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San Jose Mercury News (from AP)

Los Angeles Times

And many others... looks legit to me.

If a carrier moves its R&D or engineering, its suppliers may follow. High-tech requires an ecosystem. CA succeeds with its amazingly high cost due to the existance of that ecosystem.

Currently, NONE of the major carriers operate out of California (Here's a more detailed article). Furthermore, these regulations don't affect operations, they affect how you treat consumers... so they don't particularly have an effect on the cost of operating out of California, only the cost of selling service here. So these concerns, while they sound compelling, don't actually have anything to do with this move.

In regards to medical research that may be conducted for insurance companys (or governments for that matter) I found this latims story [free subscription needed to view] which talks about how many doctors are collecting stock options and paychecks form the various companys that are conducting the research. IE: the people who research nano-tech for insurance companys may be getting stock options/paychecks from insurance companys. I'm not saying that it is happening, I am saying that when ever we see research like this is is something to keep in mind.

However there's nothing to stop you from voting for the lesser of two evils at that level and going whichever way you want to at lower levels.

Sure there is: my own conscience.

"Anybody but Bush" is a very, very dangerous path to tread. I'll vote for Kerry if I think I wouldn't mind him as president, but if he pisses me off the way Gore did, a minor party will be getting my vote again.

Then again, I'm in California, so it's not like I'm going to lose the election for the Democrats (latest poll shows Bush's chances in California approaching those of Frosty the Snowman in Malibu). Still, it's the whole idea of voting against instead of voting for that leaves us with no good choices.

Now, if we could just get a decent voting system in place, that would be wonderful. Something like Instant Runoff Voting for example. Then there wouldn't be any of this fear about "throwing away your vote" and the whole peer-pressure thing. You could vote for who you *really* want as your first choice, and then choose your backup options if that guy doesn't make it.

The IRS has a pretty comprehensive PDF online debunking most of these schemes.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/friv_tax.pdf

While clearly the IRS is biased, they do cite many court cases that have legal precident covering many of these loopholes or misreadings of the tax code.

There was also a related article in the LA times last week which touched on the same topics

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-taxman4apr04 ,1,7068670.story?coll=la-home-business [registration required, blah blah]

Google's Gmail Raises Privacy Concern
See also LA Times
Fri Apr 02 2004 00:33:23 ET

Privacy advocates are concerned that there's one big flaw with Google Inc.'s free e-mail service: The company plans to read the messages.

LA TIMES reporting on Friday: The Internet search firm insists that it needs to know what's in the e-mails that pass through its system -- so that they can be sprinkled with advertisements Google thinks are relevant. After all, revenue from those targeted ads will pay for the Gmail service, which began a limited test Thursday, offering up to 500 times as much e-mail storage as competing Web e-mail programs from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The TIMES adds: The electronic letters won't be read by Google employees; computers will handle that chore. Nonetheless, the spector of seeing an ad for an antacid beside a message from a friend complaining about stomach pain is enough to make some people nervous about the e-mail service.

"There will undoubtedly be some folks that will see this and freak out," said Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for TurnTide Inc., an anti-spam company in Conshohocken, Pa. The aggressive advertising strategy may put a damper on Google's biggest move yet away from its core business of Internet search. After reading the privacy policy on the Gmail website Thursday, consumer-rights groups began sending complaints to the privately held Mountain View, Calif., company and preparing to warn users to stay away.

"The privacy implications of going through and perusing a customer's e-mail to display targeted advertising could be the Achilles' heel for Google's services," said Jordana Beebe, the communications director for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, an consumer group in San Diego.

The consternation caught Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, off guard.

"I'm very surprised that there are these kinds of questions," he said Thursday.

Developing...

Try it without the Slashcode-inserted space:

Story

Of course, the LA Times still requires NY Times-style registration, so you still may not be able to read it.

Other articles on this can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

The LA Times did an excellent series on Walmart's
negative effects on US manufacturers, overseas suppliers, its own workers, and the US economy last year. It was sparked by the impending entry of Walmart into the Southern California grocery market. Which also indirectly caused the painful, drawn out strike by workers at other grocery chains there.

But my favorite story on Walmart I've read so far (other than the lady who was nearly killed last year in the scramble for a cheap dvd player) is Fast Company's analysis of the company's effect on US manfacturers.

