Unfortunately, he gives himself credit where credit is not due.
I said that there would be a crisis in the Linux community thanks to the SCO threat, and that some new governing structure would emerge as a result. At the time I wrote that, I thought Open Source Development Labs was stepping-up to take some semblance of control of Linux through its hiring of Linus Torvalds. This one is hard to call, but I think I got it more right than wrong. Certainly, Linus' move to OSDL was prompted mainly by the SCO lawsuit, since OSDL offered to pay his legal fees and Transmeta, his former employer, did not. So the SCO link is definitely there. And OSDL, as a result of having Linus on staff, has doubled its corporate membership and is taking a much more influential role in vetting Linux distributions. So while it didn't go as far as I'd hoped, I'm going to claim this one.
"I'm going to claim this one, even though I can't tell the difference between a crisis and a sideshow, nor do I have any idea how linux is actually developed."
Aside from the current realities you describe (which, I'd have to agree, are a pretty big obstacle), his statement contains a lot of sense. To me, the weakest part of my laptop experience is battery life, how long I can stay untethered. In my mind Linux could be the OS best suited to address this because of it's reputation for functioning well on less powerful hardware. And in general, slower cpus consume less power.
I don't have a lot of technical expertise in this area, so if I'm way off base, go ahead and shoot me down.
MWSF is more than just another trade show. I don't think I can explain it to you, if you haven't sipped the koolaid. Last year I went on a road trip with two friends and we met up with a bunch of other friends from a Mac forum. One night, we had a big dinner, and pretty much took over a chinese restaurant (House of Nanking, which I recommend.)
Of course, part of the attraction is that it's in SF. I don't think it would be as attractive a proposition if it was held in San Jose.
Unfortunately, finances prevent me from going this year. I'm saving up for something else.
But didn't Apple release patches within 3 days? And this MS vulnerability is 3 months old with no patch in sight? Sounds like we proprietary Apple software users do have a healthier ecosystem. So by that measure, your reputed "fanboyism" is promoting a healthy software ecosystem. =)
Those are the same browsers I use, with Safari seeing the most use. Interestingly, I recently found that my bank and Safari have problems when I want to transfer funds from one account to another, but Firefox works fine. I can still check my balances with Safari.
I just e-mailed Steve Jobs basically the same thing about the Safari Browser. If Apple ever hopes to make it into the enterprise, they're going to have to include at least equivalent functionality for developers to, er, exploit.
Anyway, flaming aside, I took the time to look up rotoscoping on wikipedia, and found that roto was first used by Max Fleischer, circa 1914.
The article makes no mention of either Cinderella or Fantasia, instead pointing to Disney's use of roto in Snow White, (1937). So it's quite possible that I was completely wrong about the use of roto in MY ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIES, Cinderella and Fantasia. =) (That was my way of pwntoring myself as amends.)
Anyway, my point still stands, even if my examples were off a bit. Roto has been an animation tool from very early on.
#4 I argue elsewhere that Ridley Scott stayed true to PKD*, despite, or even because of the way he transposed the emotional meaning of Decker/the androids. Pretty much all the others I've seen I'd agree with you. *(I'm refering to the director's cut. The studio version was an abortion.)
Furthermore, stripping elements is pretty much a given when adapting any novel to the screen. The key to a good adaptation seems to be knowing which elements are essential and which aren't. So, yes, there are huge amounts of material missing from Bladerunner, and I'm sure we all have our favorite bits that were left out (I especially missed the Penfield Mood Organ), but that's pretty much the way it goes, unless you're talking Elmore Leonard.
Anyway, by this criteria, all adaptions must fail it.
#3. This is a failing of your imagination, not mine.
#2. A big budget movie will suffer from exactly the problems that Paycheck, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc., etc. suffer from. A big budget scanner darkly will be burdened by flashy special effects and the twisted story itself will be jettisoned in favor of some formulaic doppelganger abortion because with so much money on the line, the studio will be nervous. In the big budget version, Bob Arctor kicks his substance D addiction by the end of second act, kills the Islamic terrorist drug manufacturers that killed his best friend Jerry with invisible bio-engineered aphids in the first act and finally marries Donna, and they all live happily ever after. The only chance this project stands of succeeding on our terms is if it's a low budget prestige project that stays mostly under the radar of the execs, lawyers, and bean counters.
#1. You've got me there. I'm pretty worried about this aspect. I can think of a hundred name actors they might have gotten. Why not Ed Norton? Why Keanu? As far as I am concerned, the three actors that would stand the best chance of totally wrecking this movie are Keanu, Matt Damon, and Ben Afleck. Shit! I think I'd rather see Jean Claude Van Damme in the role.
