In Lucas' case? Sure. Why not? It's not like he's abusing a monopoly position to prevent you from seeing other movies. Far from it. The work on Lucas' movies has spawned ILM and THX, which has made a whole lot of other movies better.
You don't really think that Bill does, or ever did, like making software, do you?:-)
I don't know if it's LucasFilm being notorious for multiple versions as much as the fans are notorious for wanting it. Ignore the "Special Editions" for a second... Star Wars does have both letterbox and pan-and-scan releases. So do many movies. Lord of the Rings is doing the same thing with their DVD release. Star Wars is no different than other mega-blockbusters in that regard. The "Special Editions" are a different issue. The reason there are four versions of each original Star Wars movie is because there are two each of the originial and special edition. The question is, were the special editions released because Lucas is greedy? I don't think so. People flocked to see them. Lucas wanted to revision his work with new technology. Maybe not a good idea, may you and I don't like it, but it's his work.
Star Wars always had merchandising tie-ins. As kids, people loved the Star Wars toy at KFC. Then they got older and saw it was just cheap merchandising. Back in the early 80s their parents knew all that stuff was merchandising. Try to find a "Star Wars fan" that's over 40 years old. The movies are, and always were, mindless entertainment with a lot of stuff for the kids. Today's 20-30 year olds are just upset the movie is still mindless entertainment for kids instead of something aimed at them.
I may believe your argument about Lucas being greedy more if he was simply accumlating wealth. He's not. He rolls it back into the movies (via THX, ILM, etc). I think he's a guy who loves to make movies. He's not very good at directing or storytelling, but he's got the resources to keep at it.
The one bitch against Lucas that I believe is completely incorrect is the idea that he's "sold out", "greedy", and "just doing it for the money".
He's, basically, an artist (maybe not a good one, but an artist nonetheless). He likes to make movies and he likes to control every aspect of his movies (he was originally into editing, but switched to directing because he wanted more control).
He's made a whole lot of money, but what does he do with it? Does he have huge mansions or fleets of yachts? No. His lifestyle is quite simple for how much money he has. Lucas uses his money to build the coolest special effects shop, sound studio, and movie sound system companies. He uses it to further his movie work. In the A&E Biography about Lucas, a friend recalled how Lucas was still living like a starving idependent film maker, even after Star Wars. His friends had to remind him that he could afford better.
His movies may not be great, but I don't think for one minute that he's making them because he's greedy.
I was surprised to hear a police officer stating something the rest of the world already knows.
What did you think? A nation of 300 million people, and we're all idiots? There are a lot of people that know all about the US policy towards Israel, that the CIA originally funded Taliban, etc. Not every US citizen thinks the USA Today is a good source of news. Not every European gets drunk and riots at soccer matches, but I see that in the news a lot.
You state that the US has to stop trying to "wage a war with anything that poses the slightest of threats". What slight threat have we waged war against? If you're referring to Iraq, note that nothing has happened. Polls indicate that most US citizens are not yet in favor of an invasion. President Bush is certainly ready, but the US Congress has doubts. This is why our government is structured the way it is.
The Scuds at Israel wasn't really an erratic move. If the Israelis got involved, then the Arab coalition backing the war would have fallen apart (note that all those North American and European troops were stationed on Arab soil). Bush had to go to a lot of work to keep Isreal from responding to those Scuds (like the Patriot batteries we stationed in Israel).
Lucas "managed to con museums" into the Star Wars: Magic of Myth exhibit? That's going a bit far, don't you think?
It was a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian. Museums wanted it because it brought people in. Obviously it's not fine art nor a hard science exhibit. It's basically a pop culture exhibit. Still, it's not like Lucas was out there trying to con people into seeing it. They wanted to see it and lined up all by themselves.
I've don't ride a subway, but I do ride a bus to work. Many times I don't have anything to do, and if some clever ad was playing on walls of the bus I'd watch it. If the revenue from the ads meant that bus service was improved I'd be in favor of the ads.
