"Thank you Number One".
I was a multi-platform user before it was "cool" (or even affordable... yay grants!), so I always had to deal with feeling like I was an endangered species.
The debate about one OS over another would rage on Usenet and BBSs, often VERY immaturely. My point is, almost everyone had an incredibly strong opinion on which platform was better, and these arguments would get very base and inarticulate.
That said, just reading things on/. such as "I don't care which platform you prefer" and "Each has it's own strong/weak points" is an incredible step forward compared to the dark ages where you had to hide your OS preference in mixed company for fear of igniting a riot.
Applying Moore's Law to OS Diversity Tolerance,
we can almost expect to see Lindows on the point of sale terminal at Jiffy Lube within 3 years.
I hate to double post, but I fee I have to respond to a lot of reactionary criticism a bit higher in this thread. Thank you for understanding. Also, thanks to those who have chosen to respond rather than react. -- I never said the "proleteriat" were "mediocre". When I speak of proles, I just mean the general public, you know, the majority of people that choose for one reason or another to not have any deep or meaningful interests other than surface-level passing wants at popular things.
I hardly think I was ranting either. It's as if you just really want to believe that the film was great, and anyone who thinks not is simply some kind of whiner with an upturned nose. As Green Day puts it, "kill all the fags that don't agree".
As a stand-alone film, regardless of how true it was to the series, it was a nice try but ultimately an embarrassment. Ebert's review really did say it best. The actors aren't sure just what they're supposed to convey. Arthur covers his eyes like a child in the factory floor of Magrathea... as if he suddenly decides he's frightened (?). Ford wriggles awkwardly tied to the Vogon slab while being read poetry... as if someone is off set yelling, "More Wriggling Mr. Def!" (?). Trillian looks at herself in the bathroom mirror after an encounter with Dent that made no sense, or at least didn't invoke the emotion it was trying to (trust me, I looked around; most people seemed out to lunch here, like, "um... okay."). And on and on... the Vice President? Can she make any more "constipated" faces for no good reason?
Don't you get it? It was a first rate concept. I would have even bought the romance and the alteration of the story line... if they had crafted the film instead of just manufacturing it for consumption by the general American public. Let's not all grasp at fireflies in an attempt to love it just because it is. The emperor isn't completely naked, but with just a cap and an old pair of tennis shoes, he's pretty damn close.
I never said the "proleteriat" were "mediocre". When I speak of proles, I just mean the general public, you know, the majority of people that choose for one reason or another to not have any deep or meaningful interests other than surface-level passing wants at popular things.
I hardly think I was ranting either. It's as if you just really want to believe that the film was great, and anyone who thinks not is simply some kind of whiner with an upturned nose. As Green Day puts it, "kill all the fags that don't agree".
As a stand-alone film, regardless of how true it was to the series, it was a nice try but ultimately an embarrassment. Ebert's review really did say it best. The actors aren't sure just what they're supposed to convey. Arthur covers his eyes like a child in the factory floor of Magrathea... as if he suddenly decides he's frightened (?). Ford wriggles awkwardly tied to the Vogon slab while being read poetry... as if someone is off set yelling, "More Wriggling Mr. Def!" (?). Trillian looks at herself in the bathroom mirror after an encounter with Dent that made no sense, or at least didn't invoke the emotion it was trying to (trust me, I looked around; most people seemed out to lunch here, like, "um... okay."). And on and on... the Vice President? Can she make any more "constipated" faces for no good reason?
Don't you get it? It was a first rate concept. I would have even bought the romance and the alteration of the story line... if they had crafted the film instead of just manufacturing it for consumption by the general American public. Let's not all grasp at fireflies in an attempt to love it just because it is. The emperor isn't completely naked, but with just a cap and an old pair of tennis shoes, he's pretty damn close.
Gee, it's too bad I'm not allowed to express my opinion. I would be a drama queen if I were making up my emotions. I swear, I honestly wanted to weep softly afterward, and could picture DNA rolling in his grave. Why the hell would I make that up? Jesus... call me elitist...
*cue old grumpy man voice* "Grr, Doesn't Mean I have to LIKE it, though! Grumble grumble..."