Still, the rest of the cast sounds incredibly impressive, so I still hope for the best.
I flame you in another thread, but here I must humbly thank you for that link. And also for the well chosen excerpt. I think the best thing I can say here is that you, too, are covered in aphids.
If you haven't pieced it together from the various posts, Linkletter uses some custom rotoscoping software created by a programmer in Austin, Tx. It was first used on a full length feature in Waking Life, Linkletter's off-beat (or beat off, according to some) and idiosyncratic meditation on the nature of reality (nobody can accuse Linkletter of being unambitious!).
I'm not sure what capture medium was used to collect the source footage for "Scanner Darkly", but they used consumer grade DV cameras for "Waking Life".
Part of the overall style of "Waking Life" was the various styles that each artist used to interpret the the scene he or she was working on. Each artist was given a good deal of license. This certainly worked well with the non conventional structure of the movie, which loosely followed that of Linkletter's first feature, Slacker.
Apparently, "Scanner Darkly" will have a more consistent style through out, as it's structure will probably adhere more closely to what we normally consider narrative.
I think Linkletter is using this technique mostly because a straight live action technique risks turning the material into just another cheesy sci-fi flic (cf Total Recall, Paycheck, and Minority Report, etc. Also, the special effects will be a lot cheaper. =)
Bob Arctor: Open up, man, it's me, Bob. Charles Freck: Bob's not here, man.
If I was filming it (thank god I'm not), Up in Smoke would have been my main visual inspiration!
Actually, I think I know what you mean. It's the blasted smog-filtered light, the haze that blankets Los Angeles in the summer, blasting off the tops of cars and the rear windows of the cars all around you as your piece-of-shit car crawls a yard at a time on the 5 past the old Firestone Tire Factory with it's images of Assyrian warriors baking in the heat under a sky only the most charitable would ever call blue. You no longer smell your perspiration dripping down from your armpits because the exhaust fumes have been filling your nose and making you giddy since you passed USC/County General Hospital. The fumes make your eyes sting and water, but all you can think about is that hit of slow death that awaits you at a non-descript pad on the outskirts of Buena Park.
Oh, wait. That's from the script that William Gibson wrote for Cheech and Chong. Too bad it never made it out of development. =)
Another genius chimes in. Thanks for joining our discussion Professor rayman. Would you care to elaborate on your seemingly nonsensical comparison? I'm sure that with a mind as subtle as yours you can explain how a derivative novelty product that came after punk was dead (or at least after the fact of punk; one can argue endlessly about actual dates*) equates with pioneering work.
I'm not an expert in animation by any means, but I do know enough to know when I read the spoutings of the ignorant.
*many point to 1978, the year the Sex Pistols came to the New York, as the termination of Punk, while others place the year as late as 1982, when the O.C. Nazi movement effectively throttled the last remnants in Los Angeles.
Oh, wait. You used the term "Punk/No Wave", which indicates you're more interested in "Stye". Nevermind. Go back to listening to your 80's nostalgia rock and watching your John Hughes movies.
Another favorite of mine is "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said", in which the protagonist is a uber-famous celebrity, a Somebody with a capital S, who wakes up in a flop house one morning to discover that he is quite literally a nobody. He has no identification papers and no one recognizes him.
One of the major characters is a Chief of Police.
One of the interesting things about Dick's work that might be considered hackery, yet transcends hackery, is his recycling of various elements. The reason it is transcendant is because the plots themselves are not the most important. The subtext is.
This is why Ridley Scott could thematically switch the roles of Decker and the androids. In DADoES, it is the androids that are void of empathy. In Bladerunner, it is Decker that is more inhuman and unfeeling than the androids. Yet Scott is able to render a film that is true to the spirit of PKD, that makes us question what it is to be human.
Heh, the sermon is now over. What do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
I had this friend who's an English/Comp Lit prof that gave a senior seminar entitled "Dick and Derrida" some years back. I heard from some of his students that it was a pretty cool class.
Downey as Barris is brilliant casting. I can't think of a single big name actor that would be a better fit. But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
Except rotoscoping has been part of the animation tool chest for years, going back to Disney's Cinderella (1950), Fantasia (1940) and earlier. So to say that roto is not animation is to exhibit extreme ignorance of animation as an art form.
