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Linux Business

Linux Powers Digital Muppets 185

Posted by CmdrTaco from the probably-a-little-more-expensive-than-socks dept.
Darren Alcorn writes "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up to bring you digital animatronics through the use of Red Hat Linux." I bet thats a fun system to see in operation. The article is light on technical stuff, but discusses the computerized puppeteering system a little.
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Linux Powers Digital Muppets More

Linux Powers Digital Muppets

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  • hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sugrshack ( 519761 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:36PM (#3436811) Homepage
    kernel the frog

  • Amazing Miraculous RedHat! (Score:4, Funny)

    by oldzoot ( 60984 ) <morton.james@comc[ ].net ['ast' in gap]> on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:36PM (#3436814)
    RedHat has restored Jim Henson to life? I KNEW linux was miraculous ! !

    Z
  • All right! The Muppets meet Linux! What could be cooler.
  • So let's see the Hensen Creatureworks bring Tux to fully animated life!
    • You know, if they really want to give something back to the community, the best thing they could go was try to stop distributors etc. screwing around with copyright laws and preventing people from seeing through the Linux / Hensen bond to the end. It seems soooo two faced of Disney et al to use OSS to their advantage to make their movies, whilst simultaneous bankrolling laws preventing the viewing of them on such platforms...
  • As I recall Jim Henson is dead. Its quite the shame. Also I was under the impression that his company "Jim Henson Productions" had been sold off to the highest bidder. Do they even exist anymore?

    J
  • I understand the main characters have been renamed to 'Kernel the Frog' and 'Miss SWIG [sourceforge.net]gy'. ;-)

    Ugh, such poor puns. But it's Linux, so it's OK.

    I'm tired of waltzing for pancakes - Gwen Mezzrow
  • "For its recent hit "Shrek," DreamWorks used Linux servers to create detailed images for the movie." - I thought that another report said that Linux boxes were just used for the rendering - not the actual creation.

  • I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wonko the Sane 42 ( 183562 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:42PM (#3436888)
    The article is rather vague, so maybe I'm not getting this right (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). But it sounds to me like they're saying that they're actually doing the work on software running under Linux? I'm just sort of wondering.. where are they getting this software? Last I checked there's not a huge abundancy of high-end digital animation production software floating around for Linux. It took me awhile to find software that would suit my own purposes for audio recording. Even then, I can do everything and about 3 times more on a Mac with ProTool/Logic or on a PC with SoundForge/ProTools/Cakewalk...
    I mean, not that I'm criticizing... it's major step forward for these companies to crank enough power out of RedHat servers to power a production studio. But the article is little more than a vague plug for Linux without some sort of specifics about what exactly is going on.

    Sorry... can't resist... seeing as this fell right after the article on transformers... does this mean that the new transformers will run under RedHat? Will Kermit know how to use them? The world may soon know...
    • Last I checked there's not a huge abundancy of high-end digital animation production software floating around for Linux
      There has to be some somewhere because Shrek was done on Linux.

      • Re:I wonder... (Score:2, Informative)

        by carlos_benj ( 140796 )
        Shrek was rendered on Linux boxes. The new animated film "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron" was both created on Linux workstations and rendered on Linux.

        • There seems to be a bit of confusion as there are two animation companies at Dreaworks. There is Dreamworks/PDI (makers of Shrek and Antz) and then there is Dreamworks Animation (makers of El Dorado and Prince of Egypt). They are separate entities though both use Linux. You can get a pretty good description of their use at Animation in the Linux Journal arrticle from about a year ago. They seem to be turning both workstation and servers to Linux. PDI uses more a mix of Linux and SGI. For some interesting stats check Dan Wexler's site:

          Shrek Rendering statistics [flarg.com]

          But it sounds to me like they're saying that they're actually doing the work on software running under Linux? I'm just sort of wondering.. where are they getting this software?
          The important commercial software is out there for Linux: Maya, Softimage, Houdini, Rayz, etc. Henson uses Maya. I saw also their setup last two SIGGRAPHs and they were using custom software on RTLinux to conect the controlers to animation.
        • >>The new animated film "Spirit: Stallion of the >>Cimmaron" was both created on Linux
          >>workstations and rendered on Linux.

          Don't believe everything you read on Slashdot.

