Seeing as this is, from what I gather, a big shift in how Python is bolted together, I’m actually rather glad I’ve never gotten around to doing much with it. We’ll see if I can invent some excuses to learn more about it now.
Wow, what a read. Seriously, fucking ignore me and just go buy the damned thing. Oh, sure, I guess if you don’t like science fiction you may not want it, but screw you.
I take some issue with his lines of logic, but not in the usual “Wow, that’s just wrong and dumb” way. It actually challenges the ol’ brain box, but without being inscrutable garbage. The consciousness theory is so complex that he could have bored the shit out of me easily, but it was implemented in the story so well, it was so incredibly critical, that instead it became this powerful and dynamic lever for the story he was telling. The multi-core human was fun, and interesting. Then there’s the vampires.
This is probably the only thing I really take any strong issue with. It doesn’t get in the way of the story, and it’s just shy enough of total bullshit that it didn’t take me out of the story, but I still never really bought some of it. Specifically the undead state bit, which he relates to the hibernation you find in at least some varieties of lungfish. My issue so much the concept, but the driving force behind its evolution, which is to say a food source that reproduces at about the same rate as it does. We being food because they lack the ability to synthesise a critical bit of biochemistry. Anyway. It rings a little forced to me. Usually, from my admittedly limited understanding, predators are exceptionally territorial for this very reason. Also, just how the hell would such a parallel predator ever take off to begin with? By this I mean the fact that it’s an offshoot of humans, so it seems like there wouldn’t be enough room, but rather some early man would go “That’s one fucked up baby” and kill the child on the spot. Repeat for every occurrence of such a child. It isn’t like one lucky survivor could go off by itself, since it absolutely needs to feed from humans. Then you have to believe that there’s enough generations in there, someplace, and enough mutation to end up with an unholy collection of adaptations right before going extinct.
Like I said, however, it didn’t bug me enough to mind, and it gave the story some essential tools. Also, as you can see, even the bit I didn’t really care for has made me stop and think, which is a wonderful thing.
He also has a blog, if anyone ever comes here and actually reads this.
Wandering through the library I spied this and immediately thought “There was a book?!”, because I’m such a clever guy.
It’s short. Real short. As you can see, it was supposedly written by two guys. It wasn’t bad, per se, but I have no idea how it stuck in anyone’s mind long enough to end being made into a movie. There’s virtually no description of anything, and it rings the gong on the “young people have ruined it all” note far too frequently for you to end up caring.
So. Worth a read, if no reason other than to compare to the film, but don’t expect it to have anything to chew on.
But seriously people, the fucking library, and fucking Wal-Mart, are not fucking daycare centers.
What the hell is wrong with you idiots? You have a title that is virtually guaranteed to push units, and a lot of them, so you add some bullshit to it, in an effort to make it tough to steal.
Let me inform anyone that hasn’t figured this out- Any game that isn’t online only, and probably a few that are, has copy protection broken within a day or two of release, if not before. I don’t know how much it costs to license crap like secuROM, or how much time it takes to actually lace it into a software release, but I’m willing to bet it’s not insubstantial. You should roll that money into something useful, like Christmas bonuses for the code monkeys and art guys.
Want to know when I’ve had trouble with copy protection? It’s always been on games I’ve bought, and I always download cracks for them. Always. The reasons for this are twofold-
A) If a game installs every resource it needs to my hard drive, why the hell should I dig out a disc to play?
B) Copy protection is oddball software, and causes oddball issues at oddball times.
Some companies take the approach of patching the copy protection out shortly after release, which is commendable, but begs the question of why they bothered paying for the privilege of loading this crud just to work on removing it. Allow me to assure you that it does dick all in regards to stopping zero day pirate releases over the interwebs. Nor does it stop the only real problem with piracy, which is “companies” selling hacked copies to the naive, which I can least see as you losing a sale on.
You guys really shouldn’t worry about it. Implement some basic online key checking, with phone backup, to keep the retards happy, and forget about it. It won’t stop it, but you’ll stop having to spend so much money and effort on it.
I actually saw this the weekend it came out, but wanted to process it for a bit.
Two important factors here are that I saw this alone, so it was two hours of being reminded that I’m alone, and that I’m pretty sure something was wrong with the projector’s focus.
That focus thing killed me. I honestly don’t know what was going on, whether it was the projector or the way it was shot, but the depth of field appeared to be six inches from the camera, and only one thing, or sometimes just part of one thing, would be in focus at a time. This really killed any good visuals for me, and left me rather confused as to why the DP wasn’t executed, or at least publicly flogged.
Casino Royale built a lot of tension, and allowed the characters room to interact, to peel back layers of each other. While the acting in this one was good, the script and direction didn’t allow for any of that. Everything felt very superficial, and by the end I just didn’t care who was doing what or why.
The fuel-cell office building…. thing…. was weird. It was generic looking, and apparently suffered explosions every hour. “You know how unstable these fuel cells are” or whatever the hell he says to clue us in that these idiots have built the worst office building ever. It was all shoehorned together, and utterly pointless.
The water/oil relationship I was ok with, being a big believer in hydraulic despotism. It doesn’t matter what a nation needs, so long as it’s something a despot can control he’s happy. Having the whole thing be a bait and switch, as in this case, was an ok concept. Using the idea of something valuable, especially something everyone is pretty sure you won’t find, to swindle someone out of something crucial has a certain gleam of Machiavellian quality that I can respect.
Still, the whole thing felt flat. Maybe I’ll see it again next year and feel totally different, but I doubt it was all the veil of depression.
Over the years I’ve received some odd calls. Companies looking to verify employment because the name of my company was the closest they could find to what the applicant listed, a guy looking for arcade machine buttons, and things forgotten, I’m sure. Recently, however, the dial has apparently turned to 11.
First, somebody was convinced that my phone was on a party line, belonging to someone named Tiffany. It took some time to convince this fellow that this was not the case and that I, in fact, did not want to hang out with him. Then, last night, I get a call from an odd area code. I don’t answer calls from weird area codes, they’re almost always totally irrelevant. So this number left two message, a little before 9PM. I looked up the area code, and it’s from Sacramento. The first message was “This call is for anonymous, this is MC <something>, I did my part, now you do yours.” and the second was virtually the same. I… I have no idea how to respond to that.
Here is where I’m chronicling my vida hobo.
You can also roll over there to see my response to this.
The emotional quality of this book is amazing. At least the first half, the second half is a little… Zardozish. That isn’t really accurate, but it’ll do.
Unlike Zardoz, this is worth going through. It’s a sci-fi story from 1953, with an interesting concept and some great insights. In the first half. Unlike Armor, where the second half was eventually so very worth it, this just dissolves into the same territory so much sci-fi of the era does.
The book, if nothing else, reinforced my belief that prose is superior to poetry for conveying a feeling. Poetry is too concerned with structure, and people that write it are too concerned with playing at word games to make an impact. I generalize, naturally, but that’s the overall view I have. Word games are fun, to be sure, but people always talk about it conveying feelings. Compare any damned thing you like with this for bringing across a deep depression conveyed by isolation-
“The sap falls and the bear sleeps and the birds fly south, all doing it together, not because they are all members of the same thing, but only because they are all solitary things hurt by the same thing.”
I mean, that’s just brilliant. Thankfully I was already depressed, so it just put a slight edge to it.
Go, any who find this, and read it. The damned thing breaks down, but it was such an early time for the genre that everyone felt they had to shoot for utopia.
It doesn’t really matter who is sticking what in your hooha, or vice versa. I simply want your hyper-herpes to engage and make you combust.
Thanks.