text:
ZAPNotes
ZAP Design's Zachary Pennington's official blog. Read and be something.
Tales from the Frozen North
Right in my old back yard, no less! Some would-be XBox 360 scalpers were robbed at gunpoint after failing in their attempt to double their money by selling 5 XBox 360s to people standing in line to buy them. Nobody likes a scalper, I guess. No word on wether or not the gunmen then played Santa Claus by turning over their ill-gotten gains to some needy gamers. I'm guessing not. I'd be sympathetic to the plight of these boys, except for the fact that they were scalping! So now their actions have deprived four gamers from having a potentially incendiary home electronics device. But seriously, someone needs to take the rage out of A-Rage.
Another Screenwriter Blog
Josh Friedman. Joy.
I Knew I Had A Lot Of Garbage...
...but I didn't realize that I had this much. I hope I find a good home for all of it.
And in Other (Non-Uwe or Apprentice) News...
A horse apparently named after a Viven Leigh character and a Dead Kennedy can drink legally for the first time today. Somehow we don't think that procuring alcohol has been an issue prior to today. But now it's, you know, legal. Joy. Make room at the trough!
It's coming...
...and none of us are worthy. Don LaFontaine did the voice over for this trailer! We weep with anticipation for the coming greatness that is Uwe.
Quick thoughts on last night
I'm still trying to recover from my 15x10 -3 minutes of nationally televised fame. But here are some quick answers to burning questions you may have. If you've got another kind of burning, see a doctor. • I do work with the guy that Clay was hitting on. • Alla really was responsible for the win. • $45 glasses of cognac on someone else's tab are nice perks. Highly recommended joy.
Clay and Adam are a couple of dorks.
But I certainly had nothing to do with this monstosity. Or did I?
Hmmpf.
OK, so posts about Gallo's reproductive juices don't elicit responses. Noted. Here's something that I may or may not have been involved in. I like how it says they were given access to me, as if I were a commodity. Or maybe they weren't given access... Guess you'll just have to tune in and watch. ;-)
Only 51 Shopping Days Left!
Are you stumped as to what to get that certain single female on your shopping list? You know, the one who wants to have children, but hasn't found the right guy? Look no further, dear readers, as the intrepid JAD staffers have been working tirelessly since five minutes ago to bring you the solution to your KwansMasKah conundrum. Vincent Gallo's sperm. For only $1,000,000. We know what you're thinking and right now we're wishing that we were female, so we could take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We mean, did you see Brown Bunny?* Price includes all costs related to one attempt at an in-vitro fertilization. (A $50,000 value) If the first attempt at in vitro fertilization is unsuccessful, purchaser of sperm must pay all medical costs related to additional attempts. Mr. Gallo will supply sperm for as many attempts as it takes to complete a successful fertilization and successful delivery. Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who i
We're Not Worthy
The emollient Dr. Uwe Boll has announced that his upcoming opus, Dungeon Siege, will be split into 2 movies. We're not sure that mere mortals a worthy of such a bounty of Uwe-goodness. This event may be on a level with the Berlin wall coming down. Or the birth of Christ. The genius that is Boll is so sublime, so perfect that lesser humans cannot begin to divine it. We can only witness the results, his magnificent celluloid gemstones that shine so brightly. He is creating an oeuvre unparalleled in this universe. (And we imagine any others.) With bold ideas such as the non-importance of both character and production design, he is picking up where the avant-garde left off 30 years ago. We weep at the bounty he has presented unto us. Needless to say, we're going to go start the line for tickets tomorrow. We also think that this makes it official: Time travel has been invented. How else can you explain two-bit hack directors like Tarantino and Coppola doing the same thi
Sulu Comes Out
This is news? We're pretty sure that more people thought Ellen was straight than thought the Commander was. Geeky fan boys everywhere are colored unsurprised.
Get that man a scalpel!
The new King Kong is going to be 3 hours long. Personally, we have no problem with 3 hour movies. As long as they move along at a decent clip. I imagine that spectacle such as Kong is a good candidate for working well as a 3 hour picture. Some 3 hour movies that move well: The Lord of the Rings films The Godfather Titanic Casino Some 3 hours movies that don't: Dances with Wolves Boogie Nights Punch Drunk Love* Actually, anything by P.T. Anderson Lost in Translation* * We know these movies weren't technically 3 hours long. They feel longer. Watching them will take years off your life.
A Different Kind of Color Commentary
If, like us here at JAD you find yourself frequently despising the inanities spewed from las bocas of the talking heads who cover events of a sporting nature, we have a site for you. Joy.
49 Cinammon Buns!
OK, I'm a horrible, bitter and spiteful GFB. I admit it.
Damn the Birthday Candles
There is a God.
Somedays you get 0.2 metric tons worth of work dumped on you. With a tight deadline, because the client took a week and a half to get back to you. On these days you curse the client, your AE and everyone's respective parents. You start to get a little stressed. Then you realize that about half your working time will involve going through photography of Jessica Alba and suddenly you don't mind. So much.
You don't want his agent
Him being Owen Wilson. In the movie business there are generally things called likeness clauses. A likeness clause dictates how big your mug has to be in relation to anyone else's mug (and sometimes who is even allowed) in promotional materials, like posters. Generally when you're the star you get the provision that no one's likeness may appear bigger than your likeness in the poster. In the case of 2 stars, they generally have to be equal. Which brings me to why you don't want Owen Wilson's agent: It's not even close. Sure, Double-V's head is lower than OW's, but apparently Vincenzo is a giant. (Or Owen was passed over for the role of Mini-Me only because his nose is crooked.) If it's still not clear, here's a Photoshopped version of the poster to illustrate how much bigger V 2 is in this particular poster. Keep in mind that all I did was rotate the bits of his body. I scaled nothing. I didn't fix the bit of perspective on hi
$12.4 Million? Wow.
I didn't think that teaming Obi-Wan Kenobi with a talking horse was a good idea, but even I didn't expect this. This first trailer, the one with Mr. Pink delivering the only bit of dialogue, was actually good. But the subsequent offerings made it look worse and worse. The brown artwork probably didn't help. Apparently the more the horse talked, the less people wanted to see it. I know for a fact that Mr. Large Body of Water Partially Surrounded by Land is very involved in the marketing of his movies, so he's got to share some of the blame. Maybe most of it. After all, he's the one that cast the horse.
Greatest. Web. Site. Ever.
www.uweboll.com
It's pronounced TARE-el
"At the end of the day, I don't have to worry about what people think of me, whether they hate me or not. People hated on Jesus. They threw stones at him and tried to kill him, so how can I complain or worry about what people think?" –– Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens, on how people might react to his potential camp holdout. I'm so glad that the hated Eagles have to deal with this guy, after he trashed by beloved Niners before leaving town. But I have to admit a grudging respect for them over the hard line stance they're taking with this idiot. I wonder if it has occurred to him that if he holds out that he won't get paid anything and that that might not be good for his family, which is the other quote attributed to him. And all this posturing after a year which could only be considered his fourth-best as a pro. And after he had gotten his dream gig in Philly. And after signing a good contract with them. This is all as laughable as the time Latrell
Blogspam
Don't do it. However tempting it is to use other blogger's comments areas to promote your ultra-crappy, badly written excuse for using up server space. Make an interesting comment and you'll be rewarded with page views and maybe frequent readership. But blog spam isn't welcome and doesn't work. So don't do it. Just. Don't. Thank you.
AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes
I'll post what I thought was overlooked and what shouldn't have been included later. Meantime, here's the list as it is: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," "Gone With the Wind," 1939. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," "The Godfather," 1972. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am," "On the Waterfront," 1954. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," "The Wizard of Oz," 1939. "Here's looking at you, kid," "Casablanca," 1942. "Go ahead, make my day," "Sudden Impact," 1983. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," "Sunset Blvd.," 1950. "May the Force be with you," "Star Wars," 1977. "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night," "All About Eve," 1950. "You talking to me?" "Taxi Driver," 1976. "What we've got here is failure to communicate," "Cool Hand Luke," 1967. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," "Apocalypse Now," 1
Boll Me Over...
JAD's favorite movie director, the inscrutable Uwe Boll , is allegedly being considered for directing duties on a movie adaptation of the PC game Postal. This kind of genre-jumping ( House of the Dead , Alone in the Dark & the upcoming masterpiece that is Blood Rayne ) is virtually unprecedented, but we feel that the intrepid autuer will be up to the task. Dare we say, "Oscar?" Yes, we dare.
Thanks, Michael
Thank you for telling us that you are not going to have children* in your bed anymore. We'll just gloss over the glaring contradiction here. But well done to you! And congratulations on the not guilty verdicts! Too bad you couldn't get the judge to allow a verdict of innocent... * And by children we specifically mean young boys. But hey! It's a natural and loving thing, right?!?!
How to write like a gossip columnist
Anyone can do it! Just keep in mind to never use your source's name, and always play up a celebrity's reaction to something using the following words: Blast Slam Fuming Here's an example: "Latigo Flint blasted reports that his guns do not actually fire live ammunition." Use them in combination!: "Gil slammed fellow carnie Sal's insinuation that he got a bit too personal with a badger. "It was cold and he wasn't even there!" the one-eyed Whack 'em Cats operator fumed." That's right, kiddies. Anyone can write a gossip column. And with the internet, anyone can publish it, too! p.s. Don't forget to put a salacious slant on everything. And blow things out of proportion, too. In fact, you may want to change your middle name to that.
ABC has just announced that they are dropping the NBA Finals in favor of repeats of "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives".
