Better yet, how do they tell the difference between me downloading my legal backup of the song from another machine I have on the net (or a backup services provider or my summer home or whatever) and an illegal copy of the song?
In short, there is no way Excite@Home can know if the copying is legal or illegal.
Certainly, as someone who has not seen the original and thus does not view the new one through the glasses of the old, I thought it was a solid summer film. Furthermore, I felt the Wahlberg character was more realistic than the Heston one Katz describes.
My point, however, regards the ending. I think Burton made this ending intentionally jarring and, well, stupid so that the audience could mentally edit it out. He was contractually obligated to leave room open for a sequel. He hates sequels. This ending thus says two things, IMHO:
"Make a sequel out of this, assholes!"
"Audience, this clearly has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, please erase it from your mind."
I do find it impossible to believe Burton thought the ending was an actual good idea for its theatrical merits.
bitch all you want but if you aren't doing anything to change a situation that you have the ability to change then don't complain.
And that's why Linux will never succeed on the desktop. All the Linux geeks like you.
First of all, I develop numerous Open Source applications. So, while I may not contribute to Linux (an OS I think is crap anyways), I do my fair share.
Second of all, if no one complains, nothing gets better.
maybe it's a good thing (long term) that he's not being released. at least then some people might see just what a ridiculous thing this act is... and some courts might have a chance to blow the DMCA out of the water.
The problem with this is that it is not Dmitry's battle to fight. He is Russian. It is the responsibility of Americans to fight for the freedom of Americans, not Russians or anyone else.
Not shit! The person you replied to didn't say Jiang was elected democratically, he said the *laws* were voted on. Try reading the posts.
Voted on by whom exactly? When? Do they get a chance to repeal bad laws? Do they get a chance to propose their own? Or are they instead offer a single slate of laws which they basically must vote for?
You do realise there's a fine line between peaceful and violent? If the protesters behave in a manner that's considered threatening to the authorities (flailing arms, legs, and such)..
There is no such fine line. Violence is the threat of or that act of doing harm to the person or property of another. Flailing arms, legs, and such are not violent under any conception of violent. The G8 protesters were quite violent.
Sorry, but you'll have to have actually lived there for some time (a year or so) before you can give accurate assessments. Being there for vacation don't count.
Sorry, it does count. Certainly you see more if you live there for a while, but a well-spent vacation does provide a very good picture of the area you are visiting. What I learned is this:
The people of Beijing are about as unfriendly a people as there can be. I imagine this is more from living in a huge ass city than being a characteristic of China.
The Chinese government is very careful about who it puts in front of American tourists. It especially does not like you venturing out on your own. And the "opinions" of the people they put in front of you on matters like Taiwan and Tibet are very carefully rehearsed.
China, like Russia (where, by the way, I did live for a while), is a striking contrast between the most opulent kind of wealth and beauty imaginable in the pre-Communist buildings and artifacts and the utilitarian ugliness of everything post-Communist.
On Rupert Murdoch controlling all Western media. HE DOES NOT. While he controls a lot more than he should, he does not control anything near all Western media. There is no unifying control in any Western media.
Are you under the bizarre impression that all journalists from all Western countries go to the same school for indoctrination by the same people? And that these people all have an anti-China agenda?
Easy. China makes for an easy boogyman to keep western dissidents in check. 'Why are you complaining when this system is MUCH BETTER than China's?'
What Western dissidents? And I don't get the last question. First, what do you think I am complaining about? Second, if I were complaining, that would not imply that China's is better. Unless you have the perfect system--which no one does--then you always have something to complain about. The problem with China is that you don't have the right to complain.
Yes they do. It's called 'slave labor'.
Dude, the Western media is not dependent on cheap Chinese labor. Some Western manufacturing industries are, but manufacturing and entertainment are two vastly different industries. And, by the way, a media dependent on "slave labor" from China would be incented to create a POSTIVE image for China.
Damn, making one point you made yourself look the fool twice!
