News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:29 am

My friends and I will be watching Road House this weekend, I see!

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:28 am

Weird as it sounds, I really like To Wong Foo. My fondness dates back to Study of Film in high school, where that was featured in as a film about serious costuming and generally as a break after Citizen Kane. Also, the class discussions about it were funny.

Still, I can't think of a movie of his I actually dislike.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:51 am

Roadhouse is awesomely bad (or is it the other way around?), as are Steel Dawn and Red Dawn. But I wouldn't be heartbroken if I never saw even a clip of dirty dancing again.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:50 am

ckafrica wrote:But I wouldn't be heartbroken if I never saw even a clip of dirty dancing again.

Really? Why's that? I watched it for the first time since it was in theaters (when I was like 8 ) and it's seriously one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Cielingcat · Post by **Cielingcat** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:39 am

Prak_Anima wrote:Not to belittle a mans death or anything (seriously, not belittling his death at all) but why do celebrity deaths matter to anyone but their family and friends? I mean, I can understand "damn, I liked him, no more movies with him," but "Oh my god this breaks my heart he was such a great actor..." (not here, but on other sites), seriously, I don't get it.

But then again, when some one asks me my favorite actor or actress, or whatever, I'm usually at a loss...

Because people know about them. They recognize them and realize that they are, in fact, people. If you hear that a young child in Africa dies, you won't be sad-but if you watch a movie based on that child's life that ends with him dying, and you know it's a true story, you will be sad because you have formed an emotional connection with that child even though you have never and will never have any other interaction with said child.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:26 pm

Well, that guy who played Father Ted died and the world missed out on an extra season or two of that show. That mattered.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:49 pm

Cielingcat wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Not to belittle a mans death or anything (seriously, not belittling his death at all) but why do celebrity deaths matter to anyone but their family and friends? I mean, I can understand "damn, I liked him, no more movies with him," but "Oh my god this breaks my heart he was such a great actor..." (not here, but on other sites), seriously, I don't get it.

But then again, when some one asks me my favorite actor or actress, or whatever, I'm usually at a loss...
Because people know about them. They recognize them and realize that they are, in fact, people. If you hear that a young child in Africa dies, you won't be sad-but if you watch a movie based on that child's life that ends with him dying, and you know it's a true story, you will be sad because you have formed an emotional connection with that child even though you have never and will never have any other interaction with said child.

huh, makes some sense, I suppose.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 8:35 pm

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ith-Butter

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:43 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... ith-Butter

That was just better than the Chinese emergency bricks.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:37 pm

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... th-a-Sword

Couldn't think of a snarky comment worth posting.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:10 pm

Huh, what do you know? An actual self-defense.

-Crissa

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:35 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 90262.html

The link title should speak for itself.

Woo-hoo!

This should really go into the 'makes you cheer or do a backflip' thread but we don't have one specifically for news.

Now hold on a second, I'm gonna do a real life backflip now.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 12:14 am

Yep, right on the heels of http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090918/156176090.html

Gosh, who'd a thunk it, peace begets peace. Bet the wingnuts are preparing their statements of how Russia isn't really rolling back their missiles...

-Crissa

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:46 pm

Apparently we've arrived at near-SR4 levels of hackability.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:49 pm

Guh.

That sounds like a terrible idea on multiple levels.

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 2:12 pm

Not really. It's an IT tool, and a very useful one, from what it sounds like. The idea that people will use it to steal information from re-sold computers is really pretty paranoid, along the lines of someone stealing your credit card info when you hand it to them to pay for something. I guess it's theoretically technically possible, but it's not bloody likely.

It requires user permission to work, and it's turned off in BIOS by default. Honestly, I'm more concerned over the fact that it still draws power while off than by the fact that it allows remote access while powered down.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 2:15 pm

name_here wrote:Guh.

That sounds like a terrible idea on multiple levels.

Oh, I think it's a great idea so long as it's not on my computer. But even beyond the base criminal and technological implications, imagine the precedent this puts forward for a controlling regime like, say, China's. It could become illegal to not allow the government continuous full access to all the data on your computer.

Yeah, that's a paranoid conspiracy theory almost on the level of "B. Hussein wants our guns", but it's still disturbing.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:31 pm

It's pretty idiotic technology, really. You ought to hold your data in your hand, not on a remote PC that is subject to remote access. The amount of data we can hold in our hand is immense, and it can require biometrics like fingerprint to activate.

Elsewise, it should be on a secure internet server where open-source technology assures us that it has decades of experience.

Never use someone's proprietary software for security. They're the most commonly broken into and you'll never really know how safe it is because you can't have your own guys look at the procedures.

-Crissa

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:35 pm

Crissa wrote:It's pretty idiotic technology, really. You ought to hold your data in your hand, not on a remote PC that is subject to remote access.

This is a great idea for individual consumers. For businesses, especially large corporations (for whom this whole thing is intended in the first place) it's laughable.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:02 am

Yeah, it's a great tool that does exactly what is intended. Very useful and the saviour of corporate IT support departments.

You don't have to rely on the use telling you what's happening, you just log in and check.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:55 am

...And therein lies its serious design flaw. Ugh. Replace workers with this app... So you can 'think' you're secure.

They use similar at several libraries. Serious invasion of privacy, but... They ended up having to hire people to walk the labs in addition to the librarians and the techs, to physically see what was going on with the machines as they were being hacked.

-Crissa

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:09 am

Who said it wasn't a security risk? VLC has been routinely installed on machines in corporate environments for years. It's really useful for controlling server without openning up the rack and using a monitor and keyboard in the server room.

Whenever there is a security issue with VLC, everyone shits bricks andruns around and tries to fix it.

I don't get why this is an issue? This is the status quo.

Also, how are you replacing workers? It's just so the helpdesk guys can try and work out what is going on without doing it painfully via the phone.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:33 pm

If you think it isn't about replacing workers, then you don't read their ad material.

-Crissa

NativeJovian · Post by **NativeJovian** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:14 pm

Crissa, this seriously isn't even a big deal. There's already stuff that lets you access someone else's computer without their knowledge or permission. The only difference is that this stuff doesn't actually have to turn the computers on to do it. Really. It's nothing earth shattering.

What's this about libraries invading privacy and replacing workers with programs? One, if you're on a library computer, you have no right to privacy (as long as they're not stealing your credit card information or something) because it's not your computer. Two, this technology does nothing to get rid of jobs; it just makes the lives of the IT guys you already have easier.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 12:05 am

Crissa wrote:If you think it isn't about replacing workers, then you don't read their ad material.

-Crissa

VNC has been out for 10 years. It's been used in brokered applications like this once since VNC was opensourced in 2002.

If you don't think this technology has been in place for years in corporations, you don't keep abreast of IT trends. Given that, for example, the corporation I work for at the moment has had this functionality in place on their laptops for 6 years, what possible job savings could be made?

Heck even the government department I work with at the moment has had it for ~5.