(I actually started writing this the day after I saw it. It's taken a while to get around to finishing it.) I'm glad I didn't do the midnight show. First, a little background on my involvement with George Lucas's creation, known as Star Wars. I was not even two when the first Star Wars was unleashed upon the world. Back then, it was just Star Wars —the sub-title "A New Hope" was added later (which is ironic, considering the much more objectionable changes later made to the original films by Lucas.) But I have always known Star Wars. It is the first film I remember seeing. My brother and I had a good percentage of the original toys, we actually still do. I've dressed up as Star Wars characters for Halloween and I've watched every Star Wars spinoff, even the Ewoks movies. I have owned the original trilogy in 3 different incarnations on video. I have a print of Darth Vader hanging in my house and until the last few years I've continued to
"Will be remembered as one of the greatest movies ever made. 'Classic' isn't kind enough a word for this gem. The best film to be unleashed onto the public in 25 years!" -- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM Calm down, big boy. Calm down.
Take that, tubby!
$21.7MM opening. I like to think that Douglas would be proud. If you haven't seen it yet and you liked the books, I do recommend it. There's a definite plot, and a lot of things are different, but the essence is there. It's also such a joy to see practical creature effects again. The CGI is great, especially when they get to Magrathea, but the aliens are wonderful creations of Jim Henson's shop. When you see the Vogons, you'll wonder why GL had to go all-CGI with his creatures. 4 stars out of 5
TMQ Lives!
Ok, that headline could be cooler. Just imagine that it's 40 years ago. And that you're in a NYC subway. And instead of reading a blog, you're reading some graffiti. And instead of "TMQ", it says "Frodo". ... Alright, it was a stretch. Sue me. I've got Barry White as my legal counsel. This is exciting news. I'm so excited I need to go beat on Kid Mayo with my Titanium Pimpstick™.
After watching some (OK, a lot) of the opening weekend of the NBA's second season, some things occurred to me. • Is George Clooney trying to compete with his buddy Brad by doing Budweiser VOs? WTF? • The new Bulls are fun to watch, but watch out for Ben Gordon if they start losing again. • Do the movie/playoff tie-in promos that TNT does really work? I'm not sure that this is the right venue for Kingdom of Heaven . • The adidas commercials are works of art, but somebody please tell me what they have to do with the shoes. The shoes are intelligent? Does that mean they understand the ads? • Enough with the pouty looks after you score and get fouled. If you're trying to look intense, it's not working. You look like you just chomped on a lemon. Score, pump your fist and be done with it. Stop trying to look like you've just had every member of your family insulted and your hometown invaded by locusts. It's just basketball. • Ahmad Rashad owns the NBA
Now if they were offering Corellian ale, I might just show
Apparently my home town Fan Force is lining up for the midnight showing of Star Wars Episode III: ROTS. The odd thing about midnight showings or any late night movie viewing in Anchorage is that it's still light when you exit the theater. This can take some getting used to. (This only applies during the summer months, BTW.) The really sad thing about this is that the line is almost guaranteed to be better than the movie. This one's still going to suck, boys and girls. Great effects and awesome Jedi action will be melded together with mind-numbingly dull (and pointless) politics, bad writing and possibly worse acting by most involved. I saw the last one in the theater and the highlight was hands down the 5 minute lightsaber battle before the movie started, put on by a couple of fans in costume with plastic sabers in hand. They had some great moves and generated more applause than anything in the 2 hours of pain than followed. Of course, I will be seeing this conclusi
Adobe (makers of PDF and Photoshop) have announced that they are going to devour the company known as Macromedia (makers of Flash and other junk). Joy. I don't throw my lot in with the whole "corporations are evil" crowd, but this is not a good thing. It's not like the EA/NFL deal (which was initiated by the NFL for reasons known only to Lucifer); it may be worse. Macromedia was Adobe's only competition in at least a couple spaces, such as image editing and web interface builders. This means effectively no competition for the new GoLive/Dreamweaver product, and likely, no innovation. The only good that could possibly come of this is if the Flash interface gets fixed, because right now it blows yaks. I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully the regulators will disallow this one. Later in the day, videogame retailer Gamestop announced it's pending assimilation of videogame retailer Electronics Boutique. It's the hip thing to do, apparently. To
In case you were wondering...
...no, we are not dead. ...yes, we are very happy that the Lakers are officially out of the playoffs. But this does not end our "Down with KBB" mindset! ...yes, there will be Titanium Pimpsticks™ for sale here soon in this spot. Shill, shill, shill! ...no, and you don't want to, either. ...yes, he was a groovy kind of guy. Not perfect, but hey: who is? ...42. Don't you read? ...yes, she is a skank. Dating, shtupping and marrying a scumbag is skanky. It doesn't matter that she's currently married to the guy. This pregnancy just underlines the skankiness. ...Gil is dead. ...no he's not. ...that's right, we're coming to NYC in May for a bit. Or at least NYC-adjacent. ...yes, he is dead. If not, why isn't he posting? ...the new Beck is good. Buy it. No, not the beer. But it's OK to buy beer, too.
Shirt Update
We have sold two Suspicious Yak tees! This is great news, but apparently it's not enough to nurse Gil back to posting health. So. Buy. More. Shirts. (Or Western Union the carny some money. I think he's in Manitoba.)
I Love This Game!™
It is a well known fact that we here at JAD despise with a level of intensity normally reserved for cockroaches and Carrot Top one Kobe Bean Bryant. We have posted about this several times. In a glorious development, the rest of the known universe is coming on board with this view. Chad Ford, "insider" for the Galactic Sports Station ESPN, has authored a column entitled, "Kobe's Act Wearing Thin In L.A.?" in which he writes: As a player, Kobe Bryant ranks as one of the 10 best players in the NBA. But given the Los Angeles Lakers' current problems, and the obstacles they face in fixing the team this summer, should owner Jerry Buss entertain a Kobe trade? This is fun. This is better than the 8-game losing streak that just ended (only the second 8-game slide since the 60s for the Lake Show). The answer is of course, yes. The debate (if you thought there was one) about which player KBB or the MDE made more of an impact in LA, is over. The bigger impact,
An Open Letter From Blogger
Funny that they didn't send one to me...
You look like you are suffering from a towel deficiency.
This will help you with that—as soon as their ordering system is up and running. Until it is, they may give you some lemon-soaked paper napkins. Joy.
The jury did not believe that Lil' Kim's sunglasses kept her from noticing that it was her friends who were shooting people outside the Hot 97 radio station. Apparently she misplaced the manual for her Joo Janta 200 Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses™. The jury, having not personally experienced the usefulness of having sunglasses that turn progressively black in the presence of danger, thought she was just a liar. Zaphod could have told them that a person wearing such sunglasses would definitely not seen anyone shooting anyone else under any circumstances. The interesting thing about the above article is not that Lil' Kim is the first female rap star to go to prison, but that this radio station is the place where rap entourages go to have shootouts. "Hot 97 is the same station where the posses of 50 Cent and The Game traded bullets last month." Hot 97 is the new OK Corral! We may have just found a career for Latigo that would make good use of his skills. He ju
Falling Away With You
Sadly, the 150 foot icescraper has fallen. There were rumors that it suffered the breakdown after learning its phone number was released to the world when Paris Hilton's sidekick was hacked, but we're pretty sure that's nonsense.
Every once in a while the machinations of clients can actually get to us here at JAD. We like to think that normally we know the score and can accept the insanity and inanity that is working in the entertainment industry. It is the price we pay, as they say. But there are those times when it gets to be a bit much and we wish for great bodily harm to be inflicted upon those that contract us to do the dirty work of advertising the product. Generally these wishes go unfufilled, much like those of Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan, who wish to be taken seriously, or Paris Hilton, who wishes that her vagina was more selective. But this afternoon we were actually given the opportunity to make these violent dreams a reality and so much more besides. At least, we think that is what happened. You be the judge. Sometime after lunch, the receptionist buzzed to inform us that we had a visitor and would we like to have them come up? This was most unexpected, as we are generally not allowed visit
Ruled by Secrecy
CONFIDENTIAL NEW BUSINESS PLAN Given the advancements in Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology, it is now possible to create the world's next great invention: The digital bumper sticker. See, OLEDs don't use a lot of voltage, can be almost paper-thin and are actually brighter than conventional LEDs using the same amount of power. This next generation bumper sticker (NGBS) will affix to your bumper or rear window as normal, but it will have a wireless connection to your cellular phone (WCTYCP). Flash memory (like in the iPod Shuffle) will keep each slogan displaying on the NGBS for at least 3 months without requiring a recharge/replacement. The advantages of this NGBS for the investor are so many as to boggle the mind, but I will outline a few for you: No more stale slogans. If your candidate lost, you can instantly update your Dennis Kucinich sticker to read "Don't Blame Me, I Voted Kucinich!" We think this will be a great revenue stream. Afte
Hometown(state) Pride
They say that everything is bigger in Texas. This may be true, but if you want to get really big, you have to go to Alaska, where I grew up. (But don't tell anyone in Texas that. They're still sore about not being the biggest state anymore. I'm not kidding.) In Alaska, things get REALLY BIG. On account of the almost perpetual light in the summer, the produce at the state fair looks like it's been hit with Wayne Szalinski's expanding machine. We have the largest bears, the biggest fish, a little mountain that is 4 miles high (and a taller ascent than Everest) and now we have a 151-foot tall ice sculpture. Why? Because it's Alaska. We have to do strange things to keep ourselves entertained during our 29-month winters. Check out the link for the progress photos. It's pretty amazing. Someone has to climb up to the top of this thing every few days to dig out the nozzles and add 10 feet of pipe to keep the thing growing upward. And remember, it&#
Review: Eddie Izzard at The Coronet Theatre
Saturday turned into a date night without even trying. I made dinner for my lovely wife and then we went out to see maybe the finest working stand up commedian today, Eddie Izzard. No, he's not touring right now. He was in LA doing four nights in this tiny 99-seat theatre, working out new material. He came on about 9 pm, as scheduled (I don't think he realized he was in LA) and proceeded to do mostly new stuff for 90 minutes. He was in bloke mode, no dress or makeup. Given the size of the crowd, he would occasionally get into conversations with us about the accuracy of some of his historical jokes. He did reference some of his earlier bits, but that's his style if you've listened to or seen more than one of his shows. Some of the new stuff was quite the hysterical. Great bit about houseflies. He wrapped up with "The Deathstar Canteen" from Circle, but a bit altered, which was kind of like the Rolling Stones playing Satisfaction live and extending the
Help out a friend
In light of our friend Gil's enormous medical bills, we here at JAD have created a t-shirt design that highlights the dangers of yaks to help him defray these costs: We think they're pretty nifty. All profits, after Cafe Press's enormous cut, will be sent to Gil. Hopefully he can then get the creditors off his back and post more. Or maybe he'll just get drunk again. Whatever. All we care is that he posts more.
