Todays Random Thought

Vraxx's random thought of the day. Do vegetarian zombies go "Grrrraiiiinnnsss...."

New Idea: S.H.I.T. List

After some conversations with a few friends I realized it might be a novel idea to introduce the S.H.I.T. list. Or rather, the Sad, Hopeless IT list. Why you ask? Well let's face it, the IT industry is a glut of individuals with no specific background or folks that are only marginally qualified. Talk to the average small to medium sized business and their IT person is often someone plucked from their organization who does two jobs.

Back in the boom-days IT people were relied upon to keep things moving, insure data integrity, perform backups, develop new tools. These days, most IT people are glorified mouse-jockeys. I propose people start compiling lists of IT people, especially freelancers that they know to be disreputable.

Examples of shady IT dealings. Buying SOHO gear for a 100+ man office. Using daisy chained Netgear's as a high end switch. Loading out of date virus updates and charging for it (we're not talking like a month out of date here, we're talking a year)

So to everyone out there who is in IT, I say send me your S.H.I.T. list.

Batman Begins... To Reinvent Itself?

**Review is also mirrored on Vraxx.com's Misc section**
Wow, been a while since I did a movie review. Let me preface any flamers by saying that I am a fan of the Batman franchise, and enjoyed the first two Burton helmed movies a lot. I'll try to avoid comparisons to the original films and weight Batman Begins on its own merits.

From a cinematography standpoint the movie is well shot. You have a great sense of the gritty origins of Bruce Wayne and the seedy criminal underworld that he delved into to become the Dark Knight. Most of the progress of the storyline is well laid out and the environs used feel right. (Though perhaps rather too modern)

What I was less impressed by oddly enough were the leads. Christian Bale's performance as Bruce Wayne was very close to what I expected of a younger, playboyish millionaire. Though perhaps he lacked some of the quirky wit of Michael Keaton's performance, he had that youthful fire and the recklessness that was needed of the part. In that regard I felt he brought something that was lacking in the Keaton performance. As Batman however I felt Bale was trying too hard and the end result was a rigid, often over-acted hero. There were points in the film that I felt a sense of the dubbed-Japanese films, seeing Bale's mouth move with an over-enunciated mannerism. Katie Holmes' character of Rachel Dawes (apparently a prosecutor in Gotham) though providing a wholesome, all American girl look, just didn't really endear herself. Lackluster lines and scenes that really weren't lengthy or impressive left me feeling they could have just cookie cuttered the role.

On the plus side I felt that the support casting was done very well. A surprisingly restrained Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon played well to Bale's younger Wayne. Though his scenes are few and far between they framed the relationship that the two characters would have into the future of the series very well. Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) was very well portrayed, though I tended to wonder if he was just a tad "too pretty" to play the fear-inducing villain. Sir Michael Cain as Alfred had me somewhat torn. While I felt Cain portrayed the faithful butler well as the "second father" to a young Bruce, I missed some of the simple and understated style of actor who has portrayed the role in all the previous films. Liam Neison plays his roles well, though the limited number of scenes we see him in don't really unravel a great deal about his character. Lastly, but not least we have Morgan Freeman. Now this is one of those roles that seems well suited to Morgan Freeman's light hearted style with a sense of snap and wit. As Lucius Fox he plays a character seemingly tossed aside and buried in a useless department of Wayne Enterprises. His banter with Bale has a great amount of chemistry and should the series continue I hope that the two actor will continue to have scenes the likes of Begins.

Overall I was entertained by the film but I didn't feel as bowled over as a lot of reviewers. Bale's performance as Batman left me feeling things were off kilter. If he reprises the role for future films in the franchise I hope he develops into something more like the cool, calculated Keaton Batman. I would not however change Bale's characterization of Bruce Wayne. I think he's got that down more so than Kilmer or Clooney before him. I give Batman Begins a 8/10. It shows a great deal of promise to revitalize a franchise that had been practically driven to the ground. Who knows, perhaps in a few years we'll see Batman Continues.

Boredom Thy Name is Star Wars Parody

So you know sometimes you just get so bored you have to look and comment about the world as if it were something more interesting. Like the _OLD_ Star Wars.

