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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Deeper Look at SuckerPunch The Movie


Ok, I finally got to watch it and it blows me away. Before you continue reading, I would want to stress that the below are all SPOILERS! If you had not watched the movie, I strongly suggest you do so before you read on because otherwise, you won't understand what I am talking about anyway. Also, you should catch the 3 short animated trailers SPOILERS below!!

Here is my post to links for the 3 short animated features:
http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2011/03/suckerpunch-animated-shorts.html

OK, I think this film is really going to be a cult movie very much like Pulp Fiction and Matrix. Some will not agree, but there are many many deep levels to talk about. First, lets set some terms. I group the reality into 3 levels. The first, being the asylum. The second, the brothel and the third will consist of the 3 other worlds - The Nazis, The Dragon and The Robots. Now, before I go on, I want to talk about the number 5 in SuckerPunch. I read somewhere it took 5 years to cook up the whole SuckerPunch movie and so there are a lot of things in 5s. 5 Heroines, 5 worlds, 5 days to lobotomize, 5 items etc... I think Zack wanted it that way. They could had made 5 level 3 worlds for 5 items, but of course the film would be too long.

So, let me talk about the 5 worlds. The asylum is what we all agree should be the reality. I think the brothel is a world created by Sweet Pea as she mentioned she is the star of the show and then later introduced to BabyDoll. The idea of using music as a therapy is also first applied to Sweet Pea. After BabyDoll was introduced to the brothel, she had her own way to "dance" out the other reality necessary for them to complete their mission. I actually had the thought that BabyDoll was Sweet Pea "Guardien Angel", but I kinda think its Wise Men in the end that was her angel. So, there is a possibility that BabyDoll was nothing more than a split imagination of Sweet Pea, because you will notice that Sweet Pea and BabyDoll has many in common especially the sister relationship.

Back to the remaining 3 worlds. Each of these world represents a conflict, especially if you had watched the 3 animated shorts. The first Nazi worlds is a conflict about the living and the dead. This could had been brought out by the trauma of death of BabyDoll's mother. The second world of the Orcs and Dragon represents a conflict of the religion where the Orcs believe in their "god" - The Dragon and the human denies it. I would interpret it as BabyDoll's blaming that a true "god" did not exist or else all the suffering will not had been rushing to her like a tsunami. In the end, we also see that BabyDoll killed the "god" (Dragon) as a form of denial. The third world of the robots. In the shorts, it was revealed that it was a conflict between the rich and the poor, at least in physical cash. This is probably a result of BabyDoll's father selling her out for money.

After looking at this, I was very inclined to believe that BabyDoll exist and is not part of Sweet Pea imagination, until. I reach the end. After being lobotomized, the movie purposely did not want o reveal BabyDoll's face giving the audience some expectation that it could be of Sweet Pea's instead. Which then would really be a SuckerPunch! But in the end it show that it was of BabyDoll and not Sweet Pea. So maybe BabyDoll did exist.

Now, there is also the never ending question whether Amber, Blondie and Rocket really existed. I guess maybe and maybe not. I did recall seeing a few girls fight in the first scene when BabyDoll was introduced to the theater, but are those girls our heroines? I guess not. But Rocket especially was in many way a shadow of BabyDoll's sister whom she had failed to protect and thus dies in the level 3 world. Their existence however does makes the obtaining of the items much easier to explain. Sweet Pea or BabyDoll would had more trouble getting all those item on them own. The question remains then is, did they really died? Remember in the end, to Dr Gorski, there is only mentioned of her setting a fire and letting one patient (Sweet Pea) escape. I think if 3 patients died, it would be worth mentioning. So I did not think the 3 heroines died. At least not physically. They could had been lobotomized, but it was never mentioned that they faced this fate, especially one scene where it was mentioned to BabyDoll that that's her own problem, not theirs. So, we can simply even imagine they got taken away and isolated and thus could not continue their mission and thus have to die away in the level 2 world. Of course, if we read that these 3 heroines are not even real, then its just fragments of Sweet Pea's or BabyDoll's imagination that died off.

