Eddie On Everything » movies

Get Free Movie Downloads from Amazon

eddie — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:12:22 +0000

Adobe’s penchant for poor application design strikes again! See this news story, recorded earlier today:

Hole in Adobe software allows free movie downloads

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A security hole in Adobe Systems Inc software, used to distribute movies and TV shows over the Internet, is giving users free access to record and copy from Amazon.com Inc’s video streaming service.

The problem exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience.

“It’s a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,” said Bruce Schneier, a security expert who is also the chief security technology officer at British Telecom.

That’s right, it looks like you can easily download many for-pay movies for free, and then save those movies on your hard drive. You are then able to make as many copies as you’d like, give the movies away for free, etc.

It’s funny that an Amazon spokesman tries to minimize the issue, saying that the movies “cannot be pirated using video stream catching software,” yet Reuters reports that they were able to do exactly that using relatively inexpensive software.

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Why you shouldn’t use Amazon’s Unbox Service

eddie — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:01:26 +0000

Amazon’s Unbox service allows customers to purchase movies & tv shows for viewing on their computer or Tivo DVR. When purchasing a movie, you’re often presented with 2 choices – you can rent the movie for around $4, or you can purchase the movie for about the price of a DVD, about $20. If you choose to purchase the movie, a copy is stored in your “Digital Locker” and you are entitled to watch and re-watch the movie as many times as you’d like. Sounds like a pretty cool idea, right?

Not so fast.

Check out Amazon’s Wii purchase policy, found over on the Slickdeals forum:

Wii Purchase Policy
As you may know, the Nintendo Wii is in great demand, and there are shortages of this product across the U.S. In an effort to provide as many customers as possible with the opportunity to purchase a Wii, we are limiting the number of Wiis customers can purchase in a given calendar month. As a result, each household may only purchase up to 3 Nintendo Wii units per calendar month.

Failure to comply with this policy will result in account actions including, but not limited to:

Cancellation of all outstanding orders, including Wii orders and other orders.
Closure of the offending customer account and related accounts, including:
The customer account used for making purchases and selling items on Amazon.com Seller accounts
Any international accounts at Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, or Amazon.co.jp
The Your Media Library account area, including any digital products you may have purchased
Any Amazon.com Associates account or Advantage account attached to the closed account
When an account is closed, access to any Amazon Wish List, Baby or Wedding Registry, or profile pages is lost. Any purchase history, saved gifts in Gift Central, and digital products in Your Media Library will not be accessible. Additionally, any outstanding Amazon.com gift certificate or check funds balance will be unavailable.

That’s right – if you do something that Amazon doesn’t like, which can be (gasp!) simply purchasing too many of a particular product from them, they will CLOSE your Unbox account, taking away all of the digital content that you’ve previously paid for.

This is no different than Amazon sending an agent out to your house to repossess all books & DVD’s that they’ve sold you i the past, simply because the decided that you shouldn’t have them any more.

Amazon Unbox? Thanks but no thanks, Amazon. I’ll never use the service again.

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Aykroyd “Unplugged” UFO Movie Amateurish, Full of Comical Errors

eddie — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:15:40 +0000

And not only that, but it’s clear throughout that Dan Aykroyd has lost his marbles.

The CNN Interview
Dan Aykroyd appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper the other day, and I happened to catch it. (Watch the Video | Read the transcript). In the interview, Aykroyd talks about his new documentary Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs, in which he reveals a life-long interest in the extraterrestial.

He starts the interview sounding well-reasoned and believable enough, saying that he has personally seen an object that he could not identify, and that he believes that there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that supports a UFOs-are-flying-around theory. OK, Dan, I’m with ya so far. He soon starts to veer off into the absurd by relaying an experience in which alien beings were communicating with him as he slept, commanding him to go outside and look up into the sky.

Um, what?

Either Dan is joking or this is going to be one entertaining movie, I thought. This I have to see!

The Movie

I got ahold of the flick, and I’m sad to report that by the end of the movie, it’s clear that Dan isn’t joking. He isn’t playing a character, nor is he just goofing around. The man is nuts. No, I’m not kidding. Nuts as in “Bonkers.” Crazy. Looney. One-step-away-from-a-rubber-room, running-naked-through-the-town screaming-mad insane.

The Government is Tailing Dan Aykroyd with an Invisible Car

Why do I say this? You kind of have to see the movie to get the full effect, but here’s one scene – the movie culminates with Dan Aykroyd accusing the US government of orchestrating the cancellation of his cable show, presumably because “he knows too much.” His proof?

“On the day my show was cancelled, I was on the phone with Britney Spears and a black Ford sedan was following me. Eventually it stopped, and a man wearing all black got out. I turned away for one second, and when I looked back, it had VANISHED! It didn’t drive away, it VANISHED. Cars can’t drive away that fast. This vehicle didn’t drive away- it disappeared. This was a secret “cloaked vehicle”.

