Month: May 2008

Categories
Blog

When a robot says 0 she really means 1

No matter how many times I see it, I always get something new out of watching Blade Runner. I’d seen the Theatrical Release only a few weeks ago and just caught a midnight showing of The Final Cut. I thought it would be a bit much, but that wasn’t the case at all. Here are a few new things I noticed after the latest viewing:

The constant downpour in Los Angeles and the proliferation of bicycles and chintzy electric cars always presented a flawed future, but it is more relevant now to fears of climate change. Together with artificial animals replacing those brought to extinction, it shows humanity trying too little too late to correct the damage it’s done. I’m both amazed and saddened that this is still a significant theme over 25 years later.

Continue reading “When a robot says 0 she really means 1”
Categories
Shorts Video

*UNAIRED* 1985 Watchmen toy ad

This is a commercial for the Adrian Veidt action figure that was never aired, due to cancellation of the toy line. Found this on an old VHS. Did they ever make any of these??

Here’s my entry for the YouTube Watchmen ad contest. The best ones will get put somewhere in the background of the upcoming Watchmen movie, which is pretty exciting. Hope you like it — the winners are determined by the most number of views / highest rating, so watch early, and watch often!

Categories
Work

I don’t care, I like PHP

I’m a PHP developer, and I am going to out myself as a naïve n00b by saying I’ve never had a problem with writing applications for it. Yes, I may even enjoy programming in PHP. This is why I’m linking to an article Jeff at Coding Horror wrote on why PHP Sucks, But It Doesn’t Matter.

The TIOBE community index I linked above? It’s written in PHP. Wikipedia, which is likely to be on the first page of anything you search for these days? Written in PHP. Digg, the social bookmarking service so wildly popular that a front page link can crush the beefiest of webservers? Written in PHP. WordPress, arguably the most popular blogging solution available at the moment? Written in PHP. YouTube, the most widely known video sharing site on the internet? Written in PHP. Facebook, the current billion-dollar zombie-poking social networking darling of venture capitalists everywhere? Written in PHP.

Notice a pattern here?

Architecture astronauts may have a problem with the language, but the fact is PHP is getting the job done. Now Javascript on the other hand — scattered documentation, poor debugging support, the OO-over designing pitfalls. I don’t see how anyone can get anything done with it. Some people can, but not me.

I, um, blame the tools.

This is an area I am unfamiliar with

Despite having a Tivo, I still manage to see more than my fair share of cheap, sleazy infomercials on late night TV. I thought all of them were either Girls Gone Wild ads or those selling fake pills coyly suggesting they make “that certain part of the male anatomy” bigger. (That would be the scrotum, of course.)

That was until I caught an infomercial on Oxygen I hadn’t seen before. A cheap, sleazy infomercial for women.

I know women can feel left out when guys talk, like when my friends and I tried to explain The Legend of Zelda to one of our girl friends: the game was notable because it came in a gold cart; in it you play a boy named Link (because Zelda is the princess), who must fight the pig-monster Ganon to rescue her and the Triforce. Makes sense so far, right?

She was completely lost in our nerd jargon, which was further exacerbated by our discussion of how the mutant hooker in Total Recall (guess which one? [NSFW]) was the pinnacle of evolution.

Utterly baffled — that’s how I felt watching this Oxygen infomercial and hearing the phrase:

pink bent graduate impulse silver bullet jackrabbit

To me that’s just a string of words, but I’m amazed there’s a large percentage of women out there who know exactly what this describes. Utterly baffling.

Also, I need to get out more.

I made an Ozmandias action figure

This isn’t the nerdiest thing I’ve done, but it’s definitely in the top ten…

Ozmandias action figure

I’ll let you know how the commercial shoot turns out.

Veidt Enterprises is looking for ads

I may be the last to learn about it, but Veidt Enterprises is looking for commercials for its new ad campaign due out in first quarter 2009. Deadline is June 2! This isn’t mine, but here’s an example of what they’re looking for:

It may be for a completely fictitious company, but at least it’s better than hawking ketchup. Hawking Ketchup — the smartest ketchup in the known universe!

I will choose a new song chart!

Just making new nerdy song charts gives me such a Rush…

Free Will

Brand Tag bon mots

Part of why I got into psychology was I love giving feedback. The more terse and dismissive the better, which is why I just spent an hour at www.brandtags.net, giving my summary of various brands. Guess which brands I associated with:

oil spills
keeping customers in debt
no other options
greed
relentless advertising
like AOL (not in a good way)
a sinister name for a clothing company
bullshit

Visit www.brandtags.net and submit your own curt bon mots! You’re helping advertisers, and what could be more noble than that?

Answers: Shell, Chase, Best Buy, Rolex, Nike, MSN, Banana Republic, American Idol.

Why would I want to do that?

I mean really.

It’s no surprise that MySpace has the most unbelievably retarded banner ads. At first they started off normally, tricking dumb fools into clicking on them by having a big red button that makes the ad look like a video game. Press the button to kick! Press the button to shoot the clown! Yeah, that makes sense, but then they became ungrounded, and banner ads were inviting rubes to click the button to roll, or drink, or sleep, or do a pull-up. How do I click a button to continue sleeping? The ‘games’ theme had become so abstract that the button no longer made sense.

the ads really are this dumb

Meanwhile another genus of ads began to appear, the ‘spooky’ ads, which warned you to NOT CLICK HERE if you were easily scared, accompanied by faces of creepy stock photo children. Then they began to focus on speculating on what date you’ll die — because what could be scarier, right? Then somehow, the two merged, and now there are ads inviting you into some kind of death game, all I have to do is sign up:

This is the worst ad ever

No chance to win an Xbox. No free ringtones. No products, no service. No company is being advertised. I’m not signing my soul away in exchange for some prize, I’m simply acknowledging that I’m dead. Unless this banner ad was placed by satan himself (which I can’t completely rule out), what could possibly be the appeal of this gigantic, full page ad?

As if an ad inviting me to kill myself wasn’t bad enough, there’s a catch:

subscription required

Subscription to what?!

You know, if it meant never having to see another incomprehensible flash ad, I would sign my own death certificate.

Ohhhh…. NOW I get it.

What do you want to see?

I recently went to the movie theater at the new recession-defiant Americana supermall in Glendale, and couldn’t decide which movie to see. It was a tough choice between:

Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Iron Man
Made of Honor
Made of Honor
Made of Honor
Made of Honor
Made of Honor
Made of Honor
Son of Rambow
Son of Rambow
The Visitor
Young@Heart

Choices!

I don’t want to imply that there’s still a paucity of choice even at these swanky upscale malls, but for those of you keeping track at home, that’s 18 screens showing a total of five movies. Which do you want to see, “Boys’ Movie” or “Girls’ Movie”?