If you have something better to do, or want to ignore the ads, you can certainly do that. My point was that I prefer ads in this environment-- where I can choose to ignore them. It's like ads in a magazine. I can skip to the next page, or I can read it if it catches my attention.
True, not all the seats face the ads... however... a billboard only faces one direction of the highway. Ad costs are based (generally) on how many viewers will see the ad. An ad during the Super Bowl costs a lot. An ad in a small town newspaper costs a lot less. The fact that not every single person on the subway sees the ad isn't a big issue.
As much as I hate the ads plastered everywhere these days, I think this isn't a half-bad idea. A lot of the people riding the subway have nothing better to do. As you note, they often "zone out". Those people will probably view the ad, especially if it's interesting (think of the possibilities of a long-running story type campaign). Here's a situation where a lot of people have nothing better to do-- as opposed to pop up ads where I'm trying to do something else but the ads interrupt me.
We of the American Public couldn't give one rat's ass about what the military does, in a capitalisitc sense.
Your arguments are extremely short-sighted. The military is the backbone of the country, the government, and the capitialistic system. The two issues that people seem to forget are that (1) you need a military to have a society and (2) you need a military that listens to the society.
In regards to the first point, the American government is meaningless without the ability to put its decisions into force. Trade with Taiwan? What if China says no and sinks all merchant vessels? Note that, in the US, law enforcement is rolled into this because the government must be able to enforce its decisions domestically as well as abroad. In other nations there is little to no distinction between the military and law enforcement.
As the the second point, assuming the military has the strength to impose the nation's will, the military must also listen to the government (meaning that it must serve the citizens). This doesn't always occur. Countless governments have been overthrown by their armed forces. What if the US military personnel decided that they're sick of low pay and getting sent around the world do to shit work (like peacekeeping)? With a draft, the military is composed of "common citizens". Without it the military is, essentially, composed of mercenaries. There is no obligation from the general population. In many European nations there is a mandatory period of military service. This means that every citizen has a stake in how the military is used. Without that connection people begin to not care how the military is used.
I don't know, but perhaps they cannot prevent people from doing this (other than inspecting their house). Some companies require the purchase of basic cable with a cable modem. My brother was able to get basic cable really cheap when he got a cable modem.
Where do you get the idea that we "don't need any more recruits"? We always need more recruits. It's not like the military ever says, "we're full, not hiring". All of military manpower is based on the idea that people move up and out. You always need more people at the bottom. Good recruiting years simply mean that you have enough people coming in (or enough to be a little more choosy about who you let in).
You CAN skip work, even if you do have responsibilities. You simply must accept the consequences of skipping work. If, in skipping work to see Star Wars you harm thousands of people, and you still choose to skip work, then you probably aren't the type of person that should have been hired for that position in the first place.
Several months ago I told my boss I was going to be out of the office on May 16. I told him it was because I was going to see Star Wars. I have vacation days and I can use them for any reason I want.
By the way, skipping school does harm someone... yourself.
Note that it has to be theaters and studios. Installing 70mm projectors all over the place won't do any good if you cannot get prints.
Theaters, basically, break even on the ticket prices. They make the money on refreshments. Studios take a huge cut of the tickets, especially in the first few weeks.
I would love to see 70mm, but it isn't going to happen. Digital is better than 35mm, so it isn't a step-backwards.
Your comparison is valid only if you happen to have a 70mm film projector available to view a fresh print of Lawrence of Arabia on.
Exactly. A pristine 70mm print will blow away digital projection. It will blow away 35mm projection too. Unfortunately, 99% of us never get to see a movie that way. The actual, day-to-day quality of digital projection is better than the actual, day-to-day quality of 35mm projection. Since theaters and studios are not going to upgrade to 70mm for all movies, digital is good.
I usually agree with Ebert, but I think he's wrong here. No Star Wars movie ever had good dialogue. Just because you can remember a few quote from a twenty-some year-old movie that you've seen eighty billion times doesn't make it good.
Electronic manuals are great, particularly because of the ability to search them. I certainly use plenty of them.
