'Harry Potter' Offered (Legitimately) on the Net

Skyshadow writes "Warner Brothers is distributing several movies, including Harry Potter and Mars Attacks via the internet. The price is the same as I pay for Pay-Per-View from my satellite provider ($3.99 for a 24 license), and the movies are in the area of 700 megs. I'm sure that movies on demand will eventually take off as a legitimate and feasible distribution method, but given that a vast majority of US households are without broadband, is this an idea before its time?"

Comments

spelling and grammar troll v1.4

[Anonymous Coward]

It has come to my attention that "slashdot", subsidiary of VA Software, is a refuge for people with a terrible sense for grammar and spelling. As a remediation, please accept the following recommendations about the use of some frequent linguistic expressions :

• "Alot" vs. "A lot" : There is no such word as alot. In fact, when confronted with the word alot, ispell tells us the following : "how about : allot,aloe,aloft, alto, blot, clot, lot, plot, slot"
• Just the fact moronic Americans pronounce Bernstein, neither, Einstein and other 'ei'-words as "Burnstean", "neather", "Ainstean", etc... doesn't mean they have to write those words "Bernstien", "niether" or "Einstien". Special mention to "thier", "becuase" and "amatuer".
• "Than" vs. "Then" : Just the fact that in some inferior dialects of the English language, "than" and "then" are pronounced about the same way doesn't mean that the comparative "than" has any reason to be written as the conjunctive/logical "then".
• Your vs. You're : The former means "not my, not his, not our", in other words it is a possessive. The latter is a shortcut for "You are". Similar point for There vs Their vs They're.
• Hobbyist and lobbyist are not superlatives. Hence they musn't be written as hobbiest and lobbiest.
• Thi fuct thit ya ridnucks prunince any avelible vowal as "uh" doesn't forbid you to open a book from time to time to actually build up some vocabulary. It's "ludicrous" and "compatible", not "ludacris" and "compatable".
• Its vs It's. The former is the genitive form of "It" and will therefore make the following word an attribute of the word replaced by the pronoun. Example : illiteracy and its consequences. The latter is an shortcut for "It is". Example : Illiteracy. It's so annoying.
• lose vs. loose : the first is the verb associated with a loss. The second is the contrary of "firm"
• to vs too : Your spelling is too pathetic for your post to matter to me. Your grammar too.
• I could (not) care less. Most people say "I could care less" when they don't give a flying fuck. If they really could care less, then their lack of interest isn't that big. What they mean is that they could not care less.

...many more to come. Reply to this comment to suggest some.

A definition of irony :

A bunch of computer nerds without a sense for spelling and grammar mocking japanese game translators for their lack of skills in english spelling and grammar.

Contribution by Erpo :

I'm not any kind of grammar nazi, but decent spelling and grammar are important to me. The occasional affect/effect problem doesn't bother me (it just lowers my opinion of the author), but when a piece is riddled with errors (there/they're/their, its/it's, then/than, etc..) it's hard for me to read. Partially, I think this is because I sight read and I don't subvocalize. In other words, when I see, "It's over their," in print the first thing I think is, "It's over their what? Is it hovering over their kitchen counter? Is it over their heads? What is this person trying to say?" Of course, I don't just sit there pondering those questions (it only takes a split second to see there was a grammar error in the sentence), but I can't read as quickly when every few lines my eyes flick back to an earlier word.

Maybe I'm just hypersensitive. I don't know. If you don't know what I'm talking about though, check out this piece by Prince. It doesn't have very many grammar problems, but the "creative" spelling is really distracting.

Re:spelling and grammar troll v1.4

[Anonymous Coward]

of course many people who write on slashdot are doing it during work or near school and they want to get their point across quickly. And dont have time for a spell check on their work. It is often not really worth it to make something that is perfect just to get the point across. If this relly bugs you contribute a spelling and grammer checker in the slashdot code.

ARRGGHHH!

[Goose3254]

When will they get the hint and stop offering such platform specfic formats? BILL GATES DOESN'T NEED MY MONEY.

Correction

[gazbo]

Although we all know what you mean, in a grammar/troll guide you have to be uber-careful. Hence, I suggest you replace the fragment "Your grammar too." with the full sentence "The same goes for your grammar too." or an equivalent.

HTH!