Nintendogs

[EdenMaster]

Anyone else get (or plan to get) this amazing dog simulator? Sure, it sounds kind of gimmicky, but the realism is amazing. Down to the smallest detail and the tiniest bit of dog movements. It's really something, I could see this being a big hit here just as in Japan if it gets enough exposure.

I've adopted (to start with) a golden retriever named Penny. She's already learned her name, in addition to Sit, Lie Down, Shake Paw, Jump, and Chase Tail. She came in first place at the Agility competition and got pretty good, but not finalist, scores in the obedience competition. She's getting better on walks and, last time, she found a bone she's been gnawing on ever since. Anyone else adopted any dogs today?

[Dark Jaguar]

The voice feature is a unique and interesting feature, but as I've said before, I have more or less "outgrown" virtual pets I can pet and scratch in real time... The DJ that loved pet AI is DEAD. Meet the DJ that loves funky fruit hats!

[Great Rumbler]

DJ is a replicant!!

[Weltall]

So is EdenMaster's thread!

[Dark Jaguar]

...replicant?

[EdenMaster]

Threads that ar four weeks old are SOOOOO four weeks ago.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well, a friend of mine now has this game. Runs in, shows me the game, first thing I do? SHOUT at the puppy :D.

[Great Rumbler]

Nintendogs is basically a minature Voight-Kampf test to see whether your friends are replicants or not, so says Penny Arcade.

[Dark Jaguar]

A what what?

[Great Rumbler]

Blade Runner.

[Captain_Rush]

DJ, you know your shouting at my dog has not affected it in any way. and i know for a fact that DJ is indeed not a repacant

[Great Rumbler]

That's how good the guys that make replicants are!

[Dark Jaguar]

What's Blade Runner even about anyways? Never saw it... I assume it's an extreme sports movie about roller skating and "keeping it real" and how risking your life and also other people's lives is actually perfectly acceptable because we're all going to die someday and "every man dies but not every man truly lives" and other assanine commentaries punks have.

....I still want to know when Nintencats is coming out. I assume that the "bark" mode allows breeds not stored in memory to actually just be loaded right into it over the wi-fi. I assume this because there are 3 different versions of Nintendogs, and the only reason I can think of that they would do that is if they really didn't have the space, or just couldn't afford the space, to store all the breed data in one cart. Of course, if all the breed data actually is in one cart and there really is no way to download unique creatures like cats into the "bark" (or maybe "meow") mode, then they have managed to be complete bastards.

[Great Rumbler]

What's Blade Runner even about anyways? Never saw it... I assume it's an extreme sports movie about roller skating and "keeping it real" and how risking your life and also other people's lives is actually perfectly acceptable because we're all going to die someday and "every man dies but not every man truly lives" and other assanine commentaries punks have.

Wow that's...not even close. I mean, nothing you said had anything to do with the movie!

Blade Runner:

[Weltall]

What's Blade Runner even about anyways? Never saw it... I assume it's an extreme sports movie about roller skating and "keeping it real" and how risking your life and also other people's lives is actually perfectly acceptable because we're all going to die someday and "every man dies but not every man truly lives" and other assanine commentaries punks have.

I think you're thinking of Rollerball.

[big guy]

that picture of harrison ford to me still looks exactly like mel gibson.

sorry, but it's true.

[Dark Jaguar]

Looks lame, but that's just the art I guess. Is that first girl on the pic a robot by any chance? I'm sure at least one of them is.

[A Black Falcon]

Blade Runner, only one of the best scifi movies ever...

[Great Rumbler]

Looks lame

Well, it isn't. What it is though, is one of the greatest scifi movies ever, topped only by 2001: A Space Odyssey and not much else.

Is that first girl on the pic a robot by any chance? I'm sure at least one of them is.

3 [possibly 4] of the people pictured on the cover are.

[Dark Jaguar]

Okay then...

So the movie is about, what, replicant feet trampling over humans?

[Great Rumbler]

Take your pick:

In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when five replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.

Los Angeles, 2019: Rick Deckard of the LPD's Blade Runner unit prowls the steel & micro-chip jungle of the 21st century for assumed humanoids known as 'replicants'. Replicants were declared illegal after a bloody mutiny on an Off-World Colony, and are to be terminated upon detection. Man's obsession with creating a being equal to himself has back-fired.

Deckard is a Blade Runner, a police man of the future who hunts down and terminates replicants, artificially created humans. He wants to get out of the force, but is drawn back in when 4 "skin jobs", a slang term for replicants, hijack a ship back to Earth. The city that Deckard must search for his prey is a huge, sprawling, bleak vision of the future. This film questions what it is to be human, and why life is so precious.

[A Black Falcon]

If you have any intrest in scifi, DJ, just watch it... it's not perfect, but it is really good.

[lazyfatbum]

It's a sci-fi that has a message about the probable future of technology and man's inherent corruption with it. "How far is too far?"

