"Guns --designed to "kill"... When used correctly allow an 80 year old woman to be safe in her home(if used properly; which for an 80 year old woman means shooting first fast and accurately)"
Yeah, hi, I love the show, love hearing people's opinions, that's what made this country great. People. And opinions. And stuff. Most of all, guns. I've had it with people whining about 'guns kill people,' guns don't kill people, death kills people. Ask a doctor, it's a medical fact. You can't die from a bullet. You can die from a cardiac arrest or organ failure or a major hemorrhage, small piece of metal ain't the problem. Besides, I only use my machine-gun in the safety of my own home and car. I ain't hurting nobody. And countries that don't have guns ain't American.
I know some of you were thinking about that quote. Admit it.
"A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force."
Above is the definition of police state. Sorry, the USA doesn't fit that description. Your observation that a lot of people are in jail could be easily tied to our strong economy.
"I really wondered why they had to do that. Just eyecandy for the masses to drewl over, I suppose."
Heh I remember a friend of mine commenting on that scene in LotR 2 and saying "Id do that." I found the thought of this guy attempting a move like that to be quite comical.
"Of course, if you don't really "accept" that fact, I seriously doubt you'll be able to completely enjoy the next 2 movies Because it's actually like you said, people will loose interest since of course you'll just know it's really fake."
It really kind of depends on how you accept it. I'm an artist. There's accepting it on an intellectual level, and there's accepting it on a instinctual level.
Let me give you an example: I watch Knight Rider. I get a kick out of it. I think we're all familiar with the premise. (Incidentally, that show makes more sense today than it did when it was aired, thanks to the internet...) We've all seen KITT leap over cars and land safely, right? Unfortunately, the physics of that are a little watered down. In reality, some of the jumps that KITT made would have telescoped Michael Knight's spine. However, they have a magic 'passive laser restaint system' that keeps momentum inside of the cabin pretty reasonable. It's sort of like the 'inertial dampners' on Star Trek. So *blam* Michael Knight's safety is explained, right?
Well sort of. As you said, acceptance is the kicker. First off, I cannot begin to imagine how a 'passive laser' system could prevent somebody's spine from splintering upon impact. Secondly, the way the stunts are performed, you can see the car is a bit overloaded at times and suffers damage. Yet, after a clever edit, the car's just fine! So a lack of plausibility + a flawed execution = somebody who grits his teeth every time he watches a Turbo Boost.
Would a CG car have fixed that problem? Um maybe. Not necessary, though. (not to mention virtualy impossible at the time.) All they needed to do was retool the shot a bit. Anybody remember the movie Lost in Space? No seatbelts, but when the ship crashed everybody was safe in their seats? Don't remember that? I doubt you do. I don't remember anybody noticing that scene. The reason why is that they visually explained why the crew was safe. There's a brief scene where Will Robinson is instructed to turn on his gravity restraint. As he does, there's a sound of some sort of field powerup, and then he gently gets sucked up against the back of his chair like an artificial gravity field had activated. Very simple effect, no digital effects here, just some ordinary acting.
Because of this, there was no need to 'explain away' a bunch of stuff. You saw it, and it was fairly convincing. Suddenly, there's little concern that some boat rocking would flop the crew around.
I'm an artist for a living. I design stuff. I have to fool the eye and then please it. (Now there's an out of context phrase for ya!) One of the harsh lessons I've learned is "If you have to explain why, then you've failed." Okay, that's not an absolute, but it is important to consider when you make something that visually doesn't look right. As mentioned before, it isn't hard to turn people into a bunch of nitpickers for the wrong reasons.
"Is it just me or did the graphics on this game seem dated and bad... Not what I had expected from this group I hope the movie isn't as disappointing."
One of the scenes talked about in the article appeared briefly in the Matrix Superbowl Ad. (sorry, that's the only one I've seen...) He made a comment like "Nobody'll find the transition point from real to CG..."
That scene stood out in my mind because it looked fake. It really did, there was no "How'd they do that?" when that scene aired. But, I'll tell you all something, there's a very real possibility that the reason it looks fake is that we all know on an instinctual level that a human can't do that. Maybe that'll be the charm of it? I dunno.
I'm worried, though, that Matrix Reloaded will overdo it with effects like that. If your brain gets into "Man, everything's fake" mode, suddenly anything that's percieved as wrong (whether it really is or not) will bother the viewer. If they're bothered, they're not enjoying it. Explaination that this is taking place inside of a giant video game may not be enough.
