If I were being cynical I'd say it was a cash grab. Produce a 4k Bluray and sell it to unsuspecting buyers who assume it will be an upgrade to 1080p. Then in another decade release a remaster from rescanned film.

Apparently when they scanned it last time the process degraded the film, so the idea was to do an archival grade scan and never need to touch the reels again. Apparently they didn't go a very good job of it though.

They should just give these projects to fans. Look at the effort to produce higher quality versions of Deep Space 9 and Voyager from Laserdiscs. The quality is way better than the DVDs, and if they had access to the original film I'm sure they'd keep working on it for free. Redo all the CGI parts too. Then Paramount could rake in the cash from Bluray sales and everyone would be happy.

I guess that makes it an EV (equine vehicle).

The Chinese system is more like the US one. Spam out patents, as long as they are perpetual motion machines they will probably go through, and it's mostly down to other companies to challenge them. In practice most are never enforced, or are used as ammo in a spray and pray lawsuit that gets settled out of court.

There is also the issue of cross licencing, especially for standards essential patents. Having a massive portfolio of patents to swap means no licencing fees, even if most of them are worthless.

I'm still lugging around a voltaic pile for my EV. Now excuse me, my cloth is trying out and I'm running low on brine.

Don't get me wrong, I do like those old movies the way they are, for me they don't need updating.

This sort of thing has been happening in music forever though. Sample a riff, release a remix in the modern style, do a cover version. There are remakes of movies sometimes too, either decades later, or sometimes just because the original is in a different language and apparently subtitles are too much for some people. Also books, e.g. there have been modern updates of Shakespeare and Greek mythology.

I'm not expecting much, but it's not the worst idea I've ever heard.

There are some captures here:

https://www.joblo.com/true-lie...
https://aftermath.site/true-li...

It looks objectively terrible.

Do you really think that the Chinese government would allow that? They have shown a willingness to regulate these kinds of technology, much like Europe does.

What's more, they will put in place a plan to exploit AI that involves transitioning people into new jobs, the same as they had when people transitioned from rural to urban life.

Doesn't the 787 also have a battery for electrical power? I remember that early in its lifetime they had some issues with said battery, and tried to blame the manufacturer.

I doubt it has anything to do with the "not liking" what they found. More likely it is some kind of human error and they are making sure they understand it fully before publishing a report.

The black box recordings usually don't give a complete picture of exactly what went wrong. They can hear the pilots talking, but not what they were thinking. It doesn't have a stress monitor or video of the cockpit, all of that stuff has to be inferred from audio and control inputs. They will want to understand what was happening in there, what the dynamic between the more senior and junior pilots was, the background of each of them and the physical and mental states they were in at the time.

Then there are the ground records to look at too, for maintenance, fuelling, pre-flight prep, issues reported on previous flights. The ATC records, radar data, video from the ground. Then there is the wreckage, where they will try to confirm any faults or mistakes by looking at the position of hydraulic and electrical controls, valves, the state of wiring and tubing, and so on.

They will have been working to eliminate things that could warrant a grounding of all 787s first, but beyond that they won't rush the investigation or issue an early report. That doesn't help anyone, and airline staff wouldn't appreciate unwarranted accusations or speculation being made before the accident is fully understood.

Too many jobs require a degree, and the automated systems won't even let you apply if you don't tick that box.

Companies complained that they needed skilled workers for the modern economy, but they don't want to pay for them, and they definitely don't want to train them. A degree isn't supposed to make you fully competent to do some specific job, it's supposed to give you the foundation and skills to learn the job.

Now we have AI too, with bosses figuring they can just churn out AI slop and have some experienced engineer fix it up a bit. They don't care if the code quality is crap.

Same reason why Cameron just used AI to upscale all his old movies to 4k. Terminator 1/2, Alien/Aliens, True Lies, and a load more. They look awful, completely messed up. All the actors look like bad waxworks of themselves, things in the background are often horribly distorted, and the whole movie looks like YouTube grade AI slop.

There is potential for AI to bring older movies to a newer audience. They could make it look like it was shot on modern cameras, instead of 80s film stock. They could update locations and fashion to look modern. Maybe even dub them into English and make people's mouths movie correctly.

The sad fact is that despite some of those movies being excellent, the 1cm high barrier of subtitles, and the fact that they look dated, is enough to put many potential viewers off. There probably won't ever be anything like them again either.

We have the same thing in Europe. It's an independently run non-profit, which the government is invested in, and sometimes the government directs broad policies, or appoints key people.

Depending on the type of company it can work well, or it can be quite bad. An example of the latter is government influence over the BBC.

I looked at the eVinci website and it's hilarious. It tries so hard to avoid mentioning the major downsides, and even has a mock-up of it being transported on a trailer. The actual text notes that it needs a shipping container, presumably a very special one that it able to withstand the most severe road accident imaginable without leaking nuclear fuel all over the road.

It produces 5MWe, and 15MWth. That means it's pumping out a LOT of heat. Despite them claiming that it can work in any environment without cooling water, the reality is you need one hell of a heatsink of that. They quote "as little as" 2 acres but that will be the best case scenario. Already the portability claims are starting to crumble.

The only thing they say about spent fuel is that you can return it to them, presumably at considerable cost. Still no plan to deal with that mess, and they only mention refuelling once. That's a red flag - if they even can refuel it, there will probably be a load of waste generated from the process. They sound highly disposable.

Safety wise it's got the usual flaws where damage to the cooling system is a nuclear emergency situation. They claim that the control drums are passively safe. They must be spring loaded or something to rotate into the shutdown position unless held in the on position, but rotation in a system that experiences large temperature swings tends to be less reliable than gravity assisted rod insertion. If a drum jams you are in a pretty serious situation.

Gamers Nexus reviews Chinese GPUs and CPUs sometimes, and they tend to be broadly in-line with the claims. The GPUs, for example, do perform as advertised, but have compatibility issues with many Western games as they are aimed at the Chinese market. For games that Chinese gamers like they are decent, and GN saw significant improvements in both the hardware and drivers from one generation to the next.

People always make the same mistake of doubting that Chinese anything can be any good, until it becomes undeniable like with EVs... Although there are some who are still trying to pretend that they aren't top notch. Instead we should take these as warnings that we need to step up our game and prepare for stiff competition.

Agree with all your points.

It's possible I might have missed these, but they're also major considerations with COVID:

1. It causes scarring of tissue, especially heart tissue. That's why COVID sufferers often had severe blood clots in their bloodstream. Scarring of the heart increases risk of heart attacks, but there's obviously not much data on by how much, from COVID. Yet.

2. It causes brain damage in all who have been infected. Again, we have very little idea of how much, but from what I've read, there may be an increased risk of strokes in later life.

3. Viral load is known to cause fossil viruses in DNA to reactivate silenced portions. This can lead to cancer. Viral load has also been linked to multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue, but it's possible COVID was the wrong sort of virus. These things can take decades to develop.

I would expect a drop in life expectancy, sometimes in the 2040-2050 timeframe, from life-shortening damage from COVID, but the probability depends on how much damage even mild sufferers sustained and what medicine can do to mitigate it by then. The first, as far as I know, has not been looked at nearly as much as long COVID has - which is fair. The second is obviously unknowable.

I'm hoping I'm being overly anxious, my worry is that I might not be anxious enough.