It appears one of our MM items from last week is now incorrect. Which is not the same as being incorrect when we published it. We here at JAD like to think that we are 101% accurate 99% of the time. So there. On with the correction! Jessica Alba is, in fact, very interested in one night stands. This news comes via The Sun, which means that it's practically the word of God*. The queue starts to the left, boys. Please try to be orderly about this. * If God were very, very drunk, and having a bitchy row with some nuns.
What if Harvey Weinstein and Michael Moore sat down to dinner and started eating each other? Would we wind up with a two-headed Jabba the Hutt? The Blob? The Return of Marlon Brando? Would we be overrun with a thousand mini-Harchaels like in Army of Darkness? This is a question that needs an answer! We need to get a crack research staff on this.
Great Blogs that Never Were
Imagine if the internet had been invented 100 years earlier. Or even earlier than that. Of course, that might mean that a lot of other things would have to be invented first, like monitors, keyboards, computers and toilet paper, but let's skip all that. What kind of blogs have we missed out on? Let's jump into an alternate universe and find out! [waiting.] OK, good. You've made it! Let's look at some of these blogs!: Spreading the Word M. This blog reads kind of like the Bible. Very dry. A lot of "Shalt Nots" and so on. I don't think this guy got laid very much. The Big Fat Roman Orgy B. Wow. This was one catty bitch. He spent post after post whining about his boss. Boring! The Vicious Blog D. Parker And I thought the last one was catty. This reads like a Ted Casablanca column, only literate. Stank of gin, too. Killed Another One W. H. McCarty Thrilling recounts of gunplay, fast horses and dirty women. Every other post was about
For Gil, because he asked
... overheard at various Oscar after-parties: "I may have to re-think that whole 'I'm not going to do Daredevil 2 ' thing." -B.A. "Why is it so cold in here?" -H.S.'s ass crack "Mr. Hoffman, are you sure you want a fourth? The awards aren't even over yet." -Kodak Theatre bartender "Right off-stage was a pretty good place to watch. Yeah, we had the heart equipment with us. Those old timers can go at any time." -On call paramedic "Have you seen Lumet's daughter around?" -every hetero male "Fucking Kevin Costner. Who even remembers Dancing Wolves these days? They should make him give it back after The Postman " -M.S. "Nah, it's cool. I'm not bitter. At least I'm not Martin Scorsese. That old bastard must be going around the bend right now." -P.G. "It feels beyond good, what do you think?" -M.F. "What? Do something? Fuck-off! I'm off duty." -A
Monday Miscellany #3
Apparently Sony's Everquest 2 has added a new "feature". If you type "/pizza" the game launches Pizza Hut's web site, so you can order a pie whilst slaying dragons or virtually wooing an elven princess. This beats the former method, which was spending 5 minutes on the phone with a good pizzeria, ordering something that would actually be edible. The online comic Crtl-Alt-Del has taken this "innovation" to its logical conclusion. Joy. Bad Cover Alert™: Some bimbo named Katrina Carlson has forsaken all credibility or originality and covered the classic "Drive" by The Cars. Another case of trying to cash in on someone else's brilliance, this abomination adds absolutely nothing to the original. Ben Orr is spinning in his grave, no doubt. I was driving (no pun intended) Sunday night when we heard this crap being pushed over the airwaves and into the car's stock radio. The resulting hysteria of both of us simultaneously trying
Further Evidence of the Demise of Originality
I offer this: I don't object to the poster design. In fact, I kind of like it, although I would have done some things differently. But this marks the 938th time that "Terror has a new name" or some variation thereof has been used to promote a horror film. It's time to retire the line into the cliché wing of the Copywriter's Hall of Fame. Post haste. Further, it doesn't even work in this case. Which name are they talking about? The Jacket? The copy line is near the actor's name, not the title. So does this mean that 'Brody' is the new name of terror? Maybe Knightley is. Her teeth are certainly scary, but I'm not sure they inspire terror in anybody. I think you'd have to be a bit dodgy in the heart to have anything to fear from either of these two. Visually, this poster isn't an improvement on the first two, one of which offered up the ugliest picture yet seen of the not-so-attractive Keira Knightley. The first two were
Gratuitous Pop Star Post
Apparently the new Mr. Spears, in addition to being a total scumbag, is about 5' 6", as seen in top-secret government surveillance photos of the demon ritual. This must be the reason her parental units gave their blessing to this unholy union. The previous Mr. Spears, Jason Alexander, although dim, gullible and apparently unable to tell the difference between a real girl and a fake one (which may speak volumes about BS's taste in men), may have been too large a specimen to be controlled by their alien-demon hybrid technology.
True Hollywood Marketing Stories™ vol. #1
It's part of the job that you get projects that are fun to work on for one reason or another (big movie, classic, something you really liked, etc.) and then there are projects that aren't so much fun (the studio is basically dumping this title, Pauly Shore movies, etc.). A while back, I was given one of the latter. The studio had been going round and round with the primary star of this particular movie. They were trying to get a key art* approved. This was a dog title. It had sat on the shelves for something on the order of 2 years. There's generally one reason for a movie not getting a release: it sucks. There are occasionally other reasons, but the when it doubt, it's this one. This movie didn't have the makings of an out and out suckfest. The primary star is a well-known comedic actor, was teamed up with another well-known and liked comedic actor, co-starred an major award-winning actor and was directed by an award-winning director. On paper it look
A Sadder Day
My earlier satirical blog about Alone in the Dark isn't half as funny as this supposedly true account of the scripting of said masterpiece. Enjoy. By the way, the trailer for Bloodrayne may make you go blind. You've been warned.
Self-Promotion Saturday!
I've filled up my first list at Amazon of packages designed by me. Fear not, friends, as I have another list in the works. Just waiting for the studios to send the release data to Amazon on several titles. And here is the finally started, long-awaited international list. There's more to come and probably more back titles that I can't think of right now.
I just discovered that iTunes has Eddie Izzard albums available for purchase. I just give them my password and I get offbeat historical funny goodness delivered. straight. to. my. computer. There goes my productivity for, oh, February. Joy. iTMS, you are a diabolical mistress. Oh yes. Oh yes.
More Arrogance
As you've probably already heard, coach Rudy T. is about to quit the Lakers, halfway through the season. The national sports media says that this move is health-related (although nothing to do with the cancer he battled a few years ago, thankfully). The official line from the team is only that he's thinking about it. Right. What the screaming heads (Stephen A. Smith) on Sports Center won't go out on a limb and say, although the more connected local radio hosts know, is that it is a cancer-related decision. Cancer spelled with a 'K'. This is the kind of Kancer that had Zen-Buddist and all-around-laid-back-guy Phil Jackson seek therapy to help him deal with it. This is the kind of Kancer that would score 40 one night and then not take a shot in the first half of the next game because he was criticized for not distributing the ball enough. When this Kancer leads the team in scoring this year, they're a .500 club. When he doesn't, they're 4
From Yahoo!: Tara Reid and Christian Slater's scary movie "Alone in the Dark," [underachieved] with just $2.5 million, finishing well out of the top 10. [...]the movie stars Reid as an anthropologist and Slater as a paranormal investigator[...] It is depressing when a deserving art film, such as Alone in the Dark fails to find the audience it deserves. The movie was a labor of love for all involved, with the actors working for scale. Directed by the visionary Uwe "Germany's Scorsese" Boll, the movie tells the heart-wrenching story of gumshoe (Slater) and the woman he loves (Tara "America's Kidman" Reid) as they fight for the future of the world against all odds. The cast is rounded out by Stephen "America's Anthony Hopkins" Dorff. The movie has also missed out on the awards season, because unfortunately, it was not released in time for Oscar consideration because everyone involved wanted to get it right, no matter how lo
¡Feliz cumpleaños mi amigo!
Hoy es cumpleaños de mi del amigo Latigo Flint. Le $5 deseo la gran diversión, puta de Tijuana y una botella del tequila más fino que una cuenta de dólar diez puede comprar. También le daría un saludo de 21 armas (o deba que sea 29?), pero me parecía haber colocado mal mi arsenal entero.
1. The Razzies, that protector of quality in film, have sold out and gone political, nominating Bush and others for Worst Acting honors for Jabba the Moore's film of last summer. 2. We need to send a Terminator back in time to kill Axl Rose right after he completes laying down vocals for Use Your Illusion albums. This is a good thing on many fronts. It prevents the band from being ruined by Axl. It stops The Spaghetti Incident from ever being contemplated. The 3.5 GnR albums would be elevated even higher because of what might have been. And several years later, Courtney Love-Cobain won't kill Kurt and make it look like a suicide because it would just look like he was being an Axl copycat. Let's get our scientists on this! 3. Was I the only one who was hoping that Terrell Owens would slip and snap his broken leg in two when he was jumping up and down on the bench Sunday? At least the Eagles get to be dismantled by the Pats, bringing a lousy NFL season to a
Things are looking up already
As traumatic as the Vince Neil run-in was earlier, my day has been resuscitated by Ian Andrew Ziering's wife. (Yes, they're still married, apparently the divorce isn't final. They're making it work, unlike those A-List ) I get to play with photos of her in a bikini. And get paid to do it.
Well, you tell me!
