Slashdot Mirror
Harry Potter Leaked Via Handheld Camera
owlgorithm writes "Salon reports that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been leaked four days before it hits bookstores. It turns out that someone with access to the American edition of the book has taken a photograph of every one of the pages and made them available via bittorrent. Publishers may well be quaking in their boots, but in some places the quality is barely legible. On many pages the pirateer's hands are in the pictures with other pages needing a bit of Photoshopping just to make out the words. It appears many of the sites have been removing the content, naturally enough."
so? it's not like it's worth anything. Labor intensive, to boot
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
a single sale.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Crappy cam quality. Can't they telesync a book nowadays?
Oh wait...
Trolling is a art,
I mean... Harry Potter is Luke Skywalker's father?!
On several sites that allow commenting, people are posting the spoilers. I've already had the book ruined for me unexpectedly :P (since it was a week before release)...
Can someone who has it please tell me if it is suitable for OCR?
lol
Reading it right now. Only a couple pages (like 2% of the book) are unreadable, doesn't affect the plot at all. And don't give me crap about stealing/pirating/hurting sales, since I still plan on being at the midnight opening at bn.
I really doubt it. When this stuff happens the media reports it. that is advertising.
And for you folks that read this and/or the spoilers, too bad. You could have closed your eyes.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Wow, thanks for that. I was totally lost when Mr. Slashdot started talking about "bitorrents". Its lucky you dropped in to expand on the totally vague summary, up until this point I had no idea on how to search for this Harold Potter fellow and where I would even go to look for something such as this. Thank you again for gracing us with your wisdom.
This could be a marketing strategy. Just make sure the readable pages don't expose much of the story and make the unreadable pages contain bits of juicy writing. Just enough to make book worms salivate for more Potter action.
I should pattent this method of advertising.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
http://bayimg.com/jadhAAABp
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
What will this gain? The photos have a serial number of the camera, so how long is it until the person is caught? I personally would enjoy the chance to go through and read all of it, but bit torrent downloads can be tracked, and I am not about to risk it or waste my time on bad quality pictures with half of it blurry (I did see the pictures on some one elses machine). There is also a wide policy about posting spoilers, so nearly all will ignore this and move on with their lives. I personally pity the fool who put the pictures up there; I would start running to some far off land for the next year or so to avoid the feds and publishers.
I read it until I realized that if I keep reading this, it'll ruin it for me when the book actually does come out.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
This isn't "lone gunman are dead", but the fact that there is a "Harry Potter leaked info" story right now is just the place for trolls, etc, to post spoilers. I'm avoiding all of the Harry Potter forums as is to avoid this -- I'd rather not have to avoid Slashdot.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
By the time I had read the subject line's *spoilers* tag, my peripheral vision had read and processed the the first sentence of the parent. I don't think this needs to be modded into oblivion, but it SHOULD require deliberate action from the user to appear.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
I've waited this long, have the day off work and the fridge stocked with spcied wine.
I for one will be waiting until the official launch for my copy.
I already read the whole low quality photo thing (remarkable how well your eyes can read horribly blurred jpg compressed text) and posted a summary here for anyone who is interested: http://harrypotter7spoilers.blogspot.com/ there were really only about 4 pages and a few more paragraphs that were illegible. Put it did take some zooming and effort to get through the whole thing in about 6 hours.
The same really applies to those movie rip-offs shot with a video cam from the back row. Anybody buying a fuzzy/shaky rip-off will still buy a legal version later.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You do realize that over half are fakes? Look at the copyright name and copyright page and tell.
I was planning on picking up the book on Saturday morning and I was going to avoid the Web, TV, and radio till I finished. Now I've got to start the self-imposed media blackout now.
[Insert pithy quote here]
How do we know it was done with a handheld camera? Looks like magic to me.
Its a freaking KIDS BOOK!
http://bayimg.com/album/OaAaDAAAb
http://bayimg.com/album/oAaADaAaB
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I have slept with J.K. Rowling, and I can state, with absolute certainty, that those are her hands. They are absolutely unmistakable, so the woman has leaked her own book. Way to drum up interest!
So, somebody MADE you read the spoilers?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
$ jhead -v *.jpg
Exif header 10750 bytes long
Exif section in Intel order
(dir has 9 entries)
Make = "Canon"
Model = "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL"
Orientation = 1
XResolution = 180/1
YResolution = 180/1
ResolutionUnit = 2
DateTime = "2007:07:15 20:40:11"
Canon maker tag 0006 Value = "IMG:EOS DIGITAL REBEL JPEG"
Canon maker tag 0007 Value = "Firmware Version 1.0.2"
Canon maker tag 000c Value = 560151117
Canon maker tag 0015 Value = -1879048192
Canon maker tag 0008 Value = 1363625
Yeah, the guy might as well have left his drivers license on his ugly ass speckled carpet.
Harry and Ron stepped through the fat woman painting into the Gryffindor common room in some consternation. "I hope Hermione hasn't passed us completely," Ron said. "I can't believe she took summer classes."
"I would have if I could," Harry said, "but I didn't have the O.W.L.s to manage it. Remember, her last letter said she was going to go on to post-graduate work." They waved to familiar friends and began introducing themselves to the new students. Quite a lot of the younger students kept passing them and then looking back at Harry and stopping dead in surprise.
