Warp wrote:
>   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."

My own goof spotting in movies is limited to CGI films, and that's when 
I can see what are supposed to be solid objects intersecting (there's a 
scene in the Iron Giant where this happens), or when the use of normal 
perturbation to simulate a pavement crack is painfully obvious (in, to 
my surprise, a scene in Pixar's _Cars_).

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

Mike the Elder wrote:
> I know a clone of this guy.  Furthermore, he insists on giving out this
> "valuable" information in the theater WHILE everyone is trying to watch the
> movie. 

I was watching Hackers or some movie like that, where the guy is held on 
a boat by mobsters, trying to break into some remote compter, getting 
smacked around every couple minutes just to make it exciting. The geeks 
around me were all like "that isn't how you break a password" and "why 
doesn't he just use the ssh hole?" when someone else commented "I bet 
there's a mob boss three rows back going 'that isn't how you pistol-whip 
somebody.'"



-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> My own goof spotting in movies is limited to CGI films, and that's when 
> I can see what are supposed to be solid objects intersecting (there's a 
> scene in the Iron Giant where this happens), or when the use of normal 
> perturbation to simulate a pavement crack is painfully obvious (in, to 
> my surprise, a scene in Pixar's _Cars_).

  In Chicken Little it bothered me that soft shadow borders were evenly
soft, without taking into account the distance between the shadowing object
and the surface onto which the shadow was being cast. That is, for example,
when a character was standing on the ground, its shadow border was equally
smooth right where its feet touched the ground as at the part of the shadow
farthest away.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp escribió:
>   In Chicken Little it bothered me that soft shadow borders were evenly
> soft, without taking into account the distance between the shadowing object
> and the surface onto which the shadow was being cast. That is, for example,
> when a character was standing on the ground, its shadow border was equally
> smooth right where its feet touched the ground as at the part of the shadow
> farthest away.
> 

Really? I have even seen a trick to do *correct* soft shadows in 
realtime with fairly basic OpenGL features. I can't believe they didn't 
do proper shadows on a pre-rendered movie...

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   In Chicken Little it bothered me that soft shadow borders were evenly
> soft, without taking into account the distance between the shadowing object
> and the surface onto which the shadow was being cast.

That sucks. I don't really want to buy an HDTV because I can still see 
all the digital compression artifacts after working on image compression 
code for a few years. Must be awful to be so attuned to CGI stuff that 
it can distract you from the content of a movie to notice stuff like the 
edges of shadows not being right. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> That sucks. I don't really want to buy an HDTV because I can still see 
> all the digital compression artifacts after working on image compression 
> code for a few years.

  Finland switched to digital TV broadcasting recently (not necessarily
a good thing IMO), but I haven't bothered buying any kind of receiver
(too expensive, especially for the cable version).

  I recently was at a home where they were watching TV and I got to watch
it from really close. I was shocked at the bad quality of the image! It was
full of mpeg compression artifacts. It was almost like watching a youtube
video in full-screen.

  It seems that digital TV broadcasts use less than half the bitrate of
a typical DVD, and you can sometimes spot mpeg artifacts even in DVD movies.
No wonder the image quality of the digital TV was so bad.

  I clearly remember how they advertised digital TV as increasing the
image quality compared to analog broadcasts. BS.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> "I bet 
> there's a mob boss three rows back going 'that isn't how you pistol-whip 
> somebody.'"

roflcakes!

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

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> That sucks. I don't really want to buy an HDTV because I can still see 
>> all the digital compression artifacts after working on image compression 
>> code for a few years.
> 
>   Finland switched to digital TV broadcasting recently (not necessarily
> a good thing IMO), but I haven't bothered buying any kind of receiver
> (too expensive, especially for the cable version).
> 
>   I recently was at a home where they were watching TV and I got to watch
> it from really close. I was shocked at the bad quality of the image! It was
> full of mpeg compression artifacts. It was almost like watching a youtube
> video in full-screen.
> 
>   It seems that digital TV broadcasts use less than half the bitrate of
> a typical DVD, and you can sometimes spot mpeg artifacts even in DVD movies.
> No wonder the image quality of the digital TV was so bad.
> 
>   I clearly remember how they advertised digital TV as increasing the
> image quality compared to analog broadcasts. BS.
> 
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.

Post a reply to this message

"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:47625b72@news.povray.org...
>   This must be an extreme case:
>

I remember going to watch WaterWorld with some of  my 1st year physics
class, the evening after our final exam. We tore it to shreds/

Comments about spring constant, static friction, pressure gradients and the
like.

Fortunatly it was a big movie house, and we were towards the back

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:

> I remember going to watch WaterWorld with some of  my 1st year physics
> class, the evening after our final exam. We tore it to shreds/
> 
> Comments about spring constant, static friction, pressure gradients and the
> like.
> 
> Fortunatly it was a big movie house, and we were towards the back

LOL! I almost want to mate with you...