          Asked a friend of mine at Dreamworks about this. He said as far as he knew, "not a single pixel from 'Spirit' was produced using linux. It was all done using their IRIX machines that they have from their previous features. The NEXT feature currently in production is being done on linux".

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:51PM (#3436967) Homepage Journal
      What they have is a mo-cap sort of device that a puppeteer moves around, causing the 3D image of the muppet to react on screen. I'm at a loss as to how to explain it. It's a device you stick your hand inside of that has several articulated sensors that sense a variety of positions. Your fingers end up in a clamshell shaped thing you can open and close, causing the muppet to move his mouth.

      I guess the reason that Linux is necessary for this is because it's a combination of hardware and software. Is it a big deal that it's Linux? I don't feel that way. Personally, I think the reason this made it to Slashdot was because they said they use Linux, as opposed to the real news that they're talking about using 3D to do puppet animations.

      This technology's not really very new either. It's been in use for aaaaaaaages. What's different today is that computers are powerful enough to render Muppets in real time now. This means that some very interesting, yet bizarre kids shows could start appearing soon. Heh. And you thought that Winnie the Pooh show was strange...

    • Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by witten ( 5796 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @02:32PM (#3437690) Homepage
      Hey, I'm one of the guys who works on these HDPS Linux systems. For modelling, we're primarily a Maya shop. Maya has had a Linux port for a while, and many other 3D animation packages have Linux versions, with the glaring exception of 3D Studio Max.

      As far as the rigs themselves, we run a custom 3D viewer based on Maya's Realtime SDK. As another poster has said, a puppeteer puts their hands in these sort of weird metal controls, and the character on-screen moves their face and head in realtime.

      Note that this is technically not motion capture. Motion capture involves reading the exterior movement of a body or face with either optical or magnetic sensors. And then the exterior of the CG model is moved accordingly. This is not very accurate at all for facial animation because you are just moving around the surface of the face. What we do is allow the puppeteer to drive the virtual muscles of the character's face with their hand movements, thereby getting a much better facial performance than is possible with motion capture.

      However, motion capture is very useful for body movement. And in fact, we have married the facial performance described above with traditional motion capture for the body, so that you can have one puppeteer performing a 3D model's face while another performer controls the body by dancing around a stage. All in realtime. It's quite cool to see in action.

      Keep in mind that we do much more than Muppet characters. We're sort of a service available to anyone who has facial animation they want done. We do video games, movies, TV, etc.

    • >>Last I checked there's not a huge abundancy of
      >>high-end digital animation production software
      >>floating around for Linux

      Top of My Head:

      Maya, Softimage|3D & XSI, Houdini.

      Those ARE the high-end of 3D animation software.

      Plus prman, Entropy, Shake, Animo, Toon-Boom, etc etc etc. yadda yadda

      Try checking again... :) Almost ALL high end animation production software is on linux now.

      (yeah, Lightwave and 3DMax aren't, but I wouldn't consider those high-end).

  • uhhh, Jim Henson's dead guys. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Madman ( 84403 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:43PM (#3436892) Homepage
    You may want to amend that to Jim Henson Studios. I'm not sure he'd approve of this deal anyway.

  • heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:46PM (#3436917) Journal
    one segfault ha ha ha
    two segfaults ha ha ha
    three segfaults ha ha ha

    -- The Count
    • And Oscar the Grouch now lives in a core dump.

    • Re:heh (Score:2)

      by Soko ( 17987 )
      LMAO. Good one!
      How 'bout the Swedish Chef: Isha here der kernela painc. BORK! BORK! BORK!

      Tho, the best Muppet for a Kernel Panic, IMHO, would be Crazy Harry. He was the muppet who _always_ carried around an explosives detonation plunger and blew stuff up, laughing hysterically. Kinda self explanitory.

      ..on second thought, maybe he would be better at representing BSODs... ;^D

      Soko
      • How 'bout the Swedish Chef: Isha here der kernela painc. BORK! BORK! BORK!

        I think it would much more appropriate as:
        fork(); fork(); fork();

        aj
      • The best muppet for to represent the vm system in kernel 2.4 is Animal, the crazy red-haired drum-playing monster.

        -Paul Komarek
    • Hell, my daughter still cracks up over the post last month about Yoda facing the Count.

