26 (edited by BigDamnArtist 2013-04-04 21:43:26)

Re: The Hunger Games

Finally got some time to listen to this one.

When you guys were having that whole debate about the Hunger Games being akin to a reality show and the Hunger Games being a comment on the people who watch that sort of thing and Teague was having that whole disconnect of "reality tv show with volunteers" vs. "People drafted into the game to kill each other". I'm really surprised no one brought up (or if they did it was so brief I missed it) the fact that the Hunger Games are basically a literal translation of Gladiatorial Events into this world.

What are essentially slaves are picked out of the crowd, thrown into a ring filled with booby-traps and dangers, (And dictatorial puppet masters that every so often might want to throw a lion or something into the mix just to shake things up) given weapons and told the last one out alive gets to live and gets a reward. While hordes of onlooking citizens watch gleefully and are entertained.

Of course, there are aspects of reality tv show in there as well, but I think that's mostly just a side effect of the upgraded technology of it. If The Romans had TV cameras you can bet your ass they would have shown it across the empire.

IDK, that's just always been my reading of the whole Hunger Games thing, less Survivor more Gladiator.

EDIT: Removed the line confusing my point.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

God loves you!

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28 (edited by BigDamnArtist 2013-04-04 21:44:53)

Re: The Hunger Games

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.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Ok, I think I follow now.
But really, if the Roman Colosseum had video cameras it would have been televised. Even Star Trek: The Original Series explored that in "Bread and Circuses."

So, its kind of a combination of the two, because gladiator sport could sometimes involve training, while reality TV involves no training but volunteering, similar to our current cultural obsession (in the United States) with reality TV.

God loves you!

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Re: The Hunger Games

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

I'm sorry guys. I just don't get why everyone's so crazy about Jennifer Lawrence...

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Re: The Hunger Games

Re: The Hunger Games

That woman...oh god.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Hunger Games

The Romans had theater too, full of fake death and spectacle but everyone knew that was artificial.   

It's professional sports that's the modern equivalent of gladiatorial games, it's just that we're "civilized" now so we don't require the ritual combat to end in actual death. 

But really, that's a bit hypocritical - because when someone does die in a sport, we get ALL up in that.   Or even when someone just snaps their leg in half - boy, did Twitter go batshit over that one a couple days ago.  Gore?  Lemme see!

And District 12 mines coal - already a major industry in the 19th century, and one that still fuels much of our world today.  Some of our real-world Appalachian coal miners don't live that much differently than the fictional District 12 folk in the movie as it is - and that's without a fictional dictatorship intentionally keeping them enslaved.

Re: The Hunger Games

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: The Hunger Games

38 (edited by TechNoir 2013-04-11 06:57:54)

Re: The Hunger Games

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.

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Re: The Hunger Games

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Re: The Hunger Games

No words.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: The Hunger Games

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Re: The Hunger Games

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.

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Re: The Hunger Games

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Re: The Hunger Games

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

I'm Batman

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Re: The Hunger Games

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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Re: The Hunger Games

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

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Re: The Hunger Games

Monty Hall is so interesting to me because of how differently we all percieve and process it. For example, Sellew's explanation left me even more confused than any other explanation I've seen, and I usually feel like I've got a pretty solid grasp on the logic behind it.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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Re: The Hunger Games

I know I've heard it before, but can't remember the logical reasoning behind it atm.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: The Hunger Games

Basically, if the incidence of the disease/defect is very low, even with a super accurate test the number of false positives will swamp the number of actual cases.

So, in the case at hand, if we test an appropriate sample of 10,000 people, 9999 of them won't have the disease, and the test will correctly tell us that in 9999 * 0.999 = 9989 of of the cases.  However, the test will also throw up 10 false positives.  Put that together with the one actual positive in 10000, and your chances of being that one are 1/11, or a hair over 9%.

I remember reading that they gave this question to actual doctors, and like 40% of them got the wrong answer.

For the next hour, everything in this post is strictly based on the available facts.

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