After eight years, Harry was used to being stared at. The dark Lord Voldemort's attack on him as a baby left him a distinctive lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, and the reputation of being the only person Voldemort couldn't kill outright did the rest, with some help from the reputation Harry had built for himself since. After discovering he was a wizard and could attend Hogwart's School of Wizardry, Harry had gotten wind of several of Voldemort's evil schemes and had thwarted them all. He had faced death, humiliation, basilisks, dragons, evil wizards, malicious spells, foul odors, the undead, and even the Inland Revenue and remained unscathed. Oddly enough, Voldemort's schemes seemed to be losing oomph, as if he could no longer pull together enough power to get a really good evil plan together. The last attempt had been to place Harry on a chain letter mailing list.
As more and more students kept staring at him, Harry began to realize that there was a different class of attention. He recognized the star-gazers, the well-wishers, the groupies, the jealous, and the envious, but he kept noticing female students looking at him in a funny way, almost as if they were hungry. One pretty blonde student even went so far as to lick her lips and use her hand to smooth out the front of her robe, although Harry hadn't noticed any wrinkles..
Ron noticed it as well. "Cor, Harry! You outta be able to get some serious schtank this year! And we're finally of legal age to learn Sex Magic, so you'll have an excuse and everything."
"But why are they staring at me? Why not both of us?" Harry asked, blushing furiously.
"Well, look at you. You've been playing tournament-class Quidditch for eight years, you're in fantastic shape, you've got the scar (chicks love scars, Harry), and Daniel Radcliffe turned out to be a hunk."
"What?"
"Look, there's Hermione!"
Hermione Granger was standing at the bottom of the steps to the girls' dormitories. Harry and Ron dashed towards her and then stopped dead. Hermione had changed over the summer. The difference was so great that Harry was forced to realize that he hadn't really been paying attention the last few years. The mass of curly brown hair was still there, but it was arranged in an artful way to frame her face and curl over her shoulders. Her face was more angular, with high cheekbones and clear milky skin. The prominent front teeth were still there, but they only served to push her lips forward in a very interesting manner, making her look as if she was always just about to eat a strawberry. Her robes had changed as well; they fit quite a bit better, for one, and the neckline seemed much more fascinating than before. She had a thin leather belt around her waist, from which hung several small silk pouches and which incidentally accentuated her lush curves. Heavily orchestrated music began playing. "Hi Harry, hi Ron!" she called, and went to hug them both.
"Um, cough, wow, Hermione, you're looking really, um, good," Ron blurted out. Harry just nodded and concentrated on trying to breathe normally.
She preened. "Th
I lost interest in Harry Potter after about the second book. The only thing that I was curious about was whether HP gets killed off. I'm sure not willing to plow through 759 pages to find that out. From that perspective, spoilers are a good thing.
It's not like I don't read; it's just that I prefer just about anything by Terry Pratchett to anything by JKR. They both have wizards but Pratchett's are way more entertaining because Pratchett is about three times as clever as JKR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett
People don't seem to realize that the human eye precaches their posts while the brain is still processing the subject line. Mod down, please.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
rules 1 and 2, faggot
Sorry, your response must be in the form of a press release.
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
some prat has put it all who dies etc etc on videos on youtube
and why was it released in the us before uk when it is a british book?
... has enough time and energy to photocopy a book page by page?
Just kidding. Made you look! ;)
My copy showed up on the doorstep today. Online vendor, I won't say which one, but a medium-big name that you'd recognize. Pretty funny, I got the free "slow" shipping option. "Slow" turned out to be nearly a week before the release date...
"She preened. "Thanks! I've been studying up on Sex Magic, it's dead easy. Did you get all the stuff on your list for this year?""
I really do find it sad and pathetic that some people live to spoil things for others. I couldn't care less about Harry Potter but many people do. It's in the same category with defacing artwork to feel a sense of self importance. If they have no talent themselves they feel it gives their lives meaning to destroy some one elses work. Obviously it's not on the same level but it is the same kind of mentality of people that do things like shoot John Lennon. No one knew who the guy was before or cared but now they know his name. Great the guy managed to leak Harry Potter so for a moment he's important. That isn't gaining geek points they are looser points in my book.
You know, folks are wanting to see or read the ending before they invest the time and energy into something when they might not like the ending. I don't watch 24, they always kill the folks I like. I found out how the Transformers movie went before going - didn't much like the cartoon movie where Optimus dies so I didn't particularly want to see that either. There are enough surprises out there and nobody wants to pay for a bad surprise so you know, the folks will noodle the facts out as soon as possible.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
...what possible perverse pleasure anyone could get out of spoiling something wonderful for other people. I sometimes go looking for spoilers, but for something I am really, really looking forward to, I won't do it. I LIKE to anticipate, be surprised, feel the "magic," however you wish to put it. I know, so don't look, but I just can't help feeling sorry for people who walk through life with all the wonder ripped out, and feel that everyone else deserves to have theirs ripped out, as well. Whatever anyone thinks of Harry Potter, anything that encourages reading, imagination, excitement, and wonder is something worth preserving intact.
I have a Sorting Hat replica I won from hollywood.com years ago, and yes, I will be wearing it to the midnight Harry Potter party, looking ridiculous, embarrassing my kids, and loving every minute of it. LoL. Enjoy life, you only go around once.
"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do."
is that I can satisfy my curiosity about the ending now, but will have forgotten all about it by the time I start reading the actual book. Who is this Harry Potter anyway?