      "One, Two, Three. Three Jedi, ha ha ha."

      Five year olds are so strange. :)
  • I might be out of the loop, but isn't Jim Henson Studios owned by Disney, or at least the intellectual rights to the muppets?

    Isn't that a case of strange bedfellows -- Linux and Disney. Wonder what Hollings thinks about this anti drm OS handling such precious, marketable creations.
    • iirc, you're right! I recall them being at Disney World in Florida many years ago.

    • Re:Muppets and Disney (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      isn't Jim Henson Studios owned by Disney

      NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!! (Did I mention NO!)

      From the rec.arts.henson+muppets FAQ: [stanford.edu] "Disney does not, nor has it ever, owned the Muppets. ... [However] in the fall of 1989, the Walt Disney Company entered into negotiations to acquire The Jim Henson Company (then Jim Henson Productions) and the Muppets. Jim Henson died during the negotiations, and the deal eventually fell through. However, the JHC and Disney have sometimes worked together, such as for the MuppetVision 3-D at Disney/MGM studios in Orlando."

      Short answer: They've collaborated extensively, but Disney does NOT own the Muppets!

    • Re:Muppets and Disney (Score:2, Informative)

      by Maryck ( 84 )
      As has already been commented, Disney does not own the Jim Henson Company. Disney has made several attempts to buy the company over the years, but for various reasons has never succeeded. What Disney does own is the distribution rights to a fair amount of the Muppet materials; this is what often causes the confusion.
  • "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up"

    Don't people think before posting a headline? Obviously, read the story before posting... But, come on, that headline is pretty bad... Red Hat is contacting the dead?

  • considering Jim Henson died a few years ago.. RedHat must have some crazy voodoo magick or something..

  • Not only Linux but... (Score:4, Informative)

    by The Iconoclast ( 24795 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:54PM (#3436994)
    AMD!

    How's that for underdog geekiness. When I was at SIGGRAPH last year, the AMD booth had a display booth with a dude using the the Henson "Muppet-tronics" platform running on a AMD-Powered Linux workstation. I think the control software said something like version 0.8. It was pretty neat.

  • Warning, Heson's company has *EVIL* Lawyers (Score:4, Informative)

    by Zeio ( 325157 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @12:58PM (#3437020)
    A warning to all slashdotters, Henson's company is very much into this DRM/IP anti-fair-use anti freedom of speech thing.
    The other day something awful had to remove a parody of Muppet movies, with funny things like "DAS BERT" instead of "DAS BOAT," etc. Kyanaka received a letter, which is shown here. [somethingawful.com]

    Needless to say I was shocked to see that someone who was making no money form parodying the Muppets, which are simply carpeting glued to wood, was asked to remove parody content.

    I would be very careful if I was RedHat. Its funny how companies like the Church of Scientology (The cult I mean) have more lawyers after the leader dies, in the SOC case, Hubbar croaks, and people are marauding around using racketeering and extortion on "worshippers." Such is the case, to a smaller degree obviously, with Henson. Because the magician, the creator, the worthy one is dead they assemble a cabal of lawyers to viciously and rabidly attack anyone "using" the franchise because they now are charge with protecting against something that is non-Novel, replaceable, duplicateable, old. On another note, Tolkein's son, who tries to "continue" the LOTR franchise by printing his father's notes, was against the move LOTR. JRR's grandson was for it. Its time to let go, and let more creative people take a stab at things sometimes - we are all glad that JRR's son wasn't able to stop the movie. Excerpt - I think some stories are meant to be read, not to be seen. Before seeing this Oscar-nominated movie, Tolkien's son Christopher said, "My own position is that The Lord of the Rings is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form." Filmmakers disagree. Two sequels based on Tolkien's Rings characters, filmed at the same time as The Fellowship of the Ring, are scheduled for release in 2002 and 2003. Ah, yes. The franchise cometh. [koaa.com]

    I really hate when opportunists feed on the carcasses of things. This sort of activity as displayed by the Muppets franchise is so completely wrong. Its not as if Disney was slandering Henson, or parodying and making money off the parody. This company will go so far as to harass independent site owners on the web, they have lawyers trolling to make trouble. I cant say how upset I am at the Henson franchise.

