Quite possibly the worst film-review of all time

Sometimes reviewers just "don't get it". That's OK. I don't demand that they understand every sub-genre as well as its fans do, and it's still possible to review a film well when you don't understand the conventions of the sub-genre. Acting, writing, cinematography, costuming... these can all be evaluated in a semi-objective fashion, regardless.

That being said, professional reviewer Rex Reed recently decided to abandon all pretense of doing his job and submit a review of Cabin in the Woods which is so bad that it actually deserves a review of its own.

Before I get started, let me be clear: there will be massive spoilers in this review. See the movie first, then read this for the lulz. His review actually makes the movie a bit more fun, if that's actually possible.

Clamchowder (ne Perl 6) to offer shell migration package

This was an April Fools post.


The rich history of Unix shell scripting is often overlooked by the community of "real programmers" who work in languages like C, C++, C#, Cobol, COMTRAN, CPL, Common Lisp, CLOS, CLIPS, Clojure, and even some lesser known languages which start with other letters. But this has left decades of important infrastructure tools unavailable to the average programmer without using an external command like "system" which is often considered a security risk due to the existence of "." in everyone's path.

As a result, the Perl 6 community has announced a new suite of tools that aid in converting old shell scripts into this modern language with all of the features one might expect, and all of the other ones also. This conversion is quite difficult, which is why most languages do not provide such a tool suite. The reason for this is that shell scripts inherently rely on external programs, so the language isn't just a set of syntax, but a semantic pallet that includes the entire operating system. Perl 6 resolves this problem by providing a unique module for every existing operating system revision.

For example, if your shells script was written to run under BSD 4.2 Unix variant, Ultrix, then you would run the conversion tool like so:

  shell6 --system=unix.bsd.ultrix bofh.sh

Which would produce an output script called "bofh.pl". This script maintains a close compatibility with the legacy system by providing an execution environment that mirrors the expectations of the script. It will first boot a Perl 6 version of the 4.2 BSD kernel. This kernel is actually hand-written in Parrot Byte Code (PBC) giving it the blazing speed of an interpreted byte code, far out-performing the original Ultrix VAX-based systems, when run on modern hardware.

Next, Perl attempts to simulate the expected idiosyncrasies of these legacy systems. Because the 1980s pre-dated the development of the World Wide Web, there was a far greater dependency on communications protocols like UUCP, Usenet and FTP which are not nearly as widely used today. Thus, the shell6 translator also creates a "news spool" and establishes a "bang path" connection to other users of the service over which to communicate and share observations about the latest episode of Automan, Star Trek: The Next Generation or Babylon 5 with the simulated sense of urgency that only Perl 6's hyper operators can bring.


There are, however, some problems. There are still a number of simulated environments in which scripts do not behave as expected. In most of these cases, it is believed that the legacy scripts in question may depend on the ability to compile and run code in programming languages that start with the letter "C". For those cases, the next revision of shell6 intends to have a full parser (written in Perl 6 rules) for each of the common versions of these languages, but don't expect that to be released just yet, as there may be some concerns about embedded assembly that will require a more robust approach which simulates the entire hardware platform.

As the title of this article implied, there is also a team investigating the value of moving Perl 6 from the "P" namespace (let's face it, no real language has ever had a name that started with "P") to the more prestigious  "C" namespace as "Clamchowder", so you may wish to begin using that name in all of your Perl 6 communications with colleagues. Final debate has already begun, but stalled on the options of "Clamchowder," "ClamChowder," "Clam-Chowder," or "Clam_Chowder." There is a small contingent of "clmchdr" advocates who claim that Perl's name should be golfed for great justice, but nobody is taking them seriously.

Yes, today is April 1.

Quatermass poster

While I was sick, recently, I found myself watching the 1979 British TV series, "Quatermass," which is a 4-episode mini-series that follows the exploits of an old 1950s and 1960s character that was a sort of prototype for Doctor Who. This series follows him through a new adventure where young people are either becoming ultra-violent (resulting in a breakdown of the inner-cities all over the world) or they're leaving the cities to wander under the name, "Planet People." These Planet People are basically hippies who are convinced that they'll be taken up to another, unspoiled planet by benevolent aliens. That's the ground-work that the first two episodes lay out. Oddly, I loved the story, but hated the series. I found it slow and exceedingly dated. The cold war tension is a bit overwrought (but then in 1979 that wasn't surprising) and the females in the show all have one of two reactions to the hippies: they fall in line, often without on-screen comment, or they go into hysterics. There's only one female character who responds sanely the the events and even she is clearly not very stable. Sad, really.

The most damning point, though, is that the narrative never really takes over. We're never quite sure why the Americans are deferring to our hero, nor why he's the only one who can think of the ultimate solution, which isn't, in fact, very clever. It's not clear why the hippies scare people so badly, nor why it takes quite so long to come to some of the conclusions that people reach. In effect, the series is a long string of events, some of which are painfully boring, and many of which do not appear to affect the overall plot (especially when so many characters that are established with painful deliberation are killed off-screen).

Anyway, as a 2-hour movie, I think I'd enjoy a modern re-make. As 4, hour-long episodes, it was torturous. But the easily recognized professor and the oft-repeated tag-line of the hippies, "soon," gave me the idea for the poster below (click the title to go on if you're seeing this on the front-page), which I'm threatening to turn into a button and wear to conventions. Enjoy!

The Great Humor Friendly Spam Is Translate!

I'm having far too much fun reading my spam box via Google Translate. If you haven't tried this game (which I'm called "The Great Humor Friendly Spam Is Translate!"), then you really need to give it a shot. In Gmail, click on your spam folder and then click on any message whose subject is in another language. At the top of the message, you should see a "Translate" link above the body. Click the translate link and read until you stop being able to breathe.

