There are some great articles around that detail the whole Blade Runner saga--definitely worth looking up. In short, due to the original production being over-budget, ownership of the movie went to the underwriters, who decided to add in the voiceover and happy ending after the movie tested poorly. This was a rush job, and both Ford and Scott were against the changes. When the first Director's Cut came out, they reverted some of the stuff back, but again, it was a rush job, so Scott didn't get an opportunity to really go back over it the way he wanted to (apparently he wasn't even really involved in this). There was supposed to be a big 20th anniversary release, but there were still legal wranglings over ownership. Finally, for the 25th anniversary, the ownership issues were sorted out, and Scott was given ample time to really sit down and polish the movie the way he wanted to originally. Since technology had advanced so much, they took the opportunity to clean up the effects a bit (using the original assets--no Special Edition crap here). The end result of all of this is the Final Cut.
HD DVD is region free, which is kind of nice since some of the BluRay exclusives in the US are released on HD DVD elsewhere in the world. Xploited Cinema specializes in these releases for those of us in the States.
Oh yeah, the dancer chicks in the hockey masks. I forgot to mention that in my other post. After seeing it last month, some friends and I were like "And what was up with the hockey mask chicks?!?"
The only version of Star Wars available on DVD is the Special Edition.
Sorry to double post, but I only noticed this as I hit submit. What you say isn't true. Something like 6 months after the initial DVD release, they released the original cut as well.
Sort of. They released a copy of the Laserdisc masters on DVD, including the matted 4:3 presentation and terrible aliasing. But hey, it's better than nothing, I suppose.
"I want more life, father."
and
"Two of them got fried..."
were two of the biggest things that stood out to me.
Apparently some of the cuts where they removed the voiceover were shortened a bit, too. (Since the voiceover was simply removed for the original Director's Cut, the scenes where Deckard was previously talking now hung a bit long with nothing going on).
If you already have a Wii, you can easily get a second one by simply calling Nintendo, thanks to their advance replacement program. Of course, that's only the console itself--no power cable, no sensor bar, no wiimote, no nunchuk, no cables, and no Wii Sports. Oh yeah, and you have to tell them that the one you have is having problems. I have two sitting on my floor right now thanks to this (first was having some graphical glitches, so it's going back tomorrow). If you don't return the first one within three weeks, they charge you 200 bucks to keep it. If you really really wanted one, this is one way to do it...
They were somewhere between the big office stores and best buy, and actually did carry much in the way of essential hardware such as fans, heatsync compound, screws, and other misc things.
What I find a bit odd is that this stuff has reached the point where even the big office stores carry it. The Office Depot down the street from me carries all of the above, plus more. I mean, I can go into OD and buy a tube of (overpriced) thermal compound if I needed to.
I work in the marketing department of an organization [yeah, I know--but it's a decent-sized nonprofit that all of you have heard of, and many of you like : )] and we have a guy who tracks all the places our mailing list and many others end up. He has a mailbox set aside for all the stuff that comes in. The fictitious name that he monitors has a fairly long European-sounding last name, where he cycles through a series of letters in it to track each list. I went through the box one time and there were easily like 40 different permutations of the name in there, and this was only a few days' worth of mail. I'd love to see the database he uses to track it all...
Unrelated to in-flight internet service, but has anyone ever tried playing a flight simulator on a laptop while on a plane? I'd love to see how quickly you could get yourself kicked off by doing that. : p
Really? I've only had it hang once out of many hours of watching, and it was simple enough to get it started back up again. And there's a fullscreen button that you can click--it's not quite DVD quality, but it's pretty damn close. And I have no idea what this nonsense about "impossible to start watching a movie or show from the beginning" is all about--it takes maybe15 seconds to begin playing on everything I've watched. I guess it's just possible that you have some really shitty broadband service in your area, or maybe you should slow down/turn off your torrent downloads when you're actually trying to use your network. Nah, that would make too much sense...
I can't wait to hear about all the noobs out there complaining about their "crashed" computers because they tried to open a 700MB file in NotePad... : p
Actually, for a serious answer, Netflix does offer streaming video on their site. Of course, it has the usual caveats--you must view the site in IE on Windows since it uses WMV. If you have a MCE machine hooked up to a TV, though, it's actually not too bad. You get 1 hour of viewing time for each dollar you spend on your monthly plan. That is, if you spend $13.99 for a two-at-a-time plan, like I do, you get 14 hours of viewing time a month. The selection isn't all that great so far (they're definitely testing the waters with it), but they do have some recent movies, some decent TV shows, and a whole ton of BBC stuff. I ended up finally watching Heroes season 1 using it last month (although I ran out of time and had to rent the last disc to get the season ending). I plan to watch Season 2 when my time resets next week.
Slashdot Mirror
Working on retinal reconstruction, eh? It looks like that first pic is of the device that's used to burn your retinas out...
Now it's telling us largely the opposite, implying that XP is a security threat, costs too much to run, and so on.
Hah! Now I have the evidence I need to convince my boss not to make that XP transition. Now where did I put that time machine?
There are some great articles around that detail the whole Blade Runner saga--definitely worth looking up. In short, due to the original production being over-budget, ownership of the movie went to the underwriters, who decided to add in the voiceover and happy ending after the movie tested poorly. This was a rush job, and both Ford and Scott were against the changes. When the first Director's Cut came out, they reverted some of the stuff back, but again, it was a rush job, so Scott didn't get an opportunity to really go back over it the way he wanted to (apparently he wasn't even really involved in this). There was supposed to be a big 20th anniversary release, but there were still legal wranglings over ownership. Finally, for the 25th anniversary, the ownership issues were sorted out, and Scott was given ample time to really sit down and polish the movie the way he wanted to originally. Since technology had advanced so much, they took the opportunity to clean up the effects a bit (using the original assets--no Special Edition crap here). The end result of all of this is the Final Cut.
