181–190 of 227 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's a 20 minute running street battle at the end with tanks and explosions that is shot in a single take. Strictly speaking there's a cut hidden in the middle of it somewhere.
I think it's when they first enter the building and droplets of water get on the camera lens but are quickly removed in the next couple of frames.
Whatever you might argue about it's prescience, Children of Men is one of the best films of the last decade. The writing, directing and acting are all stellar. It has some of the best single take shots ever filmed. There's a 20 minute running street battle at the end with tanks and explosions that is shot in a single take. It's also one of those rare occasions where the movie is far better than the original book. Boo…
The reasons you consider it to be such a good film probably have more to do with cinematography than writing, acting or directing. The beautiful shots are a direct result of Emmanuel Lubezki being the DP - the same style can be seen in Birdman, Gravity, The Revenant, and some of Terrence Malick’s films.
Even the smaller roles are well cast and executed. Charlie Hunnam is almost unrecognisable as the dreadlocked villain Patric. Peter Mullan does a fantastic turn as the brutal Syd.
The writing took the source material and squeezed far more emotion and drama out of it than was in there. Throwaway lines hint at so much untold story. There's a scene where Theo goes to visit his cousin to try and get travel documents. He has Michelangelo's David in the hallway of his office, and he talks off-handedly about "that thing in madrid was a real blow to art" or something. There's this whole backstory in there about the UK government trying to salvage the artworks of europe from the decay of civilisation, but we only get a hint of it. Perfectly understated. Always stayed with me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>most of Europe and Japan have such low fertility Their problem is not couples trying to conceive and failing, but people choosing not to have children.
Yes .. in many cases, because they simply cannot afford to have children.
Slightly OT but pertains to "Children of Men" The scenes where main character Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is on the really nice buses, and there is classical music playing in the background, while outside the window there is so much poverty really resonated with me. I've lived in SF going on 6 years now. My apt complex has private buses that run from here to FDi in the morning and evening. The route sometimes changes but…
I am curious, have you experienced poverty? I mean "first world poverty", like the kind you bus drives through? I have, and I want nothing to do with it. I certainly wouldn't choose to walk through it again. Have you stopped to consider you're being a bit of a slum tourist, or maybe you have a saviour complex?
I've experienced "first-world poverty", and it sucks. The solution isn't to plug our privileged tech worker ears and pretend "the poors" don't exist. The solution is to get involved with our communities, by helping the old man at the convenience store, helping the wheelchair man up the curb, and talking to the homeless who spend their entire day on the sidewalk getting ignored by everyone caught up in the rat race. Shame on you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nose, ear, really? On a more realistic note, what is the maximum microsdxc card capacity of a human rectum?
Believe it or not, that's a thing, and it's called 'keistering'! Apparently, pro's can get a cellphone 'keistered'. But I think the flip-phone style, not an iPhone. As far as microsd cards -- I think you'd be able to 'keister' many many terabytes. They are so tiny and so thin, I'd guess hundreds would fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There's also some fun stuff about people physically carrying information (this also happens in short story "Johnny Mnemonic"). For a world where there's a highly connected, super fast worldwide computer network available, people sure travel around a lot. Sneakernet isn't an irrelevant concept in any sort of context where data transferred through a computer network can be intercepted.
HTTPS stops interception. But, sneakernets are relevant because the internet is slower.
Even if you have perfect faith that it's currently impossible to crack TLS (and you probably shouldn't), they might record the stream and crack it in the future, having tools you can't even imagine currently.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I own a 60" television with no TV tuner attached to a smattering of devices that play and stream digital content. I suspect when my 1 year old is an adult she won't even have a solid conception of a "channel" let alone be able to imagine the color of a "dead" one.
The grey of a dead OTA channel and the grey of a missing / removed YouTube video aren't too dissimilar
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nose, ear, really? On a more realistic note, what is the maximum microsdxc card capacity of a human rectum?
Believe it or not, that's a thing, and it's called 'keistering'! Apparently, pro's can get a cellphone 'keistered'. But I think the flip-phone style, not an iPhone. As far as microsd cards -- I think you'd be able to 'keister' many many terabytes. They are so tiny and so thin, I'd guess hundreds would fit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not painfully obvious to UN or anyone else noteworthy. Was it also painfully obvious that USSR was going to break up and Russia would have stalled with population growth? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Populati... None of the current trends made sense 30 yrs ago. And in 30 yrs there could be major geopolitical changes that would make current projections useless.
"Overpopulation"-hysteria is a short-sighted, semi-genocidal ideology (see: People's Republic of China). The same people that a decade ago were worrying about overpopulation in Germany are now clamoring for more migrants from the Global South countries to keep up population growth ("these are our future engineers and doctors"). Proof of how unworkable it is. European economies would simply collapse without population…
Only in a portion of Western culture that has very similar cultural and religious values and also incidentally responsible for a relatively rich middle class.
Counter examples:
Haredi Jews
Hong Kong
Macao
So your predictions are contingent on the assumption that the culture won't change or that specific religions wouldn't be more prevalent.