So I'm playing some music via iTunes and I decide to pop into the music store (iTMS) to see if there's anything new and interesting. And there was. But not for the right reasons. For wrong reasons, so very, very. Wrong. Vince Neil had the third "ad" at the top of the iTMS home page. I can only hope that these are paid ads, making Apple a little money, because there is no other good reason on this earth for that to be where it was. So I just had to click on it, to see what he was up to. ... Who can I sue to reclaim the 30 seconds of my life that were wasted listening to this drivel. Don't get me wrong, I love the Crüe. I can even make the umlats quickly as I type. "Kick Start My Heart" and "Dr. Feelgood" are in a class by themselves. The problem here is that Crüe-less Vince sounds nothing like Vince+Crüe. Vince+Crüe=Gold, at least for a while. He should have looked to the successful solo careers of other front men, who'
Will wonders never cease?
Apparently Fox TV has realized that they "relied too heavily on Reality TV" . This is a revelation up there with "Hey! The sky is blue!" and "Toast is good with butter." "Reality" TV is the most gawdawful invention foisted upon us since Muzak. It doesn't even qualify as reality. It's just cheap programming. Producers don't pay scale to the writers—yes, if you think "Reality" TV is unscripted I can hook you up with Jennifer Aniston, real cheap like. Hell, they don't even call the writers writers, all in an effort to protect the lie that this is something out of real life. No royalties are paid to the (non)"talent" people in front of the cameras. DVD royalties? Hah! Don't make this bitter entertainment industry vet laugh. The contracts they offer contestants on American Idol make being a sex slave in the Middle East look like a good gig, or at least one with more dignity. Fox has become the &qu
Natalie's A Winner, Too!
Natalie Portman won a Golden Globe this weekend. As my friend Rube Waddell* has pointed out, this could be the start of a new trend; play a stripper, take your clothes off, win an award. Joy. This hopefully will replace the depressing trend of; ugly up, win an award (Hillary Swank, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron). Some may argue with Hillary Swank's inclusion in my parentheses, but that's why I've got comments turned on. * Don't bother with Rube's blog, he doesn't post there anymore, which is a shame, because he's got one of the great blog names out there.
I won Latigo Flint's coveted Best Comment Ever Award! This is right up there with my Key Art and Alex Awards. Unfortunately, I did it anonymously, to mess with my bro, who was messing with me, so Latigo may not believe that I did it. But I did! I used Google's Language Tools to do it. Oh yeah, here's the winning comment. It's #4.
Nice poster.
Don't Panic, click the image for a larger version.
Who says there's no such thing as karma?
Not me, I assure you.
It's self-promotion Thursday!
A while back, I created an Amazon list of DVD packages I've designed. As I noted then , it was not complete. One of the titles I was hoping to find is currently only available from the publisher. Carnival of Souls is a classic horror film, one that George Romero credits as an inspiration for Night of the Living Dead . (Hey! I did a package for that one, too! What do a coincidence!) Both movies include commentraks from Mike Nelson of MST3K fame. Go ahead and buy them both. I like this package a lot because it is one of the first finishes that incorporates work I did in 3D, which was cool.
KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has turned me onto The Chapin Sisters , a 3-girl group of singers and their musical stylings. They're kind of like a cross between Sepultura and Bambi .* I recommend you check them out, especially their cover of Britney's "Toxic" . Joy. I found out their next show is going to be here in LA, a mere number of blocks from where DarthMoridin toils. Double Joy. Are you still here? Click the link , dammit! * They sound nothing like this. I just wanted to see if you were awake. But who knew that Sepultura would have an official web site? The Brazilians are still in full effect. Yo. Dog.
A New Game
cpMaia likes to come up with fun games you can play with your friends. Her latest inspired me to come up with one of my own. Everyone who plays has to come up with three (3) songs they wish they had written. I hope those of you who aren't musicians play along as well. I'll start: Paranoid Android , Radiohead Divine roller-coaster vocals along with some out-of-this-world guitar work. With Or Without You , U2 Simplicity and restraint elevate what could have been a late-80's power ballad to classic status. Comfortably Numb , Pink Floyd 2 of the greatest guitar solos of all time.
Having your Mac for under $500? Priceless.
I'm a slut for all things Apple. I admit it.
Sunday sports thoughts
I think that if next year the Broncos make the playoffs and wind up in a match-up up with the Indianapolis Peyton Mannings, the NFL needs to step in and replace said Broncos with the 7th seed. It would probably make for a much better game. In other sports news, it's official--the NY Mets have lost their collective minds. Of course, you could also argue that Carlos Beltran has lost his mind for agreeing to go to the Metropolitans and treating the Astros (with whom he was one game from the World Serious) like garbage. I would not disagree with you. If you were to say that Scott Boras is the devil, or is at least having NIN's "Closer"-type sexual relations with Beelzebub, I would say you were quite observant.
No, really, I'm sorry. You still suck.
WARNING: thar be jargon ahead, matey! Quark XPress sucks. Actually, it doesn't just suck, it invents new ways to suck. It's actually so good at doing so that you kind of have to admire the dumbass engineers at Quark for being able to delve to new realms of suckage. It's quite spectacular. Quark XPress is, unfortunately, the current standard for desktop publishing (DTP) page layout programs. Back in the day, when we could only work in square interfaces and RAM still cost upwards of $20 per megabtye , it was the bomb, yo. It was mean, lean and let you put whole categories of businesses out of work with a single click (typesetters, etc.). But then they started upgrading, casually ignoring advances in the system software it was running on for years at a time. And then there's the bugs. Bugs so bad that some major releases (*cough* 4.0 *cough*) got categorically ignored until the next point release (x.1, x.2, etc.) in which the bugs were squashed to the
A list by me.
I created a list on Amazon of DVD packages I designed. It's not complete as there are a few I probably can't remember and some that aren't out yet, but you may find it of some interest. This is a domestic release only list. I may at some future point do an international list on their UK site.
But it's too logical!
While we here at IJAD strive to avoid such things as politics or serious current events like a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster strives to prevent you from being sober, some things just cannot be helped. It occurs to us that it might be a good idea for the news networks and outlets in this country to stop being PR flacks for the "terrorists" out there. How about not running every video tape from OBL? How about not reporting on every possible person out there and their supposed reasons for operating? There's a concept! You will instantly reduce their "power"--much of which is perceived, not real--by at least 95%. Their capabilities are in actual fact so miniscule that they would be nothing without the media to give their message strength. Yeah, I know. Too logical.
A Happy MMV To All
Hope this one is the best so far. dM
Now if they were offering Corellian ale, I might j...
You look like you are suffering from a towel defic...


East West Security and Consulting, Inc. is a family-owned Private Security and IT Consulting business that began in 2009. We specialize in security staffing and consulting, business consulting, and project management.
We believe that the personalized service and ingenuity that go into our projects set us apart from our competition, and we take good care of both our customers and our consultants to maximize their combined creative potential and ensure maximal mutual satisfaction. We provide flexible business arrangements and seek challenge and diversity. We accept a wide variety of unique and interesting projects worldwide and encourage excellent quality while maintaining a favorable work-life balance for our consultants and clients.
Technology, art, music, entertainment, security, clean energy and electric vehicles are just a few of the things we're passionate about. Our mission is to develop innovative and effective solutions that express your unique vision and enable you to better serve your customers. We combine creative talent, business savvy, and information technology expertise to overcome your specific challenges and make a strong impact on your clients.
If you're interested in hiring us for a project, please contact our Operations Manager Kyle Paskewitz to discuss your needs.
Copyright © 2009-2018 EWSC All rights reserved.


Someone from the Venezuelan diaspora (can we call it that?) told me flatly he's not into economic philosophy but he knows communism means "no jobs". He said he'll go back to Venezuela when Maduro's gone.
This got me thinking about claims that US is closer to dysfunction of that nature than it seems. I thought there would be a backlash against President Trump's antics, deficit spending, nastiness, lying, and many appearances of impropriety. But there really hasn't been as much as I thought. Democrats are lining up with large gov't programs like the so-called Green New Deal that attempts to sell socialism by tying it to one of the biggest problems of our time, global warming. Using the problem to sell socialism is worse than pretending it's not there.
I hope I'm wrong and we soon see that attitude that I see in my American colleagues in US politics. Or if we don't see it, then maybe President Trump's antics and this Green New Deal and Medicare for All crap are all just rhetoric. Maybe when crisis strikes, people suddenly get serious. I don't like that because seriousness in a sudden crisis usually means more government intrusion.
It seems like the world needs a great Ayn Rand communicator, not a politician, but an intellectual that reaches that average non-philosopher person. It doesn't even need to be a person. It could be a hit TV show. I have no idea what form it would take.
The good news is my predictions are wrong at least half the time. People respond telling me, no, no, they'll stay fired up blaming different groups for their problems and that will keep them apart. I hope so. It doesn't seem sustainable long-term. As ewv said, tricks won't cut it. The world needs a solid foundation of a philosophy of liberty.
CG: "The world needs a solid foundation of a philosophy of liberty."
Such a foundation has already been laid ... and ignored ... because it is not in the best interest of those who seek power rather than liberty.
Those that seek power rather than liberty will eventually (based on the fact it repeats through history) turn on one and other or on themselves.
If are to correct the course of society we will need to wait for that event, but we will need to be ready and everyone with sound philosophy of liberty must be ready to act.
Initially only 10% of colonists supported a drive for liberty (At the point of the declaration of independence). That grew to 30% by the revolutionary war.
Even then the Jack Flag, or Grand Union Flag, which was symbolic of a desire to return as part of England after the war was flown for the first 2 years of the Revolutionary war.
After all that the majority of people were seeking a philosophy of liberty. I think events will happen that will lead down this road again, however if there are not good men and women who will stand up and fight it will never blossom beyond the 10% base that always seems to be around with a good internal philosophy of liberty.
I think right now is a time for opportunity. Not at all sure if it will work out or not but I think it depends on us. Are we apathetic believing that nothing can be done? If so we will be right. Or are we trying?
Those with a sound philosophy of liberty (i.e. colonists and eventually Founding Fathers) made the act of isolating themselves in a colony with like-minded individuals first. This is a major reason why Atlas Shrugged remains credible.
