There is a good article in the NY Times about homeschooling. No major revelations but still a good article overall—mostly positive—and nice to see it covered in the Times. The figures in the article indicate that homeschooling has more than doubled in the past decade.
“It’s a profound irony that the standards movement wound up alienating more parents and fueling the growth of home schooling…”
Via dangerousmeta
via email:
“I saw Matrix 1 and 2 and I came up with a plot:
“Neo meets girl. Neo brings the concept of movable type to Zeyeon . Neo gets girl.”
I guess I really need to see Matrix Reloaded so I can go see Revolutions.
The interesting thing is, 2 years ago if someone mentioned “movable type” in this context—or any context for that matter—I would immediately have thought of typography, the press, enlightenment. Now I think of Movable Type the web log / CMS(Content Management System) software from Six Apart, which happens to provide the framework for this site.
No, the email wasn’t from a “blogger” but from a mail list for a video editing suite I use in my creative endeavors. The author’s intended reference was the classical sense.
For those coming here from a Google or other search of “Matrix Revolutions Plot” actually hoping to find the plot laid bare, or some in depth analysis of it, you might want to try the Iowa State Daily review (with plot info), The Matrix Resolutions or maybe Rotten Tomatoes for leads. Of course after looking at all those reviews and analysis of Revolution and Jeremy Hedley’s (among others) take on Reloaded, I think I will just pretend that M2 and M3 were never made. That way the Matrix for me will always be a terrific experience, unspoiled by weak sequels. Maybe if they extend it from a trilogy to a ?? I will come back and revisit the sequels.
Ok… for those still looking high and low for the plot here is a synopsis from “TC 0verlord” at g0re.net forums. I take no credit, and can not vouch for the accuracy, but here you go:
\ WARNING SPOILER \
Okay, Neo’s in Matrix “limbo” – somehow his mind got “jacked in” to a train stop outside the Matrix – the wild eyed guy in the Rev. trailer is the train man, controlled by the Merovingian. The Oracle tells Trin and Morph this and they threaten Merv (you’re willing to die for this man?) and go and save Neo (who in the meantime has met some new characters and had a vision of three lines in the black dessert). Back in the real world now. Niobe gives Neo and Trinity the logos ship after the Hammer powers it up so they can go to the machine city (01) and try and save Zion. Meanwhile Bane (Smith) has awakened, killed the nurse and snuck into the Logos. The Hammer heads back to Zion to try and stop the sentinels with its emp as a last ditch effort, and soon realize Bane has killed, escaped and must be on the Logos – but it’s too late to turn back and save Trin and Neo. Aboard the logos, Bane blinds Neo with an electrical conduit during a fight before Neo kills him (just after realizing he’s smith inside) Trinity is beat up but okay to fly the ship, with Neo’s “second sight” – he can somehow sense the machines life-force and “sees” them now. The Hammer tries to sneak back to Zion but the sentinels hear them and chase them all the way home. Meanwhile, Zion is getting the **** kicked out of it by all the sentinels. The crippled Hammer crashes into Zion and blows it’s EMP knocking out the remaining diggers and sentinels. Meanwhile the logos is on the surface, flying over/by the fetus fields and power plant, following three power lines to the city (like in his vision). In Zion, they are trying to restore power while evacuating to the deep tunnels and temple cave from Reloaded. More sentinels arrive in the
defenseless Zion and jump start a digger to continue into the bowels of Zion and finish of the rest of it’s people. Neo and Trinity have now crash landed into the machine city after fending off bigger, meaner sentinels and an armada of huge ships shooting shrimp bombs like from Reloaded. Trinity dies from the crash and Neo goes on to confront a huge godlike machine that he makes a deal with to confront smith and save the matrix (and the Ai’s ?) from being taken over (smith has altered the matrix and cloned himself into everyone). Back in Zion the sentinels stop their attack at the last minute and wait. The ai’s jack Neo in and he fights smith, smith wins (neo pretends to lose or fights long enough to prove he tried) and takes him over, but the new clone freaks out, (the machine city ai has a direct link to smith now) explodes and all the smiths explode or something… Neo dies as a result and is hauled off by the AI’s to who knows where. Everyone rejoices and the matrix get’s reloaded with a truce between man and machine.“what about morpheus, the council and previous ones?” – morpheus navigates the hammer for niobe (the best driver- I think ghost must be manning the guns) and faces off with the sentinels at the opening to the zion temple (story boards of this was spoiled a couple years ago), he may take part in a fight to save neo, but that’s about it – (he lives). i don’t remember the council being mentioned or anything about previous ones.
“What about the kid” – he plays an important role durring the battle by manning a fallen mech and shooting a chain on the zion dock door at the last second, allowing it to open so the hammer can enter zion and use its emp. – he lives.
-no cypher, no matrix within a matrix, no phone booth scene from matrix one.
-seraph(puts up a good fight),oracle,important child (mentioned in game)…all taken over by smith.
I left out a lot of details obviously (fights,take-overs,etc.) but that’s the main jist of it.
hope you don’t regret reading this!
////END SPOILER////
p. Mainstream media has finally picked up on the Diebold story and the related issues of electronic voting systems. All I can say is it’s about time. This issue has been brewing in the geek community for quite a while now, growing more intense since the release of the SAIC report (PDF) in September.
p. Thankfully, Newsweek and CNN are both beginning to cover the issue now.
“The best minds in the computer-security world contend that the voting terminals can’t be trusted. Listen, for example, to Avi Rubin, a computer-security expert and professor at Johns Hopkins University who was slipped a copy of Diebold?s source code earlier this year. After he and his students examined it, he concluded that the protections against fraud and tampering were strictly amateur hour. ‘Anyone in my basic security classes would have done better,’ he says. The cryptography was weak and poorly implemented, and the smart-card system that supposedly increased security actually created new vulnerabilities. Rubin’s paper concluded that the Diebold system was ‘far below even the most minimal security standards.’”
p. The voting system manufacturers are opposed to creating paper trail systems and naturally have largely refused to open their systems for scrutiny. Voting, no matter how skeptical one is about it’s ability to produce change, is a citizens fundamental duty—voting systems must be open and auditable. This should not be open for debate, it should not be an option—it must be a requirement. .
Japander is a hilarious archive of western stars commercials for Japanese products. Found thanks to Joi Ito
“The entry on Bopuc’s blog about Japander.com reminded me of my blog entry about my favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger commercials in Japan for energy drinks. This is also relevant to the entry about Lost in Translation since Bill Murray’s role is probably what Arnold had to go through. Anyway, definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen these commercials already. They’re great.”
—[Joi Ito's Web]
Apple rolled out iTunes for Windows just as rumors last week thought they would. iTunes 4 now supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP as well as Mac. Now Windows users have access to 400,000 tracks, including 100,000 from indie labels. Anyone care to start a pool for when they hit 10 million sales on the windows platform?
I love the “allowance accounts” they have–“Set up allowance accounts so children can access music legally, without giving them a credit card.” Maybe I should ask my wife to set up one of these for me. I wonder how long it will take for Apple (or someone else maybe) to setup a “micro-payments” scheme using the iTunes store.
Eclectic Echoes is Stephen Fry proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache