Look at Citizen Kane (I'm sure you have). It had far more different camera angles and movements than this movie appears to have.
And were you able to tell that from seeing the trailer for Citizen Kane? No, you had to watch the movie. In fact, not one shot from the movie was in the trailer. How can you judge this one so matter-of-factly off of the trailer? This probably isn't your movie, and it would be no fun to go see it so you can pick it apart, but you might at least want to withhold judgment on things like technique until you have. It is like the people bashing Michael Moore's film who haven't seen it.
I tried to address your concerns. As I wrote, those are shots used to establish the style of the film and that is why those stood out to me, but the film isn't limited to just those shots. In fact, I just watched the trailer again and there are plenty of different shots in that. Such as the aerial shot rotating over the flying ships pulling generators out of the ground, the man standing on the sidewalk as the planes zoom past, the plane flying through the falling sign, the over-the-shoulder of the huge robot looking down on the police barricade, etc. You may find it boring, but you can't say there is a "complete lack of different camera angles" or that "every shot of a person was basically level... or close ups." That is flat out wrong.
I am not saying the movie sucks.
I'm confused then, because you also say it is "very amateurish", it has "boring photography and unrealistic editing", and the blue screening is "just bad." Those seem like simply more specific ways of saying it sucks. In fact, you call it boring and unrealistic right after writing you aren't saying it sucks. Was that intended as irony?
The few old films I like are by directors who were innovative, who used the camera to tell a story, not merely record it: Capra, Hitchcock, Welles.
Which is why Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors. Which is why I really like Wes Anderson, Schyamalan, and a few other young directors: they use the camera, scene composition, and the craft of filmmaking to tell their stories. And that is why I like Sky Captain.
[F]rom the trailers... the melding of the actors to their backgrounds... was just bad. Also... what struck me is the complete lack of different camera angles... the movie... looked very amateurish.
Have you ever seen a film from the Golden Age? That was intentional. This film, as the title suggests, models itself on the films of the Golden Age, borrowing from comics, pulp fiction, and movie serials of the time for its plot, characters, and style (much like Star Wars). It basically takes the Golden Age style, which was very actor-centric, and supercharges the other elements, like the scenery and special effects, updating it where it helps to tell a more convincing tale and using the less-realistic style of filmmaking to help make the story more realistic rather than less, by tying into our impressions of the 30's and 40's. It is similar to what Joss Whedon has done with Firefly, using Old Western film techniques and elements to create a future that we already know.
Did you notice the lighting, how the upper half of the actors' faces were illuminated? You don't get that by accident, it was mimicking the style of Golden Age films, which adapted lighting designs from theatre, which were designed to highlight an actor's expressions, rather than modern lighting, which uses a realistic style, providing fuller illumination and blending it in to look natural.
You picked up on the camera angles, which were designed to look like shots from the Golden Age. Sure, it is easier for them to do fewer angles (less backgrounds to generate), but if that was the motivation, they would have included more moving camera work. Instead they used more fixed camera shots and framed them in a similar style to the Golden Age, which focuses on the actors. This again borrows from theatre, where the actors are responsible for pulling the audience into the store rather than the sets and props. And for the same reason.
Thirdly, you'll notice that the dialogue is styled after Golden Age films. Not just in the lack of swearing, phrasing, and gender roles, but also in the expositional dialogue. Expositional dialogue in a modern movie is used to introduce elements of character or plot (often crudely), but in this movie it is often used to introduce the scenery. This again is similar to theatre or radio dramas that Golden Age films borrowed so heavily from, where the writer has to use the actor to introduce elements or details of the environment to the audience that were too difficult or impossible (radio) to portray very well otherwise.
As for your comment about the actors not blending into their surroundings, I think you are again holding the wrong end of the stick. Golden Age films, due to film stock, lenses, and whatnot (style choices), where often shot with a soft focus and the ample lighting would give actors a glow or fuzziness about the edges. You see the same effect used here. This obviates the need for them to integrate the actors with the scenes, because they are supposed to stand out.
All that said, this is a modern film and the director, while adopting a Golden Age style, doesn't limit himself to that style. There are some amazing flying action sequences with the camera following the plane and the sets and robots are very well done.
I was simply having too much fun when I saw it to assess the film critically (I really want to see it again), but I was very impressed with the production of the film. The "problems" you noted are not amateurish but auteurish and this is an amazingly accomplished directorial debut for Kerry Conran. I think that he has the potential to join Wes Anderson and M. Night Shyamalan at the top of the list of director's able to craft impressive, quirky, uniquely-styled, and above all fun films.
Exactly. There were moderates gaining power in Iran (including their president), but after the Axis of Evil and Iraq, the Iranian religious right cracked down and eliminated most moderate voices from the ballots, as I recall. Now we have few diplomacy options and the hardliners have reasserted control. Not to mention giving them top secret intel through Chalabi and revealing that we had broken their highest encryption. No diplomatic options and no intel is a very bad place to be.
Here's a little history for you: the Bush administration has already decided North Korea is a nuclear power. What we are doing is #4, not #3. The Axis of Evil crap pissed off those countries and severely limited our diplomacy options (especially with Iran), while our Iraq adventure has limited our military options. Bush is not the foreign policy expert his "War on Terra" would lead you to believe.
Let's say an undecided person watches the movie the day before. The day of the election he comes in all pissed off about Bush. His Co-worker then points to one of the numberous sites calling the movie a "work of fiction" with source to reputable newspapers, etc.
