"I haven't seen it, and..." (modded up as insightful)
"I have seen it, and..." (lying, modded up as informative)
"I have seen it, and..." (true, modded down as troll)
claim of truth:
"...it sucks!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...it rocks!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...it sucks and (LOTR/Spider-Man/Matrix) rocks!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...it rocks and (LOTR/Spider-Man/Matrix) sucks!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...[perverse rant about Natalie Portman]..." (continously modded up as interesting and down as troll)
"...what about the MPAA?..." (modded down as flamebait)
"...[actual thoughtful review]..." (modded down as redundant)
parting declaration:
"...Lucas has lost it!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...Lucas is the king!..." (modded up as insightful)
"...the FX are incredible!..." (modded down as redundant)
"...I've done better FX on my basement 486 using POVRAY..." (modded up as interesting)
"...it's OK. Go see it if you're interested, ignore it otherwise, and by all means wait for the swarming masses of raving geeks to dissipate..." (ignored by moderators)
"...[desparate plea for a date with Natalie Portman]..." (modded up as funny)
Thank you for posting that article link, and raising the issue of the Bayh-Doyle act, which I was previously unaware of (I had not realized that there ever were restrictions on universities patenting research results... now I think they should be reinstated), and explains many of the changes in academia over the last 2 decades.
does it include details about Stallman that weren't otherwise widely known? yes.
does it provide insight into Stallman as a human being, as well as his primary role in pioneering the free software movement, and the relation between these two? yes.
is it respectful of Stallman (who participated in the books partially-self-documented creation) without being fawning towards him, or evasive of his faults? yes.
does it deal with technical issues in a way that is both understandable to the newbie as well as non-insulting to the experienced? yes.
I read it (online), and bought a copy. It's a real biography of a real (if unusual) person.
For those who believe that everything must be perfectly bias-free, yes, it does display bias for free software ideals , but that is because it's telling RMS's (suprisingly successful) underdog story, and "triumph against massive odds" reads this way.
A genuinely informative, insightful book - and readable, too.
...and this is coming from someone who just spent several hours learning all about the painful ins & outs of cross-platform/cross-browser Flash player plug-in detection...
For certain applications, Flash works wonderfully _and_ far better than anything else out there. I am thinking in particular of short animations (with or without limited interaction) that can demonstrate ideas/diagrams/or tell a story.
BTW, I work in educational R&D so I see great examples of this stuff used all the time to complement web-based curricula. Sure, it can't be indexed by a search engine, but it's there to _illuminate_ the ideas stated in the text; i.e. to enhance it, not to replace it.
Sure, Flash can be abused (as many advertisers have done, and designers who want to use it as their entire tookit); However, the Flash-haters on/. are confusing the abuse of a general purpose tool (with some flaws that are being corrected) with the "dastardly deeds" done with it.
BTW, how does/. usually respond to attacks on general purpose tools that some people are attacking based on a relatively minor domain of applications that they dislike? (hint: CSS, copyable-CDs, PVRs, reverse-engineering tools...)...Sigh...
Yes, most Flash ads suck. And so do 90% of Flash-heavy sites. This problem won't be corrected by removing a particular tool - the crappy designers will just migrate to SVG/Real/WM/etc. Besides, banning/spitting on something disliked is the RIAA/MPAA way of doing things.
If we're such geeks we should be proposing/creating superior tools that are better focused on what Flash is best at, or improving Flash ourselves. Nope, I guess it's just easier to bitch about it.
Crap, that thing made my year... read the testimony of several more eloquent kibologists if you somehow fail to be in awe of this "piece of merchandise".
And just because I'm on the topic of wonderful crap, I feel the need to mention the "Star Wars Holiday Special" and the "Theme from Lord of the Rings (1978) Disco Mix". Truly the stuff that dreams are made of!
This is one of the most beautiful bugs I've ever seen - Microsoft is clearly an innovator in bringing ever-more-advanced, aesthetically-pleasing bugs to customers.
Seriously though... there is a true elegance to this vulnerability that one rarely sees in the usual passel of buffer overflows, etc.
This bug combines a canonical and visceral piece of browser functionality (back-button) with a conceptually and technically advanced, as well as invisibly-controlled piece of browser functionality (site-specific browser security settings). What wonderful juxtaposition!
C'mon! At least this is far better than the usual "ironic" bugs that come up (i.e. default passwords in a security program - har-de-har-snore).
