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Erlang the Movie


From: [email protected] (Mike Williams)
To: [email protected]

[...]

As one of the main "actors" in "Erlang the Movie", I
absolutely and categorically forbid its showing *anywhere*. If there
was a competition for "turkey" short movies, I think we would win
hands down.

So, please, please, please, forget we made that retched film in 1990!

That's right, now you too can own the movie that "Bjarne used whenever he wanted to get rid of unwanted guests at CS lab parties"! Download the torrent or the file on erlang.org if you have 200MB of disk space to spare!

No, no and again, NO!!!

By Luke Gorrie at 2004-08-17 17:37 | Fun | other blogs | 29344 reads

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Couldn't get the video to work.

Could anyone else get the video to work? I tried Microsofts player, Quicktime, and "DivX Player". Nothing worked. Dad gummit, I wanna see Bjarne's acting debut!

By Derek Ross at Fri, 2004-08-20 16:03 | login or register to post comments

Player

I found an "MPEG Player" on VersionTracker that worked on my Mac OS X 10.3.5 system. YMMV.

By Paul Snively at Fri, 2004-08-20 16:16 | login or register to post comments

MPlayer or MPlayerOSX

Both work...

By Brian T Rice at Fri, 2004-08-20 16:49 | login or register to post comments

Looks like it's Mac-only

I even went so far as to install http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/ (I recommend it) on my work machine, to no avail. Was anyone able to view it using any software running on Windows XP (SP2)?

By Jonathan Graehl at Fri, 2004-08-20 18:53 | login or register to post comments

Video Lan Client

worked for me in Windows
Pretty cool video actually, if you can get past the geekiness/general awkwardness.

By Jeff Cutsinger at Fri, 2004-08-20 23:39 | login or register to post comments

Cool Video

Jeff Cutsinger: Pretty cool video actually, if you can get past the geekiness/general awkwardness.

I wasn't going to say anything, but to me, the geekiness/general awkwardness is a considerable part of its charm.

For a somewhat more modern example of the same phenomenon, compare and contrast this 3rd-generation Unreal technology presentation with this one.

Don't hurt me, Tim! ;-)

By Paul Snively at Sat, 2004-08-21 00:17 | login or register to post comments

Video Lan Client worked for me

Thanks,
Video Lan Client worked for me with WinXP. Ha ha... "Hello Joe. Hello Mike. Hello Mike. Hello Robert. Hello Joe, Hello Mike. Hello."

By Derek Ross at Sat, 2004-08-21 03:05 | login or register to post comments

I enjoyed it; whereas the not

I enjoyed it; whereas the notorious Introducing Python made me cringe a lot. Which I suppose is really good if you're British.

"Mustn't appear too desperate... I'll just let it ring a couple times."

By Tayssir John Gabbour at Sat, 2004-08-21 05:22 | login or register to post comments

Ugh

This film (and the Python one) should be regarded as an admonition never to let a computer scientist (resp. hacker) in front of a camera.

When I make "The (Rocky Horror) Arrow Film", I will be sure to hire only hot gothic succubi in PVC and lace to parade impishly in front of the camera, swish their cat-o'-nine-tails to and fro suggestively, and make lewd and profane advances to the camera (behind which, of course, you will find me). I believe this would be about as relevant and informative as these films were, and rather more enjoyable.

BTW, was anyone else reminded of the communist manifesto and a call for world revolution on watching the opening scene? ("When the revolution comes, imperative programmers will be the first ones with their backs against the wall." :)

"Hello Joe. Hello Mike. Hello Mike. Hello Robert. Hello Joe, Hello Mike. Hello."

This recalled a scene at the beginning of Northfork.

By Frank Atanassow at Sat, 2004-08-21 17:28 | login or register to post comments

The FPL Manifesto

BTW, was anyone else reminded of the communist manifesto and a call for world revolution on watching the opening scene? ("When the revolution comes, imperative programmers will be the first ones with their backs against the wall." :)

I was reminded of this.

By Daniel Yokomizo at Sat, 2004-08-21 18:19 | login or register to post comments

Why?

I don't see the relevance...

By Frank Atanassow at Sat, 2004-08-21 18:41 | login or register to post comments

The result of such revolutions

The post I linked was written in the tone of socialist state propaganda, which is the usual result of such revolutions. I use to make (seemingly) unrelated associations with some subjects.

By Daniel Yokomizo at Sun, 2004-08-22 00:32 | login or register to post comments

Ah.

I see; I missed the part at the end there.

Actually, I was thinking more of the opening image, which reminds me of all those portraits of Lenin. I couldn't find a really close one, but try for example here, here, here and here. More here.

By Frank Atanassow at Sun, 2004-08-22 15:41 | login or register to post comments

If the career in academia doesn't pan out

May I suggest that a career in goth-sploitation film-making beckons?

By Dominic Fox at Sat, 2004-08-21 20:55 | login or register to post comments

Well...

Although I can't find any URL's for it at the moment, there is a
set of DVD's where porn actresses explain networking concepts
such as TCP/IP and firewalling while stripping and looking generally
tempting. That would fit the bill for `Gothic succubi', would it not?

And yeah, the opening (and closing) scene definitely smacked heavily of propaganda. I was reminded of the original Tetris though, somehow.

By Arthur van Leeuwen at Mon, 2004-08-23 13:05 | login or register to post comments

There's "Cryptic Seduction" too

there is a set of DVD's where porn actresses explain networking concepts such as TCP/IP and firewalling

On porn and computer science there's also Cryptic Seduction.

By Daniel Yokomizo at Mon, 2004-08-23 22:50 | login or register to post comments

Available from Google

Video care of Google. It is a wonderful video to watch. I'm sad that the bug they chose to show was something a static checker should easily have found.

By raould at Fri, 2006-04-21 18:09 | login or register to post comments