Another Reason To Hate The Oscars...

I was surfing the net just now, looking through some of my favourite blogs, when I came across a post titled The Funniest Bit Of The Oscars 07, and best of all, it was in YouTube format.

Unfortunately however, when I clicked play the image changed to the one above, This video is no longer available.

Not to be deterred, I clicked through to the YouTube page.

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

What the?

I know plenty of videos get pulled everyday, and I can understand TV channels not wanting the latest episode of Lost posted on YouTube, purely from a profit point of view.

But a 4 min clip of the Oscars? It's not like the Oscars ever get released on to DVD (do they?) or if they did, it's not like anyone would buy a DVD of Oscar Night 07 (would they?).

So what's the harm in a funny video clip making the rounds a couple of days after the live broadcast? I mean hell, it might make more people interested in watching next years Oscars, goodness knows you'd need a pretty good reason to want to endure a couple of hours of Hollywood self congratulation, and a funny clip on YouTube might just do that.

If it's not the whole show, why can't big corporations just let these things be, and see them for what they are, a little bit of free promotion.

Video Games Don't Make You Violent!

According to a new study by a researcher at Texas A&M International University, studies that see a connection between video games and violent behavior usually suffer from shoddy research techniques. Dr. Christopher Ferguson studied the results of a number of recent studies linking violent video games to aggressive behavior with an eye not just to individual results, but also to overall trends in the studies as a whole.

Ferguson found that the connection between violence and gaming had more to do with publication bias than it did with any actual correlation. In other words, journals were more likely to publish studies that supported the hypothesis that playing violent games made a subject more prone to violent behavior. Nothing like scientific stacking the deck, eh? Ferguson sums it up nicely:

Thus it was concluded that there is little evidence from the current body of literature on violent video games that playing violent video games is either causally or correlationally associated with increases in aggressive behavior.

Wow, so playing violent video games isn't bad anymore?

SOURCE | Wired

The iPod is Dead...

Well, maybe not quite, but with the announcement of the new iPhone, there seems little point in innovating the iPod, besides making the shuffle small enough that it can be worn as an ear-ring.

So once again Apple revolutionises the computer world, and removes the word computer from it's name, essentially saying that they're not just a computer company anymore.

So the iPhone is an iPod looking telecommunications device with a 2 megapixle camera, up to 8GB of RAM, all the features of the latest video iPod, revolutionary web browsing that has a touch sensitive multi format screen.

WOW.

I want one. Trouble is, will it work on the current New Zealand networks?

Top 10 Movie Spaceships

filmcritic.com made an interesting top ten list of the best movie spaceships. An interesting and original idea no doubt, but their list is seriously flawed.

Maybe it’s just me, but surely something from the movie Serenity should have been included?

Anyway, here’s what filmcritic came up with:

Movie spaceships are legion, but which is the most awesome in the universe? We ranked the 10 best, completely subjectively. Some rules: We only drew from the movies (TV spaceships like the Battlestar Galactica -- which is killer -- and the Draconian Marauder from Buck Rogers don't count), and we only included legitimate spacecraft. Flying cars and unmanned rockets don't count. Turns out there are almost too many awesome spaceships to count, so we offer apologies in advance to the Borg cube, the Imperial Star Destroyer, the X-Wing Fighter, various other Star Trek and Star Wars tertiary ships, many many other cool movie cruisers, and umpteen flying saucers that just didn't make the cut.

10. The Thunder Road (Explorers) - Plusses: Invisible. Powered by as little as a nine volt battery. Inertia-free. Impervious to damage; can tunnel through the earth even without effort. Minuses: Named after a Bruce Springsteen song. Kids only.

9. Gunstar (The Last Starfighter) - Score high enough on a video game and you might be recruited to fly a Gunstar and defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada -- for real! Weapons are standard, but it has a little bonus: The "Death Blossom," which automatically targets every ship in range and destroys it. Why they didn't just build that kind of thing into the regular weapons system remains a mystery.

8. Mothership (Independence Day) - Despite its absurd susceptibility to human-made computer viruses, this bad boy has one of the most impressive weapons arsenals in the history of film. It's also enormous: a quarter the size of the moon. Inside it carries 30 or so smaller ships, each larger than Manhattan, loaded with awesome building-destroying laser beams, and impervious to all conventional weapons except for Randy Quaid.

7. Klingon Bird of Prey (Star Trek series) - Birds of Prey never seem to fare very well against Federation starships, but their winged shape makes them one of the more killer designs in the pantheon of filmed spacecraft. Too bad about the bare-bones interiors, though. Throw in some comfy leather chairs and you've got the Ferrari of spaceships. Bonus points for the kickin' cloaking device. (Whoops: Sorry, the whales were on one of these guys, not the Enterprise... thanks emailers.)

6. Discovery One (2001: A Space Odyssey) - This massive, pencil-like ship is designed for long-range exploration, features three EVA pods for single-user exploration, a centrifuge where artificial gravity is created, and an, er, slightly buggy computer system, the HAL 9000. Despite the tech trouble, HAL's unblinking red eye is hypnotically awesome.

5. Apollo 13 (Apollo 13) - The only reality-based spaceship on this list, and unquestionably the most heroic. It only flew the one time, it broke en route to the moon, and barely made it back to earth in one piece... and then they had Kathleen Quinlan waiting for 'em. Ugh.

4. Heart of Gold (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) - Never mind the oddball design (inspired by a teacup), the Heart of Gold's Infinite Improbability Drive lets it pull off a pretty cool stunt: Traveling through every point in the universe at the exact same time. Don't think about it too hard, and instead enjoy the ship's personable computer and robot staff.

3. Nostromo (Alien) - The Nostromo is little more than a space tugboat, pulling a giant ore refinery through space. Though it has no weapons, when given the (famously complex) command to self-destruct, it really goes off with a bang. An underrated ship, it could land on planets and scope out foreign lifeforms... which turned out to be not such a great idea after all.

2. U.S.S. Enterprise (various versions) (Star Trek series) - It originated on TV, but the Enterprise really started showing off in the movie series. Early ships were distinguished by photon torpedoes, phasers, and a predilection for self-destruction, but it's the only ship here that can legitimately go back and forth through time. Holodeck? Sweet. And those transporters are pretty killer, too. Later revisions to the ship allowed it to split into two separate pieces. Now that's trekkin'!

1. Millennium Falcon (Star Wars series) - It's probably no surprise that the Falcon is number one on this list, but really, who would have thought that a scrappy smuggler's freighter would end up being so critical in saving the galaxy? Outfitted with laser turrets, a speedy hyperdrive, and with ample room for up to eight passengers, the Millennium Falcon deserves the top spot easily. You find another ship that can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, you gimme a call.