"I'd be astonished if the open-source community has in total done as many man-years of computer security code reviews as we have done in the last two months."
I love this quote; it's _so_ MS.
Two months of a several thousand developers = 60 days * 8 hours per day (being generous and throwing in weekends) * 9,000 coders = ~ 500 man-years. Not too shabby!
Bullshit, that's playing with numbers. I could further "statistics-ize" this to say that this means every line of Windows XP got 8 minutes of attention in the last 2 months.
The reality is that secure development takes _time_ and _experience_ as well as eyeballs. Not everything is repaired correctly the first time, and the corrections themselves often need further review and correction. A fast fix is often worse than a naive bug.
This sort of thing is even more likely to happen when you're changing your development habits to take security into account - transitions are always messy. I doubt much effective security work actually "got done" on the Windows code in those 2 months, relatyive to the amount of "security twiddling".
While I have to applaud MS for finally _beginning_ to take security seriously, it's complete B.S. on their part (and very much in classic MS form) to suddeny claim that they're "the securest of the secure" when they're just entering the field.
...this table is an index of comic-book references to real elements, not the other way around (thus adamantidium and chemical X are out, anyway), so instead I'll nitpick at an even geekier level...
- The PowerPuff girls are well-represented in comics - I own several issues, one of the latest of which includes a gallery of PPG images rendered by comic "names", such as John Byrne and Mike Mignola. So these books are certainly accepted as part of the comics "mainstream" (if such a thing exists), vs. an purely-for-marketing-purposes book assembled by anonymous hacks.
- lack of modern comics? the point wasn't to find every mention of a given element in every comic ever published - that would be a ridiculous task. this is an overview... with the most popular "elements" getting a wider cross-section of comics. Furthermore, older comics tended to try to include more science factoids in their pseudo-science (as the space-race made science genuinely relevant to pop culture) and referenced real elements more often.
Shortly before Hollings' SSCA dog and pony show/hearing from a few weeks back, I sent Senator John Kerry a (personally-written) notice of my objections to the SSCA and SSCA-like legislation.
I sent this by fax, and due to my usual procrastination, didn't actually send it until the night before the hearing, i.e. he/his office could not have seen it before the hearing.
Still, it took less than 10 days for me to receive a reply message by mail. Unfortunately, his position conflicts with mine n regards to this issue.
However, I still feel that my efforts (and about-to-be-written follow-up letter) are a worthwhile effort. Why?
Well, if I can persuade other consituents to send similar messages (displaying both uniqueness and effort - not email or form letters), and they persuade their friends/acquaintances to do the same, we may be able to actually show our respresentative that a significant block of his voters do not want this legislation, and will not vote for him if he supports this legislation.
This is the implementation level of democracy, folks - if we can't show our reps. the votes, they won't listen to us. Show them the widespread awareness of the voters, and thereby the votes at stake, and they have to listen to us.
Because hefty campaign contributions can only fund campaigns, they can't buy back a constituency that knows it's been screwed.
BTW, an implied (shoulda been explicit) idea behind the last post was that theaters have increased the number of screens they show movies on, as well as the number of screens they show a _single_ movie on, in response the the increasing demand for "blockbuster" movies. please pardon the omission.
Actually, this is something which I see as mismanagement on the part of theaters - it costs a great deal to maintain the multi-screen multiplexes, and the growth in the number of movies shown on those screens (as well as the per-screen-profit) has not kept up with the number of screens, and in some areas, the number of theaters.
the result is that it's easier to see a movie "instantly"; however, this means that a movie _must_ make its money back "instantly"; there's very little leeway for allowing non-blockbuster films under this format, as a movie must be able to pay off its costs in an increasingly compressed time window.
this is exacerbated by the fact that the "hype machine" pushing blockbusters greatly increases the costs of these already costly (both to producers as well as distrbutors and theater-owners) films. It also incidentally lessens the public's appetite for a broader spectrum of film, as people tend to go to see what they've heard, seen, and read about. The days of going to the movies without knowing what's playing are long gone in this country.
Admittedly, my knowledge of this is limited to reports I have read in various business publications (Businessweek, et al.) but the overall pattern of increased theater building and disproportionately decreasing per-theater profits does indicate a pattern of overgrowth.
and personally, I wouldn't mind encountering sold-out theaters - ooh, i have to wait a day - or even buy a ticket in advance - in exchange for having 13 different movies on the 13 different screens at my local theater instead of 6. Heck, I'd settle for 9.
