AVATAR STORYLINE
In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, a lush, Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus. Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) heads the mining operation, and it employs former marines for security. The corporation intends to exploit Pandora’s reserves of a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi, a blue-skinned neolithic species of sapient humanoids with feline characteristics. Physically stronger and taller than humans, the Na’vi live in harmony with Nature, worshiping a mother goddess called Eywa.
Humans cannot survive exposure to Pandora’s atmosphere for very long and use oxygen masks. In an attempt to improve relations with the natives, scientists create human-Na’vi hybrids called avatars, controlled by genetically-matched human operators. The scientists also lead schools for the Na’vi to learn English and to interact with the humans. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, becomes a last-minute replacement for his identical twin brother, a recently-murdered scientist trained to be an avatar operator. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement for his brother, and relegates him to a bodyguard role.
Jake escorts Augustine and biologist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) on an exploratory mission in their avatar forms to make contact with the Na’vi, in order to help establish diplomatic relations to solve the problem of resources and end the constant threat of violence. The group is attacked by a large predator, and Jake becomes separated and lost. Attempting to survive the night in Pandora’s dangerous jungles, he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Salda?a), a female Na’vi. Neytiri brings Jake to Hometree, which is inhabited by Neytiri’s clan, the Omaticaya. Mo’at (C. C. H. Pounder), the Na’vi shaman and Neytiri’s mother, shows interest in the warrior “Dream-walker” (their term for the Avatars), and instructs her daughter to teach Jake their ways. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), leader of the security forces for RDA, promises Jake his “real legs” back in exchange for intelligence about the natives and what it will take for them to abandon Hometree, which rests above a large deposit of unobtanium……READ THE REST OF THE AVATAR STORY ?Click Here
Posts Tagged ‘Security’
Avatar The Movie
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Posted in avatar, promise |
Network Solutions and The Security Breach: Are We Missing a Wake-Up Call?
Monday, August 17th, 2009It’s taken me a bit of time to write this article. I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to express my concern for all of us without it sounding like I’m belittling the concerns of those affected by this unfortunate event.
Then I realized – that pretty much says it. Please take the sentiments that will follow in that context.
Before we go any further, I want to repeat the disclosure I made in the article I wrote on Tuesday. I serve on Network Solutions’ Social Web Advisory Board. It’s necessary to state that because my relationship with them may bias my opinion under certain circumstances. This is not one of those instances.
(And if you know me, you probably realize that it won’t stop me from saying what’s on my mind any way. Most likely to my detriment, my opinion can’t be swayed for less than $2 million, and my integrity is not for sale, ever. 
)
All joking aside though (about the $2 million, not my integrity. I like to joke that I have a price but it’s more like $20 million, if I have one), this article is my perspective on several things that surrounded the recent breach of security at Network Solutions. I have three.
1. The overly harsh and at times, inaccurate press that occurred when the story broke. I expect that from mainstream media, not online.
2. The fact that what I saw as the most important part of the story was rarely, if ever discussed, although it’s far more important. Instead the often incorrect story that was in the press cast the company in a pretty dark light, given that Network Solutions did everything we have been asking big companies to do when these things happen.
3. Since NS (I’m tired of writing out Network Solutions!) did what they were supposed to do, why were there such harsh reactions to what happened?
Let’s start with the stories. I was on vacation when it broke, so I didn’t get to provide any input on how to manage coverage before it hit the press. In fact, it was reading about NS from my Google Alerts and seeing them start to pop in more frequently than usual that I realized something had happened. And I saw stories saying that NS “puts 570,000+ customer credit cards at risk” which while technically true makes it sound like NS was negligent in some way.
As I do with all stories I see about a company that deals with ecommerce or the web on any level, I went to several stories to get a fuller picture of what had happened. From skimming various headlines it sounded like NS had done something wrong and intentionally. Rather than having discovering and reporting a crime had likely been committed, it sounded from the coverage like they had committed one.
Meaning, that’s the type of headline you expect to see when a company finds out something happens, covers it up and pretends that nothing happened, knowing there are no negative connotations to them sweeping it under the rug. For something like this you’d expect to see more coverage that described accurately what happened, like, “Network Solutions warns merchants after hack“.
Sure, the headline isn’t as sexy, but at least I’ll continue to trust that organizations news. I’m just as much a fan of a grabby headline as the next marketer, but hype for the sake of hype is worse than a boring headline. At least an informative one is honest.
The reason it concerns me so much isn’t that the affected company is Network Solutions.
It may seem so, but if you follow that logic to its conclusion, you’d see that someone in my position wants to work with the companies that need help, or my company doesn’t exist. One could argue that if they didn’t have issues like this come up, they might not need a Social Web Advisory Board, and then they wouldn’t need me – who would that help? Not me.
Every help desk employee secretly loves Microsoft.