Alex in Clockwork Orange meets Fox
on
Bootlegging Buffy
·
· Score: 3
You know, now that I rewatch that scene in Clockwork where Alex is forced to watch the horrors on TV, I think it actually was just regular prime-time Fox he was watching.
The rough sex, the violence -- I knew it all looked framiliar from someplace... Kuberick must have found a Fox tape that had fallen through a timewarp from 2002 or something.
Oh, yeah. I'm sure that those caring TV execs were really worried about dredging up bad memories on the part of their viewers. That's why we see so many "real life catastrophies caught on tape" shows with people destroying their cars or getting eaten by wildlife or whatever.
Say it with me: They were just trying to avoid bad PR, so they bowed to pop-psychology. Katz is right, fighting demons in a school doesn't equal having two kids go nuts and shoot their innocent classmates, and it certainly won't cause them to do so.
I noticed this in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and thought it was so shockingly correct the I actually wrote it down on some Post-Its and stuck 'em to the side of my monitor:
Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Pretty darn good for an oversized board game; my girlfriend initially thought it was de Toqueville. Anyhow, this discussion reminded me of that very sane little bit from the game -- it seems like the folks writing for video games these days have the people who write TV fluff pretty badly beaten...
I can see your teacher hitting the "Independant Thought Alarm" button under her desk right now.
This question is interesting for the fact that you're writing a "Hazards of the Internet" paper at all. What kind of in-class material was taught before you were given the assignment (if any)? I can just *hear* what 99% of the teachers and administrators at my catholic high school would have had to say about the internet...
Also interesting, I suppose, will be all the otehr student's answers to this -- it'd be neat to see how many of them buy into the mass media's "internet is evil" stereotype and talk exclusively about Columbine/Duke Nukem/Porn/Nazi Web Sites/etc. After all, this is the generation who should know better, having had the net around during their formative years.
Heh, we've smashed a whole lot of junk into the moon before now; this is little stuff.
Besides, this is maybe 300 lbs of metal and plastic -- you or I put out more trash than that in six months. It was going to eventually crash into the moon anyhow (what goes up...), so we might as well do it in a way that'll eventually help us build a base up there.
Oh, get off it. What are we going to hurt on the fsck'ing moon? The thing's a big barren rock. The worst thing that can happen is that Nike will land a construction crew and carve a "swoosh" into the thing.
Besides, we need to get off this Muddball just in case Mother Nature decides to pull something. Personally, I'd prefer another star system (just in case there's a reason we're not detecting as many neutrinos as we should be from our middle-aged sun), but baby steps are a start.
It's good to know that NASA still has some people who are thinking outside the box.
These recent "faster, cheaper, better" probes are really a big contrast to the older "big waste" programs like the Space Station (motto: Now $20 billion over budget). The Lunar Prospector, the Mars Rover, DS1... These are some really exciting programs. This is just a really good illustration of the whole "think better" paradigm in action.
Well, we could either drag this whole thing through an extended court procedure to blow off their somewhat simple-minded insistance that they alone have World Domination of the 360-degree photo market, or:
We could create a whole lot of bad press for them, watch investors treat them like lepers, see their IPO fail miserably and their company crash, the execs lose their jobs and their children forced to sell pencils on the street to stave off starvation.
Personally, I prefer the second course of action. Talk about a shot heard 'round the world. We could do it, too -- the same way that FUD doesn't work against the OSS community, we can raise a stink about idiotic corporations like this one.
Look, every platform has its devotees; Sierra is just trying to get a handle on how many people like Linux.
If 300 thousand/.ers head over to Sierra's page and say they want more Linux games, Sierra will know they have at least 300 thousand people who are into Linux and at least vaguely interested in seeing Sierra games ported to the platform. That's an fairly considerable market.
So, there's nothing to get suspicious of; let the slashdot effect do its work. The worst that can happen is that they'll decide there's not enough interest to port their games.
Yeah, I worked at SGI in Chippewa last year as an intern. If you're ever in the mood for a road trip, I'm suggest visiting the Chippewa Valley Industrial Museam -- they have a bunch of the older Crays on display and the tours are given by some of Seymour's original cronies. The old Cray 1 and 2's are quite interesting, from back in the days when computers still were literally wired (as opposed to printed on circuit boards)...
Jesus, man. Remind me never to see a movie you write and direct; it'd probably be about some guy who gets up, eats his Cheerios, goes to work and then goes home and goes to sleep. After all, what are the chances that anything interesting will happen on a given day?
