves.
Some of the best parts of the show is where you would amble up to a particular team and make a suggestion or ask a question as to whether or not they were going to deal with a particular issue.
It seems to me that the current crop of epsiodes doesn't have a "gearhead" host, and neither of them contribute to the build process of the teams. As such, discounting the amazing work of the Kentucky Fried Family, almost all the builds have been somewhat lackluster and devoid of any imagination.
If anyone should be a host of the show, it should be Bowser Munson. Seriously, you need a gearhead host or the show falls flat.
Please come back to Junkyard Wars. Do I have to grovel???????
Can't wait until the Russians finally figure out that a PORN STAR in the ISS will make for better ratings. Zero-Gee sex will have millions throwing $$$$ in the direction of the Russians.
I mean, *somebody* out there has to be willing to pay $1.00 for that old cell phone. Hell, I've got friends that can afford the service, but are nervous about paying $100 for a phone.
Yeah, sure, everyone advertises the "free" phone for when you sign up, but amazingly, they are always out of that model when you ask.
#1) Take in old Cell Phones...
#2) ????
#3) PROFIT!!!
Okay, we have to run that gag with every story on Slashdot... It's required by law...
I'm always amazed at how industry commentators have re-written history, particularly when it comes to the computer industry.
For example, in Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidental Empires", he tells the story of how the personal computer grew from a hobby toy to one of the most important devices ever made.
But it's a decidedly left-coast "californa-centric" point of view. Very little mention of IBM is ever made, except how they screwed up and gave the golden key to Bill Gates, and computer industry pioneer Commodore doesn't even seem to warrant a paragragh, although at one point in the early 80's CBM held over 33% of the market.
So, my question is: Do you feel that the number of reporters hovering around Silicon Valley have distorted the view of the rise of the industry?
While I also believe that Woz is due saint-hood, I also have tempered that view with the knowledge that both Commodore and Clive Sinclair did more to raise the bar on the Personal Computer than most others, despite the Mac being "insanely great".
When I watch "Pirates of Silicon Valley" I can't help but feel that we're cheating ourselves by allowing the "pundits" to dictate how this industry came to where it is now.
It does appear at times that the those reporting on technology are often just cheerleaders for whatever large software/hardware company pays the advertising bills for the magazine that reporter works for.
How do you feel about these issues?
'nuff said... You already know the joke.
Yeah right we're going to stand up for our rights? Most of us can't even stand up in front of class! We were outcasts in school, and I'd say most of us are still outcasts in life as well. We have few friends, even fewer dates, and, even fewer of us have ever had sex.
/.), I have to say "duh" -- what were you thinking? That as complete outcasts from society we somehow represent some kind of organized social group. Hardly.
With that kind of total lack of self-confidence in everything except geek activities (such as
I'll bet if we saw each other on the street, we'd each be so embrassed of the other and embrassed of ourselves, we wouldn't even try to talk to each other.
That's not exactly the strong foundations for a revolutionary movement.
Duh!
Don't worry about it.
AFTER the big rock falls out of the sky and kills almost everyone, Congress will propose a bill that will enact a subcommitte to discuss the solution.
Assuming bipartisan agreement, it should only take a few millenia after that to arrive at possible defense, which will be to bomb Iraq, or jail hackers, or something similar to the DCMA, but for asteroids....
Dear Seti;
I hope you're reading this. I'd like a greater variety of clients, and preferably, more command line clients. I don't want to waste CPU cycles generating a pretty screensaver on my PC or Mac, I want to fly through work units.
Secondly, I believe that some time ago (around version 3) you DROPPED support for Sparc Linux, which cut the number of machines I can devote to SETI in half. I believe I have 1 Mac, 2 Windows machines and 1 Intel Linux machine still working on SETI (I have about 9500 work units done), but, if the Sparc Linux client returned, I could double the number of machines I have doing SETI.
Also, please make them stand-alone clients, and not dependent upon a library I may or may not have. Download time of the client isn't a factor, getting it to run, and run easily is the goal.
