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Dude, you really need to just link to the article. I know you credit David Brin at the bottom, but you really, really need to not do that - just post the link to the original article. Even if you had put a simple 'This article appeared in the June 15th edition of Salon Magazine and was written by David Brin,' at the top; that would have been better than what you did. Because basically, unless you read the entire article, people don't know you didn't write it, and that's one step above plagiarism, but not by much.

Ross

P.S. Unless, that is, you actually are David Brin, in which case you should have made that fact more clear. (Somehow I doubt it)

Salon, like'em or lump'em, has a great story with Irvin Kershner, the man behind Empire Strikes Back here

I still think Empire is the best, and for many a good reason:
a) Lucas wrote the story, not the Screenplay
b) Two decent writers wrote the actual Screenplay
c) A seasoned Director behind the camera
d) A Producer who let the Director go overbudget when it was clear that to do so otherwise would have comprimised the whole shebang (see the Salon article)

Too bad Kershner hasn't done much of note lately, unless you count RoboCop 2 :P

pope, playing Way too much with that new Lego Y-Wing/Tie Figher combo :)

Argh. I have to jump in on this one.

I think the "Macs are toys." derision first came into vogue back when Apple introduced the original Macs which introduced to the -mass market- a graphical user interface, and a mouse. Example: "The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things."(from a Dvorak quote, SF Examiner, 1984). The idea was that "REAL computer -guys- don't use a GUI".

However, I think it ironic that one of the most popular derisions of the Mac remains "Macs are toys", but then one of the most popular laudatories of Wintel is "there are more games".

The problem is that this gets into all sorts of pesky copyright issues. Considering how heated up some people are getting over just the notion of "deep linking," actually copying someone else's site for public access opens up a whole 'nother can of legal worms.

• cults

To remain a Scientologist in good standing, one had to install the Scientology net-nanny program, which blocks access to all sites critical of Scientology, or contain names of Scientology critics (like me). Check out this great Salon article

It's amazing that this can be held up to redicule when it's a cult, but accepted when it's a government.

thad

As those inside know, it's not about money. It's about respect. We want the world-at-large to notice and adopt the *community values* that linux--and thus Red Hat--embodies. Thus, it was very important that the little guys not be shut out by E-Trade, because this movement is all about the little guys. This is a battle, and we can't stand to lose the ground.

Unfortunately, some of my rant was poorly-written and easily-misconstrued to be whining for my piece of the pie. I tried to be clearer in my follow-up piece; maybe I was successful. But Suck's way off track, here. The Red Hat IPO rewarded *precisely* the developers who Suck claimed would get ignored: the little guys who hacked some obscure feature of a random network driver or some such. It included them *because* we fought for it, and indeed that is the whole reason I pressed Salon to publish an article on the E-Trade fiasco in the first place.

We're trying to preserve a community here. Sometimes we collide with the financial world, but ultimately it's the *community* that's important. Suck just doesn't get it.

As those inside know, it's not about money. It's about respect. We want the world-at-large to notice and adopt the *community values* that linux--and thus Red Hat--embodies. Thus, it was very important that the little guys not be shut out by E-Trade, because this movement is all about the little guys. This is a battle, and we can't stand to lose the ground.

Unfortunately, some of my rant was poorly-written and easily-misconstrued to be whining for my piece of the pie. I tried to be clearer in my follow-up piece; maybe I was successful. But Suck's way off track, here. The Red Hat IPO rewarded *precisely* the developers who Suck claimed would get ignored: the little guys who hacked some obscure feature of a random network driver or some such. It included them *because* we fought for it, and indeed that is the whole reason I pressed Salon to publish an article on the E-Trade fiasco in the first place.

We're trying to preserve a community here. Sometimes we collide with the financial world, but ultimately it's the *community* that's important. Suck just doesn't get it.

