Yesterday I watched the new Kino version of Metropolis. No, I’m not talking about the anime (which I must see sometime since I’m a huge anime fan), but the 1927 Fritz Lang cinematic masterpiece. The movie is silent and in black and white, and for the time it was very cutting-edge in terms of technology, plot, budget and overall size. Unfortunately, the original 1927 version no longer exists, but this Kino version is the most complete to date, including the excellent Gottfried Huppertz orchestral score (re-recorded to make it sound better). The score was clearly written for the movie; orchestral sounds substitute very well for the lack of speech and sound effects.

The last time I had seen Metropolis was when I was a child. Although I didn’t understand much, I was freaked out by the plot and the silent nature of the movie. I recall having a few nightmares about robots and I could not even look at the video cover (which featured a picture of the Machine-Man robot) after that.

The plot itself was very interesting. It’s amazing what can be done without any speech (there was some ’speech’, but it was just text on the screen). Having been released during the height of the capitalist/communist struggle for political supremacy in Europe, this movie was universally panned by both sides for supposedly supporting one side or the other.

The main theme of the movie is a single phrase: "The mediator between head and hands is the heart." You’ll need to see the movie in its entirety to understand what that means. It is a very powerful theme, as is the imagery employed: mechanical machinery; a small army of uniformed, undifferentiated workers; clocks and watches; and many others.

All-in-all, I loved this movie. It’s a shame that the original no longer exists, but Kino expertly crafted the most ‘complete’ version they could. Missing scenes were summarised on the screen in text.

I wrote this in response to a Slashdot article about the Windows spyware programme Gator:

PRESS RELEASE: MICROSOFT INNOVATES IN NEW VERSION OF INTERNET EXPLORER

Store all your passwords, financial data and other personal information on a central server! Never again will you have to remember a password or PIN, since you can conveniently access all your data from a Microsoft server*! Microsoft have made it so easy for you by uploading all your data automatically, no questions asked! In addition, we use our patented Malware(TM) advanced artificial intelligence to analyse your movements online and offer services tailored just for you! To make this as pleasant an experience as possible, we even share your data with third parties so that you are only offered services that suit your interests.

"Microsoft has always strived to deliver the best value for money in the industry," reported Tom Rort of The Gartner Group. "Microsoft products pay off big time for me! I’d give this release a rating of five dollar-signs," said Mary Swindle of The Aberdeen Group.

Once again, Microsoft has shown its commitment to looking out for the best interests of its customers.

* cost of retrieval is $US9.99 per transaction, and since Microsoft already have your financial data, we conveniently deduct the money from your bank account automatically.

I saw X-Men 2 a few weeks ago. I’ve always been a fan of the comics, so I am rather sensitive to any ‘changes’ that are made just for the movie. However, I do realise that it is near-impossible to squeeze the entire X-Men universe into a 2-hour movie. I must conclude that they did an excellent job here. As in the first movie, the ‘changes’ were done very well.

There were a few little easter eggs hidden in there as well. In the first movie, you get a quick glimpse of Jubilee (the comic book character whom Rogue replaced in the movie), and just like in Spider Man (another fantastic movie) there is a short cameo by Stan Lee (This man is a GOD! If you don’t know who he is, stop reading right now for you have offended me.). In the second movie you hear Jubilee being called by name (by Storm), and on a television set you see a man with the caption "Dr Henry McCoy" beneath his face. The man appears as a normal (non-mutant) human being, but this man later becomes Beast. I think there were a few other easter eggs, but I don’t remember them.

Speaking of The X-Men, I found a great fan-comic, The Uncanny X-Sprites. Quite funny. I also stumbled across Wolverine’s real name. It’s not Logan, it’s James Howlett. It’s all explained in Marvel’s Origin series, which was released last year. There was also a Paradise X series which contradicts some of the fundamental aspects of Origin, but I wouldn’t take it seriously. Both of these (among others) are explained in vivid detail (beautifully illustrated, too!) at the Lost Soul Wolverine site. I spent hours reading all the stuff there; I was so riveted.

