Some (actually most) of Uematsu's orchestral pieces are simply stunning.
The problem - Uematsu is taking lesser and lesser roles as time goes on. He basically had no hand in the FF13 soundtrack, and IT SHOWS. Elevator music in one area? (the Whateveritwascalled Massif) - You've got to be kidding me!
Well FFX was Uematsu's last real Final Fantasy soundtrack (although he shared scoring duties in that one too). He and executive producer Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square afterwards to form their own company, and Uematsu works morely on a contract/hired gun basis now.
But the point is why do certain things evoke such emotion in us? Why did we evolve to have this appreciation for something as seemingly useless as a beautiful sunrise?
Ah, but another question we may ask is do we find things to be beautiful because they are beautiful, or do we consider them to be beautiful simply because we've developed that way, even evolutionarily?
We all have sunsets and seem to find them beautiful, but other concepts of beauty can be quite culturally-driven. Overweight women in USA are often not considered beautiful ("she's fat!"), but in some other cultures where food is scarcer, that much weight could be seen as quite beautiful and very attractive ("she looks very healthy, would be able to bear a number of children who wouldn't starve.")
The RCC learned from their mistakes. I guess we have to repeat it over now for the rest of the Bibleguys.
The notion of the religion as being completely unchanging is, I think, a recent invention. The Church and Christian theology changes quite radically within the first few hundred years of its existence, and some of what we feel is traditional Christianity was absorbed from other religions and traditions.
nice how you capitalized Catholic but not Protestant
I thought protestant was more of a description of a grouping of denominations, while Catholic is the proper name for a specific denomination. Like... 'cities' is not capitalized, but New York, London, Tokyo are. "Protestant" might not be capitalized, but Lutheran, Baptist, and Methodist should be.
I think protestant is a pretty grey area though, both protestant and Protestant might be considered acceptable. It's definitely not something to get worked up over though.
I heard that Osama had been killed a week ago on MSNBC.
Yes, MSNBC, like most other major news sources these days, live in fear of being last to the party during important events. They report rumors and unsubstantiated events so they can get the breaking news instead of giving it the time needed to find out just what happened.
Roosevelt died right around the end of WWII... were any of the Germans dumb enough to celebrate, despite their obvious loss?
Yes, the Nazi leadership was ecstatic. Hitler thought that "providence" was seeing him through once again, and his astrologers had told him "something big" was about to happen. Of course, that's a generic claim that will always come true.
I'm not an expert on that law, but what I recall reading said they were required to provide notice of infringement, provide the receiver an opportunity to dispute it, and to stop any undisputed infringement.
My understanding of the law, again, not being a lawyer either, was that upon notice of the take down request, they were required to take down the site until the user filed the dispute. Then it would go back up again, and the ISP was not liable for allowing the site to remain up until the matter was settled in court (or out of court, with the DMCA filer retracting their claim).
This was very controversial when the DMCA was signed, and I would be quite relieve to hear that that part of the law, at least, had been relaxed. I hope that it was actually removed and isn't just being selectively enforced.
Actually, if you read through the legal proceedings, he was on very solid footing to do just that
Footing doesn't actually matter if you don't have the resources to fight the case. Defending a case like this against a plaintiff like Sony is extremely expensive, regardless of how in the right you are.
You're now guilty of wire fraud, unauthorised system access and several thousand ToS and EULA violations. Don't ever get noticed by Sony, they own you for life and aren't shy in the courtroom
Wire fraud? No purchases were made, no cash exchanged hands. It's not illegal to give false answers to websites which ask for name or date of birth, nor is it illegal to violate the ToS.
Sony could certainly shut down his PSN account and there's the off-chance they could sue for breach of contract, but the courts would also come down hard on the prosecutor and whatever you might think of Sony's upper brass, Sony's legal is not nearly stupid enough to find this case a worthy use of their time.
And people wonder why so many on-line accounts are set up with completely bogus information.
Why should I be providing all of this information to play *(&^%*&^ video games?
Because if you end up finding ways to cheat in games, or you harass other users, or are otherwise guilty of some other misconduct, they need a way of banning you and ensuring that you don't come back. I'm just amazed that they -don't- require a credit card, and that the information you give them could be totally bogus.
I'm not terribly enamored of Razor's ergonomics given how horrible the side-button design is on most of their gaming mice (requiring WAY too much pressure to generate a click, making those buttons useless for frequent use).
