A friend of mine noticed that Agent Smith is like a replicating virus now, and when he enters Bane's "real world" mind, he is cutting his hands into bloody lines. When he is stopped from killing Neo, he shakes his hand. My friend theorized that somehow Neo got infected by that blood.
I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that Bane sliced his left hand, and shook Neo's hand with his right. The only reason I noticed this is that Bane seemed to make a quick and uncomfortable switch of the blade from one hand to the other.
RMS is more than just keeping people from copying MP3's...one of the main intended uses is managing documents in a corporate environment.
Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that our friends at the record labels are going to piss themselves in joy at this technology...but there actually is a use for it besides oppressing your right to copy music:)
m.
I think The Big Lebowski is hardly "under-appreciated".
I agree with your description of the flick - it's a great movie. But I'd go so far as to say anything you can rent at Blockbuster probably shouldn't count in this listing.
m.
. "Direction," in the common sense is mostly useless, I would think, in a digital production, yet it still has direction of a kind. Camera angles, movement... but not dealing with live actors, or with a certain lighting, or an odd camera angle that is nearly impossible to pull off... none of these are problems with digitial productions. That doesn't dilute their contribution; it's simply different.
Depends a lot on how you define "directing".
Most laypeople tend to think of a film director as fulfilling the same role of a stage director...it doesn't quite work that way.
In movies, the director is responsible for the artistic interpretation of the film. Simply put, the writer is responsible for what story is being told, and the director is responsible for how the story is being told.
Being a director is more than herding actors. That's what the AD is for:)
My point being, there's just as much "directing" in a CG or animated film as in a live-action one. The specifics may be different, but the director is still the one who is in charge of the overall vision.
m.
From the "you-asked-for-it-don't-complain" dept...
on
An IMDb for Books
·
· Score: 1
Temporarily removed due to a visit from slashdot, you all should be grateful we don't forward you to goatse.cx!
Dude...you submitted the site to Slashdot looking for traffic and participation...I think complaining about it is in pretty poor form.
Fast-forwarding through "boring" parts is not MODIFYING the content. Like the tongue in cheek example, it's like going to the bathroom during the love scenes in The Phanton Menace.
Perhaps if you'd ever made a film, you might feel differently. I'm a filmmaker. I make movies. I want you to see them. I want you to enjoy them.
But when you edit them, you change them. The problem with the "digital issues" that keep being brought up is the EASE in which that can be done...yes, you can "fast-forward" through the parts you don't like...you can mute the parts you don't like...but that requires active participation on the part of the viewer.
Technologies like this are allowing the third-party company to do the editing FOR the viewer. The viewer is not making those choices for themselves.
And yes, it is the same as when a network chops up a film for TV broadcast. I don't happen to agree with that either.
m.
When you're drinking good liquor straight, then neat is the way to go.
But the majority of mixed cocktails (such as highballs and two-liquors) are meant to be served over rocks.
Have you ever had a white russian without ice? Doesn't taste right. Know why? BECAUSE THERE'S NO ICE!
Now, my question is...how does this machine do blended drinks? Any drink with sour mix in it must be shaken/blended to be mixed properly. You can't just dump it into the glass.
We're getting off-topic, but you very clearly did NOT understand.
The point of the project was not "sell our crappy movie through hype", but rather "extend the movie experience out of the theater."
Now, perhaps you think it didn't work (and you could be right), but let's not compare indies and oranges, kay?
m.
Re:Negative review, but not (intentional) flamebai
on
LOTR: The Two Towers
·
· Score: 1
The reason it really feels like two separate people is because PJ violates one of the rules of cinematography-- crossing the "line" (I don't remember exactly what it's called, but if there are two people talking to one another, there's an imaginary line between them. In order to not confuse the audience, the camera should never cross this "line" when switching between shots of one and the other).
It's called the "line of action", and is a fundamental of the continuity style. It's not a hard and fast rule, but one you generally only break for a reason. And this was a pretty good reason.
And then like.. Slashdot posters were like... uhh... post post...and the website was gone.
They were really good posts, too.
