Generic modification of actors is the next frontier of Hollywood SFX technology.
Gee, would it be possible to modify Renee Zellweger to make her NOT SO GODD**MED IRRITATING? Or at least reduce the cheek pockets into which she always seems to have a winter's supply of nuts hidden?
This has possibilities. We could insert talent into someone like Kevin Costner. Or a sense of humor into Sly Stallone. Or writing and story ability into George Lucas. Or add some height to Tom Cruise. Or Mel Gibson. Or Russell Crowe.
Hell, you could use it on people in the background: give some taste to folks who would otherwise be producing "Police Academy VI," or a soul to any executive from Disney.
Of course, you also have to recognize the limitations: it would not be possible, for example, to give some humility to Harvey Weinstein.
Being a fringe movie geek, I often get a chance to read unproduced screenplays. Sometimes, it is possible to see the train hurtling towards the bridge that is out way before they ever turn on a camera. "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" was like that.
There have been two screenplays for "V" that have floated around Hollywood in the last ten years.
One of them, completely ghastly, turned "V" into a superhero fighting an evil world dictatorship. The surprise twist was that "V" turned out, in that version, to be the evil world dictator, himself. I don't know who wrote it, but it was truly awful. His acts of terrorism were very carefully done so as to kill no innocents. That was NOT what Moore wrote.
The other version, while not as completely putrid, suffered by trying to bring genetic engineering and super-science into the mix, and make it a more science-fictiony sorta story. It also watered down the terrorism and V's utter, insane ruthlessness.
The movie already exists, in my mind if no where else. Buy the graphic novel and read it. If Hollywood was smart (always an open proposition) they would use it as storyboards and shoot it, as written by Alan Moore.
But remember, Hollywood is the place that gave us the Will Smith "I, Robot" rather than the Harlan Ellison version.
Given your bad grammar (it should be "the insistence of some companies" not "insistency") and bad spelling, ("bachelor's degree" rather than what you wrote), you are a poor example of the qualifications of applicants without degrees. I'm not trying to troll, but to have two such noticeable errors at the beginning of your argument drastically undercuts your point.
The culture of Minoan Crete is fascinating, and that is why so much attention has been centered on Santorini (now known as the island of Thera), just a bit northeast of Crete. The extensive archeological diggings there have revealed a city of incomparable wealth and technology. They had routine electroplating (with wet-cell batteries as a power source), sophisticated plumbing, metal-working that was centuries in advance of their time, and much else, besides. For a good popular account, check out Charles Pellegrino's "Unearthing Atlantis."
The only part of the single remaining extant ancient description of Atlantis (written down by Plato) that Santorini had NOT matched was the story of the central island of Atlantis having disappeared, sinking beneath the sea. It is possible the researchers east of Cyprus have discovered the island that Plato wrote about. The researchers who have championed Santorini thought it is a plausible candidate despite that. When it blew up, more than two thirds of it disappeared, and what was once a round island was turned into a crescent moon shape.
It should be noted that while we have vague references to lost works about Atlantis, they are well and truly lost. Even Plato, the most ancient source on the subject we have, was writing almost 1,000 years after the disaster.
> Billion billion is a perfectly valid number. Or would you rather they say 6.0 × 10^18? Most people can't imagine that. But people can (kind of) visualize a billion, and then multiply that by a billion, and see it's really, really big.
The problem is that most people visualize a billion incorrectly. Several studies have shown that most people mentally have a billion in their mind as twice the volume of a million.
My favorite method of getting folks to visualize a billion is the penny one---a thousand pennies ($10) weighs just under six pounds and fills half of an old one-gallon pickle jar; a million pennies weighs just under three tons and would fill the bed of two full-size pickup trucks; and a billion pennies weighs 2,820 tons, and the volume would completely cover a football field to a depth of eight feet.
And for those of you that are going to the SF Worldcon in Boston, there are two "Firefly" shows on the ballot for best dramatic work, short form. Rather than have them knock each other out of the voting, I'd like to see everyone concentrate their votes on "The Message," so that Joss can get the Hugo he should have gotten years ago for "Buffy." The other nominated episode, "Heart of Gold," wasn't written by Joss, and I don't think it's as good.
