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Phantom Menace Pre-Orders Available
Geckoman writes "Amazon.com has The Phantom Menace available for presales in both widescreen and pan-and-scan. If you're boycotting Amazon, then you can also find it at Reel.com among other places."
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10) Install Windows 2000
9) Surf the Gay Jedi fanfic page.
8) Call up the MPAA and rat on people who link to DeCSS
7) Make Natalie Portman posts on /.
6) Try to make money by getting my friends to read my epinions (you too can be a spammer).
5) Run Ultima 9 on a non VooDoo 3 card.
4) Start a Daiktana fan page
3) Meet Jeff K on IRC for hacking tips. (FrEE KEVIN NITMACK!)
2) Code a DOS Emulator for Linux so I can play badass games designed for 486s
1) Order DVDs from MPAA aligned studios on Amazon.
These may sound evil - but they're probably more productive for your own karma in the long run.
The idea is obvious, the implementation straightforward but time-consuming (Amazon will eagerly tell you that they have "thousands of hours" of work tied up in one-click, which is technically true - it takes thousands of hours of work to implement this obvious feature.)
Having obtained this rather dubious patent for such an obvious e-commerce service, they have turned around and sued Barnes and Noble, coincidentally their biggest competitor, for infringing upon it. If they succeed, they set a dangerously low standard for what is patentable in the world of e-commerce, and will permit the digital amalgams of basic physical customer service to be monopolized via the patent system. (When you think about it, this is electronically equivalent to your corner bookseller recognizing who you are and billing your charge account. It's a business practice that's been around for hundreds of years, but when you do it with a computer, you can get a patent.)
The FSF has a page on the boycott.
Well then here is a link for you my apathetic friend. You complain about an edition costing more. If you'd stand for something like the rest of us, it may just bring the prices down.
Real mature. Amazon isn't keeping prices high for me (in fact, Amazon's continually got lower prices than my regular bricks-n-mortars locations) and DeCSS has only turned out to be a pissing contests between people who think they have the right to everything and people who think those same people have the right to nothing. I can choose better battles than Amazon's patenting rights (which isn't doing jack for prices one way or the other) and DeCSS, both of which are destructive battles, not constructive battles. Simply because I do not share your views about OSS legal views is not a reason to lessen my opinion about Star Wars marketing habits.
The major point is, Lucas is releasing a common video format in a much more expensive 'Collector's Edition'. I'd rather he release a special edition with a DVD in it instead or a regular Widescreen edition, like he did with the Special Edition videos. It has nothing to do with boycotting Amazon or my views on DeCSS.
And as far as prices go, Amazon is $4 cheaper than Reel.com for the same Collector's Edition. I could care less about their patent. Fifteen percent off is a good bargain, and the fact that they patented their e-commerce model is a trivial reason to not take advantage of it. I'm sure millions of shoppers also agree.
You pick your battles. I'll pick mine. But my views about Star Wars have nothing to do with any of them.
Actually the message "We don't buy any more videotape" must be resonating quite loudly in studio land, ie. as a significant drop in video sales to accompany the rise in DVD sales.
I wonder how long it'll be before they realize that tape is well on the way to becoming a legacy medium for film distribution (as distinct from TV time-shifting)? Nobody that I know buys films on video anymore, even if they don't (yet) have DVD players -- they know it's money wasted. I give it 3 years max.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
No, you've got that wrong: DVDs played on the computer monitor do NOT look better than on video or TV monitors. At best, the picture might have better geometry, but the experience will almost always be worse than on any half-decent lounge TV.
DVDs are encoded for presentation on an ordinary video display, so it's not surprising that that's what they display best on.
However, you can have your cake and eat it too by using a display card with a TV out, such as for example some of the MPEG decoder cards, and they often have S-video output as well, which yields even clearer pictures on the telly. Hook up your computer to an infrared remote sensor (like the IRman) positioned next to the TV and watching DVDs becomes a far more enjoyable experience than you can have watching it directly on your computer.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Not to mention the already old dispute over why Lucas isn't releasing a DVD version. If he has the time to put together a special edition VHS version they why can't he also do a special edition DVD. (Which is the excuse given for no DVD release).
I hate to think it but the only explanation I can come up with is trying to trick us into buying the movie twice. One on VHS since that's the only way we can get it and once on DVD so we can actually enjoy a quality version with good video and true surround sound (Not that lucas even bothers with dolby Pro-Logic on his videos instead claiming his THX crap is better. Even though all THX does is simulate suround from a non-suround recording and then only if you shell out the bucks to buy a decoder from someone who shelled out the bucks to guy the rights to put THX on).
Sorry, but personally I wasn't impressed enough by the movie to run out a spend my money twice. Espically if I have to shell out more to get widescreen (How anyone can defent pan and scan I still don't understand.). Lucas, if you truly care as much about quality as you claim then stop bilking your customers for money and give us a true high quality home video. This crap just dosen't cut it with informed consumers.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
There is a referral link in that link, and I doubt it's Slashdot's (of course I could be wrong, but why would they still have links to Amazon?). I consider it extremely lame to try to get your affiliat link slashdotted. Really lame. And if it isn't supposed to be there, I forgive emmett :) He's new
Write-in's were the best part, as it just became a competition to see what the funniest end for the question could be.
The best I remembered was
IMac: I'd rather have a ____ coloured one.
And the best write in for it was "real computer than a stupid girly"
Can an article be moderated as flamebait? We've been over all of this, and I'm sure that it will just be a matter of moments before the forum is ignited and flames about the lack of DVD (like myself), the evil MPAA and their handling of DeCSS, the supposed "boycott" of Amazon.com for their software patent, and of course, the beautiful Natalie Portman start flying...
--
E2 IN2 IE?
In case you haven't noticed, Slashdot has a partnership with Amazon.com. There's even a nice big Slashbox where you can search for books on Amazon, and if you buy something, Slashdot gets a cut. When money is involved, professed principles get thrown out of the window.
"The books here are brought to us in Partnership with Amazon.com.
If you follow the links around here, and eventually buy a book, we get a percentage of the cost!
Want books about any of these things? Perl, Linux, Unix, Gardening, CGI, Java?
Still not finding what you're looking for? Visit Amazon.com from this link, and we still get some credit. Or you could even Search Amazon using this convenient form:"
slashdot also has a partnership with fatbrain.com, for books. After the whole one-click shoping thing they switched.
Of course, fatbrain dosn't sell movies, as far as I know...
Amber Yuan (--ell7)
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Neither is Star Wars series a real scifi classic nor is it of a particular interest to geeks/nerds unless they are younger than twelve years of age. I mean the episodes IV-VI were passable but the latest LucasFilm production has been such a bastardisation of the SF genre that I felt embarrased and conned with it.
For crying out loud if you have a separate Section for Star Wars instead of a generic Science Fiction one then I demand the following be Slashdot topics too:
Score:-1,Offtopic as there's no other place on /. to say this