Thank you.
I still do think that if you can't do it absolute justice, don't bother bringing a half-baked compromise to the masses that won't appreciate it anyway. Just my opinion though...
I agree with you in actual life, but it's very tough to accept this in a film when you know pretty much for a fact that the filmmakers placed this in here to keep the "non-fans" happy; in other words, it was not used to illustrate humanity but to make the scene more "popular". It's all about the motive behind the action; I've met plenty of chicks at parties (calm down, I'm not conceited; I actually think very lowly of myself. It's just that "drunk chicks are easy"), and we've ended up having sloppy sex on a bunch of other people's coats. That did *NOT* lead to her photo ending up as the bloody screensaver on my cellphone!
It was just so unbelievable... and again, I don't mean to real humans, (I mean, the whole story is fantasy of course!) but I mean, is it believable in the Adams world? Just my opinion, but it just feels like the romantic thing was in the 20% of the script that Adams DIDN'T write!
Why does it seem like I'm the only one that thought the playing up of Arthur and Trillian's romance was ridiculous? Why does Trillian have an American accent? Why... why... why...
Yes, I probably sound like just another rabid Adams fanboy who expected the movie to be a direct copy of the book. That isn't the case. I thought the film was awful. The acting was not very good, some of the revised dialog was really awkward, and... many other things simply related to the filmmaking itself and not just the script. My girlfriend and I were incredibly tempted to walk out many times, especially when Arthur made his incredibly awkward (I cannot use that word enough... that is my official review of the whole film... AWKWARD...) attempt at a sweet soliloquy at Trillian while about to have his brain removed by mice...
I think I'm just incredibly sore at the fact that they even attempted to make the film accessible to the general public. Am I being elitist? Probably... I mean, I can see the value in attempting to bring Adams' work to a broader venue, but when they cannot be done justice, some things are probably left unsaid. Or un-filmed in this case.
The film attempts to "have it's cake and eat it too" (to indulge in a trite cliche); make broad swaths of generic American love-story candy-coated filmmaking and sneak in the funny dialogue and faithful-to-the-series bits when the "normals" in the audience are distracted by something shiny. The hardcore fans will deride it for its creative license, and the great unwashed will view it as a quirky little film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them and is only "kinda" funny.
After getting in my car afterward and popping in Radiohead's "OK Computer", especially "Subterranean Homesick Alien", all I could think of were the smiling faces of the proleteriat in the audience, laughing their heads off every time Ford, Zaphod or Arthur were hit in the face with while walking on Vogsphere. The same scene that made me groan loudly. I wondered quietly as I took occasional peeks at the moon while driving: am I right on the money about this, or am I completely wrong? If the latter is true, then perhaps, like Ford, I've been trapped on this planet for far too long.
I've always been a multi-platform user, and have always been able to properly deride and/or appreciate the various advantages and disadvantages each platform brings to the table.
As most will agree, Apple hardware in particular has historically been introduced at higher retail price points. However, I've always been struck by the value inherent to Apple hardware as compared to other platforms. I usually build a new Windows based PC for gaming and administrative tasks every 2 years or so, costing anywhere from $700 - $1000 (I don't use pirated software. I use only name brand components), usually relegating said Windows box to serving using Linux or other serving tasks.
My Newtons, while initially pricey, still play a vital role in my day-to-day business operations today, years later. (to this day, I still get many queries by curious onlookers wondering if this was a new piece of Apple hardware, and where they can get one...) In addition, I still use my first generation G4 Macs for content creation, video editing, and with some peripherals, DVD authoring. I paid upwards of $2,500 for the Macs in 1999, but they continue to serve me today, and I foresee utilizing them for at least another 2 years. This brings the cost of ownership down to Windows box levels, for what I feel are more elegantly designed, integrated machines.
Much can be said about Apples choices in pricing and "chic" design, but I've always found the "now" factor and expense of Apple harware to bear out quite well in the long run. The Newton brought to the handheld market not only forward thinking innovation, but, I think, renewable sustainability.
