Revolution OS

Film review

Ahh, the good times :-)

This film was made during the dot-com boom, and, per release information on IMDb, first screened at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2001.

Only in its end titles does the film show the first casualties of the dot.com crash (a second release of the film was in 2002), so this documentary really well reflects the spirit of the times, just as the original series of "Star Trek" was the best science fiction in 1960's.

Despite its shortcomings of appearing propaganda-like (see some of the more balanced IMDb reviews) and not the most stellar music editing, I still kinda like the documentary, as it was filmed during a time when life seemed really nice: The dot com crash had yet to happen, and 9/11 hadn't happened yet... And so the times were quite a bit more hopeful than in the years that followed.

Alas, many of the companies mentioned aren't there anymore: VA Linux, Cygnus, Netscape, and many-many others. Not long after, Corel stopped making Linux. Sun Microsystems was purchased by Oracle. Red Hat is still here, but it's not exactly in the desktop business. Netscape itself was purchased by AOL, and subsumed into it, and then not much is left of it. Netscape's move to open-source its Communicator suite (which included the Navigator browser) was indeed pivotal, as it laid the ground for Mozilla and eventually Firefox.

Nobody at the time saw the emergence of Google. Or that the principles of this freedom would lead to Lawrence Lessing to found the Creative Commons movement, which gave additional impetus to found Wikipedia. Incredible.

I somehow failed to notice at the time how even the modern men's haircuts and hair styles were different back then, short of being less astute. I guess since these styles were ubiquitous, then nobody really noticed S:)

When Angela Merkel is Fabulous

Because photos are not my own, I'm not going to show them here, but instead link to them and their articles.

Yes, this is a photo from 03.04.2009., but still holds relevance, as Mrs. Merkel is usually all business. So, sometimes it's good to highlight the lighter side of politicians who have to save the (financial) world. (Greece was then only a worry.)

• Jezebel: German President Angela Merkel Demonstrates Her Signature Dance Moves
• More image in story:
  xfinity.comcast.net/slideshow/news-michelleandcarla/10/
• Biggest possible image that I could find within a few minutes

And E24.ee features a very nice image of Mrs. Merkel's slight change in style, where the top piece is much taller than usual. Maybe even puritanical, but in a good way, reinforcing her image as "The Iron Frau", and given how the 4th most powerful woman in the world must politick Europe out of its financial woes.

So, using all black is not new for her. (In the two photos, Mrs. Merkel gives a speech to the German Parliament.)

Sõpruse pst. Hüperrimi

Tallinna Sõpruse pst. Hüperrimis pole võrreldes "Prisma" keti poodidega (võrdluseks toodud Mustika "Prisma") järgmisi asju:
* Nööppatareisid;
* Magusaid kõrsikuid (neid häid Eesti omi);
* Lagritsakomme (vähegi mõistlikus valikus).

Rimi pole küll kohustatud kõike seda müüma, sest neil on müügis asju, mida ainult sealt saab. Headest omadustest välja tuues peatub näiteks ühistransport (vähemalt ühel suunal) ka peaaegu et ukse ees. Kui 20.02.2012 poes käisin, oli "Kirde" saia kampaaniahind ainult 32 senti :-).

Pläkk
Peale selle ei olnud juur- ja puuviljade ning kaalukommide juures näha kaalusid. Ainuke töösolev kaal oli kaalupähklite ja kuivatatud puuviljade juures. Nende ning juur- ja puuviljade ning kaalukommide vahel oli mitukümmend meetrit kõndimist. Kui ma sooviks mingi kindla kaaluga kaalukaupa, siis ei ole võimalik kuidagi kontrollida :/

Hinnakontrolli terminali polnud ka märgata.

Kuigi Mustika "Prismas" on müügil nööppatareid, siis neid, mida soovisin, pole (eks mõnes teises poes ikka on), aga muidu on sealne valik täitsa hea.

Kuna ma käin Sõprust pst. Rimis väga harva, siis on tõenäoline, et selleks ajaks kui sinna uuesti lähen, on võib-olla läbi viidud mõned kasulikud muudatused.

The Way We Were

In reply to a post on an unrelated movie on IMDb.

I guess your parents were hoping that you'd understand the point of "The Way We Were", because in some way, it probably related to them, but weren't able to convey it in any other means than having you watch it. The film is actually more difficult and relates to themes that a ten-year-old might find hard to grasp.

Long story short for "The Way We Were":

If memory of the synopsis of "The Way We Were" (which I haven't seen) read from Wikipedia serves me right, then the point of it was that two people deeply in love with one another had to give up a lot to be together in tenuous times, but eventually split for greener pastures to have a life — or what they thought life meant for them at the time — lest they be forced to be much worse off by events and powers beyound their control.

Time moved on and they met again, being in an age past their prime youth. Reminiscing, they realized that they were actually at their best when staying together when young, yet far too many events had gone past, and they had grown too much apart of one another throughout all that time to be like the way they were.

In my view, the movie probably warns people not to break precious relationships too easily, advising them to ponder the merits of a loving relationship further than just face value. The film also suggests that young people (perhaps by their nature) possess lesser amounts of detachment to recognize the gift of love in their midst.

Tuvix

This was essentially an IMDb forum post reply, but I decided to put that up here first, becuse I thought my ideas are just so compelling :gt; to let them go away, as forum posts sometimes do on IMDb...

