It's actually a sad story... the guy had to turn to pr0n industry at some point, because nobody wanted to fund him anymore (I'm sure you can guess why). Here's some quotes from the Reuters article:
"Struggling to find backers for more mainstream work, Wood turned to smut in the 1960s, making a string of films and "loops" -- short porn flicks shown in coin-operated booths -- up until his death in 1978."
"This is an old film. It's in the '70s, they're hairy, they don't look the way we are used to now,"
"He says "Necromania" displays Wood's wit and style and he points to a scene where the main character Danny is struggling to untangle a pair of red pajama bottoms to put them on."
You KNOW you want to see it!:) There's a trend developing here in Quebec (since about 2 years) where dumb (absurd and bad) humor = good humor... Is it the same way everywhere else? Let's hope it won't spread to movies...
The movie also include for fans of Ed: That film shows the making of Wood's most famous film -- "Plan 9 From Outer Space" from 1956 -- in which actors screw up their lines and "special effects" include pie tins for flying saucers.
"The Atlanta-based carrier has landed exclusive rights to the new Motorola Razr V3 and the Sony Ericsson se710a. Both are high-end multimedia phones expected to lure sophisticated buyers. The Motorola Razr is a design triumph. It's just a half-inch thick when closed. Open, it's as thin as a Q-Tip. Yet it manages to pack in a VGA camera with 4x zoom, 3D graphics capability, and 22 kilohertz polyphonic speaker technology."
Its merger with AT&T Wireless will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, catapulting it past the 41 million customers that current market leader Verizon Wireless has. But that status might not last long unless Cingular can keep subscribers from bolting to Verizon and others. Cingular is plagued by above-average customer defections. [...] its churn rate edged up from 2.7% in the second quarter to 2.8% in the third, while Verizon's is hovering around a more wholesome 1.5%.
Mergers are dangerous : you gain benefits (in this case, exclusive handhelds and a big subscriber base), but can go wrong. Only time will tell if the benefits outweighted the disadvantages in this case.
"Clients will take delivery of the first ALLERCA kittens in 2007. The hypoallergenic cat is the first of a planned series of lifestyle pets that ALLERCA will develop over the next few years."
Notice the "will develop". Notice the 2007 date. Notice the high price tag. Genetic engineering is not like building a car. It's unpredictable. At this point, their 'research' is vaporware at best.
"A glycoprotein, Fel d 1, secreted by the sebaceous glands, is the major cat allergen. This allergen is found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat.
Using patented genetic technology, the ALLERCA team will focus on the particular gene that produces the Fel d 1 glycoprotein. Using a technique known as "gene silencing", the process reduces the gene's ability to produce the protein."
Will silencing this protein have undesirable effects? Nobody knows. And it's only the 'major' allergen, not the only one.
I wouldn't be betting 3500$ on this at the moment. Altought its a cute idea. Cats as guinea pigs for genetic engineering anyone?
But if it turns out to be real, will they be able to gain a significant market share? Against IE and the rising Mozilla-based FireFox? To me, it seems that IE get all the non-techy people love, and Firefox gets the geeks... They better implement some VERY nice features, because the Google name alone won't make me switch for sure. And I LOVE Google.
As a previous poster said, it wont do much, even if you can get to A- produce footage from multiple cameras of 'incidents' ('innocents' getting beaten) B- Distribute said media at a scale large enough to have any kind of impact.
Public opinion is what matters. Try to get your 'point of view' on National TV. Medias are controlled, or at least aren't close to be 100% objective; they show you what they WANT to show you. In this case, Evil Anarchists rioting against the World Economy Globalization.
Cause its so more practical to load music at a phonebooth, in public, than in the comfort of your home. I don't see the point here, honestly. An Ipod hold so much music that you'll always have something non-boring to listen to anyway.
OK, we all know no Linux Guru will ever fall for this kind of stupid trick.
But imagine a world where Linux overwhelms Microsoft as the #1 desktop OS. Millions of Moms and Pops everywhere, using Linux. Who will they trust for their "updates"? I know for sure lots of them would fall for this particular trick, and it`s one of the first time we see this. Lots of distros, lots of sources, lots of patches, major confusion.
Question (as I don`t use Linux yet) : Do some of the major distros (Redhat, etc) have a webservice for updates, akin to windowsupdate.com? I sure hope so; it`s essential for further desktop market share increase.