Personally, however, I still like printed manuals. Using an online manual means either reducing some windows or switching desktops. With a paper manual I can keep the screen exactly as it is. Higher resolution screens, or the use of multiple screens, are making online manuals much more useful (anyone remember what a pain in the ass it was to try and figure out something with only an online manual on a 640x480 screen?). Occasionally I still manage to fill two 1600x1200 screens with a bunch of stuff I want to keep visible while still reading the manual.
Once you have Austrailia where do you go from there? Asia and Europe are the hardest continents to win and hold.
You answer your own question. The key to holding Asia is to hold Australia first. It gives you a secure base from which to launch into China. Anyone already in Asia will be fighting for their life on several fronts, so you should be able to chip away at them from the south. By the time you have to defend a wide front you now own Australia and Asia, so you can kick anyone's ass.
I just can't figure out all these idiots who can't live without their phone. I often don't even answer the phone at home. Caller ID is a beautiful thing-- my office phone now has it too.
I wouldn't take the few above comments to give a reflection on how all citizens feel about Gov. Ventura. Personally, on the issues, I couldn't be happier with the job he's been doing. The state does have a budget shortfall, but so do most states. During the last budget cycle he was under fire for not spending the huge surpluses we were supposed to be getting. Under considerable criticism he fought hard to keep spending in check during the late 90s. Now that the economy is down, it seems like he was making some good moves.
Off the issues, he does say some pretty stupid things sometimes. He made a career out of antagonizing people as a "bad guy" in professional wrestling. I think he enjoys it. At least you know what he's thinking because, for better or worse, he usually pretty blunt about his opinion. I prefer it to the meaningless pre-written crap that you get from most politicians.
The people who elected him, younger voters between 18-25, have all but body slammed by him. The cost to attend a state universtiy rose last year and it will be rising again. That is such a good way to treat the people who elected you.
I was a college student four years ago when I voted for him. He always indicated that he was not supportive of large hand-outs for higher education. He stated that people should pay their own way for school.
Any student who voted for him and is now upset about his education spending is an idiot. Did I want to pay more for school? No. On the other hand, I support his conservative spending policies and it would be hypocritical to want lower government spending, less pork barrel politics, and then expect the government to give me a bunch of money to go to school.
You should do more than listen to the five second lead-in to the local news.
The governer's office closed at its usual time, but the legislature was working late. When they tried to deliver the bill they discovered that the office was closed. They sent someone out to his house to deliver it, but the security personnel would not allow the uninvited "guest" onto the property that night. The bill was delivered Monday morning and he signed it.
The legislature, via the local news idiots, cried the whole time that he was "refusing to accept the bill".
Re:Space Defense Initiative (SDI)
on
Space Wars
·
· Score: 2
While it is not currently fesible to orbit weapons-grade lasers, that does not mean it won't be possible soon. The Air Force is building a 747 that can shoot down missiles with a laser. Of course killing a missile is not the same a carpet-bombing cities. Lasers hit small targets.
Regarding nukes in space... the Soviet Union, under Khrushchev, did plan to build a space station that would hold and launch nuclear weapons. You are correct in that an ICBM could already hit any target that a space-based platform could target. The space platform, however, could launch with significantly less warning. Defensive systems are designed to detect the launch of ICBMs, they would not detect a space-based launch. There are, of course, significant drawbacks. A space-based platform is easily tracked and would likely be an easy target in case of war (assuming it wasn't used for a nuclear first-strike).
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In Lucas' case? Sure. Why not? It's not like he's abusing a monopoly position to prevent you from seeing other movies. Far from it. The work on Lucas' movies has spawned ILM and THX, which has made a whole lot of other movies better.
You don't really think that Bill does, or ever did, like making software, do you? :-)
...
Star Wars always had merchandising tie-ins. As kids, people loved the Star Wars toy at KFC. Then they got older and saw it was just cheap merchandising. Back in the early 80s their parents knew all that stuff was merchandising. Try to find a "Star Wars fan" that's over 40 years old. The movies are, and always were, mindless entertainment with a lot of stuff for the kids. Today's 20-30 year olds are just upset the movie is still mindless entertainment for kids instead of something aimed at them.
