1. Two entire paragraphs of an article from The Economist were directly lifted and used as a segue into the main article. Hey, it got me to click the link, and I'm sure The Economist appreciates the attention. But I'm also sure someone in their legal/ethics department is clamouring about copyrights, fair use, and all that. Just a thought.
2. Is it just me, or is that a kickass article about life, the universe and everything that makes it possible (or possibly doesn't) in, er, an economics magazine?! Deck.
3. I just wanted to echo something that's already obvious to anyone who follows the occasional results of these scientific pursuits: In 50 years, we'll have a lot more answers about what we now seek. In 100 years, we'll have a lot more answers about what we will be seeking in 50 years. And so on. In other words, the truth about dark matter and dark energy will be revealed, whether we understand it or even get it right or not.
4. Just for the hell of it: my personal belief/understanding/idea is that all of this so-called "dark" matter and energy really isn't dark or all that different from regular matter and energy at all. It's all the same type of stuff, but cleverly arranged such that we can not properly observe and comprehend it --- mostly because we are not made of it, thus our primitive perceptive capacity is not meant to decipher it.
...goes back to the classic deep-linking debate, in which web site owners were not only criticized for, but also strongly discouraged from, linking to other web sites or otherwise using a trademark of another (company's) web site on their own web sites. The reasons for that mostly boiled down to trademark dilution or tarnishment. The classic example: I bet Disney and Yahoo love having their trademarks all over the porn-web's "Do Not Enter if Under 18" logos.
This kinda makes me wonder if someone could win a big-ass settlement from Google if they played their cards right in a lawsuit with a similarly based argument. Of course, in this case it seems like no one is worried about trademark tarnishment -- if anything, the extra web traffic makes a web site more noticeable. But too much can be devastating on small businesses or individuals whose servers can not handle the load.
Next week on The Onion: "How to Stop Google -- The virtue of oppressing unique ideas." Heh.
1. Phone/address book 2. Phone on the go, like if I need it when I'm stranded 3. Long distance like local calls (aka "free" long distance) 4. Clock (no more need for annoying watches) 5. Calendar/datebook (hey, if it's there...)
The rest of the phone's features are either standard (too obvious to mention, such as Caller ID and such) or not necessary (such as custom ring tones, camera options, etc.). I don't care to have my phone sing to me, but unfortunately right now it does because mom bought the same phone I did and I don't like running to my room only to find that her phone is ringing.
So I guess...
6. The only good thing about custom ring tones is that I can use the overworld music from Super Mario World as my ring tone. Booyah!
The press is currently under the impression that we, the gamers who play these violent video games, are not aware of their violence or the things that happen when deviants use the images of that violence to carry out some devious action on their own. The press is also under the impression that these deviants are perfectly normal, good little people until they play that video game.
If a personal, child or adult, runs outside and starts shooting people, conservatives/Republicans (loose label) start screaming "electric chair!" and "get him!", whereas liberals/Democrats scream initially while under fire, only later to figure out who their next target for the blame should be. Gun manufacturers? Gangsta' rap? Violent video games?
Never mind the fact that man has been capable of doing his worst since before the age of technology began. Never mind that even cable television sometimes shows more gruesome depictions of violence than the video games currently under fire. Never mind that none of these children who do these things were not taught by their parents or peers the difference between right and wrong, or even how to handle negative emotions that might incite such violent acts.
After all, it is very clearly marketed for adults, which puts the responsibility on their children playing those games on the adults, not the kids (exception: idiot store clerks who sell games or any other products illegally to minors).
But who cares? Blame the video game. After all, spending months designing an incredibly realistic 3D environment in which we may run around and do the things we would never do in real life (i.e., quench our thirst for blood in fiction rather than reality) is the same thing as pulling the trigger, isn't it?
One Friday night back in August, I got really, really drunk. "My brain [told] me that I should have a hangover that [felt] like a 6.5 on the Richter scale, but my body [said] no, and I refuse[d] to argue with it." Checking further back, it turns out that this has nothing to do with it, because I stopped consuming caffeine about two weeks before that. Sorry.
When I inadvertently kicked the habit in mid-August, I wondered why, so I looked up a few things. I found an article that explained that the number one reason why people suffer caffeine withdrawal symptoms is their awareness of the withdrawal. I found this particularly interesting because I did not intentionally stop consuming caffeine; rather, there was none around, and I was so busy doing other things that I had no time to think about chasing down some caffeine.