And then I was in a hurry, and had to, like, put up something quickly, and since I was in a rush, it wasn't as good. And the picture wasn't even a real picture.
Meanwhile, it would seem Michael Jackson is keeping a low, freak-free profile as best he can, until the comeback tour. This is the sort of press he'd probably avoid...
When I attempted to open an attached VBS file within Outlook98, I received the following message:
"Some files can contain viruses and otherwise be harmful to your computer. It is important to be certain that this file is from a trustworthy source. What would you like to do with this file? Open it or Save it to disk"
With "Save it to disk" as the default.
There's a lot of misinformation propogating out there. The file does NOT autorun. You have to specifically state "YES, RUN THIS FILE."
Yes, WSH is unsafe. But it's also horribly useful. Blame the corporate IT departments that don't know how to deploy their tools - a properly configured shop doesn't have these problems - if you're running NTWS properly, the end user can't do much more to his own machine that a non-root user can in Linux (and how many of you out there running Linux on your desktops aren't root equiv anyway)
Finally, this virus specifically targeted Outlook, but that's because the "programmer" wasn't sophisticated to use MAPI properly - he just copy/pasted an Outlook script. It could have happened with any MAPI client (the propogation).
It is not a weakness of Exchange Server either. The backend had nothing to do with the propogation of this - it all happened on the client. You could have had an office full of users using Outlook as a POP client against a Unix server with a common address book that is distributed, and they would have gotten infected as well (it happened to a friend's company).
It's still user education/sloppy IT at work here. Thank goodness it's raised awareness at my company that they are FINALLY giving me the budget/buy in for managed desktops.
I will agree with you...a longtime Phile, I've seen only two episodes this season (for two reasons - one being swing dancing at the Willowbrook, and the other, more recent reason, is the new season of The Sopranos).
However, here in Chicago, Simpsons is on at 7 PM...so La Familia is on opposite X-Files...lately what I've been doing (read, for the last two weeks) has been to watch X-Files on Sundays, and let my TiVO catch Sopranos later in the week (the wonderful thing about HBO...they run they episode about several times per week PER CHANNEL...which nets about five viewing chances per week).
Basically, after much ado and thought, here's how I set mine up (this describes integrating digital cable box, analog VCR, Tivo, DVD player, and receiver)
The cable comes out of the wall and into the digital cable box via coax. The coax then runs into the Tivo, where it then passes through to the VCR, where it passes through to the TV.
The digital cable box sends audio and video via composite RCA cables to the RCA inputs on the Tivo. The Tivo's RCA outs go to the TV/DBS ins (both audio and video) on my receiver.
The DVD player's optical audio in goes to the receiver, and the video composite goes to the receiver as well.
Finally, the receiver dumps out to the TV via composite RCA from the monitor port.
What does this accomplish? If I want to watch DVD's, well, that's the easiest part - just set the TV to "video in" and the receiver to "DVD" and rock and roll.
It also allows cable and VCR tapes to be viewed either in full stereo surround through the receiver, or through the TV's speakers (I added this ability for two reasons - one, I don't always want to have full-on surround when watching, for example, Headline News in the morning, and two - my roommate's not that techinical, and it's much easier for him to just use the TV's volume then training him properly on the care and feeding of my Denon).
I programmed the TV to only display channels "Video" and "3", so using the channel up/down on the TV sets you to the proper place.
The Tivo doesn't much care where it's sending out or through - it will send it's "outs" via the coax, even though you specify the composite in the setup. This is also how the VCR can be set to record from the Tivo.
Hope that was helpful. The only thing that's odd is I have a General Instruments cable box for my AT&T digital cable, and the front of the box reads "Dolby Digital." However, the only audio outs on the box are composite - no coax or optical digital outs. Hrm. I wonder how they are accomplishing AC-3 via composite?
I don't think that the pause feature is included for "freeze frame" analysis of Kramer's entrance into Jerry's apartment.
Rather, it is intended to allow a person to "pause" the playback of live TV to answer the telephone, get the door, grab a snack, or otherwise engage in normal, non-TV behavior.