Microsoft used shark-style tactics using his monopolistic power to get what it wanted and crush opposition... film at 11. Is this even news?
And if you RTFA, you'll see that "On the assumption that WMV9 was destined to become an industry standard, Microsoft convinced both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum to include it as a mandatory video compression format (along with MPEG-2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) for next-generation high-definition DVD formats. Now, there is speculation that delays or licensing problems for VC-1 could prompt either -- or both -- of the DVD industry groups to simply delete the Microsoft technology from their specifications."
So it's not like WMV9 was the only codec incorporated in the standard anyway. Microsoft overpromised it seems, at least on the feature set. But cheated and lied?
According to scientists, we gained 1000 genes compared to rodents when we diverged from them 75 millions years ago. And we 'lost' 33 genes compared to them (they have a functional copy, we have a nonfunctional pseudogene; it's still there, only not working - stop codons, etc).
The "we must have more gene than (insert stupid animal or plant here)" is funny. Our superiority complex at its best.
Read about the whole thing (with more links) on my blog (see sig)
For me HDTV isn't too exciting. Higher resolution. Ok. I never noticed my TV's resolution was not adequate. Don't we have too much TV anyway? With the added possibility to record (Tivo) 40 hours / week of shows that I don't have time to listen to... TV is a productivity and social interaction sink.
Sure I get the picture. But if you want to compare with Win95, you must add Mac Os 8 and 9... so it's more like:
Win 95 Win 98 (and maybe Win Me) Win XP
Mac OS 8 Mac OS 9 Mac OS X Mac OS X.1 (they didn't charge for this one I think) Mac OS X.2 Mac OS X.3 and now, Mac OS X.4
The 'feature pack' trend started only recently. But anyway, Mac users have a past history of paying more for the same functionality (look, an iMac! It's so cute! 300$ more than a comparable PC? who cares! It's cute!)
The security thing was about new features introduced in Windows XP SP2 (Firewall, etc). I never mentionned OsX 'upgrades' as security fixes; I am aware of them being freely available.
Still, charging for new features is retarded, in my opinion. The fact is that they are charging for features which should be free. Panther claim '150 features and innovations'. Among these, a new interface, fast user switching, videoconferencing sofware... and that's about it. The whole list can be found at http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/... and honestly, nothing I see here warrants a 129$ US price tag. And Tiger? http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/. Improved search, improved videoconferencing software, and RSS support for Safari. Wow. I have better things to do with my money, I'll stick to Linux / Windows, thanks.
Crazy Mac fanboys, moderate this down, I don't care.
I like the way Apple managed to charge for OS upgrades. Call it whatever you want, patches are still patches. The list of new features is not revolutionnary, by far (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/)And it's not like they did it only once. Jaguar, Panther, and now Tiger...
Imagine if Microsoft was doing the same thing. Want better security with SP2? 129 bucks! Sure, they charged us for win95, win98, winME, winXP and soon Longhorn, but Apple pulled the same thing with os8, os9, osX...
I wonder if the earbuds (and cord) are black too. White cord/earbuds used to be a sign of 'rob me, I got an expansive Ipod in my pocket'. Many friends of mine changed the (excellent) earbuds that came with their Ipod for Sony's one for this particular reason.
As a side note, I just don't get the U2 sponsorship thing... what's next, pink Ipod with Britney preloaded?
It seem to be a trend... Japan get all the cool toys while US (and Canada) markets show 'not enough demand'.... don't we like cool toys? Seen it happen with PDAs, Minidisc players (only some models are sold here, the coolest ones are Japan only), Cellphones...
The first day, all that was left online were two videos, one of which was subsequently removed because of PearPC-specific strings in the boot process shown in the video..."
Heh. If they can't even cover their tracks THIS BAD, no wonder they got catched (which is a good thing). Now I wonder... are all GPL violators this clumsy? Probably not... you know the saying, for every thief you catch, hundreds still run free.
Hear this : nanobots and crazy life quality increases like this guy claim are the flying cars we still expect. Barring a miracle, it just won't get there in our lifetime.
And by definition, nanobots aren't 'blood cell sized'. Nanotechnology is defined by devices smaller or in the range of a nanometer, like a virus; cells are much bigger than that.