Here's today's Vraxxism on the subject of Open Source

<Yoda>To learn the ways of the FOSS, you must UNLEARN what you have learned!

<DOS Vader>L33t, I am your father!
<L33t Skyh@x0r>NOOOOO!!! You murdered my father!

"Help me Abiword Knoppix you're my only hope!"

Cameos by:
Jobsa The Hutt
and BallmerFett

Update on the Apple-Intel Alliance

So it's official. Apple and Intel will be working together to create the new generation of Macintosh products. While this isn't wholly unexpected, I think it will be interesting to see how Apple handles the transition this time around.

Those of us who can remember the transition of Motorola's 680XX chips to the PowerPCs could speak on the subject of painful transitions, software incompatibility and perhaps most annoying, peripheral hell.

Apple has made it clear however that while their new platform should be able to install Windows XP, you will not be able to install Mac OS X on just any PC hardware. This answers an early question of mine which centered around Apple's direction as a "systems vendor" or just a "software vendor". Looks like Steve Jobs has confirmed that Apple is aiming to leverage their aesthetic designs to push systems rather than rely on purely software sales.

John Dvorak wrote up his views and contends that this direction of Apple will also affect Linux adopters. While I agree in part with Dvorak's assessment I feel as long as the Apple software is locked (be it firmware or other hardware integration) to a set platform, Linux will be slightly more flexible. I do agree that OS X has made a much better showing at Desktop adoption than Linux has in the last year. On the server-end (which is pretty much where I spend my focus) I feel the Linux kernel still has an edge.

I certainly wish Apple well, as an early Mac user, but I only hope that this rough-ride doesn't cost Apple even more marketshare.

Internet plagiarism

There's just something about plagiarism of material on the Internet that makes me cringe. Perhaps the fact that I have no actual gift for writing or art keeps me safe from such underhanded activities but when you see rampant theft (be it in the form of stolen images or duplicated text) you just have to wonder what ever happened to credibility.

Let's take the following episode which I was recently a witness to.

http://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?t=23595&page=1&pp=25

http://www.animeforum.com/showthread.php?p=632172&posted=1

One of the images was copied from Spinny, an independent webcomic author and IRC regular.

Spinny's work can be seen here

Yet other examples were taken from other artists. It's one thing to post something you like and give credit where it's due, such as a gaming review website. But to troll a forum using other people's art to garner the adulation of others is just downright disrespectful.


In the end there isn't much that can be done, other than having forum moderators police content, but the only long term solution here is that people just grow up and learn to speak honestly about what is there's and what isn't.

Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | Tech News on ZDNet

Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | Tech News on ZDNet

Well, looks like the rumor mill was right. Monday Apple will announce their intention to drop IBM and the PowerPC design in favor of an as yet, unidentified Intel based system. This isn't totally unexpected given the high cost of PowerPC chips and the supply chain issues which have marred the working relationship between Apple and IBM.

As expected, the changes will require at least two years to really phase in and there will be some definite growing pains as developers are forced to write code for the new x86 compiled OS. While this is somewhat disheartening for me, as a recent Mac-returnee, it isn't the first time Apple has put customers through the wringer. Anybody else remember the early migration from Motorola's 68xx series to the early PowerPC 6xx?

This choice by Apple is definitely a gamble but sometimes the only way you can make it is to risk it all. I for one hope Apple doesn't fall on its face and I also hope that IBM continues to develop Power based chips to fit a wide variety of needs. Looks like the desktop however just isn't one of them.

A Free-er? Fedora

Red Hat Spins Off Fedora

So what had become the answer to a publicly offered Free RedHat Linux is now a bit more on its own. RedHat has opted to hand leadership of the Fedora project to an independent community and provide them with support both financial and occasionally with source code and other resources.

Some may balk that this is RH throwing in the towel, I think it's more that they just couldn't manage a steady balance between being an objectively community based distro while still putting out their Enterprise products.

I've used the early two core releases of Fedora, I've used RHL from the old 4.x days to today's RHEL 4 (WS currently, don't have the $$$ for ES/AS). While far from perfect it does its job pretty well in my opinion.

We'll have to wait and see what the user community says on the matter.