Blood on the Grindstone

Ok, here goes the quick explanation.

I’m into computers and electronics and I wanted to incorporate the idea into this blog. I just wanted to do something different than the usual numerical rating on things.

In the traditional sense, a byte refers to 8 bits of data. In computer terms, a bit is one unit of data, either a ‘1’ or a ‘0’. This comes from the olden days of vacuum tube computers when the easiest way to represent things was to have the tube (electrically) either on or off. From that, the binary numeral system was developed. The whole basis for the binary system is that the ones and zeros represent  something ( ‘1’ means “on” and  ‘0’ means “off”).

You can read more on the background of this if you wish, but all you need to know is that a byte is 8 bits of data and it looks like this: 11001010

Each of those 8 bits in the byte represent somethings, lets call them columns. In binary, the columns are powers of 2 (exponents 2^8, 2^7, 2^6, 2^5, 2^4, 2^3, 2^2, 2^1, and 2^0). The 8 columns multiplied out from left to right = 128,64,32,16,8,4,2,1

This means that the number 11001010 translates into this: 128+64+8+2 (or 202 in the decimal system when added together). This is because a ‘1’ was in the 128 column, a ‘1’ was in the 64 column, a ‘1’ was in the 8 column, and a ‘1’ was in the 2 column. We don’t add in the other columns because a ‘0’ was in the 32, 16, 4, 1nd 1 columns. To recap, a ‘1’ meant that 128, 64, 8, and 2 were represented and a ‘0’ meant that 32, 16, 4, 1 were not represented. So, if someone asks what 11001010 means, you could say, “Well, it means that this 8 bits of data, or byte, is telling me that 128, 64, 8, and 2 are there.

But enough of that. Here’s what it means for the movies and other media that I will talk about. Specifically, for the HEGD genre (horror, exploitation, grindhouse, midnight movie) there will be eight named categories where I will place check marks, in order to quickly describe a movie.

A check in a category means that the film contains it and no check means that a film doesn’t contain it. It is not a numerical score of the film and it doesn’t mean that a film is good or bad (although a film with all checks seems pretty good to me!). Below is an example of what you will see at the end of each review. All that it means is that the film “From The Inside” contains nudity, eroticism, perversion, humor, and blood (because there is a  check mark in that category). The film didn’t really contain gore, badgoodness, or scares (because there are no checks in those categories).