The "guy" (he had a name, you know - Carlo Giuliani - you could find it out if you cared) was throwing a fire extinguisher at a heavily armored police vehicle. The police officers (military? paramilitary? the difference becomes more blurred every day) were in no danger. In other words, the "guy" was unarmed, carrying no weapons. He was no match for the heavily armed and armored government troops. In the heat of the moment, he was just throwing the nearest object that came to hand. He paid a pretty severe price for doing so.
What I saw on TV was a police car, not an armoured vehicle. Either way, HIS ACTIONS WERE VIOLENT ACTIONS, NOT PEACEFUL. If, in fact, no one's life was endangered by his act, then a bullet in the head is not a proportional use of force. As you say, there is a murder investigation. That's because Italy is a country of laws, unlike China.
In short, it does not matter what my understanding of the truth is or what your understanding of the truth is. In a country of laws like the USA and Italy, the truth will come out and the guilty will be punished.
None of that, however, can justify Giuliani's actions. He was nothing more than a violent hooligan. Death may or may not have been a harsh punishment for being a hooligan (depending on whether someone else's life was in danger or perceived to be in danger), but he was a hooligan.
Are you saying that the chinese government doesnt whant whats best for the chinese people?
The Chinese government does what is best for itself. To keep itself in power. In issues not related to retaining power, I am certain that they do try to do what is best for the Chinese people. BUT THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS NOT ELECTED. There is no check on whether they think what is best for the Chinese people is, in fact, what is best for the Chinese people.
How do you know what will give the best possible outcome for the chinese people?
No one person knows for sure what is best for an entire society. That's why democracy is so important. It holds those charged with "deciding what is best" for their people are held accountable for being wrong about what is best.
And allso. No one knows for shure if the american people elected the current president
That's a load of horse shit. The election was a statistical tie. Either person being president right now is a valid outcome.
Just on point were we can compare China and the USA, both countries have death penalty, even if not on all states, and this is the supposedly most advanced country in the World.
I am an ardent opponent of the death penalty. Nevertheless, I am capable of recognizing the difference between the execution of murderers (US) and the execution of political prisoners (China).
And do you believe the law will be really repealed?
With all my heart. In any country, bad laws can get passed. The DMCA is not the first nor will it be the last in the USA. But we have processes for getting rid of bad laws. Right now legislaters like Rep Boucher are working on laws to get rid of section 1201 and re-establish the importance of fair use.
Honestly, I would be surprised if the DMCA lasts in its current form beyond 2002.
The RIAA is the one paying big amounts of money to get the law passed, and *most* people among the voters don't know about the DMCA and it's implications, so they will keep voting the ones that passed the DMCA while getting their pockets full.
The problem with the DMCA is that it destroys freedoms that every day Americans take for granted. When people see their friends being arrested for no reason and their speech curtailed for fear of law suits, there will be an outroar. This one incident alone is really causing a stir.
I did not suggest that the dead guy's act of bashing in a car with a fire extinguisher excused any possible act of violence against any arbitrary protester, I said that the guy getting shot while protesting made sense in light of HIS actions.
By contrast, the Chinese government is guilty of acting immorally with respect to Tianenmen Square because their actions were not taken against specific violent individuals to stop their violence, but instead to stop the peaceful political expression of an entire class of people.
Please tell me that you are not so dense as to not understand the difference?
All laws in China were also voted on by the elected representitaves of the people of the PRC through legitimate processes.
Really? When did Jiang Zemin last stand for election? Who did he run against? What were their main areas of contention?
The answers, in case you do not know is that he was elected the head of the communist party by communist party members. He did not face any opposition. He was not elected by the people. The people had no choice.
Tell me who was sentenced to death due to advocating access free internet?
I did not say anyone had. I said they could. People are routinely executed for PEACEFUL political opposition. Consider, for example, the countless Tibetan monks that have been jailed, exiled, and executed from the time the Chinese occupation of Tibet began until this very day. Of course, there is also the painful example of Tienanmen Square where peaceful protesters were murdered and jailed.