Harry is gay.... ... and proud.
No internet for four days!?!
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Are you a complete cheapskate?
What's wrong with waiting a whole four days and then buying the book yourself?
Or, waiting a few days longer and borrowing a used copy from a friend?
Or, waiting a few days longer and buying a used copy via eBay?
Or, borrowing a copy from your local library when they have it?
If you're that desperate to read the book that you'd go through the hassle of downloading a torrent and then running all the pages through an OCR package, and then putting all that together, and then having to wonder what happened in the parts that weren't clear enough to OCR as well as deal with the hassle of incorrectly recognised characters then you should be a man and just buy for the damn book.
I'd really love to know your justification for doing anything but that.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Would have been faster and improved quality.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Hence the lightning bolt on the forehead.
I hear the perp left his Canon's serial number in the Exif data for each picture. I wonder if he registered the camera? Will Canon protect his privacy? ;)
FTA: available via bittorrent
Swedish law protects online "caching" of several copyrighted material, the exception to the rule is literacy.
That means PirateBay, which owns bayimg and the bittorrent servers controlling the distribution network of that online book now can be sued.
...go through the trouble to deal with such a photo leak has got to need psychiatric help.
I mean come on... Haven't pirates found out about OCR scanning and text certainly compresses better than images.
But then again, a genuine fan would want something that fits collector status in at least a minimal way. Like buy the book and hope to get it autographed.
Pirated works are not collectible except to a pirate maybe, and then its not even for the work as much as it is for the act of piracy.
Of course there are those who might like to be one up on a friend or two, by knowing what happens before their friends do..
The price of fame.
Why the hell are you reading this story!?
Let me guess, you don't expect to be told spoilers here?
P.S. "Luke! I am your father!"
The fans won't want to read this low-quality capture, the non-fans weren't buying anyway (except as a gift, which they'll still do), and besides, reading the book has never hurt the movie that follows from it. Having a crap copy is either going to do (1) nothing, as it's not worth the effort, or (2)make someone want the book.
.MOD file vs. an .MP3 -- the latter is sometimes a suitable replacement for the medium it came from, but the former is not. It may get the point across, but it's just not the same thing.
Now if someone OCR'd it to a text file, THAT might actually cut into sales a little bit. But in order to do that, the capture would have to not suck.
This is like a
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v608/pedro45acp/ HarryPotterScandals.jpg
Wow. Those are strong effects indeed.
The reach back in time a few thousand years!
An Insightful Guardian columnist has finally come out and said what literate people have known all along. J.K. Rowling's writing is RUBBISH.
(If you find that revelation shocking, just don't ask about Dan Brown, ok?)
Predictably, a chorus of twit commenters felt driven to argue that the Potter Phenomenon's sheer Scale and Success makes it self-evidently Valuable to Society (much like B. Gates must be an Important and Clever Person because he's Really Rich.) Uh-uh. Crappy writing is not good for anyone, just like crappy food (this may also come as a surprise to some), and on this point I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Lezard:
All the Potter franchise does, like 99% of TV and Hollywood output, is entrench the hold of pointless and mediocre culture. The only thing unusual this time, is it's Made in Britain.
you had me at #!
For one..the quality isnt bad at all. Completely readable by anyone with half a brain. There are maybe 3 or 4 pages in the whole thing, most toward the very beginning where a half a page is messed up by exposure, and you have to adjust the contrast to read it fine. As for the serial number or exif data..sorry, there isn't any. Only real data is photo resolution and exposure info and that it is a canon eos digital rebel. This wasn't released to ruin it for people. You can hate him if you want, but he has done a lot of us favors who don't want to spend a great deal of money on books. This isn't just a harry potter thing either, a lot of books are released in digital form early, and almost all books are eventually. He should be applauded for his courage and creativity for managing to photograph an entire book in 45 minutes with the quality that he did. Sure, we can all be mad at him/her for pissing off the richest woman in England by releasing the book early, but to be honest I could really not give a damn.
Someone shot John Lennon? Gee, thanks.
I was just starting to enjoy this Beatles biography but you've ruined it for me now...
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Hell no - for one thing, nobody is being killed here. But besides that, I frankly don't think it's that big of a deal. In fact, I'd say it's sadder that there are so many people who are so worried about a mediocre series of books.
I read the first four, and stopped there as it became evident that "JK Rowling" was in over her head. The first one was cute, the next few were passable, but she's really not that great of an author. Her last few books seem to reek of "I want to write serious literature", in the sort of undergraduate-english-major kind of way, while still covering all the mandatory bases to allow for the massive commercialization of the series that has made her one of the richest people in England (and one of the richest women alive).
I can console myself somewhat in that at least it's better than television. Still, I cry a bit inside whenever I see/hear Harry Potter being compared to Lord of the Rings or other true fantasy literature (and granted JRR Tolkien was still not the greatest writer ever, but he was a hell of a lot more original - I mean, he invented orcs, and many other core fantasy concepts). I feel like we're raising a generation that may read a bit, sure, but when they're grown up they're going to be going for the John Grisham and the Stephen King, not the Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, James Joyce, etc...
So to get back to the point, spoiling this book is nothing like killing John Lennon or anybody else. In fact, any book that relies this much on suspense about "who dies at the end?!?!" is already a bad book. Twist endings are not unheard of in good literature, but still it is the journey that is more important than the destination, and it seems that Harry Potter fans have forgotten this fact.