They didn't isolate themselves as a first act. They were already here, living in a thriving society; they understood what was being done to them and fought to defend what they understood that they had. Atlas Shrugged is credible because of the logic of how Ayn Rand conceived it and wrote the plot and theme. The theme of rational individuals using their own minds for their own goals, and what happens to a society when the mind is withdrawn, is the credible idea. Going on strike to cause a collapse that would create a renaissance without regard for the ideas people hold was not the theme or purpose of the novel and is not credible.
A majority was not "seeking a philosophy of liberty". They already had that. The colonists already had freedom and wanted to keep it. Only about a third wanted to fight a war with Britain as the means to keep it.
They had something that we do not: the Enlightenment's general acceptance of reason, individualism and freedom. A collapse due to infighting by the entrenched powers or anything else will not create that basis. It would only create more chaos and more demands for collectivism. The only opportunities we have are those allowing for spreading the proper ideas required for civilization.
Picking just one of your concerns, climate change, the general attitude has been to let the government pick the winners and losers. A better solution is to keep the government's hands off of the issue, and let market forces drive solutions. Propping up electric vehicles with subsidies, or reusable energy sources with tax breaks, or instituting punitive carbon taxes cripple the economy for all but the wealthy, and are most likely ineffective solutions to start with.
Propping up existing technology stagnates progress. It took breaking up the AT&T stranglehold on phone communications to enable the rapid rise of wireless communications. Making renewable energy sources compete instead of being coddled will drive innovation. Making electric vehicles compete head to head with conventional vehicles will drive innovation there as well. Reliable, affordable clean power and quiet, clean, efficient electric vehicles will be eagerly accepted, no carbon tax (which is a worthless scam) needed.
Nuclear power has been vilified as a possible solution to reducing carbon emissions. There are modern nuclear technologies that prevent disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima, and restrictive, expensive licensing processes need to be trimmed to allow their construction.
As for liberty and the pros and cons of the American vision, I suggest we undertake a modern "translation" of both the Federalist and Antifederalist papers into modern context. The insights and arguments the Constitution was based on are emphatically laid out in these papers, with warnings of the potential for failure due to some content. The probability that the ill-defined phrase "promote the general welfare" would lead to out of control government expansion is clearly spelled out in these papers, and that the abbreviated language of the 2nd amendment would create confusion of purpose is also illustrated. More people should have access to these arguments to better understand how the United States was originally envisioned.
We can only continue if our kids are properly allowed to experience and reason with the help of philosophers who have lived through hard times. People who examined what was going on, encouraged others to do so. Encouagae people to educate themselves, not rely on talking points of some chick who never supported herself ever.
As to global warming, they need to research and find the sun is actually in control, not some hucksters in DC. They cannot change, what the sun dictates. We are not in global warming, we are in the third year of a mini ice age, which will continue, Cortez or not. Make them examine and admit their past tinker ing with HAARP, to change jet streams. That is government, not citizens causing it.
People need to read somethingas simple as "Anthem, and see what is being done to them. If my daughter understood it at age 10, adults should be able to muddle through it. Freedom requires responsible behavior, and ignoring your own part in the chain, means you deserve the consequences of your own stupidity. Having stuidied philosophy since high school, I grow wary of the people who only seek a an oxymorong: benevolent dictator" to take care of them.
I've told my children when they were growing up: "Freedom without responsibility is freedom corrupted and soon lost." There seems to be a lot of corruption of freedom going on now days and when it's lost I'm sure those corrupting it will be clueless as to where it went.
Conservative appeals to the politics and history of the writing of the Constitution, with no discussion of the Enlightenment ideas that made a Constitutionally limited government possible or desirable, are hopeless. People who want more and more collectivism don't care about the details of the Constitution.
Which is why civics and philosophy need to be taught in a forum examining the historical conflict between collectivism and individualism. Ameritopia, by Mark Levin, is a good, concise read that examines the history of failed Utopian concepts, beginning with Plato's The Republic.
Mark Levin has a generally poor understanding of philosophy. He is a conservative faith-family-traditionalist who is one of the worst in substituting the tradition of the constitution for the principles that made it possible and necessary. The history can be interesting and sometimes important for explanation, but it is not a substitute for proper philosophical principles.
Most people get weighed down trying to follow the writings of Burke, Montesquieu, Hobbes and the like, primarily due to the cumbersome prose of their time. I've read most Utopian philosophical writings, and generally speaking, Levin has given a pretty accurate condensed description of their foundation that's more easily understood by contemporary readers. Marxism and most socialist concepts seem devoid of any understanding of economics.
Levin's history is not philosophy. He does not have a good understanding of philosophical principles and how they evolved over time. Like most conservative intellectuals he substitutes religion.
"Ameritopia, by Mark Levin, is a good, concise read that examines the history of failed Utopian concepts, beginning with Plato's The Republic."
This is an interesting discussion. I had a similar discussion where I say we need simplified explanations for non-philosophers as to why people should respect on another's rights. ewv says quick-and-dirty explanations won't work and are wrong by nature. I say most people are not philosophers, so I'll take whatever works. ewv says that amounts to tricking people, and without philosophical underpinnings they can be tricked in any direction.
I am swayed by what ewv says. If I read Mark Levin's book and had never read Rand or anything like that, I wonder if Levin would make individualism look worse in my eyes.
It's deeper than trying to trick people; that is Pragmatism, avoiding principle as a matter of principle for whatever "works" at the moment. Pragmatism itself "does not work". Did you get to Leonard Peikoff's lecture on Pragmatism yet?
"Did you get to Leonard Peikoff's lecture on Pragmatism yet?"
It's competing with free material from the library and stuff my book group is reading. I need to bite the bullet and buy that lecture series you recommend.
It's very important for understanding. In particular the sources of Pragmatism, its meaning and its pervasive influence over the last century accounts for much of what we are seeing now and the policies leading to it.
"I suggest we undertake a modern "translation" of both the Federalist and Antifederalist papers into modern context. "
This is a very powerful idea. I hope someone surprises us it does in some unexpected way: a hit book, a TV show, a video game... anything that at least makes it an issue.
My one fear is what if it becomes a topic for debate and people decide to amend or re-write the Constitution granting vast government powers. That would be horrible, but in some ways I'd rather admit aloud it than just pretend. I also have hope that if it were presented in a way completely divorced from modern politicos and from "wedge issues", most people still are for liberty.
What do you mean by "a modern 'translation' ... ? I have the two volume Library of America ", The Debate on the Constitution" which collects the Federalist and Antifederalist arguments. If you mean giving opinions of what was meant by the speakers and writers, then beware of what you will get.
One consequence we get is a "translation" into the elastic "living constitution" of the "liberal" Pragmatists and Progressives.
Nicely expressed, Doc, but I always thought the phrase "promote the general welfare" somehow got wrongfully interpreted to mean "provide the general welfare", which are two different meanings, IMHO. Too late to fix at this point, I guess.
Too bad "promote the general welfare" was even in there in the first place. I don't believe the Founders intended that to mean a welfare state, but it's too easy to manipulate. True, "the general welfare" is best promoted by protecting the people from crime and tyranny, but it looks vague enough to be twisted into just about anything a statist wants.
Agreed, LibertyBelle. I need to take Dr Z's advice and get more familiar with the Founder's original debates on the Constitution. With that said, I'm willing to bet good money the Founder's idea of "promote" as used in the Constitution isn't even close to the common definition of "provide" in the same era.
What suggestions would you make to a Convention of States Project presenter readying a table and a speech for the Constitution Center and/or Independence Hall (both in Philadelphia, PA)?
Just so on all counts, Dr. Z. Check out Concord Green on LinkedIn.
Gee whiz, CircuitGuy, this looks like a carefully worded smoke screen of "Philosophy of Liberty Communicator" to express your desires to take a slap at President Trump and promote the global warming religion to the rest of us Gulchers. Not buying it.
I've heard it said that sometimes in the White House it's nice to have a Mother Theresa and other times we need Dirty Harry. Now, IMHO, we need a Dirty Harry and Trump is filling the bill very nicely even if some folks would rather have a Mother Theresa.
I guess I'll just have to exercise what's left of my personal liberty to throw another log in the wood stove to keep the workshop warm in the snow while Nancy flies off to Hawaii. Oh wait! Some of the communist (Democrat) nuts in the state I live in are contemplating outlawing fireplaces and wood stoves to combat global warming. I wonder if Nancy has room on the plane for me and my family to get us out of the ice and snow we're covered in. Edit: Then again, maybe if I can help bring on a bit of global warming I won't have all that ice and snow to contend with and have a longer growing season to boot, LOL!
Yaron Brook is the best spokesman for a morality based purely on reason. He has many outlets on the webb for his ideas, one being his youtube channel.
There are others but Yaron will lead you to them as well.
I am not certain a good communicator will accomplish turning the tide of socialism. When I first embarked on this journey of understanding 55 years ago by living as a libertarian it made so much sense to me and seemed so obvious that I thought all that was necessary was to explain it to someone eloquently and the news would be self actualizing. For some reason humans seem to prefer slavery and not just because they might be in charge, although that is the attraction for those who desire to lead. It isn't just half the population that follows the call of collectivism those who consider themselves 'conservative' want government control of a different sort.
What is needed is a way to understand the human need to be slaves (taken care of) and how to communicate the fault of this desire. Failing to do this merely agitates the slaves when you tell them being free is better.
"What is needed is a way to understand the human need to be slaves (taken care of) and how to communicate the fault of this desire."
Yes, the fault of this desire and/or the benefits and virtues of taking care of things yourself.
That philosophy of liberty is in our Declaration of Independence and ratified in our Constitution...get back on That road...and we'll be fine...but unfortunately, half the country has lost it's mind.
Deport them to Venezuelan along with alexandria ocasio cortez and her snot green no deal.
There is no philosophy in the Declaration. There are a couple statements of a philosophic premise that presupposed a philosophy. Without that basis in ideas, the country is not going to "get back on that road" of the Declaration.