Your comparison to G8 is absurd. The protesters in Genoa are violent, sometimes in the extreme.
This is the same in China. I know, because I am form china. You know nothing and your brain is full of crap from western propaganda.
I have spent time in China. I have spent time in many different nations. I have seen the way things work in China first hand.
Western propoganda? That accusation only works if there were a such thing as unified Western media. Western media accounts for all points of views, from the extreme left wing to the religious right. There are some problems regarding control by massive media conglomerates, but those have nothing to do with the portrayal of China. In short, government has ZERO control over Western media. On the other hand, there is no divergence of views on Chinese media. Chinese media IS propoganda.
Admit that, what you say about China are all from what western media told you. And you cannot tell the true from the false, because you have never had chance lived in both states among the PEOPLE to understand them.
Sorry, no. I cannot admit that. I have, as I mentioned above, spent time in both states among the PEOPLE. And, in order for any of your complaints about Western media to hold any water, you have to provide some semblance of motivation for Western media to bash China.
Why would Western media do that? They have nothing at all to gain. They are motivated to do exactly the opposite because iif they want to do business in China, they better not criticize the Chinese government.
In short, you are either the most ignorant Chinese person to visit America or you are a communist party stooge. Which is it?
In a way you are right, but you are fundmentally mistaken. You are in that Communism is not a political system, it is an economic system.
While Marx never saw Communism in the way it has been realized in the many "Communist" governments of the 20th century (in fact, he thought Russia was the last country on earth to be ready for Communism), the problem with Communism is that it assumes all humans place the same value on all things, from goods and services to love and happiness.
In fact, however, everyone places different values on things. Communism thus needs to leverage something in order to create a set of shared values for society. This is inevitably the political system and the result is inevitably totalitarianism.
The idea that appeasement will oopen up China dates back to Nixon. Instead of condemning Tienanmen, we open more business ties because that will certainly open up China (sarcasm there)!
After 30 years, our policy of constructive engagement is clearly a failure. The Chinese government is a corrupt, oppressive, and racist totalitarian regime that needs to be brought down. They should not have gotten the Olympics, they should not get MFN status and they should not be allowed into the WTO.
The American government passes an unfair law (the DMCA) voted on by the elected representitaves of the people of the USA through legitimate processes. A branch of the government then acts on the law. People all over the country protest. No one is going to jail for protesting, and eventually the law will be repealed.
And the maximum jail term, I believe, is 5 years.
In China, unelected government officials arbitrarily determine that they do not want their citizens having access to the free Internet. They thus shutdown the means of getting free access. No one protests since they risk a death sentence for doing so.
Several key differences here:
In the US, the unfair law was made by elected officials ultimately accountable to the people. In China, it was made by unelected people who will never be held acccountable for it.
In the US, Dmitry has access to due process. In China, violators can be stuck in jail, tried, and punished without anything resembling due process.
In the US, people can protest this unfair law and the unfair without fear of persecution. In China, anyone disagreeing with govt actions is also thrown in jail.
While the US is way out of line on the Dmitry issue, there is absolutely no comparison between China and the USA.
Your comment is partly false, and partly misleading. First, touch pad or nubbin (pointing stick, as you call it) is entirely a personal preference. I prefer touch pads. I HATE nubbins. 99.9% of PCs come with one or the other, not both.
Second of all, who the fuck actually uses the anemic pointing devices that come with computers? I use a logictech USB optical mouse with my laptop, and it has TWO buttons. And use, most apps under OS X make use of two mouse buttons in the way most people would expect.
And to top off your zealousness with nonsense like "SIGNIFICANTLY" is just plain silly. It's good stuff, but it isn't a clear winner-- especially if it's "fairly comparably priced for comparable performance".
Performance is not the only measure of superiority. Comparable performance at a comparable price gets you a significantly better setup. Leet's look at the titanium...
