(Gothic News Service, 03/31) The Petroleum Kids Studio -- a breakaway branch of the sculptor Matthew Barney¹s infamous film crew -- is reported about to complete a ten-minute work for Network News television. Filmed by the Studio at night on location in Monument Valley, New Mexico -- site of numerous cowboy features, including John Ford's "Stage Coach" -- the Newscast features the White House's War Counsel. Framed against one of the Monument's most dramatic high-rise cliffs, the white petroleum greased theatrical set included elaborate multi-platform scaffolds, thick ropes and pulleys, a razor sharp, leather bull whip, a free wheeling Bradley steel tank tread, and an illuminated empty missile tip. Dressed in transparent body suits -- also thoroughly greased in white jelly -members of the President's War Counsel are filmed in an intense workout that is designed to revive the Administration's commitment to roll over Iraq in an ideologically consistent and timely manner.
Consistent with the work of Matthew Barney -- a Studio statement reads -- the Petroleum Kids’ work leaves no doubt as to the ambiguities of the power relationships within the Counsel. Vice President Cheney, while being raised and lowered from platform to platform, cannot stop rubbing large gobs of petroleum jelly into his heart. War Secretary Rumsfeld -- while held upside down by General Tommy Franks -- repetitively applies little dabs of the jelly lubricant to the muscles around his squinting eyes. At the same time, the General appears to use his feet to tightly enwrap the War Secretary inside the grip of the loose and greasy tank tread. Running up and down the ladders between scaffolds, Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser snaps the whip with a grace and ease, the white tip apparently stinging each Member in sensitive places in ways that cause their torsos to wince into rigid and freshly familiar postures. Only the President is spared the whip. Through out the sequence, while embracing a white missile tip, he struggles not to fall off a western saddle that is raised and lowered up and down the cliff by a barely stable, but well-oiled leather harness. Ironically General Collin Powell appears wrestle with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfolitz in a jelly mountain at the bottom of the set.
Back in New York, the Petroleum Kid’s reported great satisfaction with the first round of edits. Today’s film studio statement went on to say, "The use of malleable use of the white petroleum jelly in the Western context is perfect for showing the War Counsel’s slippery oscillations between covert and overt behavior. As a Studio we realize it as our public duty to dramatize and envision the ways in which the forceful members of this particular group especially in light of battleground realities -- are working to regroup and reframe the invasion and mastery of Iraq." At Press time it is not known whether or not the News Feature will achieve domestic distribution by any of Networks, however worldwide exposure appears a sure opportunity with much international interest immediately expressed.
The National Monument Park Service -- when asked - reports that no props were found on the reported film site. "We did find some odd white filaments of what looked like grease or jelly at the bottom of one the cliffs. Nothing serious. It did not seem to have anything to with making a cowboy movie, but we did pause to wonder if some Native American Church Group had secretly got in here to re-enact a version of The Ghost Dance. The remnants did have a scary, ghostly look about them."
This will allow us to use a few functions we didn't have access to before. These lines are still a mystery for now, but we'll explain them soon. Now we'll start working within the main function, where favoriteNumber is declared and used. The first thing we need to do is change how we declare the variable. Instead of
Posted by: Lawrence on January 18, 2004 07:43 PMWhen Batman went home at the end of a night spent fighting crime, he put on a suit and tie and became Bruce Wayne. When Clark Kent saw a news story getting too hot, a phone booth hid his change into Superman. When you're programming, all the variables you juggle around are doing similar tricks as they present one face to you and a totally different one to the machine.
Posted by: Quivier on January 18, 2004 07:43 PMBut some variables are immortal. These variables are declared outside of blocks, outside of functions. Since they don't have a block to exist in they are called global variables (as opposed to local variables), because they exist in all blocks, everywhere, and they never go out of scope. Although powerful, these kinds of variables are generally frowned upon because they encourage bad program design.
Posted by: Denton on January 18, 2004 07:43 PMA variable leads a simple life, full of activity but quite short (measured in nanoseconds, usually). It all begins when the program finds a variable declaration, and a variable is born into the world of the executing program. There are two possible places where the variable might live, but we will venture into that a little later.
Posted by: Lawrence on January 18, 2004 07:44 PMEarlier I mentioned that variables can live in two different places. We're going to examine these two places one at a time, and we're going to start on the more familiar ground, which is called the Stack. Understanding the stack helps us understand the way programs run, and also helps us understand scope a little better.
Posted by: Annanias on January 18, 2004 07:45 PM