I'm a nerd/filmmaker, and never having been to this website, I decided to give it a go. Man, what a mistake even loading it was. Most of what people have pegged as "mistakes" (to give themselves a strange feeling of accomplishment or to receive some sort of notoriety I'd wager) are actually techniques commonly used by myself and my colleagues to emphasise certain aspects of the story, de-emphasize others, and generally attempt to slyly shift the audiences focus around from story aspect to story aspect. If people are missing where there were people, we want you to concentrate only on the people we've left in the shot. If "shadows look wrong," usually we're trying to alter your perceptions.
We aren't perfect by any means, but no production would ever get as far as a theatrical release with that number of "non-acknowledged/planned" errors in it. Try editing a film in a darkened room for 15 hours at a time for several weeks, watching each clip over and over and over and over ad nauseum and then tell me you didn't catch these so called "mistakes". I hate armchair quarterbacks, people in line at Fry's who pretend they know so much about their "1 Gigahertz hard drive," misinforming their buddy that they need a new "motherboard chip," and most of all, unqualified film critics who think they've discovered America every time they "uncover" one of our deliberate attempts to change their perceptions to our ends.
Allow yourself to be immersed, suspend disbelief, and it can only be a win/win situation for us both.
It is said that the GameCube controller melts into your hands like fudge, and that you cannot even tell it's there anymore after about 30 seconds. Nintendo listened to the gripes of N64 players and granted all of their wishes. Besides, ever held a brick-frisbee... er... I mean an Xbox controller?:-)
Umm... that would be an example of a game crashing, not a system failure. A game crash would be an error in the code that causes the same crash every time the right conditions are met. The system crash would pretty much involve the hardware randomly failing. The criticism is against the Xbox as hardware, not at any of it's games in particular. (A good analogy would be: Dell computers are bad because they are unstable. You would say: "Gateways suck too because I can get MS Office 2k to crash on my Gateway the same way each time!" One has nothing to do with the other.)
Slashdot Mirror
"Thank you Number One". I was a multi-platform user before it was "cool" (or even affordable... yay grants!), so I always had to deal with feeling like I was an endangered species. The debate about one OS over another would rage on Usenet and BBSs, often VERY immaturely. My point is, almost everyone had an incredibly strong opinion on which platform was better, and these arguments would get very base and inarticulate. That said, just reading things on /. such as "I don't care which platform you prefer" and "Each has it's own strong/weak points" is an incredible step forward compared to the dark ages where you had to hide your OS preference in mixed company for fear of igniting a riot.
Applying Moore's Law to OS Diversity Tolerance,
we can almost expect to see Lindows on the point of sale terminal at Jiffy Lube within 3 years.
I hate to double post, but I fee I have to respond to a lot of reactionary criticism a bit higher in this thread. Thank you for understanding. Also, thanks to those who have chosen to respond rather than react.
--
I never said the "proleteriat" were "mediocre". When I speak of proles, I just mean the general public, you know, the majority of people that choose for one reason or another to not have any deep or meaningful interests other than surface-level passing wants at popular things.
I hardly think I was ranting either. It's as if you just really want to believe that the film was great, and anyone who thinks not is simply some kind of whiner with an upturned nose. As Green Day puts it, "kill all the fags that don't agree".
As a stand-alone film, regardless of how true it was to the series, it was a nice try but ultimately an embarrassment. Ebert's review really did say it best. The actors aren't sure just what they're supposed to convey. Arthur covers his eyes like a child in the factory floor of Magrathea... as if he suddenly decides he's frightened (?). Ford wriggles awkwardly tied to the Vogon slab while being read poetry... as if someone is off set yelling, "More Wriggling Mr. Def!" (?). Trillian looks at herself in the bathroom mirror after an encounter with Dent that made no sense, or at least didn't invoke the emotion it was trying to (trust me, I looked around; most people seemed out to lunch here, like, "um... okay."). And on and on... the Vice President? Can she make any more "constipated" faces for no good reason?
Don't you get it? It was a first rate concept. I would have even bought the romance and the alteration of the story line... if they had crafted the film instead of just manufacturing it for consumption by the general American public. Let's not all grasp at fireflies in an attempt to love it just because it is. The emperor isn't completely naked, but with just a cap and an old pair of tennis shoes, he's pretty damn close.
