adriantc

Hello! I'd like to add my own review of Wall-E as it is very fresh in my mind. Just as galexcd said I think Wall-E is the best animation movie off all time and one of the best movies this year. I saw it had 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I didn't expect it to be so good. It is surprising to see an almost silent movie doing so good... The basic lines of this movie are .... "Wall-E" .... "Eve" and "directive". The power of this movie are not the lines, but the story and the 2 main characters. It may be an animation movie with robots, but you kinda feel connected with them and with their situation. It presents a very possible future, not in the robots or the planet full of junk (although easily imaginable), but in the way the people look and act. But most of all its the fact that it's a story related to many of mankind's problems: pollution, unhealthy lifestyle, decay of individuality and the fight between survival and living. So basically you feel part of the story, you feel part of the fight.In my opinion Wall-E is a movie you can recommend to anyone. It may be an animation movie, but to fully understand the movie you have to be an adult. Everyone can appreciate the animation, but the it is more to the story then the nice animation... Overall this is a surprisingly good movie for a surprisingly low quality movie year. I give it 9/10

There is one important question to be answered... Is this bandwidth capping the result of actual bandwidth prices or just the result of pressure from the market to stop piracy by any means? Because if Time Warner is also in this the answer is becoming obvious and unfortunately not very optimistic for the users. I guess the industry is becoming frustrated by the inefficacy of other methods and takes radical actions. I'm in no danger since I don't live in the US and I can't say I download more then 50GB per month but I don't want to have one extra thing to worry about!

I have to admit I live in a country were piracy is extremely common, but this kind of restrictions seem abusive. What are the users going to do? Return to the stone age of the Internet... just imagine that you can download with 30-50 mb/s, but only a few GB? That's not a good way to wage war with piracy! Why not lower the prices of software licenses, movies and music so more people can afford them rather then simply downloading it anyway. I don't understand why they don't realize that it is better to get something rather then absolutely nothing.I can't help to make a comparison with the former communist regime in my country. Although we had an enormous cereal and meat production, food was scarce in the stores and people had to wait in long lines for they piece of bread or meat. Its the same with this situation. I remember back a few years when I had cable I was limited by the bandwidth, but that was because the infrastructure couldn't support the traffic. But todays infastructure does just that so there is no reason to go back to old habits.One thing that I am afraid of is that this anti-piracy movement can bring the attention of Hollywood, Microsoft, etc. They may see this as a viable solution and they could finance or at least encourage this movement.@Saint_Michael ... I won't be that pessimistic... The only good thing about the capitalistic world is that is encourages competition. So as long as there is one company still offering unlimited bandwidth most clients will change. So once their profits start going down they will eventually have to reconsider they "limited bandwidth" policy.

I wanted to add another theory... Most of you have heard about Warp and Warp drive from Star Trek. It's science-fiction - but not too fictional. Although this technology is very far from practical it seems it has some theoretical truth in it. NASA researched it a couple of years ago and there is a fellow taking Warp drive very seriously. His name is Miguel Alcubierre and he is a Mexican physicist. So theoretical such an engine would be possible... How does it work? The engine is supposed to fold space in front of the ship and extend space in it's back. Meanwhile the ship travels between those spaces in a bubble - the space inside the bubble does not technically move so there is no time dilatation effect and the ship does not accelerate over the speed of light. So Einstein would have no problem with that... This is how a Warp drive folds space... As for the side effects this is how it would look when traveling using a warp drive! If you are interested to read more about Warp drive you can do it HERE and HERE!

My father told me yesterday when he saw it on the news. It is so sad... ... I am still watching Married With Children since reruns are very common and I can't help being sad for her. She was (back then) so young and hot... Married With Children was a huge success, but I think on the long run it has damaged her carrier. Just as with Ed O'Neill... every other role he has makes you think of Al Bundy. This is straight from Wikipedia: We have to look at the half full part of the glass - she is cancer-free. And thanks to modern reconstructive surgery we may not even see the difference.

