(And other David Cronenberg movies. While I'm at it, although it's completely linear, I'm going to plug: "Crash" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/).)
Jacob's Ladder (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) is almost a great brain-bending movie, but for some damn reason at the very end there's a, "Let's explain what really happened!" scene. F'idiots. (I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son (played by Macaulay Culkin) dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together. Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.)
Talk about timing. I just wrote up a list for a friend that includes a bunch of weird movies (most of them being head trips). My list includes two Cronenberg movies as well! Though, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of either. Heh, I know this is a little off topic but for those that dove this deep into the thread, maybe you would like to expand your weird movie viewing experience.
01. Eraserhead-- This feature film was the debut for Writer/Director David Lynch. The film is noted for its usage of sound as a theatrical device and "the baby" which is rumored to be created from an embalmed cow fetus. The films script is a scant 21 pages despite a running time of 85 minutes (script pages typically match runtimes).
02. Dead Leaves-- Produced in 2004, this Japanese animated film clocks in at 55 minutes long. The films (thin) plot is composed almost entirely of a chase/fight scene that begins on earth and ends on a space station. The movie's weirdness climaxes when when the mutant baby of the the film's protagonists is born and proceeds to kill a giant space catepillar which is attempting to eat the earth.
03. House -- This 1977 Japanese film certainly ranks as one of the weirdest (if not the weirdest) movies of all time. It was unreleased in the U.S. until after a screening at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival. In an iconic scene, a Japanese girl is consumed by piano monster as a green eyed catch watches.
04. Jacob's Ladder- Fans of the game Silent Hill should well be aware of this movie from 1990 that inspired many of its elements. Tim Robbins stars as a vietnam war vet suffering from demonic images increasingly polluting his fragile reality. One paticularly gruesome scene includes Robbins being wheeled through a bloody hospital corrirodor filled with limbs and mutating torsos.
05. Barton Fink- This Cohen Brothers film stars John Turturro as a novelist. The 1991 film closes with a set of iconic scenes including John Goodman exiting a burning hallway (like a badass).
06. Naked Lunch- The first of two Cronenberg films in this category. This 1991 film adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel features a protagonist who uses bug spray as a chemical escape from reality. Talking insects and failed "William Tell Routines" are just some of the madness this movie contains.
07. Videodrome- David Cronenberg wrote and directed this movie staring James Woods. The movie centers around Wood's character, a sleazy TV exec, who inreasingly loses touch with reality after he comes across a station which airs extreme violence and torture. Key scenes include his merger with a TV set and a VHS tape being thrust into his stomach.
08. Donnie Darko (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall sp?)- Donnie Darko served as philosophical fodder for a whole generation of "Emos". Written and directed by Richard Kelly. The movie stars this brother-sister hollywood team. The movie covers a wealth of ideas including fatalism and time travel. Movie goers will inevitably remember the creepy bunny head that pervades entirety of the film.
09. Human Centipede- This 2010 dutch horror film quickly became a meme rivaling Two Girls One Cup for gross-out factor. The film features a mad doctor who connects three unfortunate souls in the most unfortunate way possible.
10. Brazil- The second installment of Terry Gilliam's "Imagination Trilogy". This 1985 film represents the dreams of adults including navigating beurocracy and chasing true love. Robert DeNiro also provides a notable role as a rebel repairman in the film.
Gah. The corporate-speak vocabulary obliterates any sincerity that may have been been in that letter when it was conceived. It reads like nothing more than "damage control".
A simple, "We've told the X team to get a clue and fix the multiple registration form stupidity by next Friday" would go farther than eight paragraphs of borderline marketing bilge.
Of course, these are not the /actual/ problems at RIM. The real problems are the mindset and processes that allowed this type of stuff to happen in the first place. They have a long row to hoe to get their house in order, since it's probably fractally bad in there.
I should add: I was in a developer tools org once (at a certain large hardware company) that had nearly exactly the same problems: Expensive tools, confusing processes, and probably worse support than RIM has. Over years of trying, the underlying troubles were never fixed (but a lot of manager careers were lofted on internal promises and new "team initiatives").