Harry Potter survived an electric shock to his wand recently after an unfortunate accident which occurred during an argument between himself and Hermione at the girl's toilets. Rumors are abounding as to the exact details of the incident, but it has been corroborated by the Ministry of Madness that a handheld PC running on high voltage cells was in the possession of Hermione at the time of the incident. Alternative accounts of the incident state that in fact Harry Potter was having a leak at the boys' toilets whilst holding hands with Hermione (hence 'hand held leak'), whereas others refer to Harry Potter misinterpreting Hermione's comment about his personal computer being rather small. "I am not pea sized!" he was quoted as saying, shortly before his wand exploded.
Harry is currently recovering in bed and is due to have laser removal of a jagged tattoo that has developed on his lower body.
(source: AFP/Routers)
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Here.
Here's the essence of what he has to say:
"I don't think it was possible to keep the book under wraps."
"There are simply too many people who must be trusted in order for the security to hold."
"My guess is that the publishers will lose zero sales"
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
The Onion offers a pungent satire about Harry Potter
... The Onion satire points out what a horrible thing that is -- that Rowling plans to kill two major characters in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." And that she has said so publicly, which some cynical types might say is just a marketing ploy.
... nah, it's not just a marketing ploy. I think Ms. Rowling and her publishers have done some masterful marketing over the years, and this may be part of it ... but it can also be said that while increasing interest in the books, she is also warning her readers to be emotionally prepared for the last book.
... the spoof, is pretty funny. By the way ... if you look behind the "anchor man," it looks like the background is animated.
By John Orr
Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 4:38 pm in Celebrities, TV, Books, General, Harry Potter.
OK, darlings, if you are very sensitive, and/or perhaps young, and/or perhaps very, very protective about J.K. Rowling and her magical Harry Potter, DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT click on this link, which will take you to a spoof on The Onion web site.
It is a well done spoof that purports to be a TV news report, with a tape of "J.K. Rowling" supposedly talking on the radio and saying that there would be a date rape in Chapter Five of the new book. The chapter will be titled "Blood on the Cloak."
It had always been her plan to have a date rape in the last book, says the "Rowling" voice, but it was always just a matter of "who, or what, that rapist would be."
Then there are some interviews in bookstores with young people, including one young woman who says she thinks the rape would be probably accomplished with the help of magic-based roofies, and a lad who thinks that Hagrid will be the rapist.
Well, calm down, Magical Folk! It's all just a joke, and it does accomplish what satire is supposed to do, which is to make a valid comment on something of interest to people.
In this case, in part, it sort of takes a shot at the real J.K. Rowling, who has announced that someone was always going to die in Book Seven, but that as the writing went along, she realized two people would have to die.
In a way
But
I think Rowling is very sincere about wanting to treat her readers right, which she has always done.
But still
This thing reads like the script for a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie.
All one needs to do in order to find the culprit who took the pictures is take up their wand and say "Accio" (assuming it would work from long distances).
I hope they go Valve and get it right before releasing it for real...
Not because I cared about either finished product, but I do enjoy watching all my friends with a case of (figurative--or in this case, literary) blue balls.
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
Those photos must have been good enough for basic OCR, since I'm seeing a html version of the book out there already too.
(The last Potter book it took 24 hours after to get a good html edition out, so this is what, 4 days earlier than last time?)
A friend of mine d/l'd this and showed me. The stuff is pretty much illegible. This looks more like a media stunt to whip people up into a frenzy before the actual launch.
Yes, I couldn't resist downloading this to check it out for myself. Not because I'm a Harry Potter fan, but because I'm curious what effect this will have on my wife (who IS a HUGE fan!) Anyway, for those not in the know, the last few chapters are missing (how coincidental). I doubt it was accidental. What better way to boost sales of the possibly last book than to stage a 'fake' leak where the last chapters are missing! So what does slashdot think, was it a PLANNED leak, or was it a fan that got too carried away? Rgds, Beast
It is very good for the demographic it is being written for.
Here is a clue: IT'S NOT FOR YOU.
It's for people who haven't even had the opportunity to master the fine art of the english language.
"hildren exposed to this kind of writing aren't learning anything new about words, or being stretched in any way; as Harold Bloom said, they're not going to be inspired to go off and read the Alice books, or any other enduring classic."
100% completly wrong and ustter bull crap. Kids who had NO INTEREST in reading anything read it. Then go off to find other books to read.
IT has done a wonderfull thing for inspiring a generation to read.
ah, here we go, your a fucking poor excuse for a limp wristed cum stain trolll.
"All the Potter franchise does, like 99% of TV and Hollywood output, is entrench the hold of pointless and mediocre culture."
Either you haven't read them, or you have missed the underlying themes through out the book. Possible you have no clue on the elements of myth as well.
nit wit
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
On many pages the pirateer's hands are in the pictures
Perhaps you mean 'pirate'? 'Pirateer' is not a word ('privateer' is, of course, a word, but clearly not meant here).
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Since nobody makes a e-book reader that's worth a crap anyhow.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I forsee the dark lord (MPAA) calling forth his Death Eaters (lawyers) and making
up a new curse (law/DMCA) claiming movie infringement because now they can't make
a movie based on the book...there already is one. (haha, bah-dum-ching)
Part of me laughs at this, but you know, honestly, I would NOT put it past them.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I think harry rapes the horse rather the other way around. and voldemort got his a$$ raped my Muhammad's army of madmen rode out the deserts of arabia.
