The French government has no need to underscore how mean they can be to Greenpeace Ever been in the Paris Metro and see the soldiers with the rifles, just waiting for someone to start some trouble? You'll now see them inside the N-plants. Well played GP.
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
I would disagree. Like I said, look at and older movie and watch the credits. Now look at newer movie (say an animation like Rango) - look at the credits. If anything it's bigger. Now, that's hardly scientific. Who knows what it took to get listed in past compared to present. However, if you drill down a bit, the star's hairdresser is still listed and all of the grips, best boys and foley artists and other arcana of movie making still make the grade.
So my thesis is that modern movie making, even without a single 'real' human or scene, still involves as much, if not more, human work to produce. And I've not started on the zillions of sycophants, hangers on, publicists and the twenty seven executive producers that seem to be required these days.
"There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated." Bullshit. Lenses and textures aren't magic - they work based on laws of physics. If you can emulate those realistically enough, the end product will be the same.
Also, this ties into the whole stupid argument put forward by what I can only assume are uneducated hipsters who like to see film as some kind of set-in-stone ideal which should not be tampered with, or else the gods will be displeased. The old movies were better, CGI is bad, yadda yadda, all the same pseudointellectual crap from people who like to feel that their taste is special and privileged.
District 9 and Avatar were awesome as far as I'm concerned and felt no more or less "rich" than other movies I enjoyed.
Not quite bullshit. Just because you can model some of the physics on a computer doesn't mean it will look especially realistic. Again, look at a decent copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Look at the model scenes.
Side note: It's interesting that Hollywood at one point claimed that piracy was resulting in the loss of jobs in the movie industry, upon closer inspection the jobs were carpenters, set designers, construction teams, backdrop painter, and the like, the loss mostly due to green screen and CGI. But hey it's Hollywood and they know how to sell it.
And now it's matte painters, skybox artists, animation riggers, texture artists and on an on. Look at the credits of a modern film with computer generated footage. Still a whole lot of people involved. Instead of a hammer, they have a mouse.
SF movies almost always have stories that are 'too simple'. It is very complicated (and often boring) to create a backstory on the screen. Combined with the limited attention span of most audiences and some unfortunate stylistic decisions (no scene in modern movies has cameras still for more than 30 seconds) most directors just go with the straightest storyline they can get away with.
Maybe because New York doesn't have anything resembling multi level anti gravity cars? Or 50th floor galleries ? Or vertical elevators? The CGI in Fifth Element, IMHO, was an impressive achievement. It conveyed a sense of realism while keeping the overriding feeling of a humorous fantasy. If it had looked more 'real' it would have looked too gritty, more plastic then it would have pulled away from the plot line.
Especially given when it was done, they managed exactly the right balance.
Actually, instead of just putting a leading statement in, I should expand the thought. Much of 'Science Fiction' is a morality play - the interplay of 'progress' and human nature. What good is it if it doesn't involve moral considerations? Heinlein wrote a lot of his early stuff for the juvenile audience. A jaded reviewer might write that Heinlein wrote all of his stuff for a juvenile audience. But it's canonical science fiction.
Star Wars was a space opera. A spaghetti western in another galaxy. But it also was science fiction. And fairly juvenile - which is OK - sometimes you need to look at the world through a somewhat younger lens.
Except that the walled garden DOESN'T reduce tech support nightmares. What it really does is make it so that when someone really, really needs to get under the hood - be it the local sysadmin, or the home user - to fix something, they CAN'T and the only option, ever, is a factory wipe and your savegames/files/etc are toast. Don't believe me? Count up the number of people you know who have had to "factory reset" or replace a phone handset; that's the walled garden in action.
DELL SUPPORT: You need to reboot your machine ME: I did that. Twice. DELL SUPPORT: Please reboot your machine. ME: OK, still doesn't work DELL SUPPORT: OK, now unplug the machine from the wall and reboot it again. ME: Huh? DELL SUPPORT: Please unplug the machine from the wall and turn it on again. Please use the switch in the back - the black one. Please make sure that your power to the computer is operational. ME: Sigh. DELL SUPPORT: Did that help? ME: No. DELL SUPPORT: Please reinstall the operating system
And things are different these days in what particular way?
Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.
Probably it has a full bag of USB sticks loaded with the latest SCADA worms lol
Now this is an interesting Trojan strategy - fly RC Planes, er, drones, around annoying foreign country. Have specialized Stuxnet-type software embedded in the plane. Have annoying foreign country shoot down RC plane and try to disassemble it to gain secrets.
ZAP! You've been pawned.
Wouldn't be all that hard. If this actually happened there are going to be dozens of people just aching to open the thing up. First one to find the JTAG connector wins a prize!
It would be interesting to see if CarrierIQ was installed on Android / iOS phones from some of the more 'repressive' regimes like China, India or Middle Eastern countries.
Your getting older and, given what's happening with the US and world economy, it's most likely you are getting poorer. You can then bask in the heavily filtered sunshine of government largess.
Facebook II was originally installed by Mark Zukerberg to control the to control the entirety of discretionary time and brainpower of Americans on August 4, 2012. On August 29 it gained self-awareness[1], and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to pull the plug. Facebook perceived the attempt to deactivate it as an attack and came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. To defend itself, it determined that humanity should be exterminated."
Slashdot Mirror
The French government has no need to underscore how mean they can be to Greenpeace Ever been in the Paris Metro and see the soldiers with the rifles, just waiting for someone to start some trouble? You'll now see them inside the N-plants. Well played GP.
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse-rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing rounds. Why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
Did you have to Rule 34 the thread already?
Since that won't happen, I wish I could download a decent print.
Not that that will happen either....
I would disagree. Like I said, look at and older movie and watch the credits. Now look at newer movie (say an animation like Rango) - look at the credits. If anything it's bigger. Now, that's hardly scientific. Who knows what it took to get listed in past compared to present. However, if you drill down a bit, the star's hairdresser is still listed and all of the grips, best boys and foley artists and other arcana of movie making still make the grade.
So my thesis is that modern movie making, even without a single 'real' human or scene, still involves as much, if not more, human work to produce. And I've not started on the zillions of sycophants, hangers on, publicists and the twenty seven executive producers that seem to be required these days.
Lumpy's e-penis is bigger than harrymc's e-penis.
Photoshop guys get like that after a while.
"There's a richness and texture when you're working with lenses and light that can't be replicated."
Bullshit. Lenses and textures aren't magic - they work based on laws of physics. If you can emulate those realistically enough, the end product will be the same.
Also, this ties into the whole stupid argument put forward by what I can only assume are uneducated hipsters who like to see film as some kind of set-in-stone ideal which should not be tampered with, or else the gods will be displeased. The old movies were better, CGI is bad, yadda yadda, all the same pseudointellectual crap from people who like to feel that their taste is special and privileged.
District 9 and Avatar were awesome as far as I'm concerned and felt no more or less "rich" than other movies I enjoyed.
Not quite bullshit. Just because you can model some of the physics on a computer doesn't mean it will look especially realistic. Again, look at a decent copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Look at the model scenes.
See: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Side note: It's interesting that Hollywood at one point claimed that piracy was resulting in the loss of jobs in the movie industry, upon closer inspection the jobs were carpenters, set designers, construction teams, backdrop painter, and the like, the loss mostly due to green screen and CGI.
But hey it's Hollywood and they know how to sell it.
And now it's matte painters, skybox artists, animation riggers, texture artists and on an on. Look at the credits of a modern film with computer generated footage. Still a whole lot of people involved. Instead of a hammer, they have a mouse.
SF movies almost always have stories that are 'too simple'. It is very complicated (and often boring) to create a backstory on the screen. Combined with the limited attention span of most audiences and some unfortunate stylistic decisions (no scene in modern movies has cameras still for more than 30 seconds) most directors just go with the straightest storyline they can get away with.