Then there are Razor's Linux drivers... oh wait, no there aren't. The only way to bind actions to the mouse buttons for their newer mice under Linux is to do so while running a Windows VM in VMware or VirtualBox and running Razor's configuration tool. And even then the tool allows for only a small number of actions to be bound, and they're almost all keyboard commands. It turns your mouse into a keyboard so you can bind actions like "Copy," "Volume Mute," etc. All I wanted was a mouse with multiple buttons that just passed those clicks on as if they were mouse buttons. But thanks to Razer's horrible design, that's just not possible.
Then there's the issue that my Razer Lachesis just starts to freak out after it's been connected to the computer for a few hours -- like it was "sticking" except there's no physical issue. For some time I worried that it was my new mouse pad that it was having trouble bouncing the beam off of, but the problem only existed if the computer had been on for some time and only with that mouse.
I went back to my years-old Logitech MouseMan. It's still a fantastic mouse, not something I can say for the $80 Razer Lachesis.
Homosexuality isn't correlated with the liberal/conservative spectrum. The only difference is that liberal homosexuals tend to be open about it. Conservative homosexuals tend to try to hide it from their wives and fellow church-goers.
Homosexuals tend to trend towards liberalism since it's generally not the side that attacks them. And political leaning is a choice.
Give me a break, DVD is also a DRM-encumbered format.
Yes, but it was an easily broken format. It didn't have enforced firmware updates, etcetc. Whether it was supposed to be encumbered, people could still generally do what they wanted with the discs.
Why we as a nation dont show up at the MPAA headquarters and burn these assholes at the stake I'll never understand.
Most people just don't care about those issues. They don't care that there's an analog sunset, they don't care much about Blu-Ray DRM.
What do they care about? The economy, foreign policy, war, health care, good jobs, putting enough food on the table to eat, bank bailouts, religious issues, if their kids are getting a good education at school, whether their city rep can get the potholes in front of their house fixed..
Really, DRM on Blu-Ray is far far far down on most peoples' priority lists. Compared to everything else, for most people it's not very important. Their time is limited, and they care about the important things.
We've gone 480p, 720p, 1080p, and I think I've seen mention of even higher "coming soon".
And don't forget 1080i, thanks to HD on TV! Does ABC still broadcast in 1080i? I remember FOX was the oddball because they used 720p instead of 1080i...
Unlike Blu-Ray, there's no organization that owns the "High Definition" tag, so HD can mean whatever a marketer wants it to mean. I remember a number of companies abused the phrase back in the late 90s and early 00s by calling, say, 480p televisions "high definition." Yes the definition was highER, but that was a bit of a stretch.
It doesn't matter how much you raise the resolution, Star Wars episode I is still going to be disappointing.
Amen to that, but at least with higher quality there's -something- you can get from it.
Excellent sound is another big plus for the home theater experience, one that few people who have HDTVs will invest in. The rest of the movie was blegh, but the opening text scroll + ship landing for Star Wars Episode II was damned impressive on a good sound system with the volume cranked up. Since so many live in apartments and have to watch their noise levels, this is one of the areas where the theater still offers a superior experience for many.
Does BluRay make a film better? No. It might be prettier, louder but that doesn't make it better.
Everything else being equal, it certainly does make it better. Obviously your viewing experience will only be as good as the content you're watching; that's orthogonal to the Blu-Ray vs DVD debate.
Gran Torino was fantastic on Blu-Ray as opposed to DVD, and it's hardly a special effects extravaganza.
$20? I wont pay more than $10. Until then I'll gladly bittorrent it.
When I bittorrent, I always go for the 720p or 1080p high-bitrate files. To me, better quality is always worth waiting for (which is one of the many reasons why I can't stand streaming video services). But I haven't needed to do that for years.
BBC Earth has been one of the prime sellers for Blu-Ray -- I imagine a number of Blu-Ray installations were designed just for that documentary in mind.
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Some (actually most) of Uematsu's orchestral pieces are simply stunning.
The problem - Uematsu is taking lesser and lesser roles as time goes on. He basically had no hand in the FF13 soundtrack, and IT SHOWS. Elevator music in one area? (the Whateveritwascalled Massif) - You've got to be kidding me!
