To put it less crudely than the AC, being a vegetarian may hurt beef farmers, but a jury has already rejected the idea that this creates some sort of liability.
In any case, how many best boys, camera men, stunt men, stunt coordinators, makeup artists, costumers et al does Pixar employ? How about extras?
Some of my best friends are extras. Think of their children.
Herein lies the reason the studios like elaborate effects. Live action is messy, expensive, requires more people at higher risk and defies micromanagement.
Now then, I have fairly recently, as these things go, spent money on Harvery, Dr. Strangelove and To Have and Have Not, and am about to spend even more money on THAHN (it's finally coming out on DVD in November), showing that such movies are better long term investments and help the entire distribution chain for decades at a time, right down to the kid at your local mall.
When Dr. S showed up at a local theater a few years ago I went to see it, even though I own a DVD, just to see Slim ride the big Brahma 20 feet high
Haven't spent a dime on The Mummy Returns. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Not at this or any other juncture.
Driven is right out.
Bought Le Mans, Grand Prix and Winning though; and I'll go see them in the theater again if anyone wants to make me happy.
What this new movie coming out? I can't even remember the name. The one with the whip that you can tell is cheesy CGI on the TV ad.
I'll go see Dr. Indy Jones again, maybe even buy it.
I have nothing against effects, but their purpose is to add something to the script, acting, camera work and direction, not stand in their place.
The Fifth Element was visually stunning and told a story. Time Bandits is a masterpiece that couldn't have told the story without the effects. Blade Runner, Hidden Something Crouching Some other Thing,
Hell, even Pixar knows that it's the story that counts and even Luxor Jr. told one.
Studios use big effects these days not to draw people into the theaters. They use big effects because the people who decide what to use lack any ideas. They're exectutives, not film makers.
"Maybe that's what you meant by "our fair share is 100%", but if so, I think the phrase needs to be stronger. Microsoft's has been pushing not only toward ownership of the software market, but toward complete control of computing."
The scary part is that's an actual quote by a Microsoft executive. The truly horrifying part is that it reflects Bill's personal attitude toward everything, and everything is what he wants.
He doesn't want to control computing. Controling computing is simply the key to controling everything. He doesn't simply want to "win," or even make money. He wants to rule. He's a control freak.
I can't think of anything that will drive more "normal" people to adopt free alternatives faster than his rental model though. Why rent at great expense when you can own for free?
That's the core of Palladium. He needs to get that in place, and backed by law, or the whole thing falls apart.
I don't necessarily think that parent poster was suggesting that Dances with Wolves wasn't worthy of kudos, but that his named directors have made many, many Dances with Wolves between them.
"Perhaps the current trends (to spend more money on better effects etc) are actually reflective of a need to get audiences to come to theatres (to get a better experience than they'd get with their home 5.1 surround and 17" monitor)."
Or perhaps they could simply start making better movies that rely on story, acting, direction and other such old fashioned notions?
Just a thought.
I think I'll spend the afternoon rewatching Harvey, To Have and Have Not and Dr. Strangelove.
Which is why the word radical itself has been demonized.
The current mode of attack seems to be being formed into a trident.
One prong is trying to force GPLed code either into the public domain or claim it as propriatary (SCO's attack). The middle prong will replace it with the BSD license which allows propriatizing open code. The third prong is trying to pretend that fully propriatary code is actually Open Source ( a weird combo of MS and Sun).
I've been trying to imagine a more extreme position than Microsoft's "our fair share is 100%," but I can't.
My significant other's father was in charge of the Cray at General Electric's Nuclear Research Laboratory.
So far as she was ever able to determine ( since he really couldn't talk about his work very much ) his main duty seemed to be porting Zork to it.
So here we have Stallman ( who some would consider a Barbarian) dreaming of Empire, and the guys in charge of building the actual tools and infrastructure for World Domination dreaming of just being a Barbarian and going out for a bit of the hack and slash.
It kinda reminds me of my neices. One has very curly hair, the other pin straight, so one spends all of her time with a curling iron and the other with a flat iron.
Some people just aren't happy with who they are, ya know?
Just about anything of note that has ever been done has been done by a freak.
A freak is that which is unusual. The nail that sticks up and won't be whacked back down.
If one only does that which is usual only the usual results will come of it.
Take a good look around you right now. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, central heating, television, your computer, the internet. Outside cars, planes and even the odd space ship or two.
All made by freaks, all of whom were resisted, whacked and even reviled by some for trying to give us what they did.
Whither thou goest Goddard and Tesla?
Would that freaks were a bit more usual and that the usual would take a bit less care about trying to whack them down.
As I just posted a while ago in the preceding thread we have ESR representing the pragmatic point of view with the Open Source Initiative.
I'd say this is a Good Thing and obviously so does most of the commercial world.