For example, here are some gems from my inbox:

From the Chinese:

why sales staff who are always working attitude, do not want more input?

From a Russian message describing the generic plot of all disaster movies:

It all begins with small problems, then all these problems
noticeable on the Congress is going to scientists and government
and concludes that the planet Earth (town, country, continent)
remain there for long, and starts fighting with the elements
successful or not.

From a Japanese site that appears to be offering dating and/or romantic advice:

I send this email to members of the audience to applicants capped.
Cross your fingers unsubscribe, thank you from the URL at the end

A Spanish ad for spam-based marketing suggests this nugget of wisdom:

GHOSTS ARE NOT ALWAYS GIVE YOU SUPPORT

This came as a shock to me, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea that I need to approach the living for my tech support needs.

Has Anyone Ever Used a Meta-Naming Scheme?

Today at work, we set out to name some conference rooms that had previously only ever had numbers. Lots of themes were suggested from local landmarks to moons and planets from Star Wars. That got me to thinking about the Geeky Science Fiction Themes Meta-Theme. Here's how it works: when you need a name for your machine, project, conference room or whatnot, and you want to be assured that you'll never run out of names, just start using the names of cliches from science fiction and fantasy. Here's a few names you could use:

• Alien Units of Measure
• Alternate Earth Presidents of the United States
• Powerful Artifact Weapon That Only the Prophesied One May Wield
• Landmarks of Science Fiction That Were Turned Into Terrible Movies

Imagine planning a meeting and telling your co-workers to meet you in Alien Animals That Are Really Just Chimeric Earth Animals at noon! It's guaranteed that they'll remember!

Some tips: make sure the first word is unique as many people will tend to refer to a room by that word (e.g. "Alien," "Alternate," "Powerful," and "Landmarks" from the above list). Also

Meds... I need to find my meds....

Star Trek: The Quest for a Younger Audience

Tonight's (or tomorrow's depending on who you listen to) Star Trek movie won't be the first time that Paramount has tried to update their aging property to attract a younger audience. Back in 1997 David Hines posted to several Usenet newsgroups a modified version of a Paramount press release. The release detailed the addition of a cast member to Star Trek: Voyager named 7 of 9. This character was played by an actress named Jeri Ryan. While fans might have cut the casting choice some slack, the press release dashed all hope that anything other than her figure had been considered. It was so blatant an attempt to change the demographic of the show to favor younger males, in fact, that a full Mystery Science 3000-style script was the only resort. And so I present you with the only link I can find to this fine example of creative fan scripting:

MiSTed: Press Release on New Voyager Borg Character

If anyone can find the original post, rather than the re-quoted version, I'd much appreciate it.

The Tubes Are Clogged

2nd story walkway with the Akamai in background
From Misc Photos

Ever wonder what happens when the Internet's series of tubes gets clogged? Apparently, they call in this guy....

Movie Titles: One Letter Off

In a recent podcast, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo (who I've blogged about before) explored the idea of a word game where you take a movie title, remove one letter and the come up with a description for that movie. The results were often quite humorous, so I thought I'd come up with some of my own.

• Ulp Fiction - Dangerous moments in storytelling.
  
• The Ark Knight - The Knights Templar discover the lost remains of Noah's Ark... hilarity ensues.
  
• The Empire Trikes Back - A Star Wars sequel that takes place after a galactic ponzi scheme leads to financial ruin.
  
• Ear Window - One ENT specialist's first-person account of the medical industry.
  
• The Usual Suspect - What this sequel lacks in suspense it makes up for in unusually drawn out story-telling.
  
• Psych - The murders never really happened. It was just a hotel-keeper's mother's bad dream.
  
• The Sience of the Lambs - What herders lack in spelling capabilities, they make up for in controlled studies of livestock
  
• It's a Wonderful Lie - After deciding to end it all, a local man comes up with perfect suicide note that blames his woes on everyone he's ever interacted with.
  
• Seen - Does dropping a number count? Well, if it does, this thriller will treat you to every tired surprise ending cliche you've seen in every other movie.
  
• Lord of the Rings: The Two Toers - While short and possessed of deformed feet, a race called Halflings manage to save the day.
  
• WALL* - Werry Animated, Lifelike and Likable. Sure to make a ton at the box office!
  
• Forest Ump - If you build it in the middle of the woods, they won't come.
  
• A Clockwork Range - Mircowave repair is at the heart of this feel-good film!
  
• China Tow - One man's story of the attempt to get an impounded car back in Hong Kong.
  
• Terminato - Twister and Terminator franchises combine in this sequel to watch!
  
• Requiem Or a Dream - Though depressing, it's hard to figure out if the events of this film actually happened.
  
• Das Bot - Web site crawling bots center in this story of military intrigue in World War III
  
• Aging Bull - Otherwise known as Rocky IX
  
• Modern Ties - The lonely neckware vendor in love
  
• Meropolis - Little mermaid is grown up and trying to run the public works department in her family's kingdom.
  
• 2001: A Pace Odyssey - The film that takes on the question: could it have been any slower?
  
• Full Meal Jacket - I don't care what it's about, but I think I don't want to watch it!
  
• Mr. Sith Goes to Washington - Star Wars prequel that takes place on Earth. Jedi and Sith battle for your vote!
  
• Raveheart - The sequel to Go!
  
• Hotel Wanda - A kindly couple run a hotel and nothing unfortunate happens. A sadly overlooked film.
  

Well, that's all I have time for. Have a good night!