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"Wait, what? Police is supposed to execute the laws which tell what people shouldn't do. It certainly isn't limited to investigating the wrongs that people have already done."

Reminds me of Guns & Talks:

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/guns_and_talks.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns_&_Talks

In one scene, a pregnant woman asks a visiting detective to ask her cheating husband to not harm her or her fetus. The detective replied, "Lady, we don't ASK criminals not to commit crime. We CATCH them." hehehe

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As for the people advocating leaving their ports open, I think it is nice that people are being friendly and all, but, it's not even just protecting the router owner from being abused. Some people obviously leave their routers open just to vacuum up information that isn't their damned business nor right to do so. Modern day digital peeping toms. Obviously, the police can't (or won't) just come right out and say they have (well-founded) suspicious that people are brokering information or just peeping.

And, let's not forget that the ISPs would LOVE to have everyone subscribed singly/individually by household. Someday, i bet, they'll want it down to the individual. All someone or some industry company has to do is cause the government to issue everyone a device, but compel the use of it as their only sanctioned means of non-work broadband communication. Such a move would probably be more controversial than getting rid of paper/cash in favor of trackable digital transactions.

This band seems to be following the script of the semi-movie-semi-mockumentary Hong Kong film "The Heavenly Kings," in which the band decides to upload their main song to P2P networks, then complain of the leak in a press release as a method of getting coverage, hype, and attention.

Never was quite clear just how much of the film is real, and how much is fictional (the actors in the movie did in fact start a cheezy boy band, as depicted in the film, and seemed to, on one hand, draw inspiration for the film from their experiences, at the very least).

Anyhoo, the second I read the blrb, I instantly realized these guys have probably watched the film in question.

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/heavenly_kings.htm

Seen "Natural City"?

Check it out:

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/natural_city.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_City

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/natural-city/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10004724-natural_city/

Despite some negative reviews, this is a pretty good film. It's more drama than sci-fi. It HAS gadgets, some awesome stop-motion action, and the characters have depth. Unlike cold, stoic Blade Runner, Natural City actually pulls tears from the eyes due to the acting talent performance, the things happening to characters, and other reasons you might personally find.

"Let's assume a pedophile starts with a Roomba, and adds to it piece by piece until it resembles an animatronic underage Real Doll - at what point does it become illegal?"

I know..

1. When it becomes a synthetic human (self-aware, sentient, basically... if we can morally and technologically accept that despite the existence or non-existence of "God", that human recreation is by the hand of humans, whether by organ-to-organ contact, or by test tube/in-vitro.

2. When the "Real Doll" becomes a REAL DOLL, as in

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/natural_city.htm

http://www.shuqi.org/asiancinema/reviews/naturalcity.shtml

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378428/

(I have the DVD and enjoy it enough to re-watch almost monthly. It's worth the ~$20.)

At that point, if the Dolls in real life have technological or material lifespans, extended only by theft of a real human's DND/brain matter, then, at that point, it DEFINITELy should be illegal, whether the stolen matter is child or adult. (Not sure if I want to venture into the area of taking matter from an invalid or comatose/vegetative person. But, for a freshly dead body.... hmmm... Then again, when does the "soul" vacate the body or the "scene", and will it become a malevolent or hungry ghost upon finding out its former body was appropriated by force or after its death for carnal pleasure of unrestrained human beings?)

Hungry Ghost:

http://www.google.com/search?q=hungry+ghost&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

You might want to watch "Natural City".

I liked the special effects, the androids, and the visual related to facials and cranials. Even the scenes where human bones are broken by a particularly ruthless android/robot are "chilling" I got my copy at Virgin for $24.99. You can also get it at Border's. Probably 5 or 6 other places.

SPOILER WARNINGS!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378428/

http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/natural_city.htm

http://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm03.html

Despite there being any DVD 9 on Tartan DVDs, it runs fine in Kaffeine and Xine, and I'm on Mandriva 10.1

Oh, and I agree with what LoveHKFilm said:

"It must be said again: the production design is damn fine. What director Min Byung-Chun and company have accomplished here rivals anything out of Hollywood's SFX handbook, and probably at a fraction of the cost."

These help:

"Natural City attempts to placate both the thinkers and the bloodthirsty in one glorious widescreen go."

"The carnage is kind of cool, but not entirely consistent."

"However, in grand Korean Cinema style, tragedy and bad vibes are nearly guaranteed. If you've seen any Korean Cinema before, you should know this: it's going to get melodramatic, and if the filmmakers can pull it off, they'll send all their characters straight to hell in a body bag."

On the other hand this is a movie being made from DOA the video game, so director-wise it could have been worse. (Remember, I'm pretty surprised it isn't Uwe Boll directing here...)

Actually, this is the theme of Soul Edge the first Soul Calibur game. Mitsurugi is seeking the cursed blade Soul Edge in order to fight enemies who use guns, which I guess he feels makes his lifetime of training worthless. In fact in one of Mitsurugi's endings, you get to fight his nemesis, a rifleman, as I recall.

Oh, it's also an important plot element in Once Upon a Time in China, as the character Yim says "No matter how good our kung-fu is, it will never defeat guns."

As an aside, from the Mitsurugi Wikipedia article:

However, in some parts of the world, where samurai and ninja are prohibited in video games, Mitsurugi is replaced by a character named Arthur.

Hurray for Morse code on cellphones !!

I like having all my movies and music and shows just a mouse click away. No fondling media, no DVD drives whooshing and movies stuttering halfway throgh because some tiny piece of schmutz got on the precious disc. In order to do this, I don't care at all what 500kbs or 1mbps files look like - The Twins effect alone occupies about 2GB on one of my drives, and I still haven't been able to produce a rip of Natural City that satisfies me even when the last one I tried was nearly 4GB (lots of film grain in that one and I don't care to lose it).

Yes... many of us care about quality. In fact, this is the very reason I rip DVDs - so the programs I enjoy play (more smoothly) from my hard drive.