You're right, they need to air it two days before the election. That way, the undecided person's other co-worker can point out the web sites debunking the site debunking the movie. Then, the undecided person will be all pissed off with Bush and his conservative co-worker. Obviously, three days would be disastrous.
He'll then go into the voting booth feeling like he was lied to, and will NOT be trusting of the other candidate, i.e., Kerry.
So, if I lie to you, will you hold it against Kerry as well? This amazing reasoning ability is why George W. Bush will get elected and why most of the population thinks Saddam was working with Al-Qaeda.
I just saw the translated trailer and I am filled with dread. It looks like they have completely mashed it up. Former lover? Hover cars? The secret of Appleseed? WTF? I still can't wait to see it for the eye candy, but I have some serious misgivings about the story. Damn, I hope there is an Appleseed series!
The TV series is much closer to Shirow's work than the movie. I suppose the movie was good, but after having read the manga, it was a let down for me. It has been a while since I've watched it, but I remember feeling it pandered to its audience, that it was mostly eye candy without the complexity and depth of the manga. Perhaps it was more the result of trying to cram 300+ pages of manga into one movie.
The TV series, however, gave me the same feeling that I had when reading the manga. The complex characters, the intertwining plots, it is really great. If you liked GitS:SAC, you should really read the original manga.
I have high hopes for the 2nd GitS movie. Hopefully, with the universe already established by the first movie and the TV series, they can focus on plot.
And I also am really looking forward to the Appleseed movie, although I fear some of the same problems as the first GitS movie (and the first Appleseed movie, really). I really hope that Appleseed will get a TV series, too. It is simply too big for a movie (as the first version showed). Maybe the animators can pick up the ball where Shirow left it and run with it (much like Gits: I much prefer GitS:SAC and 2nd Gig to Man-Machine Interface, which I haven't been able to finish reading).
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Where did you get Apple is attaching XML metadata to every file from? I am 99% sure that is complete BS. Spotlight will be creating indexes for files based on their content. XML shouldn't enter into it. How did this get rated so high?
I get back in after an hour or so and check the PMC. I unplug it and try turning it on, it doesn't come on, I take the battery out and pop it back in, still nothing. Keep the battery out and plug it in, still nothing, then I pull the power out slowly and with the plug in half way the screen goes white. I was baffled. I thought the device might be dead. After letting it charge again for another hour or so I tried again, still nothing. I tried some tricks to get it to turn on that sometimes work with electronics and such. Like holding the power button in and popping the battery in and plugging it in, trying the reset button, holding the Start (aka green) button and pressing power, everything I could come up with. Finally, somehow the device turned on.
Glad to see Microsoft has retained their legendary ease-of-use! Man, my iPod sucks, it doesn't even have a reset button.
It sounds like you should read the Timothy Zahn books. I only read a few Star Wars books, but these were far and away the best. I really hoped they would be 7-9, but they are set 5 years or so after RotJ, so by now you would have to get other actors. I suppose it could work (I really wouldn't mind with Luke), but I really wanted to see Harrison Ford as Han Solo again.
To answer your question directly, however, you just need a bit more context. The Empire suffered a great defeat at the end of RotJ, but they still have a lot of resources. Think of after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine and a bunch of other countries became independent, but Russia still has the bulk of the power.
Or even better yet, look at Nazi Germany after WWII. There are all kinds of books and films about plots by Nazis trying to resurrect the Third Reich. That is basically what these books are about. An extremely intelligent and cunning general, who was basically held back by the Empire bureaucracy, still has an Imperial Star Destroyer, a small fleet, and a plan to push the Republic back off the top of the hill. I can't remember them very well now, but I remember liking them as much as the original movies. Trust me, you are much better reading these than seeing 1-3. I think Timothy Zahn should write books for 1-3 and we can just ignore those movies.
This is insane! Who the hell marked it interesting instead of troll or flamebait? Because it is marked up and because the other replies haven't covered all the holes, I'll reply. But if you have moderation points, just mark the parent down.
So a puny box-cutter was enough to threaten a planeful.
Read the 9/11 report. They had six inch knives! There was only a couple of box-cutters. And they claimed to have bombs. If some one claims to have a bomb, are you going to challenge them if you think you have a chance of making it out alive? Do you play Russian roulette often?
The 9/11 attacks were made possible because the natural right of carrying weapons for self-defense and defense of others was denied the (regular, law-abiding) passengers.
Hmm, as I recall most of the terrorists were regular, law-abiding passengers with the exception of a couple visa violations. And before you suggest profiling brown-skinned people from Muslim countries, don't forget that Timothy McVeigh and his friends would also love your new carry laws.
Besides, even if you are miraculously able to keep all weapons out of the hands of terrorists before letting them on board our airplanes, you've still made their job infinitely easier. How much chance do you think the average person would have against somebody who has been training for years in warfare and hand-to-hand combat, who has likely even been involved in combat? You might as well put guns on the snack tray and run them down the aisle as allow people to carry them on board. And have you ever tried to use a holstered weapon while crammed between two other people in an airplane seat? How do you expect that to work?
The real key to preventing another 9/11 is to not allow the terrorists on our planes in the first place. Of course, your suggestion does nothing to prevent that and instead makes it easier when they do get on.
"[F]rangible" ammo breaks up on impact and won't punch holes in walls, nor ricochet.
Even at extremely close range? Do you really think an airplane is made to resist an internal gunfight, even if the ammunition is frangible?
