Who should and who will win?

##Best Picture

[[fellowship_logo]]
• **Should Win: [[The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring]]**. It’s quite simply the ballsiest thing I’ve ever seen. It has been considered to be unadaptable for the 40 years since its publication. The movie is quite simply a grand achievment in the impossible. I’m afraid that it won’t win simply because it’s a fantasy film.
• **Will Win: [[A Beautiful Mind]]**. It’s a simpler easier to digest film that has a story that Hollywood likes.

##Best Director

[[pjoscars]]
• **Should Win: Peter Jackson**. Similar to the Best Picture, Peter Jackson actually directed 7 different units spread out over different locations in New Zealand over a period of 18 months (the average shoot for a movie is 3 months), and somehow kept his sanity while keeping the entire thing in his head. This monumental effort deserves to be recognized.
• **Will Win: Ron Howard**. It’s simple. Everyone likes Ron Howard. Many think he should have won for “Apollo 13”. I’m one of them. But it shouldn’t happen this year.

##Best Actor

• **Should Win: Denzel Washington**. He should have won for *The Hurricane” and for ”Malcom X*. Everybody likes him.
• **Will Win: Denzel Washington**. Everybody thinks Russel Crowe is a prick. ‘Nuff said.

##Best Actress

• **Should Win: Halle Barry**.
• **Will Win: Sissy Spacek**.

##Best Supporting Actor

[[gandalf]]
• **Should Win: [[Ian McKellen]]**. Never has someone so completely inhabited a character as Sir Ian did with Gandalf. His interpretation is so spot on that he quite literally *is* Gandalf in the minds of most fans of the books. His performance is both brilliant and accessible. He deserves to be recognized.
• **Will Win: [[Ian McKellen]]**. The academy realizes this.

##Best Supporting Actress

• **Should Win**:
• **Will Win**:

With 50% of the vote for Best Picture, IMDB members think it’s obvious.

Fellowship is going to sweep!

Roger Ebert picks the oscars.

He likes the chances of Lord of the Rings, but ultimately picks Moulin Rouge.

I began Oscar season convinced that “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” had a lock on this category. It is visionary, expensive, and has two sequels already in the can. If it is true (and it is) that one of the purposes of the Academy Awards is to improve future business, LOTR has more to gain than its competitors. It is also a pretty good picture–the kind of sweeping epic that reminds us of Hollywood’s glory days.

But then… no.

It won’t be long until there is only Linux, BSD/OSX, WinBlows
the other propritery OS (AIX, IRIX, HP-UX, SCO, Solaris, TRU-64) go the way of the dodo

George Will certainly doesn’t like the sounds of that.

Proving himself less principled than Bill Clinton regarding the free-trade principles that are indispensable to world prosperity and comity, President Bush has done what Clinton refused to do. In the name of providing *breathing space* for the U.S. steel industry, which has been on the respirator of protection for decades, Bush has cooked up an unpalatable confection of tariffs and import quotas that mock his free-trade rhetoric.

I think it’s a tough call. While I agree that free trade is the right answer in the long run, what do you say to the steel workers and their families when they can’t find a job because of the recession?

Andy Ihnatiko loves the new iMac!

Only Apple seems to get the idea that a Great Idea is only a Great Idea when it’s shaped by an understanding of how people interact with technology and what they expect out of their machines.

If Bill Gates figured out that Implications Inform Implementations, bad karma wouldn’t cling to the guy like sweat to an Amazon rainforest field researcher.

But I chiefly put forth that mumbo-jumbo for the Pulitzer committee. To you folks, I simply say: It’s cool, it’s cool, it’s cool, oh GAWD …

Hey Pulitzer dudes… are you listening???

I guess the new version of The Time Machine kinda sucks!

As the TIME MACHINE ended in the theater here in Austin last night, a group of film fans instantly assembled to tear the film to shreds…
There are moments of beauty, seconds of awe and over an hour of mediocrity and tripe. Had you a time machine, I recommend skipping the time it takes to see this movie.

I guess I’ll wait for the DVD 🙂

LINUX was used for much of the computer animation seen in Fellowship of the Ring.

Tolkien’s weird and wonderful cast of Middle-earth creatures will be vastly enhanced in parts two and three of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy using software that runs on a free operating system.

But while the improvement in computer-generated fantasy figures may wow audiences, their production is hurting high-performance computing giant Silicon Graphics Inc.

Isn’t open source software wonderful 🙂

I found this speech made by Courtney Love on why she supports Napster-like technology.

What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’s work without any intention of paying for it. I’m not talking about Napster-type software.

I’m talking about major label recording contracts.

It’s not the artists that have a problem with the MP3 revolution, it’s the record labels.

Look at it this way. There are two kinds of musicians, and they should get paid for very different things:

1. Composers
2. Performers

###Composers

Composers write music. They should be paid for the copies of their scores that are used by others in performance.

###Performers

Performers perform. They get paid to perform.

###Notice who’s missing?

The record companies. The music industry changed during the 20th century, and the musicians have gotten screwed. Record companies developed that own equipment that’s far too expensive for most musicians to afford. They also have the money to produce mass quantities of recordings for the public to buy. Because of this, they exact a toll on the true artists.

With the MP3 revolution, everything is in place for the record companies to go the way of the horse drawn carriage. Musicians can now get their music directly to the consumer who can later pay to see a performance. This scares the record companies to death. They see the writing on the wall.

In his acceptance speech, he blasts the music industry for its attitude towards the digital revolution.

##I’ve Paid Enough

The lesson of Napster, which popularised unauthorised music-sharing on the Internet, had more to do with convenience than the fact users could get music free of charge, in Jobs’ view. “We believe that over 80percent of people are willing to pay,” he says. “But there is no one offering you a choice.”

Exactly!

I own many CDs that I used to town on cassette tape, that I used to own on LP. I’ve paid enough! I’m not going to pay again for the priviledge of getting music into an MP3 player! I should be able to rip music from my legally purchased CDs into an MP3 player. Period!