I still think Michael Keaton made the best Bruce Wayne. However, he made one of the very worst Batmans, so it was pretty much a wash. Jack Nicholson channeled just a little too much of the 60s Joker for me, but he was still good.
I'll agree though that the Nolan versions are head and shoulders above the rest (and above other superhero movies for that matter).
if you give it to a bunch of corporate suits and a squadron of rewriters, you get something boring like green lantern
if you give a fistful of money to a director you trust, you get christopher nolan's the dark knight. that's the way!
or... you may get ang lee's hulk. oh, oops
Mmmmph. I liked Ang Lee's hulk and that it didn't just turn out to be another A-Team sort of movie. It tried to think things through, gave us an interesting Banner and an interesting Banner's father. Sure, it f'ed up with those horribly stupid hulk dogs, and the ending was pretty dumb too, and, umm...
Well ok, it's a pretty mixed bag. The beginning was fine, Hulk's battles against the military (not the hulk dogs!) were incredible, and his San Francisco rampage and its aftermath were great.
1) they had to "science-up" the gods,... I mean that they could not have true "gods". They had to be "a highly-evolved, long-lived race that primitives on some planes would worship as gods and build a mythos around."
I'm not sure you can really blame the movie for that though, since I thought that was an idea lifted from the comics. Marvel brought in all cosmologies from various cultures and had to figure out how to reconcile them all, and the only way to make them beings just above various super-powered beings was to make them not quite gods of legend.
Then again, I thought bone-claws wolverine was a stupid idea from the comics that should have been ignored. I ignore all Marvel continuity after the 80s since they got some bad writers who really screwed up lore. I think the universe needs a crisis-style reboot.
This is primarily because the sex offender laws are almost uniformly ridiculous, basically a legislative expression of hysteria on the part of the media and those who drink the media kool-aid, and malfeasance and oath-breaking on the part of legislators.
It seems like almost any law named after a child is going to be over-arching, sweeping, and amazingly punitive. See: Megan's Law, the Jacob Wetterling Act, the Adam Walsh Act.
In the Harry Potter universe, dead is dead, and nothing cures that. No, not phoenix tears either. Throughout the book it becomes increasingly clear that any malady, any ailment, infirmity, or sickness has a magical cure. Just not death.
I'll agree about the Time Turner though, a time-travel device is very hazardous (to the plot), unless it's some one-off device that gets destroyed (though it wasn't). Then you'll always later ask why they don't use the time turner again. Star Trek was rife with this sort of problem. The person making the list didn't understand the nature of the device though. It allowed people to be in two different places at once, not change the past, which the books hinted was pretty immutable. So no, the time turner could not save the Potters' death, or aurers who were killed, preventing escapes that happened, killing/arresting Tom Riddle, etc.
What it did allow them was to save Buckbeak (who they thought had been killed... but he hadn't, that was an assumption on their part) and lead him to Sirius Black, all while giving them a convenient alibi (they were seen in the hospital ward).
Warning: I'm going to spoil your fond remembrances of T2!
Terminator was much better than T2. Terminator had plenty of flaws. (For instance, what is the deal with frickin time travel being so popular? Time travel is such an overused, tired, totally lame plot helper. It's our era's deus ex machina.) But on the whole the story is just plain better. The reason to watch T2 is to enjoy the special effects and action scenes, not the plot. T2 pushes forward the idea that the villanous, evil, unstoppable terminator can be co-opted with the flip of a switch. Urgh. It's like nothing is related, nothing depends on anything else, there is no history. There isn't any reason or logic for anything. Suppose in T3 (which I have not seen), they did the same thing? Just like that, that shape shifting liquid metal terminator is on our side. Or, heck, let's do a brain transplant or implant on young Connor, make him join the terminators, and now Sarah has to undo the conversion. For T2, I understand Schwarzenegger forced them because he wanted to play a good guy, so I don't blame the writers for that part at least. That doesn't absolve them for wanting to do T2 in the first place.
A flick of the switch? That's a horrible simplification that does a great disservice of the plot (such as it is). I don't think it's a great stretch to believe that they couldn't remove, reprogram, and replace the T200's computer core.