I believe this was intended as a “warning” to me, because I was getting too close.

No, he isn’t kidding. It’s really all very sad.

Spotty Proof

Equally as sad, only in a different way, is the movie itself. For its primary support, the movie leans on meaningless and often contradictory popular opinion polls. “50% of Americans believe in UFOs.” “80% americans believe in a government coverup of UFOs.” “Over 3 million Americans claim to have been abducted by UFOs.” “9 out of 10 dentists prefer Crest.”

The movie also relies on eyewitnesses who are clearly lying through their teeth. Case in point, in one scene, a man identified as Ken Storch, “USAF Retired 1969-1974,” tells a fantastic tale of which he reportedly has first hand knowledge.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

According to Storch, a “UFO incident” (of which he reportedly has personal knowledge) in the early 70s brought the US and Russia to the brink of nuclear war. In describing the incident, the alleged retired 5-year Air Force man describes U.S. DEFCON (“Defense Condition”) levels completely backwards. He says that the US “upgraded … the DEFCON from 3 to 5,” and described “DEFCON 5″ as “the level at which the nuclear missles would be launched.”

Um, hello Airman! Any 10 year old who’s seen the movie “Independence Day” knows that DEFCON ONE is the highest defensive condition, not DEFCON 5. On the contrary, DEFCON 5 is the lowest alert level possible:

* DEFCON 1: Maximum force readiness.
* DEFCON 2: Increased force readiness (less than maximum).
* DEFCON 3: Increased force readiness.
* DEFCON 4: Peacetime; Increased intelligence; Strengthened security measures.
* DEFCON 5: Peacetime.

You’d think that a five year Air Force vet would know this, wouldn’t you? You’d think that someone who claims to have “personal knowledge” and to have been involved in the US coming inches away from lauching a nuclear attack would know at least as much about the DEFCON levels as a 12 year old, wouldn’t you?

My lord, I’d at least think that the filmmaker, or the production staff, or even Dan freaking Aykroyd would have done a little fact checking before deciding that some guy off the street with a story to tell was the real deal.

This little part is even made better by the seeming accuracy of the guys statements. “At that time, Richard Milhaus Nixon picked up the phone….” Oooooh, using the President’s middle name – very official and authoritative sounding. But mucking up the “DEFCON” levels? Come on, Ken Storch, admit – the closest you’ve ever come to the Air Force has been in the daily flights of fancy that you take as you imagine yourself as the King of Sweden.

A Cacophony of Errors

It would take me hours to list everything ridiculous about this movie, so here are just a few quick hits:

Aykroyd: “The day that a million people, at a rock concert in Idaho see [a UFO] that’s when you’ll really get [a government response].” Wow, that’s a ginormous rock concert, Dan! Where would they hold it? Oh, I know, we’ll move Notre Dame Stadium there – and make it TWELVE TIMES LARGER. The whole state of Idaho barely has one million people total population (Idaho — Population: 1,293,953), let alone rock fans. I didn’t choose this to pick on the guy for making a slip of the tongue, or anything like that – this is just one example of Dan saying fantastically ridiculous things. This is one example of hundreds, taken from the ramblings of a madman.
Thinking that he’s proving, once and for all, that the government is covering up alleged alien encounters of our astronauts, the interviewer asks Dan, “If you really wanted to go to space, but they would only let you go up if you swore to keep the alien encounters a secret, would you go up and agree to keep it secret?” WHAT?
Throughout the movie, Aykroyd hypothesizes that the alien races that are currently visiting us are hundreds of thousands or even billions of years ahead of us in technology. Billions of years ahead of us in technology and the best craft they can come up with crashed in New Mexico in 1947, right? In 100 years, we went from Kitty Hawk to the Moon, but in one billion years the aliens haven’t figured out how to build a craft that doesn’t look like my mother’s pressure cooker? And they haven’t figured out that to sneak in late at you have to turn off your headlights and coast while you approach, so you’re not visible to every Tom, Dick, and Dan on the ground?
“They are here to help us,” says Dan. “The beings are concerned about us, want to give us the opportunity to advance ourselves. … I really want to know, 300 years from now – did we make it?” Yes, the aliens made it billions of years with no help at all, yet we can’t make it another 300 without E.T.’s assistance.
What in the world is “the crop circle movement?” It’s a movement now?
The Feynman quote doesnt support your movie, kids. It’s completely contrary to your message. Do you not understand English? Maybe if it was in Klingon…

All in all, I suppose that the movie is pretty entertaining, if you take it entertainment-only. As a “documentary,” however it’s pretty pathetic.

It’s also pretty sad to see how crazy-paranoid Dan Aykroyd has become – I mean, come on, he was a freaking Ghostbuster! A GHOSTBUSTER! If you grew up in the 80’s, like I did, you know that there ain’t much cooler than a GHOSTBUSTER. If you want to remember Dan Aykroyd properly, you may want to skip this feature so he’s always “Ray” to you.