HD DVD is region free, which is kind of nice since some of the BluRay exclusives in the US are released on HD DVD elsewhere in the world. Xploited Cinema specializes in these releases for those of us in the States.
Oh yeah, the dancer chicks in the hockey masks. I forgot to mention that in my other post. After seeing it last month, some friends and I were like "And what was up with the hockey mask chicks?!?"
The only version of Star Wars available on DVD is the Special Edition.
Sorry to double post, but I only noticed this as I hit submit. What you say isn't true. Something like 6 months after the initial DVD release, they released the original cut as well.
Sort of. They released a copy of the Laserdisc masters on DVD, including the matted 4:3 presentation and terrible aliasing. But hey, it's better than nothing, I suppose.
What's new? Lessee:
"I want more life, father."
and
"Two of them got fried..."
were two of the biggest things that stood out to me.
Apparently some of the cuts where they removed the voiceover were shortened a bit, too. (Since the voiceover was simply removed for the original Director's Cut, the scenes where Deckard was previously talking now hung a bit long with nothing going on).
AAC and H.264 are Apples? Hmmm, you may want to let the Moving Pictures Expert Group know about that.
If you already have a Wii, you can easily get a second one by simply calling Nintendo, thanks to their advance replacement program. Of course, that's only the console itself--no power cable, no sensor bar, no wiimote, no nunchuk, no cables, and no Wii Sports. Oh yeah, and you have to tell them that the one you have is having problems. I have two sitting on my floor right now thanks to this (first was having some graphical glitches, so it's going back tomorrow). If you don't return the first one within three weeks, they charge you 200 bucks to keep it. If you really really wanted one, this is one way to do it...
Funny, my friends and I decided it wasn't worth watching past the first 30 minutes. I'm glad I didn't see it with your friends...
Forget the corset: you'd be enclosed in a giant organic vagina, which would pulsate rhythmically to indicate encryption strength.
Ewwww! Who in their right mind would want to be enveloped by a vagina that pulsates rhythmically?
Paper sleeves. Much more economical and efficient. Unless you absolutely must have the quad slim cases for some reason.
Fry's actually has made it to the west coast, albeit in a somewhat limited capacity. There's one in Duluth,Georgia
Someone from Georgia thinks that they're on the west coast. Why doesn't that surprise me? : p
They were somewhere between the big office stores and best buy, and actually did carry much in the way of essential hardware such as fans, heatsync compound, screws, and other misc things.
What I find a bit odd is that this stuff has reached the point where even the big office stores carry it. The Office Depot down the street from me carries all of the above, plus more. I mean, I can go into OD and buy a tube of (overpriced) thermal compound if I needed to.
I work in the marketing department of an organization [yeah, I know--but it's a decent-sized nonprofit that all of you have heard of, and many of you like : )] and we have a guy who tracks all the places our mailing list and many others end up. He has a mailbox set aside for all the stuff that comes in. The fictitious name that he monitors has a fairly long European-sounding last name, where he cycles through a series of letters in it to track each list. I went through the box one time and there were easily like 40 different permutations of the name in there, and this was only a few days' worth of mail. I'd love to see the database he uses to track it all...
"most carriers say they have no plans to allow voice communications."
Funny that most airlines have had in-seat phones on planes for over a decade...
Unrelated to in-flight internet service, but has anyone ever tried playing a flight simulator on a laptop while on a plane? I'd love to see how quickly you could get yourself kicked off by doing that. : p
Really? I've only had it hang once out of many hours of watching, and it was simple enough to get it started back up again. And there's a fullscreen button that you can click--it's not quite DVD quality, but it's pretty damn close. And I have no idea what this nonsense about "impossible to start watching a movie or show from the beginning" is all about--it takes maybe15 seconds to begin playing on everything I've watched. I guess it's just possible that you have some really shitty broadband service in your area, or maybe you should slow down/turn off your torrent downloads when you're actually trying to use your network. Nah, that would make too much sense...
Dammit! It looks like they won't let me share my .oog files...
I can't wait to hear about all the noobs out there complaining about their "crashed" computers because they tried to open a 700MB file in NotePad... : p
Thanks, but I'll watch it commercial-free and fullscreen. Also, NBC only has the last 5 episodes available on their site.
Actually, for a serious answer, Netflix does offer streaming video on their site. Of course, it has the usual caveats--you must view the site in IE on Windows since it uses WMV. If you have a MCE machine hooked up to a TV, though, it's actually not too bad. You get 1 hour of viewing time for each dollar you spend on your monthly plan. That is, if you spend $13.99 for a two-at-a-time plan, like I do, you get 14 hours of viewing time a month. The selection isn't all that great so far (they're definitely testing the waters with it), but they do have some recent movies, some decent TV shows, and a whole ton of BBC stuff. I ended up finally watching Heroes season 1 using it last month (although I ran out of time and had to rent the last disc to get the season ending). I plan to watch Season 2 when my time resets next week.
They already do have a digital distribution system--the mailman picks up the envelope with his fingers and drops it into my mailbox.
I know I'm secure. I use only genuine Microsoft products. I remember seeing an ad that said that they're the most secure computer company there is.
I removed the hard drive from my computer and it BRICKED it!!! I'm gonna sue Dell for making such a shoddy machine!