My recent experience with my TiBook was this: The battery contact had come loose, so I sent it in (on a Friday) under Applecare. I got it back the next Tuesday, and the very first thing I noticed was that they had removed the 3rd party RAM (2 x 512) and placed it in a pink bag attached to a note that said that the RAM was the culprit. I almost hit the roof until I actually examined the computer. The loose contact had been fixed. The keyboard, that had a tiny tiny melt mark on the f11 key from a cigarette ash, had been replaced. Then I noticed that the whole bottom part of the case had been replaced! The minor cosmetic dings and scratches were gone! I thought for a second that they had just thrown my HD into a completely new Tibook, but the almost imperceptible hairline scratches on the lid were still there.
So, before I called to tear someone a new one, I popped in the "bad" RAM. I was good to go! Everything worked perfectly.
I was still concerned about the RAM, though, so I called. The service rep said that the repair techs were just covering their ass, and that my RAM was most likely fine. He suggested using TechTool Deluxe (which is included with the Applecare extended warranty) to test it, and it tested fine. He also told me that the repair techs do have their own "known good" RAM that they pop in for diagnosis and testing, so it really wasn't a problem.
So I don't think they'd actually void your warranty if you use 3rd party RAM, but if you got a pissant repair tech*, they certainly could use this as an excuse to draw the process out and send your machine back to you.
Which is why one should keep a hold of the original RAM. However, if the problem really is with the 3rd party RAM, they wouldn't be able to diagnose the problem if one were to follow your advice. I guess one could try to determine this themselves beforehand. Still, in my case, if I had switched the RAM first, as you suggested, I probably could have saved my self from having all the veins in my forehead pop out. =)
Bottom line is: hold onto that factory installed RAM!
At any rate, this is my second Applecare repair, and I'm really glad that I spent the extra money on Applecare.
*In my experience, the tech support at Apple has always been good to excellent and everyone I've spoken to there spoke clear understandable English. I've only had to call them for hardware support, so I couldn't tell you what software support is like.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, he gives himself credit where credit is not due.
I said that there would be a crisis in the Linux community thanks to the SCO threat, and that some new governing structure would emerge as a result. At the time I wrote that, I thought Open Source Development Labs was stepping-up to take some semblance of control of Linux through its hiring of Linus Torvalds. This one is hard to call, but I think I got it more right than wrong. Certainly, Linus' move to OSDL was prompted mainly by the SCO lawsuit, since OSDL offered to pay his legal fees and Transmeta, his former employer, did not. So the SCO link is definitely there. And OSDL, as a result of having Linus on staff, has doubled its corporate membership and is taking a much more influential role in vetting Linux distributions. So while it didn't go as far as I'd hoped, I'm going to claim this one.
"I'm going to claim this one, even though I can't tell the difference between a crisis and a sideshow, nor do I have any idea how linux is actually developed."
Duh! wintermute is a girl (ai) name!
=)
Their decent idea was to buy Bungie, which was already developing Halo for the Mac at the time.
I use a buckling spring keyboard
That sounds like an event at the nerd rodeo. =)
Now that's a curious statement.
Aside from the current realities you describe (which, I'd have to agree, are a pretty big obstacle), his statement contains a lot of sense. To me, the weakest part of my laptop experience is battery life, how long I can stay untethered. In my mind Linux could be the OS best suited to address this because of it's reputation for functioning well on less powerful hardware. And in general, slower cpus consume less power.
I don't have a lot of technical expertise in this area, so if I'm way off base, go ahead and shoot me down.
MWSF is more than just another trade show. I don't think I can explain it to you, if you haven't sipped the koolaid. Last year I went on a road trip with two friends and we met up with a bunch of other friends from a Mac forum. One night, we had a big dinner, and pretty much took over a chinese restaurant (House of Nanking, which I recommend.)
Of course, part of the attraction is that it's in SF. I don't think it would be as attractive a proposition if it was held in San Jose.
Unfortunately, finances prevent me from going this year. I'm saving up for something else.
Hey, get your own fuckin' rock!! This one's mine! =)
I didn't know who he was either, at the time, and I too thought the Garage Band portion of the presentation was weak.
But didn't Apple release patches within 3 days? And this MS vulnerability is 3 months old with no patch in sight? Sounds like we proprietary Apple software users do have a healthier ecosystem. So by that measure, your reputed "fanboyism" is promoting a healthy software ecosystem. =)
Those are the same browsers I use, with Safari seeing the most use. Interestingly, I recently found that my bank and Safari have problems when I want to transfer funds from one account to another, but Firefox works fine. I can still check my balances with Safari.
I just e-mailed Steve Jobs basically the same thing about the Safari Browser. If Apple ever hopes to make it into the enterprise, they're going to have to include at least equivalent functionality for developers to, er, exploit.
muHUZ
mehiz
emmmmmshz
=)
This retarded moment brought to you by the O'Really Factor.