This guy is spewing buzzwords like there's no tomorrow:| Infaillible recipee to get attention these days...
Gotta hate that last part. "The computer will also alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions". First of all, I can remember myself what are my favorite items, thanks a lot. Secondly, I have the feeling that "promotions" will be in 99% cases stuff I don`t need.
High tech isn't always good, remember that. Sometimes a shopping cart is best left as.. well, a shopping cart.
Buy them a CD rack. Remove CD from CD rack, insert into stereo, play.
Honestly, most new stereo cd players come with a 50 discs capacity... is it worth the trouble? If you have 'low hardware and budget' I doubt you'll have space to rip 500 cds at a good bitrate anyway. Could be a cool project, just for the fun. But it's totally non-practical, in my view.
I think you would need very high poly counts on your mesh to achieve a level of detail good enough to look like professional cartoons. If it's just to do an image (or a few), I don't think its worth the effort. For animation tough, it looks like a wonderful application!
But nothing will ever beat SouthPark characters... so simple, and so much personality!
Why aren't they implementing high security levels in these plants, not unlike diamond/gold mines? I mean, if it's that easy to steal something worth many millions dollars, someone WILL do it (even if won't make a cent out of it, obviously). Prestige of being the first to release highly awaited titles is crucial on the warez scene I heard.
For a 35000$ machine, all that it does is tell you that "something" the fish doesn't like is in the water. It doesn't tell you what, how, how much. And guppies are quite sensitive fish... their "distress" could be caused by something that isn't dangerous at all for humans.
Plus its animal cruelty. 500 mL of space isn't much (size of a Pepsi can?) to live in. And then we just wait for them to die (become "distressed" as the article put it). Does it require constant cleaning like an aquarium? If not, I bet you gonna change these 'biosensor' fish quite often...
Stupid idea. Just use/develop chemical sensors, or something.
Slashdot Mirror
It's actually a sad story... the guy had to turn to pr0n industry at some point, because nobody wanted to fund him anymore (I'm sure you can guess why). Here's some quotes from the Reuters article :
:) There's a trend developing here in Quebec (since about 2 years) where dumb (absurd and bad) humor = good humor... Is it the same way everywhere else? Let's hope it won't spread to movies...
:
"Struggling to find backers for more mainstream work, Wood turned to smut in the 1960s, making a string of films and "loops" -- short porn flicks shown in coin-operated booths -- up until his death in 1978."
"This is an old film. It's in the '70s, they're hairy, they don't look the way we are used to now,"
"He says "Necromania" displays Wood's wit and style and he points to a scene where the main character Danny is struggling to untangle a pair of red pajama bottoms to put them on."
You KNOW you want to see it!
The movie also include for fans of Ed
That film shows the making of Wood's most famous film -- "Plan 9 From Outer Space" from 1956 -- in which actors screw up their lines and "special effects" include pie tins for flying saucers.
The rationale of this move, according to an analysis of the merger done by Businessweek at0 4/nf20041026_3765_db016.htm
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct20
"The Atlanta-based carrier has landed exclusive rights to the new Motorola Razr V3 and the Sony Ericsson se710a. Both are high-end multimedia phones expected to lure sophisticated buyers. The Motorola Razr is a design triumph. It's just a half-inch thick when closed. Open, it's as thin as a Q-Tip. Yet it manages to pack in a VGA camera with 4x zoom, 3D graphics capability, and 22 kilohertz polyphonic speaker technology."
Its merger with AT&T Wireless will give Cingular 47.6 million subscribers, catapulting it past the 41 million customers that current market leader Verizon Wireless has. But that status might not last long unless Cingular can keep subscribers from bolting to Verizon and others. Cingular is plagued by above-average customer defections. [...] its churn rate edged up from 2.7% in the second quarter to 2.8% in the third, while Verizon's is hovering around a more wholesome 1.5%.
Mergers are dangerous : you gain benefits (in this case, exclusive handhelds and a big subscriber base), but can go wrong. Only time will tell if the benefits outweighted the disadvantages in this case.
"Clients will take delivery of the first ALLERCA kittens in 2007. The hypoallergenic cat is the first of a planned series of lifestyle pets that ALLERCA will develop over the next few years."
Notice the "will develop". Notice the 2007 date. Notice the high price tag. Genetic engineering is not like building a car. It's unpredictable. At this point, their 'research' is vaporware at best.