R.I.P., Douglas.
I never said the "proleteriat" were "mediocre". When I speak of proles, I just mean the general public, you know, the majority of people that choose for one reason or another to not have any deep or meaningful interests other than surface-level passing wants at popular things.
I hardly think I was ranting either. It's as if you just really want to believe that the film was great, and anyone who thinks not is simply some kind of whiner with an upturned nose. As Green Day puts it, "kill all the fags that don't agree".
As a stand-alone film, regardless of how true it was to the series, it was a nice try but ultimately an embarrassment. Ebert's review really did say it best. The actors aren't sure just what they're supposed to convey. Arthur covers his eyes like a child in the factory floor of Magrathea... as if he suddenly decides he's frightened (?). Ford wriggles awkwardly tied to the Vogon slab while being read poetry... as if someone is off set yelling, "More Wriggling Mr. Def!" (?). Trillian looks at herself in the bathroom mirror after an encounter with Dent that made no sense, or at least didn't invoke the emotion it was trying to (trust me, I looked around; most people seemed out to lunch here, like, "um... okay."). And on and on... the Vice President? Can she make any more "constipated" faces for no good reason?
Don't you get it? It was a first rate concept. I would have even bought the romance and the alteration of the story line... if they had crafted the film instead of just manufacturing it for consumption by the general American public. Let's not all grasp at fireflies in an attempt to love it just because it is. The emperor isn't completely naked, but with just a cap and an old pair of tennis shoes, he's pretty damn close.
R.I.P., Douglas.
Gee, it's too bad I'm not allowed to express my opinion. I would be a drama queen if I were making up my emotions. I swear, I honestly wanted to weep softly afterward, and could picture DNA rolling in his grave. Why the hell would I make that up? Jesus... call me elitist...
I stand corrected on these points...
*cue old grumpy man voice*
"Grr, Doesn't Mean I have to LIKE it, though! Grumble grumble..."
Thank you.
I still do think that if you can't do it absolute justice, don't bother bringing a half-baked compromise to the masses that won't appreciate it anyway. Just my opinion though...
I agree with you in actual life, but it's very tough to accept this in a film when you know pretty much for a fact that the filmmakers placed this in here to keep the "non-fans" happy; in other words, it was not used to illustrate humanity but to make the scene more "popular". It's all about the motive behind the action; I've met plenty of chicks at parties (calm down, I'm not conceited; I actually think very lowly of myself. It's just that "drunk chicks are easy"), and we've ended up having sloppy sex on a bunch of other people's coats. That did *NOT* lead to her photo ending up as the bloody screensaver on my cellphone!
It was just so unbelievable... and again, I don't mean to real humans, (I mean, the whole story is fantasy of course!) but I mean, is it believable in the Adams world? Just my opinion, but it just feels like the romantic thing was in the 20% of the script that Adams DIDN'T write!
Spoiler alert... I guess.
Why does it seem like I'm the only one that thought the playing up of Arthur and Trillian's romance was ridiculous? Why does Trillian have an American accent? Why... why... why...
Yes, I probably sound like just another rabid Adams fanboy who expected the movie to be a direct copy of the book. That isn't the case. I thought the film was awful. The acting was not very good, some of the revised dialog was really awkward, and... many other things simply related to the filmmaking itself and not just the script. My girlfriend and I were incredibly tempted to walk out many times, especially when Arthur made his incredibly awkward (I cannot use that word enough... that is my official review of the whole film... AWKWARD...) attempt at a sweet soliloquy at Trillian while about to have his brain removed by mice...
I think I'm just incredibly sore at the fact that they even attempted to make the film accessible to the general public. Am I being elitist? Probably... I mean, I can see the value in attempting to bring Adams' work to a broader venue, but when they cannot be done justice, some things are probably left unsaid. Or un-filmed in this case.
The film attempts to "have it's cake and eat it too" (to indulge in a trite cliche); make broad swaths of generic American love-story candy-coated filmmaking and sneak in the funny dialogue and faithful-to-the-series bits when the "normals" in the audience are distracted by something shiny. The hardcore fans will deride it for its creative license, and the great unwashed will view it as a quirky little film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them and is only "kinda" funny.