Honestly, I expected a massive headache (because I always got them within 24 hours of my last dose of caffeine), but this time none came. After a week had passed I decided that I would just avoid the stuff, and I have ever since.
I have read elsewhere that all painful symptoms of caffeine withdrawal pass within 48 hours, and all that's left after that is fatigue as the body adjusts to working for itself without the aid of the stimulant. So, best of luck to you!
p.s.-- In retrospect, quitting was a good idea. I have since been diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, and caffeine is a significant no-no for that condition. I should have had many episodes before now with as much as I consumed, and I'm lucky that I haven't suffered any major pains before now. Oh well.
I thought Chicago was good, but not deserving at all of the Oscars it won. Maybe best Musical/Comedy -- I can certainly give it that -- but the others were just way over the top. My high school's performance of Chicago some six years ago was much better than the movie. When a high school outperforms Hollywood, I can't enjoy the Hollywood version. Sorry... And, no, I wouldn't count it as 2003 since it was released in 2002, and also because it already won Oscars in 2003.
Audience empathy?! If an artist panders to his interpretation of what the audience wants, then the artist only bastardizes his own creation by altering it based on qualitative judgments that can not be wholly understood. You can not truly know what an audience wants or expects until the criticisms come rolling in. In my best estimation, no artist's work should pander to anyone except those directly involved in its development.
Regardless of the mass media's and general public's reaction to the Matrix sequels, I found them to be cinematically and artistically incredible. The Lord of the Rings sequels certainly defeat the Matrix based on cinematic quality, but as far as pure entertainment value, the Matrix wins for me. And as for educational purposes, the Matrix wins by a long shot, because no other movie (or trilogy) has ever encouraged the amount of deep thought that the Matrix has. Brilliant to the end, even if people don't like it... that's my opinion.
I did not originally intend to mention all the 2003 movies I had seen, but after naming about ten of them, I kept wanting to mention another one. So, for the sake of completion, I checked a box office chart and started listing them all... sort of in order of best to worst, but not exactly. Maybe this will earn me a +1 Informative or something. In any case, I hope you find this useful, because I took about 15 minutes typing it up.:-)
---
The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions -- As a 4.5-hour whole, one of the few greatest sequels of all time, and probably my favorite film of all time. I think separating the two parts by 5.5 months was a good business move, but ultimately it cost the finale quite a bit in that many fans have decided not to like it so much. I think that would have been very different had all 4.5 hours been told at once, even if they were still released as separate films (which, in the long run, I think would have made them more money at the box office... oh well).
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- I sat it at 12:01am on Wednesday and 1:30pm on Thursday. Another of the greatest sequels of all time. Except I'd stop the movie after the first time the screen fades and put the rest of the footage after the credits as an epilogue, for various reasons. I'll be quiet on that just because so many of you haven't seen it yet.
Identity was my favorite non-sequel movie of the year. Simply an amazingly well done psycho-thriller. If you haven't seen it and don't mind a little blood, I highly recommend it.
Basic was one of the best movies I had seen in a long time when I saw it, just because it left me asking what the hell just happened, yet I knew what had just happened. I thought it was a well put-together film, and I still haven't decided whether I should buy it or not.
The Rundown was much better than I expected it to be. I don't know why I liked it as much as I did, but it was immensely entertaining. The Rock surprised me, and Sean William Scott actually played his part well.
Phone Booth was very good. Simply an incredible performance by Colin Farrell to carry the movie. Another psycho-thriller (I guess I like those) that got my attention when I heard Kiefer Sutherland's voice.
Finding Nemo, of course, is one of the best animated films of all time. Disney is getting better and better with those.
X2: X-Men United was surprisingly good, enough so to get me into X-Men (again for the first time) and by the special edition 4-DVD set. (Another sequel, Legally Blonde 2, was even cheesier and therefore less entertaining than the first. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, however, was surprisingly entertaining. I'm glad I went along for that ride. Terminator 3 was good for me. It fit along with the story, and the action was on par with what I expected. Good, not great.)
Dickie Roberts was surprisingly good. I highly recommend it to anyone who was addicted to TV at any time between the 1970s and 1990s. The plot is what can be expected from a David Spade comedy, but the end credits alone justify sitting through the film for any TV junkie. Daddy Day Care was also surpringly good, enough so to warrant my pondering of an Eddie Murphy comeback. Just Married was also a good comedy. I enjoyed it, anyway. Bringing Down the House, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing but not altogether horrible.