The 5 items was pretty clear, especially the map and the lighter. their purpose was to create the fire that unlock the main door and guide our heroines out. The knife was to defend, but ironically it was used both as a defence and as an attack to obtain the key. The only thing left was the 5th item which was the ultimate sacrifice. If BabyDoll was unreal, it would means that Sweet Pea had to make her final sacrifice to give up her last fragment of imagination before she leaves the asylum. I am more convinced that Sweet Pea did really made the escape in the end. And another segment that supported the fact that BabyDoll was not real was that BabyDoll had to made the last sacrifice to set herself free. In the end, she was lobotomized. One way to explain her getting the freedom is through Sweet Pea. And it seems that the whole thing may had been Sweet Pea imagination because of the Wise Man character. It doesn't make sense for BabyDoll to meet him where the only person that saw him in reality is Sweet Pea at the very end. This could only had been possible is all the other characters were created by Sweet Pea to help herself escape in the end. It was mentioned by Rocket that Sweet Pea came in because of her and that is a suggestion that Sweet Pea is totally sane. Well, but every insane person I met says he or she is not insane. Could this be what Sweet Pea cooks up too?

We all know the whole movie is about Sweet Pea and not BabyDoll as the film suggested throughout, before the end. I guess this was deliberate as well. Well, thats the SuckerPunch (SP=Sweet Pea)! I hope you are not more confused after reading my thoughts. Of course, all the above are only my interp[retation. Feel free to share yours in the comments!

SuckerPunch Animated Shorts

The following 3 shorts animated films aims to give more information and details about the 3 world where our heroine visited to obtain their items.










Enjoy!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

ATI Catalyst Application Profiles

If you think you don't need it, you could be wrong. The Catalyst Application Profiles are NOT just for crossfire or Eyefinity. As long as you are using the ATI Catalyst Drivers, you will be able to leverage on the application profile to optimize your game play. Here is a link to the original Application Profiles:

And yes, you will realized its actually faster and newer than the AMD / ATI site.

For a understand of the Application Profiles, here is a good FAQ:

Enjoy you ATI Card!

Asus Express Gate Update

Well, it seems that when your motherboard is no longer the latest model around, Asus will stop updating the drivers and tools available for it, even though there are newer version out there which will work with your board. Express Gate is only of those tools. So, what exactly is Express Gate? It allows you to boot into a minimized Linux with basic function such as Skype, web browsing etc and all these straight from the BIOS. And in a way this is safer than you normal OS because the hacker will have compromise your Linux image in order to get something working, but the image is not saved and can be restored at every reboot. However, it is not said impossible because basically its a Splashtop OS which if the files are modified, it can still be hacked as described in this article:

Here is one of the description of Express Gate:
Technology developed by ASUS and introduced with their P5E3 motherboard that utilizes Splashtop, which is a Linux environment that is integrated onto the motherboard. With this technology users can turn on their computer and in five seconds be able to access the Internet using Firefox, online e-mail,Skype, and the Splashtop desktop without having to wait for their operating system to load.

Now, not all motherboard will support Express Gate. You will know when it says so. After the first Express Gate, there are many other version which differs in the way the image is installed. These are namely Express Gate SSD and Express Gate HDD. In any case, I notice that the latest version can be option via FTP from:

And the latest version for the first Express Gate is v1.5.17.10 as of today.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

DoS on DBS / POSB ATM?

I recently had seen 2 cases of hanging the POSB / DBS ATM machine. On both occasion, it was done with a NETS FlashPay CEPAS Public Transport Top-up card. That lead me to wonder if this is a SURE way to DoS the ATM.

