Friday 25 March 2011

Duality Post

Double post, to make up for lost time and stuff. First off is a review of splice. I'm not going to give you any spoilers, don't worry.

Splice Review

Okay, so, Splice. The film starts of with two scientists, "happily" married (if I met them in real life, I wouldn't give them two months, that's how little chemistry they have. It works in the movie, though.), working on the same project. This project is to combine the dna from several different species and use that somehow to work on vaccines for diseases. I don't know how.

And then they figure how they should combine those with human dna, so they can have vaccines for people as well, but petty morals get in the way and their chief gives them a red light. Of course they do it anyway, in secret. It's interesting to point out that "we shouldn't do this, it's unethical" is thrown between the main characters like a hot potato throughout almost the entire movie.

So they create a creature that's mostly human, but has different parts from different animals as well, like a stinger. It all works very well. Mostly, I think, because the film is not trying to sell their special effects, but instead focusses on the two main characters, their ethical dilemma's, and their relationship.

The movie comes to a beautiful, if downplayed, climax, giving you a feeling of slight unease, perhaps some sadness, and the realization that the main characters have some serious introspection to do, re-evaluate themselves and their relationship.

Sadly, this is not the end of the movie. My guess would have been that there was executive meddling, but it was Vincenzo Natali, the director and writer, who made the decision to stretch the movie out for an additional 20 to 30 minutes in a scene right out of the '95 horror movie "species". Everything in the first part of the movie was about ethical, moral and scientific dilemma's. The last part was... cheap. I have no other name for it. It was cheap.

It would have ended with the viewer questioning what they would think in this situation, but instead ends on a semi-cliffhanger that's only missing a loud "dun dun duuuuuun".

But for what it's worth, it's a good movie. It's worth watching for good directing, some amazing acting, and strong art direction.

I give it a 7 out of 10, losing 2 points for their ending.

I'm giving it the Forgotten Award. First part is really good, very cerebral, but messes up on the climax.



Though I have to add: Forgotten was a piece of crap at the halfway mark, Splice just loses it edge at the 80% mark. Don't make the full comparison. Splice is good.

And now for something completely different:

Online Speed vs Real Speed

People often try to understand the internet. It's a bit like trying to fully understand the intricacies of the world you're living in, from the point of view of an alien. If you don't grow up in it, you're going to have a hard time adapting.

I find it hard to think of a decent analogy, so this will have to do: think of it as winding up two lengths of rope. As long as you're winding both up with your intricate pulley system, you'll be able to advance and keep up with both: Life, and the Internet.
If, however, you let one of them go, it will slow down and even, at a certain point, start picking up speed relative to you, and be incredibly difficult to pick back up on. Many youths, such as myself, have, at times, some difficulty adapting to real life when the internet is so much easier to understand. It's like we can see and feel the currents of what works, what jokes you can make, who's important and who's not. But then you go offline and go: "When did the supermarket close?" "A year ago" "Ah... kay...".
But people over 40 grew up believing there was only one pulley. The second one wasn't invented yet, and when it did, they saw it as more of an optional thing than something that could hold as much value or importance as their original pulley. But it's not that easy for others such as myself. They hold equal value, equal priority. After all, my life is 50% virtual. But people who live their lives completely in the real world don't get that the other pulley can be just as important, and see you only giving 50% effort on the real world.
To go back to the pulley-analogy: there's 2 kinds of people.

  • Single Pulley-ers
  • Double Pulley-ers
Single Pulley-ers are either really technologically conservative or extreme-wow players. They either only care about life and do not care about the internet. They have no computer knowledge, and assume that other people will solve their problems for them. These tend to be, sadly, bosses. Then there's the people who no longer have a grasp on reality.

The Double Pulley-ers can be divided into two groups:

50-50 Pullers
80-0 Pullers

But Mycroft_Holmes, I hear you say, how does this make sense?
Well, I'd love to explain, but I'm trying to figure out how you pronounce the underscore
...
..
.

THAT COULD HAVE BEEN FUNNY!

Anyways:
50-50 pullers spend equal amounts of energy on keeping their time balanced between life and internet. I wish I was one of these.

Second the 80-0 people spend 80% of their effort on one pulley, and the remaining effort on keeping the other from degrading and speeding up.
80% RL people use mail and facebook, but nothing else, and tend to not respect the idea of the internet as being an integral part of your life.
80% Internet people tend to live online, but actually keep their life from collapsing. You do the occasional job so you don't run out of money, you talk to your friends, and then you go back home to manage your blog, your forums, your games, your online projects.

And anyone who doesn't keep their internet pulley active and turning in the right direction is going to have trouble picking it up as if it's nothing. The internet moves at a different speed than what you're used to. Time goes a lot faster online. If your youtube clip doesn't gain 200.000 views in one week, you're not going to go viral. Just keep making more. You never know.

I'm finding it hard to structure this, so I'm just going to let you file and categorize this after I'm finished or dead, whichever comes first.

You can categorize memes in several ways, but here's a distinction that will serve our porpoise:
- Real life things becoming memes
- Things created online staying online.

People like the Homeless Guy with the Golden Voice are awesome, and famous for a whole week. 24 Hours after his first video appeared he had a job, an interview and an invitation to a tv-channel. 144 hours after that, he was never mentioned again. But he was famous and will be remembered.

Real life things seem to have less of an impact on the internet as things generated online do. "Problem?", fsjal, rageguy, "Y U NO", "I can haz?", "better drink my own piss", all of those will stay around for a while. They aren't people or things, but concept, exploitables, to be used and reused, and they will be.

But you should accept that the internet is generally a bad place to start a long-running ad campaign. You should start on making a tv-spot, that might be distributed and made famous through the internet, but you shouldn't start there. The Old Spice commercial got internet fame and, although out of the spotlight after 3 or 4 months, which, before the internet, would've been pretty darn bad, will not soon be truly forgotten.
It's like the internet is the short term memory of a kitten with add. Anything that holds its interest for a second is exceptional. Longer than that, and you go into long term memory, never to be forgotten. Weebl cranks these out like there's no tomorrow (Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Badger Mushroom Mushroom), and there are others. Many others. Eduard Khil, for one.

But you should never assume you understand the internet, that you're able to predict what's going to happen, and that you know what will work, if you do not surf the web like it's your home. You need to know the newest covers for Rebecca Black's Friday. You need to know the myriad ways in which the Biebster has made a fool of himself. You need to know at least 14 different exploitables and know them by name. Okay, you don't, but you need to understand what I'm getting at here. You don't need to intrinsically know all these things, but you need to understand that there is a list here of things you've never heard of, all of which are incredibly famous, and most of these have become so within the last 14-28 days.

This is not the fast lane. This is the FTL Lane. The Quantum Lane. The Twilight Zone. It's where ideas are born and die so quickly they can be said to hardly have existed at all. It's a living organism comprised of the minds of people of this earth. Every single one of them anonymous if he so chooses, and most of them children at heart.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
-Dante Alighieri

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