It starts, oddly, with a jar of pickles. And talks about how getting a distribution deal with Walmart eventually undermines and nearly destroys the Vlasic pickle company, due to savage cost cuts forced by Walmart, and undermining of the company's brand-image as they moved to selling big, cheap jars of pickles.

Along the way, the article shows how Walmart forces US manufacturers to move overseas, and even advises them on how to do it.

Honda's AISMO robots can conduct music. See these two articles: #1, #2 , and #3 (registration required). It played Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to the public). I would like to see Toyota's trumpet players in the next concert!

BTW, does anyone have video clips of AISMO conducting? I cannot find any. :(

Least qualified? Not by comparison to some other recent presidents.

Education != qualifications
I'm stunned that you would even posit such broken metric for "qualification". There's no amount of formal education that can teach you how to be the president. Being a good politician is a "soft skill" that can't really be taught. Bush has a rapport with the people... but that's about all I can say for his qualifications.

Out of the above list, I think looking at vacation days taken during presidency is a much more interesting comparison of qualifications.

>Bush squandered the greatest chance for peace in our time by calling all of the world "Evil"

It was 3 countries, and those countries are either state sponsors of terrorism, genocidal regimes, or rogue nations pursuing WMD. If that's not evil, I'd love to see how you define "good."

I think both commentaries above are specious. There's been some good that's come out of Bush's finger-pointing. Many of those rogue nations have given up their WMD programs. However, it's not clear whether Bush's rhetoric has harmed the US in more intangible ways: there are a lot more people who hate the US now. I'm way more worried about terrorists than WMDs.

If those "rules" include reining in WMD proliferators and demolishing terrorist states, screw the opposition; The Right Thing (TM) isn't always the easy or popular thing. If finding and killing terrorists before they can strike is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I would agree with you if I thought that anything Bush has done has netted us positive results. There are some small victories, but the overall picture looks much, much, grimmer than prior to 9/11. Going after terrorists isn't a bad idea, it's just that Bush's methods are questionable. Bush has fumbled on execution time and time again.

Taking down rogue nations is only good if it somehow improves our situation. News flash here: "terrorists don't respect borders". If you take down Iraq, they just move to the next country that's willing to give them safe harbor.

You have to treat the disease, not the symptoms. Terrorism is a symptom, not a disease. Killing terrorists doesn't work. There will always be more terrorists to recruit to fill their places. You have to remove the reason why these people feel so much hatred towards us - yes, there is a reason! There has to be.

>Not to mention the fact that he wants to hold Americans without trial or due process indefinitely

If they're terrorists, they have almost no rights. To be considered lawful combatants and thus entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention, you must meet four conditions: have a responsible chain of command (autonomous terrorist "cells" don't qualify), carry weapons openly, have a distinctive uniform or insignia, and follow the laws of war... Al-Queda meets NONE of these (the commentary I cited above is interesting... I recommend reading it).

This is one of the most egregious developments in the erosion of our civil liberties. I don't care if those people being held are terrorists or not. They deserve a speedy trial. Holding someone for two years without even charging them is a horrible crime - it goes against everything this country was founded on. In addition, it's well known that most of the detainess in Guantanmo Bay aren't terrorists. How would you feel if you were put in prison for two years for no good reason? and you didn't even have a charge against you? and there was no trial date set for you? and most people acknowledged that you shouldn't be there?

On a en even more disturbing level, this gives the Bush administr

LA Times (free crappy reg) story
Here's the highlights (emphasis added):

SCO Confronting Its Creation
Company's CEO is taking precautions as the head of the 'most despised' tech firm

From Bloomberg News

Darl McBride, chief executive of SCO Group Inc., says he sometimes carries a gun because his enemies are out to kill him. He checks into hotels under assumed names. An armed bodyguard protected him when he gave a speech last month at Harvard Law School.

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux operating system, calls SCO "the most despised company in technology."

McBride and SCO are more hated than Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, and its Chairman Bill Gates, according to some Linux backers. That's because SCO, once a backer of Linux, has turned around and attacked the essence of the system: its free source code.

"SCO are just complete hypocrites," said Jeremy Allison, co-author of Samba, an open source software that runs a file and print service that SCO sells.

"The real reason why people don't like SCO, and Darl McBride in particular, is that he is so dishonest," Torvalds, 34, said in an e-mail.

Here is an easier to read summary. More keep appearing on Google news. Try this search. It already brings up a link to a space.com article, and to one in the Los Angeles Times for those of you who have a subscription (I don't).

