Shouting Grounds

I’ve been noticing a lot of software developers are beginning to tap one of the best and least used workstation resources to fuel their feature-rich and visually stunning applications. Apple have moved a majority of their graphical tasks within OS X to the client’s GPU instead of following the usual design paradigms, whereby the already tasked CPU has to contend with not only program code but also the responsibility of displaying and manipulating the interface elements, etc. It sounds like a great idea, and it has proven pivotal to a great deal of applications that promise us features, even with our greatly streamlined CPU’s, would seem improbable.

A few applications of note, that have called upon GPU power to solve the dilemmas of visually oriented/design applications, include:

Pixelmator (by Pixelmator Team Ltd.)

A photo editing package that is touted as the first to utilize the GPU for all of its realtime previewing/application of filters, as well as rendering. It has a beautiful interface and since every filter or task you perform is in realtime it allows for a lot of creative expression, since you’re not constantly waiting for a preview to be rendered.

VectorDesigner (by Tweakersoft)

A vector drawing app and combines a great interface with Apple’s CoreImage effects. It allows direct conversion from raster to vector, supports layers, and blends. All previews prior to export are using the GPU in realtime.

ScreenFlow (by Vara Software)

A truly stunning application for creating screencasts. It allows multiple video/audio sources and provides the most streamlined and innovative timeline edition work flow I’ve ever seen. All video effects and mixing occurs in realtime thanks to some custom GPU algorithms.

These programs are great examples of GPU-enabled applications and all are a joy to use. It’s exciting to see programs start to look and behave in the much coveted “hollywood futurism” style that we all expect. It’s 2008, goddamn it!

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some downsides to using the GPU. First off, power consumption goes up, and with that comes heat. Also you are somewhat limited in dealing with large content should you not be blessed with a standalone video card. Using the GPU to manipulate high DPI or high megapixel images can really hurt when shoved through an integrated Intel 950 or comparable card. A card that has to peel video memory from physical system RAM. Editing a 12MP photo in Pixelmator on your Macbook is not advisable.

Secondly, driver issues can introduce inconsistencies in a program’s output. Sometimes you may have a image created in a particular piece of software but when exporting you may find scaling issues, artifacts, etc. I was using a modified Geforce 7800 XT that I bought off ebay with a flashed BIOS to work in a G5 (obviously not the best thing to do) and noticed all the applications that used the GPU for exporting images were introducing artifacts into the output. A bit of spline-snot is fine when you’re playing a game but not when you’re producing something for print.

But like I said, I’m not faulting the developers entirely for this, but it is just another nuance for the consumer to be aware of when purchasing and configuring your computer.

Now I would like to make a general recommendation, if I may, to anyone who would like to produce graphics for print or audio recordings professionally.

Buy a MacBook Pro not a regular Macbook.

You can’t run Final Cut Studio on a Macbook, you can’t record audio through the rear USB port due to some sort of hardware glitch that only m-audio seems to want to acknowledge (even though this wasn’t their fault), and without a standalone video card certain visual effects and applications will just be out of your reach. The veritable app-booty you will receive after having a machine with a standalone GPU will far outweigh the monetary costs.

*steps down from soap box*

From the great development company TastyApps comes a little gem that really streamlines the process of “online video acquisition” (aka, youtube ripping, aka, “That guy got popped in the balls!! *huh huh* I think I want me a piece of that there Flash video for my digital versatile disc player.”)

Anyway, here’s a little screencast, created for your viewing pleasure, showing off some of the more impressive features of this inexpensive and flexible little app.

**spoiler alert**

So after No Country won Best Adapted, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Picture, I figured I needed to give it a day in court. After all, I love the Coens’ other movies. I was really happy to see them get top-flight recognition…they deserve it. While both Fargo and O Brother got them best writing Oscars, they hadn’t yet been recognized for their directorial efforts.