The titanium weighs half of what the comparable Dell weighs, has built in wireless 802.11b antenna, 100Mb ethernet, 1 firewire port, a 15 inch screen, 2 USB ports, VGA, S-Video, slot-loading DVD, and modem--all built-in with no goof protruding parts or dongles. And the form factor is brilliant.
Getting a Mac isn't a magic pill to cure your Microsoft sickness... the damn things come pre-loaded with MS Internet software. And I'm guessing that the first thing you'll want to do is either snap up a copy of Connectix Virtual PC (which includes a licensed copy of Windows) or a copy of Office for Mac.
Nothing in this world can cure it entirely. I was referring largely to OS issues. However, MacOS actually comes with both IE and Netscape pre-installed. It just happens that Netscape does not have a carbonized version for OS X. Yet another example of Netscape stinking up the place. But I agree that getting along in this world without Office is hard.PDF does go a long way to making Word irrelevant, however.
Besides, until a couple of months ago, Mac OS was a steaming pile
First of all, Appple hardware is not $1500 more expensive. It is fairly comparably priced for comparable perfomance. You pay a LITTLE extra money for SIGNIFICANTLY better hardware. Consider, for example, laptops. Compare a $3500 titanium--without a doubt, the best laptop on the planet--to a similarly priced Dell or Gateway laptop. They don't compete in quality... not even close. But they do cost the same price.
It's better hardward. OF COURSE IT IS MORE EXPENSIVE.
Oh yeah, and whether or not I use the products has little bearing on whether the BSA will harass me. It has to do whether or not I am likely to get it up the ass on a technicality. And Apple licenses are nowhere in the category of Microsoft licenses.
Finally, my workstation work involves doing digital video editing. Open Source provides no useful alternative in that realm.
Slashdot Mirror
In short, there is no way Excite@Home can know if the copying is legal or illegal.
A comma delimited list of numbers is a comma delimited list of numbers in accordance with some pre-defined structuring rules.
The file type is immutable. How we use the files may differ on context.
Why would you do this when you have OS X?
Nothing comes close to the Apple Titanium. All the Intel stuff is light years behind.
And worse, you think it is a jailable offense?
My point, however, regards the ending. I think Burton made this ending intentionally jarring and, well, stupid so that the audience could mentally edit it out. He was contractually obligated to leave room open for a sequel. He hates sequels. This ending thus says two things, IMHO:
Maybe you should try OS X?
I will make it easier for you. How about someone make the install of the fucking OS simple and SECURE?
And that's why Linux will never succeed on the desktop. All the Linux geeks like you.
First of all, I develop numerous Open Source applications. So, while I may not contribute to Linux (an OS I think is crap anyways), I do my fair share.
Second of all, if no one complains, nothing gets better.
Personally, I'd think that making the OS easier to use would be a good idea.
The problem with this is that it is not Dmitry's battle to fight. He is Russian. It is the responsibility of Americans to fight for the freedom of Americans, not Russians or anyone else.
Voted on by whom exactly? When? Do they get a chance to repeal bad laws? Do they get a chance to propose their own? Or are they instead offer a single slate of laws which they basically must vote for?
You do realise there's a fine line between peaceful and violent? If the protesters behave in a manner that's considered threatening to the authorities (flailing arms, legs, and such)..
There is no such fine line. Violence is the threat of or that act of doing harm to the person or property of another. Flailing arms, legs, and such are not violent under any conception of violent. The G8 protesters were quite violent.
Sorry, but you'll have to have actually lived there for some time (a year or so) before you can give accurate assessments. Being there for vacation don't count.
Sorry, it does count. Certainly you see more if you live there for a while, but a well-spent vacation does provide a very good picture of the area you are visiting. What I learned is this:
On Rupert Murdoch controlling all Western media. HE DOES NOT. While he controls a lot more than he should, he does not control anything near all Western media. There is no unifying control in any Western media.
Are you under the bizarre impression that all journalists from all Western countries go to the same school for indoctrination by the same people? And that these people all have an anti-China agenda?