Besides all of those problems, do you really think they are going to do the exact same thing they did the last time? Do you think that was the only hole in our homeland security? The really sad part of this whole suggestion is that I have seen other people make it. Can we setup a remote island for all the people who think they are G.I. Joe so that the rest of us can live in peace?
The original plan was to offer twice as many shares in a dutch auction. In this type of auction the price is bid down instead of up until the entire lot of shares is sold.
That isn't how this type of Dutch auction (i.e., one with multiple goods for sale), which Google *did* do, works. In the format they used, there is a period of blind bidding. At the end of that period, the top n bids are accepted (where n is the number of items up for auction), with each bidder paying the *lowest* accepted bid. So, if I bid $105 and you bid $85 and your bid was the lowest accepted, we both pay $85 for our shares. Unlike your variant, I don't know how much other people are bidding. The trick is to figure out how much I think the shares will be worth and bid that number. You can adjust that based on what you think other people will think it is worth. I.e., if you bid a little lower, you increase your chances of getting it for less than you think it will be worth, but you also increase your chances at not getting any. If you bid higher, you increase your chances of getting some shares, but you might get them for more than you think they are worth. It is an interesting game, one that obviously a bunch of investors didn't feel comfortable playing, because they drove the price up 18% on its first day. If they would have played, they could have had it for $85.
If the original amount of shares had been offered to the public, bidding would have continued well down past $85 to a range of $50-65 per share or so.
No. Those shares still exist, they just weren't made sold to the public. The original plan was to offer 25.7 million shares and they cut that back to 19.6 million. So, given the overall number of shares would have been the same, theoretically investors would have still valued them the same. You still have the same percentage ownership in the company for your 100 shares regardless of how many are sold to the public. Of course, in reality, more supply on the market would have pushed the price down, buy not anywhere near where you put it (I don't think).
Google's valuation is more in line with its competitors (overture, yahoo).
No. Google's valuation is $23.1 billion and Yahoo's is $38.7 billion. I wouldn't call that "more in line", given that the low end of their original range, $108, would have give them a valuation of $29.4 billion (still quite a ways from Yahoo, but definitely "more in line" than the lower valuation).
I am very curious what the founders, privately, thought they would get. I am sure the first range was highly optimistic. I think this was a bit lower, but well within their "happy" range.
They will receive some benefit. But a lesser one. Even an unlimited amount of free energy won't get you a mineral if the ore supply is actually all used up.
Yes, recycling is probably more energy dependent (although if you highly automate anything, it is going to be highly energy dependent). And that is a weakness in my contrarian argument, but the last sentence above is exactly the problem: we are rapidly going through our natural resources and pretty soon they will be all used up (or at least the easily accessible ones). Then we will have to sort through our trash to find what we need. My point is that getting closer to unlimited, free energy isn't going to cause the necessary change.
Why? Because continuing to plow through our natural resources is the easiest path. It is known tech, there are already distribution paths, it is a relatively low-risk venture. Cheaper energy isn't going to change that.
Regarding disposal costs, companies have never fully paid their disposal costs. They have gotten closer, but I still don't think they are close. We simply can't measure the full impact of the changes they have wrought. How do you put the leveling of a mountain top into dollar terms?
My point is simply that we need some serious policy changes along with greener, more abundant energy. We need to artificially lower the crossover point, we need to fund research into recycling techniques and we need to set some goals. Like recycling 30% of our waste by 2010 and 80% by 2020 (I have no idea if those are feasible). We need to fully fund the EPA, reinstate Superfund and start fully accounting for the costs of resource extraction instead of indirectly levying them on families who wind up with lead in their drinking water.
Cheaper energy can help, but it is only a better tool. We have to decide how to use it.
Li-Ions are the best battery tech out there as far as energy density, but they are also the flakiest and most temperamental. Each one has a computer chip inside to regulate power flow because of how flaky they are. I have had pretty good luck with them, but I have definitely had dogs that were down to no life after a few months. Every manufacturing process has defects and considering that they start deteriorating as soon as they are manufactured, it is very easy to understand that a defect or even just sitting on the shelf too long could cause a few to go bad.
You aren't expecting too much from the battery, I have several friends with 15" Al PBs and 2.5 to 3 hours with Airport, etc. But you are expecting too much from the manufacturing process. Defects happen and it sucks when it happens to you, but it had to happen to somebody. And laptop makers are very reluctant to replace batteries, because they all fail sooner or later.
[F]ission. The only thing lacking is the political will, and the only problem is that people are stupid.
Which people? Living in Washington State, home of the Hanford site, people have some reason to be skeptical of fission proponents who claim there are no problems with fission. It seems like there are huge issues of waste management and regulation that have to be sorted out (as well as proliferation on a global scale). There is a lot of irrational fear, especially from the Cold War generations, but there are also some very legitimate issues that, as far as I can tell, haven't been adequately addressed. Do you want Yucca mountain in your backyard?
With cheaper energy for separating and purifying the components of used materials for reuse, the balance shifts more toward recycling.
Why? Won't extracting new resources get the same benefit? Although I don't agree with the parent post, I think there are some very salient points in it. Our current model of resource consumption is not sustainable. That is, not only is our production of energy unsustainable, but what we do with that energy is as well. Moving to greener, more sustainable energy sources that produce more energy helps solve our problems with energy production, but we are still going to be using it to smother our crops in petroleum products, produce disposable electronics, and strip-mine our planet's resources.