So…the movie. From the trailers and commercials I knew Javier Bardem was going to somekind of creepy badass…that gets setup in the first 5 minutes. He’s a creepy cold-blooded mother fucker to be sure. He needs a car so he kills a guy with a compressed air piston. Who the fuck does that? That’s some awesome shit.

The cinematography is entrancing. This movie already feels like quite a departure from the other Coen movies I’ve seen, save perhaps O Brother. Even then, this movie has a far more serious tone in every aspect. In a particular scene, Josh Brolin is chased through the desert by mexican drug runners, the camera work is fantastic and really pulls you into the story. Speaking of Brolin, he’s come a long way since Goonies and Hollow Man. Although in a smaller part, he was great in Planet Terror last year. And Tommy Lee Jones…what can you say? His acting seems so automatic, so effortless.

Another great scene, Bardem has a conversation with the owner of a gas station, and while there’s no plot points or direct action, the scene is so charged with a feeling of dread… His mannerisms, the way he questioned the shopkeep…terrifying in such an abstract way. Fantastic direction.

So by now, you’re saying, “MJS, how much kleenex did you go through up to this point…as you’re obviously wanking over this movie.” I’m just trying to call it as I see it…and so far it’s pretty goddamn well made. While this movie feels different than O Brother, the Big Lebowski or Fargo, there are still some Coen-feeling moments sprinkled in.

After seeing what Bardem is capable of, Josh Brolin’s character is shown to have similar tactical ability, and the stage is carefully set for what should be a great showdown between the two. Each shows so much thought and purpose in everything they do.

Note: Woody Harrelson can really wear a cowboy hat. Make of that what you will.

I’m going to stop pointing out particular scenes…this movie is extremely well crafted. Makers of shit movies everywhere should take notes, this is how it’s done. Great from top to bottom, in all facets of cinema. Go see it. Take your friends.

I’m one the brave few who actually laughed my ass off the first time I saw the Fucking Matt Damon video. I’m not particularly a fan of Sarah Silverman (she is pretty darn cute) but I thought it was clever, original, and just good fun. If you know about the running Matt Damon “we’re out of time” jokes that Kimmel does at the end of every show then it makes it even funnier. For those who don’t, the jist of it is at the end of the show Kimmel will say how they’ve unfortunately run out of time and as a result they have to bump their next guest. The guest is always Matt Damon. There was even a segment where Damon finally does come out but at that point he’s so pissed all he can do is yell and swear, effectively rendering the interview useless anyway. LOL. See I love shit like that.

Anyway in response Kimmel has fired back with both barrels and the shit is even more hilarious. On a side note while I’m on the subject I will say I’ve always liked Kimmel better than Conan O., and I think Kimmel should have gotten the Late Show instead.

Anyway here are both vids for whoever cares.

Part I:

Part II:

Live blog for the 2008 Academy Awards:

• Already starting off on the wrong fucking foot…I got everything done by 7CST so that I could LiveBlog this garbage, and at the stroke of 7 ABC starts their “Red Carpet Countdown”. I double check oscars.com to see what time the show is supposed to start, and it shows 8EST. What the fuck is this bullshit? If you’re gonna do a shitty pregame, post the REAL time of the awards on the website at least. If I wanted to see the red carpet masturbation with Regis “Traded my balls for notoriety among middle-aged women” Philbin, I would have turned into E! for their crap. The last thing I want to see is semi-retarded people like John Travolta speak out-of-character. GODDAMNIT.
• I would say more about this part of the show, but I’m still just pissed off that I’ve been trick-fucked into watching. I’m gonna turn the channel until the real shit starts.
• Flip back to the show just in case this crap won’t run an hour, and there’s a timer counting down to 7:30. Regis is interviewing some really sad looking citizens, asking them about Mylie Cyrus. WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT THIS BULLSHIT. Channel changed.
• The intro sequence is cool in that there’s a ton of movie characters interacting in a CG Hollywood, but ruined by the fact that we’re moving through it following a UPS truck driven by the Terminator. Jesus Christ, is nothing sacred?
• At least Jon Stewart is back. If it were Ellen again I’d not be writing this right now…nor watching the show.
• OH SHIT! Wesley Snipes is in the crowd?! Someone call someone.
• The opening monologue was pretty good, I did laugh at one or two points.
• Ben Affleck’s wife is pretty hot, but something about the way she’s reading her lines makes me queasy.
• Why the goddamn academy insists on keeping awards like costume design on the big show I’ll never know. This is the reason why the whole damned thing runs 8x too long…move the bullshit awards to a preshow like the technical awards. The asshole that slaved for hours to make Eddie Murphy look like an 80 year old man is NOT more important than the asshole that slaved for months to make a more comfortable and environmentally sound director’s chair.
• Steve Carell annoys me.
• Best makeup…file this with costumes…nobody cares goddamnit. Strike that, I’m sure about 6 people care, but they suck.
• Since when is Hollywood calling the Rock Dwayne Johnson? What did he do besides his awesome performance in Be Cool to drop his wrestling moniker and become a serious actor?
• Golden Compass beat Pirates 3 and Transformers for best special effects?! Jesus christ. CocaCola has been doing animated Polar Bears for over 10 years…lame.
• Redscape and I have spoke on this before, Cate Blanchett and sometimes look hot and sometimes look terrifyingly manish. Tonight she looks pregnant.
• Johnny Depp is just cool all the time…but his wife is missing a tooth. Hockey?
• How fair is it that the art directors for Sweeney Todd win? The movie’s based on a Broadway musical, and my opinion, half of their work was done…am I wrong?
• Jennifer Hudson couldn’t have been anymore wooden reading her lines for best supporting actor (which I hope little Affleck wins, although PSH is a great actor, and I can’t wait to see Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men)
• Bardem wins Best Supporting, I’m extremely happy for the Coens…they’re great at their craft(s).
• The two Best Songs performed so far have sucked. I hearken back to the days of “It’s Hard out here for a Pimp“
• If we’re lucky, Owen Wilson will succeed where he failed months ago while on stage.
• Okay…foreign shit. Make an “Academy for Foreign Awards” and cut this shit out too. It’ll save us all about 45 minutes of time that we’ll never get back. I’m an American and I want to watch the Oscars for American cinema. If you don’t agree, there are other websites for you to be reading, I’m not breaking your arm.
• The animated-character presentation that started way back when, can that nonsense too. We’re not fooled, and if you think that a 10 year-old made it through the last hour of bullshit awards, speeches and montages, you’re fooling yourself. I’m seconds from turning this crap off, you really think this is more interesting to a kid than Guitar Hero?
• Tilda Swinton hurts to watch.
• I love Sydney Poitier.
• WHY is Mylie Cyrus involved with the Academy Awards?! She’s not nominated for anything…she’s never won anything…and see my argument above about there not being an audience of young people to cater to. Keep the fucking show on task…GODDAMNIT.
• Jessica Alba’s got some mommie-bags. And she did the tech-pre show…should have done the fuckin other useless shit then too.
• w00t! Jack Nicholson.
• Yay! The Coens win for screenplay from existing material. Good.
• I don’t understand how a movie like Bourne Ultimatum (awesome) beats out Transformers in sound editing…I think Transformers had pretty outstanding audio effects, while Bourne had relatively mundane action movie audio effects…
• Great…best actress award goes to someone from a completely foreign film.
• While the third Best Song was complete crap, the forth is relatively good, and no, not only because it’s from an Irish movie. Contrasting this song to the first three is like contrasting an orgasm to a cockpunch.
• As a man growing old in Hollywood, are you forced to wear a white scarf?
• FUCK…was there any OTHER music in Hollywood this year than in this crap from Enchanted?! Three of the five songs are from the same fuckin movie. Put Johnny Depp’s ass up there to sing something from Sweeney Todd or something. Shit…this knob singing the last one looks like a Real World reject.
• Piss…Sweeney Todd wouldn’t have original songs.
• w00t! The Irish song won…take that Enchanted, tricking the odds doesn’t always win you shit. Assholes.
• Shit on me…the original Moneypenny died.
• They actually had some real soldiers in Iraq present an award. That’s pretty awesome. Way to acknowledge that we still have soldiers over there and there’s still a war going on.
• If SiCKO wins for docu, will they let Michael Moore speak? It didn’t.
• Man, Harrison Ford is aging well. Though it seems like his speech is getting slower. I hope that’s just the way he’s reading and not something wrong with the guy.
• Juno wins best original screenplay. My wife just saw that movie today, and claims it was really good. I just have no interest in seeing it. This writer woman has a badass tattoo on her right shoulder.
• I’m inclined to root for George Clooney, if only because he’s been my guy for many years…but this fight has Daniel Day Lewis, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones and VIGGO…christ. Quite a sampling of great modern actors. I’m torn. Whoever wins I’m happy. It’s DDL…I gotta see There Will be Blood.
• We just tripped over 3 hours runtime…c’mon.
• They just showed the last bit of James Cameron’s speech from when he won for Titanic, he said “I’m the king of the world”…what a fuckin tool. You wanna impress me get off your asshole and make another True Lies.
• Marty Scorcese is wearing the same tux from last year I think. Maybe they just freeze dry him and rehydrate his shit for these shows.
• I hope the Coens win Best Directors.
• w00t!!! They did! Fuck yeah!!
• Shit on a dog! They just won best picture too.

