Name our Manx, Watchmen, Economics, Stuff
Mar. 15th, 2009 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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caseopaya and I would like to welcome the newest member of our household. An, as yet, unnamed Manx kitten. He's integrating well with the rabbits, but hasn't met the rats yet. Help us el-jay! Help us name our cat.
Went to see Watchmen last night. It has some changes from Allan Moore's classic comic series of superheroes and the very real fear in the early 1980s of nuclear war, but the changes don't alter the storyline or theme and indeed the one big change at the end actually makes much more sense (big credits here to the screenwriters, who must had balls of steel to try this). It is that the core content was included in the 170 minutes and the charactre portrayals as pretty good well, especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. I suspect that history will largely absolve Zack Snyder's pretty average effort with 300 with this film. A genuine pity that Pop Will Eat Itself's Def Con One wasn't included in the soundtrack.
An inordinate amount of time was spent this week writing Normative and Postive Economics: An Isocratic Sketch, an attempts to reconcile, or at least find appropriate types of economic activity for socialist and capitalist means of ownership and planned or market means of distribution and exchange, and at the same time recommending the socialisation of income from natural resources. Comments invited. This week I also joined Amnesty International Australia. This is an organisation I joined and let my membership lapse several times over the past twenty-five years or so. This time, I've checked the box for 'renew every year'; the wonders of modern technology!
Recently
lokicarbis had a good idea for extending the functionality libraries; I have been playing with since Koha since then, which is great one you get the right version of Perl installed (*mutter*, *mutter*). In more Loki-related news, I'm looking after several crates of RPGs for him; at the same time, I've finally gotten around to cataloguing many extras that I have and am putting these up for sale on RPG Review. I also have a big collection of stuff that I just want to give away; including an Encore W255 Acoustic Guitar, a whole bunch of VHS videos (including series one and two of Friends.. uh, yeah), a lot of IT books including Microsoft MSCE NT books, Visual Basic books, MCDBA SQL server 7 and Oracle 8 books, a collection of 3D Studio Max guides etc. etc.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2009-03-16 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-16 11:45 pm (UTC)What videos are you after? :)
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Date: 2009-03-19 09:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 08:31 pm (UTC)Isocracy, Squids, and Raw Shark
Date: 2009-03-20 06:06 am (UTC)Rorschach was great in the film. I'm reading the graphic novel now. It's great!
Actually, I disagree with you about the squid being absent from the film. The film makes no sense to me. Essentially, the Watchmen ending is much like how the concept for Star Trek began; Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, believed that when humanity discovered it wasn't alone in the universe, man would unite against a common "other" (enemy might be too strong a word). In Star Trek, the common enemy/other were the Vulcans; in Watchmen, the enemy is aliens.
There are two problems with the film ending. First of all, Dr Manhattan is a god: America and the Soviets alike both know that attacking him is futile because even if they succeeded in breaking him apart, he would merely reassemble himself. Second of all, Dr Manhattan leaves for another galaxy: once the common threat is gone, how long will it be before humanity's differences overwhelm its sense of a common threat? In Star Trek, the common threat was a reality that persisted; man was not alone. In Watchmen, Veidt's original phantom threat was 'out there' and would keep humanity at peace until man scoured the universe completely (impossible).
So Snyder's peace is improbable and short term. After a few moments of cold thinking, man must conclude that Manhattan is impossible to defeat. And even if they reached a different conclusion, Manhattan is gone -- the threat is removed.
I thought the montage at the beginning was fantastic, especially the flower-in-gun sequence. Plus I think Snyder did an awesome job answering all the questions new fans like me had while we were watching (primarily the question, "what in the hell is going on?!")
Re: Isocracy, Squids, and Raw Shark
Date: 2009-03-20 07:22 am (UTC)You're possibly right about Dr. Manhattan;
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Date: 2009-04-06 11:59 am (UTC)-Putin
-Vladimir
-Dmitrii
-Nikolai
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Date: 2009-04-07 12:05 am (UTC)We ended up with Mac Lir, the Celtic god of the sea, from whom the isle of Mann was named after. After we can call him Mac for short, or Mac Lir when he's being naughty. Which isn't too often, surprisingly.
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Date: 2009-04-07 09:37 am (UTC)