I think we need to change some of our consumption patterns as well as our production methods. We need to take issues like environmental impact seriously, we can't take shortcuts, sacrificing our environment for cheaper products (like we seem to be doing with the electronics industry; some of the articles I've read on IT industrial pollution are scary). Cheaper, greener energy could make those changes easier. But without those changes, more energy is just speeding us up down the path to exhausting the planet's resources. In which case, the human race may be better off riding the fossil fuel train to the end of the line and forcing ourselves to change our consumption of natural resources.
So? Unless a company has a monopoly and is abusing its monopoly in one market to increase its share in another market, it is irrelevant. Neither iTMS nor the iPod are monopolies in their respective markets (they are dominant, but that isn't the same), so what is the problem? By your logic, you would force Apple to port OS X to PCs, because they are using their OS to force people to buy Macs. "Is there another computer that can run OS X? Well, then, sounds like they're using their strength in one market to sell product in another." Except, in neither case do they have monopolies. This happens all the time. A Sony digital camera will require a Sony battery and a Sony memory card (MemoryStick). If you don't like it, buy something else. They don't have a monopoly, so there is plenty of competition. Apple is free to integrate their products as much as they like as long as their aren't abusing a monopoly to stifle competition.
That is the consumer's protection in a healthy market. If a company ties a product to proprietary components that provide no advantage to the consumer and cost the same or more, then the consumer will choose another product that uses standard components. If, however, the proprietary components provide a marked advantage to the product over more generic components, consumers will choose that product. Why punish an innovative company for using a better component by nullifying that advantage? If you do that, companies will stop developing better ways of doing things, because as soon as they come up with one they will have to share it with every one else. I am not a huge fan of market economies, but when they work (i.e., there is a healthy level of competition), they work better than anything else we've got. Don't mess with it.
This isn't about RealAudio, it is about AAC. RTFA. Real uses 192kbps AAC-encoded files with their own DRM. As an iPod mini owner, I would like to be able to use Real's Harmony files. Unlike Apple's offers, encoded at 128kbps, I might actually buy Real's. Is there any reason Apple wouldn't want iPods to be able to play these files except to prevent competition with iTMS?
Right, spammers don't use the SMTP servers of large ISPs, or even small ISPs. They generally run their own. But SPF doesn't address that issue. SPF simply deals with forged e-mails, or phishing. Now I can no longer send an e-mail from support@microsoft.com (assuming they implement SPF) saying "Urgent Fix!! Install Now!!!", because the incoming SMTP server will check the SPF record, see that I'm not authorized to send mail for Microsoft, and reject me. But I can still send it from support@mircosoft.com or any other domain that doesn't use SPF.
I think this is fine, as long as it is seen as a strictly opt-in feature. My big concern, and the one that seems to be floating around this discussion, is that there will be a temptation to start discriminating against domains that choose not to use SPF. SPF is not a universal solution. There are a lot of domains for which it will simply be infeasible to implement.
BTW, sorry about earlier. It looks like you just aren't clear on what SPF is. Again, using your example, SPF will identify Earthlink's SMTP servers as legitimate, while marking all the compromised machines as illegitimate for earthlink.net e-mail addresses. Not anything else. So, it solves the problem of spammers claiming to be Earthlink, but not of spam itself. Hope this helps.
This is complete BS. Where did you pull that from? Where do you think the bulk of those compromised machines reside? Unless there are significant differences between the customers of small ISPs vs. big ISPs (there aren't), it is simple statistics.
I'm sure you can find more if you want to spend a couple of minutes on it. Sorry for the strident tone, but as someone who works for a small ISP, this is personal.
Tell me about it. I work for a small ISP that does DSL, etc. It is tough. There is no way we can match Verizon's prices. It isn't because we have higher overhead, it is because they rent us the lines. There is no way they will let us be price competitive. Which doesn't matter for people like you or me, but most of the public doesn't know what they are missing. Still, after dealing with Verizon, a lot of people are happy to switch to us and we have never lost a customer to Verizon (that I'm aware of).
Are you astroturfing for Verizon? I love this: More choices is[sic] always a good thing.
and then: If they build their own fiber, they won't have to share, which is one of the things holding things back.
But if they had to share, there would be more choices. The problem is, they don't want more choices. They are being forced by convergence and aggressive cable operators to turn their monopoly into a duopoly, but the less competitors, the better for them.
I realize that regulation got us into this mess
No, regulation did not get us into this mess. Monopolies did. Regulation is one of the ways to deal with monopolies. Another is to introduce competition (not really possible in this case). A third, and probably the only solution in the long run, is end-user ownership.
[B]ut it's time that the phone companies grow up and do something about it, instead of whining.
Why? Whining seems to be working. From the article:
The Federal Communications Commission plans to allow the Bells to invest in fiber without requiring them to share their infrastructure with third parties, as is the case with copper wire networks. For many years, the Bells have protested that the line-sharing rules on copper wire networks are unfair, because cable companies are not required to share their lines.
Sounds like there's a good opportunity here for geeks
If you like wiring. Verizon isn't going to allow you to offer any services over their network. Don't forget, it is their network, not yours. Verizon and the telcos want to take us into the second Information Dark Age (the first was the AT&T monopoly).
I mostly agree with your sentiment about monopolies, although I think other public entities and non-profits qualify for controlling them. The keys are open, transparent, local control and accountability, and only controlling the part that would be a (natural?) monopoly (e.g., the fiber in this case, not the services running over the fiber).
In fact, I have heard that some telcos are trying to get out of the infrastructure biz, leaving it all to the governments, so they can just sell services over the lines.
