2c on The Matrix:
I felt let-down for a different reason:  With the strong 
the-world-isn't-really-real theme, I was very disappointed that the 
waking-up-to-the-real-world part of The Matrix had humans as 
familiar-old-flesh-and-blood-humans and not figments of software (or 
something else) at their core being.  OTOH, I suppose it's not exactly 
fair to say this since that's like asking for a whole different plot to 
go with a theme or two.

Spotting goofs in movies:
I could be wrong but I _think_ I saw one spot in the new Beowolf movie 
where the (older) king was not animated when somewhat obscured by other 
characters.

2c on Digital TV:
14 months to go in the USA before analog over-the-air goes away. :( 
Given that, I'll be looking for digital tuners, but they aren't 
available yet per http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/index.html at least 
if you want the gov. discount.  Where I live I'm not too worried about 
the difference between the analog slope (reception) and the digital 
cliff.  But I'm not too impressed by the artifacts which I witnessed for 
myself in a store.  The thing is I'm not sure what kind of source I was 
watching or what cheap converter it might've gone through etc, so it's 
hard to judge.

Charles

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> Clearly my TV must be *very* bad. I've yet to see any compression 
> artifacts in any digital broadcast or DVD. (Except some of the DVDs I 
> burned myself...)

Different channels use different bit-rates, the TV station pays per channel 
bandwidth so it's up to them how many channels they broadcast in their 
bandwidth.

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And lo on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:43:18 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> The signal to noise ratio is much better for digital. Simply because
>> they broadcast the artifacts so if you receive them correctly that is
>> within specifications. What you would have preferred is a better signal
>> to disturbance ratio, where the signal is the original uncompressed
>> signal and the disturbance is anything, noise or artifact that is in the
>> received image different from the original. These are two entirely
>> different concepts and you can not blame an advertiser to choose the one
>> that suits the paying company best.
>
>   White noise has been exchanged for mpeg artifacts. Not much of an
> improvement, IMO.
>
>   Moreover, one could argue that in areas with bad reception the  
> situation has got worse.

Yup, I'm on the very edge of the transmitor's range. The sound often  
vanishes in a se..es o. bli.s and b.ops while
parts of    the pi
cture eith   er fr
eeze or get shunte
d around the place
before settling back a second or two later. Then again here in the UK  
post-switchover the transmission power will be boosted so that should be  
an improvement. Still highly annoying on a punchline or in the middle of a  
tense scene -
"and the murderer is none o.her t..n ..ss ....le ...self."
<gasp>
"and that concludes this week's episode"
What, what?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Warp nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/12/14 05:31:
>   This must be an extreme case:
> 
> http://www.ms-studio.com/typecasting.html
> 
>   Example (when talking bout L.A. Confidential):
> 
> "A newspaper dated 1953 has headlines set in Helvetica Black (1959) and
> Univers (1957) - typefaces which weren't commonly available in the U.S.
> until the sixties."
> 
When I first watched Star War in the movie, when it was still new and fresh. I 
immediately noticed the seams between the ships and the background sky. I mean, 
those light to middle blue flickering/shifting lines around the ships where very 
disturbing and distracting.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those
entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it
into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

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And lo on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:11:44 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Plausible. But then, why not just manipulate the laws of physics so the
>> man goes flying without having to physically kick him? :-D (Or better
>> yet, make it so all the oxygen in the room mysteriously vanishes...)
>
>   It sounds plausible also with the overly long jumps: They just can't
> manipulate the system to transport them to the roof of the other  
> building.
> They have to trigger the physics simulation by making an actual jump, and
> then just "nudge" it slightly to boost the jump.