Last Sunday I saw The Matrix Reloaded. I am not going to compare it to X-Men 2, but I will say that this is another excellent film. The CGI was amazing. There were a few little flaws, but with all the action going on they were easy to overlook. I love Hong Kong martial arts movies (Jackie Chan and Jet Li are DEITIES!), and this movie satisifed my desire for some well-choreographed fight scenes. On the negative side, there is less continuity between the plot and the fights when compared to the original movie. Also, some parts were slow and unnecessary. I don’t want to see a bunch of Zionists (I assume that’s what the inhabitants of Zion call themselves?) dancing, and I don’t want to see Neo making love to Trinity. There’s enough pr0n on the Internet, thank-you-very-much.

Like the first movie (and the third, which arrives in November), The Matrix Reloaded was mostly filmed in my home town of Sydney. It’s weird to watch scenes from a movie and think, "hey, I was at that place only yesterday!" It also makes me wonder if I really am in the Matrix. Kooky.

The absolute coolest thing, however, was Trinity’s cracking of the electricity grid. She uses Nmap to scan for open ports and finds that port 22 is open. Port 22 is typically used by SSH, and sure enough Trinity uses a known SSH v. 1 exploit to gain access to the server! As her root password, she uses Z1ON1010. Not only does this make her 1337, it is also another easter egg - 1010 is the number 5 in binary (or so I’m told), and if you’ve seen the movie (spoiler alert) you know that Zion in the movie is in its fifth incarnation. More on this at The Register and Slashdot, and there’s a nice screenshot at Insecure.org, the home of Nmap.

Of course, what’s a movie these days without merchandising? Samsung has a ‘limited edition’ version of one of the phones used in the movie. To me it looks like a forgotten prop from Star Trek: The Original Series. It looks hideous, the ergonomics are all wrong, and the screen is too small to do anything useful. That won’t stop Samsung from charging a premium for it, or people from buying it. I feel sorry for those people. They obviously have some sort of psychological problem that has them convinced that they will only have friends if they have the latest mobile telephone. If it’s movie-themed and a ‘limited edition’, even better. They may even purchase a black trenchcoat to go with it. That will alleviate the symptioms of their inferiority complex for a little while, after which they will feel compelled to jump onto the next fad. Over-consumerism should be treated as a mental illness.

Another Jackass copycat injured

" AN 18-year-old was in critical condition after jumping from a five-storey building in an apparent imitation of a stunt from the television show Jackass.

" The youth was attempting to jump into a pool from the roof of a condominium when he missed, shattering both legs, police said. "

Man Advertises ‘Son for Sale’ on Internet

There are some things you just don’t joke about. Like selling your son over the Internet. A father in Scotland did just that: "Hyperactive kid for sale, good at vacuuming, not great at washing dishes because he’s too short. Guaranteed to annoy," the ad read. The father only wanted eight bucks for the 5-year-old. A Web surfer in Canada noticed the ad and contacted Scottish authorities. The father/seller said that he posted the ad about two years ago as a joke then forgot about it until police came knocking. He’s been told to remove the ad. Besides, his son, now 7, is tall enough to wash the dishes.

For sale: One annoying tw*t of a girlfriend

In a similar vein to the previous link…

US hospital searches for Klingon interpreter

" A REPORT ON CNN claimed that a US hospital is frantically searching for someone fluent in Klingon.

" The hospital, in Multnomah County, needs an interpreter for mentally ill patients who apparently won’t speak any other language. "

It looks like this since has been called off, and it turns out that the original story was blown out of proportion.

Black People Love Us!

Warning: not for the satirically-impaired

Rugby team fined for lack of black players

" South Africa’s Golden Lions Rugby Union (GLRU) have been fined R30,000 (2,400 pounds) after they were found guilty of not fielding enough black players in their team. "

Unfortunately, this one isn’t satirical at all.