Which is worse, screwing an intern or screwing the country?

And with Kerry screwing an intern, and his special interest buddies like the Teamsters promised there would be drilling in Anwar (scroll down, he promised James Hoffa this. It as on TV two nights ago), lobbying for contractors that make illegal contributions... you'd get both!

Woo hoo!

Two key points:

• Comcast will probably up their bid to around $30 per share (or perhaps include more cash instead of a simple stock swap). Analysts don't support a stock price much higher than that.
• Disney board members were hit with at least a half-dozen shareholder lawsuits filed in Los Angeles Superior Court late last week. The suits claim that Eisner, Disney president and chief operating officer Robert Iger and the rest of the board breached their fiduciary duty by failing to give adequate consideration to Comcast's offer in order to entrench themselves in their jobs.

(there are other suitors mentioned in the above LATimes link, removal of pants required)

This certainly will make this next day/week fairly interesting for a few people.

I think you meant to say, nothing is certain in these days of $534 billion Medicare Drug Benefit Plan... The $134 billion bloat in 1 year is more than the entire cost of the 2nd gulf war plus 50%.

"We have our suspicions" that a Linux enthusiast is to blame for MyDoom, Stowell said.

But Eric Raymond, a leader of the Linux movement, said SCO's suspicions were misplaced. "If one of our guys had written it," he said, "the thing would be much harder to track and much more devastating."

The answer seems to be "downhill". Most job growth is in low-paying sectors. The U.S. Department offers this guide to anticipated job growth through 2010. Top job growth areas are "Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food", and "Customer service representatives".

Would you like fries with that?

A fundamental question for American business, and their political servants, is this: Where does the buying power come from? As disposable income decreases, business activity will slow.

For instance, these guys (use pointless as the user name and password) could have been a problem:

"Investigators found nearly 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and briefcases that could be detonated by remote control.

Most distressing, they said, was the discovery of 800 grams of almost pure sodium cyanide -- material that can only be acquired legally for specific agricultural or military projects.

The sodium cyanide was found inside an ammunition canister, next to hydrochloric, nitric and acetic acids and formulas for making bombs. If acid were mixed with the sodium cyanide, an analysis showed, it would create a bomb powerful enough to kill everyone inside a 30,000-square-foot facility, investigators said."

And they were found almost entirely by accident.

Look, I'm not suggesting that Islamic terrorists aren't probably the biggest current threat. But don't be stupid.

I wonder how many of the other screeners were "released" by other Academy members.

Any number of movies eligible for Oscar nominations can be found on Internet downloading sites. But the academy said "Something's Gotta Give" marked the first time a so-called screener sent to an Oscar voter had been made available for illegal copying.

Actually, according the LA Times the issues of Creationist theories and Bush-supported religious plaques are seperate. There is a book sold in the gift shops at the Grand Canyon that advances the Creationist theory of the canyon, written by a canyon guide. It has been moved from the science section to the inspirational section. As fas as I know, the Bush administration has no stance on this issue.

Seperately, there are a few religious plaques in the canyon with inspirational Bible verses on them, but with no mention of creationism, that were ordered to be taken down since it's a public park and there is supposed to be a seperation of church and state. The Bush administration objects to that.

Two issues -- one of ignorance and one of state support of religion -- not one.

8 of 19 alleged hijackers are still alive.

Waleed M Alshehri - alive and well in Casablanca, Morocco

Marwan Al Shehhi - Alive; same link as above

Ahmed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above

Wail M Alshehri - Alive

Ahmed Alnami - Alive; same link as above

Abdulaziz Alomari - Working for Saudi Telecom

Salem Alhamzi - Working at a petrochemical company

Saeed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times ran a three part series on the "Wal-Mart Effect" -- namely the outsourcing of jobs to China and other countries.

Last year, the traffic to my local Wal-Mart (at the end of the street my neighborhood intersects with) was so bad I couldn't get out of my neighborhood starting from about Dec 15th on.

This year, after they published the story, it's clear sailing all the way out to the freeway.