More importantly, I enjoy seeing movies in packed theaters. There's a real communal element that I miss when watching video; I find it depressing to see a "blockbuster" in a large theater with only 50 other people (because the other 200 are spread across 4 other screens).
Yes, BTW, I do enjoy blockbuster movies; I've got the hankering to see SWEP2; it's just that this isn't the _only_ type of movie I like to see, and that's the (rather submerged) point of what I was rambling about.
There's so many odd tensions inherent in seeing the latest Lucas movie/product that it's tough to sort them all out...
- Lucas's movies from the 70's are the primary reason (debatably equal with Spielberg's movies) for the "blockbuster-centric" state of the movie industry today. (i.e. opening weekend-oriented, with receipts fading fast even for popular films, therefore "hyper-able" films with a fast return get the most attention). ergo, supporting a new Lucas film is consistent _not only_ with generally supporting the MPAA, but also with supporting the "big (and not necessarily smart, therefore often stupid) movies advertised with big $$" business model which the major studios are so slavishly following.
(hey! lucas started a tsunami of crap! he's indirectly responsible for tomb raider! lucas is bad!)
- OTOH, Lucas is in the ultra-elite group of filmmakers who is beholden to _none_ of the movie studios (i.e. MPAA). He doesn't _have_ to create "big blockbusters", this is the kind of movie he _wants_ to make. Lucas even has the clout to create his own distribution company (in addition to Lucasfilm's production end), ala the Spielberg/Geffen/Katzenberg Dreamworks, were he interested.
(hmm... lucas is powerful! but independent... therefore good?)
- Lucas has, in fact, been using his clout to push digital production _and_ display techniques (which would be going faster were it not for distributor/theater overgrowth and mismanagement... which is a side result of the "blockbuster mentality, but I digress...). Aesthetic questions of "digital film" aside), these techniques can dramtically lower distribution costs while increasing theater flexibility, and thereby create new opportunities for distribution and showing of "non-blockbuster" films (independent or otherwise low(er) budget)...
(yay! Lucas is good! he's undoing what he hath wrought! and doing cool digitial stuff! Lucas is good!)
- Lucas's narratives tend to reflect a rather benevolently feudal/fascist view of the world, in which an elite group (Jedi) rules over/provides protection to the general classes; he has furthermore stated his preference for "benevolent dictator" style organization for his businesses (Lucasfilm/ILM/etc.), as well as indicating that his films are very specifically his own (versus "for the fans")... this idealized feudalism is further reflected in his deity-like relationship with his (legions of) fans. i.e. Lucas' s "independent" streak is very much a part of a tendency towards complete control over his work.
(boo! Lucas is anti-democratic... but he's an artist, so it's OK... but he does this in business, too... and see how he treats his fans... but we love him! Lucas is, uh, is...)
Anyway, Lucas's position in Hollywood/business practices/audience relations/artistic bent are very much an integrated and consistent (but still complex) thing - at least to the point that it's hard to reduce it to pure "good" or "bad". Let's just call Lucas a unique, smart, lucky bastard and focus on more concrete matters.
this post should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am not a professional 3-D computer animator. however, I am trained in the art/craft of 2-d animation (particularly drawn character-based animation), so I'm far from clueless.
simply put, physics based animation will have a _long_ distance to go before it starts to look "good" to anyone who wants to see anything beyond "physics".
The inherent problem is that there is rarely a one-to-one correspondence between something being "physically accurate" and something being "visually entertaining". in other words, entertaining/compelling visuals aren't necessarily based in physical reality.
Prime anecdotal evidence: Wile E. Coyote.
"But that's not live action!" you say. Well, this also applies to the vast majority of live-action "action movie" sequences; the overwhelming majority of these are composed of multiple takes shot from multiple angles on multiple sets, and later composited/edited together - in other words, the action was _not_physically_possible_, but had to be "assembled" from lots of smaller, quasi-physically-possible elements.
many of the posts here reference video game physics as unrealistic; they've got it exactly right - except that this is far more than a video-game-specific issue.
of course, in the long term the need to "ficitionalize/cheat" at physics may be addressed by a layer operating _above_ the physics engine (perhaps tweaking physical laws, running a simulation but changing the rules over time, etc.), but in the end it's still going to take a lot of direct creative input in order to get anything out of these systems that anyone will _want_ to see.
and it will be an even longer time before the output from that kind of system will produce anything not directly comparable to graphic work entirely based on photoshop (or GIMP) "filters" - i.e. it will look pre-packaged, cheap, and not terribly distinctive.
while I really appreciate the work that these people are doing (and believe that it will have wonderful applicatons in court cases/medicine/sports), calling physics-based animation a "holy grail" for _storytelling_ is nothing other than to mistake the long term goal of these projects as being to completely remove humans from the creative process of filmmaking.
and I've already seen "Battlefield Earth", thank you.
