I find it interesting that you would be more interested in the process than the narrative itself. I remember a time when people went to films to be lost and engrossed. A noticeable special effect was a bad thing which took you out of the film. Now, it seems people WANT to see outrageous effects which call attention to themselves. I'm guessing it's because the narrative of many films simply does not grab an audience any more, so there's really nothing to take you out of.

Maybe you didn't hear about the Vietnam war. We lost that, and we outgunned the enemy. What about the insurgents in Iraq? Saying ordinary citizens can't fight the military has been proven false empirically.

I'm sorry that's wrong. Every religion is bad. They are all bad because they teach you to not to think critically, and accept unwavering beliefs as facts that can never change. It teaches people not to live in reality or react to changing evidence.

I bought this for Super Meat Boy, and it turns out I can't configure any controls or set and settings at all, since this is all done through the steam client, and what you get in the bundle is a standalone application. I'm not too happy with only being able to play in windowed 640 x 480 with the keyboard.

You don't have to be bad at math to play the lottery. A buck for a ticket is a small price to pay for the entertainment you get when the numbers come up. Especially if your friends play, it can be a social event when the numbers are announced.

First of all, professional A/V folk don't use HDMI anyway. Cameras and decks all have SDI outputs, which is pretty much the standard, and there's no copy protection on it. Second of all, in the chance you do use an HDMI source, not a single camera or deck is ever going to set HDCP on, since well, you're the one shooting and editing the material. Copy protection is only an issue if you are trying to record off a PS3, TV broadcast, or copy a blu ray disc - i.e. something that's not yours. If you're running into copy protection issues, you need to get proper gear.

There are several games available legally for ScummVM, which he suggested. Beneath a Steel Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen for example, were both released as freeware by their authors and can be downloaded right from the ScummVM homepage.

I think it's time to seriously consider Phage therapy, which has been proven reliable and used for years already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

Looks like someone's been breaking the first two rules of Usenet!

"and BAN private political advertising"

That's a clear violation of freedom of speech. If I want to, with my own money, create an ad endorsing a candidate and express my views, then denying that by law would certainly be censorship.

"Not everybody chooses to contribute to the banks by using credit for trivial purchases."

They should. Most offer either cash back or airline miles or something similar. You'd be foolish not to use it for everything you buy normally, since these bonuses don't apply to cash. Pay your bill completely at the end of the month, and you actually come out ahead over someone who just writes checks and uses cash.

"Being able to play back what you just captured is invaluable"

It's called video tap, and it works on 35mm cameras.

"Reloading by slapping in a new hard drive saves downtime"

Changing magazines on a film camera is just as easy and quick. Pop one off, pop the other on.

"Cutting the size and weight of the camera down by 70-90% gives you flexibility"

There are tons of small motion picture cameras. The A minima is way smaller than any comparable HD camera for example.

"Filming at high frame rates like it's nothing is damned cool"

With film you can shoot hundreds, or even thousands of frames per second easily since it's all mechanical. I'd like to see you do that with something like the varicam or RED's stuff, which tops out at 120fps.

Just about the only advantage to Digital over film right now is if you're going for a certain look, and cost.

Not all Color film is inherently stable. The dyes Kodak used in the 60s and 70s fade very quickly. Star Wars was preserved correctly; the film stock was simply very prone to degradation. A good way to archive film is to create separation masters, which are three strips of black and white film; one for each color. You can then later combine them to form a new negative. Black and white film will last damn near forever.

Archiving Digital data is not in fact easier than archiving film. To archive film, you put the negative in a climate controlled environment. That's it. To archive digital, you need to put the disks or tapes in a climate controlled environment, then constantly recopy and verify the data. It is actually more expensive to preserve a film digitally than to preserve the negative.

Well if you watch the demo, the presenter makes unreadable text on a poster readable after the filter is applied.