Why not just do a Hawking biography and be done with it?
That could be a good film. I don't honestly know anything about his life story but 'getting to know him' and what he's accomplished through a movie might be a good way for people to stop thinking of him as that poor 'wheelchair guy' and see him as something more.
Ha ha. Seriously, though, this might be a good time for a remake of that famous tale. The movie that exists ("Charly") is pretty laughable and dated in spots (like when he takes off for a cruise around the countryside on a motorcycle). And laboratory manipulation of living creatures is always in the news these days. Seems like the time is right for a well-done version movie version of that story. Can you imagine the power of a film that shows a good actor knowing that he's slipping back into his former self and being powerless to stop it. A good treatment could make a really chilling contemporary tragedy.
It wasn't and I'd wager that De Niro et. al don't really want a film about science or even about scientists. What they want is another standard Hollywood film (note that the 'prize', if you win, is help developing their scripts from filmmakers. That means the same morons who put out crap every year are going to help you "improve" your story.) that has the gimmick of having a scientist in it. Why? Because any reviewer who sees the film and likes it will inevitably draw comparisons or make some comment about A Beautiful Mind even if the only similiary is that both films star a scientist or mathematician. People will read the review and say to themselves "Hey, I liked A Beautiful Mind, so I'll probably like this new movie as well." This is a standard trick in Hollywood -- try to associate your crap movie with something the audience already has a fondness for.
A Beautiful Mind (which was good mostly due to Jennifer Connley -- how did she stay so damn good looking?).
You ever see her in "Career Opportunities"? You think she looks good now at 30-something, you should see her in that film when she was 21 or 22. Yow!
Listining to music while you're skiing or snowboarding is no more dangerous than listening to it in your car.
You can't be serious. Your sense of hearing is the only indication you have of what's going on behind you when skiing/snowboarding. Without it, you'll have no idea if someone is about to run you over. A car has side and rear view mirrors so hearing is not as essential to avoid being rear-ended.
I've been skiing all my life, and snowboarding for half of it.
Oh, okay. I guess my straightforward, obvious logic doesn't count then. Sheesh.
I like your suggestion and I also feel that the fans could write some incredible stories. But I think that B&B would view accepting fan scripts as "asking for help" or as proof that they can't write a good story. Remember, these guys are Hollywood producers -- a group not generally known for being humble and thoughtful. Can you imagine how pathetic they would look if a script written by "some guy in Oklahoma" ended up being far superior to the ones written by them, "the professionals"?
It's too bad that B&B don't let other people do the writing. They could concentrate on doing what they like and are good at. But Hollywood is full of people who can't write worth shit (Lucas, Devlin/Emmerich, etc.) and yet still tarnish their movies because they refuse to give up any kind of control.
Some day in the near future, the fans will be able to make their own movies with decent effects and their own plots. Then the Hollywood big-wigs will have to adapt their approach.
GMD
P.S.: To the guy who mentioned that Berman claims Star Trek accepts fan scripts: I strongly suspect that's when Roddenberry was still alive. I doubt B&B are continuing that practice.
I think what also helped was that Khan was someone you could really fear. He was highly intelligent and completely ruthless. You hear about how he tortured the people on the science station while looking for Genesis and you actually are forced to watch as he torments Chekov and the Reliant's captain by putting ugly creatures in their ears! But he's not just some lunatic -- he's a very capable villain. He hatches a plan to attack the Enterprise with their sheilds down! Good lord. True, Kirk was stupid for ignoring regulations but Khan really deserves credit for doing the unbelievable. Never before had we seen a starship get hit with their shields down!
A good villain is essential in an action movie. Otherwise, it's just a joke.
I am a senior in college... Do employers or grad schools care about that stuff?
First of all, if you're already a senior then grad schools aren't going to care all that much about what you do in your final year unless you really screw up. That, of course, is assuming you're planning on grad school right after undergrad. Even so, I'm guessing that most employers and grad schools care more about your GPA than whether you have a double major. Both employment and grad school will want you to specialize so impressing them with how broad your education is probably won't work. Just my opinion.
or should I just take fun random stuff in my last year as an undergrad?