"A glycoprotein, Fel d 1, secreted by the sebaceous glands, is the major cat allergen. This allergen is found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat.
Using patented genetic technology, the ALLERCA team will focus on the particular gene that produces the Fel d 1 glycoprotein. Using a technique known as "gene silencing", the process reduces the gene's ability to produce the protein."
Will silencing this protein have undesirable effects? Nobody knows. And it's only the 'major' allergen, not the only one.
I wouldn't be betting 3500$ on this at the moment. Altought its a cute idea. Cats as guinea pigs for genetic engineering anyone?
OK, this story is pure speculation.
But if it turns out to be real, will they be able to gain a significant market share? Against IE and the rising Mozilla-based FireFox? To me, it seems that IE get all the non-techy people love, and Firefox gets the geeks... They better implement some VERY nice features, because the Google name alone won't make me switch for sure. And I LOVE Google.
As a previous poster said, it wont do much, even if you can get to A- produce footage from multiple cameras of 'incidents' ('innocents' getting beaten) B- Distribute said media at a scale large enough to have any kind of impact.
Public opinion is what matters. Try to get your 'point of view' on National TV. Medias are controlled, or at least aren't close to be 100% objective; they show you what they WANT to show you. In this case, Evil Anarchists rioting against the World Economy Globalization.
Cause its so more practical to load music at a phonebooth, in public, than in the comfort of your home. I don't see the point here, honestly. An Ipod hold so much music that you'll always have something non-boring to listen to anyway.
I hate to show my ignorance, but this is an excellent thing ;) And...
:P
In Soviet Russia, SUSE has YOU!
OK, we all know no Linux Guru will ever fall for this kind of stupid trick.
But imagine a world where Linux overwhelms Microsoft as the #1 desktop OS. Millions of Moms and Pops everywhere, using Linux. Who will they trust for their "updates"? I know for sure lots of them would fall for this particular trick, and it`s one of the first time we see this. Lots of distros, lots of sources, lots of patches, major confusion.
Question (as I don`t use Linux yet) : Do some of the major distros (Redhat, etc) have a webservice for updates, akin to windowsupdate.com? I sure hope so; it`s essential for further desktop market share increase.
Microsoft used shark-style tactics using his monopolistic power to get what it wanted and crush opposition... film at 11. Is this even news?
And if you RTFA, you'll see that "On the assumption that WMV9 was destined to become an industry standard, Microsoft convinced both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum to include it as a mandatory video compression format (along with MPEG-2 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) for next-generation high-definition DVD formats. Now, there is speculation that delays or licensing problems for VC-1 could prompt either -- or both -- of the DVD industry groups to simply delete the Microsoft technology from their specifications."
So it's not like WMV9 was the only codec incorporated in the standard anyway. Microsoft overpromised it seems, at least on the feature set. But cheated and lied?
According to scientists, we gained 1000 genes compared to rodents when we diverged from them 75 millions years ago. And we 'lost' 33 genes compared to them (they have a functional copy, we have a nonfunctional pseudogene; it's still there, only not working - stop codons, etc).
The "we must have more gene than (insert stupid animal or plant here)" is funny. Our superiority complex at its best.
Read about the whole thing (with more links) on my blog (see sig)
For me HDTV isn't too exciting. Higher resolution. Ok. I never noticed my TV's resolution was not adequate. Don't we have too much TV anyway? With the added possibility to record (Tivo) 40 hours / week of shows that I don't have time to listen to... TV is a productivity and social interaction sink.
Hurray for the 'turn all TVs off' device!
Sure I get the picture. But if you want to compare with Win95, you must add Mac Os 8 and 9... so it's more like :
Win 95
Win 98 (and maybe Win Me)
Win XP
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 9
Mac OS X
Mac OS X.1 (they didn't charge for this one I think)
Mac OS X.2
Mac OS X.3
and now, Mac OS X.4
The 'feature pack' trend started only recently. But anyway, Mac users have a past history of paying more for the same functionality (look, an iMac! It's so cute! 300$ more than a comparable PC? who cares! It's cute!)
The security thing was about new features introduced in Windows XP SP2 (Firewall, etc). I never mentionned OsX 'upgrades' as security fixes; I am aware of them being freely available.