Not quite sure what the big deal is over the release of a crap-ton of low quality jpeg images. HP7 has been available in .PDF form since the end of April... Spoiling the book is a different topic. No clue what motivates people to ruin a movie or book for someone else.
Who? Harry Potter fans, of course.
To be honest, this tells more about the fans than the books.
Really? Come on...Who gives a shit about this? It's not like it's actually literature. hats off to JKR for all the money she's made and for getting little kids into reading again but it's Famous Five Go Casting a Spell without the lashings of ginger beer. I can't believe anyone over the age of 12 gives a damn.
"You know, folks are wanting to see or read the ending before they invest the time and energy into something when they might not like the ending."
Good thing life doesn't have something like that, otherwise no one would be born.
Piss of you self righteous idiot. Anyone willing to pirate a book and read it on the screen is willing to buy it. It says something about you that you throw out unsubstantiated claims carelessly. Can I substantiate my claim? Yes, I've downloaded the book and am also buying the book. I'm a pirater and I'm ethical. FUCK OFF!
You are incorrect
I'm re-reading the Potter books for the first time, and yes, Rowlings weaknesses as a writer do shine through.
So what?
It's still a fun series. Not every movie needs to be Casablanca; the occasional plot light, special effects heavy movie can be fun sometimes. Not every song needs to be the Ode to Joy, sometimes it's fun to just sing along to some mindless, repetitive pop. We should eat our veggies, but the occasional candy is just fine for our health and a pleasant treat. Not every novel needs to be Brave New World, sometimes I want to enjoy some light fantasy about a kid exploring a magical world.
As for the claim that Potter is somehow bad for kids, that is utter nonsense. The reality is that most American kids really don't like reading. Hell, most American adults don't like reading. Forcing them to read "good" books (for just about any definition of "good") will just make them resentful and believe that books are something unpleasant to be avoided. I believe that's why so many Americans don't read; their emotional response to books linked mandatory book lists full of books that don't interest them. I can assure you that absent the Potter series those kids aren't going to magically start reading the Alice books. Books that the kids enjoy, even bad ones, encourage kids to read, convince them that books and other long form reading can be good. They may not enjoy any given "enduring classic" (for whatever definition you like), but any kid whose made it through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix isn't going to be terribly daunted when facing 1984. Indeed, during my childhood I was strongly encouraged to read, but given wide freedom in what I read. I chose to read trashy fantasy. When I grew up and was assigned, say Madame Bovary in translation*, I blew through it while my classmates were bitching about how long and hard it was. After reading the first few Shannara novels in grade school, it was nothing. Reading begets reading. People who become serious readers tend to devour anything they can get their hands on. Maybe the bulk of their reading diet is romance novels, technothrillers, or fantasy, but they do occasionally read branch out and read other things. The people who fear books never do.
You and the Guardian writer are not enlightening all us ignorant savages that Rowling is a bad writer. No, you're just being a pretentious ass. It's not enough for you to enjoy the books you enjoy, you need to reach out and actively piss on the books other people enjoy. You're not changing anyone's mind. You're just enjoying being superior by your own tortured definition of superior. That makes you an ass.
* (Unless your goal is to make kids resent books as a source of long, boring, completely pointless crap, don't assign them Madame Bovary. I promise you that high school students will not appreciate it on any level.)
Search 2010 Gen Con events
I know, I know... Snape kills Trinity with Rosebud, right?
If you're going to name call, then get it right? It's "Piss off!" Second, no anyone willing to read a pirated copy isn't going to buy the book. The people who are going to buy the book don't need a pirated copy to tell them that J.K Rowling is a good author and has proven it through six books. They're also going to buy because they give a damn about the author, and would like her to continue writing even if it isn't Harry Potter.
"It says something about you that you throw out unsubstantiated claims carelessly. "
Says that I hit the mark if I got you all riled up.
"Can I substantiate my claim? Yes, I've downloaded the book and am also buying the book. I'm a pirater and I'm ethical. FUCK OFF!"
Well unless you're willing to provide a lot more information than you already have. I'm afraid that you haven't proven anything except a guilty conscious.
What does fight club have to do with hermione and ginny getting killed off?
> 'Pirateer' is not a word ('privateer' is, of course, a word, but clearly not meant here).
I apologize for the following in advance, but in my defense, they started it with the insipid "Captain Copyright" (I wonder if he was based on Captain Planet, too?) But all that "Pirateer" talk made me think of the following:
-----
Captain Pirate, he's our hero,
Gonna take copyright down to zero,
He's our distribution magnified,
And he's fighting on the pirate's side
Captain Pirate, he's our hero,
Gonna take copyright down to zero,
Gonna help him put us under,
Bad guys who like to sue and plunder.
(MAFIAA exec shouting:)
"You'll pay for this Captain Pirate!"
(chanting)
We're the Pirateers,
You can be one too!
'Cause saving our network is the thing to do,
Looting the public is not the way,
Hear what Captain Pirate has to say:
"THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IS YOURS!!"
that you think you're better than all of us. Nobody reads Harry Potter because they think in 20 years people will consider it a literary classic. They read it because the story is interesting and entertaining. Besides, do we need to hear that the writing style is immature when the series was originally written for children? Whoever wrote that article was wasting his time.