    My letter to Henson:
    "Henson" is a completely wrong for making www.somethingawful.com remove your "intellectual property." [http://www.somethingawful.com/photoshop/muppetmov ies/index.htm]


    There are those who search for medicines, cures, new technology, more fuel efficiency and try hard to make things for the betterment of humanity. There are those who comfort me, who engineer better things in life. There are those who make my life better.

    Then there are those who piss and whine about intellectual property rights and wont even allow a fair use parody of their stupid stuffed animals whose creator is DEAD. You are a puppet company. C'mon, is there that much gravity to all this?

    You are un-American. He wasn't making money off your "beloved" puppets, he was making fun of it without even being NASTY about Henson or Muppets.

    Read up on Thomas Jefferson, Madison about "copyright" and realize the Henson's are now representing COMMUNISM.

    I'll never solicit Henson garbage again. Or Disney, until these disgusting companies realize copyrights are for those who have things worth protecting, not for a puppeteer with stuffed animals or Mickey Mouse.

    This is going to promote piracy, fueled by Asia, and create RESENTMENT in your potential consumers, by trying to squeeze blood from rocks. The RIAA, SSSCA, CDPTA, DMCA, BSA and all the other Gestapo Waffen SS goons for the corporate elite will be resisted, and WE THE PEOPLE will win over time. IT only takes time. Its just funny that a bunch of Asians who pirate and knock off you "intellectual" property will teach you the most American lesson of them all, if you don't do new and innovative , YOU GO AWAY, YOU LOSE MONEY, its that simple. Do something NEW and INNOVATIVE for once instead of invoking a cabal of lawyers to screw with our first amendment.

    You dishonor Henson's memory. "Sam the American Eagle (C)(R)TM" should get a HAMMER AND SICKLE to CRUSH THE LIFE out of the American public.

    - Extremely upset

    Mna mna nah - do do doo doo. Mn my money mna ma - I'm a money grubbing goon. Mna mna nah. Sh sh shylocka a nah. I want my pound of flesh. Mnah mnah.

  • Eating Muppets (by The State of MTV fame) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mrs. Bob (Todd): Oh, thank you both so much for finally having us over to your new place.

    Steve (Mike S): Well, we are so happy you could be here.

    Kerri: I'm going to the kitchen, would anybody like anything else?

    Bob (Ken): Yeah, yeah. Could I get some more of this neon blue...I think it's meat?

    Kerri: Sure Bob. Bob: What is it, it's terrific!

    Steve: Isn't it? Bob: Yeah.

    Steve: We never had any until we moved to the area, but now we are hooked!

    Mrs. Bob: Is it fish? Kerri: No, it's muppet.

    Bob: I'll be darned. I didn't know you could eat muppet.

    Kerri: Well, yeah, it was Steve's idea. We backed over one our first night here. Bob: Huh?

    Steve: Yeah, the little guy was learning his numbers off the licence plate, and it seemed like a waste to bury it, so I said, "Hey, let's fry it up!"

    Bob: Waste, not want ...(?)... Mrs. Bob: That's awful, eating run-over muppet!

    Kerri: Oh, no. We didn't run over this one. Steve's become quite the hunter, haven't you sweetie?

    Steve: Honey... Kerri: Why don't you show 'em?

    Steve: All right. Bob: Come on Steve, (mumbles)

    Steve: You're gonna love it, you're gonna love it.
    (out the window) I sure could use some help counting to four.

    Muppet: Well, we could start by counting the legs on our table. Wha-ooww! (As Steve breaks its neck)

    Bob: Oh no. Now, I'll never know how many legs a table has.

    All: (laugh) Bob: Hey, they got a lot of meat on there.

    Kerri: Oh, but that's a green one. Try for a blue one, Steve. We only have red wine.

    Bob: Oh, ooh! Can I try? Would that be okay? Steve: Sure, yeah.

    Bob: I wanna give it a shot. Gee, the bus station is far. I wonder what's near.

    Big Monster Muppet: Near. Steve: Show us...far.

    Big Monster Muppet: Far.... Steve: Yikes! Bob: I was full anyway.

    Kerri: Why don't you take one home as a pet?

    Bob: That's a great idea.

    Steve: The kids will love it! Boy, I sure do wish I knew how to tie my shoes...I may trip...I wonder what words start with the letter "O"...I wonder...