...or at least I have always considered it as such. Therefore, I was discouraged by Kristen Nyggard's poor lecturing technique (note that have only attended a single MIT guest lecture by him this past fall - he may have a signifcantly better approach under different circumstances).
The lecture was _terrible_ - here's why:
His lecture was promoted as being an overview of new methods of teaching object-oriented programming methodology in ways that are complementary _and_ dissimilar to procedural programming, using an idea of basing examples on "models of sufficiently complex systems". His primary example (addressed in the lecture) was a restaurant -system in which customers, waiters, seating, and interactions would all be modelled in an OO language. Great, you say, that sounds very interesting - and it is, if you are interested in pedagogy and CS (i.e. how people can effectively teach and learn CS concepts).
Unfortunately, the 100-minute lecture was primarily made up of a history of Simula and other OO languages which Nyggard had worked on, which did little/nothing to illuminate his main points. A 10-minute overview would have provided just the right amount of background, but 60+ minutes of quasi-superficial information about Simula and its descendant languages is exactly the kind of thing that _shouldn't_ be conveyed in lecture format. That's the kind of information which should be read, or be sprinkled amongst practical information in lectures teaching the language.
Even worse were the illustrations for his "restaurant-system" example; while competently rendered (apparently by an illustrator friend of his), the images were crowded with idiomatic in-jokes which detracted from understanding the interactions which were the focus of the excercise. (especially confusing were the jokes requiring familiarity with european/scandinvian culture - he seemed disappointed that we were not laughing.)
All I wanted from this lecture was specific details of a new OO pedagogical method, and hopefully some case study examples. There might have been some of this at the end, but I was dozing in and out during the last 20 minutes, and while I was awake I noticed none of this.
I'll make the obvious trolling comment here about computer scientists/programmers being too focused on their work to bother figuring out how to speak with other people/communicate their ideas effectively.
Note to pioneers: the best-promoted ideas, not necessarily the most advanced or interesting, get the most mental currency - look to C, look to PERL. If you can only evangelize as effectively as Nyggard (don't get me wrong, SIMULA/et al. are _very cool_ - just poorly promoted) I am much less surprised at the failure of OO to become the "default" programming approach.
While I agree with your first point, the second point is less valid because of your first point. Mac components are typically of higher quality than "commodity" components - this is part of the (somewhat) higher initial investment cost; this is also one of the reasons why Mac hardware "obsoletes" more slowly than PC hardware.
Given that the majority of car sex is undertaken by teenagers (who can't find any privacy in their parents' homes), and that this car will automatically take photos of sex (i.e. "happiness") going on inside the car, I can hear the jingly-coin sound of class action lawuit re: unintentional underage porn coming Toyotas way...
Of course, given the typical sexual incompetence displayed by inexperienced teenagers, I would guess that a good 50% of the sex will be too lousy to register on the car's "happy sensors" (if it has "desperate single-mindedness" sensors, maybe...).
Sure this is sick - but I can blame it on sleep-deprivation. What's Toyota's excuse?
While this seems to be not _quite_ as vicious as if MS's license restricted usage of the entire software... think this through a bit more.
These components (ticker, etc.) are dependent upon continual communication with MS's central servers - so the license's assumption is that because you are (in a very technical way) making yourself a "business" partner of MS by using these components, you must not badmouth your "business" partner while you make use of these components. This is "fair enough" at face value.
Taking the long-term perspective, this approach to licensing is the direct result of the "software-as-a-service" model which MS is pushing all of their software towards.
With that in mind, how long do you think it will be before MS begins to license _the entirety_ of their applications in this way? After all, they'll all be "services" provided by MS's central servers, requiring constant access to MS's servers, not to mentione authentication under MS's new licensing requirements.
Now imagine that you're a reporter/lawyer (everyday Joe & not a Linux geek), and having your access to using your Windows desktop revoked becuase MS doesn't like a document you wrote up about them.
This kind of licensing is the thin end of an infinitely wide wedge between everyday users and control over what they do with their computers.