I saw the movie yesterday and I have to say it was much better then I expected! I would go so far that I would say it was better then Dark Knight. What I liked in Hancock? First of all the performance of Will Smith. Incredible actor! Second is the ending... After seeing Dark Knight, which is still a lot less dark then other Batman movies, almost any movie seems pink. I know Hancock's ending is a typical Hollywood ending, but I find it great that it finishes so happy. As much as I try I can't like movies where evil wins - it' just not in my nature... Third... Charlize Theron - In my opinion one of the hottest in the world. Last, but not least I liked the comedy. I haven't seen many superhero movies where the superhero is alcoholic and does more damage then he is supposed to. I agree the role doesn't seem to catch Will's strengths, but he does his best in this role and it ended a lot better then I expected!Overall I would give this movie a rating of 8 - 8.5!

I saw Dark Knight last week. (in the cinema ... unlike most I think some movies deserve to be watched on a big screen, with friends around) When I first heard about Dark Knight I said "Not another Batman movie!". It's still fresh in my mind the movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the bad guy... I know Batman is a comic, but Gotham was way to dark - the movie looked more like the comic rather then a movie. That's why I didn't like that Batman, just as I hated (after being totally disappointed) by 300. So when I decided to go to Dark Knight I was pretty skeptical even with all the great reviews, income and first spot in the IMDB top.So how was it? Good, but not that good! Dark Knight is a good movie, maybe the best movie based on a comic, but it's a long way from the top 10 movies of all time. Somewhere in the top 50 would be much more fair. The strong point of Dark Knight over other movies based on comics is the fact that it shows the psychological part of the characters a part which was never explored so much in any other comic based movie. The second strong point is the acting which I have to admit deserves one or two Oscars... Christian Bale was great, but the performance of Heath Ledger was fantastic... Also the soundtrack is one of the best I ever heard! But overall it's hard to put it even near top 10. I know it is very subjective, but I just didn't like it so much as to put it in "best movies of all time".One last thing... Why in the name of God did they cast Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes? As I was watching the movie I was telling my friend how "not hot at all" she looked. I just checked her age on IMDB and although she is just 31 she looks much older and she is far from hot. Her acting was good to excellent, but I am sure they could have made a compromise between brains and beauty. A superhero can't have such an ordinary girlfriend Overall this movie is somewhere between 8.5 and 9!

I'm a little bit older then you (I'm 20 years old) and I can't say my parents have imposed all that on me. Actually there was no much need I've imposed some of their ideas on myself. My parents are not racists and I'm not - I consider them and myself old fashioned in the way we think. And I like it since I do believe todays society is in a steep (moral) decline.I know you are upset, but take a moment and put yourself in their position. Once you know you'll have a kid you'll hope he will resemble you, that he will become everything you haven't (couldn't) be. If he won't be like that you'll try to put him on the right track...Besides there is another important issue to discuss. The generation difference... The world is simply going too fast. For example, where gay couples in such a spotlight a few decades ago? Of course not! Your parents where raised in a society where they where gay at home and normal on the street. Now the world has changed - society is almost encouraging such (abnormal if you ask me) sexual preferences. It's normal for them to protect themselves and you from what they where not accustomed to. Such a rapid change is very hard for everyone - when you will grow up and have a kid the world will be very different; you will no doubt try to control him. What do parents think? If I ended up right, then why risk my kid future - why not grow him in the same spirit I was grown? And it's hard to blame that thinking...I don't agree with your parents, but you have to understand you will most probably be the same when you will be a parent too...

I don't see this project with good eyes... Don't get me wrong, Google has done some wonderful things like GMail and Google Earth, but after visiting it's website Knol is way back compared to Wikipedia. Not to mention the renown and the volume of information which makes Knol a midget compared to the all mighty Wikipedia. But of course Knol has one distinct advantage... it is a Google product and will benefit not only from the experience of Google, but also from the advertisemtn capabilities of Google.But the main reason I don't see this with good eyes is because once it will become true competition to Wikipedia, the volume of information will be split in two. We won't have to search one encyclopedia, but two. And encyclopedia isn't supposed to mean all our knowledge in once single place. Until know everybody looking to share some knowlege would simply go to Wikipedia and post them. With two different encyclopedias things will not be so easy. Hopefully they will let people double post so it won't make a difference which encyclopedia you use.On the other hand I have heard that this new project of Google is a response to a Wikipedia project that is planning to build a rival search engine. If you ask me if Knol has small chances to win the competition with Wikipedia, a Wikipedia search engine to rival Google is fantasy. Google is here to stay for at least a couple more years!