Anyway, flaming aside, I took the time to look up rotoscoping on wikipedia, and found that roto was first used by Max Fleischer, circa 1914.
The article makes no mention of either Cinderella or Fantasia, instead pointing to Disney's use of roto in Snow White, (1937). So it's quite possible that I was completely wrong about the use of roto in MY ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIES, Cinderella and Fantasia. =) (That was my way of pwntoring myself as amends.)
Anyway, my point still stands, even if my examples were off a bit. Roto has been an animation tool from very early on.
#5 Irrelevant.
#4 I argue elsewhere that Ridley Scott stayed true to PKD*, despite, or even because of the way he transposed the emotional meaning of Decker/the androids. Pretty much all the others I've seen I'd agree with you. *(I'm refering to the director's cut. The studio version was an abortion.)
Furthermore, stripping elements is pretty much a given when adapting any novel to the screen. The key to a good adaptation seems to be knowing which elements are essential and which aren't. So, yes, there are huge amounts of material missing from Bladerunner, and I'm sure we all have our favorite bits that were left out (I especially missed the Penfield Mood Organ), but that's pretty much the way it goes, unless you're talking Elmore Leonard.
Anyway, by this criteria, all adaptions must fail it.
#3. This is a failing of your imagination, not mine.
#2. A big budget movie will suffer from exactly the problems that Paycheck, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc., etc. suffer from. A big budget scanner darkly will be burdened by flashy special effects and the twisted story itself will be jettisoned in favor of some formulaic doppelganger abortion because with so much money on the line, the studio will be nervous. In the big budget version, Bob Arctor kicks his substance D addiction by the end of second act, kills the Islamic terrorist drug manufacturers that killed his best friend Jerry with invisible bio-engineered aphids in the first act and finally marries Donna, and they all live happily ever after. The only chance this project stands of succeeding on our terms is if it's a low budget prestige project that stays mostly under the radar of the execs, lawyers, and bean counters.
#1. You've got me there. I'm pretty worried about this aspect. I can think of a hundred name actors they might have gotten. Why not Ed Norton? Why Keanu? As far as I am concerned, the three actors that would stand the best chance of totally wrecking this movie are Keanu, Matt Damon, and Ben Afleck. Shit! I think I'd rather see Jean Claude Van Damme in the role.
Still, the rest of the cast sounds incredibly impressive, so I still hope for the best.
I flame you in another thread, but here I must humbly thank you for that link. And also for the well chosen excerpt. I think the best thing I can say here is that you, too, are covered in aphids.
If you haven't pieced it together from the various posts, Linkletter uses some custom rotoscoping software created by a programmer in Austin, Tx. It was first used on a full length feature in Waking Life, Linkletter's off-beat (or beat off, according to some) and idiosyncratic meditation on the nature of reality (nobody can accuse Linkletter of being unambitious!).
I'm not sure what capture medium was used to collect the source footage for "Scanner Darkly", but they used consumer grade DV cameras for "Waking Life".
Part of the overall style of "Waking Life" was the various styles that each artist used to interpret the the scene he or she was working on. Each artist was given a good deal of license. This certainly worked well with the non conventional structure of the movie, which loosely followed that of Linkletter's first feature, Slacker.
Apparently, "Scanner Darkly" will have a more consistent style through out, as it's structure will probably adhere more closely to what we normally consider narrative.
I think Linkletter is using this technique mostly because a straight live action technique risks turning the material into just another cheesy sci-fi flic (cf Total Recall, Paycheck, and Minority Report, etc. Also, the special effects will be a lot cheaper. =)
But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
Bob Arctor: Open up, man, it's me, Bob.
Charles Freck: Bob's not here, man.
If I was filming it (thank god I'm not), Up in Smoke would have been my main visual inspiration!
Actually, I think I know what you mean. It's the blasted smog-filtered light, the haze that blankets Los Angeles in the summer, blasting off the tops of cars and the rear windows of the cars all around you as your piece-of-shit car crawls a yard at a time on the 5 past the old Firestone Tire Factory with it's images of Assyrian warriors baking in the heat under a sky only the most charitable would ever call blue. You no longer smell your perspiration dripping down from your armpits because the exhaust fumes have been filling your nose and making you giddy since you passed USC/County General Hospital. The fumes make your eyes sting and water, but all you can think about is that hit of slow death that awaits you at a non-descript pad on the outskirts of Buena Park.
Oh, wait. That's from the script that William Gibson wrote for Cheech and Chong. Too bad it never made it out of development. =)
But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
Another genius chimes in. Thanks for joining our discussion Professor rayman. Would you care to elaborate on your seemingly nonsensical comparison? I'm sure that with a mind as subtle as yours you can explain how a derivative novelty product that came after punk was dead (or at least after the fact of punk; one can argue endlessly about actual dates*) equates with pioneering work.