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In that case, the Boba-Fett process must totally kick CMOS's ass!
...I'd say this poses a danger to IBM, except that they already have experience with surviving an "Attack of the Clones"...
...that was fantastic! Yoda totally kicked ass!
oh, wait...
claim to righteousness:
claim of truth:
parting declaration:
Thank you for posting that article link, and raising the issue of the Bayh-Doyle act, which I was previously unaware of (I had not realized that there ever were restrictions on universities patenting research results... now I think they should be reinstated), and explains many of the changes in academia over the last 2 decades.
I read it (online), and bought a copy. It's a real biography of a real (if unusual) person.
For those who believe that everything must be perfectly bias-free, yes, it does display bias for free software ideals , but that is because it's telling RMS's (suprisingly successful) underdog story, and "triumph against massive odds" reads this way.
A genuinely informative, insightful book - and readable, too.
does this mean that I have to re-wire all of my "wi-fi" devices?
worse, does this mean that I'll have to start referring to them as "wi-wi"?
...and this is coming from someone who just spent several hours learning all about the painful ins & outs of cross-platform/cross-browser Flash player plug-in detection...
/. are confusing the abuse of a general purpose tool (with some flaws that are being corrected) with the "dastardly deeds" done with it.
/. usually respond to attacks on general purpose tools that some people are attacking based on a relatively minor domain of applications that they dislike? (hint: CSS, copyable-CDs, PVRs, reverse-engineering tools...) ...Sigh...
For certain applications, Flash works wonderfully _and_ far better than anything else out there. I am thinking in particular of short animations (with or without limited interaction) that can demonstrate ideas/diagrams/or tell a story.
BTW, I work in educational R&D so I see great examples of this stuff used all the time to complement web-based curricula. Sure, it can't be indexed by a search engine, but it's there to _illuminate_ the ideas stated in the text; i.e. to enhance it, not to replace it.
Sure, Flash can be abused (as many advertisers have done, and designers who want to use it as their entire tookit); However, the Flash-haters on
BTW, how does
Yes, most Flash ads suck. And so do 90% of Flash-heavy sites. This problem won't be corrected by removing a particular tool - the crappy designers will just migrate to SVG/Real/WM/etc. Besides, banning/spitting on something disliked is the RIAA/MPAA way of doing things.
If we're such geeks we should be proposing/creating superior tools that are better focused on what Flash is best at, or improving Flash ourselves. Nope, I guess it's just easier to bitch about it.
Less merchandise? They want to avoid making (and failing to sell) crappy merchandise? Dammit, I actively seek out the crappy merchandise!
I will be sincerely disappointed if there is nothing coming out of AOTC to at least rival TPM's Jar Jar Binks Moster Mouth Lollipop
Crap, that thing made my year... read the testimony of several more eloquent kibologists if you somehow fail to be in awe of this "piece of merchandise".
And just because I'm on the topic of wonderful crap, I feel the need to mention the "Star Wars Holiday Special" and the "Theme from Lord of the Rings (1978) Disco Mix". Truly the stuff that dreams are made of!
This is one of the most beautiful bugs I've ever seen - Microsoft is clearly an innovator in bringing ever-more-advanced, aesthetically-pleasing bugs to customers.
Seriously though... there is a true elegance to this vulnerability that one rarely sees in the usual passel of buffer overflows, etc.
This bug combines a canonical and visceral piece of browser functionality (back-button) with a conceptually and technically advanced, as well as invisibly-controlled piece of browser functionality (site-specific browser security settings). What wonderful juxtaposition!
C'mon! At least this is far better than the usual "ironic" bugs that come up (i.e. default passwords in a security program - har-de-har-snore).
watch out, the "elemental magick" people are gonna be pissed!
different article about it, but here's Hemos's original post: post.
blarg.
"I'd be astonished if the open-source community has in total done as many man-years of computer security code reviews as we have done in the last two months."
I love this quote; it's _so_ MS.
Two months of a several thousand developers = 60 days * 8 hours per day (being generous and throwing in weekends) * 9,000 coders = ~ 500 man-years. Not too shabby!
Bullshit, that's playing with numbers. I could further "statistics-ize" this to say that this means every line of Windows XP got 8 minutes of attention in the last 2 months.
The reality is that secure development takes _time_ and _experience_ as well as eyeballs. Not everything is repaired correctly the first time, and the corrections themselves often need further review and correction. A fast fix is often worse than a naive bug.