Maybe what you really wanted to do in posting this is completely change the subject and bitch about how the culture is more focused on self indulgence and mindless entertainment than on enriching the mind with art and whatnot. But nobody really cares, because one guy yelling "You're all stupid!" doesn't make people want to read the classics. If people want entertainment, there's nothing you can do to change that.
Everyone gets married! Hell and desolation reign! 19 years after the events in the book they all wish they were dead. I can almost foresee book 8, in which Harry goes to Mordor to throw the ring in Mount Doom. :))
Who the hell uses a digital camera to encode a book in the first place? Talk about annoying. I almost feel bad for the guy/gal.
And as for the impact, books are good to lay down in bed with. Take to the park. Sit at the couch. Anything I'm intent on reading is on paper. ASCII/HTML if I *have* to. But fuzzy images? No thanks.
I think this is more of a story then an event. Marginally interesting, but useless.
Quack, quack.
To do this properly, you are supposed to use a WOODEN table!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
first of all, lololdnews. the first half of the book was out over 48 hours ago and the full thing was loose over 24 hours ago.
that said, the most entertaining part of all of this was watching the people who've pinned their hearts and souls on one particular ending progress deeper into denial.
"the scans of the epilogue must be fake! photoshop! i can tell by the pixels!"
"the photos of the epilogue must be fake!"
"the scans of the first 500 pages must be fake!"
"the whole thing must be fake!"
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Yeah, I suck for reading 700+ pages of crappy photographs but considering that I'm on vacation and had a lot of time to spare, I went ahead and read it.
I do confess that I have no intention of spoiling the story (I won't even say if I liked it or not) unless some anti-spoiler crybaby starts screaming, after I mention, in casual conversation, that I read the book, that I should respect their inability to read a f*cking book until the movie comes out in 2009 (maybe).
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I'm surprised no one has blamed us yet. After all, if you believe the movie industry, we are the biggest pirates in the world no? Of course if you read the statistics that the movie industry releases, it doesn't support that conclusion. Though they probably follow George Bush's ideas, "I will never apologize for the United States of America? I don't care what the facts are."
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Now, wait... that was Orient Express.
Because I heard the publisher was really afraid of not selling any copies without some sort of dorky marketing trick.
I've been reading some of the book images. It reads like a hoax. "And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart". That reads like fan fiction. Rowling's style is considerably more polished.
If this isn't a hoax, the book really sucks.
excellent more suspense. i have to find out if these spoilers are true!
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I think that it's a marketing ploy. Perhaps rowling hired someone to make a crap fanfic-y version and had Scholastic bind it in an authentic way, and then had someone take pictures like this.
Now I'm going to have to completely avoid the Internet to avoid having the book spoiled. On the other hand, that meme from Order of the Phoenix did give me an interesting perspective as I read it. For once, I saw what some innocuous event was about beforehand.
PS: Oh, and fuck whoever posted that spoiler halfway down. Fuck you with reciprocating saw.
the ending is missing
How much would you like to bet?
"The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
Some clown posted spoilers + the last line of the book yesterday in the comments section of another post, totally unannounced, unwarned. Nice.
At least now I can read the book peacefully without bothering about the ending. :)
This thing would not cause a loss for the publishers, because anyone who really wants to buy the book will buy it, and those who dont would get a e-book for themselves later anyways. I myself was planning to read a electronic version first, and then buy the book when the rush subsides.
Just in case this AC parent isn't viewed... Indeed it is quite readable. There are three pages towards the beginning of the book that aren't quite in focus. A few of the pages weren't pushed down all the way, loosing a few words close to the spine.
All in all though it's very readable. Unrared to a folder and viewed in gqview, it's nearly as convenient as reading a pdf.
Really not sure if I should post this, but it's rapidshare. Eh... Rar File
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
"We Australians find American beer pretty much like making love in a canoe. It's f*cking close to water."
"Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
Did you see that one coming? Wish he would have gone for the Asian chick. She was hot.
To me its fairly obvious. To prevent the real book from leaking the publisher has spread several false copies containing bogus storylines. The copy shown here is just a deliberate way of giving pirates no chance. The publisher themselves acknowledged they spent over 20 million to prevent leaking, and spreading false copies (even going through the trouble of writing and printing those) would be an awesome way to surprise everyone. In the chaos of the multitude of versions, the real leaked copy (if there even is one) will be hardly recognizable and therefore safe from publicity.
It's just a farking book. Selling for like $20. And all this reporting on the frenzy of the release is solely designed to DRUM UP SALES. Like totally for sure I like gotta have a copy yes I do...If I were to read it [which I won't, I'll see the movie but that's about it] I'd just spend the $20 for a dead-tree edition instead of trying to read a poorly photographed copy off some bt.
I wonder what people will do after Harry Potter is done with. Go all frenzied over the the next release of the cable guide?
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Isn't that a requirement to write for the Guardian?
Best Slashdot Co
"Harry Potter, do you want your possessions identified? (y/n/q)"
... to go back a few days before the spoiler and just make sure you somehow leave yourself a clue to not be tempted to read the spoilers you'll see in a couple of day.
Sheesh! Every good wizard knows about the time traveling necklace by now.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I have never witnessed such a fast torrent. It brought a fucking tear to my eye.
people will still buy the book once it's out.