Also, in answer to the question "why set it in space?" Alan Tudyk answered that in a recent interview on NPR. Tudyk was being interviewed because he plays the robot in "I, Robot," and the interviewer (obviously a fellow sf fan) asked the question about "Firefly." According to Tudyk, it's a plot point. The cheapeast way to settle newly terraformed planets is to land some people on them with tools and horses, and leave them to their own devices. It also effectively gives the Blue Sun Corporation, which is paying for the terraforming and the transport of settlers, indentured serfs who are totally at their mercy.
All this jawing over original vs. extra-crispy -- er, I mean, specical edition -- is obscuring another aspect of this that people should be paying attention to: you can only buy ALL THREE MOVIES. In other fields, this is called bundling, and it's illegal.
But in DVD's, the studios have discovered they can get away with it, because we're letting them do so. So you have to buy the sucky third Godfather to get the other two, and you have to buy the TWO lameass Indiana Jones sequals to get the only one of the three that's worth a damn, and you have to put up with those two truly awful "Back to the Future" movies to get the first, and now we'll have to buy "Jedi" to get "Empire" or "Star Wars" (fuck calling it "New Hope"), assuming you want that last one after they change it so that Greedo shoots first.
Fortunately, it will be possible to buy singles from folks breaking up the box sets on ebay.
But we're still being diddled here, folks, whichever version they're putting out. You might want to take that into consideration.
I'd like for these to not sell, and everyone, without exception, to not buy them because they're not selling us what we want. But I'd also like world peace, an end to world hunger, and for George W. Bush to die in jail, preferably while being anally raped by his 300lb. cellmate, but I don't expect that, either.
Also, to those of you running out the theory that Lucas is an evil marketing genius who cleverly intends to sell you the original cuts later and is only holding on now to get more money from you down the road, get a grip. It's NOT a conspriacy -- just check out his recent movies. His judgment really has gotten that bad.
>> Another idea: breakdown of the Federation. It collapses sometime after Picard's retirement...
That's an idea that's also been done. Haven't you ever seen "Blake's Seven"? That's why the symbol of the baddies in that one was the Federation of Plantets symbol put on its side--it was meant to be taken as the Federation gone decadent and evil. Rather like the US under Bush.
It is too bad about "Firefly" not receiving the support it needed from Fox, because I've noticed something about ALL of Whedon's series. The first season is just the setup.
If there had only been one season of "Buffy," no one would remember it now. The first season has some good lines and is solidly done, but what made the show special was how Whedon developed the characters and situations he'd established in that first year.
"Angel" was much the same. The first season set the ground rules, and then he started to screw with them.
I enjoyed the episodes we saw of "Firefly," but what I really miss is seeing how it would get fiddled with, as the series progressed.
The big problem with Symantec isn't bloat, it's that it does NOT play well with others. Because of the recent wave of virii, I got to install a brand-new-out-of-the-box copy of Norton AV onto my mother-in-law's computer, which had had no protection.
First thing that happened was that several programs were deleted or disabled as being Trojans. I had, however, set it so that it should not have deleted anything without me confirming it first. Upon trying to re-install the programs, it continued to delete them, despite whatever setting was given to it to leave them alone.
One of the programs it crippled was Zone Alarm, the other a graphics viewer, Firehand Ember. When I checked the two programs with my copy of Kaspersky, it found no viruses or Trojans of any sort. Norton apparently added Ember to its list of programs carrying viruses because of a hearsay report of problems from some Russian crackers who were miffed at Firehand.
That it happened to cripple two programs that compete with Symantec may or may not be significant. I don't know, but I also don't care--it was very irritating that I could not get Norton AV to leave them alone. I tried telling it to not scan anything in their directories, and it kept deleting either the programs or key DLL's every time I tried to re-install them.
Because I kept trying to put Zone Alarm back on the machine, Norton AV eventually took out something that left the OS (Windows 2000) unstable. At that point, I restored the machine using a Ghost backup I'd made the previous week and bought her a copy of Kaspersky.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I think these folks are closer to the Halo idea than BLEEX: http://www.mechaps.com/ They're actually trying to build an honest-to-god Mech.
Generic modification of actors is the next frontier of Hollywood SFX technology.
Gee, would it be possible to modify Renee Zellweger to make her NOT SO GODD**MED IRRITATING? Or at least reduce the cheek pockets into which she always seems to have a winter's supply of nuts hidden?