I myself have a Tivo, and have used the Pause feature to make it much easier to skip commercials. I simply pause the show for the first five or ten minutes (depending on the show length), do something else, and then start it up. This allows me to keep a buffer behind the show to skip the commercials.
Actually, I've discovered a couple things from having my Tivo. Number one, I have NO idea when shows are on anymore. I set the box to record X-Files, the Simpsons, Drew Carey, and various others, and just watch them when convenient (usually around 10 PM when I'm going to bed). I also saw that even after only having the box for two weeks, it has spoiled me. I was at a friend's house on Sunday, and was very irritated that I couldn't fast-forward through the commercials during Futurama.
Another nice feature of the Tivo is the three-second rewind after you stop the fast forward. When fast-forwarding through the commercials, one tends to hit "play" after two-three seconds of program playback have passed...this buffer is pretty much dead-on. It's one of my favorite features.
The only real drawback I've seen so far is that it has a slight error in my programming lineup - it has the wrong channel number for my local cable's BBC America channel, which meant I couldn't record the French and Saunders marathon the other day.
And speaking to recording quality...I don't use this thing to tape movies, so the second-highest recording quality gives me more than enough recording space and the quality still kicks the crap out of VHS.
I must admit...I'd not really noticed this, until reading your post - now, I think about my swing dancing friends...and realize that quite a few of them may fall into this category.
I know that excellence at the Lindy Hop has certainly increased one of my friend's confidence towards the opposite sex by a factor of at least a thousand.
Looking back...I see that since taking up swing dancing, my two friends and have certainly "upgraded" in terms of the women that we date - of course, the fact that over the same timeframe we have advanced in our careers and are making more money may have something to do with it.
Another factor - one of the reasons that I really enjoy the swing scene is the general friendliness - if one is out in a "bump and grind" style dance club, asking a girl to dance certainly has underlying meaning - usually the meaning is "Hey, I think you appear physically attractive - I'd like to rub my body against yours, ply you with liquor, and take you home and score."
In a swing club, however...if I ask a girl to dance, I more likely mean "Hey, I saw you dancing during that last song and wow, cool moves. I'd certainly like to dance with you - your cool moves combined with mine will make us both look good. Plus maybe I can learn something from you. At the very least it will be fun. And when we are done, I will shake your hand and maybe we'll dance again later."
The point is...in a club like that, the social interaction is much more casual - not nearly as much pressure, which makes it easier to be relaxed and not a bundle of nerves.
I have to agree...working in a professional NT environment, I am puzzled to hear all these people insisting that their NT servers are BSOD-ing every twenty minutes.
My current client is an NT-only shop (with the exception of two HP boxes and the mainframe). We've got what I would consider a medium-sized environment - approx 200 servers spread out over about twenty locations globally.
Guess what cowboys? My servers don't crash every day. Actually, the only BSOD's I have gotten recently have been due to a Computer Associates product (you hate Microsoft? Try dealing with CA sometime...)
How do we accomplish this?
* Standardized hardware - all of our servers are Compaq Proliants. No whiteboxes here.
* Careful testing of applications and Service Packs - we've finished our SP4 rollout about three months ago. It is doubtful that we will even consider SP5 until Q2. Before an application or patch is installed on a production box, it is usually tested for at least a month in our lab. I have a 99.9% uptime SLA to meet. We're not going to mess around.
Do I feel that NT is the be-all and end-all solution? Of course not! I'm running RedHat at home. I cut my teeth on Solaris.
However, I don't feel that NT deserves all the negative press it gets - just because a product is from Redmond does NOT automatically cause it relegation to the crap software list. I keep my politics and my technology separate. It's just a tool - would you choose to not use Craftsman hammers because Sears engaged in unfair business practices? I sure wouldn't - and if I am your client and trusting you to make proper TECHNOLOGY decisions for me, I certainly hope that you would choose the appropriate tool.
Slashdot Mirror
I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain that Bane sliced his left hand, and shook Neo's hand with his right. The only reason I noticed this is that Bane seemed to make a quick and uncomfortable switch of the blade from one hand to the other.
m.
I, for one, thing it is *appalling* that NetFlix would discriminate against the elderly and the fat-assed.
m.
Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that our friends at the record labels are going to piss themselves in joy at this technology...but there actually is a use for it besides oppressing your right to copy music :)
m.
I think The Big Lebowski is hardly "under-appreciated". I agree with your description of the flick - it's a great movie. But I'd go so far as to say anything you can rent at Blockbuster probably shouldn't count in this listing. m.
Depends a lot on how you define "directing".
Most laypeople tend to think of a film director as fulfilling the same role of a stage director...it doesn't quite work that way.
In movies, the director is responsible for the artistic interpretation of the film. Simply put, the writer is responsible for what story is being told, and the director is responsible for how the story is being told.
Being a director is more than herding actors. That's what the AD is for :)
My point being, there's just as much "directing" in a CG or animated film as in a live-action one. The specifics may be different, but the director is still the one who is in charge of the overall vision.
m.
Dude...you submitted the site to Slashdot looking for traffic and participation...I think complaining about it is in pretty poor form.
m.
I was surprised that "Lisa's Rival" didn't make the top 25 list...but more surprised that nobody on /. had mentioned it yet.
"You know what this is, boy? White gold! Texas tea....sweetener."
m.
Fast-forwarding through "boring" parts is not MODIFYING the content. Like the tongue in cheek example, it's like going to the bathroom during the love scenes in The Phanton Menace. Perhaps if you'd ever made a film, you might feel differently. I'm a filmmaker. I make movies. I want you to see them. I want you to enjoy them. But when you edit them, you change them. The problem with the "digital issues" that keep being brought up is the EASE in which that can be done...yes, you can "fast-forward" through the parts you don't like...you can mute the parts you don't like...but that requires active participation on the part of the viewer. Technologies like this are allowing the third-party company to do the editing FOR the viewer. The viewer is not making those choices for themselves. And yes, it is the same as when a network chops up a film for TV broadcast. I don't happen to agree with that either. m.
Inaccurate, my friend...
When you're drinking good liquor straight, then neat is the way to go.
But the majority of mixed cocktails (such as highballs and two-liquors) are meant to be served over rocks.
Have you ever had a white russian without ice? Doesn't taste right. Know why? BECAUSE THERE'S NO ICE!
Now, my question is...how does this machine do blended drinks? Any drink with sour mix in it must be shaken/blended to be mixed properly. You can't just dump it into the glass.
m.
(I'm a geek, but also a bartender)
We're getting off-topic, but you very clearly did NOT understand .
The point of the project was not "sell our crappy movie through hype", but rather "extend the movie experience out of the theater."
Now, perhaps you think it didn't work (and you could be right), but let's not compare indies and oranges, kay?
m.
The reason it really feels like two separate people is because PJ violates one of the rules of cinematography-- crossing the "line" (I don't remember exactly what it's called, but if there are two people talking to one another, there's an imaginary line between them. In order to not confuse the audience, the camera should never cross this "line" when switching between shots of one and the other).
It's called the "line of action", and is a fundamental of the continuity style. It's not a hard and fast rule, but one you generally only break for a reason. And this was a pretty good reason.
m.
...five dollars to send any doubters to the Moon. Of course, I will not contribute any money to get them back.
And then like.. Slashdot posters were like... uhh... post post...and the website was gone.
They were really good posts, too.
And then I was in a hurry, and had to, like, put up something quickly, and since I was in a rush, it wasn't as good. And the picture wasn't even a real picture.
I suspect that those same families still have their clocks flashing 12:00AM...
:)
Well, my VCR keeps flashing 12:00, but that's because I have no reason to set it anymore, since I've got a TiVo
m.
I got a Treo 10 several months ago (early in 2002), and the thing was truly no good.
Software never was able to consistently connect to the device, it's a TON heavier than my iPod, and I swear, the thing RATTLES.
I'll stick with my iPod, thanks.
m.
Aphrodite-A
We were just discussing Tranzor-Z at the bar the other night...what happens when Aphrodite-A has to fight more than two opponents?
And howinhell are those things reloaded?
m.
"Now the choice of "Accenture" may not have been the best"
It always makes me think of a car model...