... and honestly, nothing I see here warrants a 129$ US price tag. And Tiger? http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/. Improved search, improved videoconferencing software, and RSS support for Safari. Wow. I have better things to do with my money, I'll stick to Linux / Windows, thanks.
Still, charging for new features is retarded, in my opinion. The fact is that they are charging for features which should be free. Panther claim '150 features and innovations'. Among these, a new interface, fast user switching, videoconferencing sofware... and that's about it. The whole list can be found at http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/
Crazy Mac fanboys, moderate this down, I don't care.
I like the way Apple managed to charge for OS upgrades. Call it whatever you want, patches are still patches. The list of new features is not revolutionnary, by far (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/)And it's not like they did it only once. Jaguar, Panther, and now Tiger...
Imagine if Microsoft was doing the same thing. Want better security with SP2? 129 bucks! Sure, they charged us for win95, win98, winME, winXP and soon Longhorn, but Apple pulled the same thing with os8, os9, osX...
I wonder if the earbuds (and cord) are black too. White cord/earbuds used to be a sign of 'rob me, I got an expansive Ipod in my pocket'. Many friends of mine changed the (excellent) earbuds that came with their Ipod for Sony's one for this particular reason.
As a side note, I just don't get the U2 sponsorship thing... what's next, pink Ipod with Britney preloaded?
It seem to be a trend... Japan get all the cool toys while US (and Canada) markets show 'not enough demand'.... don't we like cool toys? Seen it happen with PDAs, Minidisc players (only some models are sold here, the coolest ones are Japan only), Cellphones...
The first day, all that was left online were two videos, one of which was subsequently removed because of PearPC-specific strings in the boot process shown in the video..."
Heh. If they can't even cover their tracks THIS BAD, no wonder they got catched (which is a good thing).
Now I wonder... are all GPL violators this clumsy? Probably not... you know the saying, for every thief you catch, hundreds still run free.
I wonder if China is deliberately crashing its satellites on its territory for secrecy reasons... maybe it was a spy satellite or something?
Seriously, given China size, they should have been able to find a decent landing spot... it isn't THAT densely populated is it?
Hear this : nanobots and crazy life quality increases like this guy claim are the flying cars we still expect. Barring a miracle, it just won't get there in our lifetime.
:| Infaillible recipee to get attention these days...
And by definition, nanobots aren't 'blood cell sized'. Nanotechnology is defined by devices smaller or in the range of a nanometer, like a virus; cells are much bigger than that.
This guy is spewing buzzwords like there's no tomorrow
Gotta hate that last part. "The computer will also alert shoppers as they approach favorite items or promotions". First of all, I can remember myself what are my favorite items, thanks a lot. Secondly, I have the feeling that "promotions" will be in 99% cases stuff I don`t need.
High tech isn't always good, remember that. Sometimes a shopping cart is best left as.. well, a shopping cart.
Buy them a CD rack. Remove CD from CD rack, insert into stereo, play.
Honestly, most new stereo cd players come with a 50 discs capacity... is it worth the trouble? If you have 'low hardware and budget' I doubt you'll have space to rip 500 cds at a good bitrate anyway. Could be a cool project, just for the fun. But it's totally non-practical, in my view.
I think you would need very high poly counts on your mesh to achieve a level of detail good enough to look like professional cartoons. If it's just to do an image (or a few), I don't think its worth the effort. For animation tough, it looks like a wonderful application!
But nothing will ever beat SouthPark characters... so simple, and so much personality!
Why aren't they implementing high security levels in these plants, not unlike diamond/gold mines? I mean, if it's that easy to steal something worth many millions dollars, someone WILL do it (even if won't make a cent out of it, obviously). Prestige of being the first to release highly awaited titles is crucial on the warez scene I heard.
Living beings that don't deserve to be treated like a simple chemical sensor?
For a 35000$ machine, all that it does is tell you that "something" the fish doesn't like is in the water. It doesn't tell you what, how, how much. And guppies are quite sensitive fish... their "distress" could be caused by something that isn't dangerous at all for humans.
Plus its animal cruelty. 500 mL of space isn't much (size of a Pepsi can?) to live in. And then we just wait for them to die (become "distressed" as the article put it). Does it require constant cleaning like an aquarium? If not, I bet you gonna change these 'biosensor' fish quite often...
Stupid idea. Just use/develop chemical sensors, or something.