Sorry, no, I think I confused my point.

My point was that there really isn't that disconnect between people doing this to other people who are volunteers vs people doing to other people who aren't volunteers that Teague kept getting hung up on.

It's just that they (the guys) kept talking about the Hunger Games as a reality show, but it's far closer to Gladiatorial events and I think that's where the confusion was coming in.

EDIT: I removed the offending line from my op.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-04-05 05:44:53)

Oh yeah...just the US...

But otherwise, I pretty much agree.

Yeah...well actually since they're already working, and working really hard because their society demands toil, then under these conditions, none of the children should technically have to train. All the kids who've grown up in the shitty districts should be shaped by the hard world around them, they should be practical, hard, fit, and have plenty of survival skills. That they don't and that some come across as wide-eyed bambis is, in my opinion, one of the failings of the film to set up a plausible universe (along with the absurd notion that a few 19th century societies each with 19th century technology can support a 22nd century society).

With regards to gladiatorial games, I'd like just to point that virtually all entertainment with violence mimics what the Romans did. Films and TV are our gladiatorial games, entertaining us with skill, blood, and drama (heroics, trickery, cowardice, pride, bravery etc). Because you can bet if the Romans could fake it like as well as we do then they'd have done it too.  The surpreme irony is a show like Spartacus, which is a bloodthirsty gladiatorial show about bloodthirsty gladiatorial games.

The Romans had theatre, yes, but their fake death wasn't anywhere near comparable to the gruesome realism we have today (which you'll note is becoming increasingly more severe as we get more desensitised). Screen violence today appeals to the same base nature of man as gladiatorial games, much more deliberately so than professional sports. I'd argue we don't get our 'fix' from those at all.

Also, as an aside, the notion of gladiator fights being a fatal activity is somewhat overstated. In fact, at one point sine missione bouts (i.e., death matches) were banned (even though the 'games' in general may have continued to include executions). This to me suggests that it was not necessarily blood and gore that attracted people, but the drama.

Our world isn't in the 22nd century though; the utopic city we're shown looks to have energy requirements far in excess of what we have now. The problem isn't that there's a gap, it's that the severity of the gap is too acute. Further, it's one thing to mine coal, but the poorer and more undeveloped the infrastructure for that is, the less efficient it's going to be, which ties into how the Capitol is supposed to keep functioning when at risk of being underpowered.

It also makes little sense to keep all these districts oppressed and backward... quite aside from the constant threat of rebellion if they're so poor they starve, they'll die, then the slaves will fail to provide what you need as well as not being able to buy your products and grow the economy...it's such an inane and moustache-twirling attittude and not at all conducive to long term gain!

Anyhow, I should probably listen the commentary now.

Great episode.

As for anamorphic bokeh, They can depending on the lens used be flat on one side, no flaps or other things needed. Lenses can have quite different properties and looks, some will be quite neutral, some will distort bokeh balls in various ways depending on where in the frame you put them, and depending on fstop and focal lenght of the lens behind the anamorphic attachment.

Also, the Monty Hall problem has a pretty simple explanation which better highlights the mechanics of it if you just exaggerate it for clarity.

The solution is that if you get a choice of 1 of 3 doors, and after selecting one, another is shown to be empty, you should change your selection to the remaining one.

Instead imagine there being 100 doors. You select one as containing the prize/whatever. 98 of the others are then opened and shown to be empty. One door remains. In this case it is more obvious that the chances of your first choice being correct is not as good as the possibility of the last remaining door being the winner.
The same principle applies to the 3-door scenario, although less obvious.

As for the movie, I don't like it. It feels dumbed down and so simplistic in some aspects. When they are training in the beginning, anyone throwing a knife will always bulls-eye it even when throwing behind their own back. When Katniss shoots the guy in the hand at the end, it gets stuck in the hand, but doesn't penetrate the hand completely and continuing into Peeta. Convenient. These are just petty examples, but they show the type of things I dislike with it.

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-04-11 14:57:54)

No words.

Mostly because they are cheap to make compared to the films they parody. And by 'parody' I mean re-enact entire scenes, sometimes even re-doing the same jokes as the original but adding a fart noise as a punchline.

this commentary isn't on itunes can you fix it?

Beautiful. I'd never thought of it that way.

Yeah, conditional probability in general is something that human beings are *really* bad at.   I assume everybody knows the medical one, usually phrased as a test for a disease, or a rare genetic condition?

Assume that you're being tested for a rare genetic condition.  The test is 99.9% accurate, and errs on the side of over-sensitivity, so there are only false positives, never false negatives.  Let's also say that the condition is very rare, only 1 person in 10,000 has it.  If you take the test and get a positive result, what's the actual chance you have the condition?

[....]

Answer:  just over 9%