What makes BWP different is that its promoters were not part of the huge corporate marketing machine, yet they managed to do a sophisticated, professional job of promoting the film, a job that Madison Avenue marketing types would be proud of. But individuals being able to market shlock just as well as Madison Avenue can market shlock doesn't seem to me to be a cause for celebration. The customers fitting the particular demographic profile this film was marketed to are getting the same thing, they're just getting it from some people who aren't yet part of Hollywood, rather than Hollywood itself. The folks who really are interested in good independent film are still seeing it, as they have been for years, and BWP didn't register any more than Titanic.

cjs

What makes BWP different is that its promoters were not part of the huge corporate marketing machine, yet they managed to do a sophisticated, professional job of promoting the film, a job that Madison Avenue marketing types would be proud of. But individuals being able to market shlock just as well as Madison Avenue can market shlock doesn't seem to me to be a cause for celebration. The customers fitting the particular demographic profile this film was marketed to are getting the same thing, they're just getting it from some people who aren't yet part of Hollywood, rather than Hollywood itself. The folks who really are interested in good independent film are still seeing it, as they have been for years, and BWP didn't register any more than Titanic.

cjs

While it's always nice to see someone realise that there are wonderful films being made outside Hollywood, to say that BWP is the start of some sort of new renaissance in non-Hollywood filmmaking is to dismiss decades of filmmakers. Sure, I had a similar `ah ha!' experience more then ten years ago when seeing Atom Egoyan's Family Viewing (which was made for a similar cost) for the first time, but I didn't jump to the conclusion that this was the start of a new trend, rather than the continuation of one I'd fallen into the middle of.

Sure, low-budget, non-Hollywood filmmaking is new to this corner of the Internet, and sure, this is the first film that's become a massive success based on Internet interest and hype (forged or otherwise: see Salon's Did "The Blair Witch Project" fake its online fan base?), but that's no excuse not to do one's background research before writing an article like this, and making a realistic assessment of where this film fits in the recent history of filmmaking.

cjs

The one comment I'd add is: enough about American Pie! What about "Coming Soon?" As the Salon article points out, this sounds like a great movie about the female side of the equation, and a movie I'd really like to see. I know I'm not the only 20-something straight guy who doesn't feel threatened by female sexuality, right? My g/f and I really enjoyed American Pie and I'd love to see Coming Soon with her, but because the hypocritical MPAA keeps trying to give it an NC-17, it probably won't be "Coming Soon" to theaters.. and that really sucks!

As soon as this article appeared, I thought "Great merciful crap, he's at it again, time to filter JonKatz"... but then I read it. Surprisingly free of the usual grammatical/spelling errors, this article was also written in a much more rational tone than some of your previous work. Of course, I might think this just because I completely agree with you or because I haven't slept enough lately. ;) The cheap trick of using "innocent children" as a ploy to pass censorship legislation is as disgusting as it is unAmerican. It's not just in the Linux community that information wants to be free; more info = better choices not just in operating systems but in all aspects of our lives. Arbitrarily preventing children from watching movies is not going to have any positive effect - all it does is try and cut people off from some aspect of human experience. No one is born with morals - they must be learned, by seeing what goes on in the world and being taught, and deciding for yourself, what's right and what's wrong. Two relevant urls: _The Parking Lot is Full_ on 'protecting' children Salon article on teens using the internet to make informed decisions about sex

First, for those of you that haven't, go read the real story. This movie's a nice fiction, but it's just that. When you're done with that, you migth like to read this article (even if it is on Salon). I'm not sure I quite agree with all the negative things said in it, but it's a pretty good response piece.

Also, regarding the compass... if the group was actually moving south all day the second day and if they came back to the same log across the creek they'd seen the day before, it's quite possible that this is not because of any witchcraft but because of a perfectly natural phenomenon. There is a lot of lode stone in the back country of Maryland, Pennsylvannia, and West Virginia, which would make compasses pretty useless (when in close proximity to it). (Well, at least, there was at the time that Mason and Dixon put the southern border of Pennsylvania through.)

You'd think that this would be an effect that any outdoorsmen with half a clue would know about, but as others have noted, these three weren't portrayed as the sharpest knives in the cutlery tray. Still, if you're pretty clearly walking around in a circle, get a clue...

Just for a point of clairification:

Salon recieved letters from about three or four of the supposedly "fake" fan sites and it turned out that they were real.

Now I suppose that there still could be some master conspiracy going on, but unless anyone has any proof of such a conspiracy, I choose to believe the filmmakers and the webmasters.

There is no hard evidence that the fan base was faked, just Salon's suppositions and many allusions to the Divx controversy.

And unlike the Divx fiasco, there actually is something worthy of creating a fan site in "The Blair Witch Project", which I thouroughly enjoyed.

HipNerd

It maybe an excellent movie, but I'm hesitant to see it because of the behavior of it's marketers. They created fake fan sites to sell the movie, à la DivX, documented in this article at Salon. Pretending the movie is real is one thing. It's cute and only morons believe it anyway. But this sort of thing is disgusting.

http://www.salon.com/tech /log/1999/07/16/linux/index.html

You'll definitely need to explain how it is different from the prior art. A feature the patent currently under discussion is sorely lacking.

That is why you have Internet censorship.

Humm... Have our government try and pass a law which will be overturned anyway or kill 12 kids a day in the name of "freedom"? How long until the gun becomes part of the school classroom?

>WRONG. Please stop quoting the Kellerman report.
>The data contained in it was proved false years ago.

That is interesting. Could you show me any references?

>Please read (and try to comprehend) "More Guns,
>Less Crime : Understanding Crime and Gun-Control
>Laws (Studies in Law and Economics)" by John
>Lott before quoting false statistics.

I searched on the net, but I couldn't find it. Lott seems like a kook though. "the worst thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash.", "stop worrying so much about the environment", "[A] nation's wealth [is maximized] if a crime is not deterred when the benefit to the criminal of a particular crime is greater than the total social cost of that crime." indeed. He sounds like a social darwinist. One gun related wievpoint I found about him was that if teachers would have been armed, the Jonesboro shooting would not have occured (and presumably neither the Littleton one). It's just nuts. In Littleton, two guards were armed and opened fire, but when the kids opened up with automatic weapons they had to hide and then ran and phoned the cops. And these were people who were trained.
The absurdity of this view is pretty effectively debunked here http://www.salon.com/co mics/boll/1999/05/06/boll/index.html.
I can only agree with this: "Lott has a long and well-documented track record of zealously advocating an extreme anti-consumer, anti-public safety ideology. His view that arming the populace with concealed handguns will reduce crime is just one more extreme view to be added to the list."

>>>Now that I hear about this enforced lack of
>>>privacy, I couldn't be happier.
>>That will be defeated. Believe me.
>God but you are naive AND stupid! Don't think
>for a moment that if it fails now, it won't be
>back again and again untill it passes. And since
>the public is disarmed, they WON'T BE ABLE TO
>STOP IT.

You know there is a conflict between openness and privacy. You wan't openness when it comes to politicians (and we have the most extensive laws on that subject in the world in Sweden) and privacy when it comes to citizens, right? The EU passed directives that said that you couldn't post personal information about living persons on the net without those persons' agreement. Sweden was the only country that made that a law (PUL - the Personal Information Law). Most people consider this a too serious infringement into free speech and there were LOADS of protests. Most people (including me) ignored it completely and continued to post personal information on the net. A political youth organization turned themselves in, to show how absurd the law was. This were examples of peaceful civil disobedience, and guess what? The goverement have realised how absurd the law is, and are going to scrap it.
No guns needed...just rational democratic discourse. And we were able to stop it.

>> The thing is, I didn't have a gun, and neither
>>did the robbers.
>
>So you were targeted by incompetent and ill
>equipped robbers. That proves nothing. Just wait
>untill an armed criminal finds and kills you.

Again, few people are killed by armed criminals in Sweden. That is because we have very strict gun laws.

>> I managed to get out of the situation all
>>three times without losing my money or getting
>>hurt by using my wits. You see, brains is more
>>important than guns.
>
>So you were LUCKY.

I was SMART. ;-)

>But please remember, your luck only has to fail
>you once.

Yeah, that's a fact of life isn't it? Sooner or later my luck will run out. An astroid will hit me, or I will trip and fall on a sharp stick, or my heart will give out of old age.

>Also note that these were ill equipped UNARMED
>ASSAILANTS. Therefore, guns were not in the
>situation and don't contribute to these data
>points.

Actually, we don't know that. If I would have pulled a gun on them perhaps I would have found out the hard way. But the odds are good they didn't have a gun, see, in Europe we have these strics gun laws that save a lot of peoples lives each year... ;-)

>>>Be seeing you.
>>Neat! You are welcome. Oh yeah...now I remember. ;-)
>Are you THAT STUPID?
Are you THAT HUMOURLESS?

>Eventually he probably will be seeing you (or someone very much like him).

Well, MolochHorridus turned out to be a pretty nice guy, even if we disagreed on the subject of gun control. So that is ok.

