Yesterday, Microsoft demoed a telephone conversation where one person spoke in English and the other in German, and the computer translated to the opposite language so they could have a conversation. This is very cool, and accurate enough to have simple conversations. From the YouTube description:
What if your computer could transcribe and translate, in near real-time, a phone conversation you're having with someone speaking a language you don't understand? That's the promise of one prototype demonstrated by Microsoft researchers today during a preview of the company's annual TechFest event.
Earlier today I was reading an article on TVSquad called "Six Reasons Why '24' Has Jumped the You-Know-What" and I was thinking about how we just listed most of those points last week.
Well, for this week's episode they decided to out-do themselves. As if those previous points weren't enough, there were a bunch of unbelievable lapses in logic. Starting with the most obvious, Renee stabbed Jack in the gut. Stabbed. Quickly. Forcefully. As expected, Jack fell over. But seconds later, he is able to prop himself up and fling the knife, the one that was lodged in his stomach, into a guy's neck across the room. And then a couple of minutes after that, he puts a gauze pad on it, after which he is running around like nothing happened for the rest of the episode. Bullshit.
Next up, air surveillance. Ok, so they didn't see vehicles leave the building with Jack. Wouldn't it be obvious that they could not have gotten very far? They were on foot in a tunnel, so they couldn't have even gone half a mile to get in that SUV, which is still in the middle of a GIANT, DARK, EMPTY AREA with its bright headlights. Can't CTU's "aerial coverage", I don't know, ZOOM THE FUCK OUT to spot nearby vehicles? It's not rush hour in the middle of downtown.
Renee didn't get found in the closet. BS. Super lame.
Jack "knew" the guys that came in wouldn't shoot him. How did he know anything about them, aside from the fact they came to check on Vlad? They could easily have shot him before realizing he may have information.
Jack just runs out assuming CTU has arrived, without a gun or weapon. Since when did Jack become as stupid as the other CTU agents? The real Jack Bauer would never trust any situation. He'd sure as hell have a gun at all times.
And finally, the usual
Dana and the warehouse robbery. Don't care.
Hassan, his daughter and his assistant/lackey. Don't care.
White House and peace process. Don't care.
Which all leads me to my conclusion:
I'm going to stop watching this season of 24. Maybe I'll go back and watch the first 5 seasons, and simply pretend that the other seasons don't exist.
So we're 6 episodes in already, and I've gotta say, this season is slow and lackluster. It's taking a long time on setup, and it doesn't seem like there is going to be much of a payoff. The only real storyline is the acquiring of nukes. But what happened to Hassan's brother that escaped? They didn't even show him in last night's episode. The Jack/Renee plot is the main storyline and it's moving quite slow. Finally Jack's getting thrown in the mix next week and it looks like there will be some action.
All of the side plots have been completely boring, linear, and/or predictable. The guy that took his sick brother to a doctor to have the radiation poisoning treated and his father found out, the Jenny/Dana getting extorted by her old boyfriend while nobody in CTU does anything about her acting weird and breaching security, and the breakdown of the peace process and typical White House BS storyline. All useless distractions, and all those sideplots are so weak that I don't even want them to intersect the main storyline, though I am sure they will. They also introduce giant plotholes. How hard would it be for Dana to tell people at CTU what's going on and get her ex-boyfriend busted? It would be easier/less damaging than helping him steal money, even if her stupid secret is exposed. The father killing his son with the radiation poisoning was totally unneccessary, and would he really not realize that his other son probably wants to kill him now? He acts like it will make his son loyal to him. And the White House. Ugh!
Apparently Mad TV was ahead of it's time with this sketch...it was uploaded to YouTube in 2007, but I have no idea when it actually aired. Regardless, pretty hilarious that it's popularity has obviously spiked now that Apple has actually introduced a (crappy) product called the iPad, a tablet that can't multitask, looks and acts like a giant iPhone, can't handle flash, has no camera, can't play 1080p, etc.
(Warning: It aired on FOX, but it's probably considered borderline NSFW)
I haven't forgotten about 24, nor have I stopped watching it. I just decided to abstain from reviewing the episodes every week as I have in the past, because some weeks are not as interesting or some plots are not that interesting, so it's not always fun or useful to review every single episode. I'm sure I will still live-blog the season finale.
So instead, I'm putting up a brief post and letting the discussion go on in the comments. This week's a doozy since, as usual, they kicked off the season with 4 episodes in 1 week! There's so much to talk about...the new director of CTU is an idiot, ignoring obvious leads and doing everything with a ridiculous hunch, Chloe is suspicious of the new girl who's being blackmailed into doing stuff, Jack's obviously back in action though he keeps trying to leave, Renee's return, people escape the perimeter (shock!), etc.
Note: This post's comments will contain spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven't seen these episodes yet!
Yep, they're back from holiday break, and both shows are now in HD! This is awesome, though useless to me until Comcast finally rolls out Comedy Central HD in the downtown Chicago area. But many of the suburbs have it already, so it can't be too far off! I wonder if their online content (both new and old) will be available in HD as well.
The last podcast episode of 2009 is 58 minutes of gold from the first year of Tremendous Upside! We didn't even bother recording an intro--no new material! Please enjoy this holiday gift from us to you and pass it around. If you only listen to one podcast this year, make it this one!
After Thanksgiving week off, we're back with Episode 19! This week Dave and I talk about Thanksgiving, Football, Twitter, 24, Recipes, answer mailbag questions, and more!
I don't think there's any major spoilers in this...I just found it was a good way to remember 24 is going to be back on soon, and how awesome it's going to be!
Somehow an unofficial episode of Tremendous Upside: Weekend Edition has leaked onto the internet...you can tell it's not authentic because the lack of production. Someone must have stolen the raw tapes.
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