Don't watch The Matrix. Awesome film, but... not very physically 
correct. (Especially the implied perpetual motion machine.) Fortunately, 
that doesn't detract too much.

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

Post a reply to this message

"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4763c4c5$1@news.povray.org...

> Don't watch The Matrix. Awesome film, but... not very physically
> correct. (Especially the implied perpetual motion machine.) Fortunately,
> that doesn't detract too much.

Watched it, loved it, didn't like the sequels.

If every violation of physics made me hate a movie, I wouldn't watch any,
ever

Post a reply to this message

Gail Shaw wrote:
> "Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:4763c4c5$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> Don't watch The Matrix. Awesome film, but... not very physically
>> correct. (Especially the implied perpetual motion machine.) Fortunately,
>> that doesn't detract too much.
> 
> Watched it, loved it, didn't like the sequels.

Likewise.

> If every violation of physics made me hate a movie, I wouldn't watch any,
> ever

Well, I don't know, a few get it right. They are a minority though...

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

Post a reply to this message

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. With analog TV bad reception means more white noise, but
at least you get to see and hear something, which may be quite important
if you are eg. watching the news or weather report.
  With digital TV, however, bad reception means that the broadcast stops
playing at moments.
  The human visual system is more permissive of noise than intermittent
playback. Intermittent playback may even mean incomprehensible message.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Don't watch The Matrix. Awesome film, but... not very physically 
> correct.

  Inside the virtual world anything is possible, so no physical laws apply.
In the real world, however, they should still apply. Of course some of the
things might be explained by extremely advanced technology ("any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

>   White noise has been exchanged for mpeg artifacts. Not much of an
> improvement, IMO.

Not necessarily white - multipath interference results in ghosting. But 
then, so do certain compression artifacts, so...

>   With digital TV, however, bad reception means that the broadcast stops
> playing at moments.

Indeed. Analogue goes from crystal clear to utterly unrecognisable in a 
smooth progression. Digital goes from crystal clear to nothing at all in 
a single big jump.

Still, digital gives you the possibility to use error-correcting codes 
to try to combat poor reception. And boosting a digital signal offers 
more possibilities for error correction than in an analogue system.

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...)

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

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Don't watch The Matrix. Awesome film, but... not very physically 
>> correct.
> 
>   Inside the virtual world anything is possible, so no physical laws apply.
> In the real world, however, they should still apply. Of course some of the
> things might be explained by extremely advanced technology ("any sufficiently
> advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").

That's true. And that explains why people can fly and survive impossibly 
long drops and so forth. But as one reviewer pointed out, "Trinity can 
defy physics. But the guy she's attacking is just a normal guy. Why 
doesn't such a high-placed kick make him spin rather than just 
translating backwards?" (The answer, obviously, is that the latter is 
drastically easier to film, and still looks cool.)

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

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> That's true. And that explains why people can fly and survive impossibly 
> long drops and so forth. But as one reviewer pointed out, "Trinity can 
> defy physics. But the guy she's attacking is just a normal guy. Why 
> doesn't such a high-placed kick make him spin rather than just 
> translating backwards?" (The answer, obviously, is that the latter is 
> drastically easier to film, and still looks cool.)

  If Trinity can manipulate the simulated physics in the virtual world,
surely she can also manipulate the way in which her victim physically
reacts to her kick?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> That's true. And that explains why people can fly and survive impossibly 
>> long drops and so forth. But as one reviewer pointed out, "Trinity can 
>> defy physics. But the guy she's attacking is just a normal guy. Why 
>> doesn't such a high-placed kick make him spin rather than just 
>> translating backwards?" (The answer, obviously, is that the latter is 
>> drastically easier to film, and still looks cool.)
> 
>   If Trinity can manipulate the simulated physics in the virtual world,
> surely she can also manipulate the way in which her victim physically
> reacts to her kick?

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...)

But then, that wouldn't be very exciting, would it?

Given that it seems that these guys can only "bend" the laws of physics, 
rather than utterly disregard them, maybe they can only enhance or 
reduce physical effects that are already happening or something? Who knows.

OMG... geeks! o_O

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

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   If Trinity can manipulate the simulated physics in the virtual world,
> surely she can also manipulate the way in which her victim physically
> reacts to her kick?

	That's a stretch. It's simpler to say that whoever designed that
virtual reality didn't know much physics...

-- 
"Honey, answer the phone."  "Okay.  BaRRING! BRRNG! BaRR"


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

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...)