    David: Well, let's sing the "O" song, then. And it's gonna help you tie your shoes, too. Did you know that I love that letter "O" Tie up my old shoe-

    Mrs. Bob: (over David's singing) I'm not taking that home to my son, because I'll end up cleaning up after it.

    David: Hey, let's sing a song about Oregon, Oh!
    OH!!! (as Steve breaks his neck.)

    Kerri: Stay for desert? Bob: Sure, always have room for that.
  • With all of these gaping holes that Red Hat's linux installs by default, will this allow me r00t Snuffleupagus? Should I make everyone's favorite wooly mammoth go on a muderous rampage down 123 Sesame St.?

    • Re:secure? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Graelin ( 309958 )
      Dude, why would you want to r00t Snuffleupagus? That's disgusting...

      OTOH, take a picture. We can make snuffle.cx

      Mods: -55555 Grotesque
    • love your sig.
      Floating in space, oh no theres 2 of them. where surounded!
      of course where talking about an orginization that doesn't believe in fuses...

  • Way back machine (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CharlieG ( 34950 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:01PM (#3437048) Homepage
    Way back when, I worked for a company that made (almost as a sideline) Animatronics! One of our clients (In fact, it may have been the only one) was Sesame Park. We made a couple of "Oscars" and "Cookies", and the muppeteers came in to program them - Our breakthrough was the teaching machine. Very cool.
    The system was all analog, with the signal FSK recorded onto 30 minute carts. I spent a week each spring recording new carts from the masters. 20 hours of listening to Cookie, 20 hours listening to Oscar

  • OLLLLLLLLD (Score:5, Funny)

    by sinserve ( 455889 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:04PM (#3437074)
    Microsoft has been powering the puppets in D.C for ages.

    --
  • "Red Hat, the leading seller of the operating system...."

    Im glad they are calling Linux by its proper name: The Operating System

  • already done (Score:3, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:06PM (#3437086)
    they've been doing this for years - look at this [mac.com]

  • A little more information (Score:4, Informative)

    by morhoj ( 573833 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:12PM (#3437136)
    Here is the official press release [newsforge.com] from Newsforge. Its not actually the whole studio, just the Creature Shop. Specific use is for the HDPS product.


    Says they chose Redhat due to the RHN software update feature... obviously they haven't used it recently :)

    • Says they chose Redhat due to the RHN software update feature... obviously they haven't used it recently :)

      I don't know about software update that is strictly RedHat, but the Redcarpet updater has broken my system. Every RPM I try now fails to load, cites unmet dependencies for libraries I already show installed and I can't seem to find a work around. Maybe the folks at the Creature Shop can pull some strings...

  • Grumble, gripe, grumble (Score:4, Funny)

    by BurritoWarrior ( 90481 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:14PM (#3437160)
    The two grumpy guys up in the balcony are now Ballmer and Gates.

  • misleading slashdot article. (Score:3, Informative)

    by azephrahel ( 193559 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:15PM (#3437162)
    The real article wasn't misleading, but the
    slashdot synopsis is. Jim Henson Studios did not
    "team up" with redhat. Redhat is just giddy over
    the fact that JH's Studios bought a bunch of
    copies. I like seeing linux advance as the rest
    of us, but comon. Lets go with REAL advances.
    If Mercedes Benz bought 2k copies of XP for their
    existing servers, we woudln't say MB teams up with
    MS.

    • I don't think it was like some guy from Jim Henson ordered a bunch of cd's from the Red Hat website. From the article Red Hat has been working with Henson Studios since 1998. I would assume that they have their techs in there doing planning, making sure the transition goes ok, etc.

      Remember, Red Hat is trying to make money off of consulting services, not selling CD's.

      .

  • We did digital puppets for Henson back in 1988 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:19PM (#3437193) Journal
    Back in 1988, Graham Walters and I, at PDI, built a system in collaboration with Jim Henson and his creature shop, and with Kirk Thatcher (who since went on to greater things at Henson), to build the 'Waldo' character for The Jim Henson Hour. The idea was that this character would be controlled by a waldo, which would sense the position, orientation, and mouth angles, and display the character, blue-screen keyed onto the image on the screen in real time.