No. The existing copper infrastructure is dead and they want to get rid of it. I think there are a couple of publicly owned telco projects that use copper, but only because they were started over a decade ago. Anything more recent than that is fiber or a hybrid fiber. The telcos want out of the copper infrastructure business, but they want all of the fiber infrastructure business. Remember, companies love monopolies, especially those companies that are addicted to them.
Slashdot Mirror
And were you able to tell that from seeing the trailer for Citizen Kane? No, you had to watch the movie. In fact, not one shot from the movie was in the trailer. How can you judge this one so matter-of-factly off of the trailer? This probably isn't your movie, and it would be no fun to go see it so you can pick it apart, but you might at least want to withhold judgment on things like technique until you have. It is like the people bashing Michael Moore's film who haven't seen it.
I tried to address your concerns. As I wrote, those are shots used to establish the style of the film and that is why those stood out to me, but the film isn't limited to just those shots. In fact, I just watched the trailer again and there are plenty of different shots in that. Such as the aerial shot rotating over the flying ships pulling generators out of the ground, the man standing on the sidewalk as the planes zoom past, the plane flying through the falling sign, the over-the-shoulder of the huge robot looking down on the police barricade, etc. You may find it boring, but you can't say there is a "complete lack of different camera angles" or that "every shot of a person was basically level... or close ups." That is flat out wrong.
I am not saying the movie sucks.
I'm confused then, because you also say it is "very amateurish", it has "boring photography and unrealistic editing", and the blue screening is "just bad." Those seem like simply more specific ways of saying it sucks. In fact, you call it boring and unrealistic right after writing you aren't saying it sucks. Was that intended as irony?
The few old films I like are by directors who were innovative, who used the camera to tell a story, not merely record it: Capra, Hitchcock, Welles.
Which is why Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors. Which is why I really like Wes Anderson, Schyamalan, and a few other young directors: they use the camera, scene composition, and the craft of filmmaking to tell their stories. And that is why I like Sky Captain.
Have you ever seen a film from the Golden Age? That was intentional. This film, as the title suggests, models itself on the films of the Golden Age, borrowing from comics, pulp fiction, and movie serials of the time for its plot, characters, and style (much like Star Wars). It basically takes the Golden Age style, which was very actor-centric, and supercharges the other elements, like the scenery and special effects, updating it where it helps to tell a more convincing tale and using the less-realistic style of filmmaking to help make the story more realistic rather than less, by tying into our impressions of the 30's and 40's. It is similar to what Joss Whedon has done with Firefly, using Old Western film techniques and elements to create a future that we already know.
Did you notice the lighting, how the upper half of the actors' faces were illuminated? You don't get that by accident, it was mimicking the style of Golden Age films, which adapted lighting designs from theatre, which were designed to highlight an actor's expressions, rather than modern lighting, which uses a realistic style, providing fuller illumination and blending it in to look natural.
You picked up on the camera angles, which were designed to look like shots from the Golden Age. Sure, it is easier for them to do fewer angles (less backgrounds to generate), but if that was the motivation, they would have included more moving camera work. Instead they used more fixed camera shots and framed them in a similar style to the Golden Age, which focuses on the actors. This again borrows from theatre, where the actors are responsible for pulling the audience into the store rather than the sets and props. And for the same reason.
Thirdly, you'll notice that the dialogue is styled after Golden Age films. Not just in the lack of swearing, phrasing, and gender roles, but also in the expositional dialogue. Expositional dialogue in a modern movie is used to introduce elements of character or plot (often crudely), but in this movie it is often used to introduce the scenery. This again is similar to theatre or radio dramas that Golden Age films borrowed so heavily from, where the writer has to use the actor to introduce elements or details of the environment to the audience that were too difficult or impossible (radio) to portray very well otherwise.
As for your comment about the actors not blending into their surroundings, I think you are again holding the wrong end of the stick. Golden Age films, due to film stock, lenses, and whatnot (style choices), where often shot with a soft focus and the ample lighting would give actors a glow or fuzziness about the edges. You see the same effect used here. This obviates the need for them to integrate the actors with the scenes, because they are supposed to stand out.
All that said, this is a modern film and the director, while adopting a Golden Age style, doesn't limit himself to that style. There are some amazing flying action sequences with the camera following the plane and the sets and robots are very well done.
I was simply having too much fun when I saw it to assess the film critically (I really want to see it again), but I was very impressed with the production of the film. The "problems" you noted are not amateurish but auteurish and this is an amazingly accomplished directorial debut for Kerry Conran. I think that he has the potential to join Wes Anderson and M. Night Shyamalan at the top of the list of director's able to craft impressive, quirky, uniquely-styled, and above all fun films.
Exactly. There were moderates gaining power in Iran (including their president), but after the Axis of Evil and Iraq, the Iranian religious right cracked down and eliminated most moderate voices from the ballots, as I recall. Now we have few diplomacy options and the hardliners have reasserted control. Not to mention giving them top secret intel through Chalabi and revealing that we had broken their highest encryption. No diplomatic options and no intel is a very bad place to be.
Here's a little history for you: the Bush administration has already decided North Korea is a nuclear power. What we are doing is #4, not #3. The Axis of Evil crap pissed off those countries and severely limited our diplomacy options (especially with Iran), while our Iraq adventure has limited our military options. Bush is not the foreign policy expert his "War on Terra" would lead you to believe.
Let's say an undecided person watches the movie the day before. The day of the election he comes in all pissed off about Bush. His Co-worker then points to one of the numberous sites calling the movie a "work of fiction" with source to reputable newspapers, etc.