I am a heavy user of the Galeon Web browser. IMHO, it is far and away the best browser available for any platform. Tabs and session support with crash recovery are brilliant features. Not only has Galeon had them for longer than most other browsers, it implements them in a superior way. Not only that, it is quite fast and stable as well. I keep Galeon open all the time with multiple windows open (presently I have 7 open windows, which allow me to ‘categorise’ my tabs), and each window has many tabs (For example, I’ve got over 30 tabs in my ‘main’ window, and over 50 in another). I like my tabs to run down the left side of my window (AFAIK something only Galeon can do), so that more can fit on the screen and I don’t have to scroll through them. It may sound nuts, but I like it that way. And yes, I also use bookmarks: my bookmark collection is extensive. If Galeon crashes (a rare occurrance), or if I want to close it for some reason (another rare occurrance), I can get all my windows and tabs back when I restart it.

As you can see, I am very attached to Galeon’s unique feature set, which makes switching to a new browser difficult to say the least. Before I moved wholesale to Galeon, I would simultaneously run Konqueror and Opera, and sometimes Netscape 4 as well. This was so I could leverage the strengths of each individual browser.

I have been eyeing Galeon2 for a while now, and I finally decided to try it out. If it’s good enough to be included in Mandrake Linux 9.1, then maybe it’s good enough for me. Galeon2 is still undergoing heavy development, so I wasn’t expecting too much. Since the Galeon team is pretty-much rewriting the whole thing from scratch to take advantage of the GNOME2 platform, it would be understandable for it to take a while to reach maturity. My verdict? It is very close to meeting my needs. There are many extra settings hidden in Gconf, and after tweaking these I was able to create a similar setup to what I had in Galeon1. However, some things don’t work yet and a couple are missing.

I had a chat with some Galeon developers a few weeks ago, and they said that they are trying to reach a similar feature set to Galeon1, the difference being that this time they are coding for GNOME2 and its Human Interface Guidelines. Unlike the Galeon splinter project Epiphany, they are not trying to cut out features on a significant scale. A while ago there was much conflict in the Galeon mailing lists (to which I am a subscriber) over whether Galeon should simplify its feature set or continue on its current course. The Galeon founder and maintainer, Marco Pesenti Gritti, left the project, forked the code and used it to create Epiphany. I personally like this dual-pronged approach from the GNOME folks. Most people don’t like unnecessary complexity, and so Epiphany gives a simple, Safari-like interface and experience. For power-users such as myself, Galeon fits the bill brilliantly.

There are some pros to Galeon2 over Galeon1. For one thing, the UI is faster and more responsive. My favourite, though, is the default bookmarks. There aren’t very many, but the ones that are there are great. In the GNU / Linux -> News section, for instance, there are only four entries:

• Desktop Linux
• OSNews
• Pclinuxonline
• Slashdot

Notice anything special in there? Of the four GNU/Linux news sites chosen by the Galeon team, PCLinuxOnline is one of them!

I forgot to mention one of my other favourite features in Galeon (1 and 2): smart bookmarks. I like them so much that in early April I volunteered to take charge of maintaining the official smart bookmark directory. The Translate to English smart bookmark/bookmarklet in the default Galeon2 bookmarks was made by myself. There are many other bookmarks in the directory which I wrote myself, including some to search PCLinuxOnline (in the News category). I know it’s not much but it’s nice to hear that others appreciate and use your work

… well, sort of, anyway. Allow me to explain.

Today, we had a news submission about the BSA’s new scheme to teach children about the ‘evils’ of software piracy. To make this ‘learning’ (or should I say ‘indoctrination’) more fun for the kiddies, they got a mascot. Take a good look at it, what do you think it is?

It’s a ferret… supposedly.