This sort of thing is even more likely to happen when you're changing your development habits to take security into account - transitions are always messy. I doubt much effective security work actually "got done" on the Windows code in those 2 months, relatyive to the amount of "security twiddling".
While I have to applaud MS for finally _beginning_ to take security seriously, it's complete B.S. on their part (and very much in classic MS form) to suddeny claim that they're "the securest of the secure" when they're just entering the field.
> Taco must have his own cerebro.
if that's the case, I hope that Pudge fixes it's dang spell-checker.
...this table is an index of comic-book references to real elements, not the other way around (thus adamantidium and chemical X are out, anyway), so instead I'll nitpick at an even geekier level...
- The PowerPuff girls are well-represented in comics - I own several issues, one of the latest of which includes a gallery of PPG images rendered by comic "names", such as John Byrne and Mike Mignola. So these books are certainly accepted as part of the comics "mainstream" (if such a thing exists), vs. an purely-for-marketing-purposes book assembled by anonymous hacks.
- lack of modern comics? the point wasn't to find every mention of a given element in every comic ever published - that would be a ridiculous task. this is an overview... with the most popular "elements" getting a wider cross-section of comics. Furthermore, older comics tended to try to include more science factoids in their pseudo-science (as the space-race made science genuinely relevant to pop culture) and referenced real elements more often.
OK, I'll shut up now.
Actually, this shouldn't be funny. We should do this.
Really, what else could possibly raise the mainstream's attention in regards to "protecting our online rights in order to protect our civil rights"?
Shortly before Hollings' SSCA dog and pony show/hearing from a few weeks back, I sent Senator John Kerry a (personally-written) notice of my objections to the SSCA and SSCA-like legislation.
I sent this by fax, and due to my usual procrastination, didn't actually send it until the night before the hearing, i.e. he/his office could not have seen it before the hearing.
Still, it took less than 10 days for me to receive a reply message by mail. Unfortunately, his position conflicts with mine n regards to this issue.
However, I still feel that my efforts (and about-to-be-written follow-up letter) are a worthwhile effort. Why?
Well, if I can persuade other consituents to send similar messages (displaying both uniqueness and effort - not email or form letters), and they persuade their friends/acquaintances to do the same, we may be able to actually show our respresentative that a significant block of his voters do not want this legislation, and will not vote for him if he supports this legislation.
This is the implementation level of democracy, folks - if we can't show our reps. the votes, they won't listen to us. Show them the widespread awareness of the voters, and thereby the votes at stake, and they have to listen to us.
Because hefty campaign contributions can only fund campaigns, they can't buy back a constituency that knows it's been screwed.
BTW, an implied (shoulda been explicit) idea behind the last post was that theaters have increased the number of screens they show movies on, as well as the number of screens they show a _single_ movie on, in response the the increasing demand for "blockbuster" movies. please pardon the omission.
Actually, this is something which I see as mismanagement on the part of theaters - it costs a great deal to maintain the multi-screen multiplexes, and the growth in the number of movies shown on those screens (as well as the per-screen-profit) has not kept up with the number of screens, and in some areas, the number of theaters.
the result is that it's easier to see a movie "instantly"; however, this means that a movie _must_ make its money back "instantly"; there's very little leeway for allowing non-blockbuster films under this format, as a movie must be able to pay off its costs in an increasingly compressed time window.
this is exacerbated by the fact that the "hype machine" pushing blockbusters greatly increases the costs of these already costly (both to producers as well as distrbutors and theater-owners) films. It also incidentally lessens the public's appetite for a broader spectrum of film, as people tend to go to see what they've heard, seen, and read about. The days of going to the movies without knowing what's playing are long gone in this country.
Admittedly, my knowledge of this is limited to reports I have read in various business publications (Businessweek, et al.) but the overall pattern of increased theater building and disproportionately decreasing per-theater profits does indicate a pattern of overgrowth.
and personally, I wouldn't mind encountering sold-out theaters - ooh, i have to wait a day - or even buy a ticket in advance - in exchange for having 13 different movies on the 13 different screens at my local theater instead of 6. Heck, I'd settle for 9.
More importantly, I enjoy seeing movies in packed theaters. There's a real communal element that I miss when watching video; I find it depressing to see a "blockbuster" in a large theater with only 50 other people (because the other 200 are spread across 4 other screens).
Yes, BTW, I do enjoy blockbuster movies; I've got the hankering to see SWEP2; it's just that this isn't the _only_ type of movie I like to see, and that's the (rather submerged) point of what I was rambling about.