Well FFX was Uematsu's last real Final Fantasy soundtrack (although he shared scoring duties in that one too). He and executive producer Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square afterwards to form their own company, and Uematsu works morely on a contract/hired gun basis now.
But the point is why do certain things evoke such emotion in us? Why did we evolve to have this appreciation for something as seemingly useless as a beautiful sunrise?
Ah, but another question we may ask is do we find things to be beautiful because they are beautiful, or do we consider them to be beautiful simply because we've developed that way, even evolutionarily?
We all have sunsets and seem to find them beautiful, but other concepts of beauty can be quite culturally-driven. Overweight women in USA are often not considered beautiful ("she's fat!"), but in some other cultures where food is scarcer, that much weight could be seen as quite beautiful and very attractive ("she looks very healthy, would be able to bear a number of children who wouldn't starve.")
The RCC learned from their mistakes. I guess we have to repeat it over now for the rest of the Bibleguys.
The notion of the religion as being completely unchanging is, I think, a recent invention. The Church and Christian theology changes quite radically within the first few hundred years of its existence, and some of what we feel is traditional Christianity was absorbed from other religions and traditions.
nice how you capitalized Catholic but not Protestant
I thought protestant was more of a description of a grouping of denominations, while Catholic is the proper name for a specific denomination. Like... 'cities' is not capitalized, but New York, London, Tokyo are. "Protestant" might not be capitalized, but Lutheran, Baptist, and Methodist should be.
I think protestant is a pretty grey area though, both protestant and Protestant might be considered acceptable. It's definitely not something to get worked up over though.
"reports of rehearsals being performed by Team 6"
Team 6 is Presidential detail. They wouldn't be going overseas at all unless the President himself did.
Wait, so now you're saying Obama was leading the mission in person? Did he fire the kill shot himself?
I heard that Osama had been killed a week ago on MSNBC.
Yes, MSNBC, like most other major news sources these days, live in fear of being last to the party during important events. They report rumors and unsubstantiated events so they can get the breaking news instead of giving it the time needed to find out just what happened.
Roosevelt died right around the end of WWII ... were any of the Germans dumb enough to celebrate, despite their obvious loss?
Yes, the Nazi leadership was ecstatic. Hitler thought that "providence" was seeing him through once again, and his astrologers had told him "something big" was about to happen. Of course, that's a generic claim that will always come true.
I'm not an expert on that law, but what I recall reading said they were required to provide notice of infringement, provide the receiver an opportunity to dispute it, and to stop any undisputed infringement.
My understanding of the law, again, not being a lawyer either, was that upon notice of the take down request, they were required to take down the site until the user filed the dispute. Then it would go back up again, and the ISP was not liable for allowing the site to remain up until the matter was settled in court (or out of court, with the DMCA filer retracting their claim).
This was very controversial when the DMCA was signed, and I would be quite relieve to hear that that part of the law, at least, had been relaxed. I hope that it was actually removed and isn't just being selectively enforced.
Our local cable go is Gestapo on DMCA takedowns...
Aren't they legally required to be?
Actually, if you read through the legal proceedings, he was on very solid footing to do just that
Footing doesn't actually matter if you don't have the resources to fight the case. Defending a case like this against a plaintiff like Sony is extremely expensive, regardless of how in the right you are.
You're now guilty of wire fraud, unauthorised system access and several thousand ToS and EULA violations. Don't ever get noticed by Sony, they own you for life and aren't shy in the courtroom
Wire fraud? No purchases were made, no cash exchanged hands. It's not illegal to give false answers to websites which ask for name or date of birth, nor is it illegal to violate the ToS.
Sony could certainly shut down his PSN account and there's the off-chance they could sue for breach of contract, but the courts would also come down hard on the prosecutor and whatever you might think of Sony's upper brass, Sony's legal is not nearly stupid enough to find this case a worthy use of their time.
And people wonder why so many on-line accounts are set up with completely bogus information.
Why should I be providing all of this information to play *(&^%*&^ video games?
Because if you end up finding ways to cheat in games, or you harass other users, or are otherwise guilty of some other misconduct, they need a way of banning you and ensuring that you don't come back. I'm just amazed that they -don't- require a credit card, and that the information you give them could be totally bogus.
I'm not terribly enamored of Razor's ergonomics given how horrible the side-button design is on most of their gaming mice (requiring WAY too much pressure to generate a click, making those buttons useless for frequent use).
