As someone who lives in cold climates for half the year I would love tires that don't require air pressure anymore. Especially since my TPMS system just died recently and now I have to replace it.

Not really. ROTS came out in 2005. At that stage, we had plenty of decent CGI in movies (Gollum and the MASSIVE system in LOTR for example).

Even for TPM, it was eclipsed by the first Matrix movie in the same year.

The problem wasn't the technology, it was Lucas' use of it.

Where he hid it cleverly in the original Star Wars movies, he didn't realise that it just wasn't quite ready in the prequels.

Well, if you let yourself get hooked on proprietary hard-/software, you willingly surrender control over your devices.

Just wait until TPM 2.0, the most fucked-up hardware development of this young millenium, hits the market in force.

I've never used the word "hipster" before. Who knew it was so powerful? I do believe this is the first time I've ever offended anybody here. Apologies, CE. I don't think you're hip at all, and seeing a midnight premiere of RotS after the abortions TPM and AotC kinda proves it. I still haven't seen the whole movie, but I'm hipper than you (which is bad, right?).

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>> ^JiggaJonson:

The fact that they can render CGI this beautiful in real time makes me want to throw up when I think about all of the generic/cartoony CGI movies out there.
I know we've come a long way, but even shudder Star Wars has fallen victim to horrid CGI. Give me a puppet any day over something that looks like a cartoon.


TPM was released in 1999, a LONG time ago in CGI development. Less-advanced CGI doesn't bother me as much as its overuse (think Michael Bay) and using it for its own sake on crap like a Jar Jar Binks.

EDIT: And btw, this is a real-time video game engine. There isn't a single scene in this video that wouldn't like like absolute crap edited into a movie with real actors/locations in it.

From TPM:

The “controversy” around President Obama’s 1990 speech at Harvard on the occasion of the late Professor Bell’s decision to take a leave of absence to protest Harvard’s hiring practices is shameful in what it implies (full disclosure — Professor Bell taught me Constitutional Law at NYU during his self-imposed exile from Harvard).

The implication is that Professor Bell was some kind of violent radical racist. Professor Bell was a HERO who dedicated his life to desegregating the United States. From his job as the only black lawyer in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the 1950’s, to his work alongside Thurgood Marshall bringing hundreds of desegregation actions in Mississippi, right up to his leaving Harvard, Professor Bell lived what he preached. That his life’s work was radical or provocative says more about how far we have left to go. If its radical to be appalled that Harvard Law School had no women law professors and only five black male law professors among hundreds of professors, then the world could use a lot more radicals. And to tarnish his reputation as simply anti-white is false and totally and intentionally missing the point. I hope to see President Obama speak about Professor Bell, in prime time, on all networks, if for no other reason than this was an American hero that more people should know about and take inspiration from.

Whew, thank goodness TPM isn't biased or anything.

Did I just upvote a comment by Bob Knight? I hope your sentiment is bipartison.

The "debt ceiling crisis" was a self inflicted wound. This vote, which has been routine and generally unpolitical, was indeed used, badly I might add, as a political hostage. The many republicans, who in banana republic style advocated a US default on our legitamate active debts are directly responsible for the credit downgrade by S&P. Lest we forget who they are, from TPM:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), May 17, 2011: "You want to make sure that the bondholder has confidence that the government's going to be able to pay them.... That's what I'm hearing from most people, which is if a bondholder misses a payment for a day or two or three or four what is more important that you're putting the government in a materially better position to be able to pay their bonds later on."

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), May 18, 2011: "What I think is that the markets are looking to see credible progress on changing the fiscal trajectory in Washington. The markets are not fooled by some date imposed to say that that is the trigger for the collapse. I think the markets are looking to see that there is real reform."

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), May 19, 2011: "The government is not to be trusted with more of your money, so I will refuse to allow them to borrow more. Now is it a good idea to default? No! But this is a false claim being promoted by big-government advocates. We can simply spend what we take in!"

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), June 24, 2011 on administration warnings of "catastrophic consequences" of not raising debt limit: "I don't believe them, it's not true."

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), May 18, 2011: "This problem is so urgent that there is -- an alternative school of thought has emerged recently," Toomey said. "The most high-profile advocate for this was Stanley Druckenmiller ... one of the world's most successful hedge-fund managers, extraordinarily wealthy from his knowledge of the markets, a big money manager now, and a big holder of Treasury securities -- and he has said that he would actually accept even a delay in interest payments on the Treasuries that he holds. And he would prefer that if it meant that the Congress would right this ship."

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), July 13, 2011: "To get a balanced budget amendment in this environment...we'd have to make the serious, credible, earnest threat that if you want to raise [the debt ceiling] and you want to have any Republicans voting for raising it, you're going to have to assist us: You give us 20 votes to adopt the balanced budget amendment in the Senate and we'll make sure you get the votes you need to raise the debt limit."

>> ^my15minutes:

yes. i actually purchased this, on VHS, when it was released.


I saw it on local TV with my friends while we were waiting for TPM movie line!

Obviously this clip got slurped up by TPM because of the blatant hypocrisy in asking for earmarks, and then saying you're voting against the bill because it contains earmarks, but there's a subtler point worth highlighting as well.

Look at this exchange:

"But you favor earmarks is what you're saying," Hemmer said.

"I do not," Cornyn insisted. "I think we need an earmark moratorium -- which I voted for -- for two years, until we fix this broken system."

At the risk of overstating it, Cornyn is unwittingly repudiating the foundation of conservative ideology with his argument.

He's saying that individual responsibility, won't keep him from doing (purportedly) unethical things for his own self-interest unless there's government regulation keeping him honest.

In other words, not only is "legislating morality" possible, it's the only way to make sociopaths like him behave properly.

I think they've been reading TPM over at TDS:

http://videosift.com/video/Fox-News-Concern-Trolls-About-Obama-s-Racial-Sensitivity

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TPM thinks the kid might be a Breitbart plant.

You know, same as that O'Keefe dick.

If that's the case, I wish he'd have broken the kids neck.

>> ^kronosposeidon:

I'm willing to bet that most of us have had just as much stress in our lives at some point or another. Statistically speaking, surely there have been some members here who have battled cancer or another life-threatening ailment, others who have lost someone close, others who've had to file for bankruptcy and possibly faced homelessness, others who have battled crippling mental illness, etc. So no, his current stress levels don't impress me, because most of us who've been alive for a while have already had very stressful events to contend with.
Also, let's not forget that the company he helmed is largely responsible for this, so he deserves every bit of stress that he has right now. How many lives has this avoidable accident fucked up? How much stress are those people facing?
I can tell you one thing: There would be no shortage of oil to burn him at the stake with.

I was talking about workstress, not stress induced by events in private life, which he has just as much as any other person. Bankrupcy aside, his family members are probably just as prone to cancer and mental illnesses as the next one, but that's not the issue here.

Yes he's the head of a company partly responsible for the oil leak, but let's not forget that BP is a publicly traded company, so the real power lies with the shareholders. If he's not doing a "good enough job", aka making money faster than anyone could print, he's gonna be replaced. That's his sole purpose, to make the stock rise, with any means neccessary. Normally there'd be laws and regulations to limit the mostly destructive greed that every (yes, EVERY) publicly traded corporation exibits, but since the system is so incredibly corrupt and politicians are more than happy to accept bribes in any imaginable form, these safegurads fail miserably.

This guy did exactly what he was supposed to do and should not even be close to being the first person to blame for the desaster. But that's what people will do because it's so damn easy and it perfectly shows what kind of crowd TPM caters to.