You're right, they need to air it two days before the election. That way, the undecided person's other co-worker can point out the web sites debunking the site debunking the movie. Then, the undecided person will be all pissed off with Bush and his conservative co-worker. Obviously, three days would be disastrous.
He'll then go into the voting booth feeling like he was lied to, and will NOT be trusting of the other candidate, i.e., Kerry.
So, if I lie to you, will you hold it against Kerry as well? This amazing reasoning ability is why George W. Bush will get elected and why most of the population thinks Saddam was working with Al-Qaeda.
NOOOOOO!!!
I just saw the translated trailer and I am filled with dread. It looks like they have completely mashed it up. Former lover? Hover cars? The secret of Appleseed? WTF? I still can't wait to see it for the eye candy, but I have some serious misgivings about the story. Damn, I hope there is an Appleseed series!
The TV series is much closer to Shirow's work than the movie. I suppose the movie was good, but after having read the manga, it was a let down for me. It has been a while since I've watched it, but I remember feeling it pandered to its audience, that it was mostly eye candy without the complexity and depth of the manga. Perhaps it was more the result of trying to cram 300+ pages of manga into one movie.
The TV series, however, gave me the same feeling that I had when reading the manga. The complex characters, the intertwining plots, it is really great. If you liked GitS:SAC, you should really read the original manga.
I have high hopes for the 2nd GitS movie. Hopefully, with the universe already established by the first movie and the TV series, they can focus on plot.
And I also am really looking forward to the Appleseed movie, although I fear some of the same problems as the first GitS movie (and the first Appleseed movie, really). I really hope that Appleseed will get a TV series, too. It is simply too big for a movie (as the first version showed). Maybe the animators can pick up the ball where Shirow left it and run with it (much like Gits: I much prefer GitS:SAC and 2nd Gig to Man-Machine Interface, which I haven't been able to finish reading).
Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Where did you get Apple is attaching XML metadata to every file from? I am 99% sure that is complete BS. Spotlight will be creating indexes for files based on their content. XML shouldn't enter into it. How did this get rated so high?
Man, my iPod sucks, it doesn't even have a reset button.
It sounds like you should read the Timothy Zahn books. I only read a few Star Wars books, but these were far and away the best. I really hoped they would be 7-9, but they are set 5 years or so after RotJ, so by now you would have to get other actors. I suppose it could work (I really wouldn't mind with Luke), but I really wanted to see Harrison Ford as Han Solo again.
To answer your question directly, however, you just need a bit more context. The Empire suffered a great defeat at the end of RotJ, but they still have a lot of resources. Think of after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ukraine and a bunch of other countries became independent, but Russia still has the bulk of the power.
Or even better yet, look at Nazi Germany after WWII. There are all kinds of books and films about plots by Nazis trying to resurrect the Third Reich. That is basically what these books are about. An extremely intelligent and cunning general, who was basically held back by the Empire bureaucracy, still has an Imperial Star Destroyer, a small fleet, and a plan to push the Republic back off the top of the hill. I can't remember them very well now, but I remember liking them as much as the original movies. Trust me, you are much better reading these than seeing 1-3. I think Timothy Zahn should write books for 1-3 and we can just ignore those movies.
This is insane! Who the hell marked it interesting instead of troll or flamebait? Because it is marked up and because the other replies haven't covered all the holes, I'll reply. But if you have moderation points, just mark the parent down.
So a puny box-cutter was enough to threaten a planeful.
Read the 9/11 report. They had six inch knives! There was only a couple of box-cutters. And they claimed to have bombs. If some one claims to have a bomb, are you going to challenge them if you think you have a chance of making it out alive? Do you play Russian roulette often?
The 9/11 attacks were made possible because the natural right of carrying weapons for self-defense and defense of others was denied the (regular, law-abiding) passengers.
Hmm, as I recall most of the terrorists were regular, law-abiding passengers with the exception of a couple visa violations. And before you suggest profiling brown-skinned people from Muslim countries, don't forget that Timothy McVeigh and his friends would also love your new carry laws.
Besides, even if you are miraculously able to keep all weapons out of the hands of terrorists before letting them on board our airplanes, you've still made their job infinitely easier. How much chance do you think the average person would have against somebody who has been training for years in warfare and hand-to-hand combat, who has likely even been involved in combat? You might as well put guns on the snack tray and run them down the aisle as allow people to carry them on board. And have you ever tried to use a holstered weapon while crammed between two other people in an airplane seat? How do you expect that to work?
The real key to preventing another 9/11 is to not allow the terrorists on our planes in the first place. Of course, your suggestion does nothing to prevent that and instead makes it easier when they do get on.
"[F]rangible" ammo breaks up on impact and won't punch holes in walls, nor ricochet.
Even at extremely close range? Do you really think an airplane is made to resist an internal gunfight, even if the ammunition is frangible?
Besides all of those problems, do you really think they are going to do the exact same thing they did the last time? Do you think that was the only hole in our homeland security? The really sad part of this whole suggestion is that I have seen other people make it. Can we setup a remote island for all the people who think they are G.I. Joe so that the rest of us can live in peace?
The original plan was to offer twice as many shares in a dutch auction. In this type of auction the price is bid down instead of up until the entire lot of shares is sold.