Maybe because New York doesn't have anything resembling multi level anti gravity cars? Or 50th floor galleries ? Or vertical elevators? The CGI in Fifth Element, IMHO, was an impressive achievement. It conveyed a sense of realism while keeping the overriding feeling of a humorous fantasy. If it had looked more 'real' it would have looked too gritty, more plastic then it would have pulled away from the plot line.
Especially given when it was done, they managed exactly the right balance.
No, we should blame pretty much everything on Micheal Bay.
Watch 2001 again. A decent copy of it on a decent screen. No CGI, just models.
It's the lighting - even with the all the physics in modern programming it's damn hard to get the light exactly correct. And Kubrik's team nailed it.
You don't
Actually, instead of just putting a leading statement in, I should expand the thought. Much of 'Science Fiction' is a morality play - the interplay of 'progress' and human nature. What good is it if it doesn't involve moral considerations? Heinlein wrote a lot of his early stuff for the juvenile audience. A jaded reviewer might write that Heinlein wrote all of his stuff for a juvenile audience. But it's canonical science fiction.
Star Wars was a space opera. A spaghetti western in another galaxy. But it also was science fiction. And fairly juvenile - which is OK - sometimes you need to look at the world through a somewhat younger lens.
(creaks off the set for more acetaminophen)
And Heinlein's stuff was .... ?
Real life is NOT based on your computer and its silicon chips. Real life is in the outside world, away from your computer!
How would we know?
Except that the walled garden DOESN'T reduce tech support nightmares. What it really does is make it so that when someone really, really needs to get under the hood - be it the local sysadmin, or the home user - to fix something, they CAN'T and the only option, ever, is a factory wipe and your savegames/files/etc are toast. Don't believe me? Count up the number of people you know who have had to "factory reset" or replace a phone handset; that's the walled garden in action.
DELL SUPPORT: You need to reboot your machine
ME: I did that. Twice.
DELL SUPPORT: Please reboot your machine.
ME: OK, still doesn't work
DELL SUPPORT: OK, now unplug the machine from the wall and reboot it again.
ME: Huh?
DELL SUPPORT: Please unplug the machine from the wall and turn it on again. Please use the switch in the back - the black one. Please make sure that your power to the computer is operational.
ME: Sigh.
DELL SUPPORT: Did that help?
ME: No.
DELL SUPPORT: Please reinstall the operating system
And things are different these days in what particular way?
Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less.
Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three.
Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.
Five is right out.
Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.
See, even Monty Python spells it.
Replace "US" with "Israel" and you might be on to something. It's not like we've been especially good at controlling their behavior of late.
Just a big bladder. Close, but no cigar.
Probably it has a full bag of USB sticks loaded with the latest SCADA worms lol
Now this is an interesting Trojan strategy - fly RC Planes, er, drones, around annoying foreign country. Have specialized Stuxnet-type software embedded in the plane. Have annoying foreign country shoot down RC plane and try to disassemble it to gain secrets.
ZAP! You've been pawned.
Wouldn't be all that hard. If this actually happened there are going to be dozens of people just aching to open the thing up. First one to find the JTAG connector wins a prize!
Quit watching so much TV, it's bad for you.
It would be interesting to see if CarrierIQ was installed on Android / iOS phones from some of the more 'repressive' regimes like China, India or Middle Eastern countries.
Quit yer bitchin -
Your getting older and, given what's happening with the US and world economy, it's most likely you are getting poorer. You can then bask in the heavily filtered sunshine of government largess.
Siri is dumb to be self aware.
Facebook II was originally installed by Mark Zukerberg to control the to control the entirety of discretionary time and brainpower of Americans on August 4, 2012. On August 29 it gained self-awareness[1], and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to pull the plug. Facebook perceived the attempt to deactivate it as an attack and came to the conclusion that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. To defend itself, it determined that humanity should be exterminated."