If you refer to his fictional gun toting criminal or goverment agent - the risk is actually pretty low. My brother is a cop, and he has not been fired at once yet.

>Just not for very long. Enjoy your dirt nap.

Dirt nap? I don't know exactly what that means, but I can guess it wasn't nice. Again, try reason instead of flames if you want to convince me.

Cheers,
Lars

...were published in yesterday's Salon. The review had this quote: "if you're looking for an amusing, Hollywood-filtered dramatization of the rise of the geek industry, there are worse ways to spend your Sunday evening."
The debunking of the story I found more interesting and informative. "Pirates" isn't ground-breaking by any means, and does little more than perpetuate the existing mythos of Silicon Valley (and make TNT some ad revenue). The real history (IMHO) is more interesting, but it'd shatter the popular worldview, so few subscribe to it. It's more fun to demonize people you only know through third- or fourth-hand accounts, apparently. :)
--

...were published in yesterday's Salon. The review had this quote: "if you're looking for an amusing, Hollywood-filtered dramatization of the rise of the geek industry, there are worse ways to spend your Sunday evening."
The debunking of the story I found more interesting and informative. "Pirates" isn't ground-breaking by any means, and does little more than perpetuate the existing mythos of Silicon Valley (and make TNT some ad revenue). The real history (IMHO) is more interesting, but it'd shatter the popular worldview, so few subscribe to it. It's more fun to demonize people you only know through third- or fourth-hand accounts, apparently. :)
--

...were published in yesterday's Salon. The review had this quote: "if you're looking for an amusing, Hollywood-filtered dramatization of the rise of the geek industry, there are worse ways to spend your Sunday evening."
The debunking of the story I found more interesting and informative. "Pirates" isn't ground-breaking by any means, and does little more than perpetuate the existing mythos of Silicon Valley (and make TNT some ad revenue). The real history (IMHO) is more interesting, but it'd shatter the popular worldview, so few subscribe to it. It's more fun to demonize people you only know through third- or fourth-hand accounts, apparently. :)
--

See the Salon article

--which takes an opposite view...that too much time is wasted on Dr. Evil, and not enough on other characters and Powers himself.

Personally, I find Powers, as a caricature, terribly amusing, at a low consumption level. After about five minutes, I find myself wanting to tear my hair out. The problem I had with the first film is that it was like a Saturday Night Live skit that was too long. (A common criticism.) Nevertheless, I find Powers so interesting, I'll probably see the film anyway.

> When the human hunts they are only playing out their natural instincts.

Indeed. Flee-or-fight is a powerful thing. If you're really interested, you should checkout
some of Camille Paglia columns in Salon.

http://www.salon.com/archives/to/col _pagl.html

Every big movie arrives in a cloud of tie-ins, toy promotions and fast-food marketing schemes these days. Lucas can?t be blamed for that.

Or can he? Salon's Charles Taylor sure seems to think so.

Did Lucas, ever the hater of Hollywood, succeed in helping destroy it?

-Andrew

You really must read this article on Salon magazine.

The first line says it all: "In the land of no good explanations, the man with the daffiest explanation is king."

Everone's looking for an explanation, and the Internet is just one things fingers are being pointed at. Other things are: Kosovo, trenchcoats, Goths. (I wonder what kind of upbringing these boys had)

I guess this quote from the article explains why the Internet stands accused:
"But clearly there are deeper fears at work. We are eternally concerned with what technology will do to us -- how it will change our minds, change our lives, affect our livelihoods."

With over 50% of US families having access to the Internet, I don't think many people will take this finger-pointing seriously.

As a current Salon employee, I can assure you that Salon cares *most deeply* about community. Unlike big fat cat sites (like, say, Geocities or Lycos), Salon actually works really hard to foster beneficial communication and develop friendships.

Matter of fact, one of *my* personal issues at Salon has been writing about how other companies destroy their online communities. To wit: a recent story on the demise of Netscape's community and a scathing critique of Geocities. Believe me, Salon will not make the same mistakes. Just check out our Table Talk areas.

I've had Salon's technology section bookmarked for weeks; pretty good stuff, and excellent free/OS coverage. But this (Tuesday) morning, I'm seeing a bunch of broken links. (It was okay Monday, when they debuted the "new look".) Disappointing to say the least.