I don't care waiting a few more days...
And, no - I did not RTFA just in case there were real spoilers.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
Do you consider reading to be a self-evident good? If so, why? It's a largish value judgment...
I just want to reveal that Darth Vader really IS Luke Skywalker's father. Shocking, isn't it?
For your HP7 book?
Theres a few silly lines about town.
Last week people started lining up for the 12:01AM movie at noon. They had eight sold-out midnight shows.
I would like to congratulate Slashdot on not putting any spoilers in TFS.
I will, of course, not be reading the comments until this weekend.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
On one site where the pirated copy was removed, the JK Rowling left this note:
"Shame on you! You can't bloody wait for the legitimate book? Don't you know that reading illegal copies of books will make you go blind? I hope your legs grow together, you little bugger."
I'm more afraid of her than the MPAA/RIAA!
[this is a joke, btw]
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Camcorders are a worthless medium for ripping movies.
I don't know how many people know, but the harry potter book has been leaked since mid-july, if not before that. And I'm not talking about bad-quality photos, I'm talking about the original ms word .doc, and .pdf, .rtf, .txt (you name it) adaptions. all if this on the limewire network (I used the open source linux version- frostwire) they're not fake either- I looked through it and I can say without a doubt that only JK Rowling could have written it.
What I did to fix it was zip all the pictures up and use CDisplay Comic Reader to open that zip file. Right click the page, go into options and turn down the gamma way done (best if you do it on the first page where you can't read the letters). You will get artifacts around the letters; but those washed out, unreadable letters turn readable. There are a few places where it is so glared out you cannot read it, but you can glean around the passage what they are doing.
If they had a shirt of this, I would wear it to the book store on release day.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I suspect that there will be a small number of people who won't buy the book because they can get it for free. Since that group doesn't buy many books anyway, the net impact will be minor, especially since better copies will come out within a week.
I also suspect that the 'loss' will be more than made up in terms of publicity.
Personally, I'll wait until I can get my hands on a book club copy so I can save a little cash and still have it in hardcopy. And, unlike my wife, I'll read the book straight through so I can be 'surprized' by the precise details of what happened.
So, somebody MADE you read the spoilers?
Actually, yes. Trolls love to inject the spoilers in places where people trying to avoid them wouldn't avoid looking. They might randomly comment in the middle of a thread on a random blog or discussion site.
Try a brief search of Slashdot for the spoiler from the last book. Note what kinds of articles come up. "Apple's Aperture Reviewed" from May 2005 (two months before release of the book) is one of them, and a glance at the summary shows that there was a post titled with the spoiler. You would certainly find a lot more if Google's snapshots of the pages included posts which had been modded down to -1 below the threshold for a anonymous user (like Google) to see. You could not view Slashdot comments for two whole months without stumbling onto the big spoiler.
So, yes, smart-ass -- someone did make us read the spoilers. The only thing that mitigated it was the massive amount of fake spoilers being tossed around too. There was enough doubt to keep you in suspense, but when you finally found out which ones were real, they had a lot less emotional impact than they would've had you not known.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Watch some of the hilarity that ensued when people dropped the "Snape kills Dumbledore" (in one case, via bullhorn no less...) bomb on the renfair rejects lined up at bookstores the last time around.
"NOOOOOO.... you bastard! How could you? Oh, the humanity!!!", in the finest over-the-top oh-the-humanity voice since the crash of the Hindenberg.
Sounds like a worthy YouTube project to me. And, if JKR is serious, this is the last opportunity.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
its rubbish! - although I have printed out a number of pages and left them dotted around my office :) - they are already drawing quite a bit of attention with everyone wondering where they are coming from hehe -
...
is the guy wearing the camera on his head??? - surely he would have been better taking pictures of the actual book rather than the desk / his hands / the carpet etc
--Chag
I'd like to know what stretch of logic allows you to claim that because you did something, anyone else would. It's not an effect I'm familiar with at all.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine
Pointing your $99 camcorder at the movie screen counts as Telecine, but of course it looks like hell. However, the same concept is used to get the movie from the film onto the DVD or VCR tape that you buy in the store.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
But wait...what order will they watch them? If they start with TPM, then they are going to already know about Vader when they get to the "I am your father" scene. It is no spoiler.
Yeah, but hey, they'll say, "boy, they really got the hang of this movie-making thing by the 4th try".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Someone's either being very nationalistic or grossly ignorant of Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian history.
Ever wonder how three distinct, relatively regionally separated groups like the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds all got lumped into one country with a minority in charge? Thank Britain colonial rule of Iraq.
Same question for the ethnic divisions of Afghanistan? Same answer.
Want to understand why Muslims and Hindus were at each others throats at the end of British rule of India? Thank British divide-and-control strategies for ruling the empire.
Nearly every intra-national ethnic and religious conflict over the past century in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia can trace its roots back to the effects of colonial Europe and its policies of balancing ethnic enemies against one another. Had most of these groups remained in separate nation states, most of this conflict would not be present. I single out the British because they were the nation most in control of the Middle East and Southeast and Central Asia where the majority of predominantly Muslim nations are located, and it was the British who set up the modern geographical borders of the nations in those areas.
This is history. Deal with it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Huh. The tags are just someone's perverted sense of humor and not an actual spoiler, right?
Right?