This has possibilities. We could insert talent into someone like Kevin Costner. Or a sense of humor into Sly Stallone. Or writing and story ability into George Lucas. Or add some height to Tom Cruise. Or Mel Gibson. Or Russell Crowe.
Hell, you could use it on people in the background: give some taste to folks who would otherwise be producing "Police Academy VI," or a soul to any executive from Disney. Of course, you also have to recognize the limitations: it would not be possible, for example, to give some humility to Harvey Weinstein.
Being a fringe movie geek, I often get a chance to read unproduced screenplays. Sometimes, it is possible to see the train hurtling towards the bridge that is out way before they ever turn on a camera. "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" was like that. There have been two screenplays for "V" that have floated around Hollywood in the last ten years. One of them, completely ghastly, turned "V" into a superhero fighting an evil world dictatorship. The surprise twist was that "V" turned out, in that version, to be the evil world dictator, himself. I don't know who wrote it, but it was truly awful. His acts of terrorism were very carefully done so as to kill no innocents. That was NOT what Moore wrote. The other version, while not as completely putrid, suffered by trying to bring genetic engineering and super-science into the mix, and make it a more science-fictiony sorta story. It also watered down the terrorism and V's utter, insane ruthlessness. The movie already exists, in my mind if no where else. Buy the graphic novel and read it. If Hollywood was smart (always an open proposition) they would use it as storyboards and shoot it, as written by Alan Moore. But remember, Hollywood is the place that gave us the Will Smith "I, Robot" rather than the Harlan Ellison version.
Given your bad grammar (it should be "the insistence of some companies" not "insistency") and bad spelling, ("bachelor's degree" rather than what you wrote), you are a poor example of the qualifications of applicants without degrees.
I'm not trying to troll, but to have two such noticeable errors at the beginning of your argument drastically undercuts your point.
The culture of Minoan Crete is fascinating, and that is why so much attention has been centered on Santorini (now known as the island of Thera), just a bit northeast of Crete. The extensive archeological diggings there have revealed a city of incomparable wealth and technology. They had routine electroplating (with wet-cell batteries as a power source), sophisticated plumbing, metal-working that was centuries in advance of their time, and much else, besides. For a good popular account, check out Charles Pellegrino's "Unearthing Atlantis."
The only part of the single remaining extant ancient description of Atlantis (written down by Plato) that Santorini had NOT matched was the story of the central island of Atlantis having disappeared, sinking beneath the sea. It is possible the researchers east of Cyprus have discovered the island that Plato wrote about. The researchers who have championed Santorini thought it is a plausible candidate despite that. When it blew up, more than two thirds of it disappeared, and what was once a round island was turned into a crescent moon shape.
It should be noted that while we have vague references to lost works about Atlantis, they are well and truly lost. Even Plato, the most ancient source on the subject we have, was writing almost 1,000 years after the disaster.
But it isn't enough to turn their cellphones off when they're watching. I want them to explode, taking the user out with them.
> Billion billion is a perfectly valid number. Or would you rather they say 6.0 × 10^18? Most people can't imagine that. But people can (kind of) visualize a billion, and then multiply that by a billion, and see it's really, really big.
The problem is that most people visualize a billion incorrectly. Several studies have shown that most people mentally have a billion in their mind as twice the volume of a million.
My favorite method of getting folks to visualize a billion is the penny one---a thousand pennies ($10) weighs just under six pounds and fills half of an old one-gallon pickle jar; a million pennies weighs just under three tons and would fill the bed of two full-size pickup trucks; and a billion pennies weighs 2,820 tons, and the volume would completely cover a football field to a depth of eight feet.
And for those of you that are going to the SF Worldcon in Boston, there are two "Firefly" shows on the ballot for best dramatic work, short form. Rather than have them knock each other out of the voting, I'd like to see everyone concentrate their votes on "The Message," so that Joss can get the Hugo he should have gotten years ago for "Buffy." The other nominated episode, "Heart of Gold," wasn't written by Joss, and I don't think it's as good.