Watch Prager U videos. https://www.prageru.com/ they are the closest thing I have seen yet to what your suggesting we need. I agree. I also think it must be many different groups of people. One person will not have the reach that is needed to combat this cancer that has all ready spread far and wide. One person can slow it, only many will turn it.
Prager U? Don't you read Ayn Rand?
I have only watched one. It was good, but it seemed to get partially into partisan politics. I remember it (if I'm thinking of the right video) because a conservative was debating a liberal, and the conservative said they had to disagree on principles because the conservative saw people as inherently flawed by made more virtuous by police and other gov't institutions and the liberal saw people as more inherently good. It stuck with me because i'm more liberal and, as the video says, see people as more inherently good. I find that truly interesting and worth discussing, but my thought in this post is how to get everyone, regardless of their view of partisan issues, to come together for liberty.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll watch some more Prager U videos.
Circuit Guy: "It seems like the world needs a great Ayn Rand communicator, not a politician, but an intellectual that reaches that average non-philosopher person"
That is what Ayn Rand did. But it took more than "communicating"; it took her ideas and insights applying them. No one is doing that now.
"It doesn't even need to be a person. It could be a hit TV show. I have no idea what form it would take."
That is what Atlas Shrugged did as a novel in its illustration of the ideal man and the proper philosophic principles. But it also takes non-fiction explanation, which she subsequently did once she saw that the novel wasn't enough. There is always a need for fiction and other forms of art to portray the proper sense of life, but that takes people producing it who have a proper sense of life and the knowledge to properly portray it. We don't have that either.
"... I'm worried there's no philosophy of people solving problems without government force." Me too. Both liberals and conservatives are statists, believing that government is and should be the solution to society's problems. The alternative viewpoint, which holds that individuals have both the moral right, and the moral obligation, to find non-coercive solutions to our problems, is called voluntaryism or anarchy. I'd encourage you to watch this video by Larken Rose comparing authoritarianism (statism) to anarchism.
Organized statism and anarchy are a false alternative. Ayn Rand described the nature of a proper government based on the rights of the individual.
The US grows closer to meltdown and dysfunction every day, and it is largely as a result of big government (which BTW has been mostly Democrat-controlled for nearly 100 years now). Backlash against Trump's "antics"? I don't know what you mean, but I can only conclude that you are thinking that way because you listen far too much to the lamestream media. The economy is booming back now that Obama-era oppression is being rolled back by both a rescission of the government bureaucratic control state and lower taxes. There is still much that could be done, but Trump is moving us back toward the right track - not away from it as you imply.
"Democrats are lining up with large gov't programs like the so-called Green New Deal that attempts to sell socialism"
"Maybe when crisis strikes, people suddenly get serious."
That's because they won't be able to kick the can down the road anymore. Like SS, which is already defunct and will start becoming a major burden on the deficit in only a decade - if not reformed ASAP. Medicare and Medicaid only exacerbate the problem. Please note that I hold a portion of the Republican party complicit in this.
Bingo. It used to be in this nation that people were individuals and the ideal of the individual held sway. We've grown much more communistic over the past 100 years and lost that sense of "rugged individualism" which made this people - and as a result this nation - great. It also completely defeats the mindset of the progressives of forcing everyone into a "group" box from which they can play politics and pit one against another, which we see to greater extent now than at any prior time in history.
I agree with the problem definition completely (except for belittling the industry of journalism), but I completely disagree that there's any modern political force pushing for less gov't borrowing and intrusion. Except for a few kooks, modern politicians sell more borrowing and more disregarding the law. It's not that they're evil. It's hard to win. You need every advantage. Borrowing, creating facile scapegoats, and gov't solutions give them that advantage.
I believe the stuff they say to get that edge, the stuff you're repeating about presidents being responsible for the small ups-and-downs of the economy is a huge part of the problem. The economy always has ups and downs. It's been on an expansion for 10 years, not because of politicians. It's at long-term risk because of the borrowing, intrusion, and taxation. They're not doing it out of malice, but they have people arguing over the tiniest minutia while the structural problems persist. I think the real "bad guy" is interpreting the Constitution broadly, which makes the sophistry about which president steers the economy better slightly more plausible. It allows people in Congress and running for president to promise to solve people problems.
"the stuff you're repeating about presidents being responsible for the small ups-and-downs of the economy"
I never said that. In most cases, the ups and downs of the economy belong to the party controlling the House (wherein lies the Constitutional power to tax and spend). The President in certain circumstances has championed economic bills which became law and have also had major impacts. Reagan's tax cuts were passed as an executive priority despite the House being controlled by Democrats - a fact seen that along with the tax cuts were huge spending increases for social programs. The economy took off - and so did the deficits! Similarly, Bill Clinton took credit for an economy on the uptick even though it was Newt Gingrich's House which cut taxes AND spending to facilitate economic growth. The economy had started to slow down because the Democratic House (a holdover from GHW Bush's term) passed tax hikes. In the case of GW Bush, you had just the opposite - a weak President eager to go along with a Democratic Congress. Bush wanted war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan and Dems used that to also boost social spending again, resulting in huge (for the time) deficits. Again, it was the Dems who controlled Congress and denied that there were structural problems in Fannie and Freddie prior to the crash of 2008. The Dems pinned it on Bush in the media, but it was their blundering. And then they - along with President Obama - doubled down on those failed policies from 2008 - 2012, holding the economy in recession nearly the entire time. It only started to turn around once Republicans took control of the House and started pushing back against some of Obama's heavy-handedness in 2014. (It is incredibly unfortunate that while they tried to reign in tax hikes, they didn't bother to reign in spending.) President Trump took office in 2017 with a Republican Congress who passed huge tax decreases and got the economy going again. Again, however, they failed to do anything about the spending, leading to some of the largest deficits in history.
"They're not doing it out of malice"
I beg to differ. Current Democrats HATE this country's founding principles. They hate the limitations to their power proscribed in the Constitution. Woodrow Wilson was a major champion of expanding the powers of the executive a full century ago and nearly every President since - even including some Republicans - have agreed with him. Wilson made no illusory pandering to the Founding Fathers like many of his predecessors. He openly advocated in his professorial writings about fundamentally altering the Constitution to enable an imperial executive with broad law-making authority. If he were President today I think he would bring about the fall of the Republic because he would have complicit socialist Democrats to help him and spineless Republicans who would look the other way.
You remind me of my wife's late Grandmother. I know you have the tendency to side with the Democrats, but history demonstrates that many of the very policies you oppose are the very policies the Democratic Party has been championing for at least the past 60 years - if not longer. What is even more sad is that a large number of Republicans have also abandoned any semblance of fiscal responsibility as well - especially in the last 20 years. And as a result of the Democrats pushing and zero substantial resistance from the Republicans (as a body), we've gotten lots and lots of tax and spend - with tremendous emphasis on spend - policy. One needs look no further than the current socialist wave of Democrats such as Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and many others to see that the Democratic Party has nothing resembling the Blue Dog Democrat I believe you represent and hasn't since Bill Clinton's presidency.
"I think the real "bad guy" is interpreting the Constitution broadly, which makes the sophistry about which president steers the economy better slightly more plausible. It allows people in Congress and running for president to promise to solve people problems."
I agree with you here. What you are pointing out isn't really at odds with Congress' job, however: they are supposed to be the ones making laws and fixing problems. But all that we've seen is more taxation, more spending, and almost zero real legislative action. The tough policy decisions they've kicked to the Supreme Court so as to absolve themselves of responsibility - which is why Cavanaugh's confirmation threw a huge wrench in the Progressive's plans. They've been using the Courts since WW II (when FDR packed them with his appointees) to forward their agenda. That all has the chance to be undone now that the Court has four very strong Conservative voices (Roberts is wishy-washy). If Ruth Vader-Ginsburg [typo intentional] dies (she won't voluntarily resign) and Trump puts another strong Conservative like Amy something-or-other on the bench, you will begin to see the unravelling of sixty+ years of progressive rulings such as Chevron deference which gave power to the administrative state and allow the Legislature to punt on such critical areas as immigration policy. If the Supreme Court begins to put the target for all this bad policy bad in the laps of Congress, we may actually see the Constitution as it was intended.
We could start another thread about this, but I just don't see it. The "economy" is just people helping one another in mutually beneficial trades.
"Democrats are largely responsible for the negative trajectory of our nation's deficits."
Republicans seems lightly worse about borrowing, but I'll agree it's too close to call and unimportant. They seem to do the best job when they're balancing each other as Clinton vs New Gingrich.
"Current Democrats HATE this country's founding principles. "
No only is this incorrect, it's part of the problem. People are taking about which political party is slightly closer to the Constitution's founding principles and not doing anything to bring back the founding principles.
"history demonstrates that many of the very policies you oppose are the very policies the Democratic Party has been championing for at least the past 60 years - if not longer. What is even more sad is that a large number of Republicans have also abandoned any semblance of fiscal responsibility as well - especially in the last 20 years. "
This party history just doesn't matter me. I am very confused why anyone not involved in a political party would care about them. I want to see less gov't spending and intrusion. It makes no difference whatsoever if it comes through politician X making politician Y look bad so that X supporters can feel less pathetic by indulging in vicarious schadenfreude or if it's the reverse scenario with Y making X look bad and different set of deplorables getting their mean-spirited jollies. It blows my mind that anyone should care. I want results. If nasty political scheming resulted in less gov't, I'd be okay with it.
"[Congress is] supposed to be the ones making laws and fixing problems. "
In my dream scenario is they have very little money to solve the problems. They mostly help states organize militia of minutemen who would mobilize in an emergency. They would make sure a state doesn't impede ingress or egress. They would do almost nothing about Syria, poverty, cancer research, investing in new technologies, and so on. I don't know how practical that is. Maybe if that did that, they'd end mobilizing the milita for whatever the modern-day Barbary pirates are, and then we're on the road back to a massive gov't. I just want to try to move in the direction of limited gov't.