It's also the only 'noir' sci-fi that wont confuse you or bore you to tears. Some of the shots use out-right blacks and 3:1 ratios and of course introspective mumblings that come with all film noir but it's not forced here, it's all motivated. I also think you'll like the level of detail they went to in the movie. They asked 'what if?" alot..... I mean ALOT :D

writing and directing are top notch, though some things are convoluted by the end. Production value is insanely high (when you see the credits for the model and FX teams you'll understand why) and the acting is mostly flawless save for some scenes.

Music is experimental and not just 'The 80's idea of experimental' but actually experimental in that some of it isn't actually music... think 'silent hill' with more asian influence (you'll understand the influence in the story). Sound effects are some of the best ever created for a film and the uber edition gives you 5.1 and i think 7.1 but i'm not sure. If you dont have 5 or 7 use headphones :D

If you're curious, the film's genre is spin off of a game called Cyber Punk and other types of dye games where everything happens in a post world war X futue where everything, including governments are run by major corporations.

[Dark Jaguar]

First question, what the heck is "noir"? I tried looking it up and it had a recursive definition (what the heck is wrong with dictionary writers that they seem all too often to be willing to just half arse a definition like that, might as well define "Earth" as "the name given to Earth").

Anyway, maybe I need to see it but the description you've given is a little... cliche... I mean, future world of evil robots? I'm so sick of evil robots by the way... But yeah, seems to have everything that is typical of what I expected.

I dunno, I'll give it a shot.

[A Black Falcon]

Film noir is a detective-style thing based on '20s style, right? Or at least early-1900s... someone else would have a lot better explanation than me. :) But I at least think of black & white detective-style stuff... with, as Lazy said, plenty of time spent with the character talking to themself to convey the story. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh I get it, self narration!

It was a cold day, a day that made you remember the heartbreak you felt when some lass you'd rather forget walked out on you. A day like this when another one walks right into your life.

Some girl: I need your help!

She seemed like a desperate kind of girl, desperate enough to do something terrible at the slightest chance. The sort of girl who would kill you as soon as look at you.

Girl: Um, you realize I can hear you right?

[A Black Falcon]

Cyberpunk, yes... I wouldn't say that Blade Runner created the genre, though. It already existed in books before that for sure... not sure about movies, but certainly in books. I guess Blade Runner just made it a lot more popular...

Girl: Um, you realize I can hear you right?

This is, preferably, to be avoided. :)

[N-Man]

Generally speaking "noir" refers to any kind of mystery/police novel/film that's darker in theme and atmosphere than traditional mystery novels ("noir" means "black" in French). For example while a traditional mystery novel might involve a detective and his sidekick investigating and eventually solving a crime, a novel with noir elements might kill off the sidekick in a freak accident - ie with no moral reason for him to die, and as lazy said causing the main character to become introspective and question life, the universe and everything.

Whereas traditional mystery novels are, almost by rule, "fair" and incorporate a Victorian sense of justice and morality, noir novels and films focus on the unfair and unpredictable aspects of the criminal world.

I took a police literature class last semester

[Great Rumbler]

plenty of time spent with the character talking to themself to convey the story.

Director's cut has no self-naration. Actually, the original cut only had a little bit a the beginning anyway.

I mean, future world of evil robots? I'm so sick of evil robots by the way.

Some spoilers:

Saying that it's a movie full of "evil" robots would really be a disingenuous. Blade Runner really has NO good guys or bad guys. The blade runners protects people from "maruading" robots, but they may as well be cold-blooded killers. The replicants killed people to get to the Earth [and killed people there too], but they're practically slaves and are simply trying to survive and a wolrd that wants them dead. It makes you think.

[A Black Falcon]

Director's cut has no self-naration. Actually, the original cut only had a little bit a the beginning anyway.

Noir in general, not necessarially Blade Runner in specific...

Generally speaking "noir" refers to any kind of mystery/police novel/film that's darker in theme and atmosphere than traditional mystery novels ("noir" means "black" in French). For example while a traditional mystery novel might involve a detective and his sidekick investigating and eventually solving a crime, a novel with noir elements might kill off the sidekick in a freak accident - ie with no moral reason for him to die, and as lazy said causing the main character to become introspective and question life, the universe and everything.

Darker both in this sense and in the sense that they like to use the color black a lot... :)

[Great Rumbler]

Noir: It's always night and it's always raining.

That's pretty close.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, pretty much... :) It's certainly true in Blade Runner... that's one of my problems with the movie, actually. Since when is Los Angeles permanantly rainy?

[Great Rumbler]

Since when is Los Angeles blanketed by a huge smog cloud? It's scifi! Who knows what LA will be like in the future?

[A Black Falcon]

I know, but still... eternal rain? :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm, now I'm interested. Yes, convincing me to look past a movie poster can be tough sometimes :D, and for that I MAKE NO APOLOGIES! I'm sorry...