I'm a big fan of subtle effects designed to make something that's not quite plausible happen. Remember Terminator 2? Okay, we don't have the technology to make a 'poly mimetic alloy' that can shapeshift, but we have mercury. Most of us have seen mercury. Seeing it taken a step further into shapeshifting is not totaly unbelievable, and the audience responds with amazement. The battledroids in Episode 1. They have semi-human proportions, but are far too thin to be somebody in a robot costume. Seeing them walking around is a little strainge, but not completely out of the realm of possibility. (as a matter of fact, they have a walking robot today, forget who makes it though...) Anybody remember Lord of the Rings 2? What's his name.. uh.. the long haired dweeb with the semi-automatic bow.. Legolas? Anyway, he mounted his horse in a very peculiar way. He did grabbed it's reins with one arm and with a good yank he rolled up onto the horse's back. That was a digital effect, but most people could see that as a stuntman with a hell of a lot of strength in his arm.
I guess my point is that it's not so impressive to have someting over the top that is too defiant of reality. I hope they'll keep the audience within the realm of possibilty like the first movie did. If they don't, then they can expect a LOT of nitpicking over the effects.
Is that really a big stinking deal in this case? Maybe I'm just going numb to the "It's only good if it's Open Source' crap that keeps flying around here.
P.S. I'm being serious here, I'd really like to know if it's a big deal or not. Not really my intention to troll or be insulting.
Boy this is puzzling. Is everybody going to be happy that the Windows Media stuff will make it's way to Linux, or will they complain that MS is trying to extend it's monopoly? So far it's for Linux based devices, as opposed to the desktop machines. Ah nice ugly mix.
I, for one, think ya'll should be happy about it. It means:
a.) Linux will probably one day support WM formats. Thus no more bitching that you don't have the right OS to watch the cool vids that fly around here sometimes.
b.) MS recognizes that they just can't get everybody to use CE for embedded stuff. Might as well join the crowd, right?
Either way, Linux users win. Put your pitchforks down.
"does anyone else think its a bad idea to name a server "flakey"
The place I used to work for did that. The product we sold was "Smoothmove'. The sysadmin, who had a sense of humor about it, named his servers Bran, Flake, Fiber, Psyullium, etc. Clearly scatological references, but he got away with them. Too bad I got busted when I named a server 'Butthead'.
"I think anyone who calls themselves a "wireless engineer" should be able to figure out how to put an N connector on an Airport. Unless you mean "engineer" in the "sanitation engineer" sense."
Psst, this is an Apple product we're talking about. Titles like engineer are decorative.;)
I would gladly buy your service if you included Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] support. Any hardware that is capable of decoding video can easily decode Vorbis as well. I am not about to re-encode my CD collection to an inferior proprietary format for this feature."
Dear TiVo,
I'll buy your product if you support Ogg Vorbis. I know you won't meet this demand because a.) it's frivolous and b.) because not enough people are using it, but I intend to rack up a good deal of karma whether you support it or not.
"Why dont radio stations fight back and beging to refuse to play songs from copy protected cds? If all radio stations stopped playing those cds would it not follow that record sales would drop?"
a.) The problem's easy enough to fix: Send the radio station a fixed CD-R or even MP3 files. (I know, it's ironic....)
b.) If the radio station doens't play the top music, it has trouble getting advertisers. It'd be kind of like boycotting oxygen over air pollution.
c.) The RIAA's big enough that it won't care. They can out-wait the radio stations. Meanwhile, their music's flying off the shelves.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but the only real way I can see to get the RIAA to change their mind is to get LARGE amounts of people to buy a restricted album and then return it all the next day. If the RIAA saw 100,000 returns one particular day (like the release of a highly anticipated album?) then they'd take notice.
"That's probably because the Linux zealots aren't up to date about the much greater stability of Windows 2k and even to a lesser extent, XP."
Well, that's sort of understandable though. 2k is MUCH more stable (and network friendly) than ME. It is a much stronger OS in nearly every aspect.The problem is that ME came out after 2k. As a result, I can imagine people see how shitty ME is and think "Man, 2k must be worse!" So yea, I could see that.
Still, though, if I'm going to get modded down for making a silly Linux joke from the point of view of a Windows user, then BSOD jokes shouldn't get modded up.
Slashdot Mirror
Jedi Knights.
"I'm known as "bitch"
You said a mouth full.
...you guys actually get called by your title? I usually get called "the internet's down".
I know some of you were thinking about that quote. Admit it.
"A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force."
Above is the definition of police state. Sorry, the USA doesn't fit that description. Your observation that a lot of people are in jail could be easily tied to our strong economy.