I would really encourage you to take this as your last opportunity to learn something besides CS or Math. College is a great opportunity to expand one's horizons. Unfortunately, most students don't realize that until after they have graduated. Have you ever wondered what philosophy was all about? Psychology? Anthropology? This is your last chance to find out.
Bottom line is that if you're a senior then you've pretty much established what grad schools and employers are going to think about you. If you've done good work and have a good GPA, then enjoy this last chance at college life. If you've goofed around and your GPA sucks, you've already screwed yourself. Forget trying to impress people with a last-ditch effort.
Maybe FX will pick it up, they seem to have lots of fighting there...
A Toughman-BattleBots crossover show would be cool to watch! Have 5 battlebots attacking some plumber or construction worker or something. While he's got his hands full with fighting one robot, two others are hammering away at his feet! So he bends over to pick up one of the machines when a third one shoves a corkscrew up his...
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this crossover show would be more suitable for Comedy Central...
Battlebots is quite entertaining, but I would hardly call it a sport.
Some people have some strange ideas of what makes a sport:
Marge: Homer, Homer?
Homer: Huh? Wah? Oh, How was bowling?
Marge: It's a very challenging hobby.
Homer: Heh heh, It's a sport dear. It's a sport you silly thing.
I admit I never watched BattleBots. But I would have watched it if the show featured real live people wearing battlebot armor beating the crap out of each other. Something along the lines of the hydralic lifter suit Sigorney Weaver wore in Aliens. It would be challenging for the contestants to figure out what bodypart to 'enhance' with robotic technology, assuming that a full-body suit wouldn't be practical (do you turbo charge your shoulders, arms, torso or legs?). And controlling the suit while moving your own body would probably require some fancy physical skills. But just watching a couple of machines fight isn't too exciting to me. Who cares who wins or loses?
God willing, another network will pick it up and keep this sport alive!"
I assume this is a joke. BattleBots may be entertainment but it's no more a sport than playing a videogame.
Most museums have benefactors and patrons that contribute with the idea that they are promoting a non-commercial environment for learning.
Thanks, kawika, for bringing that up. I never really said it in my original post but I was thinking that if I was some rich dude giving money to a museum and then found out they were showing Star Wars films, I'd be mucho pissedo (that's spanish for "very upset").
A number of people have stated something along the lines of "if IMAX is idle, then what's the harm?" I admit I don't live in a city with an IMAX theatre in the museum (although I have been to ones) so I'll have to ask: is the IMAX ever idle? I'm guessing that there's no shortage of documentaries that can be shown in these museums. So I'm guessing some learning-thing got bumped to make way for Lucas. Second, even if the IMAX is idle, I'm still not that comfortable with them showing Star Wars during regular museum hours. After watching a bunch of stuff get blown up onscreen, I imagine that it's pretty hard to find the educational aspects of the museum interesting at all. It kind of spoils the atmosphere of learning and wonder.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I was just surprised that no one was commenting on the silliness of showing science fiction in a science museum. Now, it would be way cool if people left the theatre and walked along a hallway explaining the scientific inaccuracies of Sci-Fi films (noise in space, etc.).
50 IMAX commercial venues, and 20-30 science museum sites will begin showing the film on November 1.
Okay, enough jokes about pixelation on the IMAX screen. Time for something serious. Am I the only one here who is getting a bit annoyed by LucasFilm's pentration into the museum market? A few years ago Lucas managed to con museums into showing a bunch of Star Wars stuff under the pretense that it was a modern day mythology and should be deserving of serious study. Now he's got science museums showing his movies? Look, regardless of whether you thought AOTC was a good movie or not, can anyone give me a good reason why it should be shown in a science museum? That's supposed to be a place for learning facts about the world around you. Not for watching a movie about explosions a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Are the museums going to get a cut of the profits for showing the film there? Is that why they're doing this? Or is it a gimmick to increase their attendance? Isn't it enough that I can't get a burger without seeing Anakin's smug face starting back at me? Do they have to invade museums too? Will I ever stop asking questions?:)
Seriously, the "science museum" part bugged me a lot more than the IMAX part.