    The beauty of this system is that Henson puppeteers always work by watching their images on TV monitors, so this kind of digital character wasn't even second-nature to them -- it was exactly how they'd been performing characters all along. Among the nice things about Waldo is that he didn't have to hang out at the bottom of the screen with all of the rest of the other puppets. This system was implemented and run on an old Power Series SGI borrowed from Sheridan College.

    I saw Davey Goelz (Gonzo, and others) at Siggraph this year, at the Henson booth on the show floor. They're selling a somewhat improved version of the same waldo mechanism that we used 14 years ago. Davey got us out of a jam on the first Henson Hour show, as somehow we lost the mouth-opening information from the tracks that Henson recorded on the set. Davey lived right near us at PDI, and came down and laid those back in, mimicing Jim's style. I don't think that he ever found our, and it's tragically too late now.

    Anyway, The Jim Henson Hour was too good, and perhaps a little too different, for American TV, and only 12 episodes were ever made.

    thad
    • Hey, neat story, thanks for sharing. :)
      I've always been a big fan of Jim Henson and the Creature Shop. I still have fond memories of The Jim Henson Hour. I'd love to get my hands on copies of the episodes. The muppets, the storyteller, Jim himself, it was great. I have a copy of The Muppet Family Christmas that I watch every year and I get a lump in my throat every time I see him washing dishes at the end. It's a shame it didn't last long, just like Muppets Tonight. I'm afraid a bit of the Muppet magic died along with Jim Henson, but Brian and company have the talent to do great things with the Creature Shop. I take great pleasure knowing that my favorite show, Farscape, is a Jim Henson production. Whether it's with digital wizardry or a bit of green felt I'm happy to know Jim's legacy will go on.

    • I saw Davey Goelz (Gonzo, and others) at Siggraph this year, at the Henson booth on the show floor.

      Henson booth? I think you meant the Pulse3D booth on which they have appeared the last 2 SIGGRAPHs, probably one of the most popular booths thanks to the Henson presentation and the nifty collectible. Unless I was really blind, drunk or sleepless while at the Exhibition floor ;-) (and not too difficult when it was in New Orleans). I got a smallish picture of them:

      Jim henson Cretature Shop guys at the Pulse3D booth during SIGGRAPH 2001 [ilmfan.com]

      Pretty nifty stuff.

  • Does anyone else remember Waldo, the CG Muppet? Let's hope he doesn't make it into a patch of OpenOffice.

    "It looks like you're writing a letter! Whoopeee!"
  • Kudos to redhat and all the production studios who are willing to buck the trend and push linux. Next up are all the T.V. production studios. It make take a while for it to all trickle down to the average desktop user, but rest assured linux has a bright a/v future.
  • Great, perhaps Linux can help Miss Piggy stop crashing.

    I think the muppets are great, let's just hope they can get the writing to where it once was.

    And "Cats and Dogs" was mismarketed and not the good.
    • "And "Cats and Dogs" was mismarketed and not the good."

      My five-year old would disagree with that. Actually, she wouldn't understand the first claim, but the last part would definitely get you taken off her list of tea party invites.
      • The film was marketed with the tag line "Who's side will you be on?" Or something like that. Basically saying you could choose a side to root for. When the moviecame out, you couldn't do that. The Dogs were the good guys and the Cats were the bad guys. Even if you were a cat lover, you couldn't root for them because they were evil.

        I'm also told that the cat that is voiced by John Lovitz is NOT the breed of cat that they call it.

  • Old news..bleh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @01:37PM (#3437324) Homepage


    Come on.... I've been using Kermit in Unix for close to a decade now.

    ;)

    Cheers,
  • First, Something Awful [somethingawful.com] makes a Muppets Photoshop Phriday. [somethingawful.com]

    Second, the Jim Henson Company [henson.com] orders SomethingAwful.com to cease and desist their Muppets Photoshop Phriday. [somethingawful.com]

    The Jim Henson Company [henson.com] was using Linux [linux.com] to send that email!

    What does this mean, you ask? Well, folllowing an infallible line of deductive logic, it is not too hard to see that Linux [linux.com] is an evil entity, bent on crushing free speech. Damn you Linux!
  • "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up to bring you digital animatronics through the use of Red Hat Linux."

    It's all coded in perl with the Mod::Ressurection package.

  • For those of you whining about how Disney owns Jim Henson Studios, please note that this is not true. According to their website [henson.com], they are wholly owned by EM.TV, which, as far as I could ascertain from their site [em-tv.de], is an independent German media conglomerate of sorts. Whether this is better or not, who knows? :)

    As for Disney, if my history is correct, right before Jim Henson died, he was negotiating to sell the studio to Disney but, after his death, his sons nixed the deal.

  • A word from the sysadmin (Score:4, Informative)

    by witten ( 5796 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @02:17PM (#3437594) Homepage
    Hey guys, I'm the sysadmin who runs all the Red Hat machines that this article talks about. We've got four "rigs" on wheels, each with two shock-mounted AMD machines running a customied Red Hat 7.x with an RTLinux kernel. Each side of the rigs has a flat panel LCD and a keyboard. One side let's you puppeteer a computer-generated character on-screen in realtime with custom controls. The other side is for a technician to set everything up. Right now we're transitioning to a dual-processor rig with a single machine and only one keyboard.

    This stuff is really neat to see in person. Using HDPS, a trained puppeteer can create computer graphics facial animations in realtime that might take a team of animators several weeks. There are some images of our system in use [henson.com] available.

    You can email me (dhelfman at la.creatureshop.henson.com) if you've got any questions.

  • "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up"
    They must be using the Johnathan Edwards API hack.
    Jim's Dead Jim

  • An observation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Meowharishi ( 550240 )
    Ever notice how if a /. story is about anything Linux related that the zealots come out en masse and mod down almost 50% of the comments? This thread is a good example.

    The growing trend of censorship by the left [frontpagemag.com] (which Linux advocates certainly qualify for) is frightening. We rely on the Left to provide progressive and enlightened contributions to the betterment of society. Censorship, in any form, flies directly in the face of this.

    What are the Linux zealots so afraid of? To read that someone thinks their OS sucks? This is ridiculous. Regardless of your choice of an OS, there are millions of geeks ready and chomping at the bit to inform you that your choice sucks, is miguided, ignorant, facsist, criminal, etc...

    Linux is failing because the Linux community has been growing increasingly dysfunctional and childish. It was a compelling option for a desktop OS a few years ago but for some reason things have gotten seriously broken in the open source world.

    I am advocate for open source and the philosophy behind it. We need to leverage our democratic right for the public to own its own property. But there needs to be a serious reality injection into the open source community. They need to understand the dynamics that make software appeal to the mass market. They have utterly and completely missed the ball on this one, imho.

  • I will now eat a rubber tire to the tune of "cat /dev/urandom > /dev/audio"
  • Maybe I've just had a long day, but the first line from the story: "Red Hat and Jim Henson have teamed up..." gave me quite a chuckle.

    I mean no disrespect; Jim Henson was an amazing man and created some of the most memorable moments of my young (and older) life via The Muppet Show. When I went to college in the late 1988, me and my dorm buddies used to sit around and drink beer from 6:30 to 7:00 and watch reruns of The Muppet Show, then rush off to the dining hall to grab dinner before they closed at 7:30. Those are some of my fondest memories of college.

    I also just recently re-watched "The Dark Crystal" on DVD, remastered, and it's even more beautiful seen as an adult.
  • Looks like the Simpsons foretells the future again...[#AABF20 "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo]
  • ... when I worked at Loki, I gave a talk at a LUG (San Gabriel was it? I lived in OC at the time so I didn't know the area at all) in the LA area that was modestly attended. At the end a fellow from Jim Henson's shop came up and chatted Scott and I up, and even invited us to come out to their studio and check things out. We never got around to it, but I wish I had, and of course this article doesn't surprise me as a result of meeting him.

    m.
  • Redhat also announce the new network called a Ouija board net
    it allows users to talk to the dead in a similar manar to ethernet
    howver in stead of the standard tools ifconfig
    stiffconfig or ifcorpsfig must be used
    it only works if the computer really believes so /dev/belief must be full using GPrayer or the AfterLifeStep Window Manager
    It is believed the KDE team are already working on a KPrayer, but unlike GPrayer, which was built from scratch, KPrayer is really only a hack on top of WMAfterlife
    a spoksmen said "we believe that this give linux and redhat the edge it has already allowed us to sigg this deal and we are talking to the funding farthers drying to get you must use linux as part of the constitution and moses to add the as the 11th commandment"

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