Lets take a look at what happened. Bascially a man in front of me decide to top up his CEPAS card using the built in facility. This is a supported and legit function as you can even see the announcement here:
http://www.dbs.com/newsroom/2009/Pages/press090123.aspx

In both case, the man decided to take out this NETS FlashPay CEPAS-Compatible Card and place it next to the contactless reader (Ermm, why do people have to press it so hard onto the contact, when its suppose to be contactless???). This is how the FlashPay card looks like:
http://www.nets.com.sg/netsflashpay/

And the next thing that happened really pissed me off. The whole ATM just froze there. (Remember, I am next in the line!!!) I can only give that guy a WTF look while he start taking out his phone to call the IBM guys to come fix it because he is not sure if the transaction is done, but either way, his ATM card is stucked inside.

OK, the strange thing was that NETS claim that you can actually top-up their FlashPay card at ANY DBS ATM. Apparantly, I had seen it DoS on me twice...

Have you seen something like this happening?

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Mozilla - Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey all re-patched AGAIN

The reason why I gave up on Mozilla is really because its unsafe. Such poor poor patching and testing... Within 2 days of release, we get yet another important update. And this actually address multiple vulnerabilities, so it is not optional.


Category: Widely Deployed Software
Affected:
  • Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.6.14
  • Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.5.17
  • Mozilla Thunderbird prior to 3.1.8
  • Mozilla SeaMonkey prior to 2.0.12

Metasploit Framework 3.6.0 Released!

Here are the new additions:


New Modules since 3.5.2

Exploits and Auxiliaries

Post modules

For those who had been using the svn, you should get 3.7.0-dev by now.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Xmas Getaway Day 4

And so this was the last day of our short trip. We basically did not have a good idea where to go, and we only have that much time in the morning. So we went back to Sungei Wong and we finally saw a pet shop this time. We did not really buy anything there, but we saw something of interest... You will never guess.. Its a pair of Prairie Dogs... They are.. well... hyperactive... We did not take any photo because they shop owner probably won't like it, but here are some info and photo about Prairie Dogs:

Then we went back to the shop and bought the "Prawn Cracker King". We tried a few that other day and loved it. The normal one that is. I didn't like the Tapioca one though. So we both bought one deluxe pack of 3 x 3 pieces each and carried it all the way back.. And I also found out that although the packing looks great, it wont really last... You will still have to finish them soon.

So for the last meal here, we decided to try out the Toilet Cafe here... I had heard rumors that its real bad in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but what the heck, you have to try it to know it. And guess what, the rumors were right after all. It look cute, but the taste just won't make it.. Maybe its because when you associate it with toilet and such, you lose appetite somehow. 

Here are some photos of the food we got:






And of course, even the restaurant is designed as a toilet :



After that, I took a little bit of time to quickly buy some flashrive (which was cheaper there) and we rushed back to our hotel to finish our packup and finally bought the bus back. The bus was a double deck, but our seats end up in the lower deck. We had our usual stop and such. What we did not anticipate was that it turns out to be a holiday on the day we were coming back and there was a bad jam at the course way. To make it worse, there was this China lady which was like skipping queue (with a stupid excuse like, you all do not want to move in front, so I moved). At first, it was only her. Then I grumble to get the people to unit against her. EVIL. But social engineering was one of my better trade of skills. And when she tried to ask her group to slot in as well, everyone turns and gave her a good scolding. But the real reason I did not took it against her at first was actually because SHE IS ON THE SAME BUS as me! So you can imagine because of her, we got delayed. And more jammed. And really really late when we get back. It was ok, I did not really care because I was with Jane. With her, every second feels nice.

So we came back and took a cab home. That finally ended our 4 days short trip to KL.

Here were the previous posts:

Bad Chinese from Local Chinese Newspaper

Ever wonder why is Singaporean kids really bad at Chinese? Just take a look at this photo...


This local Chinese newspaper manage to make 2 mistake in writing 7 characters! Wow! That must be some record.

Amazon Gift Cards!

Thanks for viewing!

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