"The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene. excellent read (although I'm only halfway through - there might be plot twists that I don't know about.;)
At the very end, you never do find out the true nature of the universe. The author just leaves you hanging in an obvious lead-in for the sequel: "Elegant Universe II: The Wrath of God".
I agree that The Elegant Universe is a great book but the Ask Slashdot guy is asking for something on BASIC physics -- not cutting edge superstring theory.
BTW, I read an interview with Brian Greene in a magazine (I believe it was Scientific American) where he said that while he was surprised/pleased with the response to his book he wasn't planning on writing a new one. The reason is that he just cares about his research too much and felt that writing a book just took too much time/energy/thought away from his first love: string theory. Our loss.
What the hell is an extreme searcher? Do you quick look up something on your laptop just before jumping out of an airplane? Or maybe you do a quick search after performing a knarly skateboard stunt?
The cost of bookshelves will go up because people can't (or won't) RTFM.
Why is this modded as +4?? It's not like every single damn bookshelf is going to have this stuff in it. And even if through some miracle all manufactured bookshelf kits do you could always (a) buy a pre-built one that doesn't have the fancy crap in it, (b) build one yourself (it's just a few pieces of wood stuck together for chrisake).
Everybody, just calm down. No one forced you to buy one of those VCRplus things that allow you to record a show based on a 6-digit code, did they?
When I think "old computer" I think about the Atari 400 and that awful, awful Timex Sinclair thing that had membrane keyboards as opposed to keys that would actually move up and down! Of course, considering how many cookie crumbs and burrito bits are lying in the cracks of my keyboard right now, I guess I shouldn't be chuckling quite so hard...
The other thing that sticks out in my mind is daisy-wheel printers. Sure they were more expensive than the dot matrix printers and a hell of a lot slower, but you could actually read your printouts! What a novel idea! Man, I wanted a daisy-wheel printer so bad!
The Timex Sinclair is worthy of a post or two in itself! Not only was that keyboard a joke but the friggin' screeen would blink everytime you pressed a key because the memory couldn't handle the strain of adding another character to the display! One of my friends got one and we laughed at his sorry ass.
I'm not sure about the speed of gravity (the force reponsible for attraction between two bodies) but I've noticed that the speed of anti-gravity (the force responsible for repulsion between two bodies) is roughly the speed of light. Everytime I see some hot babe in a bar and start walking towards her, she turns and runs away in the opposite direction when she sees me coming.
If independent verifcation of this experimental result is needed, I can get my buddies (who always guffaw when this happens) to pledge that these results are repeatble!
Just think: someday I'll be able to tell my grandkids where I was when I heard the news that a Bill Gates quote was modded as +5 Insightful on slashdot....
"Three Weeks Later," says a caption on the screen, as Homer sits on the
couch and reads a phone bill.
Homer: Burkina Faso? Disputed Zone? Who called all these weird places? Brain: Quiet, it might be you! I can't remember. Homer: Naw, I'm going to ask Marge. Brain: No, no! Why embarrass us both? Just write a check and I'll release some more endorphins.
[Homer scribbles a check, then sighs with pleasure]
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just do a Hawking biography and be done with it?
That could be a good film. I don't honestly know anything about his life story but 'getting to know him' and what he's accomplished through a movie might be a good way for people to stop thinking of him as that poor 'wheelchair guy' and see him as something more.
GMD
Ha ha. Seriously, though, this might be a good time for a remake of that famous tale. The movie that exists ("Charly") is pretty laughable and dated in spots (like when he takes off for a cruise around the countryside on a motorcycle). And laboratory manipulation of living creatures is always in the news these days. Seems like the time is right for a well-done version movie version of that story. Can you imagine the power of a film that shows a good actor knowing that he's slipping back into his former self and being powerless to stop it. A good treatment could make a really chilling contemporary tragedy.