There's so many odd tensions inherent in seeing the latest Lucas movie/product that it's tough to sort them all out...
- Lucas's movies from the 70's are the primary reason (debatably equal with Spielberg's movies) for the "blockbuster-centric" state of the movie industry today. (i.e. opening weekend-oriented, with receipts fading fast even for popular films, therefore "hyper-able" films with a fast return get the most attention). ergo, supporting a new Lucas film is consistent _not only_ with generally supporting the MPAA, but also with supporting the "big (and not necessarily smart, therefore often stupid) movies advertised with big $$" business model which the major studios are so slavishly following.
(hey! lucas started a tsunami of crap! he's indirectly responsible for tomb raider! lucas is bad!)
- OTOH, Lucas is in the ultra-elite group of filmmakers who is beholden to _none_ of the movie studios (i.e. MPAA). He doesn't _have_ to create "big blockbusters", this is the kind of movie he _wants_ to make. Lucas even has the clout to create his own distribution company (in addition to Lucasfilm's production end), ala the Spielberg/Geffen/Katzenberg Dreamworks, were he interested.
(hmm... lucas is powerful! but independent... therefore good?)
- Lucas has, in fact, been using his clout to push digital production _and_ display techniques (which would be going faster were it not for distributor/theater overgrowth and mismanagement... which is a side result of the "blockbuster mentality, but I digress...). Aesthetic questions of "digital film" aside), these techniques can dramtically lower distribution costs while increasing theater flexibility, and thereby create new opportunities for distribution and showing of "non-blockbuster" films (independent or otherwise low(er) budget)...
(yay! Lucas is good! he's undoing what he hath wrought! and doing cool digitial stuff! Lucas is good!)
- Lucas's narratives tend to reflect a rather benevolently feudal/fascist view of the world, in which an elite group (Jedi) rules over/provides protection to the general classes; he has furthermore stated his preference for "benevolent dictator" style organization for his businesses (Lucasfilm/ILM/etc.), as well as indicating that his films are very specifically his own (versus "for the fans")... this idealized feudalism is further reflected in his deity-like relationship with his (legions of) fans. i.e. Lucas' s "independent" streak is very much a part of a tendency towards complete control over his work.
(boo! Lucas is anti-democratic... but he's an artist, so it's OK... but he does this in business, too... and see how he treats his fans... but we love him! Lucas is, uh, is...)
Anyway, Lucas's position in Hollywood/business practices/audience relations/artistic bent are very much an integrated and consistent (but still complex) thing - at least to the point that it's hard to reduce it to pure "good" or "bad". Let's just call Lucas a unique, smart, lucky bastard and focus on more concrete matters.
Just something to chew on.
this post should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am not a professional 3-D computer animator. however, I am trained in the art/craft of 2-d animation (particularly drawn character-based animation), so I'm far from clueless.
simply put, physics based animation will have a _long_ distance to go before it starts to look "good" to anyone who wants to see anything beyond "physics".
The inherent problem is that there is rarely a one-to-one correspondence between something being "physically accurate" and something being "visually entertaining". in other words, entertaining/compelling visuals aren't necessarily based in physical reality.
Prime anecdotal evidence: Wile E. Coyote.
"But that's not live action!" you say. Well, this also applies to the vast majority of live-action "action movie" sequences; the overwhelming majority of these are composed of multiple takes shot from multiple angles on multiple sets, and later composited/edited together - in other words, the action was _not_physically_possible_, but had to be "assembled" from lots of smaller, quasi-physically-possible elements.
many of the posts here reference video game physics as unrealistic; they've got it exactly right - except that this is far more than a video-game-specific issue.
of course, in the long term the need to "ficitionalize/cheat" at physics may be addressed by a layer operating _above_ the physics engine (perhaps tweaking physical laws, running a simulation but changing the rules over time, etc.), but in the end it's still going to take a lot of direct creative input in order to get anything out of these systems that anyone will _want_ to see.
and it will be an even longer time before the output from that kind of system will produce anything not directly comparable to graphic work entirely based on photoshop (or GIMP) "filters" - i.e. it will look pre-packaged, cheap, and not terribly distinctive.
while I really appreciate the work that these people are doing (and believe that it will have wonderful applicatons in court cases/medicine/sports), calling physics-based animation a "holy grail" for _storytelling_ is nothing other than to mistake the long term goal of these projects as being to completely remove humans from the creative process of filmmaking.
and I've already seen "Battlefield Earth", thank you.