Yup, it's true, they died for ignorance. There was the notion that too much knowledge -can- be dangerous, and that a tipping point will be reached where inventions race on outside of human control. Do you really think this won't be a problem? As much of a technologist as I am, I admit the problem of "dear God, what have we unleashed" is a realistic and horrifying one. For some reason that works for me, though a similar idea killed my enjoyment of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. But I will concede this is a little bit of a plot hole -- killing one scientist isn't going to stop AI from happening. Human progress has never come down to one person making great leaps forward to exclusion of all others, as much as we enjoy the celebration of individuals. I suppose the ending came down to the notion that "the end" may someday come, but we don't know for certain anymore. They'd stopped one possible avenue, so the future was no longer set in stone. It could go in any direction.
While I thought T3 was generally bad, it did have a few good plot points:
1) Fixed the plot hole of the second movie by saying that Judgement Day was inevitable. That humanity, no matter what, would always progress to the point where machines of that level of sophistication and intelligence were possible. 2) The T200 was a good guy again, but the next T200 that Conner saw would kill him. 3) The fanservice terminator girl started taking out all of Conner's future lieutenants, people who would become leaders, when they were just kids. Good move.
In contrast, Harry Potter had a pretty good mix of random death and sacrifice. Admittedly, a character like Hedwig the owl had "red shirt" written all over her. Some of the deaths and escapes were a bit too convenient. But mostly, the fatalities are understandable, and except for R.A.B., the sacrifices are not cheesily certain. Life is chancy, and sometimes when people take risks, they pay the ultimate price. That's war.
Unfortunately Hedwig needed to die to serve the plot. Harry had to be isolated, so killing off his means of communication served two things -- No more sending covert notes, and it killed part of his emotional connection to the school the wizarding world in general.
Life is chancy, and sometimes when people take risks, they pay the ultimate price. That's war.
One thing I liked about Sirius Black's death is that it demonstrated the consequences of rashness -- Harry's rashness for rushing to the Department of Mysteries which was reflected by Sirius's own rashness through the book, with his "risk == fun" philosophy.
You are absolutely not alone. One of the things that stuck out for me about I am Legend was the hero's ongoing sacrifices. He lost his family. He lost his dog, the last vestiges of his humanity, and finally his life.
Unless you go by the far superior 'alternate ending.' Will Smith's suicide at the end of the theatrical version of I am Legend made no sense. It was unnecessary, since the grenade would have gone off regardless of whether he was with it or not. There was certainly space in the coal chute. He simply chose to die, which sort of fit the tone of the movie.
Here's a thought for a Super Hero film.. someone suddenly is born with super powers/finds a rune which grants powers/is bitten by a radioactive leech/what have you, they're SUPER now, in some capacity. They are the only one like them in the world of ordinary mortals. Have them explore their own moral code with what they could get away with or what wrongs they could right
Another Will Smith film, Hancock, started out that way, and it was quite interesting.. until the 'twist' in the middle that I was a bit turned off by.
Well, those of us familiar with the Thor canon know that Loki was in no danger of actually dying. And for Thor, what happened was worse than dying, it was Loki's literal fall from grace. Did anyone in the audience actually think that Loki falling into the space out there would kill him or had the capability to do so? Hell, did anyone in Asgard actually think that?
And honestly I saw far more sacrifice in Harry Potter than I did in, say, Watchmen. Harry/Hermione/Ron form an unbroken triangle, but every other facet of his life is systematically destroyed, starting with his parents, then a school friend, then the godfather who was supposed to provide a home, then his favorite teacher, followed by a good number of the Order who was protecting him. They're not resurrected with comic-style retcon either, all those characters are dead and stay dead.
You have a good point about the phoenix tears, it was a problem with the second book (and especially the ineptly-directed second movie), and its plotting, basically a retread of the first book, is probably a big reason why it's most fans' least favorite of the series.
I haven't read Game of Thrones (or seen the series), but I've been intrigued. It sounds good.
Er, no, however one that was 100% oxygen (or pretty much any gas) would be just as toxic for you and me...should the Clean Air Act cover oxygen emissions as well?
If we were in danger of oxygen emissions reaching that level, then yes, the Clean Air Act should cover such emissions. Since such a thing has no chance of occurring, it's a moot question. The Clean Air Act after all should only affect those emissions that are actually a threat to our health.
That's a really bad precedent to set. If we start charging more for certain content than for other types of content, what precisely is there to prevent it from spreading to other areas where the ISPs are able to rationalize the decision? A better solution would be for ISPs to start fulfilling their promises rather than using savings to beef up executive compensation.