That isn't how this type of Dutch auction (i.e., one with multiple goods for sale), which Google *did* do, works. In the format they used, there is a period of blind bidding. At the end of that period, the top n bids are accepted (where n is the number of items up for auction), with each bidder paying the *lowest* accepted bid. So, if I bid $105 and you bid $85 and your bid was the lowest accepted, we both pay $85 for our shares. Unlike your variant, I don't know how much other people are bidding. The trick is to figure out how much I think the shares will be worth and bid that number. You can adjust that based on what you think other people will think it is worth. I.e., if you bid a little lower, you increase your chances of getting it for less than you think it will be worth, but you also increase your chances at not getting any. If you bid higher, you increase your chances of getting some shares, but you might get them for more than you think they are worth. It is an interesting game, one that obviously a bunch of investors didn't feel comfortable playing, because they drove the price up 18% on its first day. If they would have played, they could have had it for $85.
If the original amount of shares had been offered to the public, bidding would have continued well down past $85 to a range of $50-65 per share or so.
No. Those shares still exist, they just weren't made sold to the public. The original plan was to offer 25.7 million shares and they cut that back to 19.6 million. So, given the overall number of shares would have been the same, theoretically investors would have still valued them the same. You still have the same percentage ownership in the company for your 100 shares regardless of how many are sold to the public. Of course, in reality, more supply on the market would have pushed the price down, buy not anywhere near where you put it (I don't think).
Google's valuation is more in line with its competitors (overture, yahoo).
No. Google's valuation is $23.1 billion and Yahoo's is $38.7 billion. I wouldn't call that "more in line", given that the low end of their original range, $108, would have give them a valuation of $29.4 billion (still quite a ways from Yahoo, but definitely "more in line" than the lower valuation).
I am very curious what the founders, privately, thought they would get. I am sure the first range was highly optimistic. I think this was a bit lower, but well within their "happy" range.
They will receive some benefit. But a lesser one. Even an unlimited amount of free energy won't get you a mineral if the ore supply is actually all used up.
Yes, recycling is probably more energy dependent (although if you highly automate anything, it is going to be highly energy dependent). And that is a weakness in my contrarian argument, but the last sentence above is exactly the problem: we are rapidly going through our natural resources and pretty soon they will be all used up (or at least the easily accessible ones). Then we will have to sort through our trash to find what we need. My point is that getting closer to unlimited, free energy isn't going to cause the necessary change.
Why? Because continuing to plow through our natural resources is the easiest path. It is known tech, there are already distribution paths, it is a relatively low-risk venture. Cheaper energy isn't going to change that.
Regarding disposal costs, companies have never fully paid their disposal costs. They have gotten closer, but I still don't think they are close. We simply can't measure the full impact of the changes they have wrought. How do you put the leveling of a mountain top into dollar terms?
My point is simply that we need some serious policy changes along with greener, more abundant energy. We need to artificially lower the crossover point, we need to fund research into recycling techniques and we need to set some goals. Like recycling 30% of our waste by 2010 and 80% by 2020 (I have no idea if those are feasible). We need to fully fund the EPA, reinstate Superfund and start fully accounting for the costs of resource extraction instead of indirectly levying them on families who wind up with lead in their drinking water.
Cheaper energy can help, but it is only a better tool. We have to decide how to use it.
Li-Ions are the best battery tech out there as far as energy density, but they are also the flakiest and most temperamental. Each one has a computer chip inside to regulate power flow because of how flaky they are. I have had pretty good luck with them, but I have definitely had dogs that were down to no life after a few months. Every manufacturing process has defects and considering that they start deteriorating as soon as they are manufactured, it is very easy to understand that a defect or even just sitting on the shelf too long could cause a few to go bad.
You aren't expecting too much from the battery, I have several friends with 15" Al PBs and 2.5 to 3 hours with Airport, etc. But you are expecting too much from the manufacturing process. Defects happen and it sucks when it happens to you, but it had to happen to somebody. And laptop makers are very reluctant to replace batteries, because they all fail sooner or later.
Does AppleCare replace batteries?
[F]ission. The only thing lacking is the political will, and the only problem is that people are stupid.
Which people? Living in Washington State, home of the Hanford site, people have some reason to be skeptical of fission proponents who claim there are no problems with fission. It seems like there are huge issues of waste management and regulation that have to be sorted out (as well as proliferation on a global scale). There is a lot of irrational fear, especially from the Cold War generations, but there are also some very legitimate issues that, as far as I can tell, haven't been adequately addressed. Do you want Yucca mountain in your backyard?
With cheaper energy for separating and purifying the components of used materials for reuse, the balance shifts more toward recycling.
Why? Won't extracting new resources get the same benefit? Although I don't agree with the parent post, I think there are some very salient points in it. Our current model of resource consumption is not sustainable. That is, not only is our production of energy unsustainable, but what we do with that energy is as well. Moving to greener, more sustainable energy sources that produce more energy helps solve our problems with energy production, but we are still going to be using it to smother our crops in petroleum products, produce disposable electronics, and strip-mine our planet's resources.
I think we need to change some of our consumption patterns as well as our production methods. We need to take issues like environmental impact seriously, we can't take shortcuts, sacrificing our environment for cheaper products (like we seem to be doing with the electronics industry; some of the articles I've read on IT industrial pollution are scary). Cheaper, greener energy could make those changes easier. But without those changes, more energy is just speeding us up down the path to exhausting the planet's resources. In which case, the human race may be better off riding the fossil fuel train to the end of the line and forcing ourselves to change our consumption of natural resources.