"I really wondered why they had to do that. Just eyecandy for the masses to drewl over, I suppose."
Heh I remember a friend of mine commenting on that scene in LotR 2 and saying "Id do that." I found the thought of this guy attempting a move like that to be quite comical.
"Of course, if you don't really "accept" that fact, I seriously doubt you'll be able to completely enjoy the next 2 movies Because it's actually like you said, people will loose interest since of course you'll just know it's really fake."
It really kind of depends on how you accept it. I'm an artist. There's accepting it on an intellectual level, and there's accepting it on a instinctual level.
Let me give you an example: I watch Knight Rider. I get a kick out of it. I think we're all familiar with the premise. (Incidentally, that show makes more sense today than it did when it was aired, thanks to the internet...) We've all seen KITT leap over cars and land safely, right? Unfortunately, the physics of that are a little watered down. In reality, some of the jumps that KITT made would have telescoped Michael Knight's spine. However, they have a magic 'passive laser restaint system' that keeps momentum inside of the cabin pretty reasonable. It's sort of like the 'inertial dampners' on Star Trek. So *blam* Michael Knight's safety is explained, right?
Well sort of. As you said, acceptance is the kicker. First off, I cannot begin to imagine how a 'passive laser' system could prevent somebody's spine from splintering upon impact. Secondly, the way the stunts are performed, you can see the car is a bit overloaded at times and suffers damage. Yet, after a clever edit, the car's just fine! So a lack of plausibility + a flawed execution = somebody who grits his teeth every time he watches a Turbo Boost.
Would a CG car have fixed that problem? Um maybe. Not necessary, though. (not to mention virtualy impossible at the time.) All they needed to do was retool the shot a bit. Anybody remember the movie Lost in Space? No seatbelts, but when the ship crashed everybody was safe in their seats? Don't remember that? I doubt you do. I don't remember anybody noticing that scene. The reason why is that they visually explained why the crew was safe. There's a brief scene where Will Robinson is instructed to turn on his gravity restraint. As he does, there's a sound of some sort of field powerup, and then he gently gets sucked up against the back of his chair like an artificial gravity field had activated. Very simple effect, no digital effects here, just some ordinary acting.
Because of this, there was no need to 'explain away' a bunch of stuff. You saw it, and it was fairly convincing. Suddenly, there's little concern that some boat rocking would flop the crew around.
I'm an artist for a living. I design stuff. I have to fool the eye and then please it. (Now there's an out of context phrase for ya!) One of the harsh lessons I've learned is "If you have to explain why, then you've failed." Okay, that's not an absolute, but it is important to consider when you make something that visually doesn't look right. As mentioned before, it isn't hard to turn people into a bunch of nitpickers for the wrong reasons.
Doh, sorry. Didn't realize you were talking about the game.
"Is it just me or did the graphics on this game seem dated and bad... Not what I had expected from this group I hope the movie isn't as disappointing."
One of the scenes talked about in the article appeared briefly in the Matrix Superbowl Ad. (sorry, that's the only one I've seen...) He made a comment like "Nobody'll find the transition point from real to CG..."
That scene stood out in my mind because it looked fake. It really did, there was no "How'd they do that?" when that scene aired. But, I'll tell you all something, there's a very real possibility that the reason it looks fake is that we all know on an instinctual level that a human can't do that. Maybe that'll be the charm of it? I dunno.
I'm worried, though, that Matrix Reloaded will overdo it with effects like that. If your brain gets into "Man, everything's fake" mode, suddenly anything that's percieved as wrong (whether it really is or not) will bother the viewer. If they're bothered, they're not enjoying it. Explaination that this is taking place inside of a giant video game may not be enough.
I'm a big fan of subtle effects designed to make something that's not quite plausible happen. Remember Terminator 2? Okay, we don't have the technology to make a 'poly mimetic alloy' that can shapeshift, but we have mercury. Most of us have seen mercury. Seeing it taken a step further into shapeshifting is not totaly unbelievable, and the audience responds with amazement. The battledroids in Episode 1. They have semi-human proportions, but are far too thin to be somebody in a robot costume. Seeing them walking around is a little strainge, but not completely out of the realm of possibility. (as a matter of fact, they have a walking robot today, forget who makes it though...) Anybody remember Lord of the Rings 2? What's his name.. uh.. the long haired dweeb with the semi-automatic bow.. Legolas? Anyway, he mounted his horse in a very peculiar way. He did grabbed it's reins with one arm and with a good yank he rolled up onto the horse's back. That was a digital effect, but most people could see that as a stuntman with a hell of a lot of strength in his arm.