It kills me that you ruined the movie for yourself by nitpicking it to death. I mean, why? If you can accept that machines take over the world leaving only a stalwart band of humans to fight them, why pick the details to death? Anyway, I've got answers to your questions:
Why did they need to use a virtual phone instead of a cellphone? Because that allows us to have some pretty cool/tense scenes with our heros stuck in the Matrix.
Why did the computers use people instead of nuclear/geothermal power? Well, because having a few dozen reactors wouldn't be quite as horrifying as a people farm.
Why didn't the computer just crush them with big iron weights a la Loony Toones? Because that would be a really sucky movie ("Neo, you are the choosen one. You can.. wait a sec" [EEEEeeeeooowww... SMASH]).
Read my mind there, guy. I was thinking the exact same thing from the second I started reading this thread, with the ultra hippy-dippy PC viewpoint saying that white males don't have rights 'cause they're spoiled and etc.
Neal Stephenson really hit a cord with me on this one, probably because I fit into the role of White Male Technocrat. Of all the scenes in the book, the dialog between Randy and his SO's friends probably got me going the most.
By the way, did you understand how Enoch Root managed to show up in present day after he died in WWII?
If you'd read my post, the only thing I said he didn't have a right to say is that we don't have a right to speak our minds on this.
(Rereading sentance to make sure it makes sense)
Yeah. In any case, I don't see where this guy gets off calling us stupid (and immature) because we don't like the same actors. I did call him an asshole, but that's only because he was being one when he said he was smarter than everyone else and that we're all morons.
Where do you get off casting the rest of us as immature because we don't have the same blind love for Lucas and the Trilogy that you do? I was under the impression that the Slashdot forums were here so we could talk about the subject -- in this case what we thought about having Leo as Anakin in Ep. 2.
If you think he's a fine actor, that's your opinion and you have the right to say so. But don't you dare say the rest of us somehow don't have a right to say that Leo sucks while hiding behind the "grow up" thing.
I mean, listen to yourself. We don't have the "maturity or intelligence to handle the new films at all." Possibly we don't, and maybe we are too critical of the films, but at least the majority of us aren't assholes about it.
Or, instead of laying down all my plans for World Terrorism in an email and sending it out unencrypted, I could just work it all out in my head, cook up a fuel oil bomb, and take down my Friendly Local IRS office without telling anybody about it.
The scary thing is that the intelligence community is able to sell this sort of thing to the bozos in congress with the excuse "we're stopping terrorists". Any terrorist so stupid that they don't use a 1024-bit encryption scheme to protect their Evil Plans probably couldn't drive the U-Haul with the nitrate bomb to begin with.
So, the realy question we ought to be asking is: how do we help our good friends down under look at things their government doesn't want them to look at? Will mirror sites be enough? How about a http-relay type of deal? Any better ideas?
OFFTOPIC: Does anyone know where I can get b&w photos of some of the greats in computing (Turing, Von Neumann, Steve Jobs, etc)? I'm decorating my bar, and I thought it'd be a cool theme, but I can't find pics of anyone except the one guy I don't want down there (Gates).
Wow, this took place no more than fifteen minutes from my front stoop. Hey, with any luck, whoever swiped the film will edit out the Jar Jar scenes before he cuts it to VHS.
By the by, don't movies like this usually consist of two or more reels? Meaning that this guy could have only 1/2 or 1/3 of the movie...
Well, I worked for Cray (well, SGI now) in Chippewa Falls over the summer, and I saw a mailing label for a T3E part addressed with nothing more than a name and a zip code.
Now, I'm not positive, but I think that zip code probably cooresponds to a certain base (fort?) in Maryland.
I seriously doubt that NSA needs you or me to bust open a few keys. Consider:
- A $60,000 machine built by the EFF beat out all the King's horses and all the King's men (otherwise known as distributed.net).
- The NSA probably would have considered Deep Crack (the EFF's key buster) a keen and useful computer -- twenty years ago.
So, unless you've got some really serious reason to think otherwise, I'd stop worrying about a few bits from SETI, take my medication and start looking for little green men like a good little member of the Collective. Besides, there are better things out there to worry about, like the war in Kosovo or a 1 cent increase in the price of a stamp.
I've always wondered how there can possible be life remaining in the American West (especially deer and whatever those small things were -- rabbits?). Given that Oregon Trail was a reasonable adeptation of the trek west, I imagine that *all* hearty adventurers short of the Donner Party realized that buying a few spare parts, minimal rations, and enough ammunition to invade Poland was the only way to travel west...