  I think the movie establishes that while they can manipulate the
physics of the simulated world through their neural connection, it's
not easy and what they can do is limited. They are not all-powerful.
(After all, some people such as Neo can manipulate it more than others.)
It's plausible to think that eg. making a kick helps them manipulate
the physics more easily than trying to create the same effect without
the kick since performing a kick in the virtual world triggers some
physics simulation routines, which they can more easily just slightly
nudge to get a stronger effect. It's just a much slighter "tampering"
of the physics engine routine than it would be without the kick.

  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.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   If Trinity can manipulate the simulated physics in the virtual world,
> > surely she can also manipulate the way in which her victim physically
> > reacts to her kick?

>         That's a stretch.

  It may be retconning, but it's still plausible.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   If Trinity can manipulate the simulated physics in the virtual world,
> surely she can also manipulate the way in which her victim physically
> reacts to her kick?

  Another possible explanation is that by tampering the physics routine
of the simulation for herself she also causes perturbances and errors,
deliberate or not, to objects se interacts with during the tampering.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   I recently was at a home where they were watching TV and I got to watch
> it from really close. I was shocked at the bad quality of the image! It was
> full of mpeg compression artifacts.

So it's not just me.  (Probably the same thing in the USA going on.)

But then, I also notice compression artifacts on the analog TV 
sometimes, because some part of the transfer from camera to TV goes 
through a digital link.  Especially noticable if you (say) look at the 
crowd behind a football player as he runs down the field with the camera 
tracking.

First noticed watching Tour de France, when you (well, we) had the extra 
problem of translating PAL frame rates to NTSC. Very disturbing. :-)

>   With digital TV, however, bad reception means that the broadcast stops
> playing at moments.

Yeah, and Sprint has the fewest dropped calls. How do they do it? They 
turn up the time-out from 4 seconds to 9 seconds, so if you lose the 
call for 6 seconds, it's not a dropped call, even tho there's no sound 
going either way. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Inside the virtual world anything is possible, so no physical laws apply.

Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the 
electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy has 
to come from *somewhere*.  At least Zion had a credible power source.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   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.

And it makes sense that the agents could do much more, including 
"teleporting" somewhere else by taking over a different 
human-simulation. </geek>

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the 
> electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy has 
> to come from *somewhere*.

  Well, the people would need to be fed somehow, so it comes from food?

  Of course a different question is that the entire humans-used-for-energy
is completely implausible because humans are poor batteries, and there
certainly are much efficient ways to convert natural resources to energy.
That's the reason why many fans decide to ignore that explanation and retcon
it so that the people are actually used for computing power, not as energy
sources. (Of course this also is an implausible explanation because it's,
once again, not a very energy-efficient way of getting computing power...)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the 
>> electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy has 
>> to come from *somewhere*.
> 
>   Well, the people would need to be fed somehow, so it comes from food?
> 
>   Of course a different question is that the entire humans-used-for-energy
> is completely implausible because humans are poor batteries, and there
> certainly are much efficient ways to convert natural resources to energy.
> That's the reason why many fans decide to ignore that explanation and retcon
> it so that the people are actually used for computing power, not as energy
> sources. (Of course this also is an implausible explanation because it's,
> once again, not a very energy-efficient way of getting computing power...)

Maybe the 'power' being extracted isn't electrical or purely 
computative; imagination is something computers are traditionally bad at 
that one would assume if it could somehow be harnessed, humans are 
convenient sources thereof.  *shrug*

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.digitalartsuk.com

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GFA dpu- s: a?-- C++(++++) U P? L E--- W++(+++)>$
N++ o? K- w(+) O? M-(--) V? PS+(+++) PE(--) Y(--)
PGP-(--) t* 5++>+++++ X+ R* tv+ b++(+++) DI
D++(---) G(++) e*>++ h+ !r--- !y--
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the 
>> electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy has 
>> to come from *somewhere*.
> 
>   Well, the people would need to be fed somehow, so it comes from food?

I believe at one point they stated they were fed from the bodies of the 
dead. If you "scorch the sky" so that solar-powered robots can't 
continue to function, I'm not sure you can grow enough photosynthetic 
food to feed the people from which you extract electricity.

Of course, that's beside the point of the movie. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

In article <47645798$1@news.povray.org>, z99### [at] bellsouthnet says...
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the
 
> >> electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy h
as 
> >> to come from *somewhere*.
> > 
> >   Well, the people would need to be fed somehow, so it comes from food?
> > 
> >   Of course a different question is that the entire humans-used-for-ene
rgy
> > is completely implausible because humans are poor batteries, and there
> > certainly are much efficient ways to convert natural resources to energ
y.
> > That's the reason why many fans decide to ignore that explanation and r
etcon
> > it so that the people are actually used for computing power, not as ene
rgy
> > sources. (Of course this also is an implausible explanation because it'
s,
> > once again, not a very energy-efficient way of getting computing power.
..)
> 
> Maybe the 'power' being extracted isn't electrical or purely 
> computative; imagination is something computers are traditionally bad at
 
> that one would assume if it could somehow be harnessed, humans are 
> convenient sources thereof.  *shrug*
> 
Actually, the explanation was, "a combination of human electrical power 
and blah, blah micro fusion", or some similar gibberish. Kind of like 
the people where being used as a startup battery to keep the main energy 
system running, and it was so closely tied into the network of power 
that you couldn't unplug all the people, without having the system shut 
down. Though, why they didn't use some of that power to make something 
else, which wouldn't need that...