GMD
In what way was Memento a science-oriented film?
It wasn't and I'd wager that De Niro et. al don't really want a film about science or even about scientists. What they want is another standard Hollywood film (note that the 'prize', if you win, is help developing their scripts from filmmakers. That means the same morons who put out crap every year are going to help you "improve" your story.) that has the gimmick of having a scientist in it. Why? Because any reviewer who sees the film and likes it will inevitably draw comparisons or make some comment about A Beautiful Mind even if the only similiary is that both films star a scientist or mathematician. People will read the review and say to themselves "Hey, I liked A Beautiful Mind, so I'll probably like this new movie as well." This is a standard trick in Hollywood -- try to associate your crap movie with something the audience already has a fondness for.
A Beautiful Mind (which was good mostly due to Jennifer Connley -- how did she stay so damn good looking?).
You ever see her in "Career Opportunities"? You think she looks good now at 30-something, you should see her in that film when she was 21 or 22. Yow!
GMD
Listining to music while you're skiing or snowboarding is no more dangerous than listening to it in your car.
You can't be serious. Your sense of hearing is the only indication you have of what's going on behind you when skiing/snowboarding. Without it, you'll have no idea if someone is about to run you over. A car has side and rear view mirrors so hearing is not as essential to avoid being rear-ended.
I've been skiing all my life, and snowboarding for half of it.
Oh, okay. I guess my straightforward, obvious logic doesn't count then. Sheesh.
GMD
I like your suggestion and I also feel that the fans could write some incredible stories. But I think that B&B would view accepting fan scripts as "asking for help" or as proof that they can't write a good story. Remember, these guys are Hollywood producers -- a group not generally known for being humble and thoughtful. Can you imagine how pathetic they would look if a script written by "some guy in Oklahoma" ended up being far superior to the ones written by them, "the professionals"?
It's too bad that B&B don't let other people do the writing. They could concentrate on doing what they like and are good at. But Hollywood is full of people who can't write worth shit (Lucas, Devlin/Emmerich, etc.) and yet still tarnish their movies because they refuse to give up any kind of control.
Some day in the near future, the fans will be able to make their own movies with decent effects and their own plots. Then the Hollywood big-wigs will have to adapt their approach.
GMD
P.S.: To the guy who mentioned that Berman claims Star Trek accepts fan scripts: I strongly suspect that's when Roddenberry was still alive. I doubt B&B are continuing that practice.
I think what also helped was that Khan was someone you could really fear. He was highly intelligent and completely ruthless. You hear about how he tortured the people on the science station while looking for Genesis and you actually are forced to watch as he torments Chekov and the Reliant's captain by putting ugly creatures in their ears! But he's not just some lunatic -- he's a very capable villain. He hatches a plan to attack the Enterprise with their sheilds down! Good lord. True, Kirk was stupid for ignoring regulations but Khan really deserves credit for doing the unbelievable. Never before had we seen a starship get hit with their shields down!
A good villain is essential in an action movie. Otherwise, it's just a joke.
GMD
I am a senior in college ... Do employers or grad schools care about that stuff?
First of all, if you're already a senior then grad schools aren't going to care all that much about what you do in your final year unless you really screw up. That, of course, is assuming you're planning on grad school right after undergrad. Even so, I'm guessing that most employers and grad schools care more about your GPA than whether you have a double major. Both employment and grad school will want you to specialize so impressing them with how broad your education is probably won't work. Just my opinion.
or should I just take fun random stuff in my last year as an undergrad?
I would really encourage you to take this as your last opportunity to learn something besides CS or Math. College is a great opportunity to expand one's horizons. Unfortunately, most students don't realize that until after they have graduated. Have you ever wondered what philosophy was all about? Psychology? Anthropology? This is your last chance to find out.