I love the notion that if we just got the right people in the Supreme Court, they could get us back to the Constitution w/o amending it. I'm not knowledgeable about that, but that name-calling and use of the word conservative does not inspire confidence. I want it not to matter if the gov't is conservative (wants old ways just b/c they're old) or liberal (wants new ways just b/c they're new) because the gov't doesn't have power to act on these impulses.
"They seem to do the best job when they're balancing each other..."
I agree. And if that were what had been going on for the past 30 years, we'd be in a lot better spot. The whole idea of Congress is to be a deliberative body (especially the Senate) where it takes them time to iron out the kinks in legislation and make it for the entire country - not the hodge-podge of pork we see to garner one Legislator's vote.
While Constitutionally, I don't think the line-item veto holds water, in principle it did force the Legislature to concentrate and itemize - which is a good thing. I believe that one of the huge problems is the sheer size of many of the legislative packages being trotted out only to be voted on two days later (cough, cough Obamacare). I would be all in favor of a House rule (pun intended) that states clearly that NO bill may pass Congress until it has been orally read before a quorum in its entirety. I think that would severely cut down on these huge bills of any kind where "we have to pass it to know what's in it".
"No [sic] only is this incorrect, it's part of the problem. People are taking about which political party is slightly closer to the Constitution's founding principles and not doing anything to bring back the founding principles."
I hate to break it to you, but the Democrats abandoned Constitutional Democracy during FDR and have steadily crept left ever since. They've taken a hard turn to the extreme left in the past 15 years. The Republicans on the other hand have tried (poorly) to play the middle in many states. That's where you get the ones like John McCain, Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc. That's why we call them RINO's - because they are actually what would constitute Blue Dog Democrats/centrists - if those still existed. As a result, what you really have are two major factions within the Republican party. For all the bandying about (D) vs (R), the lines aren't nearly that clear-cut, which is why we see what we see come time to vote.
"In my dream scenario is they have very little money to solve the problems."
Amen to that! But in my mind nothing like this is going to happen outside an Article 5 Convention of States. There's no way the Democrats are going to give up the power they've spent the last hundred years giving to themselves and those centrist Republicans are going to go along with them like they usually do.
"I love the notion that if we just got the right people in the Supreme Court, they could get us back to the Constitution w/o amending it."
I think its an example of the entire process going horribly wrong that so much is so dependent on the personal opinions of nine robed Jurists. There is a reason why the Judicial Branch has the shortest Article in the Constitution and why it comes last: it was supposed to have the least amount of power. I sometimes seriously question Marbury vs Madison.
I don't believe in this stuff at all. Ideas that are "left" or "right" today could easily be the opposite 20 years ago or 20 years from now. I certainly believe in reducing the cost and intrusiveness of government. All the political machinations, including those that mention gov't cost/intrusiveness, are show business for ugly people. I just don't think those centrists, RINOs, blue dogs, parties creeping left or right, and socialists amount to anything.
I agree with this, but I want them all limited in what they can actually do. I have no idea how to accomplish that.
This seems to me just to create a smaller group of people to pander to. It's hard for me to see how this makes the Senate act differently.
I am not knowledgeable about even what this means, but I like the idea of the states having more power. They could pass laws consistent with local values and if I it would be a laboratory to test policies. I actually think the should break the states up into urban and rural regions, since there's so much division along those lines.
What if there were a rule that tax money collected in one state had to be spent in that state? There would be no reason for my state to spend my state tax dollars helping residents get federal dollars, as happens right now.
The Democrats? OMG. People elected Republicans to House, Senate, and presidency. Spending increased and borrowing doubled. It sounds like Republicans are the problem. Of course, if we elect and all Democrat gov't, spending would probably keep increasing.
Getting into the partisan bickering avoids addressing the actual problem. Republicans have this fantasy that if they just got enough power they'd stop increasing gov't spending, borrowing, and intrusiveness. It almost seems comical in a British-comedy sort of way.
I always wrongly thought their stated role was to limit what gov't did. I thought judicial review was part of the constitution until around the time I married a lawyer at age 31.
States getting even more power and passing laws "consistent with local values" means more balkanization and statism. Laws are supposed to protect the rights of the individual not enforce "local values".
"I don't believe in this stuff at all. Ideas that are "left" or "right" today could easily be the opposite 20 years ago or 20 years from now."
Only if you hold to the notion of relative morality. I don't. Either something is right (meaning that it can be morally justified) or it is wrong. There is no moral principle which switches sides on the spectrum and becomes "right" or "left" based on time frame. Only a progressive believes that they have power over reality.
Try reading up on Article 5 Convention of States. It is a provision in the Constitution which allows the States to directly Amend the Constitution without going through the House and Senate. It still requires 2/3 ratification by the States themselves.
"What if there were a rule that tax money collected in one state had to be spent in that state?"
The other provision I would like to see is that all States are responsible for paying for the costs of their own delegations, i.e. that the Federal Government doesn't pay salaries or wages to Elected officials or their staffs. Those costs are instead born by their respective States.
"The Democrats? OMG. People elected Republicans to House, Senate, and presidency. Spending increased and borrowing doubled."
And why? Because the Democrats blocked all the other bills from coming to the floor by filibustering! And so the RINO's caved in and gave them massive spending to go with tax cuts. Again, people like to just look at the (D) and (R) next to the name, but the actual philosophical leanings are not so clear-cut on the Republican side. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans don't vote as a bloc because they are comprised of at least two significantly different groups. In the House you have the Freedom Caucus, which are your conservative Republicans - but that's only about 40% of the party. They tend to take a hard line on spending, etc., but the other 60% voted with the Democrats! I know you don't want to believe that your beloved Democrats are the party of tax-and-spend, but please - go look at the historical voting for the past 30 years. It's right there.
"Again, people like to just look at the (D) and (R) next to the name, but the actual philosophical leanings are not so clear-cut on the Republican side."
I obviously could be wrong, but it all seems like a show to me. It seems to me the way gov't works now is a direct result of gov't having the ability to tax and spend. The parties that you say people like to look at and even love (really??) don't matter. So if you're right I completely misunderstand the entire political process. I don't see the philosophies or even superficial ideas associated with political parties.
Oftentimes when I have started a new job, I've learned that how things actually are are different from how they seem on the outside. I'm not a political insider, so I could completely misunderstand. I see it as a stupid show that arises organically (i.e. without central direction) from many people doing whatever it takes to get to the levers of power.
In uncivil conditions, being friends with the biggest bully usually helps—Morally be dammed!


text:
Video Compression Methods (Codecs)
The recent surge of multimedia applications for desktop computers has led to the development of a variety of compression/decompression (codec) methods, many of them proprietary, for use by desktop digital video implementations and it is quite challenging to understand the tradeoffs involved in each method. Because video processing can load even current high-end processors, a variety of hardware accessory boards are available.
Both Quicktime for Windows and Video for Windows are designed with open codec architectures. The form of the algorithm used to compress a video sequence is specified in the digital video data file format. On identifying the codec, the video software loads the appropriate driver to decompress the data. This can include codecs which use hardware boards to speed processing as well as algorithms implemented solely in software.
For CD-ROM applications, codecs that can decompress video without any special hardware are attractive because the potential audience is large. That is why most video on CD-ROM is compressed using either SuperMac's Cinepak or Intel's Indeo. These codecs can achieve a full 30 frame per second rate for 160 X 120-pixel 16-bit color pictures and 15 frames per second at 320 X 240.
But choice of a codec is more than a battle between Cinepak and Indeo. The industry standard for compressing movies, MPEG is now moving into the marketplace. MPEG I, the codec designed for CD-ROMs can achieve 30 fps on 320 X 240 windows when played back on boards that cost less than $500.
The key question is whether developers should move to MPEG I or stick with software. Most people agree that MPEG I playback looks better and it has the added advantage of compressing audio. However, faster CPUs and buses on multimedia PCs and low-cost general-purpose video acceleration cards may save software codecs from being replaced by MPEG. On fast Pentium and Power PCs, Cinepak and Indeo can achieve 30 fps at 320 X 240. They can be blown up to 640 X 480 using new graphics accelerators. The quality is not quite as good as MPEG but close and they are a lot cheaper for encoding and playback.
To make matters more complicated, there are a number of mature, established codecs such as Motion-JPEG and DVI as well as some new up-and-coming technologies such as fractals and wavelets to choose from.
There are primarily three criteria involved in selecting a codec:
Compression Level,
Quality of the Compressed Video
Compression/Decompression Speed
Generally each of these criteria must be traded off against one another. For example, a codec may produce high levels of compression but the quality of the resulting video is poor. Another codec may produce high quality video at high levels of compression, but it requires a lot of computing power which means that either it can not be implemented in real-time or an expensive video capture board is required. The following procedure should be used when selecting a video codec:
Define the Distribution Medium and Playback Platform
Know the bit stream a storage device can sustain and the total storage available. To be played from a CD-ROM, a video must have a bit stream of 90K or less for single speed drives and 170K or less for double speed drives. CD-ROMs offer about 650 MB of storage.
Know the codec's availability on the multiple platforms you plan to distribute your software
Know the codec's ability to adapt the synchronized playback speed to the available hardware without user interference.
Know the Content of the Video. Some codec are better suited for outdoor colors, some codecs offer sharper edges, there are 8, 24 and 32 bit codecs.
Weigh the developer issues
Determine if it is okay to use an asymmetrical codec, that is one which takes a lot longer to compress video than to decompress it.
Know the source of the video and whether it has previously been compressed.