When I first read that the BSA was using a ferret, I thought that we should call it a rat instead, since BSA is filled with dirty low-life rats. Then I hopped over to the site and had a look at it for myself. I swear, it looks like a weasel! A drugged-up homie weasel!

On a whim, I fired off an e-mail to Mike Magee at my favourite IT news site The Inquirer. If you’re not familiar with The Inq, think of it as The Register without the hubris. Indeed, Mike was the founder of The Reg, and he told me that he still owns 23% of it. Here’s part of the e-mail I sent to Mike:

The Business Software Alliance has received US Justice Department funding of $200,000 to ‘educate’ children about software piracy. More info at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19677-2003May6.html

What I’m wondering is why this organisation, which boasts some of the richest companies in the world as its members, is receiving US government funding?

Another point of interest is the mascot of this new Playitcybersafe.com initiative. It is _supposed_ to be a ferret. To me it looks like a weasel. A seriously drugged-out, homie weasel. A weasel may be the perfect choice for the BSA, but is a drugged-out homie character really the best choice to encourage children not to steal? I would say it does the exact opposite. You can see this weasel at

http://www.playitcybersafe.com/images/kidshome_ferret.gif

And here’s part of Mike’s response:

Many thanks for the nice letter. And for the tip. The BSA is up to all sorts of tricks and we’ll certainly cover this one.

A few hours later… BANG! Weasel Watch is born! Some excerpts:

HEAVILY SUBSIDED TRADE organisation the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has received $200,000 funding from the US government to promote a software piracy scheme aimed at children.

But that has raised questions about why the Justice Department has chipped into the scheme, seeing as the BSA is already subsidised, in fact paid for, to the tune of millions, by some of the richest IT companies in the world.

and

In fact the BSA Weasel, pictured above, looks like it’s either drugged up or it’s about to bite someone’s ankle, don’t you think?

SCORE!!!

Okay, this is just bizarre. The article is based on the annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report. Isn’t it ironic that a government that claims to be the bastion of freedom across the globe is criticising another government for not clamping down on civil liberties? Perhaps they should invade Canada, just as they have done with their neighbours to the south on so many occasions?

The article was recently covered in Slashdot, and there were some interesting responses. Two of my favourites:

I’ve heard it explained many times, that the reason why America is targeted by terrorists is that "certain elements" are simply jealous of our outstanding quality of life. They want to destroy what they can’t build for themselves.

If you’re right about Canada — what, with all the pot smoking, low crime rates, free healthcare, and civil liberties — I would expect Canada to rise to the top of the terrorists’ hit list. So, maybe instead of trying to get the damned Canadians to cooperate with us, we should simply launch an advertising campaign in the Islamic world explaining that Canada is the more logical target for their anti-western fringe element.

and

Bush claimed shortly after 9/11 that we were attacked because they hate us because of our freedoms.

So what a great way to prevent a future terrorist attack. Remove those freedoms so they (theoretically) have no reason to hate us anymore.

What makes these interesting is that while being funny, they are at least partly grounded in truth. The argument that terrorists attack the US because they are "jealous of the American way of life" is incredibly narrow-minded and arrogant. These people have a different belief system entirely; there is far more to this world than raw capitalism and materialism. What’s more, on most holistic measures of quality of life (which includes important non-monetary factors like health, education, pollution and political freedom), the US ranks quite low compared to many other nations. If I wanted to attack a country because I was jealous of their way of life, I’d be sending anthrax to Sweden or Denmark.

Personal freedom has diminished markedly in the US, and unfortunately this has created somewhat of a domino effect into other states. The Australian government, while not being nearly as undemocratic as that in the US, is a case in point. It was revealed last year that Australians are 20 times as likely to have their phone calls tapped by authorities than US citizens. However, I’m optimistic that we won’t see anything along the lines of the Office of Homeland Security over here. I am more concerned about Echelon (more info), which seems to fit in well with the elevated occurrance of wire tapping in both the USA and Australia.