Old School was also very funny, but not nearly as good a movie as I had hoped for. Will Ferrell makes us laugh, but that's all. I thought the same of ELF, except that it does rank pretty highly for me on the Christmas movie charts, so it gets a bonus point or two for being a holiday film.
The Italian Job makes my list just because I like that kind of movie. Heist movies are generally fun for me. For the same reason, I also liked Matchstick Men quite a bit.
I can barely recall how the story goes from here, but I don't want the movie to be spoiled any more than Tolkien's writing has already done it for me. I watched the extended versions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers yesterday, and I have my advance tickets for the 12:01am showing of Return of the King... All I can say is that I'm ready!
Also, if anyone avoided purchasing the extended version of The Two Towers because the extra stuff added to The Fellowship of the Ring was lame, then I highly suggest you reconsider. The extra stuff added to The Two Towers was much more relevant and meaningful.
...Microsoft's elaborate security is designed to lock users into Microsoft software at the expense of privacy and choice.
The failure of the Slashdot readership (in general) to objectively consider anything Microsoft does is the number one reason why I consider Slashdot merely an ordinary forum rather than a valuable resource.
Flamebait. -1. Hit me with your best shot. No one actually needs to read what I have to say.
I had posted a story on Kurzweil that apparently wasn't as interesting as this one, but I think it still is worth mentioning. It's about an article he wrote in which he predicts that our biological lives will be lived mostly within a Matrix-like virtuality by 2050. An intriguing article, but I ultimately disagreed, citing that the global economy is too labor-intensive to allow the transition.
If we all trusted the system and took part in making sure it worked as it should, then it would work better than it actually will (because most of us will never put in that effort). The biggest problem I have when it comes to trusting the government is its bureaucracy -- none of our elections have any control over thousands of Washington's bureaucrats, so they're free to do whatever they want (within reason) at their own pace. It is when our votes stop controlling the government when the government starts doing what it wants with disregard for its people.
This is not a government for the people any more. We only influence the sugar-coated topping. Everything else is far removed from the average private citizen...
1984 is not upon us, because we still have the illusion of our freedom -- but perhaps that's worse, in the long run.
See, this is exactly why our laptops/workstations are NOT password protected. Theft is a mild problem here (we have had some $5000+ projectors and other equipment stolen in recent years, so laptops aren't all that safe), so with that in mind, we would rather someone be dumb enough try to login using our computers so we could find them than simply invite them to delete every trace of the computer being ours.
Sure, we have an obligation to protect some of the information on some of those machines, but I guarantee you that the people in my office would be much more disturbed about stolen machines than the data on them. It's not like we work with Swiss bank records.
...the LAPD is way too busy with serious crime to investigate a crime committed to an out-of-towner.
It's sad, really... but police officers have essentially been reduced to insurance claims officers when it comes to theft or vandalism. Unless someone is in clear and present danger, the police often can't or won't act because there is just too much crime.
I read a sociological report about persons who have committed felonies recently, and the results shocked me. The statistics in particular that got my attention:
Of all the grand theft (generally $500+) that occurs in the US, only 6% of it is even reported.
Of all the grand theft that is reported, only 1% of the thieves are ever caught.
Of course, you have to understand that sociology isn't the most exact science in the world, and that these stats most likely include career thieves who only get caught once. I guess you can tell any story you want if you've got the stats to back it up.
But still, according to these numbers, 99.94% of all thefts of $500 value or more are lost causes for the theft victims, because either the thieves are too good or the police forces are not good (or willing) enough to catch them.
This story could have huge implications on every single one of us. What other information are our various logins tied to? Web-surfing histories? File-sharing histories? Email histories?
Any transaction that goes in or out has at least two records -- the one on your computer and the one on any other computer that's on the other end of the transaction. Most users are pretty careless about trashing their histories in order to save space, memory, etc. But something tells me the federal government would prefer to just spend more on bigger and better storage equipment and faster memory in order to contain every miniscule detail of information they can.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- a Republican -- is endorsing such a communist plan that would essentially create a government-sanctioned control of two significant chunks of the entertainment industry?
...we can all still smell the smoke from the wreckage of The Matrix.