I think people are starting to see what globalization is all about -- screwing the little guy. It's one thing to lose jobs because of mechanization and automation: that's real productivity gain. But it's another to force people to work for less and less because you can find somebody even more desperate for work elsewhere. That's how Hollywood operates. For all their liberalism and supposed concern, the fact of the matter is that minimum wage earners at McDonald's are treated better than the sharks in the studios treat their low-level employees, who all too often are expected to work obscene hours -- and do so without complaint because of the very long line of people willing to take that same job.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walmart23nov 23.story

There is also an opinion piece on the San Francisco Chronicle that discusses Wal-Mart and the company's business practices.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/a rchive/2003/12/08/hsorensen.DTL

There is a great story (reg req) done on Wal-Mart at the LA times that links the giant store with the struggle of the workers from Safeway, Albertsons that are currently on strike.

In the series, Walmart admits that they don't pay their workers enough to support a family on. They also admit that most of their employees can't afford the Walmart health care plan which means those employees end up in the county hospital at taxpayer's expense. It's one thing to cut operating costs to remain competitive, it's quite another to cut costs so much that your employees end up having to rely on charity to make ends meet.

I tried to get this as a story, but it will do as a comment...

The music industry is looking for additional ways to profit off the downloading scene...

As reported by the LA Times, Apple and Time Warner have started offering specially designed Lord of the Rings CD-Rs.

These limited edition blank CDs are specifically designed for users purchasing the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King soundtrackfrom Apple's iTunes Music Store.

What I am going to do is wait until they provide "pre-burned" CDR's like RedHat does... That would be cool.

Example: the NTSC, PAL, SECAM, MESECAM, etc standards for broadcast TV. Why do we have so many of them?

Another example: HDTV (US picked 8-VSB, Japan picked COFDM).

China has now realised that it is heavy enough (in "Gorilla" terms) that it is beginning to throw its weight around. A recent example was the new DVD format, EVD

Good stuff, the more areas of human activity that the free software way of producing things spreads to the better, another science thing is featured on the front page of Creative Commons at the moment, PLoS:

The Public Library of Science is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. PLoS emerged in October 2000 through the effort of three dynamic and highly respected scientists: Nobel Laureate and former head of the National Institutes of Health Harold Varmus, molecular biologist Pat Brown of Stanford University, and biologist Michael Eisen of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley. This trio's dream, as the L.A. Times put it, is to build "a world in which the many thousands of scientific journals . . . are placed in an electronic library open to the public."

Science and education seem to be areas where this is taking off at the moment, the design of things seems to be happening at a lot slower rate. Perhaps the lack of free CAD software to compete with AutoCAD is one of the main things holding this back?

I'm looking forward to the day when I can buy a washing machine and vacuum cleaner that are build from designs under GPL style licences...

Here's an article in the Los Angeles Times about groups that oppose this. They claim, among other things, that it'll "make it harder for some people to vote." I love free speech, but sometimes the people exercising it just piss me the hell off.

You a just patently wrong fanboy. Typical Nintendo fan, no facts, just wishful thinking. Nintendo just posted a loss for the first time ever.

Given that Spamcop's website was successfully taken down, it seems that describing spammers operations as "desperate" is a lot like President Bush saying how the terrorists are getting desperate given our success (16 killed in the most recent attack).

Cary Sherman has stated before the money collected will go to the enforcemnt process, not the artists or even their masters, err labels...

LA Times said in this story "The proceeds from any trials or settlements will be kept by the RIAA to cover the cost of its anti-piracy campaigns, rather than being used to compensate labels and artists."

Considering we've already set the precedent for using unmanned flying vehicles to execute suspected terrorists (including a US citizen) from the sky.

You can add to Bush's list of accomplishments the fake California energy 'shortage' engineered by Enron and Cheney which sent 17 billion dollars from California to Texas. Or how the investigation of the energy policy manipulation which permitted it, is currently being stonewalled by the White House.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

Probably more than three years R&D, considering NASA has developed tile-repair kits since the 80's (before the first shuttle launch even!), but never deployed them on the shuttles for unknown reasons.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

It's even worse than that, folks. Los Angeles has banned lap dancing. There truly is no reason to live here anymore.

write a letter to their CEO

Just make sure to include his prisoner number

Taking links from a website I know cannot handle a Slashdotting:

Waleed M Alshehri - alive and well in Casablanca, Morocco

Marwan Al Shehhi - Alive; same link as above

Ahmed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above

Wail M Alshehri - Alive

Ahmed Alnami - Alive; same link as above

Abdulaziz Alomari - Working for Saudi Telecom

Khalid Almihdar - alive and living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Salem Alhamzi - Working at a petrochemical company

Saeed Alghamdi - Alive; same link as above


We do not know who the hijackers actually were.

you can almost be certain that the MPAA/RIAA will try to maintain the status quo at all costs.