The problem is that all these people with unlimited data plans were not paying the price for unlimited data. ISPs are set up with a goal in mind: enough network resources to fulfill the actual use, because purchasing enough network uplink to allow for all users to run at max bandwidth at the same time would be prohibitively expensive. So the people who don't use their connection as much subsidize the people who do. That's fine until a lot more people start to use more and more on a system without the resources to accommodate them. Upgrading will require a lot of money, a lot of time, and likely an increase in price for everyone. Or, you can impose caps.
To be honest, I am not particularly interested in the American constitutional folklore of "state rights". Can we discuss the issue on an abstract level, not specifically tied to the US?
That may be difficult, each country's population is going to have a much different idea of what a federal government 'should' do. Even in the US, each state population may have a different idea about what the federal government ought to do, and it is difficult to talk about something subjective like "how large/involved should the government be" without considering the frame of reference of the country's populace.
Ronald Reagan grew the federal government to ginormously huge non-conservative levels, and yet is hailed as one of the "greatest Conservative Republicans" ever. What am I missing here?
Well a lot of 'conservatives' would probably disagree with the moves these days (but change their tune once told that Reagan had done it), but many of the increases under Reagan were in the areas that were in the federal government's constitutional pervue. For instance, military spending is one of the areas of the federal government that the Constitution says they should handle, so conservatives are all for it. Social programs? The Department of Education? The arts? Conservatives would say that because those aren't explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution, those are more state or local issues and should not be handled on the federal level. I guess that's why Mitt Romney can say with a straight face that he supports Massachusetts's health care system and oppose the federal system, despite them being very similar. At least, I hope that's why he does that. Maybe I'm being too charitable.
In addition, around Reagan's time the Republican Party was taken over by the neo-Conservative movement, people who believe in those traditional conservative values except for issues of morality. Those, they believe the federal government should stick their noses into all the time, in enforcement of "traditional moral values." For some reason to them this is not hypocrisy.
First, first of all Rodney King needed a beating he was acting crazy and resisting arrest
"Acting crazy and resisting arrest" does not condone a brutal beating well after the suspect has been cuffed and subdued. The Rodney King affair was not about how the officers treated him while subduing him, but how they treated him after subduing him.
While I'm not going to try to justify the actions of criminals, if you leave your car parked in a bad area of town with the keys in the ignition and it gets stolen, you only have yourself to blame.
Incorrect. The blame falls upon the car thief. Yes, the owner made a mistake, but it still takes a criminal action to exploit that mistake. We -should- be able to live in a society where we can leave the doors to our houses unlocked. We -should- be able to live in a society where accidentally leaving the car unlocked doesn't mean it gets stolen. That those acts happen are the fault of the thieves, not the naive or forgetful. They are the ones taking the actions.
When I walk past a car and notice it's unlocked do I hop in, searching for spare keys or try to hotwire it because hey, free car! No, I keep walking, because it's NOT FUCKING MINE. The criminal is always at fault, regardless of whether the victim protected himself 'enough.'
Exactly. And for all the retards advocating anarchism on here (which is amazingly common for such a stupid idea), imagine Vancouver but with no police. Or no, Vancouver is still too polite. Imagine Detroit.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Robocop's future criminal dystopia was set in Detroit. It already approaches anarchy + no police.
You don't seem to understand how police procedures have worked in the past. The police always have been, and likely will for some time, dependent upon tips and IDs from the general populace. In many areas where residents know they will face retribution from gang members if they work with the police, the police make very little headway with a lot of cases because they NEED tips. No witnesses come forth? There's no smoking gun, no DNA evidence to use? Then it's a cold case.
Slashdot Mirror
If it were quirky or fun to watch I might go for it, but these very purposeful heroes of today's cinema are so preposterous I can't really stomach it
Oh come now, the original Green Lantern is a pretty preposterous concept. I suppose the only way to do it would have been as a sight gag film.
For that matter, The Mask was basically Green Lantern plus Jim Carry minus Lantern Corps.
I still think Michael Keaton made the best Bruce Wayne. However, he made one of the very worst Batmans, so it was pretty much a wash.
Jack Nicholson channeled just a little too much of the 60s Joker for me, but he was still good.