I may believe your argument about Lucas being greedy more if he was simply accumlating wealth. He's not. He rolls it back into the movies (via THX, ILM, etc). I think he's a guy who loves to make movies. He's not very good at directing or storytelling, but he's got the resources to keep at it.
...
He's, basically, an artist (maybe not a good one, but an artist nonetheless). He likes to make movies and he likes to control every aspect of his movies (he was originally into editing, but switched to directing because he wanted more control).
He's made a whole lot of money, but what does he do with it? Does he have huge mansions or fleets of yachts? No. His lifestyle is quite simple for how much money he has. Lucas uses his money to build the coolest special effects shop, sound studio, and movie sound system companies. He uses it to further his movie work. In the A&E Biography about Lucas, a friend recalled how Lucas was still living like a starving idependent film maker, even after Star Wars. His friends had to remind him that he could afford better.
His movies may not be great, but I don't think for one minute that he's making them because he's greedy.
What did you think? A nation of 300 million people, and we're all idiots? There are a lot of people that know all about the US policy towards Israel, that the CIA originally funded Taliban, etc. Not every US citizen thinks the USA Today is a good source of news. Not every European gets drunk and riots at soccer matches, but I see that in the news a lot.
You state that the US has to stop trying to "wage a war with anything that poses the slightest of threats". What slight threat have we waged war against? If you're referring to Iraq, note that nothing has happened. Polls indicate that most US citizens are not yet in favor of an invasion. President Bush is certainly ready, but the US Congress has doubts. This is why our government is structured the way it is.
The Scuds at Israel wasn't really an erratic move. If the Israelis got involved, then the Arab coalition backing the war would have fallen apart (note that all those North American and European troops were stationed on Arab soil). Bush had to go to a lot of work to keep Isreal from responding to those Scuds (like the Patriot batteries we stationed in Israel).
It was a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian. Museums wanted it because it brought people in. Obviously it's not fine art nor a hard science exhibit. It's basically a pop culture exhibit. Still, it's not like Lucas was out there trying to con people into seeing it. They wanted to see it and lined up all by themselves.
If you have something better to do, or want to ignore the ads, you can certainly do that. My point was that I prefer ads in this environment-- where I can choose to ignore them. It's like ads in a magazine. I can skip to the next page, or I can read it if it catches my attention.
As much as I hate the ads plastered everywhere these days, I think this isn't a half-bad idea. A lot of the people riding the subway have nothing better to do. As you note, they often "zone out". Those people will probably view the ad, especially if it's interesting (think of the possibilities of a long-running story type campaign). Here's a situation where a lot of people have nothing better to do-- as opposed to pop up ads where I'm trying to do something else but the ads interrupt me.
Windows is built to be easy. Linux is not.
Not true. RedHat has spent a lot of time making their installer very easy to use.
Your arguments are extremely short-sighted. The military is the backbone of the country, the government, and the capitialistic system. The two issues that people seem to forget are that (1) you need a military to have a society and (2) you need a military that listens to the society.
In regards to the first point, the American government is meaningless without the ability to put its decisions into force. Trade with Taiwan? What if China says no and sinks all merchant vessels? Note that, in the US, law enforcement is rolled into this because the government must be able to enforce its decisions domestically as well as abroad. In other nations there is little to no distinction between the military and law enforcement.
As the the second point, assuming the military has the strength to impose the nation's will, the military must also listen to the government (meaning that it must serve the citizens). This doesn't always occur. Countless governments have been overthrown by their armed forces. What if the US military personnel decided that they're sick of low pay and getting sent around the world do to shit work (like peacekeeping)? With a draft, the military is composed of "common citizens". Without it the military is, essentially, composed of mercenaries. There is no obligation from the general population. In many European nations there is a mandatory period of military service. This means that every citizen has a stake in how the military is used. Without that connection people begin to not care how the military is used.