Then there are Razor's Linux drivers... oh wait, no there aren't. The only way to bind actions to the mouse buttons for their newer mice under Linux is to do so while running a Windows VM in VMware or VirtualBox and running Razor's configuration tool. And even then the tool allows for only a small number of actions to be bound, and they're almost all keyboard commands. It turns your mouse into a keyboard so you can bind actions like "Copy," "Volume Mute," etc. All I wanted was a mouse with multiple buttons that just passed those clicks on as if they were mouse buttons. But thanks to Razer's horrible design, that's just not possible.
Then there's the issue that my Razer Lachesis just starts to freak out after it's been connected to the computer for a few hours -- like it was "sticking" except there's no physical issue. For some time I worried that it was my new mouse pad that it was having trouble bouncing the beam off of, but the problem only existed if the computer had been on for some time and only with that mouse.
I went back to my years-old Logitech MouseMan. It's still a fantastic mouse, not something I can say for the $80 Razer Lachesis.
I wouldn't say it's great, but it's a hell of a lot better than the previous administration.
I lump that along with the George Bush "miss me?" signs. The answer is no. Not one bit.
Homosexuality isn't correlated with the liberal/conservative spectrum. The only difference is that liberal homosexuals tend to be open about it. Conservative homosexuals tend to try to hide it from their wives and fellow church-goers.
Homosexuals tend to trend towards liberalism since it's generally not the side that attacks them. And political leaning is a choice.
Yes, this sounds like the anarchy party. Sounds like fun!
Give me a break, DVD is also a DRM-encumbered format.
Yes, but it was an easily broken format. It didn't have enforced firmware updates, etcetc. Whether it was supposed to be encumbered, people could still generally do what they wanted with the discs.
That digital copy expires.
I was surprised to find out for a recent DVD that the digital copy was only good for a year.
Why we as a nation dont show up at the MPAA headquarters and burn these assholes at the stake I'll never understand.
Most people just don't care about those issues. They don't care that there's an analog sunset, they don't care much about Blu-Ray DRM.
What do they care about? The economy, foreign policy, war, health care, good jobs, putting enough food on the table to eat, bank bailouts, religious issues, if their kids are getting a good education at school, whether their city rep can get the potholes in front of their house fixed..
Really, DRM on Blu-Ray is far far far down on most peoples' priority lists. Compared to everything else, for most people it's not very important. Their time is limited, and they care about the important things.
We've gone 480p, 720p, 1080p, and I think I've seen mention of even higher "coming soon".
And don't forget 1080i, thanks to HD on TV! Does ABC still broadcast in 1080i? I remember FOX was the oddball because they used 720p instead of 1080i...
Unlike Blu-Ray, there's no organization that owns the "High Definition" tag, so HD can mean whatever a marketer wants it to mean. I remember a number of companies abused the phrase back in the late 90s and early 00s by calling, say, 480p televisions "high definition." Yes the definition was highER, but that was a bit of a stretch.
It doesn't matter how much you raise the resolution, Star Wars episode I is still going to be disappointing.
Amen to that, but at least with higher quality there's -something- you can get from it.
Excellent sound is another big plus for the home theater experience, one that few people who have HDTVs will invest in. The rest of the movie was blegh, but the opening text scroll + ship landing for Star Wars Episode II was damned impressive on a good sound system with the volume cranked up. Since so many live in apartments and have to watch their noise levels, this is one of the areas where the theater still offers a superior experience for many.
Does BluRay make a film better? No.
It might be prettier, louder but that doesn't make it better.
Everything else being equal, it certainly does make it better.
Obviously your viewing experience will only be as good as the content you're watching; that's orthogonal to the Blu-Ray vs DVD debate.
Gran Torino was fantastic on Blu-Ray as opposed to DVD, and it's hardly a special effects extravaganza.
$20? I wont pay more than $10. Until then I'll gladly bittorrent it.
When I bittorrent, I always go for the 720p or 1080p high-bitrate files. To me, better quality is always worth waiting for (which is one of the many reasons why I can't stand streaming video services). But I haven't needed to do that for years.
BBC Earth has been one of the prime sellers for Blu-Ray -- I imagine a number of Blu-Ray installations were designed just for that documentary in mind.
Who are you, Sean Connery?