As if that sickening fast food commercial where the three Heroic Registered Trademarks(tm) rush off to save the Naboo system wasn't bad enough, some of the other merchandising is just bizarre - Darth Maul intertube sleds et al.
Anywhere else it would be okay, but for me (someone who was born the year Star Wars came out), it seems like this sort of blatent marketing is defiling an old friend. Toys and action figures are one thing -- they just helped out my imagination when I was six and wanted to be Han Solo -- but the rest is just too much.
My mom tried to get me diagnosed with ADD when I was 17 and this whole travesty was just beginning. She made a neurologist appointment even though I told her I didn't want to go, and pretty much indicated that if I ever wanted to use the car again I should play along.
I read pretty darn fast, test extremely well and have a tremendous eye for detail, but they say there's something wrong with me because I'd rather be outside or doing something fun than working on repetative math homework.
Now, I ask you, are people with ADD the ones with the problem here? To me, it seems like this is almost genocide on a way of looking at things -- medicating you until you think like all of the rest of the good little worker ants that our society seems so intent on turning out.
Anyhow, I cheated on the computer-based test (you sit in front of the screen and click a button every time a certain shape flashes up) and so I was only diagnosed with "mild" ADD.
To all the parents out there who are thinking of medicating their ADD child: Don't. If they ever realize what you've taken from them in exchange for a few good grades in school, they'll hate you for it (and rightfully so).
Slashdot Mirror
The rough sex, the violence -- I knew it all looked framiliar from someplace... Kuberick must have found a Fox tape that had fallen through a timewarp from 2002 or something.
----
Say it with me: They were just trying to avoid bad PR, so they bowed to pop-psychology. Katz is right, fighting demons in a school doesn't equal having two kids go nuts and shoot their innocent classmates, and it certainly won't cause them to do so.
----
Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Pretty darn good for an oversized board game; my girlfriend initially thought it was de Toqueville. Anyhow, this discussion reminded me of that very sane little bit from the game -- it seems like the folks writing for video games these days have the people who write TV fluff pretty badly beaten...
----
----
This question is interesting for the fact that you're writing a "Hazards of the Internet" paper at all. What kind of in-class material was taught before you were given the assignment (if any)? I can just *hear* what 99% of the teachers and administrators at my catholic high school would have had to say about the internet...
Also interesting, I suppose, will be all the otehr student's answers to this -- it'd be neat to see how many of them buy into the mass media's "internet is evil" stereotype and talk exclusively about Columbine/Duke Nukem/Porn/Nazi Web Sites/etc. After all, this is the generation who should know better, having had the net around during their formative years.
----
Besides, this is maybe 300 lbs of metal and plastic -- you or I put out more trash than that in six months. It was going to eventually crash into the moon anyhow (what goes up...), so we might as well do it in a way that'll eventually help us build a base up there.
----
Besides, we need to get off this Muddball just in case Mother Nature decides to pull something. Personally, I'd prefer another star system (just in case there's a reason we're not detecting as many neutrinos as we should be from our middle-aged sun), but baby steps are a start.
----
These recent "faster, cheaper, better" probes are really a big contrast to the older "big waste" programs like the Space Station (motto: Now $20 billion over budget). The Lunar Prospector, the Mars Rover, DS1... These are some really exciting programs. This is just a really good illustration of the whole "think better" paradigm in action.
----
Well, we could either drag this whole thing through an extended court procedure to blow off their somewhat simple-minded insistance that they alone have World Domination of the 360-degree photo market, or:
We could create a whole lot of bad press for them, watch investors treat them like lepers, see their IPO fail miserably and their company crash, the execs lose their jobs and their children forced to sell pencils on the street to stave off starvation.
Personally, I prefer the second course of action. Talk about a shot heard 'round the world. We could do it, too -- the same way that FUD doesn't work against the OSS community, we can raise a stink about idiotic corporations like this one.
----
If 300 thousand /.ers head over to Sierra's page and say they want more Linux games, Sierra will know they have at least 300 thousand people who are into Linux and at least vaguely interested in seeing Sierra games ported to the platform. That's an fairly considerable market.
So, there's nothing to get suspicious of; let the slashdot effect do its work. The worst that can happen is that they'll decide there's not enough interest to port their games.
----
----
----
It kills me that you ruined the movie for yourself by nitpicking it to death. I mean, why? If you can accept that machines take over the world leaving only a stalwart band of humans to fight them, why pick the details to death? Anyway, I've got answers to your questions:
Why did they need to use a virtual phone instead of a cellphone? Because that allows us to have some pretty cool/tense scenes with our heros stuck in the Matrix.