So? Unless a company has a monopoly and is abusing its monopoly in one market to increase its share in another market, it is irrelevant. Neither iTMS nor the iPod are monopolies in their respective markets (they are dominant, but that isn't the same), so what is the problem? By your logic, you would force Apple to port OS X to PCs, because they are using their OS to force people to buy Macs. "Is there another computer that can run OS X? Well, then, sounds like they're using their strength in one market to sell product in another." Except, in neither case do they have monopolies. This happens all the time. A Sony digital camera will require a Sony battery and a Sony memory card (MemoryStick). If you don't like it, buy something else. They don't have a monopoly, so there is plenty of competition. Apple is free to integrate their products as much as they like as long as their aren't abusing a monopoly to stifle competition.
That is the consumer's protection in a healthy market. If a company ties a product to proprietary components that provide no advantage to the consumer and cost the same or more, then the consumer will choose another product that uses standard components. If, however, the proprietary components provide a marked advantage to the product over more generic components, consumers will choose that product. Why punish an innovative company for using a better component by nullifying that advantage? If you do that, companies will stop developing better ways of doing things, because as soon as they come up with one they will have to share it with every one else. I am not a huge fan of market economies, but when they work (i.e., there is a healthy level of competition), they work better than anything else we've got. Don't mess with it.
This isn't about RealAudio, it is about AAC. RTFA. Real uses 192kbps AAC-encoded files with their own DRM. As an iPod mini owner, I would like to be able to use Real's Harmony files. Unlike Apple's offers, encoded at 128kbps, I might actually buy Real's. Is there any reason Apple wouldn't want iPods to be able to play these files except to prevent competition with iTMS?
This is Apple at its worst.
At no point have we seen any motivation for why the Sith are the way they are.
...and they tried to kill off all the Sith. But mainly it's the freedom thing.
The Sith hate the Jedi because they love freedom.
Right, spammers don't use the SMTP servers of large ISPs, or even small ISPs. They generally run their own. But SPF doesn't address that issue. SPF simply deals with forged e-mails, or phishing. Now I can no longer send an e-mail from support@microsoft.com (assuming they implement SPF) saying "Urgent Fix!! Install Now!!!", because the incoming SMTP server will check the SPF record, see that I'm not authorized to send mail for Microsoft, and reject me. But I can still send it from support@mircosoft.com or any other domain that doesn't use SPF.
I think this is fine, as long as it is seen as a strictly opt-in feature. My big concern, and the one that seems to be floating around this discussion, is that there will be a temptation to start discriminating against domains that choose not to use SPF. SPF is not a universal solution. There are a lot of domains for which it will simply be infeasible to implement.
BTW, sorry about earlier. It looks like you just aren't clear on what SPF is. Again, using your example, SPF will identify Earthlink's SMTP servers as legitimate, while marking all the compromised machines as illegitimate for earthlink.net e-mail addresses. Not anything else. So, it solves the problem of spammers claiming to be Earthlink, but not of spam itself. Hope this helps.
There is no "their's". There is "there's" and "theirs".
Most spammers don't use large ISPs.
This is complete BS. Where did you pull that from? Where do you think the bulk of those compromised machines reside? Unless there are significant differences between the customers of small ISPs vs. big ISPs (there aren't), it is simple statistics.
Besides using logic, you can read these for empirical evidence:
Comcast reports 53 percent decline in spam
Top Senders by Domain
I'm sure you can find more if you want to spend a couple of minutes on it. Sorry for the strident tone, but as someone who works for a small ISP, this is personal.
Tell me about it. I work for a small ISP that does DSL, etc. It is tough. There is no way we can match Verizon's prices. It isn't because we have higher overhead, it is because they rent us the lines. There is no way they will let us be price competitive. Which doesn't matter for people like you or me, but most of the public doesn't know what they are missing. Still, after dealing with Verizon, a lot of people are happy to switch to us and we have never lost a customer to Verizon (that I'm aware of).
More choices is[sic] always a good thing.
and then:
If they build their own fiber, they won't have to share, which is one of the things holding things back.
But if they had to share, there would be more choices. The problem is, they don't want more choices. They are being forced by convergence and aggressive cable operators to turn their monopoly into a duopoly, but the less competitors, the better for them.
I realize that regulation got us into this mess
No, regulation did not get us into this mess. Monopolies did. Regulation is one of the ways to deal with monopolies. Another is to introduce competition (not really possible in this case). A third, and probably the only solution in the long run, is end-user ownership.
[B]ut it's time that the phone companies grow up and do something about it, instead of whining.
Why? Whining seems to be working. From the article: They just got their monopoly on services back.
Sounds like there's a good opportunity here for geeks
If you like wiring. Verizon isn't going to allow you to offer any services over their network. Don't forget, it is their network, not yours. Verizon and the telcos want to take us into the second Information Dark Age (the first was the AT&T monopoly).
I mostly agree with your sentiment about monopolies, although I think other public entities and non-profits qualify for controlling them. The keys are open, transparent, local control and accountability, and only controlling the part that would be a (natural?) monopoly (e.g., the fiber in this case, not the services running over the fiber).
In fact, I have heard that some telcos are trying to get out of the infrastructure biz, leaving it all to the governments, so they can just sell services over the lines.
No. The existing copper infrastructure is dead and they want to get rid of it. I think there are a couple of publicly owned telco projects that use copper, but only because they were started over a decade ago. Anything more recent than that is fiber or a hybrid fiber. The telcos want out of the copper infrastructure business, but they want all of the fiber infrastructure business. Remember, companies love monopolies, especially those companies that are addicted to them.