The following chart gives a summary of your video codec choices:
Platform S/W Playback Playback Size/Rate
Captain Crunch Media Vision Wavelet PC No 320 X 240 @ 30fps
Cinepak SuperMac VQ Mac, PC Yes 320 X 240 @ 15fps
DVI-RTL Intel VQ PC No 256 X 240 @ 15fps
Indeo Intel VQ Mac, PC Yes 320 X 240 @ 15fps
Motion -JPEG n/a DCT Mac, PC No 640 X 480 @ 60fps
MotiVE Media Vision VQ PC Yes 160 X 120 @ 12fps
MPEG I n/a DCT PC No 320 X 240 @ 30fps
MPEG II n/a DCT PC No 704 X 480 @ 60fps
Px64 n/a DCT Mac, PC No 352 X 288 @ 15fps
Pro-Frac TMM RLE PC Yes 320 X 200 @ 30fps
SoftVideo TMM RLE PC Yes 640 X 480 @ 15fps
Ultimotion IBM n/a OS/2 Yes 320 X 240 @ 30fps
Video Apple VQ Mac Yes 160 X 120 @ 15fps
Video Cube IMIX/Aware Wavelet Proprietary No 640 X 480 @ 60fps
More detailed descriptions of codecs that are in use in Quicktime and Video for Windows follows:
Motion JPEG
JPEG is a well-established still-image compression codec that removes the redundancies in individual frames. Motion-JPEG is an adaptation of the still-image standard to video. Motion-JPEG uses the same algorithms as JPEG to create I-frames (compressed intraframes), and then successive frames are compressed by holding the compression parameters constant, to keep up with the video data stream in real-time. There are various, non-compatible versions of Motion JPEG from different manufacturers. Using fast codec accelaration hardware available from several manufacturers, I-frames are coded and decoded symmetrically in less than one-thirtieth of a second.
MPEG was designed for digital video. MPEG uses the same algorithms as JPEG to create one I-frame, then removes the redundancy from successive frames by predicting them from the I-frame and encoding only the difference from its predictions. This is called interframe compression. The MPEG committee created two standards, MPEG I that can play back from a single speed CD-ROM (150 KB per second) at 320 X 240 at 30 fps and MPEG II with enough data (1.2 MB/second) to encode studio-quality video at 704 X 480 at 30 frames per second.
Cinepak - SuperMac Technology
Cinepak is a vector quantization based codec developed specifically to deliver 24-bit video in quarter screen (320 X 240 pixel) windows from files restricted to single-spin CD-ROM data rates. Vector quantization stores information about differences between frames of video by quantifying the magnitude and direction of a pixel's movement. Cinepak's decompressor then uses a CLUT (color lookup table) to recreate the color of each pixel in a frame.
Cinepak is a highly asymmetric codec, with a compression process that takes 300 times longer than decompression. However, Cinepak has a highly efficient decompression and playback scheme and is integrated into Apple's Quicktime 1.5. SuperMac has expanded Cinepak to other major platforms by licensing the codec for use in such products as Microsoft's Video for Windows 1.1, Creative Lab's VideoSpigot for the PC and Sega's Genesis CD-based systems.
The general opinion is that Cinepak is better than Indeo for action sequences and is typically faster at 16 and 24-bit playback. Cinepak's quality compared to Indeo slips for "talking head" and other low-motion sequences.
Indeo - Intel
Intel's Indeo, a subset of that company's DVI software. Indeo (currently upgrading from Indeo R2 to R3) defines the format for video capture used by Intel's Intelligent Smart Video Recorder (ISVR) hardware, which permits it to compress in real time. It is currently one of the more highly-regarded video codecs for desktop computer applications. Indeo produces the highest-quality "talking-head" sequences at very low data rates but it is worse than Cinepak for action sequences. It is slightly faster than Cinepak at compression but is still slow.
Indeo is a proprietary blend of color sampling, vector quantization, and run-length encoding. Indeo, which is the past, depended on the use of an i750 chip set for decompression, now plays back on 486 platforms without any additional hardware. One of Indeo's valuable characteristics is its scalability. Indeo will deliver a movie clip a higher frame rates when more processing power is available.
Indeo has a strong following on multiple platforms through licensing with Apple, IBM and Microsoft. In addition, more than 20 independent software vendors support Indeo video in applications such as editors, presentation programs, morphing software, screen savers and utilities.
Video1 and MotiVE - Media Vision
MotiVE is a discrete cosine based codec which was licensed by Microsoft as the cornerstone of Microsoft Video 1 which was the primary codec in Video for Windows 1.0.
TrueMotion - Duck Corporation
TrueMotion is a proprietary vector quantization scheme. It produces "studio-quality" video at a 600 KB/second playback rate suitable for quad-speed CD-ROM players. Its compression is highly asymmetric but decompression runs quickly on desktop computers..
RLE - Microsoft
This codec was released with Video for Windows 1.0. It is a simple codec which is optimized for animations or cartoons, but gives relatively poor performance for real-life images.
VideoCube - ImMIX/Aware
In this compression method, a wavelet codec transforms the image into a set of different spatial representations, some of which contain high frequencies and some of which contain low frequency information. ImMix licensed Aware's discrete wavelet codec technology for use in the VideoCube codec.
Captain Crunch - Media Vision
Captain Crunch is a patented blend of a discrete wavelet transform, a tree-based encoder, a quantizer and a Huffman encoder. Captain Crunch is a rival to Cinepak for delivering high visual quality at low data rates. When the decoder is installed in the operating system of a 386 PC or MAC IIci, 24-bit Captain Crunch will play quarter screen video at 30 fps from a CD-ROM. In contrast to Cinepak, Captain Crunch's encoder is nearly symmetric. Captain Crunch is also capable of scaling not only a video's playback frame rate, but also adjusting the size and bit depth as well.
SoftVideo - Iterated Systems and TMM
Softvideo is a video codec based on Iterated System's fractal compression algorithm. This is an extremely asymmetric codec since fractal compression is a very time consuming process, as much as 15 hours are required to compress one minute of video. However, decompression and playback are fast. One key feature of fractal compression is scalability, that is the video's resolution is independent of the size of the window. Because fractal images are encoded with equations, they have no inherent size, they look as good on a 13 inch monitor as a 21 inch monitor. Preliminary results show that this fractal-based method produces very good results.
DVI - Intel
Intel's Digital Video Interactive (DVI) standard uses interframe video compression techniques similar to that of MPEG and ADPCM audio compression compatible with CDROM XA standards. DVI provides different levels of quality for video and audio data. For high resolution, full-color digital video with stereo quality approaching that of audio CDs, compression becomes so time-consuming, that special supercomputers must handle the conversion. A compression service bureau can be used to perform DVI compression.
UltiMotion - IBM
UltiMotion is a VQ codec which is available on OS/2 systems running IBM's presentation manager.
P times 64 is a codec used in videoconferencing which is similar to JPEG and MPEG. This codec is comprised of the H.261 compression and signal, and the H.320, audiovisual support, protocols. They use interframe compression techniques which are a subset of MPEG.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Anemia Anemia occurs when a person's blood has fewer than the normal number of red blood cells or when the red blood cells in the blood do not have enough hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a protein that gives the red color to the blood and carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the body.
Diabetes Series The diabetes series provides a thorough description of type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Practical skills for managing diabetes are discussed, along with diagnosis options.
Heart Diseases Heart disease includes conditions affecting the heart, such as coronary heart disease, heart attack, congestive heart failure, and congenital heart disease.
Heart Sounds This module teaches the difference between normal and abnormal heart sounds and murmurs in small children.
Hypertension High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a serious condition that can lead to the following health problems: coronary heart/artery disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, and other health problems such as vision changes.
Malaria Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease. It is caused by a parasite (an organism that lives on another creature) that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito that feeds on humans.
Rheumatic Heart Disease Rheumatic heart disease is a condition in which permanent damage to heart valves is caused by an inflammatory disease called rheumatic fever. The disease process that damages the heart valves generally begins with a throat infection called "strep throat," a treatable illness.
Sepsis Sepsis is a life-threatening illness, characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state (called a systemic inflammatory response syndrome, or SIRS) and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body's immune system may develop this inflammatory response to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues.


text:
Giovanni Molari (born 11 October 1973) is an Italian engineer and academic, whose research has focused on mechanised agriculture and livestock machinery. He has served as rector of the University of Bologna since 1 November 2021.

Biography and education
Molari graduated in mechanical engineering at the University of Bologna in October 1998, with the academic supervision of Professor Francesco Profumo (who would later be appointed Italy's Minister of Education in the Monti Cabinet). Two months later, in December 1998, he qualified as a professional engineer.

In 2003 he earned a PhD in materials engineering at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, combining his studies with his work as a university researcher. In 2010 he became associate professor in the Department of Agri-food Sciences and Technologies at the University of Bologna. He was later promoted to the post of director in 2018. In 2016 he became full professor of agricultural mechanics at the University of Bologna.

In June 2021 Molari was elected rector of the University of Bologna. His tenure is set to expire in 2027.

Research
His scientific activity has mainly related to the design and experimental verification of the reliability of agricultural tractors, machines for livestock farming, and the use of biomass and other agricultural machines.

References

External links
Biography on the University of Bologna website

1973 births
Living people
University of Bologna alumni
Academic staff of the University of Bologna

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The G-Flex Dynamax® C5 AirTouch liner offers the highest cut level 5 protection while also featuring 'Finger Dip' technology, giving total ventilation to the back of the hand.
Level 5 Cut Resistant Technical Safety Gloves made of Black AirTouch coating on Dynamax® C5 seamless liner. The Dynamax® C5 liner offers the highest Cut Level 5 protection.
Ideal for all applications where cut protection is required and which require a high level of dexterity and sensitivity, especially where grip is important in oily and greasy conditions.


PICTURE MAKE UP DAY: November 1st. If you missed pictures earlier in the year, then plan to have them taken on this day.
TOWN HALL MEETING: Amber Shill and Nancy Tingey are having a Town Hall meeting at Albion Middle School on Wednesday November 1st from 7:00pm to 8:30pm.
Wednesday November 1st: 6:00pm Parent Information Meeting for those interested in Dual Immersion. This would be for parents of current kindergarten students.


Using Vuforia in Unity, I made some store signs speak their minds. Chipotle, Starbucks, and Petco were my targets, with their ubiquitous logos perfect for markers. An issue, as seen below in the Petco augmentation in particular, is that the reflection off the plastic store signs hindered the tracking. It still managed to work relatively well, though, and I think I pulled off the effect I was going for.