I'll agree though that the Nolan versions are head and shoulders above the rest (and above other superhero movies for that matter).
if you give it to a bunch of corporate suits and a squadron of rewriters, you get something boring like green lantern
if you give a fistful of money to a director you trust, you get christopher nolan's the dark knight. that's the way!
or... you may get ang lee's hulk. oh, oops
Mmmmph. I liked Ang Lee's hulk and that it didn't just turn out to be another A-Team sort of movie. It tried to think things through, gave us an interesting Banner and an interesting Banner's father. Sure, it f'ed up with those horribly stupid hulk dogs, and the ending was pretty dumb too, and, umm...
Well ok, it's a pretty mixed bag. The beginning was fine, Hulk's battles against the military (not the hulk dogs!) were incredible, and his San Francisco rampage and its aftermath were great.
1) they had to "science-up" the gods, ... I mean that they could not have true "gods". They had to be "a highly-evolved, long-lived race that primitives on some planes would worship as gods and build a mythos around."
I'm not sure you can really blame the movie for that though, since I thought that was an idea lifted from the comics. Marvel brought in all cosmologies from various cultures and had to figure out how to reconcile them all, and the only way to make them beings just above various super-powered beings was to make them not quite gods of legend.
Then again, I thought bone-claws wolverine was a stupid idea from the comics that should have been ignored. I ignore all Marvel continuity after the 80s since they got some bad writers who really screwed up lore. I think the universe needs a crisis-style reboot.
This is primarily because the sex offender laws are almost uniformly ridiculous, basically a legislative expression of hysteria on the part of the media and those who drink the media kool-aid, and malfeasance and oath-breaking on the part of legislators.
It seems like almost any law named after a child is going to be over-arching, sweeping, and amazingly punitive. See: Megan's Law, the Jacob Wetterling Act, the Adam Walsh Act.
In the Harry Potter universe, dead is dead, and nothing cures that. No, not phoenix tears either. Throughout the book it becomes increasingly clear that any malady, any ailment, infirmity, or sickness has a magical cure. Just not death.
I'll agree about the Time Turner though, a time-travel device is very hazardous (to the plot), unless it's some one-off device that gets destroyed (though it wasn't). Then you'll always later ask why they don't use the time turner again. Star Trek was rife with this sort of problem. The person making the list didn't understand the nature of the device though. It allowed people to be in two different places at once, not change the past, which the books hinted was pretty immutable. So no, the time turner could not save the Potters' death, or aurers who were killed, preventing escapes that happened, killing/arresting Tom Riddle, etc.
What it did allow them was to save Buckbeak (who they thought had been killed... but he hadn't, that was an assumption on their part) and lead him to Sirius Black, all while giving them a convenient alibi (they were seen in the hospital ward).
Warning: I'm going to spoil your fond remembrances of T2!
Terminator was much better than T2. Terminator had plenty of flaws. (For instance, what is the deal with frickin time travel being so popular? Time travel is such an overused, tired, totally lame plot helper. It's our era's deus ex machina.) But on the whole the story is just plain better. The reason to watch T2 is to enjoy the special effects and action scenes, not the plot. T2 pushes forward the idea that the villanous, evil, unstoppable terminator can be co-opted with the flip of a switch. Urgh. It's like nothing is related, nothing depends on anything else, there is no history. There isn't any reason or logic for anything. Suppose in T3 (which I have not seen), they did the same thing? Just like that, that shape shifting liquid metal terminator is on our side. Or, heck, let's do a brain transplant or implant on young Connor, make him join the terminators, and now Sarah has to undo the conversion. For T2, I understand Schwarzenegger forced them because he wanted to play a good guy, so I don't blame the writers for that part at least. That doesn't absolve them for wanting to do T2 in the first place.
A flick of the switch? That's a horrible simplification that does a great disservice of the plot (such as it is). I don't think it's a great stretch to believe that they couldn't remove, reprogram, and replace the T200's computer core.
Yup, it's true, they died for ignorance. There was the notion that too much knowledge -can- be dangerous, and that a tipping point will be reached where inventions race on outside of human control. Do you really think this won't be a problem? As much of a technologist as I am, I admit the problem of "dear God, what have we unleashed" is a realistic and horrifying one. For some reason that works for me, though a similar idea killed my enjoyment of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. But I will concede this is a little bit of a plot hole -- killing one scientist isn't going to stop AI from happening. Human progress has never come down to one person making great leaps forward to exclusion of all others, as much as we enjoy the celebration of individuals. I suppose the ending came down to the notion that "the end" may someday come, but we don't know for certain anymore. They'd stopped one possible avenue, so the future was no longer set in stone. It could go in any direction.