What wreckage? The movies, all three of them, were brilliant. Regardless of how they compared with viewers expectations or how well the average viewer understood them, the movies were simply brilliant. The Matrix movies were both visually and mentally stimulating, and those who chose to devote some of their spare time to looking beneath the surface found a wealth of entertainment value where others only see flamboyance and fluff.
I can't help it if you didn't like the conclusion of the Matrix "trilogy", but could you please recognize the movies as brilliant for what they are? No other scifi thriller has come anywhere close to doing what the Matrix has done, and the Wachowski brothers are only just beginning.
That said, I expect nothing short of brilliance from the final installment of Peter Jackson's Tolkien interpretation, and I expect to be among the first in line when it hits theatres in three weeks.
There is no reasonable justification for plagiarism, but perhaps this problem could be fixed by inserting some legal mechanism that allows linked web pages to be copied and duplicated on the web site that used it. This would solve the problem of the disappearing sources, and as long as the link to the original source remains in tact (and as long as that source link remains active), there should be no problems between the two parties.
Of course, the duplication of information for the sake of human knowledge is too practical. Forces like the RIAA and MPAA would rather fight it to the detriment of all.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Two entire paragraphs of an article from The Economist were directly lifted and used as a segue into the main article. Hey, it got me to click the link, and I'm sure The Economist appreciates the attention. But I'm also sure someone in their legal/ethics department is clamouring about copyrights, fair use, and all that. Just a thought.
2. Is it just me, or is that a kickass article about life, the universe and everything that makes it possible (or possibly doesn't) in, er, an economics magazine?! Deck.
3. I just wanted to echo something that's already obvious to anyone who follows the occasional results of these scientific pursuits: In 50 years, we'll have a lot more answers about what we now seek. In 100 years, we'll have a lot more answers about what we will be seeking in 50 years. And so on. In other words, the truth about dark matter and dark energy will be revealed, whether we understand it or even get it right or not.
4. Just for the hell of it: my personal belief/understanding/idea is that all of this so-called "dark" matter and energy really isn't dark or all that different from regular matter and energy at all. It's all the same type of stuff, but cleverly arranged such that we can not properly observe and comprehend it --- mostly because we are not made of it, thus our primitive perceptive capacity is not meant to decipher it.
Just thoughts. Have a nice day.
...goes back to the classic deep-linking debate, in which web site owners were not only criticized for, but also strongly discouraged from, linking to other web sites or otherwise using a trademark of another (company's) web site on their own web sites. The reasons for that mostly boiled down to trademark dilution or tarnishment. The classic example: I bet Disney and Yahoo love having their trademarks all over the porn-web's "Do Not Enter if Under 18" logos.
This kinda makes me wonder if someone could win a big-ass settlement from Google if they played their cards right in a lawsuit with a similarly based argument. Of course, in this case it seems like no one is worried about trademark tarnishment -- if anything, the extra web traffic makes a web site more noticeable. But too much can be devastating on small businesses or individuals whose servers can not handle the load.
Next week on The Onion: "How to Stop Google -- The virtue of oppressing unique ideas." Heh.
1. Phone/address book
2. Phone on the go, like if I need it when I'm stranded
3. Long distance like local calls (aka "free" long distance)
4. Clock (no more need for annoying watches)
5. Calendar/datebook (hey, if it's there...)
The rest of the phone's features are either standard (too obvious to mention, such as Caller ID and such) or not necessary (such as custom ring tones, camera options, etc.). I don't care to have my phone sing to me, but unfortunately right now it does because mom bought the same phone I did and I don't like running to my room only to find that her phone is ringing.
So I guess...
6. The only good thing about custom ring tones is that I can use the overworld music from Super Mario World as my ring tone. Booyah!
I can honestly say that you are ignorant of his impact on the industry.
Agreed 100%. Whether you like Gates or his company or not, it can not be denied that the man has done some amazing work for the IT industry.
If a personal, child or adult, runs outside and starts shooting people, conservatives/Republicans (loose label) start screaming "electric chair!" and "get him!", whereas liberals/Democrats scream initially while under fire, only later to figure out who their next target for the blame should be. Gun manufacturers? Gangsta' rap? Violent video games?
Never mind the fact that man has been capable of doing his worst since before the age of technology began. Never mind that even cable television sometimes shows more gruesome depictions of violence than the video games currently under fire. Never mind that none of these children who do these things were not taught by their parents or peers the difference between right and wrong, or even how to handle negative emotions that might incite such violent acts.
After all, it is very clearly marketed for adults, which puts the responsibility on their children playing those games on the adults, not the kids (exception: idiot store clerks who sell games or any other products illegally to minors).
But who cares? Blame the video game. After all, spending months designing an incredibly realistic 3D environment in which we may run around and do the things we would never do in real life (i.e., quench our thirst for blood in fiction rather than reality) is the same thing as pulling the trigger, isn't it?
. . . . .
Imaginary quote of the day: "I am not an addict. I just do it all the time."
Some claim caffeine helps you get laid too (see "Tactics to Influence Arousal" at bottom of page).
When I inadvertently kicked the habit in mid-August, I wondered why, so I looked up a few things. I found an article that explained that the number one reason why people suffer caffeine withdrawal symptoms is their awareness of the withdrawal. I found this particularly interesting because I did not intentionally stop consuming caffeine; rather, there was none around, and I was so busy doing other things that I had no time to think about chasing down some caffeine.
Honestly, I expected a massive headache (because I always got them within 24 hours of my last dose of caffeine), but this time none came. After a week had passed I decided that I would just avoid the stuff, and I have ever since.
I have read elsewhere that all painful symptoms of caffeine withdrawal pass within 48 hours, and all that's left after that is fatigue as the body adjusts to working for itself without the aid of the stimulant. So, best of luck to you!
p.s.-- In retrospect, quitting was a good idea. I have since been diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse, and caffeine is a significant no-no for that condition. I should have had many episodes before now with as much as I consumed, and I'm lucky that I haven't suffered any major pains before now. Oh well.
Sorry, I have nothing else to say. It was a lame attempt to be funny. I suck.
...that cinematic masterpiece Gigli!
Now you know how Arnold knew it was time for a career change.
I thought Chicago was good, but not deserving at all of the Oscars it won. Maybe best Musical/Comedy -- I can certainly give it that -- but the others were just way over the top. My high school's performance of Chicago some six years ago was much better than the movie. When a high school outperforms Hollywood, I can't enjoy the Hollywood version. Sorry... And, no, I wouldn't count it as 2003 since it was released in 2002, and also because it already won Oscars in 2003.
Regardless of the mass media's and general public's reaction to the Matrix sequels, I found them to be cinematically and artistically incredible. The Lord of the Rings sequels certainly defeat the Matrix based on cinematic quality, but as far as pure entertainment value, the Matrix wins for me. And as for educational purposes, the Matrix wins by a long shot, because no other movie (or trilogy) has ever encouraged the amount of deep thought that the Matrix has. Brilliant to the end, even if people don't like it... that's my opinion.
---
The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions -- As a 4.5-hour whole, one of the few greatest sequels of all time, and probably my favorite film of all time. I think separating the two parts by 5.5 months was a good business move, but ultimately it cost the finale quite a bit in that many fans have decided not to like it so much. I think that would have been very different had all 4.5 hours been told at once, even if they were still released as separate films (which, in the long run, I think would have made them more money at the box office... oh well).
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King -- I sat it at 12:01am on Wednesday and 1:30pm on Thursday. Another of the greatest sequels of all time. Except I'd stop the movie after the first time the screen fades and put the rest of the footage after the credits as an epilogue, for various reasons. I'll be quiet on that just because so many of you haven't seen it yet.
Identity was my favorite non-sequel movie of the year. Simply an amazingly well done psycho-thriller. If you haven't seen it and don't mind a little blood, I highly recommend it.
Basic was one of the best movies I had seen in a long time when I saw it, just because it left me asking what the hell just happened, yet I knew what had just happened. I thought it was a well put-together film, and I still haven't decided whether I should buy it or not.
The Rundown was much better than I expected it to be. I don't know why I liked it as much as I did, but it was immensely entertaining. The Rock surprised me, and Sean William Scott actually played his part well.
Phone Booth was very good. Simply an incredible performance by Colin Farrell to carry the movie. Another psycho-thriller (I guess I like those) that got my attention when I heard Kiefer Sutherland's voice.
Finding Nemo, of course, is one of the best animated films of all time. Disney is getting better and better with those.