Easy. China makes for an easy boogyman to keep western dissidents in check. 'Why are you complaining when this system is MUCH BETTER than China's?'
What Western dissidents? And I don't get the last question. First, what do you think I am complaining about? Second, if I were complaining, that would not imply that China's is better. Unless you have the perfect system--which no one does--then you always have something to complain about. The problem with China is that you don't have the right to complain.
Yes they do. It's called 'slave labor'.
Dude, the Western media is not dependent on cheap Chinese labor. Some Western manufacturing industries are, but manufacturing and entertainment are two vastly different industries. And, by the way, a media dependent on "slave labor" from China would be incented to create a POSTIVE image for China.
Damn, making one point you made yourself look the fool twice!
What I saw on TV was a police car, not an armoured vehicle. Either way, HIS ACTIONS WERE VIOLENT ACTIONS, NOT PEACEFUL. If, in fact, no one's life was endangered by his act, then a bullet in the head is not a proportional use of force. As you say, there is a murder investigation. That's because Italy is a country of laws, unlike China.
In short, it does not matter what my understanding of the truth is or what your understanding of the truth is. In a country of laws like the USA and Italy, the truth will come out and the guilty will be punished.
None of that, however, can justify Giuliani's actions. He was nothing more than a violent hooligan. Death may or may not have been a harsh punishment for being a hooligan (depending on whether someone else's life was in danger or perceived to be in danger), but he was a hooligan.
The Chinese government does what is best for itself. To keep itself in power. In issues not related to retaining power, I am certain that they do try to do what is best for the Chinese people. BUT THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS NOT ELECTED. There is no check on whether they think what is best for the Chinese people is, in fact, what is best for the Chinese people.
How do you know what will give the best possible outcome for the chinese people?
No one person knows for sure what is best for an entire society. That's why democracy is so important. It holds those charged with "deciding what is best" for their people are held accountable for being wrong about what is best.
And allso. No one knows for shure if the american people elected the current president
That's a load of horse shit. The election was a statistical tie. Either person being president right now is a valid outcome.
I am an ardent opponent of the death penalty. Nevertheless, I am capable of recognizing the difference between the execution of murderers (US) and the execution of political prisoners (China).
And do you believe the law will be really repealed?
With all my heart. In any country, bad laws can get passed. The DMCA is not the first nor will it be the last in the USA. But we have processes for getting rid of bad laws. Right now legislaters like Rep Boucher are working on laws to get rid of section 1201 and re-establish the importance of fair use.
Honestly, I would be surprised if the DMCA lasts in its current form beyond 2002.
The RIAA is the one paying big amounts of money to get the law passed, and *most* people among the voters don't know about the DMCA and it's implications, so they will keep voting the ones that passed the DMCA while getting their pockets full.
The problem with the DMCA is that it destroys freedoms that every day Americans take for granted. When people see their friends being arrested for no reason and their speech curtailed for fear of law suits, there will be an outroar. This one incident alone is really causing a stir.
I did not suggest that the dead guy's act of bashing in a car with a fire extinguisher excused any possible act of violence against any arbitrary protester, I said that the guy getting shot while protesting made sense in light of HIS actions.
By contrast, the Chinese government is guilty of acting immorally with respect to Tianenmen Square because their actions were not taken against specific violent individuals to stop their violence, but instead to stop the peaceful political expression of an entire class of people.
Please tell me that you are not so dense as to not understand the difference?
Really? When did Jiang Zemin last stand for election? Who did he run against? What were their main areas of contention?
The answers, in case you do not know is that he was elected the head of the communist party by communist party members. He did not face any opposition. He was not elected by the people. The people had no choice.
Tell me who was sentenced to death due to advocating access free internet?
I did not say anyone had. I said they could. People are routinely executed for PEACEFUL political opposition. Consider, for example, the countless Tibetan monks that have been jailed, exiled, and executed from the time the Chinese occupation of Tibet began until this very day. Of course, there is also the painful example of Tienanmen Square where peaceful protesters were murdered and jailed.
