Thus Spake Russ

Posted By Russ Emerson on August 31, 2003 at 12:46 pm

The TV aspect of the cable system in my area – the entire county, apparently, and perhaps beyond – went out last night, and is still out. My cable modem is fine. Odd.

So I popped a newly-acquired copy of Battle of Britain (1969) into the DVD player. I’d owned a VHS copy of the movie since I bought my first VCR in Korea in 1988 – it was the first movie I bought – and it is by far the most frequently-viewed film in my collection. The wear on the tape was really showing, so I ordered a DVD replacement, which sat on the shelf for two months before I watched it.
I’ve replaced a fair amount of my VHS collection with DVD, with mixed results. Many older films make good use of the DVD format – crisp clean images, excellent sound, and occasional bonus features. Others… well, others seem to have been rushed to the marketplace, made from any old print of the film on hand, and have no qualitative advantage whatsoever over their VHS predecessors, and are sometimes actually worse.
I started the movie… it was absolutely beautiful. The video was as clean as I’ve ever seen, the sound much richer than the VHS. The flying and aerial combat scenes were magnificent – far better than I remember the tape being, even when it was new. (And there is very little that will make me drool quite so much as a Spitfire.) The subtitles for the German dialog have been re-done, and included much dialog that had been ignored in the original.
[I don’t know what some of those reviewers at Amazon are thinking. I’ve seen both the VHS and DVD versions, and the DVD is far superior.]
The movie has the additional virtue of being a true story, recorded on film at a time when a great many of the participants in the historical event were still alive. Many veterans – British and Germans, both – assisted with its creation. There’s no historical revisionism going on in this film. (Oliver Stone, take note.)
Watching it was like seeing an old “tee-shirt & jeans” friend neatly turned out in Sunday-best clothes.
…
Oh, and… whoever put the DVD version of Zulu on the market needs an assegai stuck squarely into his chest.

Category: DVD | Comments Off on DV-Do and DV-Don’t
Tags:

Posted By Russ Emerson on August 29, 2003 at 5:25 pm

This is the face of tech evil?

This dirtbag, Jeffrey Lee Parson, arrested in connection with the recent virus-ish attack on computers worldwide, looks like the kind of guy who should have been out playing football. But no, he had to go and vandalize other peoples’ property. I wonder what the maximum prison term for such a crime would be?
I don’t know what the law actually says, but I recommend a speedy trial followed by an equally speedy execution… pour encourager les autres.
What? You think that’s a bit too harsh?
Look, I work in tech support – I see the havoc human debris like this can cause, the damage they do, and the lengths to which businesses and other users must go to protect themselves.
These modern vandals often claim that they’re just doing it to point out vulnerabilities in computers and networks, all to “make our systems more secure.”
My, my – how philanthropic of them.
OK, fine – if that’s the case, then they can go to work for Symantec or McAfee, or perhaps start their own consulting companies. They could deal with the producers of the systems they target, and make a pile of cash in the process, all nice and legal.
But that’s not their purpose. They do it to gain status with their fellow vandals – no more, no less.
Hanging’s too good for them.

Category: Geekery | 1 Comment »
Tags: