Gecko Bloggle

Via Slashdot, the tech sector’s CNN, (or at least National Enquirer)

An anonymouse reader writes “Tom’s Hardware has a feature up on the makings of Tron which may interest latent fans. Through interviews with the creators they explore the makings of Tron, from how it came to be picked up by Disney to how the effects were put together (‘While the majority of the film takes place in the computer world, only 15 minutes worth of footage actually used CGI’, because it would have taken years to make the film otherwise). They then explore why the film flopped at the box office. ‘It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle,’ said Steven Lisberger.”

If you thought the conversations about Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Matrix got heated (when comparing special effects to plot), check out the commenting threads going on for this story.

One comment [edited here] struck home for me, especially, from tinkertim

I saw Tron, opening night, and its one of the things that made me really, really want to figure out how those nifty looking typewriters with screens could do so much. I didn’t know what memory was, I didn’t know what a processor did, I barely understood how a calculator worked and if you said Binary I’d say “Sure, I have a Huffy!”.
We’re always looking at value as something monetary. Tron made me go get my first trash-80 (Err Tandy TRS-80 heheh) and later my first Commie. I wanted to know how those things worked.
The value of the film wasn’t how much it grossed , if you want to calculate that, then calculate the life time earnings of those who got into computers partly because of seeing it and you may be surprised :)
However only 15 minutes of CGI? I somehow (not sure why, because I know what was available then) thought most of it was CGI.. but yes, that would have been very very difficult at the time. My bubble sort of broke reading that article, never really thought about the making other than being fascinated as a child with the results.
Entertainment isn’t entertainment to most if it requires too much thought.
Tron got to be the pavement others were able to ride in on. So wallet aside, I don’t think the film was a flop. I was too young to remember any hoop-la coming from Disney about the film.. I wonder how it would have done if it had been underplayed before release.
Cool article, if you can wade through the advertisements :)

I remember getting sucked into this movie almost as badly as Star Wars: The Master Control Program made me tremble with fear, and when the old guy died, I’m pretty sure I teared up.

I’m *such* a geek.

Sign yourself up for the mailing list of Mil Millington, and have a quick read-through of the latest while you’re at it.

He’s pretty funny, as some English folks are. His wife’s INSANE (have a spin through Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About some time for a laugh – or a cry, depending on how insane/German your partner may be).

So yeah. Go there.

What’s THIS song?

Or even, what language is it in?

I stumbled across it by accident, but the filename’s all messed up.

In the latest Smirnoff Ice ad, there’s this jazzy little tune with a vocal sample “That girl’s got rhythm” in it.

Tried googling around, and checked Smirnoff Ice’s web site that listed the music for a lot of their ads, but not this particular one.

Anyone?

TIA

Via We-Make-Money-Not-Art
Data Transcriptions

Looks very cool.

An amalgamation of image and text parsed from the BBC’s live internet news service is algorithmically recombined into a semi-abstract visual array, which is then back-projected onto a suspended screen situated in the lowest well of the staircase. Beneath the screen, a surround sound system emanates a seemingly garbled newscast. On the ceilings, geometric abstract patterns are painted directly onto the surfaces. These images are visual translations of the equations responsible for creating the real-time audio/visual elements of the installation – scribed in a data-language that, like the fundamental components of the media itself, is opaque to human perception.

None of which I understand, of course, but this is neat.

Go see my buddy Moxie’s blog…

So… Wednesday.

Wednesday is sorta interesting at work. Click here for the latest scuttlebutt. Saw some people go at my location go who were a bit of a surprise, and a few that certainly weren’t. Bittersweet, in some ways. It’s a transition year (the XBox360’s early release and the flexible release date of the Playstation3 lead the general public into a “wait and see” mode, which hurts publishers like EA), so it’s understandable. We saw graphs that show what happened when the XBox and PS2 came out, so it’s not like we should be completely shocked. Anyhoo, enough about that.

Thursday. Afrika Bambaataa at Atlantis

Click here to read more.. »

Via BoingBoing, there’s this monstrosity

Listed as “Ready to Wear”

I don’t think ANYONE’s ready to just put this on and walk out their front door (or maybe off their roof).

No wait, I take that back. Maybe Toren might be able to put something like this on and go somewhere ten minutes later.

This was in response to a friend’s question about whether or not they were depressed (or just having a hard time, what?).

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I’m hearing ya. I was going to suggest (again) that you apply here at Mole Hill (They have “market” and “assisted” pricing for a suite in one of these heritage homes, and having a friend who’s already “in” really helps. Oh, and did I mention that a single parent with a child gets a two-bedroom, according to the rules?) but then you mentioned in that you can’t move away from E’s preschool and N’s parents.

I think it’s totally valid that you’re depressed, and feeling like it’s really freakin’ hard to clean the house (or get outta bed in the morning). Know what? It is.

The fact that you *do* do these things so often, and yet still have time to be interested and engaged in life (and love) in any capacity speaks volumes toward your ability to overcome what life keeps throwing at you. (know what else? life keeps taking a pee in your turtle pool, too)

I don’t think I’m talking out my butt when I say that everyone reading your post is trying to figure out how they can help in some way or another. Not just go “ra-ra” from the sidelines, but actually get in there and kick the ball too (or at least submarine a defensive player or two). Make sure you let us know when there’s things you could use. Don’t let yourself think for a moment that any one of us wouldn’t jump at the chance to do something to help out.

When A went through a period of feeling completely overwhelmed, and feeling like she was just having it all be too much, I got out a piece of paper and started doing “Good/Bad” lists with her. All the basics were there: Time, Money, Kids, Cleaning, Shopping, Friends, Work, Family, etc, and it was pretty easy to figure out what kinds of things went into each column, but the simple act of writing all that shit DOWN made her realise that she wasn’t being unreasonable about feeling overwhelmed.

Her life *was* overwhelming.

Still is.

But I’ll be damned if writing some of that shit down didn’t help her to see that it was okay to feel overwhelmed.

The Super-Soccer Moms out there who work full time *and* clean the house *and* have dinner parties *and* take pole-dancing classes in their spare time (what spare time) are all (I’m pretty sure) faking the funk somewhere in their life. I could be wrong, they might all be just idiotically energetic and overly-healthy people who also like to build cars out of macrame in their spare time. I doubt it though. I’m thinking a lot of them step out of their Escalade in the underground parking and wrangle their $800 stroller into the elevator of their highrise and think “Holy Mother of JEEBUS do I need a drink.”

…and the next morning, they shit on the little club kid at Starbucks who forgot to put CAROB sprinkles on their extra-non-low-whip-spang-enfeebled-mocha-chip-a-crack-a-freakin’-ccino, instead of chocolate.

So… yeah. Life’s hard. Need help?

“A” says that depression *is* picking on yourself and doubting your own abilities. It’s a cycle: You feel bad about feeling bad which makes you feel bad…

She also says there’s a book called “Feeling Good,” that totally helped her. I’ll pray to the bookcase gods and see if it falls on my head, and send it your way.

Going to try upgrading to the new and improved WordPress again tonight. Hold on to your tinfoil hats, kids.