Your comparison to G8 is absurd. The protesters in Genoa are violent, sometimes in the extreme.
This is the same in China. I know, because I am form china. You know nothing and your brain is full of crap from western propaganda.
Admit that, what you say about China are all from what western media told you. And you cannot tell the true from the false, because you have never had chance lived in both states among the PEOPLE to understand them.
Sorry, no. I cannot admit that. I have, as I mentioned above, spent time in both states among the PEOPLE. And, in order for any of your complaints about Western media to hold any water, you have to provide some semblance of motivation for Western media to bash China.
Why would Western media do that? They have nothing at all to gain. They are motivated to do exactly the opposite because iif they want to do business in China, they better not criticize the Chinese government.
In short, you are either the most ignorant Chinese person to visit America or you are a communist party stooge. Which is it?
He was in the act of smashing in a vehicle with a fire extinguisher. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
While Marx never saw Communism in the way it has been realized in the many "Communist" governments of the 20th century (in fact, he thought Russia was the last country on earth to be ready for Communism), the problem with Communism is that it assumes all humans place the same value on all things, from goods and services to love and happiness.
In fact, however, everyone places different values on things. Communism thus needs to leverage something in order to create a set of shared values for society. This is inevitably the political system and the result is inevitably totalitarianism.
After 30 years, our policy of constructive engagement is clearly a failure. The Chinese government is a corrupt, oppressive, and racist totalitarian regime that needs to be brought down. They should not have gotten the Olympics, they should not get MFN status and they should not be allowed into the WTO.
And the maximum jail term, I believe, is 5 years.
In China, unelected government officials arbitrarily determine that they do not want their citizens having access to the free Internet. They thus shutdown the means of getting free access. No one protests since they risk a death sentence for doing so.
Several key differences here:
While the US is way out of line on the Dmitry issue, there is absolutely no comparison between China and the USA.
More to the point, why would anyone want to use Linux over Mac OS X on Apple hardware?
Second of all, who the fuck actually uses the anemic pointing devices that come with computers? I use a logictech USB optical mouse with my laptop, and it has TWO buttons. And use, most apps under OS X make use of two mouse buttons in the way most people would expect.
Performance is not the only measure of superiority. Comparable performance at a comparable price gets you a significantly better setup. Leet's look at the titanium...
The titanium weighs half of what the comparable Dell weighs, has built in wireless 802.11b antenna, 100Mb ethernet, 1 firewire port, a 15 inch screen, 2 USB ports, VGA, S-Video, slot-loading DVD, and modem--all built-in with no goof protruding parts or dongles. And the form factor is brilliant.
Getting a Mac isn't a magic pill to cure your Microsoft sickness... the damn things come pre-loaded with MS Internet software. And I'm guessing that the first thing you'll want to do is either snap up a copy of Connectix Virtual PC (which includes a licensed copy of Windows) or a copy of Office for Mac.
Nothing in this world can cure it entirely. I was referring largely to OS issues. However, MacOS actually comes with both IE and Netscape pre-installed. It just happens that Netscape does not have a carbonized version for OS X. Yet another example of Netscape stinking up the place. But I agree that getting along in this world without Office is hard.PDF does go a long way to making Word irrelevant, however.
Besides, until a couple of months ago, Mac OS was a steaming pile
So what? That was then, this is now.
First of all, Appple hardware is not $1500 more expensive. It is fairly comparably priced for comparable perfomance. You pay a LITTLE extra money for SIGNIFICANTLY better hardware. Consider, for example, laptops. Compare a $3500 titanium--without a doubt, the best laptop on the planet--to a similarly priced Dell or Gateway laptop. They don't compete in quality... not even close. But they do cost the same price.
Oh yeah, and whether or not I use the products has little bearing on whether the BSA will harass me. It has to do whether or not I am likely to get it up the ass on a technicality. And Apple licenses are nowhere in the category of Microsoft licenses.
Finally, my workstation work involves doing digital video editing. Open Source provides no useful alternative in that realm.