Thanks you know that always kind of bugged me, why jump from building to  
building when you could just 'tell' the Matrix that the co-ordinates that  
represent your position as here are really there. As previously mentioned  
the real answer is "Because it looks cooler to film", but as internal  
logic goes your position makes sense.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:26:08 -0000, Charles C <"nospam a  
nospam.com"> did spake, saying:

> 2c on The Matrix:
> I felt let-down for a different reason:  With the strong  
> the-world-isn't-really-real theme, I was very disappointed that the  
> waking-up-to-the-real-world part of The Matrix had humans as  
> familiar-old-flesh-and-blood-humans and not figments of software (or  
> something else) at their core being.  OTOH, I suppose it's not exactly  
> fair to say this since that's like asking for a whole different plot to  
> go with a theme or two.
>
> Spotting goofs in movies:
> I could be wrong but I _think_ I saw one spot in the new Beowolf movie  
> where the (older) king was not animated when somewhat obscured by other  
> characters.
>
> 2c on Digital TV:
> 14 months to go in the USA before analog over-the-air goes away. :(  
> Given that, I'll be looking for digital tuners, but they aren't  
> available yet per http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/index.html at least  
> if you want the gov. discount.  Where I live I'm not too worried about  
> the difference between the analog slope (reception) and the digital  
> cliff.  But I'm not too impressed by the artifacts which I witnessed for  
> myself in a store.  The thing is I'm not sure what kind of source I was  
> watching or what cheap converter it might've gone through etc, so it's  
> hard to judge.

Woah woah you get a $40 coupon! While here in the UK we pay a licence fee  
to the BBC, who in turn are part of the Freeview (digital) broadcast group  
and we also have to buy an set-top box (or new TV) before they turn off  
the signal and we get squat? Something ain't right here.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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John VanSickle wrote:

> I seem to recall reading that operating frequency of the human brain is 
> on the order of 40Hz.
> 
> I wonder how long it would take a human brain to render POV-Ray...

I heard 200 MHz, but even so... I would think the human brain could run 
POV-Ray quite fast. Sure, low clock speed, but it's *insanely* parallel. :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> John VanSickle wrote:
> 
>> I seem to recall reading that operating frequency of the human brain 
>> is on the order of 40Hz.
>>
>> I wonder how long it would take a human brain to render POV-Ray...
> 
> I heard 200 MHz, but even so... I would think the human brain could run 
> POV-Ray quite fast. Sure, low clock speed, but it's *insanely* parallel. 
> :-D
> 

Are you sure about the brain being so parallel?

The problem is the low RAM (short term memory). If you try to think 
about a dozen things at a time, there's lots of swapping and greatly 
reduced performance.

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Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:11:44 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> 
> did spake, saying:
> 
>> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> Plausible. But then, why not just manipulate the laws of physics so the
>>> man goes flying without having to physically kick him? :-D (Or better
>>> yet, make it so all the oxygen in the room mysteriously vanishes...)
>>
>>   It sounds plausible also with the overly long jumps: They just can't
>> manipulate the system to transport them to the roof of the other 
>> building.
>> They have to trigger the physics simulation by making an actual jump, and
>> then just "nudge" it slightly to boost the jump.
> 
> Thanks you know that always kind of bugged me, why jump from building to 
> building when you could just 'tell' the Matrix that the co-ordinates 
> that represent your position as here are really there. As previously 
> mentioned the real answer is "Because it looks cooler to film", but as 
> internal logic goes your position makes sense.

The Matrix is not a film that can be rationally dissected IMO; it's all 
utter nonsense from beginning to end (why use humans as batteries? even 
if you do, why bother keeping their minds active with all that 
complicated VR? leave them vegetative!), albeit very exciting and 
stylish nonsense. When it comes to the extra abilities exhibited by the 
'free' humans in the Matrix, almost all explanations make a degree of 
sense. What bothers me is how limited the Agents are. If they can dodge 
bullets and hijack 'slaved' human avatars, it should be impossible to 
land a punch or even see them coming...

As for leaping buildings, I like to think that Morpheus and co simply 
don't know how to tell the Matrix to teleport them. With some effort and 
practice (and maybe augmenting their avatars prior to connection) they 
can perform some highly nifty feats sometimes verging on the superhuman, 
but only Neo with his more 'fundamental' mental connections with the 
Matrix can do the truly superhuman. And even he can't teleport. Ha! What 
a loser.

:-)

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> What bothers me is how limited the Agents are. If they can dodge 
> bullets and hijack 'slaved' human avatars, it should be impossible to 
> land a punch or even see them coming...

Indeed, why not just make them invunerable to all damage? You can't kill 
something invincible.

(Perhaps they didn't design in that feature when they built the Matrix? 
Who knows. But after building it 5 times, you'd think that'd learn...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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