R rated movies on the decline

As reported in Variety, studios are making less R movies and more PG or PG-13 movies. The headline suggests it is a result of the political climate, but the story spends more words talking about the cultural climate. They do suggest PG-13 movies are a safer gamble than R movies, and movie producers are savvy gamblers.

PG-13 films have eclipsed R's as the largest sector of the market, grossing a combined $4.4 billion, a 48% share of the market.

No single cause is likely responsible for the shift, but many execs cite one factor: the voluntary guidelines studios and exhibs adopted five years ago. Those regs restrict the marketing of R-rated films to kids, which in theory ensures that only people 17 and older can buy tickets to R-rated films.

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"You're leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table with an R rating," says one studio marketing exec. "Why? For artistic integrity? Let's be real."

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(At the same time, there is evidence that today's PG-13 is more like yesterday's R. Last summer, a Harvard study found that current films with PG-13 ratings and below had more violence, sex and profanity than films of the same ratings 10 years prior.)

Some see the decline in grosses for R films as a barometer of the cultural climate. "Hollywood has done a great job of making PG movies that don't just appeal to kids but appeal to everybody," says Revolution partner Tom Sherak.

So producers are trimming their R movies down to PG-13, but PG-13 movies show more than R movies did a generation ago. Are we better or worse now than we used to be? I think better. A good rating system should cover the entire spectrum (or at least the useful spectrum) and allow the consumer to make educated choices. I don't believe R or even NC-17 movies should be banned - there's some content which cannot, in my opinion, be accurately portrayed under a lesser rating. The Passion of the Christ (R) sits as one example -- the Bible may be good for all manner of instruction, but it deals with many topics that cannot earn a G rating without losing much of their significance. Having G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 gives us the information to choose a movie based on the kinds of content we're comfortable with. And yet, as I'm discovering with games for the PlayStation 2, they don't tell the whole story. About a month ago, we bought Disney Extreme Skating Adventure (rated E for Everyone) for Ethan. The content is certainly acceptable, but the game play is way beyond him. On the other hand, The Incredibles game (rated T for Teen, not sure why) is something he can at least make through the first level. I have also discovered that Ec (Early Childhood) games are extremely hard to find for the PS2. Just goes to show, rating systems only rate one thing -- they're useless beyond that.

A major encryption algorithm cracked

This just in from crypto guru Bruce Schneier:

SHA-1 Broken

SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a simplified version. The real thing.

This is a favorite subject of mine, partly because the couple of years I spent with distributed.net, partly from the extreme math/geek factor of crypto algorithms. (I read Schneier's book cover-to-cover, for fun.) A little background from the paper written by the researchers:

One-way hash functions are a cryptographic construct used in many applications. They are used in conjunction with public-key algorithms for both encryption and digital signatures. They are used in integrity checking. They are used in authentication. They have all sorts of applications in a great many different protocols. Much more than encryption algorithms, one-way hash functions are the workhorses of modern cryptography.

So how big a deal is this in a practical sense?

For the average Internet user, this news is not a cause for panic. No one is going to be breaking digital signatures or reading encrypted messages anytime soon. The electronic world is no less secure after these announcements than it was before. ... Jon Callas, PGP's CTO, put it best: "It's time to walk, but not run, to the fire exits. You don't see smoke, but the fire alarms have gone off." That's basically what I said last August.

The full story is in Schneier's blog, full of other tidbits I find juicy.

Yowza, CBS may actually flush out its own dross

Contrary to rumors, it appears that CBS does have some people with a sense of propriety. Shamelessly snipped from Drudge:

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER will report tomorrow: 'Former 60 Minutes Wednesday executive editor Josh Howard has told colleagues that before he resigns, the 23-year CBS News veteran will demand that the network retract remarks by CBS president Leslie Moonves, correct its official story line and ultimately clear his name'... In the event of a lawsuit, Mr. Howard has told associates that he would like to see Moonves put under oath to talk about his own roles in the network's stubborn, hapless defense of the flawed segment on President Bush's National Guard service. Howard has also indicated to colleagues that he would subpoena specific CBS documents, including the e-mails of top executives.

Random site of the week

Study the website for Huh? Corp. for five minutes, then return here. Quiz time: 1. What does this company do/sell/produce? 2. Where are their corporate offices? Do they have any branch offices? 3. What makes them better or different from their competitors? Essay question: 4. In 200 words or less, describe three ways the world could have been made better with the effort put into building this site. Some people have WAYYYYYYYYYYY too much time on their hands. P.S. I loved it!

Power Line has a good piece here about the current state of the influence of the blogosphere over the mainstream media.

Given its lack of desire to report the news objectively, only two things can motivate the MSM to report stories that are embarrassing to liberals. The first is the desire to spin the story and the second is the desire not to be embarrassed itself. Both motives kick in only after a story has gained a considerable amount of buzz, but it's clear that blogs can generate that buzz in certain cases.

The ID card of the Beast

I didn't really go looking, but I just happened upon several interesting stories involving RFID. Several stories were familiar (schools adoption RFID to take attendance, RFID to track cadavers), but the one that really got my attention was about the US House of Representatives passing a bill requiring all states to have an ID card, and for that ID card to have a machine readable component, such as mag stripe or RFID. This isn't just an email rumor, the full text of the bill is in Thomas, the online reference to all bills passed in Congress.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a sweeping set of rules aimed at forcing states to issue all adults federally approved electronic ID cards, including driver's licenses.

Under the rules, federal employees would reject licenses or identity cards that don't comply, which could curb Americans' access to airplanes, trains, national parks, federal courthouses and other areas controlled by the federal government. The bill was approved by a 261-161 vote.

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The Bush administration threw its weight behind the Real ID Act, which has been derided by some conservative and civil liberties groups as tantamount to a national ID card. The White House said in a statement this week that it "strongly supports House passage" of the bill.

This isn't exactly the mark of the beast (hand and forehead), but it's not hard to see how this could turn into a restriction on travel without this pseudo-national ID card. Once the technology is widely accepted, it could be used for other things. I don't want to fall into the slippery-slope fallacy, but I can't imagine why governments and corporations wouldn't want to start using this for commerce. From a practical point of view, it's an obvious progression. From a Christian point of view, keep watching, and keep oil in your lamp.

Technolust

First in a series of links to cool gadgets and such

• TigerVista PowerTrio, three panel multi-monitor rig
• Motion detecting Cube Defender, launches 15 plastic disks in rapid fire whenever someone enters your office/cubicle.
• USB self-powered 80GB hard drive appropriate for carrying with a laptop.
• WindowBlinds software for Windows, delivers on Microsoft's promise of alternative skins for Windows XP, but works all the way back to Win98.
• Beyond Compare for visually comparing, editing and merging files and file trees at the file, line and character level.