Why did the computers use people instead of nuclear/geothermal power? Well, because having a few dozen reactors wouldn't be quite as horrifying as a people farm.
Why didn't the computer just crush them with big iron weights a la Loony Toones? Because that would be a really sucky movie ("Neo, you are the choosen one. You can.. wait a sec" [EEEEeeeeooowww... SMASH]).
----
Neal Stephenson really hit a cord with me on this one, probably because I fit into the role of White Male Technocrat. Of all the scenes in the book, the dialog between Randy and his SO's friends probably got me going the most.
By the way, did you understand how Enoch Root managed to show up in present day after he died in WWII?
----
(Rereading sentance to make sure it makes sense)
Yeah. In any case, I don't see where this guy gets off calling us stupid (and immature) because we don't like the same actors. I did call him an asshole, but that's only because he was being one when he said he was smarter than everyone else and that we're all morons.
----
Where do you get off casting the rest of us as immature because we don't have the same blind love for Lucas and the Trilogy that you do? I was under the impression that the Slashdot forums were here so we could talk about the subject -- in this case what we thought about having Leo as Anakin in Ep. 2.
If you think he's a fine actor, that's your opinion and you have the right to say so. But don't you dare say the rest of us somehow don't have a right to say that Leo sucks while hiding behind the "grow up" thing.
I mean, listen to yourself. We don't have the "maturity or intelligence to handle the new films at all." Possibly we don't, and maybe we are too critical of the films, but at least the majority of us aren't assholes about it.
----
The scary thing is that the intelligence community is able to sell this sort of thing to the bozos in congress with the excuse "we're stopping terrorists". Any terrorist so stupid that they don't use a 1024-bit encryption scheme to protect their Evil Plans probably couldn't drive the U-Haul with the nitrate bomb to begin with.
----
And they said it couldn't be done.
----
So, the realy question we ought to be asking is: how do we help our good friends down under look at things their government doesn't want them to look at? Will mirror sites be enough? How about a http-relay type of deal? Any better ideas?
OFFTOPIC: Does anyone know where I can get b&w
photos of some of the greats in computing (Turing,
Von Neumann, Steve Jobs, etc)? I'm decorating my
bar, and I thought it'd be a cool theme, but I
can't find pics of anyone except the one guy I
don't want down there (Gates).
----
from my front stoop. Hey, with any luck, whoever
swiped the film will edit out the Jar Jar scenes
before he cuts it to VHS.
By the by, don't movies like this usually consist
of two or more reels? Meaning that this guy could
have only 1/2 or 1/3 of the movie...
----
Now, I'm not positive, but I think that zip code probably cooresponds to a certain base (fort?) in Maryland.
----
- A $60,000 machine built by the EFF beat out all
the King's horses and all the King's men
(otherwise known as distributed.net).
- The NSA probably would have considered Deep
Crack (the EFF's key buster) a keen and useful
computer -- twenty years ago.
So, unless you've got some really serious reason to think otherwise, I'd stop worrying about a few bits from SETI, take my medication and start looking for little green men like a good little member of the Collective. Besides, there are better things out there to worry about, like the war in Kosovo or a 1 cent increase in the price of a stamp.
----
----
As if that sickening fast food commercial where the three Heroic Registered Trademarks(tm) rush off to save the Naboo system wasn't bad enough, some of the other merchandising is just bizarre - Darth Maul intertube sleds et al.
Anywhere else it would be okay, but for me (someone who was born the year Star Wars came out), it seems like this sort of blatent marketing is defiling an old friend. Toys and action figures are one thing -- they just helped out my imagination when I was six and wanted to be Han Solo -- but the rest is just too much.
----
I read pretty darn fast, test extremely well and have a tremendous eye for detail, but they say there's something wrong with me because I'd rather be outside or doing something fun than working on repetative math homework.
Now, I ask you, are people with ADD the ones with the problem here? To me, it seems like this is almost genocide on a way of looking at things -- medicating you until you think like all of the rest of the good little worker ants that our society seems so intent on turning out.
Anyhow, I cheated on the computer-based test (you sit in front of the screen and click a button every time a certain shape flashes up) and so I was only diagnosed with "mild" ADD.
To all the parents out there who are thinking of medicating their ADD child: Don't. If they ever realize what you've taken from them in exchange for a few good grades in school, they'll hate you for it (and rightfully so).
----