Aside from a few bits of Jon Stewart, some of the awards and getting to see some of the familiar faces, I could have skipped this whole thing. It was far too drawn out and seemed that most of it was all about honoring itself.

If anyone’s reading this and has some pull with the Academy, trim the fat next year. Please. There’s no reason why this should run longer than 120 minutes, and you’ll still have time for the montages and shit if you just cut out the unnecessary garbage.

**spoiler warning**

Right now you’re saying, “Holy Shit, MJS…after listening to the Thousand Cuts podcasts, we all know how you felt about A History of Violence, so why the fuck would you subject yourself to another David Cronenberg movie starring Viggo?” By now, you should know that I’m your goddamn guardian angel, throwing myself in front of bad movies so that you don’t get blind sided (see: Jumper). That being said, I present to you: Eastern Promises starring VIGGO! and Naomi Watts.

The first two minutes grabbed me straight-thefuck-away, with a brutally awesome throat-cut barbershop-quartet style! Aside from batshit-crazy sex scenes, David Cronenberg’s known for his brutally realistic killing scenes.

The mood was then quickly set in quite the opposite direction, since I’m nearly certain that the house that Naomi Watts lives in with her parents is the same one that Viggo ratchet-fucked Maria Bello up the stairs in in History of Violence. Ick.

Then my mood turned upward as Viggo looks like a total badass mobster with a Ditka-do and his running buddy is none other than the Night Fox! This is good. Not only did Viggo decide sport the Iron Mike, but he’s got a sweet Crazy Ivan accent. The Night Fox, in comparison, wears a fugly combover only a young Trump would love. I suppose that it’s visual contrast like this makes Cronenburg a critically acclaimed director. Ain’t the movie business grand?

Fifteen minutes in and Viggo and the Night Fox have already traded ass-swats twice…if they’re homosexuals it’d be an odd twist for their type of character. Seconds later, Viggo seems smitten on Naomi Watts. Maybe a dutch door? Seconds later still, they’re drinking and fucking around with 13 year old russian whores…and the Night Fox in an angry drunken rage insists that Viggo bang one to prove he’s not a queer. wtf?