Otherwise, how could Al Gore's head write about him in his book, "Harry Potter and the Balance of Earth?" It won't get written until the 31st century!
Gotta get me one of these!
Its called inductive reasoning and it the reason the grue paradox is not taken seriously. The OP started out with a theory rather than the facts, in this case, or my case, anecdotal evidence. If anyone is guilty of bad science, it is not me.
Truthfully that counts as a spoiler too. It shows who doesn't die ^_^ And as far as those pictures go I'm at the beginning of chapter eighteen now and it's ok page 30 really sucks and I had to find a pdf transcription of Chapters 1-10 for that but all is well. I'm still buying the book (after all, I have the other six on my bookshelf) and I'll have fun debating at borders Friday night on if reading it on the computer from jpg's or reading it from the book the first time is better per say. I say that since I eat when I read a book at least I won't get barbecue sauce on this one like book six >_
Nah, the truth is that Harry is actually both Dumbledore and Voldemort. After Voldemort kills all his friends he uses Hermione's watch to go to the past and stop him, but fails again and again because, after all, time paradoxes are not allowed. He finally realizes that his only chance is to replace young Voldemort before he is first met by the wizarding world, and so he kills Tom Riddle a day before Dumbledore arrives for him. This murder splits Harry's soul, forming a horcrux and causing him to go slightly insane.
Since he is in reality 17 and an accomplished wizard, Harry is separated from his new classmates and can confide in no one; even Dumbledore is seemingly hostile. In the following decades, he gets increasingly unstable, and when he finds out that his mother is having an affair with Severus Snape he attacks in rage, accidentally killing the man he thought was his father and his mother. It is not, however, until Harry/Voldemort stands over the broken corpse of Ginny that he realizes just what he has done: there was no Voldemort, just Harry.
He uses Hermione's time machine once more, but it has suffered damage in combat and malfunctions, throwing him to the year 1820 and then breaking. Harry decides to look for Dumbledore for help; even if the great wizard is still a kid, surely his family must be great too. But he can't find any such family, and besides, while his horcruxes still keep him immortal, they can no longer prevent him from aging due to the time difference between him and them. As his skin wrinkles Harry comes to a realization: he must fill Dumbledore's role.
Having already spent two lifetimes as a wizard Harry is without peer. "Dumbledore" becomes a living legend, and finally takes over as headmaster of Hogwarts. Then comes the fateful day where Harry picks up his earlier self, Voldemort; knowing what a monster he would become, he can barely contain his hostility.
Unfortunately for Harry, he speaks in his dreams. This is how Severus Snape finds that it was in fact he who killed his illegitimate lover, Lily Potter. In rage he attacks the weakened Dumbledore, Avada Kedavraving the old bastard out of existence - or so Snape thought; but once more the horcruxes save Harry's life, allowing him to survive as a disembodied spirit and watch while his younger self kills all he cared about while his youngest self is powerless to stop it. Finally, with all the horcruxes destroyed, Harry/Voldemort/Dumpledore departs into whatever awaits him...
...which turns out to be Moaning Myrtle. And boy does she live (?) up to her name >;).
You gotta admit, it would explain why Voldemort and Dumbledore are so much more powerfull than other wizards, why Harry and Voldemort both have wands made from stuff taken from Dumbledore's phoenix, and why Dumbledore didn't just plain apprehend Voldemort when they fought in the Ministry of Magic despite easily overpowering him (he couldn't; the outcome was already history for him).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
That is history. Deal with it.
-Ed
So you see what had happened was....
I've read 3 of the 5 pagges of the discussion about this, and for some reason i haven't seen any mention of the perfecftly readable txt pdf, or ereader versions of the books.
I downloaded the ereader version at 11pm 20th July NZ time, and read it using the palm application on my palm emulator for Windows Mobile 2003 on my PDA2k.
I read up to chapter 25 by 4am, before i had to go to sleep, as I have work on saturdays from 9am to 5:30pm. As you can see from me having read more then half the book (there are around 35 chapters in total), i didnt have a problem with the quality of the copy, and while there were a few OCR errors, they didnt detract significantly, and i was easily able to read along with the story. At 12pm on my lunch break, I went out and purchased my copy of the book. Regardless of whether i had a perfect digital copy or not, or even if i had managed to finish the ebook before the hard copy went on sale, I still would have purchased the book regardless.
Do not anger the Karma Whores, for they don't bathe often, and might decide to come visit you in person. -Ryan Amos
Yes, but these were mostly international conflicts. In modern times, we have a much better framework for responding to international conflicts than we do intranational conflicts. See Rwanda for a good example. Rwanda was the result of the Belgians taking two ethnic groups, putting them under one government, and elevating the minority over the majority. The current civil war in Iraq is pretty similar only with a little more even-handedness in the genocide between the Shia and Sunni Arabs.
Personally, I've come to believe that partitioning the state into three regions and letting the people within them have some political space is the only way the conflict's going to end. That solution has it's own problems (Kurdish conflict with Turkey, Shia closeness to Iran, and Sunni closeness to Syria), but if an end to bloodshed is the highest priority, it's the best solution for that particular problem.
Similarly, Afghanistan might've been a stable state decades ago if there were power struggles between its four main ethnic groups. Partitioning is not a good idea for us in this case because it would provide no brake on the Taliban-dominated Pashtun regions, but many of the problems we have there wouldn't have been such a problem if they had been four countries in the first place.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").