This is simply not true. In fact, in the other part of the article I linked, you will see that the British record is actually worse than the American record.

Hi, read this article some time back:

Harriers - the Widowmaker (from the LA Times)

Some excerpts:

Far From Battlefield, Marines Lose One-Third of Harrier Fleet
The corps, pursuing its long-held dream of a unique flying force, pays a heavy price: 45 of its elite officers killed.

Many of the Harrier's ailments can be traced directly to its innovative vertical-thrust technology. But despite the investment of tax dollars, aircraft and pilots' lives, there is little evidence that the Harrier's noncombat deaths have been redeemed in any significant way on the battlefield

In the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the hot thrust-producing nozzles in the heart of the fuselage -- the devices that allow the Harrier to rise and balance in the air -- made the plane a magnet for heat-seeking missiles. Its loss rate was more than double that of the war's other leading U.S. combat jets. Five Harriers were shot down and two pilots died.

"It's the most vulnerable plane that's in service now," said Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, who evaluates tactical aircraft for the Pentagon.

Next time, do your research

I actually did, you'd be pleased to know.

Hi, read this article some time back:

Harriers - the Widowmaker (from the LA Times)

Some excerpts:

Far From Battlefield, Marines Lose One-Third of Harrier Fleet
The corps, pursuing its long-held dream of a unique flying force, pays a heavy price: 45 of its elite officers killed.

Many of the Harrier's ailments can be traced directly to its innovative vertical-thrust technology. But despite the investment of tax dollars, aircraft and pilots' lives, there is little evidence that the Harrier's noncombat deaths have been redeemed in any significant way on the battlefield

In the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the hot thrust-producing nozzles in the heart of the fuselage -- the devices that allow the Harrier to rise and balance in the air -- made the plane a magnet for heat-seeking missiles. Its loss rate was more than double that of the war's other leading U.S. combat jets. Five Harriers were shot down and two pilots died.

"It's the most vulnerable plane that's in service now," said Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, who evaluates tactical aircraft for the Pentagon.

Next time, do your research

I actually did, you'd be pleased to know.

OK, how bout next time you do your research, too. A quick google search turned up this story from the LA Times (mirror here)

Quote from the story:

The lifetime accident rate for the Marines' AV-8B is 11.44 per 100,000 hours of flight, well over the combined rates for other attack and fighter planes flown during those years by the Marines, the Navy and the Air Force.

The AV-8B had 12 major accidents per 100,000 hours flown during the decade. The three similar Harrier models flown by the Royal Air Force during that time had accident rates ranging from 12 to 19 when the U.S military standard is applied.

Because there are fewer Harriers in Great Britain, and they fly fewer hours, they've had fewer crashes and fatalities.

The Harrier is not a safe aircraft. The RAF knows it, that is why they are part of the Joint Strike Fighter program. That program aims to create a VTOL aircraft without the problems of the Harrier.

OK, how bout next time you do your research, too. A quick google search turned up this story from the LA Times (mirror here)

Quote from the story:

The lifetime accident rate for the Marines' AV-8B is 11.44 per 100,000 hours of flight, well over the combined rates for other attack and fighter planes flown during those years by the Marines, the Navy and the Air Force.

The AV-8B had 12 major accidents per 100,000 hours flown during the decade. The three similar Harrier models flown by the Royal Air Force during that time had accident rates ranging from 12 to 19 when the U.S military standard is applied.

Because there are fewer Harriers in Great Britain, and they fly fewer hours, they've had fewer crashes and fatalities.

The Harrier is not a safe aircraft. The RAF knows it, that is why they are part of the Joint Strike Fighter program. That program aims to create a VTOL aircraft without the problems of the Harrier.

I suppose academia is a dangerous addiction too...

skye

No, they are indeed talking about the USA, cell phone with text message usage has apparently finally hit enough of a critical mass among US teens (the ones with enough disposable money for movies also. . . are the ones who can afford cell phones) to make this kind of difference.

High-Tech Word of Mouth Maims Movies in a Flash (registration required) is what the shorter article you saw apppears to be based on.

I'm wondering why this doesn't seem to be happening in Europe. Are the export-only movie versions with enhanced sex and violence that much more entertaining?

In any case, I think Hollywood had better get the message that their only recourse is to start making better movies... probably starting with finding better ways to select movies. (previously covered on /.)