It is a nice idea, but I fail to see how it would help the people of third world nations. In principle free premium software could create jobs and help educate people, but you have to remember that even now 90% of their software is pirated. Even in my country it rounds to the same figure. So they already have the software, the only difference is that it is not legit.The problem with the software is not the costs itself, rather the fact that the cost isn't proportioned with the income. For an American 30$ isn't more then spare change, but for someone who's monthly income is 50$ (or in most cases even much less) 30$ is a fortune. It isn't fare to label it as free for someone and 30$ for someone else. You could say ... the price of the software is x% of the national medium income. That way software would be much more affordable, developers will still get some money for their work and people can say they own the software. As for the benefits - I am pessimistic. They already have the software, the fact that it is legit will not make much of a difference I'm afraid!

I believe in the Lock Ness monster. Not so much in the monster part... I think that if there is an animal in that lake it is an ancient one, a prehistoric one maybe. It could have been stranded somehow. I can't imagine how it could have survived that long, but that would be the only explanation that comes to my mind. There is another example of an animal ... the coelacanth which existence was improbable. Maybe Nessie is just like the coelacanth!

As I don't want to open another topic on the same global problem I shall state my disappointment here... Just yesterday I saw a news report on the way the American consumer throws away 275 kg of perfectly good food every year. I can't say I'm an American or that I don't waste food but 275 kg is a huge amount. And if that still doesn't sound much well those 275 kg means 14% of all food purchases of a household. And it gets worse 15% of that includes products that are still within their expiration date but that have never been opened. Such a huge waste of food I just can't stop thinking while someone throws perfectly good food to the garbage someone half around the world suffers from hunger and will eventually die from it. While we have the luxury of being picky about the food we eat I'm sure that somebody our there would eat anything and be happy about it. I know it's hard to do a difference but maybe if we even think about it a morale barrier shall rise next time we throw something in the garbage. As an offtopic I have also heard some good news. Ford has registered enormous losses mainly because of its big car (SUV, ...) division. They are reorientating to small efficient, green cars. The American cars, just as the American consumer is extremely inefficient. When somebody thinks of American cars you picture as SUV. A gas monster will no practical advantages over a smaller more efficient car. But it seems that little by little the oil prices change this lifestyle.

It seems that I am the first to tackle with this topic so I hope I'm up to it! First of all I would like to discuss the very concept of that speed. As you have correctly said as closer someone or something gets to the speed of light it's mass exponentially increases to the point where it becomes infinite. That would be a challenge - infinite mass! It is true in laboratory conditions they have been able to accelerate particles to the speed of light (and as far as I know even beyond the speed of light), but only particles, not objects with a notable mass to start with. That is also why it is currently though above then speed of light travel is impossible. What will happen to the mass factor once the speed of light will be surpassed?But there are also other implications involving traveling at the speed of light. There is the SF effect called time travel which is not that SF! An astronaut that stays for an year in orbit around the Earth would have traveled in time a few hundreds of a second. Yes! That is true. But what is important is that the effect grows once you get near the speed of light. That is why some think that once you go over the spped of light you could actually go back in time! It's not exactly the time travel you see in Hollywood movies since to you time the same. But to an outside observer time goes faster. For example for as on Earth a second means 1,0000000000 which for an astronaut on orbit traveling a few tens of thousands of km/h a second on Earth is somewhat 0,9999999999. From his point of view life on Earth is going slower. OF course in real life he won't observe it since the effect is extremely small at that speed, but once you go faster who knows?The last thing I would like to tackle is the light concept. Let's say that we can go exactly the speed of light. Since light travels at... ... well... the speed of light an object traveling at the same speed will not "see" anything directly backwards to him. Why? Simple. Since he has the speed of light and light travels at the same speed chasing him it means light will never reach him for as long as he has the speed of light. So in his back he will only see total and complete darkness - a darkness nobody has ever seen. It a logical theory, but I don't know how much sense it has...

What really annoys me the most is not the fact that they ate those lavishing plates, but they had the guts to say that they were actually talking about the global food crisis. It is as if they slapped all of us.... I'm sure that as they spoke and ate those plates, a few hundred people in Africa died of hunger. It is beyond understanding what they did! What a huge difference would have made 238 million pounds for some people that don't eat for days.There are times when I go to the supermarket and I get my trolley full and I stop for a moment and think.... Oh my God somebody is suffering right now because of hunger and I am enjoying such luxury. Maybe it's not much, but I fell ashamed that we enjoy so much while others enjoy so little They say Africa is mostly third world countries, but I wonder ... in our so called civilization, where did we loose the value of human life? Where did we loose the value of helping someone not to enjoy life but (at least) having a normal life. So I wonder what countries are really the third world ones? The G-8 is a good way to start...

