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Comment Pay attention to the times and move with it (Score 3, Informative) 516

If only Hollywood would learn to move with the times and adapt instead of stubbornly trying to cling to the past. Back in the day, the MPAA fought tooth and nail against consumer video decks considering them the death knell of the industry. When they finally accepted that video decks were here to stay, they adapted and home video became a major source of profit for them.

Now the industry is fighting once again against the internet. Another pointless battle. They need to learn to adapt and incorporate the internet into their business model rather than continuing this losing battle.

Given the choice, most consumers will go the easiest, most convenient route to the content in the format they would like. Netflix streaming has taken off like gangbusters because it's relatively inexpensive and very convenient. Make it easy and inexpensive and most people will not pirate your content! It's far, far easier for the regular consumer to just go to a Netflix type site than to find and download a torrent client, navigate through Pirate Bay, wait for the torrent to download, and hope they don't get plagued with viruses.

People like the convenience of watching movies via the internet. That ain't gonna change. Hollywood needs to embrace the internet and make their libraries available via Netflix like services. Until then, people will continue to follow the easiest path to get the movies they want to watch in the format they want to watch them.

Comment EC2 is great as a renderfarm!! (Score 3, Informative) 167

I actually did the same thing for some projects I was working on... used Amazon's EC2 as a Maya/3DS Max Backburner renderfarm. I posted some tutorials on how I set it up on my website: http://www.judpratt.com/tutorials/ec2-renderfarm/

EC2 let me render in 5 hours what would've taken my own computer about 110 hours to render. The cost came out at about $.06 per core hour. The commercial cloud renderfarms charge about $0.75 core hour for comparison.

Comment Re:Can't argue that Nitsana is wrong (Score 1) 315

Hey! Just realized that the good old US Postal service could be aiding and abetting terrorist organizations by allowing them to use their network. And unlike Twitter... the USPS knows where you live and isn't afraid to use that knowledge to deliver right to your door.

We must fear such organizations and ban them by congressional edict immediately!

Comment Re:Compared to whom? (Score 2) 356

1&1 is terrible. I had a site go down for about a week due to crap on their end. Initially, their tech support would say that there was nothing wrong. Then I would get 'bumped up' and the only response they would give me is "our technicians are aware of the situation and are working to resolve it." Can you give me an estimate on how soon it will be fixed? "I do not have that information." What is the problem? "I do not have that information, sir." That was all after about a 2 1/2 hour wait on hold.

I switched to Dreamhost after that and haven't had any problem since. Once when I did submit a trouble ticket, the tech responded to me BEFORE the automated responder saying "your trouble ticket has been received and someone will be with you shortly."

Plus... there's the added benefit that their US based tech support is an hour south of me in Orange County just in case if I ever did have any real problems, I could take a drive and do some, uh, encouraging. ;-)

Comment Re:US is the problem (Score 2) 314

But you can die from "Water Intoxication." Case in point, a 28 year old woman died from a radio station "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest, which involved drinking large quantities of water without urinating.

The parent post is essentially right though...

At the onset of this condition, fluid outside the cells has an excessively low amount of solutes (such as sodium and other electrolytes) in comparison to that inside the cells causing the fluid to shift through ( via osmosis) into the cells to balance its concentration. This causes the cells to swell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Yes... drinking water in excess can kill you.

Comment Rendering speed maybe, animation speed, no (Score 1) 114

No matter how fast a computer is, it is not going to speed up how long it takes an animator to animate.

The animator still has to consider the movement they want to achieve, move the rig, adjust keyframes, etc., etc. This will always take time to do.

I'm not sure that rendering is necessarily the thing that most needs sped up for the artist. What would help the artist more is speeding up of things that require simulation such as hair, particles, fluids, physics, etc.

Rendering is just the button you click when you're all done and ready to move on to the next shot.

Comment Re:Restored VHS—for real?! (Score 1) 206

Any cinema of repute would refuse to show material sourced from a VHS.

I used to be of this 'THX' mindset, but now I see it as folly to deny content over technical concerns. These theatres apparently agree - the content must be compelling enough that people will pay good money to see it, and the quality sufficient to not get in the way of the content.

Yep... also, Landmark theaters are an "art house" chain so they are quite used to a wide range of technical quality... some intentionally rough, some not.

Comment Flicker & 'bad light' from CFL (Score 1) 1049

I'm a TV & Film editor by trade, so I easily notice sub-second motion and flicker. The flicker and the "bad color" of CFLs bugs the hell out of me. I can immediately notice when a room is lit by CFLs vs. good old incandescents.

I'm all for doing what we can to reduce power consumption, but for me CFLs are not a viable option. I have a hard time working around them. I haven't tried LED light bulbs yet due to them being relatively new on the market... maybe that will be a way to go, but I don't think the incandescent light should be banned wholesale.

Government is getting carried away with banning things. *reaches over for a ma huang herbal supplement and a clove cigarette* Oh... wait...

Maybe a added power consumption tax would be appropriate, but not an outright ban.

Comment Re:Yeah yeah (Score 1) 580

The military is not a killbot factory. They're trained to actively avoid taking lives if they have a choice in the matter, and the rules of engagement support that. They aren't out there "trying themselves to end a number of other lives", as you put it.

Right! Killbot duties have been turned over to private "security" firms such as Blackwater.

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