I guess my point is that it's not so impressive to have someting over the top that is too defiant of reality. I hope they'll keep the audience within the realm of possibilty like the first movie did. If they don't, then they can expect a LOT of nitpicking over the effects.
"Has anyone started a defense fund?"
You're appealing to a community that is reliant on free software?
"Then don't post AC and somebody might answer."
;)
I'm not AC. AC's don't have user numbers, signatures, post at +2, or spell Anonymous with a V.
Oops I bet you're surprised you got a response.
"Con: Probably NOT going to be open-source."
Is that really a big stinking deal in this case? Maybe I'm just going numb to the "It's only good if it's Open Source' crap that keeps flying around here.
P.S. I'm being serious here, I'd really like to know if it's a big deal or not. Not really my intention to troll or be insulting.
Boy this is puzzling. Is everybody going to be happy that the Windows Media stuff will make it's way to Linux, or will they complain that MS is trying to extend it's monopoly? So far it's for Linux based devices, as opposed to the desktop machines. Ah nice ugly mix.
I, for one, think ya'll should be happy about it. It means:
a.) Linux will probably one day support WM formats. Thus no more bitching that you don't have the right OS to watch the cool vids that fly around here sometimes.
b.) MS recognizes that they just can't get everybody to use CE for embedded stuff. Might as well join the crowd, right?
Either way, Linux users win. Put your pitchforks down.
"does anyone else think its a bad idea to name a server "flakey"
The place I used to work for did that. The product we sold was "Smoothmove'. The sysadmin, who had a sense of humor about it, named his servers Bran, Flake, Fiber, Psyullium, etc. Clearly scatological references, but he got away with them. Too bad I got busted when I named a server 'Butthead'.
"I think anyone who calls themselves a "wireless engineer" should be able to figure out how to put an N connector on an Airport. Unless you mean "engineer" in the "sanitation engineer" sense."
;)
Psst, this is an Apple product we're talking about. Titles like engineer are decorative.
... you know the drill. Pitchforks ready!
"Dear TiVo-
I would gladly buy your service if you included Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] support. Any hardware that is capable of decoding video can easily decode Vorbis as well. I am not about to re-encode my CD collection to an inferior proprietary format for this feature."
Dear TiVo,
I'll buy your product if you support Ogg Vorbis. I know you won't meet this demand because a.) it's frivolous and b.) because not enough people are using it, but I intend to rack up a good deal of karma whether you support it or not.
Yeah, because my serial port, paralell port, floppy drive, and PS/2 port are keeping my computer from evolving to ... uh.. .an iMac!
"Why dont radio stations fight back and beging to refuse to play songs from copy protected cds? If all radio stations stopped playing those cds would it not follow that record sales would drop?"
a.) The problem's easy enough to fix: Send the radio station a fixed CD-R or even MP3 files. (I know, it's ironic....)
b.) If the radio station doens't play the top music, it has trouble getting advertisers. It'd be kind of like boycotting oxygen over air pollution.
c.) The RIAA's big enough that it won't care. They can out-wait the radio stations. Meanwhile, their music's flying off the shelves.
Sorry to be pessimistic, but the only real way I can see to get the RIAA to change their mind is to get LARGE amounts of people to buy a restricted album and then return it all the next day. If the RIAA saw 100,000 returns one particular day (like the release of a highly anticipated album?) then they'd take notice.
"You might wanna change the semicolons to double ampersands."
Imagine how kinky it'd be if he used full colons!
"But legally , it's perfectly legitimate."
If that were true, the volume of spam wouldn't be growing ridiculously. To be legitimate, you have to provide ppl with a way out.
"Seriously, that [Independence Day] was the worst movie ever."
In light of Episode 1, I think not.
"If the aliens would be exploiting that, our computers would be full of alien pr0n, which it isn't the case... Right? RIGHT?"
Uh oh... I think the invasion started in Japan... Damn tentacles!
"The article says that the estimated damages are $150000 per cd with 652000 cds shared."
This is RIAA math. Afterall, a 40x CD burner is really 4 burners.
"That's probably because the Linux zealots aren't up to date about the much greater stability of Windows 2k and even to a lesser extent, XP."
Well, that's sort of understandable though. 2k is MUCH more stable (and network friendly) than ME. It is a much stronger OS in nearly every aspect.The problem is that ME came out after 2k. As a result, I can imagine people see how shitty ME is and think "Man, 2k must be worse!" So yea, I could see that.
Still, though, if I'm going to get modded down for making a silly Linux joke from the point of view of a Windows user, then BSOD jokes shouldn't get modded up.