I don't know, but perhaps they cannot prevent people from doing this (other than inspecting their house). Some companies require the purchase of basic cable with a cable modem. My brother was able to get basic cable really cheap when he got a cable modem.
Where do you get the idea that we "don't need any more recruits"? We always need more recruits. It's not like the military ever says, "we're full, not hiring". All of military manpower is based on the idea that people move up and out. You always need more people at the bottom. Good recruiting years simply mean that you have enough people coming in (or enough to be a little more choosy about who you let in).
You are correct. In the PS2 version of SimCity2k you could view you town from a 3D perspective. It sucked. All the buildings were identical.
Several months ago I told my boss I was going to be out of the office on May 16. I told him it was because I was going to see Star Wars. I have vacation days and I can use them for any reason I want.
By the way, skipping school does harm someone... yourself.
Theaters, basically, break even on the ticket prices. They make the money on refreshments. Studios take a huge cut of the tickets, especially in the first few weeks.
I would love to see 70mm, but it isn't going to happen. Digital is better than 35mm, so it isn't a step-backwards.
Exactly. A pristine 70mm print will blow away digital projection. It will blow away 35mm projection too. Unfortunately, 99% of us never get to see a movie that way. The actual, day-to-day quality of digital projection is better than the actual, day-to-day quality of 35mm projection. Since theaters and studios are not going to upgrade to 70mm for all movies, digital is good.
I usually agree with Ebert, but I think he's wrong here. No Star Wars movie ever had good dialogue. Just because you can remember a few quote from a twenty-some year-old movie that you've seen eighty billion times doesn't make it good.
Personally, however, I still like printed manuals. Using an online manual means either reducing some windows or switching desktops. With a paper manual I can keep the screen exactly as it is. Higher resolution screens, or the use of multiple screens, are making online manuals much more useful (anyone remember what a pain in the ass it was to try and figure out something with only an online manual on a 640x480 screen?). Occasionally I still manage to fill two 1600x1200 screens with a bunch of stuff I want to keep visible while still reading the manual.
You answer your own question. The key to holding Asia is to hold Australia first. It gives you a secure base from which to launch into China. Anyone already in Asia will be fighting for their life on several fronts, so you should be able to chip away at them from the south. By the time you have to defend a wide front you now own Australia and Asia, so you can kick anyone's ass.
Exactly! I always love to start with a power base in China. Drop in to secure Australia and then smack the rest of the world.
I just can't figure out all these idiots who can't live without their phone. I often don't even answer the phone at home. Caller ID is a beautiful thing-- my office phone now has it too.
Off the issues, he does say some pretty stupid things sometimes. He made a career out of antagonizing people as a "bad guy" in professional wrestling. I think he enjoys it. At least you know what he's thinking because, for better or worse, he usually pretty blunt about his opinion. I prefer it to the meaningless pre-written crap that you get from most politicians.
I was a college student four years ago when I voted for him. He always indicated that he was not supportive of large hand-outs for higher education. He stated that people should pay their own way for school.
Any student who voted for him and is now upset about his education spending is an idiot. Did I want to pay more for school? No. On the other hand, I support his conservative spending policies and it would be hypocritical to want lower government spending, less pork barrel politics, and then expect the government to give me a bunch of money to go to school.
The governer's office closed at its usual time, but the legislature was working late. When they tried to deliver the bill they discovered that the office was closed. They sent someone out to his house to deliver it, but the security personnel would not allow the uninvited "guest" onto the property that night. The bill was delivered Monday morning and he signed it.
The legislature, via the local news idiots, cried the whole time that he was "refusing to accept the bill".
Regarding nukes in space... the Soviet Union, under Khrushchev, did plan to build a space station that would hold and launch nuclear weapons. You are correct in that an ICBM could already hit any target that a space-based platform could target. The space platform, however, could launch with significantly less warning. Defensive systems are designed to detect the launch of ICBMs, they would not detect a space-based launch. There are, of course, significant drawbacks. A space-based platform is easily tracked and would likely be an easy target in case of war (assuming it wasn't used for a nuclear first-strike).