Deja view November 30, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : News , add a commentSo I was channel surfing late last night and came across “The Skulls 2″ on tv. Surprised that such a thing existed, I hopped over to the channel and demanded that my tivo give me a plot synopsis. What it said baffled me, but let me start at the beginning so that you too may be baffled.
Here is part of the synopsis on imdb for the first Skulls movie:
For Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), an invitation to join the prestigious secret college organization, The Skulls, is a dream come true. Until murder befalls another student, and Luke finds himself one student amidst the sinister and well-connected brotherhood and now he must summon the strength to stand alone against immeasurable odds.
Now a synopsys from “The Skulls 2″:
After joining the Skulls, Ryan Sommers (Robin Dunne) is warned not to betray any secrets about the organization or its high-powered members. However, when Ryan witnesses a murder within the Skulls’ private chambers, he finds that the closer he gets to revealing the truth - the more dangerous life becomes.
There is actually a 3rd movie but it actually seems to vary enough that I won’t make fun of it (after all at least its a woman lead and its her boyfriend who gets killed not a stranger, ok so I should still probably make fun of it).
Anyway, going back to the first two movies… is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing? Does it appear that these movies are in fact, the same movie rehashed? Incidentally if you can’t imagine scathing enough criticism for the 2nd movie, go read the big user review that is listed on that page.
Ebert was recently quoted as saying… well heck, here is the entire quote:
I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.
I agree with him on a few points, with the dozen mortal combats and dooms (and those are just the major ones) out there its hard to point to video gaming as a whole as a means of making myself “more cultured, civilized and empathetic”. But I should also point out that for every Minority Report or Princess Bride, there are many more movies like Catwoman and Charles Angels. The real point isn’t that he’s wrong in what he says, its just that there is more than enough worthless crap to point at in either industry.
Sony DRM score to date…. November 21, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : News, This should not be happening , 1 comment so farPerhaps you’ve heard about the Sony’s latest attempt at anti-piracy (you must not follow any geek news if you don’t), but let me summarize its failings…
- The rootkit it installs has no uninstaller, nor can it be removed manually as it will damage system settings. (sony has since taken steps to help people with this)
- This poorly written rootkit has already been exploited by at least 3 viruses to hide itself.
- It uses code that is under the LGPL license in such a way that, by law, it is required to cite the origin of the code and release the source code for the thing under the same license. Neither is done, remains to be seen if this will go to court or if it can be proved in court. Incidentally if you haven’t read the article I linked to, this code was probably written by DVD Jon, noted archnemisis of the DRM mentality, which makes me ask, did they mean to be this phenominally ironic?
- It can be defeated with masking tape (or probably a sharpy). As is the case with almost all the DRM solutions for CDs to date, anyone who is technically savy enough to likely be a serious music pirate can easily bypass the protection. Which means that 99% of the people affected by this are innocent.
They are being sued of course, and have offered to exchange any CDs with this DRM on it with clean CDs.
UPDATE: Texas class action lawsuit against Sony
Ah Toasty-o November 16, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : General , 3commentsTwo ground wire reconnections later, and I have heat again. Also a burning dust smell that oddly I actually like, though would drive my mom out of the house.
Yup its winter… November 16, 2005
Posted by Aaron in : General, Quote Book , 1 comment so farI know because my furnace has conked out again. This time its probably electrical, but when I got up this morning it was around 55 degrees in my apartment. I spent last evening in a fleece, boy scout wolly socks and gortex long johns. To top it all off my landlord is in the hospital and while he knows that I’m having problems, I’m pretty sure no matter what I can’t expect heat before tomorrow. So a borrowing space heaters I will go.
Another entry for the quote book:
Michael: He needs a pet, in the office
Me: He can’t have my shatner
Michael: shatner is no man’s pet, you are his
What flu? November 7, 2005
Posted by BatWeasel in : Links, News, World News , 2commentsI find it very silly that people are trying to drum up mass panic about avian flu. I can see that a thorough review of epidemic procedures like quarantine, and handling large amounts of sick people, and air travel restrictions would be appropriate now. Those things are applicable to any pandemic situation and so it’s never bad to be up-to-date, especially when there’s a real concern. However, no one knows that bird flu will ever be a problem, or if it is what strain it will be, and so all this talk about stockpiling vaccine is just nutty (that is a good chunk of Bush’s 7.1 billion plan). And how in the world are they estimating monetary cost and loss of life? No one of course says what the figures are based on, probably because they’d be embarassed to say they just coughed them out their ear.
Here is a fairly temepered report on the situation, still with it’s fair share of wild speculation.