X2: X-Men United was surprisingly good, enough so to get me into X-Men (again for the first time) and by the special edition 4-DVD set. (Another sequel, Legally Blonde 2, was even cheesier and therefore less entertaining than the first. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, however, was surprisingly entertaining. I'm glad I went along for that ride. Terminator 3 was good for me. It fit along with the story, and the action was on par with what I expected. Good, not great.)
Dickie Roberts was surprisingly good. I highly recommend it to anyone who was addicted to TV at any time between the 1970s and 1990s. The plot is what can be expected from a David Spade comedy, but the end credits alone justify sitting through the film for any TV junkie. Daddy Day Care was also surpringly good, enough so to warrant my pondering of an Eddie Murphy comeback. Just Married was also a good comedy. I enjoyed it, anyway. Bringing Down the House, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing but not altogether horrible.
Old School was also very funny, but not nearly as good a movie as I had hoped for. Will Ferrell makes us laugh, but that's all. I thought the same of ELF, except that it does rank pretty highly for me on the Christmas movie charts, so it gets a bonus point or two for being a holiday film.
The Italian Job makes my list just because I like that kind of movie. Heist movies are generally fun for me. For the same reason, I also liked Matchstick Men quite a bit.
Bruce Almight
Also, if anyone avoided purchasing the extended version of The Two Towers because the extra stuff added to The Fellowship of the Ring was lame, then I highly suggest you reconsider. The extra stuff added to The Two Towers was much more relevant and meaningful.
The failure of the Slashdot readership (in general) to objectively consider anything Microsoft does is the number one reason why I consider Slashdot merely an ordinary forum rather than a valuable resource.
Flamebait. -1. Hit me with your best shot. No one actually needs to read what I have to say.
I had posted a story on Kurzweil that apparently wasn't as interesting as this one, but I think it still is worth mentioning. It's about an article he wrote in which he predicts that our biological lives will be lived mostly within a Matrix-like virtuality by 2050. An intriguing article, but I ultimately disagreed, citing that the global economy is too labor-intensive to allow the transition.
This is not a government for the people any more. We only influence the sugar-coated topping. Everything else is far removed from the average private citizen...
1984 is not upon us, because we still have the illusion of our freedom -- but perhaps that's worse, in the long run.
Sure, we have an obligation to protect some of the information on some of those machines, but I guarantee you that the people in my office would be much more disturbed about stolen machines than the data on them. It's not like we work with Swiss bank records.
It's sad, really... but police officers have essentially been reduced to insurance claims officers when it comes to theft or vandalism. Unless someone is in clear and present danger, the police often can't or won't act because there is just too much crime.
I read a sociological report about persons who have committed felonies recently, and the results shocked me. The statistics in particular that got my attention:
Of all the grand theft (generally $500+) that occurs in the US, only 6% of it is even reported.
Of all the grand theft that is reported, only 1% of the thieves are ever caught.
Of course, you have to understand that sociology isn't the most exact science in the world, and that these stats most likely include career thieves who only get caught once. I guess you can tell any story you want if you've got the stats to back it up.
But still, according to these numbers, 99.94% of all thefts of $500 value or more are lost causes for the theft victims, because either the thieves are too good or the police forces are not good (or willing) enough to catch them.
Any transaction that goes in or out has at least two records -- the one on your computer and the one on any other computer that's on the other end of the transaction. Most users are pretty careless about trashing their histories in order to save space, memory, etc. But something tells me the federal government would prefer to just spend more on bigger and better storage equipment and faster memory in order to contain every miniscule detail of information they can.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- a Republican -- is endorsing such a communist plan that would essentially create a government-sanctioned control of two significant chunks of the entertainment industry?
What wreckage? The movies, all three of them, were brilliant. Regardless of how they compared with viewers expectations or how well the average viewer understood them, the movies were simply brilliant. The Matrix movies were both visually and mentally stimulating, and those who chose to devote some of their spare time to looking beneath the surface found a wealth of entertainment value where others only see flamboyance and fluff.
I can't help it if you didn't like the conclusion of the Matrix "trilogy", but could you please recognize the movies as brilliant for what they are? No other scifi thriller has come anywhere close to doing what the Matrix has done, and the Wachowski brothers are only just beginning.
That said, I expect nothing short of brilliance from the final installment of Peter Jackson's Tolkien interpretation, and I expect to be among the first in line when it hits theatres in three weeks.
Of course, the duplication of information for the sake of human knowledge is too practical. Forces like the RIAA and MPAA would rather fight it to the detriment of all.