Janeway had to choose between not keeping Tuvix alive and not having Tuvok and Neelix around. Essentially her obligation was to her crewmembers Tuvok and Neelix, who she felt she had to save. — Especially Tuvok, who was the only one who Janeway could talk to, because no-one else would listen unless absolutely necessary :>

Chances are that if the writers and producers were willing to have Tuvix alongside Tuvok and Neelix, then it would have been quite a bit more intersting a tv show than what dreck Voyager ended up being. I am not sure how it would have fared budget-wise, but perhaps Tuvix could have been made a regular...

My mind went into overdrive around here:

Neelix would be completely sidelined in his cooking duties much to his chagrin (loss of any culinary status and interaction with crew in the kitchen), and then to add insult to injury, Tuvix could have knocked up Kes in very quick order :9 (I wouldn't have minded that after "Warlord", which was Jennifer Lien's best episode). All that would have given Neelix two very good reasons to be extremely jealous, jealous, jealous!!1 :>

But if Tuvix were kept, then I would have done away with Harry Kim (I'd say he should have been assimilated into Species 8472) and Chakotay (assimilated by the Borg). In the process, "Voyager" could have for some time been a battlefield, and its crew desperately caught between Borg and Species 8472 fighting one another, with the poor ship disparately flying to and fro Borg space and occasionally the Fluidic space.

There should have been some reason for Voyager to be the bone of contention between the two big powers. Maybe the super-important Omega molecule (or even a collection of them) freeflying 'round the ship of its (their) own volition, with neither power being able to get it, because of its rather elusive nature...

For all that time, that would have been very taxing to Janeway, who'd end up having PTSD, making multiple mistakes and judgements of error after Chakotay's assimilation — cuz she was secretly pining for him... And the Borg Queen terrorizing Janeway by privately showing the capt'n not just the first time the Borg actually reproduce themselves (by then, Chakotay would be the sperm donor 1+n times). Because of all that, Janeway would probably end up a poor crazy woman by the end of the show. (Kate Mulgrew's chance at Emmys.)

In the end, Tuvok would have become Commander and Tuvix would have gotten some or all of Tuvok's duties (suppose Tuvok was out of commission for a short while, so Tuvix would have gotten valuable battlefield experience). Once the doctor decided Janeway was no good anymore, Tuvok would be acting captain or something. Torres would be second-in-command, Seven of Nine would do engineering.

Chances are also, that Tuvok's impending mental disease issue would have withered away, given that Tuvix was half-Vulcan and 'family' enough to help with the healing. I wonder how that would have looked like... Anyways, if that wouldn't help right away (since Tuvix is only half-Vulcan and might genetically harbour the same disease, which would perhaps emerge much later than in Tuvok), Torres would get command and Tuvok would give her progressively insane advice (which against all odds ends up working).

Tom Paris would still be the flyboy, maybe even literally after accidentally getting into a transporter accident with some flying bug. (Emmys for makeup or even sfx!)

And attrition would have allowed for some new faces (and perhaps also better actors) to emerge to the fore on the ship to replace lost senior crew. Romulans, anyone?

Star Trek: Voyager episodes that made me emotional

This is a post on an IMDb Forum. Posts on these forums may eventually get lost, so I post here, too, just for the sake of showing which some episodes of Voyager I liked.

I won't say cried, because it's corny and mostly I didn't, but definitely misty-eyed and choked up.

In no particular order from all the episodes mentioned here:
"Jetrel"
"Tuvix"
"Drone" (Jeri Ryan's best moments)
"Riddles" (Tuvok attacked by mysterious aliens, loses memory)
"Once Upon a Time" (where a shuttle crashes and Ensign Wildman records a farewell message to her daughter)

"Imperfection" is good, but I can't remember the episode very well. (about 7 of 9 getting too emotional and Icheb worrying about it)

"Lifesigns" was poignant (The Doctor getting to be with a Vidiian woman).

"Innocence" (Tuvok stranded on a planet with kids)

"Remember" was really good (Torres getting memories from an older lady about genocide).

"Timeless" is very good in execution, but Garrett Wang's acting wasn't so much, though he tried.

The Eavesdropper is only hearing thoughts

This post is in reply to a post on IMDb.

A typical misconception in entertainment industries — perhaps carried over from older mediums (print and radio), where text and speech was important to communicate ideas — is that people only think in speech, while I prefer to think that there are people who rely on text to think and that there are people who use mental images in their thought processes.

This makes catching someone's thoughts more difficult, if a person observed uses the kind of mental imagery that necessarily does not use that person's own (inner) voice, but that of someone s/he thinks about. The trick, then, is to be able to detect what the person's underpinning thought process is in relation to the image and the activity in that image that is working in their primary consciousness. The difference here is in getting to observe what the person perceives in their thought processes, and actually eavesdrop on what he or she really thinks about. Overlap isn't always guaranteed.

Since I haven't seen the film, I guess the experiment was in getting people (or just the protagonist; see below) to only 'hear' someone's thoughts, but not necessarily see them. This would mean that the ability of perception was probably limited to receiving just one type of sensing faculty.

Given the film's premise of 14 people (out of 15) becoming crazy as a result, then I guess the failed method did not include a filter on these people, and so their minds vere overwhelmed. I remember this issue was once handled in an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", where Buffy's mind-reading sensitivity to read others' minds and sensing radius progressively expanded to the point that it became almost impossible to have a sane mind.

See the Mental image article on Wikipedia for more.

Another point is that even despite filmmakers, of all people, realizing that people also think in images, then it's probably just easier to use the "hearing of thoughts" method than "seeing the thoughts" method, as the former is cheaper, while the latter may sometimes require expensive means of post-production to visualise 'seeing' someone's thoughts. Think "Minority Report" and "Brainstorm" (1983).

P.S.
Saw a poster and that George Takei was in it, so got here.