Also, in answer to the question "why set it in space?" Alan Tudyk answered that in a recent interview on NPR. Tudyk was being interviewed because he plays the robot in "I, Robot," and the interviewer (obviously a fellow sf fan) asked the question about "Firefly." According to Tudyk, it's a plot point. The cheapeast way to settle newly terraformed planets is to land some people on them with tools and horses, and leave them to their own devices. It also effectively gives the Blue Sun Corporation, which is paying for the terraforming and the transport of settlers, indentured serfs who are totally at their mercy.
dionwr (dee-uh-NOOR; it's Welsh)
It's been done--"Once More, With Hobbits," which is available at www.omwh.com. It's been on the web for a bit more than six months now.
> Except that the cost of owning all 4 Indiana
> Jones is about the same as two separate DVDs.
That's one way of figuring it. I pre-ordered the box set and sold all but "Raiders" on ebay. I came out $10 ahead on the deal.
All this jawing over original vs. extra-crispy -- er, I mean, specical edition -- is obscuring another aspect of this that people should be paying attention to: you can only buy ALL THREE MOVIES. In other fields, this is called bundling, and it's illegal.
But in DVD's, the studios have discovered they can get away with it, because we're letting them do so. So you have to buy the sucky third Godfather to get the other two, and you have to buy the TWO lameass Indiana Jones sequals to get the only one of the three that's worth a damn, and you have to put up with those two truly awful "Back to the Future" movies to get the first, and now we'll have to buy "Jedi" to get "Empire" or "Star Wars" (fuck calling it "New Hope"), assuming you want that last one after they change it so that Greedo shoots first.
Fortunately, it will be possible to buy singles from folks breaking up the box sets on ebay.
But we're still being diddled here, folks, whichever version they're putting out. You might want to take that into consideration.
I'd like for these to not sell, and everyone, without exception, to not buy them because they're not selling us what we want. But I'd also like world peace, an end to world hunger, and for George W. Bush to die in jail, preferably while being anally raped by his 300lb. cellmate, but I don't expect that, either.
Also, to those of you running out the theory that Lucas is an evil marketing genius who cleverly intends to sell you the original cuts later and is only holding on now to get more money from you down the road, get a grip. It's NOT a conspriacy -- just check out his recent movies. His judgment really has gotten that bad.
I mean, this is the mind that thought up Jar-Jar.
>> Another idea: breakdown of the Federation. It collapses sometime after Picard's retirement...
That's an idea that's also been done. Haven't you ever seen "Blake's Seven"? That's why the symbol of the baddies in that one was the Federation of Plantets symbol put on its side--it was meant to be taken as the Federation gone decadent and evil. Rather like the US under Bush.
It is too bad about "Firefly" not receiving the support it needed from Fox, because I've noticed something about ALL of Whedon's series. The first season is just the setup.
If there had only been one season of "Buffy," no one would remember it now. The first season has some good lines and is solidly done, but what made the show special was how Whedon developed the characters and situations he'd established in that first year.
"Angel" was much the same. The first season set the ground rules, and then he started to screw with them.
I enjoyed the episodes we saw of "Firefly," but what I really miss is seeing how it would get fiddled with, as the series progressed.
The big problem with Symantec isn't bloat, it's that it does NOT play well with others. Because of the recent wave of virii, I got to install a brand-new-out-of-the-box copy of Norton AV onto my mother-in-law's computer, which had had no protection.
First thing that happened was that several programs were deleted or disabled as being Trojans. I had, however, set it so that it should not have deleted anything without me confirming it first. Upon trying to re-install the programs, it continued to delete them, despite whatever setting was given to it to leave them alone.
One of the programs it crippled was Zone Alarm, the other a graphics viewer, Firehand Ember. When I checked the two programs with my copy of Kaspersky, it found no viruses or Trojans of any sort. Norton apparently added Ember to its list of programs carrying viruses because of a hearsay report of problems from some Russian crackers who were miffed at Firehand.
That it happened to cripple two programs that compete with Symantec may or may not be significant. I don't know, but I also don't care--it was very irritating that I could not get Norton AV to leave them alone. I tried telling it to not scan anything in their directories, and it kept deleting either the programs or key DLL's every time I tried to re-install them.
Because I kept trying to put Zone Alarm back on the machine, Norton AV eventually took out something that left the OS (Windows 2000) unstable. At that point, I restored the machine using a Ghost backup I'd made the previous week and bought her a copy of Kaspersky.
I don't think much of Norton AV at this point.
>Classic.
:)
>"If you put an infinite number of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the source code for Windows."
And a hundred of them will write improvements to it.