Bottom line is that if you're a senior then you've pretty much established what grad schools and employers are going to think about you. If you've done good work and have a good GPA, then enjoy this last chance at college life. If you've goofed around and your GPA sucks, you've already screwed yourself. Forget trying to impress people with a last-ditch effort.
GMD
Maybe FX will pick it up, they seem to have lots of fighting there...
A Toughman-BattleBots crossover show would be cool to watch! Have 5 battlebots attacking some plumber or construction worker or something. While he's got his hands full with fighting one robot, two others are hammering away at his feet! So he bends over to pick up one of the machines when a third one shoves a corkscrew up his...
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this crossover show would be more suitable for Comedy Central...
GMD
Battlebots is quite entertaining, but I would hardly call it a sport.
Some people have some strange ideas of what makes a sport:
Marge: Homer, Homer?Homer: Huh? Wah? Oh, How was bowling?
Marge: It's a very challenging hobby.
Homer: Heh heh, It's a sport dear. It's a sport you silly thing.
GMD
I admit I never watched BattleBots. But I would have watched it if the show featured real live people wearing battlebot armor beating the crap out of each other. Something along the lines of the hydralic lifter suit Sigorney Weaver wore in Aliens. It would be challenging for the contestants to figure out what bodypart to 'enhance' with robotic technology, assuming that a full-body suit wouldn't be practical (do you turbo charge your shoulders, arms, torso or legs?). And controlling the suit while moving your own body would probably require some fancy physical skills. But just watching a couple of machines fight isn't too exciting to me. Who cares who wins or loses?
God willing, another network will pick it up and keep this sport alive!"
I assume this is a joke. BattleBots may be entertainment but it's no more a sport than playing a videogame.
GMD
Most museums have benefactors and patrons that contribute with the idea that they are promoting a non-commercial environment for learning.
Thanks, kawika, for bringing that up. I never really said it in my original post but I was thinking that if I was some rich dude giving money to a museum and then found out they were showing Star Wars films, I'd be mucho pissedo (that's spanish for "very upset").
A number of people have stated something along the lines of "if IMAX is idle, then what's the harm?" I admit I don't live in a city with an IMAX theatre in the museum (although I have been to ones) so I'll have to ask: is the IMAX ever idle? I'm guessing that there's no shortage of documentaries that can be shown in these museums. So I'm guessing some learning-thing got bumped to make way for Lucas. Second, even if the IMAX is idle, I'm still not that comfortable with them showing Star Wars during regular museum hours. After watching a bunch of stuff get blown up onscreen, I imagine that it's pretty hard to find the educational aspects of the museum interesting at all. It kind of spoils the atmosphere of learning and wonder.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I was just surprised that no one was commenting on the silliness of showing science fiction in a science museum. Now, it would be way cool if people left the theatre and walked along a hallway explaining the scientific inaccuracies of Sci-Fi films (noise in space, etc.).
GMD
50 IMAX commercial venues, and 20-30 science museum sites will begin showing the film on November 1.
Okay, enough jokes about pixelation on the IMAX screen. Time for something serious. Am I the only one here who is getting a bit annoyed by LucasFilm's pentration into the museum market? A few years ago Lucas managed to con museums into showing a bunch of Star Wars stuff under the pretense that it was a modern day mythology and should be deserving of serious study. Now he's got science museums showing his movies? Look, regardless of whether you thought AOTC was a good movie or not, can anyone give me a good reason why it should be shown in a science museum? That's supposed to be a place for learning facts about the world around you. Not for watching a movie about explosions a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Are the museums going to get a cut of the profits for showing the film there? Is that why they're doing this? Or is it a gimmick to increase their attendance? Isn't it enough that I can't get a burger without seeing Anakin's smug face starting back at me? Do they have to invade museums too? Will I ever stop asking questions? :)
Seriously, the "science museum" part bugged me a lot more than the IMAX part.
GMD
Yeah, I can't wait until my inbox is crammed full of "All-natural proven method to add inches to your tentacles!" porno spam.