It is simple really. If we get to the point where robots actually have free will, they should immediatly be given the same rights as humans. The idea is simply that companies won't find the idea of making self aware machines profitable if they aren't slave labor, or at least not AS profitable.

[A Black Falcon]

But they're not human, so people justify to themselves not giving them rights... the whole issue of "how human is artificial intelligence" is of course one of the big questions of science fiction, and each work answers it in a slightly different way.

[Dark Jaguar]

If the AI behaves in such a way that there is no way to distinguish the difference, then logically we must conclude that, until future evidence states otherwise, the AI is actually I, true intelligence, and thus must be given the same rights as us.

Now, sci-fi is fun, but sometimes they run a "huge moral grey area" into the ground, like this one. It seems like such a very easy issue to resolve. Star Trek TNG seemed pretty content with their decision, why are we still debating over this?

[Great Rumbler]

Big business controls the replicant market and they have a huge stake in making sure that the replicants don't start getting things like "rights" and "wages", and they make sure that people understand that replicants are "dangerous" and have no regard for "human" life. This is possibly the reason that replicants were given so much intelligence, they are easier to control and if they actually get loose they'll be sure to kill people in doing so. Logically people should give the replicants the same rights as humans, but they fear what they cannot control and sometimes the replicants cannot be controlled.

[lazyfatbum]

noir is french for black like N-man said. At school they just taught us that a noir film is a "lit in high contrast (3:1)" introverted character driven plot with harsh reality subjects and a and a visual style approaching a dry poetic art-fag look. :D

Fortunately Blade Runner does not approach "art-fag" levels.

And yeah Cyber Punk existed before Blade Runner, BR is based on Cyber Punk novels and dye games. In fact, ALOT of current sci-fi is based off Cyber Punk. The most popular one being the Matrix (not so much the sequels or 'deleted scenes' as I call them).


... Nintendogs is awesome btw. I have a Cavalier Spanial named Princess and she wears ribbons. She's uber smart and has a tiny butt hole. I know the two are related somehow but i'm not able to produce a working theory.

[Dark Jaguar]

So am I to understand your opinion of the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies has shifted to the opposite of what it was last I heard you talking about them?

[lazyfatbum]

Yeah i think so, it failed to grab it's audience as the first one did and that was mostly because of how the first one was a rip off of a book they stole. Then with the sequels they tried to make something original and stay away from the book (The Third Eye) and ended up alienating its audience. Sound ideas but bad execution. The entire scope of the hidden context (retelling the bible and the story of judiasm/christianity) missed its mark with most movie goers.

[Dark Jaguar]

I think I agree with you, except for ONE thing.

They didn't steal a book. A woman did sue them, but she was never able to find enough evidence to actually get a court hearing from the whole thing. Until she is able to get some actual evidence together, the most likely explanation is she is just some greedy person trying to rip THEM off.

[lazyfatbum]

I downloaded an e-book of the Third Eye... it's the Matrix. :D It even has the whole Alice in Wonderland context.

[Dark Jaguar]

And what shows that this was in fact written BEFORE the movie came out? That's why she couldn't get a court hearing, she couldn't provide any evidence that she didn't just make it all up (er, well I guess in this case she would be trying to show she DID make it all up and.. um.. yeah).

[cppcrusader]

First I'll do the off-topic rant.

Because of the Matrix deleted scenes the Wachowskis will forever be hacks. They can't come up with an original idea to save their lives. They're the biggest flip-flop jackasses in Hollywood. With the Matrix they made a big deal about how they didn't to computer generate half the cast. They came up with a new filming technique and were able to use live actors, practical effects and some computer enhancement. And it looked good. Then they decide to throw all that out the window and computer generate 2/3 off the movie. Hacks, just a couple of hacks who got lucky because they took someone else's story.

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic.

Nintendogs is pretty damn rad. My black lab Zira is rocking out the disc competitions hardcore. Soon I'll train her to bite out lazy's dog's jugular.

[lazyfatbum]

I had sex with both of your parents on a regular basis until I was 23 years old.

DJ/ As far as i know it was proven in court and she did win the case. Her book was published years before the Matrix script was registered with WGA. people who worked on the first film even said they saw the W. Bros walking around with copies of the book during the preproduction stages of the film.

[cppcrusader]

Now that's no way to speak to someone who just made his printer tap out for you, bitch.

[lazyfatbum]

haha :D

Well thank you for tapping out your printer for me, it is much appreciated

(as were your parents)

[Dark Jaguar]

I see, well the reality is I never checked into the issue and the last I heard, that she didn't have sufficient evidence, was last year.

So, I'll check into it myself and find out what the truth is. The first stop is the snopes message boards to get some sort of lead.

Okay, this is all I have so far. This only shows that this particular article was premature though. She didn't win at the time of that article, just get the right to continue with the case. In other words, it was not thrown out, but she has not won the case either.

As for the current state of that case, I still don't know.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp

[Great Rumbler]

That was kind of dumb how she didn't show up and got her case thrown out of the court.