| Saturday, December 12, 2009 |
09:45 - But Movie Guy says leave before the ending, because it was too scary
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REVIEWS/912119998
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Seriously, who is Roger Ebert writing this Avatar review for? Sixth graders?
The story, set in the year 2154, involves a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to an earth-sized moon in orbit around a massive star. This new world, Pandora, is a rich source of a mineral Earth desperately needs. Pandora represents not even a remote threat to Earth, but we nevertheless send in the military to attack and conquer them. Gung-ho Marines employ machine guns and pilot armored hover ships on bombing runs. You are free to find this an allegory about contemporary politics. Cameron obviously does.
. . .
The Na'vi survive on this planet by knowing it well, living in harmony with nature, and being wise about the creatures they share with. In this and countless other ways they resemble Native Americans.
So wait, hamfisted beat-you-over-the-head allegory is now the hallmark of great storytelling? And Ebert has to fill out his weirdly banal, paint-by-numbers review explaining to us what is patently obvious just from the trailer?
I mean, there'd better be some immense plot twist lurking in there somewhere, because—and I say this with full disclosure as someone who hasn't seen the movie—it sounds for all the world like one of the laziest, most predictable, safest premises ever tackled. Whose sensibilities are challenged by this? What monolith of conformist jingoistic opinion is Cameron assailing? Does he (or Ebert) imagine that this is more than just the latest in an endless procession of movies that seek to show how great the world would have been if America hadn't come along and screwed everything up?
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| Thursday, December 10, 2009 |
07:20 - Nothing new under the sun
http://xkcd.com/673/
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Don't you hate when you think you're joking...
...But it turns out you're not?
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06:21 - Lost in translation
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Gruber, on the Nokia stores' closing:
Chris Ziegler at Engadget writes:
The way we saw it, these stores were never about sales; they were about exposing Nokia to the public and vice versa in a cool, hip environment, and regardless of how you feel about the company’s handsets, they’d effectively accomplished that with the flagship strategy.
What kind of store is not about sales? That’s like saying you’ve got a pen that isn’t about writing.
It's because in business, you have to explain every failure by saying "We meant to do that".
Like how when an exec is fired he's always "leaving to pursue other career opportunities" or "to spend more time with his family". Like that was the plan all along.
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| Tuesday, December 8, 2009 |
20:15 - What's better than ruining a piece of high-tech equipment?
http://cow.mooh.org/2009/12/phone-o-scope-attaching-slr-lenses-to.html
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Ruining two pieces of high-tech equipment!
Yes, that's an SLR lens duct-taped to an iPhone.
Via There I Fixed It.
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| Monday, December 7, 2009 |
14:02 - That's why they get paid the big bucks
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Physically, geometrically, by the numbers—it's such a subtle difference, isn't it?
Porsche Panamera:
Aston Martin Rapide:
And yet one is so dramatically, immediately more visually pleasing.
I mean, hey, let's not mince words. Next to the Rapide, the Panamera looks like an Eastern Bloc prison bus. And based on what? The cornery-versus-blobby design of the rear side windows and C-pillar? The slope of the Kamm back? The crease in the front flanks? The rake of the windshield? On paper you'd never be able to calculate beauty from the minute way the measurements vary. But once you see it in the flesh, it's the difference between an artistic triumph and a damned embarrassment.
The Aston is considerably more expensive than the Panamera, but price is hardly likely to be the big differentiator in this part of the market. I'd say Porsche is about to get its lunch eaten in a big way.
It's just as well, perhaps, that Porsche's power play for VW failed in such operatic fashion, since the fallout appears to mean the Cayenne and Panamera will both be killed off (new as the latter is) in favor of more pure sports cars and GTs. If this is what having a "car guy" (Piëch) in charge of VW entails, think what the US car industry could have been like under the same sort of tutelage...
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11:56 - Sue-do
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111094923390
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Oh, this is rich:
Lordy, lordy, lordy. They have no shame. It appears that Microsoft has just patented sudo, a personalized version of it.
Here it is, patent number 7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention".
Marvelous. What are they going to do, sue Apple and Red Hat and everyone who uses a built-in CLI or GUI form of sudo in their daily machinations? Is this how they solved the "cancel or allow" problem?
UPDATE: Sigivald in comments notes that the patent involves this novel extension of the concept:
2. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions therein that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform acts comprising: determining multiple accounts capable of permitting a task not permitted by an account of a current user wherein the determining is based on criteria comprising: frequency of use; association with the current user; and indication of sufficient but not unlimited rights; receiving indicators for the multiple accounts capable of permitting the task; presenting a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface having: multiple account regions, each account region identifying one of the multiple accounts capable of permitting the task; an authenticator region capable of receiving an authenticator for one of the multiple accounts capable of permitting the task; receiving, through the graphical user interface, the authenticator for one of the multiple accounts capable of permitting the task; and responsive to receiving the authenticator for one of the accounts capable of permitting the task, packaging, into a computer-readable package, the received authenticator and the account capable of permitting the task associated with the authenticator, the package effective to enable authentication of the account capable of permitting the task.
So... what they've invented is sudo without that tedious "authentication" part.
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Brian Tiemann