GMD
You can also ask any one of her past boyfriends about the malleable properties of silicone -- an important part of semiconductors.
GMD
"The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene. excellent read (although I'm only halfway through - there might be plot twists that I don't know about. ;)
At the very end, you never do find out the true nature of the universe. The author just leaves you hanging in an obvious lead-in for the sequel: "Elegant Universe II: The Wrath of God".
GMD
I agree that The Elegant Universe is a great book but the Ask Slashdot guy is asking for something on BASIC physics -- not cutting edge superstring theory.
BTW, I read an interview with Brian Greene in a magazine (I believe it was Scientific American) where he said that while he was surprised/pleased with the response to his book he wasn't planning on writing a new one. The reason is that he just cares about his research too much and felt that writing a book just took too much time/energy/thought away from his first love: string theory. Our loss.
GMD
"So much I don't know about astrophysics. Why didn't I read that book by the wheelchair guy?"
--Homer J. Simpson
GMD
The more they tighten their grip, the more web sites will slip through their fingers.
GMD
I, like many "EXTREME" searchers, ...
What the hell is an extreme searcher? Do you quick look up something on your laptop just before jumping out of an airplane? Or maybe you do a quick search after performing a knarly skateboard stunt?
Totally rad, Dude!
GMD
The cost of bookshelves will go up because people can't (or won't) RTFM.
Why is this modded as +4?? It's not like every single damn bookshelf is going to have this stuff in it. And even if through some miracle all manufactured bookshelf kits do you could always (a) buy a pre-built one that doesn't have the fancy crap in it, (b) build one yourself (it's just a few pieces of wood stuck together for chrisake).
Everybody, just calm down. No one forced you to buy one of those VCRplus things that allow you to record a show based on a 6-digit code, did they?
GMD
When I think "old computer" I think about the Atari 400 and that awful, awful Timex Sinclair thing that had membrane keyboards as opposed to keys that would actually move up and down! Of course, considering how many cookie crumbs and burrito bits are lying in the cracks of my keyboard right now, I guess I shouldn't be chuckling quite so hard...
The other thing that sticks out in my mind is daisy-wheel printers. Sure they were more expensive than the dot matrix printers and a hell of a lot slower, but you could actually read your printouts! What a novel idea! Man, I wanted a daisy-wheel printer so bad!
The Timex Sinclair is worthy of a post or two in itself! Not only was that keyboard a joke but the friggin' screeen would blink everytime you pressed a key because the memory couldn't handle the strain of adding another character to the display! One of my friends got one and we laughed at his sorry ass.
GMD
Remember, down there they don't have that pesky ozone layer to obscure their view! :)
GMD
I'm not sure about the speed of gravity (the force reponsible for attraction between two bodies) but I've noticed that the speed of anti-gravity (the force responsible for repulsion between two bodies) is roughly the speed of light. Everytime I see some hot babe in a bar and start walking towards her, she turns and runs away in the opposite direction when she sees me coming.
If independent verifcation of this experimental result is needed, I can get my buddies (who always guffaw when this happens) to pledge that these results are repeatble!
GMD
Just think: someday I'll be able to tell my grandkids where I was when I heard the news that a Bill Gates quote was modded as +5 Insightful on slashdot....
GMD
ireland? portugal? bulgaria? jamaica? suriname? senegal? burkina faso? togo? can someone throw us a bone here?! ;-P
Most of those countries do not fall under the category of small western nation.
Burkino Faso always reminds me of The Simpsons
"Three Weeks Later," says a caption on the screen, as Homer sits on the couch and reads a phone bill.
Homer: Burkina Faso? Disputed Zone? Who called all these weird places?
Brain: Quiet, it might be you! I can't remember.
Homer: Naw, I'm going to ask Marge.
Brain: No, no! Why embarrass us both? Just write a check and I'll release some more endorphins.
[Homer scribbles a check, then sighs with pleasure]
GMD