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Iron Man's New Villain — an Open Source Terrorist
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent interview on Comic Book Resources about his new continuation of the Marvel comic-book series 'Invincible Iron Man,' Matt Faction provides information about the the new series (debut will be May 7). The villain is Ezekiel Stane, son of Obadiah Stane (the villain of the new Iron Man movie opening on May 2). Whereas Obadiah was a ruthless billionaire who fought as the Iron Monger, Zeke 'rejects the strategies of his father as being the crude tactics of Attila the Hun.' Instead, he will be 'a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist.' As the author puts it, 'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.' The concept has gone over well on the CBR forums."
If you ask me, the plot is ripe for a twist ; Stark discovers that Stane is actually the good guy, and that the massed legions of commercial software are colluding with the hardware manufacturers in a plan to take over the worlds computers by putting secret encryption keys on the motherboards and only permitting "approved" software to run.
DVD work?
What DVD work?
I have 400+ movies on my Linux file server with any computer around the house being able to work as a proper media player (with a proper IR remote and everything). You also can use a bog standard fanless and diskless thin client for this. No noise, nothing.
Wanna try this with Microcrap Media Center Edition? Dream on...
DVD is actually an area where Linux reigns supreme. I have tried many HD upscalers and I actually play my movies on a Linux box using VLC and Nvidia (with Nvidia drivers). It simply works better than any commercial upscaler I have seen so far. In fact it works so good that I do not see the point of buying and HD media for at least the next few years.
You simply need to chose the _RIGHT_ drive or play off the hard drive. The problems with playing DVDs are usually not with Linux, they are with the DVDs being massively bastardised by Macrovision. As a result if you got the "wrong" DVD drive it will fail to read under anything - Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc.
If you rip it all problems disappear. All my DVDs are actually stored on a file server in the loft. I got tired of dealing with scratches, dirt, Macrovision or simply trying to find the right DVD to watch.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Iron Man will be renaming himself "Palladium," fighting to keep your computer trustworthy against open terror!
;^)]]
I will be smelling stale milk for weeks after putting it out my nose laughing. I guess the "Heroes Happen Here" stuff isn't taking off?
--
Toro
(Note: I believe this article was about a new comic book, not the movie, which features "Iron Monger" (Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane) as the enemy.)
[[UAC warning: Someone is making a schizoid post! mod Funny or Informative? Yeah, you should probably just click "ignore"
Doesn't the ridiculous labelling of open source software as "terrorism" call into question all the other things that get labelled terrorism? Examples:
The ANC anti-Apartheid movement under the white South African government was labelled a terrorism. Nelson Mandela was public enemy number 1, the Osama Bin Laden of his time and place. White South Africa bought into their government's propaganda.
The White Rose organisation was labelled terrorist, and its leaders beheaded. for their non-violent anti-Nazi position in pre-WWII Nazi Germany. The German body politic bought into their government's propaganda.
Today, the word terrorism gets thrown around like some Muslim / Arab / Islamist (whatever that means) is hiding in the bushes outside your house with his AK-47 pointed at your door just waiting for you and your kids to step out so he can vent his hatred of your freedoms. The American people buy into their government's propaganda.
When you hear the label "terrorist" used, you should think about who is doing the labelling, and what exactly their agenda is rather than just taking their word for it that you are in danger and need their protection.
I hate printers.
The same thing that happened to "rape" has happened to "terrorism".
Incidentally, i find it very interesting that in a country like Sweden where there is practically no threat of terrorism, the government is redefining the crime of rape.
Before 2005 (or 06, 07 i'm not sure exactly which of those years it came into place), we had a law that basically said that sex with a minor is "abuse of minor". Now a later law rewrote that so sex with a minor is no longer "abuse of minor" but plain "rape". That is, even if the sex is consentual, there is no legal difference. There's a dillution of terms. Sure it's abuse, but is it rape? No. Rape is forcefully having sex with someone. Abuse of minor is abuse of minor and not rape. They've now changed the definition of rape to be "forcefully having sex with someone, OR having sex with someone who's younger than ".
From what can be discerned in current debates, the next step is widening the definition further by defaulting that sex without proven consent is rape too. The idea is to put part of the burden of proof on the "criminal" by forcing him to prove that the "victim" wanted to have sex and did not protest. The excuse is that too many rapists go free. (If the girl gets plastered, then gets fucked, and then regrets it, was it rape?
They've already widened the definition of child porn to encompass drawings and something that's being debated is the possibility of writing in another exception in the child porn law that would
1: Set a definite 18 year old limit on porn (currently the definition is "if she looks sexually mature, the porn is legal")
2: Set a secondary limit defined by her looks that goes beyond point 1. That is, "if she does not look sexually mature the porn is illegal even if the girl is proven to be over 18".
The widened definition of child porn is, not entirely surprisingly, supported by the man who is also one of sweden's most vocal opponents of filesharing (Thomas Bodström). The same person is also a supporter of the swedish child porn filter which has previously been used to block The Pirate Bay (and some site about bonsai trees). Coincidence?
My personal belief is that the US fight on terrorism is inspiring those with a desire for more power into finding scapegoats. In order to create more scapegoats that can be used in order to expand oppressive laws, they widen the definitions of existing crimes. After all, if drawings are child porn, then surely the amount of child porn has suddenly seen an increase and then the supporters can come out and say "Well look even if we're fighting THIS HARD against child porn it's not doing anything good so we must fight even HARDER". And as mentioned before, this also works wonders as they can use the same weapons they use against child porn against file sharing.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
In the comics recently, Iron Man has contradicted some of your statements somewhat.
... because Tony has very much become Microsoft. In fact, I can't read comics where Iron Man appears anymore, because every time the character opens his mouth I can't understand why they are still calling him a hero, when he seems to really have become little more than a smarter, more modernized version of Doctor Doom.
Marvel recently had a big crossover plot line called "Civil War," in which it was decided that superheroes were too dangerous to have running around without government oversight. They were all required to register with the Federal government. If they failed to do so, they were subject to imprisonment in one of SHIELD's top-security prisons designed for supervillains.
Who was the main man responsible for hunting down his fellow heroes and former comrades? Tony Stark, the invincible Iron Man.
In fact, Tony went on to become the head of SHIELD, the government's most ultra-secret spy organization (think more oversight than the FBI, more freedom than the CIA). In most respects, they've taken the "Tony is a billionaire industrialist" angle and spun it into "Tony is an arch-conservative storm trooper of the old guard of manufacturing wealth, using the power of the government to enforce a neo-facist agenda that goes contrary to 50 years of Marvel Comics philosophy."
It's interesting that they are portraying the latest villain as an "open source" one
Breakfast served all day!