#1 large you say? McDonald’s website tells me that if you buy that from them (Big Mac, large fries, ketchup, large Cola) you are looking at 1200 calories. I find it hard to imagine that any two of the photographed products on the linked website would have less calories. One Snickers bar – one, not in any way fried – has about 300 calories. A Big Mac has about 500. A large Cola (0.5 l) has 250. A nice portion of pasta with something as innocuous as tomato sauce can get you up to 500 calories.
There is nothing particularly evil about fast food. If that one menu is pretty much the only thing you eat on a day you can easily lose weight. It’s just that something with a high calorie density makes it very hard for you to control your portions. My suspicion is that the submission’s food all have a quite high calorie density, higher than even most fast food.
The worst offender on the McDonald’s menu are pretty much the fries. A Big Mac is relativly harmless because in addition to the high calorie density meat and sauce you also get the bun and even some salad. If you drink water instead of Coke you even push the calories below 1000 which means that you could easily eat two of those menus on a day without gaining weight.
Even if you disagree with this premise (it IS controversial), the research he references (Michel Cabanac, Robert Israel) is an accepted and very strong indication that in fact the caloric content is NOT what makes food fattening.
I’m not sure what you want to tell me. All that might be true but if I’m parsing it correctly it doesn’t mean that you will gain weight if you eat for example 1000 calories of anything per day. You will still lose weight. And you won’t if you eat double or more than that.
Cabanac has reproducible research that shows people losing weight on (IIRC) 2500 calories per day and NO physical activity whatsoever, because they were bed-ridden.
MGU had a research once that had people gaining weight on 1500 calories/day and losing weight on 3000 calories/day with comparable physical activity (this one included running, etc.)
The "calories in / calories out" argument is very far from science. If you trace its origins, you'll see it's not much more than a folk tale. It's about as accurate as "eat less to lose weight" in terms of being predictive.
Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" has all the explanations and references you could need, if that interests you.
The industry and consumers were much better off with Standard Oil controlling most of the industry. It stabilized markets and led to more efficient crude and refined oil production.
If your doctor won't give you a B12 shot tell him to shove it up his ass, and get a new doctor. It's not like you're asking him to write you a 'script for 300 oxycotin tabs.
The control-freakish nature of many medical professionals astounds me.
Anyway, you can also try large dosage (5000 mcg) sub-lingual B12. Some of it will make it into your bloodstream without going through your stomach.
Second this, about a thousand times. I don't care where you live, there is somebody in town who will give you a B12 shot. Drop your current doctor, and be sure to write him a letter telling him why. You might save somebody else.
Journalism is fucking dead. People write these days like they're Charles goddam Dickens and the page should be dense with their words. Like they're crafting great literature when in reality they're writing something that someone (with an iPad) will read while taking a crap at work.
Clarity. Precision. Transparent conveyance of content.
When writers turn in pieces for periodicals, they should be shocked with a voltage in equal proportion to the density of their prose.
I like good writing. I can enjoy a good story and get ideas for how to write my own.
This is why I subscribe to real periodicals and try to read those in favor of blogs. For technical stuff, you can't go wrong with a blog. For general-interest topics, I've never found a blog worth reading.
Nope, still nothing around that even vaguely competes with the iPod touch. 3,427 announcements of amazing freakin' devices sure to be released any day now!
The only market with more vaporware is alternative-fuel vehicles.
eXistenZ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/)
Naked Lunch (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/)
(And other David Cronenberg movies. While I'm at it, although it's completely linear, I'm going to plug: "Crash" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/).)
Jacob's Ladder (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) is almost a great brain-bending movie, but for some damn reason at the very end there's a, "Let's explain what really happened!" scene. F'idiots. (I recommend stopping the movie when you get to the scene where the Jacob and his son (played by Macaulay Culkin) dreamily walk up a back-lit stairway together. Let the movie percolate in your brain for a while. Then, start the movie up again and see how they ruined it.)