SimpliSafe Is Far From Safe
Once in a while, while watching a video on Invidious ( a proxy site allowing to watch YouTube videos in freedom ) I come across a very interesting advertising. SimpliSafe. A collection of home appliances that make security of the home supposedly simpler. And therefor makes your home safer.
The Psychopathy Epidemic
Psychopathy - a lack of empathy, a lack of remorse. A fascinating topic. Not so long ago an Ultimate Hacker @Troler sent me a video about psychopathy. A normal video basically just explaining what it is. I thought it would bore me. I know what it is. But instead it made me think.
What Lies Beneath
Have you ever wondered what would Alfred Hitchcock do in the age of CGI and VFX? What kind of strange insane shorts he would come up with? Well Robert Zemeckis set out for himself a challenge to find out. He is notorious for using visual effects creatively. A lot of people might be familiar with the mirror shot he did in the film Contact. So something like trying to make a Hitchcockian thriller of the 21st century was just about the right kind of thing for Zemeckis.
Julian Assange vs Josiah Mizukami
Imagine being locked up in prison for something that's legal. And not even merely legal. For something that is a human right. There is this very small human right, I don't know if you know about it, it's called the Freedom Of Speech. An ability to express your opinion without being persecuted for it. And it's more than essential. It's the cornerstone of things like Freedom in general. Sometimes though bad people that are trying to persecute you for this anyway - are smart. And they will look for any other way of shutting you up if this one is not available for them. Good example is Julian Assange. Not so good example could potentially be Josiah Mizukami.
Minority Report
I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.
I Just Poored My Depression Into Emacs
You stand nearly motionless in a court. It doesn't matter if you did anything, or if you're there by mistake. The judge and the jury finds you guilty and the reality of the situation doesn't matter anymore. You will be executed. What would be your last few weeks? What would be your last day? What would it taste like to eat your last meal? What would it feel like to walk towards the execution room? What would feel like to stand there while the officers put a bag on your head? What would feel like to die?
Drive
It is very strange to me that this is the first time I review anything by Nicolas Winding Refn here. I love this director and his style a lot. The movie Drive is perhaps the best introduction to him that you could ever get. It is his fastest paced movie ( apart from maybe Bronson ). He likes to be very slow. Drive is paced more or less like a normal film. That is why, if you want to start getting yourself into Nicolas Winging Refn I would recommend starting from Drive.
Everything Is a Scam
It was one of those nights that 79th didn't sleep. He and Pito Sage were working on a robot named Bill in Pito's home. It was illegal for 79th to be there. But non of them cared about it. 79th was glad to get out of his usual prison in the Kids Market. And Pito generally didn't care about anything illegal. For example, by law, in the place and time where they lived, connecting an artificial intelligence to an unfiltered internet was illegal. But Pito planned to do just that when Bill will be finished.
Subscription
Though unfortunately Subscriptions in software today are the norm, they are a malicious functionality. Any software that you already have installed should work whenever you want it to work. Having a timer implemented in it, so it will refuse to work, unless you pay every once in a while, is malicious.
Encryption Could Get Illegal To Protect Children
A number of countries are pushing at the moment laws that would undermine everybody's privacy by making it illegal to communicate with end to end encryption. They believe that this will stop criminals. And especially that it will save the children somehow. When an article about this was seen by Sheiny this is how she reacted to it.
Something Evil
Conceptually the film is very much like Stanley Kubrick's "The Shinning". It deals with a parent going slowly insane and becoming a threat to the children. Both movies suggest a possibility of a supernatural explanation of the insanity. But the movies are made in such a smart way where there is enough doubt in those supernatural occurrences that you can read it as psychological deterioration only. Which is a very interesting challenge to a filmmaker. And young Spielberg pulled it off.
I'm Not Even Human
A story about a child in a time when children are Not Even Human anymore.
I'm Still Alive
As I said previously in another article I am in a very bad position financially. To the point that back when I wrote it I believed that I might actually be dead. Later I wrote an update that didn't work much as an update, because it was more a philosophical piece about how I want to get out my problems ( as in how do I justify trying to get out of my problems ). So I hope I will not diviate this time around from actually writing an update.
Copyright Made People Do Useless Work
Oh the copyright! The system that many believe is there to "protect" artists from exploitation. But the system that is quite clearly one big exploitation in and of it self. I hope that my readers here have a job. Since I want to draw a very interesting parallel. Would you work if there was no contract? Would you do anything if the person that supposed pay you, would not pay you if he didn't want to? Or you would first sign a contract and then do the job? In the world of copyright, there is no contract to sign. There is no boss that will pay you. You have to risk everything to do something that might or might not interest other people in the first place. And no copyright will save you if you did something so utterly uninteresting that nobody will even pay you for it. Let's explore this!
Quarantine
It was the beginning of 2020. The model of Neonspeedster for Moria's Race was already done. I was sitting at home on the Quarantine. It was the beginning of the corona-virus mayhem. Everybody was locked at home. I was bored. And so I made a MIDI album.
Tethering
Some software is being developed in such a way that they are always Tethered to a server on the internet in order to function. If the server stops working, the program becomes obsolete. Unless the server's software is published in such a way that anybody can host it, this kind of Tethering is malicious.
The Danger Of Good Intentions
Paternalism - a world view that states that sometimes forcing a person against their freedom, if for their own good, is acceptable. A good example is the collapsing bridge thought experiment. A bridge is about to collapse and you know it for certain. You advertise this fact so people will not go onto the bridge. You put signs. You tell people about it. But somebody still walks toward the bridge with what looks like an intention to cross it anyway. You show that person the signs. No response. You yell at the person "The bridge is about to collapse!". No response either. You realize that the person probably doesn't even speak English. Is it okay to force this person, to reduce his freedom, and force him out of the bridge?
Lars and the Real Girl
It was very nice to have a marathon of Ryan Gosling movies, because I stumbled upon this unique masterpiece. Lars and the Real Girl is a story about a sad relationship. About a man named Lars and his girl named Bianca who is sick and getting worse and worse with every passing day. The twist is, Bianca is actually a live sized sex doll.
Wrong Hate
Wrong Hate is a movie project that I was trying to do when I was 16-17 years old. The story revolves around a future war where huge building-size robots fight to death. But unlike similar movies where the focus of the action is on the robots. In this film, the focus is on the family that is trying to survive the mayhem.