As you probably have heard these days the G-8 summit is taking place in Toyako, Japan. I am not an anti-globalisation activist, but there is no way you can't hate them after this meeting (meetings). They discussed some very important world issues like the global warming, how to decrease CO2 emissions and the pressing problem of increasing food costs which translates in a global food crisis. Regarding the first subjects, just as they do every G-8 summit, they agreed to decrease C02 emissions by half by 2050. It's not like it's too little, much too late... As for the food crisis... they tried to resolve the issue over an 8-course dinner prepared by 25 chefs. There is an ad on Animal Planet regarding a Buddhist monastery where the monks are raising tigers, but it perfectly suits the G-8 summit... "the problems of the world never reach this tranquil place". It is beyond words what they did... discuss food crisis while they were eating 24 different lavish dishes! Dominic Nutt of Britain's Save the Children said Isn't he perfectly right? And it's not only the dinner but the whole summit is under the "lavish" term... The G-8 summit has as cost a total of 283 million Ł. Yes! You have read that correct. 283 million Ł! SHAME ON THEM! Once again... SHAME ON THEM! The G-8 summit is only for image... no real problems do get solved! They can't care less about hunger, AIDS or global warming as long as they have never ever felt them for one single day. Things like this make you loose faith in the human kind. How easy we care ignore the suffering of our own kind PS: If you want to read more on this subject visit the next websites: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I don't really understand why are such records so important? What are they going to do with them? Maybe some statistics on what people watch, but what is the purpose of having statistics on the way people watch some home videos? I think it has to do with advertisements, but I fail to see a connection. If they really don't know what to do with their money, I suggest they make a donation to me. ;)And no one is going to jail. As far as I know it's not illegal to record music from the radio for example and since the quality of the sound and video are so low it's not like people don't buy albums because of YouTube. Going further YouTube helps the industry since it offers something like low quality samples which could turn into more sales.

WOW!?! That's unfortunate... 20 hours without power - only that would be enough to kill me... ;) no computer, no TV. And you seem to be the fortunate one, compared to your friends and family.Even with all our technology we are powerless against the awesome forces of nature... We can predict, but we can't control. I guess we all have to get used with extremes like this since with global warming things like this will hit more and more frequently. So where did you spend the time it took for the tornado to pass? Where you like in the basement or you went out of harms way?

Yes! This is one of the worst ideas the gaming industry had in it's quest to fight piracy... I sure wouldn't have expected it from EA! I remember some years ago another bright idea surfaced about self destructing CDs (DVDs where not so popular those days). It was the movie industries idea to combat piracy... Haha.... It was a special CD that once exposed to air would begin to degrade to the point where the information written on it would not be readable. That stupid idea ended up just as this one will probably do... to the garbage . Unfortunately some of this ideas are applied and not only they don't fight piracy, but even deter those who want to buy the product. One such example would be the activation process that Microsoft requires for some of it's products. Not to mention Windows Genuine Advantage. They should take in consideration the advantage/disadvantage ratio before releasing such dumb ideas to the public!

I think and hope that the future of menkind is outerspace. But I believe that is very hard to happen for 2 main reasons. First of all the technology isn't ready yet. Maybe NASA could risk a few astronauts, but for a viable way to sustains hundreds or thousands of people that is another story. Not to mention millions or billions... That kind of research takes time, time which I'm afraid we don't have. We all can see what we have done to the world and it can't take a lot more till it won't be able to sustain us... On the other hand there is the problem of competition, or to be more precise the lack of competition. A huge progress was done during the Cold War (I still don't believe we landed on the moon... but that isn't important nowadays since today we can go to the moon) so without some kind of competition research won't be fast enough. And once again, I'm afraid that can't be done without a war.

I have seen IPhones at some of my friends, but haven't actually touched one... It has some nice features, but most of them don't really compensate it's high price. Just like with the IPod it's more of a fashion statement then of actual performance/price ratio. Still, an upgrade was needed since most of the phones have cameras and are 3G.