While I thought T3 was generally bad, it did have a few good plot points:
1) Fixed the plot hole of the second movie by saying that Judgement Day was inevitable. That humanity, no matter what, would always progress to the point where machines of that level of sophistication and intelligence were possible.
2) The T200 was a good guy again, but the next T200 that Conner saw would kill him.
3) The fanservice terminator girl started taking out all of Conner's future lieutenants, people who would become leaders, when they were just kids. Good move.
In contrast, Harry Potter had a pretty good mix of random death and sacrifice. Admittedly, a character like Hedwig the owl had "red shirt" written all over her. Some of the deaths and escapes were a bit too convenient. But mostly, the fatalities are understandable, and except for R.A.B., the sacrifices are not cheesily certain. Life is chancy, and sometimes when people take risks, they pay the ultimate price. That's war.
Unfortunately Hedwig needed to die to serve the plot. Harry had to be isolated, so killing off his means of communication served two things -- No more sending covert notes, and it killed part of his emotional connection to the school the wizarding world in general.
Life is chancy, and sometimes when people take risks, they pay the ultimate price. That's war.
One thing I liked about Sirius Black's death is that it demonstrated the consequences of rashness -- Harry's rashness for rushing to the Department of Mysteries which was reflected by Sirius's own rashness through the book, with his "risk == fun" philosophy.
You are absolutely not alone. One of the things that stuck out for me about I am Legend was the hero's ongoing sacrifices. He lost his family. He lost his dog, the last vestiges of his humanity, and finally his life.
Unless you go by the far superior 'alternate ending.' Will Smith's suicide at the end of the theatrical version of I am Legend made no sense. It was unnecessary, since the grenade would have gone off regardless of whether he was with it or not. There was certainly space in the coal chute. He simply chose to die, which sort of fit the tone of the movie.
Here's a thought for a Super Hero film .. someone suddenly is born with super powers/finds a rune which grants powers/is bitten by a radioactive leech/what have you, they're SUPER now, in some capacity. They are the only one like them in the world of ordinary mortals. Have them explore their own moral code with what they could get away with or what wrongs they could right
Another Will Smith film, Hancock, started out that way, and it was quite interesting.. until the 'twist' in the middle that I was a bit turned off by.
[spoilers abound]
Well, those of us familiar with the Thor canon know that Loki was in no danger of actually dying. And for Thor, what happened was worse than dying, it was Loki's literal fall from grace. Did anyone in the audience actually think that Loki falling into the space out there would kill him or had the capability to do so? Hell, did anyone in Asgard actually think that?
And honestly I saw far more sacrifice in Harry Potter than I did in, say, Watchmen. Harry/Hermione/Ron form an unbroken triangle, but every other facet of his life is systematically destroyed, starting with his parents, then a school friend, then the godfather who was supposed to provide a home, then his favorite teacher, followed by a good number of the Order who was protecting him. They're not resurrected with comic-style retcon either, all those characters are dead and stay dead.
You have a good point about the phoenix tears, it was a problem with the second book (and especially the ineptly-directed second movie), and its plotting, basically a retread of the first book, is probably a big reason why it's most fans' least favorite of the series.
I haven't read Game of Thrones (or seen the series), but I've been intrigued. It sounds good.
Er, no, however one that was 100% oxygen (or pretty much any gas) would be just as toxic for you and me...should the Clean Air Act cover oxygen emissions as well?
If we were in danger of oxygen emissions reaching that level, then yes, the Clean Air Act should cover such emissions. Since such a thing has no chance of occurring, it's a moot question. The Clean Air Act after all should only affect those emissions that are actually a threat to our health.
That's a really bad precedent to set. If we start charging more for certain content than for other types of content, what precisely is there to prevent it from spreading to other areas where the ISPs are able to rationalize the decision? A better solution would be for ISPs to start fulfilling their promises rather than using savings to beef up executive compensation.
The problem is that all these people with unlimited data plans were not paying the price for unlimited data. ISPs are set up with a goal in mind: enough network resources to fulfill the actual use, because purchasing enough network uplink to allow for all users to run at max bandwidth at the same time would be prohibitively expensive. So the people who don't use their connection as much subsidize the people who do. That's fine until a lot more people start to use more and more on a system without the resources to accommodate them. Upgrading will require a lot of money, a lot of time, and likely an increase in price for everyone. Or, you can impose caps.
