Tag Archives: CGI

Movie magic

Hollywood loves remakes. The trouble is, they only ever seem to remake movies that were perfectly good the first time. The thinking seems to be that since Psycho was a great movie the first time, all we have to do is make a near-exact copy, and couples will drop $20 to go see it again. The other popular option is to take a perfectly good movie that suffers from having too many English or Australian people in it, and make a crappy copy on the cheap in Hollywood.

But of course, only an idiot will pay to go see a cheap knock-off of The Italian Job when they can watch the real thing on DVD for about the same amount of money.

So, it seems to me that what Hollywood should be doing is focusing on movies that they can actually improve by remaking them. Which means, setting the bar really low. So, I have a dream…

Someone needs to do a remake of Plan 9 From Outer Space. No, really. Pitch it as The Day The Earth Stood Still and Independence Day meet Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Use state of the art CGI for the aliens, have them shoot vicious metallic electrodes, give them a big impressive saucer, and make them kill and resurrect an entire army rather than just three people.

I just know Tim Burton could do it, if he’d let himself. And think, unlike with Planet of the Apes, there’d be no risk of ending up with something cheesier or more nonsensical than the original.

We apologize for the inconvenience

So, I’m back. I’m afraid it looks as if my LiveJournal account will not be returning. Read the whole sordid story if you’re interested, and then make sure you have a full backup of your journal in case they decide to pull the same shit with you.

Fortunately, I was prescient enough to have just converted my entire journal backlog (or at least, all the good stuff) to blosxom format, so I can redeploy the whole lot on any web host which provides CGI. So I have.

No nifty discussion forum features here. I’m pondering what to do about that; I may just set up a mailing list for interested (and interesting) people who want to discuss anything I post about, or otherwise interact with me.

Another web hosting provider disappears

My web hosting provider exploded. The company who supposedly bought their customer lists has failed to get things going after a week or two. So, I need a new web host.

Requirements:

  • Linux or UNIX based
  • SSH access and rsync for uploading my site
  • Low monthly fees
  • No price gouging for extra bandwidth
  • Low or zero setup fee
  • One domain, at least 3 subdomains
  • At least 2 POP3/IMAP mailboxes
  • A reasonable amount of space (50 MB or more)
  • SpamAssassin

Nice-to-have features:

  • Usenet/NNTP access and server
  • Jabber server
  • Logs and stats
  • Search engine support for sites

I don’t need PHP, JSP, ASP, SSI, SQL, CGI, … Just static web pages, cheap. Also:

  • I don’t need DNS hosting or domain registration, just the servers to point my existing domain at and a working MX or two.
  • High uptime isn’t all that important; the odd day or so of downtime is fine.
  • Phone support isn’t important.
  • Technical hand-holding won’t be needed, obviously.

I’ve found:

Frankly, I’d be tempted to do it myself if we weren’t planning on moving in the near future…

Impostor

I watched Impostor last night. It’s a pretty authentic adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story, right down to making the “bug” ships look and work the way Dick described them. Production values are high, with some impressive sets that almost rival GATTACA, and good attention to detail. The making-of documentary mentions that they tried to avoid using CGI, instead using real sets filled with real equipment and video screens. A wise decision, as the CGI establishing shots somehow don’t work.

The direction, sadly, falls victim to cliché. Too much running around in tunnels, too many air duct escapes, too many fast cuts with musical stabs trying to keep the tension high, too much slow motion combat. Since it’s a Dick story there are several plot twists, but sadly there’s only one that you might not see a mile off.

The movie started off as a 45 minute short feature, and ultimately it still plays like an extended high-budget episode of The Outer Limits. Most of the plot holes occur as a result of trying to stretch it out to 90 minutes.

Overall, a reasonable way to kill an hour or two if you’re an SF fan, but it’s no Minority Report.

.mac FAQ

Q: Will the new for-pay .mac service be more reliable?
A: No.

Q: Will there be a phone number to call for technical support?
A: No.

Q: Will there be an e-mail address to report outages?
A: No.

Q: Will there, in fact, be any support at all?
A: No.

Q: Will the 100MB of storage come with an increased bandwidth limit for web sites?
A: No.

Q: Will you be telling us what the bandwidth limits are?
A: No.

Q: Will you support CGI, servlets, JSP, or anything else beyond static HTML files?
A: No.

Q: Will I be able to get access to my web logs?
A: No.

Q: What about backup—our files are safe if we back them up to iDisk, right?
A: No. Apple does not guarantee the integrity of any files on iDisk, even if placed there by the Apple Backup software.

Q: Well, we can at least use the Backup software to back up our computers to CD-R, right?
A: No, not if you have any files bigger than 650MB.

Q: What about using my external tape drive, DVD drive or Firewire hard drive?
A: No, Backup only works with Apple-supplied internal drives. And only if you’re a .mac member.

Q: So the backup software doesn’t back up from my local hard disk to my local CD burner, unless I have a .Mac membership and an active net connection?
A: Correct.

Q: OK. The service also includes anti-virus software. Are there any Mac OS X viruses at all?
A: No.

Q: If I don’t use Microsoft Office, do I need to worry about macro viruses?
A: No.

Q: Umm… OK. So how much for this invaluable service?
A: $99 a year. Plus tax. In advance.

Q: Can I get two accounts, for me and my wife?
A: Sure, that’ll be $198 plus tax. In advance.

Q: No, I mean can I get a second account cheap if I buy one?
A: Oh, alright then, quit whining. You can get a second account for $10 a year if you buy one full account.

Q: And it’ll have the backup, anti-virus, and web functionality?
A: No, only an e-mail address.

Q: Ah… but at least it’ll be a full e-mail account, right?
A: No, you’ll only get 5MB of space. But that’s nearly enough to hold five days’ spam.

Q: Is there a satisfaction guarantee?
A: Yes. Apple reserves the right to terminate your access to the online services and the software, without cause, without notice and without refunding your money, if it’s not satisfied with your behavior.

Q: What kinds of things am I not allowed to post on my web site?
A: Anything “lewd” or “vulgar”, anything “embarrassing” to anyone, or anything that counts as advertising for any product or service.

Q: So you want $99 a year for an e-mail address, useless backup software, anti-virus software I could buy for $50, and web space limited to inoffensive pictures of fluffy kittens? $99 even if I only want to keep the lifetime e-mail address that you previously said was free?
A: Yes. Pay up now, in three weeks we’ll delete your files and bounce your mail.

Q: I have one more question… What exactly are you smoking out there in Cupertino?
A: I think it’s crack.