The thrust of the story FINALLY presents itself about 30 minutes in. At the beginning, a pregnant woman died while giving birth, and Naomi Watts happened to be the midwife. In taking care of the baby, she discovered a diary on the woman and asked her Uncle and also a local man to translate it. The local guy happens to be the town mafioso…the Night Fox’s dad and Viggo’s boss. The diary recounts plenty of bad things about the Mob boss, i.e. raping and beating the girl. Add to the story that the girl was 14 and Mob Boss is the daddy, and you’ve got a big problem for the ‘family’. So now, everyone’s in a pickle…but I’m still waiting for Viggo to rip someone’s arms off and eat the flesh from them like drumsticks.

I would report that this movie feels pretty authenic…nothing has been over the top or overly hollywoodized, there’s been alot of actual Ruskie-speak sprinkled in with the English. It makes for a nice departure from some of the other shit I’ve recently watched.

The plot thickens quickly, and soon Viggo is jumped by Chechyan thugs while he’s butt naked in a bath house. The scene would kick total ass if his junk wasn’t flailing around in the breeze the whole time. But he does kick both of their asses, gouging one guy’s eye out with a knife. Over all a great scene that fits the movie but satisfies that action-jones.

The movie ends slightly predictably but good nonetheless. I’m presently surprised by the great acting, good story and great direction. Recommended viewing…don’t be put off by the history of this director/actor combo. This performance confirms to me that Viggo’s really turning into a great actor.

**spoiler warning**

Upon seeing the first trailer for Jumper, I had high hopes…The idea of the Jumper is pretty sweet…apparently you can jump to any place you’ve seen, even if it’s only from a picture.

Upon seeing the first half hour of Jumper, I wished I had gotten high and forgotten to watch the movie. This movie is total crap. Sadly, Hayden Christensen will always be Anakin Skywalker, no matter how much better an actor he becomes. This movie is not his first step forward, and he continues to showcase his skills as a mannequin.

Right away Sam Jackson lets HayStack know that he knows what he is…a fight ensues (apparently a Jumper can’t jump when he’s been electrocuted) and HayThereGeorgieBoy escapes. Although instead of using his amazing ability to escape far FAR away to a place where he’s unknown, he goes back to his home town to confront his childhood crush and crush his childhood bully…and forgets about the fact that someone knows about his ability and knows how to fight it. Nice move, shitheel…way to reassociate yourself with someone who knows your name and acquaintances. The first thing he does is jump the bully to an obvious place for Samson to find and then wisks his lady friend off to Rome. She, having not seen him for eight years, of course agrees immediately to leaving and they fly to Italia. Now, the last time she saw him, he had fallen into a frozen river, and apparently everyone had thought he drown. But today he shows up and wants to take her to Rome, and she just goes. Nice plot hole.

In Rome, HayNow meets another Jumper, a particularly annoying Irishman who SamTown is also hunting. At this point I want to leave, but I feel like I’ve already invested this much time in the goddamn travesty. A jump-fight ensues between the two Jumpers and some nondescript bad guys in the Coliseum.

After having been on screen for about 15 minutes to this point, Rachel Bilson proves to be a complete waste of flesh. Her character has no character, no motivation…is totally worthless except as eye candy for HayNut. Out of the entire runtime of the movie, there’s about 40 seconds where you get the feeling you’re about to see their relationship mature…but you’re mistaken and something stupid happens.

SamButt and his cronies are called Paladins apparently, and they’ve ‘hunted Jumpers since medieval times’. This is ALL of the back story you get…gag.

Of course, the end passes by with some more jump-fighting. Rachel Bilson quickly accepts HayMaster’s weirdness and they are in love without a hint of anything resembling a story. Which in hindsight is a good thing since I’ve seen how this writer goes about his business, and I’m more than happy to not know anything else about these characters.

This movie would be completely unwatchable without the idea of the ‘jumping’…as it stands this movie is simply unwatchable. Spare yourself the anguish and watch something else…

And even shittier still….

Thanks to the high technology we have access to here at Shouting Grounds, I was able to recreate the original image:

George Bush really does care about black people!!

A small sampling…

Bravo I say! Braaaavo!