After getting in my car afterward and popping in Radiohead's "OK Computer", especially "Subterranean Homesick Alien", all I could think of were the smiling faces of the proleteriat in the audience, laughing their heads off every time Ford, Zaphod or Arthur were hit in the face with while walking on Vogsphere. The same scene that made me groan loudly. I wondered quietly as I took occasional peeks at the moon while driving: am I right on the money about this, or am I completely wrong? If the latter is true, then perhaps, like Ford, I've been trapped on this planet for far too long.
*sigh*... tommorrow's another day, I suppose...
I've always been a multi-platform user, and have always been able to properly deride and/or appreciate the various advantages and disadvantages each platform brings to the table.
As most will agree, Apple hardware in particular has historically been introduced at higher retail price points. However, I've always been struck by the value inherent to Apple hardware as compared to other platforms. I usually build a new Windows based PC for gaming and administrative tasks every 2 years or so, costing anywhere from $700 - $1000 (I don't use pirated software. I use only name brand components), usually relegating said Windows box to serving using Linux or other serving tasks.
My Newtons, while initially pricey, still play a vital role in my day-to-day business operations today, years later. (to this day, I still get many queries by curious onlookers wondering if this was a new piece of Apple hardware, and where they can get one...) In addition, I still use my first generation G4 Macs for content creation, video editing, and with some peripherals, DVD authoring. I paid upwards of $2,500 for the Macs in 1999, but they continue to serve me today, and I foresee utilizing them for at least another 2 years. This brings the cost of ownership down to Windows box levels, for what I feel are more elegantly designed, integrated machines.
Much can be said about Apples choices in pricing and "chic" design, but I've always found the "now" factor and expense of Apple harware to bear out quite well in the long run. The Newton brought to the handheld market not only forward thinking innovation, but, I think, renewable sustainability.
I'm a nerd/filmmaker, and never having been to this website, I decided to give it a go. Man, what a mistake even loading it was. Most of what people have pegged as "mistakes" (to give themselves a strange feeling of accomplishment or to receive some sort of notoriety I'd wager) are actually techniques commonly used by myself and my colleagues to emphasise certain aspects of the story, de-emphasize others, and generally attempt to slyly shift the audiences focus around from story aspect to story aspect. If people are missing where there were people, we want you to concentrate only on the people we've left in the shot. If "shadows look wrong," usually we're trying to alter your perceptions.
We aren't perfect by any means, but no production would ever get as far as a theatrical release with that number of "non-acknowledged/planned" errors in it. Try editing a film in a darkened room for 15 hours at a time for several weeks, watching each clip over and over and over and over ad nauseum and then tell me you didn't catch these so called "mistakes". I hate armchair quarterbacks, people in line at Fry's who pretend they know so much about their "1 Gigahertz hard drive," misinforming their buddy that they need a new "motherboard chip," and most of all, unqualified film critics who think they've discovered America every time they "uncover" one of our deliberate attempts to change their perceptions to our ends.
Allow yourself to be immersed, suspend disbelief, and it can only be a win/win situation for us both.
Good day.
-NewtonEatPalm!
How about Comlett PackPaq? No wait, that sounds like a small Pakistani child.
newtonEATpalm!
the blind and the dumb amuse me... :-)
It is said that the GameCube controller melts into your hands like fudge, and that you cannot even tell it's there anymore after about 30 seconds. Nintendo listened to the gripes of N64 players and granted all of their wishes. Besides, ever held a brick-frisbee... er... I mean an Xbox controller? :-)
-NEWTON EAT PALM!
Umm... that would be an example of a game crashing, not a system failure. A game crash would be an error in the code that causes the same crash every time the right conditions are met. The system crash would pretty much involve the hardware randomly failing. The criticism is against the Xbox as hardware, not at any of it's games in particular. (A good analogy would be: Dell computers are bad because they are unstable. You would say: "Gateways suck too because I can get MS Office 2k to crash on my Gateway the same way each time!" One has nothing to do with the other.)
Good day.