"New, from Oldsmobile...Accenture!"
Of course...I heard from some Anderdrones that one of the "runner up" names was "MindRocket."
*sigh*
MJ = Michael Jordan
Jacko = Michael Jackson
Thank you for your time.
m.
It's not open source either, but I always enjoyed FWB Toolkit reporting that "drive formatting failed miserably."
This was quite a few versions ago, if I recall correctly.
m.
When I attempted to open an attached VBS file within Outlook98, I received the following message:
"Some files can contain viruses and otherwise be harmful to your computer. It is important to be certain that this file is from a trustworthy source. What would you like to do with this file? Open it or Save it to disk"
With "Save it to disk" as the default.
There's a lot of misinformation propogating out there. The file does NOT autorun. You have to specifically state "YES, RUN THIS FILE."
Yes, WSH is unsafe. But it's also horribly useful. Blame the corporate IT departments that don't know how to deploy their tools - a properly configured shop doesn't have these problems - if you're running NTWS properly, the end user can't do much more to his own machine that a non-root user can in Linux (and how many of you out there running Linux on your desktops aren't root equiv anyway)
Finally, this virus specifically targeted Outlook, but that's because the "programmer" wasn't sophisticated to use MAPI properly - he just copy/pasted an Outlook script. It could have happened with any MAPI client (the propogation).
It is not a weakness of Exchange Server either. The backend had nothing to do with the propogation of this - it all happened on the client. You could have had an office full of users using Outlook as a POP client against a Unix server with a common address book that is distributed, and they would have gotten infected as well (it happened to a friend's company).
It's still user education/sloppy IT at work here. Thank goodness it's raised awareness at my company that they are FINALLY giving me the budget/buy in for managed desktops.
m.
I will agree with you...a longtime Phile, I've seen only two episodes this season (for two reasons - one being swing dancing at the Willowbrook, and the other, more recent reason, is the new season of The Sopranos).
However, here in Chicago, Simpsons is on at 7 PM...so La Familia is on opposite X-Files...lately what I've been doing (read, for the last two weeks) has been to watch X-Files on Sundays, and let my TiVO catch Sopranos later in the week (the wonderful thing about HBO...they run they episode about several times per week PER CHANNEL...which nets about five viewing chances per week).
Sopranos is the only reason I got cable.
m.
Basically, after much ado and thought, here's how I set mine up (this describes integrating digital cable box, analog VCR, Tivo, DVD player, and receiver)
The cable comes out of the wall and into the digital cable box via coax. The coax then runs into the Tivo, where it then passes through to the VCR, where it passes through to the TV.
The digital cable box sends audio and video via composite RCA cables to the RCA inputs on the Tivo. The Tivo's RCA outs go to the TV/DBS ins (both audio and video) on my receiver.
The DVD player's optical audio in goes to the receiver, and the video composite goes to the receiver as well.
Finally, the receiver dumps out to the TV via composite RCA from the monitor port.
What does this accomplish? If I want to watch DVD's, well, that's the easiest part - just set the TV to "video in" and the receiver to "DVD" and rock and roll.
It also allows cable and VCR tapes to be viewed either in full stereo surround through the receiver, or through the TV's speakers (I added this ability for two reasons - one, I don't always want to have full-on surround when watching, for example, Headline News in the morning, and two - my roommate's not that techinical, and it's much easier for him to just use the TV's volume then training him properly on the care and feeding of my Denon).
I programmed the TV to only display channels "Video" and "3", so using the channel up/down on the TV sets you to the proper place.
The Tivo doesn't much care where it's sending out or through - it will send it's "outs" via the coax, even though you specify the composite in the setup. This is also how the VCR can be set to record from the Tivo.
Hope that was helpful. The only thing that's odd is I have a General Instruments cable box for my AT&T digital cable, and the front of the box reads "Dolby Digital." However, the only audio outs on the box are composite - no coax or optical digital outs. Hrm. I wonder how they are accomplishing AC-3 via composite?
(The last sentence was sarcasm)
m.
I don't think that the pause feature is included for "freeze frame" analysis of Kramer's entrance into Jerry's apartment.