I'm not an expert in animation by any means, but I do know enough to know when I read the spoutings of the ignorant.
*many point to 1978, the year the Sex Pistols came to the New York, as the termination of Punk, while others place the year as late as 1982, when the O.C. Nazi movement effectively throttled the last remnants in Los Angeles.
Oh, wait. You used the term "Punk/No Wave", which indicates you're more interested in "Stye". Nevermind. Go back to listening to your 80's nostalgia rock and watching your John Hughes movies.
Another favorite of mine is "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said", in which the protagonist is a uber-famous celebrity, a Somebody with a capital S, who wakes up in a flop house one morning to discover that he is quite literally a nobody. He has no identification papers and no one recognizes him.
One of the major characters is a Chief of Police.
One of the interesting things about Dick's work that might be considered hackery, yet transcends hackery, is his recycling of various elements. The reason it is transcendant is because the plots themselves are not the most important. The subtext is.
This is why Ridley Scott could thematically switch the roles of Decker and the androids. In DADoES, it is the androids that are void of empathy. In Bladerunner, it is Decker that is more inhuman and unfeeling than the androids. Yet Scott is able to render a film that is true to the spirit of PKD, that makes us question what it is to be human.
Heh, the sermon is now over. What do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
I'm a certified Dick nut
The proper term is Dick Head. =)
The cashier at Dark Carnival in Berkeley called me this circa 1988 when I brought a bunch of PKD books up to the counter.
But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
I had this friend who's an English/Comp Lit prof that gave a senior seminar entitled "Dick and Derrida" some years back. I heard from some of his students that it was a pretty cool class.
Downey as Barris is brilliant casting. I can't think of a single big name actor that would be a better fit. But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
He actually did a very good job of pointing out the deeper issues without spoiling anything. But what do I know? I'm covered in aphids.
Thanks for clearing that up. And all this time I thought that Cinderella (1950) and Fantasia (1940) were classics of animation.
I'm glad we have scholars of animation like you around to dispel these myths and reveal Disney for the hoax he was.
Except rotoscoping has been part of the animation tool chest for years, going back to Disney's Cinderella (1950), Fantasia (1940) and earlier. So to say that roto is not animation is to exhibit extreme ignorance of animation as an art form.
Sorry to hear it, man. If I was going to MWSF this year (I'm not . . .) I'd light a candle for it at the Steve Jobs shrine. =)
I though Asteroid was audio in only, but then, I'm making an assumption based on another rumor of which I don't even remember all the details. =)
My recent experience with my TiBook was this: The battery contact had come loose, so I sent it in (on a Friday) under Applecare. I got it back the next Tuesday, and the very first thing I noticed was that they had removed the 3rd party RAM (2 x 512) and placed it in a pink bag attached to a note that said that the RAM was the culprit. I almost hit the roof until I actually examined the computer. The loose contact had been fixed. The keyboard, that had a tiny tiny melt mark on the f11 key from a cigarette ash, had been replaced. Then I noticed that the whole bottom part of the case had been replaced! The minor cosmetic dings and scratches were gone! I thought for a second that they had just thrown my HD into a completely new Tibook, but the almost imperceptible hairline scratches on the lid were still there.
So, before I called to tear someone a new one, I popped in the "bad" RAM. I was good to go! Everything worked perfectly.
I was still concerned about the RAM, though, so I called. The service rep said that the repair techs were just covering their ass, and that my RAM was most likely fine. He suggested using TechTool Deluxe (which is included with the Applecare extended warranty) to test it, and it tested fine. He also told me that the repair techs do have their own "known good" RAM that they pop in for diagnosis and testing, so it really wasn't a problem.
So I don't think they'd actually void your warranty if you use 3rd party RAM, but if you got a pissant repair tech*, they certainly could use this as an excuse to draw the process out and send your machine back to you.
Which is why one should keep a hold of the original RAM. However, if the problem really is with the 3rd party RAM, they wouldn't be able to diagnose the problem if one were to follow your advice. I guess one could try to determine this themselves beforehand. Still, in my case, if I had switched the RAM first, as you suggested, I probably could have saved my self from having all the veins in my forehead pop out. =)
Bottom line is: hold onto that factory installed RAM!
At any rate, this is my second Applecare repair, and I'm really glad that I spent the extra money on Applecare.
*In my experience, the tech support at Apple has always been good to excellent and everyone I've spoken to there spoke clear understandable English. I've only had to call them for hardware support, so I couldn't tell you what software support is like.