Thanks!
Back when the internet (as we now it) was being developed, it was a government military project.
However, after the internet revolution (of the early 90's) freed it from being Arpa-Net, we had a "golden age" where anyone could connect, and anyone with enough technical know-how could run a server and become a permanent part of the system.
But now we see a day looming in the future where large media conglomerates control it all through draconian service agreements that dis-allow private individuals to run servers in their homes, as well as "linking lawsuits", and patents of obvious business methods, all resulting in an internet where the vast majority of the people can only passively view information rather than interactively take part in providing information.
Do you think it's a "good thing" for everyone to run servers (an internet of the people), or do you believe that it's better for the government and corporations to control the flow of information to citizens (an internet for the people).
While it seems an obvious choice, remember that the situation we have now, where the internet is the "wild west" and mailboxes are littered with spam, and internet rumours become accidental news stories, is a direct result of an internet "of the people".
So there are pros and cons either way. Basically the question boils down to "do you prefer the wild west" versus "do you prefer a controlled, moderated internet?"
Heck, IE only works sometimes under Windows 98 as well, so it's not any more broken there as it is under Lindows!
Perhaps the problem is not the OS but IE?
Hell, I'd care more about IE crashing and killing the entire computer (as it often does with mine), than if IE only worked some of the time under Lindows.
My current problem with Windows is that I have to start Outlook 2000 in "safe" mode if I want to actually open and read Emails. Otherwise, opening mail in it's own Window locks up the computer and I have to pull the plug out of the wall to shut it off. That's how good Windows works -- so if Lindows isn't any better, than it's as least as good as Windows!
The image of using the mouse to copy a file from the screen of your desktop machine to the screen of your laptop just shows that they are way behind.
There is no desktop anymore -- not for Cube workers. The Laptop is the desktop, either via a docking port connected to a keyboard and screen, or just using the Laptop in your cubicle, and then taking it home with you at night.
Most people I know carry their laptop everywhere as it's essentially their entire "office" in a bag. First of all, many people are temps. Also, with businesses being bought and sold like daily bread, you're likely to move cubicles more than twice a year, either because you're changing departments or the department itself is moving.
Very few people have the kind of "permanent office" that allows a 6 foot screen, surround sound, and the other luxuries, unless there's going to be a sudden decrease in the population, and a sudden abundance in office space.
Try living in a city, Microsoft, instead of a Suburb. Remember those things called cities? They are where most of your customers are!
Who's a terrorist seems to depend entirely upon your point of view.
If someone slams an airplane into a building to blow it up, yep, that's terrorism.
If someone drops bombs on your buildings without provocation, isn't that also terrorism?
Now the USA (or rather Duyba) wants to drop bombs on Iraq, without provocation.... Who's the terrorist now?
Would student protests against the Vietnam war have been illegal? Would the school sue their own students for *daring* to change societal issues?
It's nice to see that the former hippies of the Baby boom are now more conservative, and have screwed up the world more than their predecessors have. They have *become* extactly what they were protesting against. There's an irony there that just makes me smile.
It's going to take a social revolution like the 60's to change the wacky way things are now. It'll probably take the death of 4 in Ohio over filesharing to spark that revolution however.
Oops, can I say the word revolution anymore? I think that's illegal...
The Space shuttle uses much less than a 486 in terms of processing power.
The Stealth Bomber, a much newer craft, has a computer in it not much more powerful than an Amiga 1000.
The Shuttle is working more like an Apple II -- it's just that there are 7 Apple II's working in parallel, with redundancies all over the place.
In a previous Slashdot story (I won't bother linking, you go find it yourself!) NASA was looking for old chips which aren't made anymore -- chips that are so old, they might as well have come from those Radio Shack 100 in 1 experimenter kits.
The 486 is circa 1990. The shuttle first flew in 1980, ten years previous, and was designed 20 years previous and built in the 70's. Your wristwatch probably has a more advanced CPU than the shuttle.