Even though I don't live in Australia things like this make me mad... And it's not only in Australia - everywhere in the world prisoners get more and more rights.If it were by me prisons should be completely self sustained - I mean why do tax payers have to pay for someone who has hurt them? (by "them" I mean society in general) In my country (which is not very very far from the luxury conditions you stated) a prisoner needs more money then some people make by working in a month. And it's all because the European Union believes society should take care of all it's scums. Prisons should be a place of punishment not of good living. People go there not because they have don't something good, but because they have broken the laws of society. So if a prisoner works for 10$ a day that's what he will eat 8$. Some of his pay will go to pay his guards and another part to pay for maintaining the prison. If he won't work he won't eat and he will sleep under the sky. And that should only be for that cases why, happily, can be reintegrated into society. As for other cases, as rapers, killers, ... there is only one punishment - death. Society should no longer carry the burden of someone who has done so much bad and who can't be set free ever again. I believe in a simple equation for punishments. You break someone's right and you loose you own right. If you kill someone then you loose the right to live.Or if the world doesn't want to kill them because of various reasons then there should be an island somewhere to put them. No technology, no escape... Society no longer feeds them, no longer houses them... If they have not seen fit to respect the higher laws of society then they should not be a part of society. It's the best way to go!

I'm another smoker hater. Unfortunately my father is a smoker and there is no way I can make him give up. My mom used to a smoker too, but she had the will to give up. I can't say I don't smoke because of health concerns, but mainly because it costs a lot. And in Romania its 5 times cheaper then in the western part of the European Union. I do have to admit that once every 2 or 3 months I smoke nargilah just for the fun of it when I am in the company of my friends.It is a known fact that for every cigarette a smoker looses 11 minutes our of his life. Multiply that with 10 cigarettes per day and you almost loose 2 hours of your life per day! This statistic would be enough for someone to quit smoking right away. Unfortunately there is no way to directly link health problem to smoking. Besides people don't tend to learn from the experience of others, but from their own experience. So until something bad does happen to them they will not stop smoking!

Happy Birthday, Xisto! 4 years! WOW... It passed so fast. It seems like yesterday when I first registered to Xisto. Back then Xisto had a few thousand members and a few topic and now, look where we are! Congratulation for this incredible success! Tap17 is now a community in the full sense of the word! From a Star Trek fan... LIVE LONG AND PROSPER, Xisto! Edit: Member No. : 3,516 Class of 2005!

I'm also pessimistic about the damage we have done. And not only in 3rd world countries, but everywhere. Unfortunately the 3rd world countries will be the first to suffer greatly because of the way we treat our would. Why? Because most of the 3rd world countries have economies based on agriculture. Industry, on the scale of the USA for example, is just a joke. So a ravaged planet, ravaged by storm, floods, tornados, etc., will him them the hardest. In the West we already eat lots and lots of genetically modified crap which doesn't require so much water or sun.... at the expense of our health of course. A proof of what I am saying is the debate on alternative fuels made out of perfectly good food. More developed countries buying huge quantities of food from low developed countries in order to produce alternative fuels. In turn the people of the low developed countries get hungry. Not to mention the ever increasing prices of food on the global market... And since they lack even the basic things that keep us alive what good could it come from this? The world is a giant trash can. Some try not to make so much trash, but end out failing. Others don't even care. But we shall experience first hand the things we have done.

I currently have a Sony-Ericsson K810i phone which has a 3.2 megapixel sensor (with autofocus and blitz). Previously I have owned a Sony-Ericsson K750i (2 megapixel sensor with autofocus and with LEDs). I'm not a big fan of Nokia, so I can't speak much about the quality of the pictures taken with a Nokia camera phone but the K810i really has a great camera. If you ask me Sony-Ericsson are the best in picture quality in the phone department. In the daylight it's very hard to make any difference between a photo taken with a SE K810i and a standalone digital camera. There is still room for improvement for the quality of the pictures taken in low light conditions, but I guess that also has to do with the size of the sensor - which has to be a lot smaller. It's also about marketing, but it's no mistake my K810i holds the logo CyberShot!As for the poll I voted for smaller cameras instead of the bulky ones, but we have to remember that the best picture quality will only be archived not with a digital but the the old fashioned film camera with complete manual settings. Of course you have to know when to use which settings,l but that is the apex in terms of quality.