Rather, it is intended to allow a person to "pause" the playback of live TV to answer the telephone, get the door, grab a snack, or otherwise engage in normal, non-TV behavior.
I myself have a Tivo, and have used the Pause feature to make it much easier to skip commercials. I simply pause the show for the first five or ten minutes (depending on the show length), do something else, and then start it up. This allows me to keep a buffer behind the show to skip the commercials.
Actually, I've discovered a couple things from having my Tivo. Number one, I have NO idea when shows are on anymore. I set the box to record X-Files, the Simpsons, Drew Carey, and various others, and just watch them when convenient (usually around 10 PM when I'm going to bed). I also saw that even after only having the box for two weeks, it has spoiled me. I was at a friend's house on Sunday, and was very irritated that I couldn't fast-forward through the commercials during Futurama.
Another nice feature of the Tivo is the three-second rewind after you stop the fast forward. When fast-forwarding through the commercials, one tends to hit "play" after two-three seconds of program playback have passed...this buffer is pretty much dead-on. It's one of my favorite features.
The only real drawback I've seen so far is that it has a slight error in my programming lineup - it has the wrong channel number for my local cable's BBC America channel, which meant I couldn't record the French and Saunders marathon the other day.
And speaking to recording quality...I don't use this thing to tape movies, so the second-highest recording quality gives me more than enough recording space and the quality still kicks the crap out of VHS.
m.
I must admit...I'd not really noticed this, until reading your post - now, I think about my swing dancing friends...and realize that quite a few of them may fall into this category.
I know that excellence at the Lindy Hop has certainly increased one of my friend's confidence towards the opposite sex by a factor of at least a thousand.
Looking back...I see that since taking up swing dancing, my two friends and have certainly "upgraded" in terms of the women that we date - of course, the fact that over the same timeframe we have advanced in our careers and are making more money may have something to do with it.
Another factor - one of the reasons that I really enjoy the swing scene is the general friendliness - if one is out in a "bump and grind" style dance club, asking a girl to dance certainly has underlying meaning - usually the meaning is "Hey, I think you appear physically attractive - I'd like to rub my body against yours, ply you with liquor, and take you home and score."
In a swing club, however...if I ask a girl to dance, I more likely mean "Hey, I saw you dancing during that last song and wow, cool moves. I'd certainly like to dance with you - your cool moves combined with mine will make us both look good. Plus maybe I can learn something from you. At the very least it will be fun. And when we are done, I will shake your hand and maybe we'll dance again later."
The point is...in a club like that, the social interaction is much more casual - not nearly as much pressure, which makes it easier to be relaxed and not a bundle of nerves.
Hrm. Geekswing. Interesting.
m.
I have to agree...working in a professional NT environment, I am puzzled to hear all these people insisting that their NT servers are BSOD-ing every twenty minutes.
My current client is an NT-only shop (with the exception of two HP boxes and the mainframe). We've got what I would consider a medium-sized environment - approx 200 servers spread out over about twenty locations globally.
Guess what cowboys? My servers don't crash every day. Actually, the only BSOD's I have gotten recently have been due to a Computer Associates product (you hate Microsoft? Try dealing with CA sometime...)
How do we accomplish this?
* Standardized hardware - all of our servers are Compaq Proliants. No whiteboxes here.
* Careful testing of applications and Service Packs - we've finished our SP4 rollout about three months ago. It is doubtful that we will even consider SP5 until Q2. Before an application or patch is installed on a production box, it is usually tested for at least a month in our lab. I have a 99.9% uptime SLA to meet. We're not going to mess around.
Do I feel that NT is the be-all and end-all solution? Of course not! I'm running RedHat at home. I cut my teeth on Solaris.
However, I don't feel that NT deserves all the negative press it gets - just because a product is from Redmond does NOT automatically cause it relegation to the crap software list. I keep my politics and my technology separate. It's just a tool - would you choose to not use Craftsman hammers because Sears engaged in unfair business practices? I sure wouldn't - and if I am your client and trusting you to make proper TECHNOLOGY decisions for me, I certainly hope that you would choose the appropriate tool.
m.