-- 
void main () {
  If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Oh, I thought the "perpetual motion" bit was referring to tapping the 
>> electricity of humans being fed other humans. :-) I mean, the energy has 
>> to come from *somewhere*.
> 
>   Well, the people would need to be fed somehow, so it comes from food?
> 
>   Of course a different question is that the entire humans-used-for-energy
> is completely implausible because humans are poor batteries, and there
> certainly are much efficient ways to convert natural resources to energy.
> That's the reason why many fans decide to ignore that explanation and retcon
> it so that the people are actually used for computing power, not as energy
> sources. (Of course this also is an implausible explanation because it's,
> once again, not a very energy-efficient way of getting computing power...)

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...

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

> 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.

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

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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Orchid XP v7 escribió:
> 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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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Orchid XP v7 escribió:
>> 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.

Is that a problem with the brain, or just the way it's wired up?

If you just see the brain as a collection of several trillian 
transistor-like switches with an astonishingly dense connection set 
with, further more, is rewirable, it certainly looks pretty parallel in 
theory.

Of course, unless somebody figures out how to grow braincells and wire 
them up so as to create a programmable device, this is all kind of 
academic. ;-)

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

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Somehow it feels that they went digital before the technology was really
ready for it. I wonder why is it. Whose interest does it serve (besides
temporarily boosting digibox sales)?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> The Matrix is not a film that can be rationally dissected IMO; it's all 
> utter nonsense from beginning to end

  I disagree. Most of the things have plausible explanations. A few of
them might be far-fetched retconning, but they are still plausible.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> (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...)

  There was a reason why the Architect even allowed people to get free and
for a "the one" to be born every time. As he said, the very first Matrix
was perfect, but failed (because of some aspect of human psychology). He had
to introduce imperfections in the next designs. I assume that he consciously
*allowed* some people to get free (or deliberately turned a blind eye on
them).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Of course, unless somebody figures out how to grow braincells and wire 
> them up so as to create a programmable device, this is all kind of 
> academic. ;-)

Old news, dude.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6573

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Darren New wrote:

> Old news, dude.
> 
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6573

Interesting. I swear to God I saw this exact story debuncked on 
Snopes.com... [Except it was an FPS, not a fighter plane.]

Well, maybe I *did* read that, and it has since become an actual reality.

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

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Warp wrote:
>   Moreover, one could argue that in areas with bad reception the situation
> has got worse. With analog TV bad reception means more white noise, but
> at least you get to see and hear something, which may be quite important
> if you are eg. watching the news or weather report.
>   With digital TV, however, bad reception means that the broadcast stops
> playing at moments.
>   The human visual system is more permissive of noise than intermittent
> playback. Intermittent playback may even mean incomprehensible message.

I was in Las Vegas during a wind storm couple of months back, and they 
eventually had to switch the televisions in the sports betting area from 
digital (some sort of HDTV in this case) to analogue for exactly this 
reason.  People were not so pleased when the picture and sound cut out 
right before a big play was about to be made.  It ended up being a 
pretty good advertisement for analogue television though.

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Kevin Wampler wrote:
> I was in Las Vegas during a wind storm couple of months back, and they 
> eventually had to switch the televisions in the sports betting area from 
> digital (some sort of HDTV in this case) to analogue for exactly this 
> reason. 

Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not sure I understand what a wind storm has to 
do with whether the TV is broadcast in analog or digital. Was it shaking 
the tower too much or something? Or did it knock down the digital 
antenna? Was the problem at the arena or the broadcaster?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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I assume that you're familiar with this site?

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/

It has a list of movie reviews at the bottom (none for Waterworld 
unfortunately).  They did give a special nomination to "The Core" though 
for having the worst physics of any movie they'd ever seen:

http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/core.html


Gail Shaw wrote:
> I remember going to watch WaterWorld with some of  my 1st year physics
> class, the evening after our final exam. We tore it to shreds/
> 
> Comments about spring constant, static friction, pressure gradients and the
> like.
> 
> Fortunatly it was a big movie house, and we were towards the back

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
> Well, maybe I *did* read that, and it has since become an actual reality.

I can't find it on snopes (for good or bad), but I've seen similar 
results in several fairly respectable magazines online.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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