- jdbo
...or at least I have always considered it as such. Therefore, I was discouraged by Kristen Nyggard's poor lecturing technique (note that have only attended a single MIT guest lecture by him this past fall - he may have a signifcantly better approach under different circumstances).
The lecture was _terrible_ - here's why:
His lecture was promoted as being an overview of new methods of teaching object-oriented programming methodology in ways that are complementary _and_ dissimilar to procedural programming, using an idea of basing examples on "models of sufficiently complex systems". His primary example (addressed in the lecture) was a restaurant -system in which customers, waiters, seating, and interactions would all be modelled in an OO language. Great, you say, that sounds very interesting - and it is, if you are interested in pedagogy and CS (i.e. how people can effectively teach and learn CS concepts).
Unfortunately, the 100-minute lecture was primarily made up of a history of Simula and other OO languages which Nyggard had worked on, which did little/nothing to illuminate his main points. A 10-minute overview would have provided just the right amount of background, but 60+ minutes of quasi-superficial information about Simula and its descendant languages is exactly the kind of thing that _shouldn't_ be conveyed in lecture format. That's the kind of information which should be read, or be sprinkled amongst practical information in lectures teaching the language.
Even worse were the illustrations for his "restaurant-system" example; while competently rendered (apparently by an illustrator friend of his), the images were crowded with idiomatic in-jokes which detracted from understanding the interactions which were the focus of the excercise. (especially confusing were the jokes requiring familiarity with european/scandinvian culture - he seemed disappointed that we were not laughing.)
All I wanted from this lecture was specific details of a new OO pedagogical method, and hopefully some case study examples. There might have been some of this at the end, but I was dozing in and out during the last 20 minutes, and while I was awake I noticed none of this.
I'll make the obvious trolling comment here about computer scientists/programmers being too focused on their work to bother figuring out how to speak with other people/communicate their ideas effectively.
Note to pioneers: the best-promoted ideas, not necessarily the most advanced or interesting, get the most mental currency - look to C, look to PERL. If you can only evangelize as effectively as Nyggard (don't get me wrong, SIMULA/et al. are _very cool_ - just poorly promoted) I am much less surprised at the failure of OO to become the "default" programming approach.
Sheesh.
While I agree with your first point, the second point is less valid because of your first point. Mac components are typically of higher quality than "commodity" components - this is part of the (somewhat) higher initial investment cost; this is also one of the reasons why Mac hardware "obsoletes" more slowly than PC hardware.
"...or are we just gonna fool around?"
- posted for my friend Jana
As for me, i'd just like to play pool with the guy.
Note that my friend and I actually met Bruce at the Cambridge, Mass. book-signing, but were too frozen with glee to ask good questions.
Therefore, I feel that this should get moderated up based on the fact that I shook Bruce Cambell's hand.
Given that the majority of car sex is undertaken by teenagers (who can't find any privacy in their parents' homes), and that this car will automatically take photos of sex (i.e. "happiness") going on inside the car, I can hear the jingly-coin sound of class action lawuit re: unintentional underage porn coming Toyotas way...
Of course, given the typical sexual incompetence displayed by inexperienced teenagers, I would guess that a good 50% of the sex will be too lousy to register on the car's "happy sensors" (if it has "desperate single-mindedness" sensors, maybe...).
Sure this is sick - but I can blame it on sleep-deprivation. What's Toyota's excuse?
While this seems to be not _quite_ as vicious as if MS's license restricted usage of the entire software... think this through a bit more.
These components (ticker, etc.) are dependent upon continual communication with MS's central servers - so the license's assumption is that because you are (in a very technical way) making yourself a "business" partner of MS by using these components, you must not badmouth your "business" partner while you make use of these components. This is "fair enough" at face value.
Taking the long-term perspective, this approach to licensing is the direct result of the "software-as-a-service" model which MS is pushing all of their software towards.
With that in mind, how long do you think it will be before MS begins to license _the entirety_ of their applications in this way? After all, they'll all be "services" provided by MS's central servers, requiring constant access to MS's servers, not to mentione authentication under MS's new licensing requirements.
Now imagine that you're a reporter/lawyer (everyday Joe & not a Linux geek), and having your access to using your Windows desktop revoked becuase MS doesn't like a document you wrote up about them.
This kind of licensing is the thin end of an infinitely wide wedge between everyday users and control over what they do with their computers.