To be honest, I am not particularly interested in the American constitutional folklore of "state rights". Can we discuss the issue on an abstract level, not specifically tied to the US?
That may be difficult, each country's population is going to have a much different idea of what a federal government 'should' do. Even in the US, each state population may have a different idea about what the federal government ought to do, and it is difficult to talk about something subjective like "how large/involved should the government be" without considering the frame of reference of the country's populace.
Ronald Reagan grew the federal government to ginormously huge non-conservative levels, and yet is hailed as one of the "greatest Conservative Republicans" ever. What am I missing here?
Well a lot of 'conservatives' would probably disagree with the moves these days (but change their tune once told that Reagan had done it), but many of the increases under Reagan were in the areas that were in the federal government's constitutional pervue. For instance, military spending is one of the areas of the federal government that the Constitution says they should handle, so conservatives are all for it. Social programs? The Department of Education? The arts? Conservatives would say that because those aren't explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution, those are more state or local issues and should not be handled on the federal level. I guess that's why Mitt Romney can say with a straight face that he supports Massachusetts's health care system and oppose the federal system, despite them being very similar. At least, I hope that's why he does that. Maybe I'm being too charitable.
In addition, around Reagan's time the Republican Party was taken over by the neo-Conservative movement, people who believe in those traditional conservative values except for issues of morality. Those, they believe the federal government should stick their noses into all the time, in enforcement of "traditional moral values." For some reason to them this is not hypocrisy.
and fuck you if you support snitching, you are perpetuating a childish government
Ah yes, the refrain of the mentally immature anarchist.
No, the parent is right and doesn't need to "get over himself." It's a totally reasonable reaction to a freakshow mob mentality.
First, first of all Rodney King needed a beating he was acting crazy and resisting arrest
"Acting crazy and resisting arrest" does not condone a brutal beating well after the suspect has been cuffed and subdued. The Rodney King affair was not about how the officers treated him while subduing him, but how they treated him after subduing him.
Bostonians tend to riot when our teams WIN. Like, say, now.
I thought that was just a Los Angeles thing.
I would call it 'civic duty' on the part of the non-officer.
It's not worth setting a precedent that we'll all analyze video for the police merely to get justice for a few totaled cars
Actually, what's wrong with that precedent?
While I'm not going to try to justify the actions of criminals, if you leave your car parked in a bad area of town with the keys in the ignition and it gets stolen, you only have yourself to blame.
Incorrect. The blame falls upon the car thief. Yes, the owner made a mistake, but it still takes a criminal action to exploit that mistake. We -should- be able to live in a society where we can leave the doors to our houses unlocked. We -should- be able to live in a society where accidentally leaving the car unlocked doesn't mean it gets stolen. That those acts happen are the fault of the thieves, not the naive or forgetful. They are the ones taking the actions.
When I walk past a car and notice it's unlocked do I hop in, searching for spare keys or try to hotwire it because hey, free car! No, I keep walking, because it's NOT FUCKING MINE. The criminal is always at fault, regardless of whether the victim protected himself 'enough.'
Exactly. And for all the retards advocating anarchism on here (which is amazingly common for such a stupid idea), imagine Vancouver but with no police. Or no, Vancouver is still too polite. Imagine Detroit.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Robocop's future criminal dystopia was set in Detroit. It already approaches anarchy + no police.
You don't seem to understand how police procedures have worked in the past. The police always have been, and likely will for some time, dependent upon tips and IDs from the general populace. In many areas where residents know they will face retribution from gang members if they work with the police, the police make very little headway with a lot of cases because they NEED tips. No witnesses come forth? There's no smoking gun, no DNA evidence to use? Then it's a cold case.
Running into a person with a concealed carry permit is not that common of an occurrence
How do you know? :-)
If SCO was a scam/troll or not is questionable when you look at the behavior before the end.
It originally was not. In fact, it used to be one of the more well-respected companies by the tech community that later came to revile it.
Yeah, the reason Linux hasn't taken off is because some people deliberately misspell Windows and Microsoft...
Not that I'm disagreeing about it being childish, just that it isn't some major thing holding OSS back.
I actually think one of the big things holding back OSS is the attitude on the part of the advocates and the helpers who new users try to contact.