However, the middle ground is always defined by the end points. Move the end points to the right and the "moderate" point of view moves to the right right along with them. (Errrr, right?)
So, on one end of the field we have Microsoft and their "we intend to own it all" position and on the other end of the field you have. ..RMS and his "no you won't, either" position.
I don't care if he's a nut, whack job, unrealistic idealist, extremist radical or what have you.
But I do very much care that his flag stays staked very firmly, right where it is, and that someone is protecting it.
God bless the crazy old bastard for taking on the job.
Which is why Linus allowed his arm to be twisted into releasing Linux under the GPL.
However little twisting it took you have to remember that it did take twisting.It wasn't his idea.
Moreover, what won him was a purely technological arguement. The GPL allowed generation of most code and the best code in the shortest time.That's all.
Without Linux BSD would almost surely be the dominant force in the Unix world, and many propriatary companies would prefer that it were.
History is, however, what history turned out to be. As it happens I think we're all the better for it. We have Linux under the GPl and BSD under the BSD license.
We have choice and the choice is ours. I rather think Linus likes it that way.
"I see a lot of aging programmers with families, content to do the least they can do without getting fired, until such time as their skills are no longer marketable."
To be at least somewhat fair to at least some of these aging programers they have been taught to act like this by the companies they work for.
Remember, most of older guys got into it for technology and the joy of it. There was no money in particular "back in the day." If you didn't do it for the love it there was no reason to do it all.
Get kicked around, treated like shit, turned into a code monkey and generally be made to understand you're a disposable cog in the machine and it's easy to go through the motions, take the checks as long as they last and cover your own ass.
As they say, no one else will.
Most of these guys had young wives, young children and young mortgages before they learned the score and then got stuck.
There are a few of us who have decided it's better to walk the razor's edge, and there is often a price to pay. Fabian Pascal even has trouble just writing and talking about technology these days, let alone getting "a good job" because of his absolute dedication to the technology, rather than buzzword compliant commercial products. RMS is, well. ..RMS. Thompson, Ritchie, Stroustop et al have given us Plan 9. ..and nobody seems to care.
It ain't easy being gree. ..er, a geek.
Although it isn't exactly the path I've chosen for myself I'm not inclined to over criticise those older guys just trying to make it to retirement in one piece.
I thought it was pretty well understood that RMS is the "Free Software" ideological leader ( who as it happens is also a technological visionary ), ESR is the "Open Source(tm)" spokesperson for pragmatism (and also a technological visionary), and that Linus' rallying cry is, was and likely always shall be:
"Show me the code."
To the extent that he is the "ideological" leader of anyone I know it's always for his basic folksy refusal to be anyone's ideological leader. We like him. We don't "follow" him.
Would you like your gerbil regular recipe or extra crispy?
On a steeeek.
Hey, don't talk to me, talk to my parents. At least my name isn't (R)oot (M)ean (S)quare. Although there are some who claim that RMS is all of the above.
I'm actually rather impressed with the Segway's safty record so far. 3 injuries per 6000 riders is really quite good given the nature of the machine. Bicycles do much worse. Segway says they aren't sure that the accidents were caused by the "flaw," it may well be that they were caused by the riders simply being dumbasses.
And I pose that people fall off bicycles in similar conditions (Yep, I've seen people fall over because their energy got low)and that balance on both is maintained by balance, not steering.
And maybe the guy who had to get stitches in his head will wear a helmet from now on.
Well, as it happens I originally changed my own business from an all Microsoft shop to an all Linux shop for this very reason. I got tired of chasing MS "standards" which broke my code, made my data inaccessable ( as it were ) without Microsoft products and yes, charged me for fixes for these problems. Not to mention making me largely reliant on MS for core coding even though I'm a vaguely competent coder myself.
The thing is that while I can easily quantify the monetary savings (haven't spent one bloody dime on software since switching to Linux as opposed to several hundred a year for a three computer shop. Ok, I'm not a major player. I happen to think small is beautiful), I can't quantify the real benefits.
Oh, I can enumerate them easily enough, just not quantify.
What is the "quantity" of not having to worry about license compliance? What is the "quantity" of having all my text and data files in plain ASCII so I can access them ( and even Access them if need be ) with any text editor in any computer system? What is the "quantity" of being able to build my own OS from scratch, from source? What is the "quantity" of not having to wait for a "feature" in Word because I can whip up whatever I need in Lisp, Perl, Python or sed? What is the "quantity" of knowing that mutt won't be running arbitrary malicious code attached to email on my system?
In short, what is the "quantity" of freedom, power and control?
American governments, ironically enough, are not geared to think in terms of freedom. They are geared to think in terms of purchase requisitions.
Hence they're most likely to adopt Linux solutions based on cost.
They'll manage to get the rest of it for "free" though. Then they'll start to understand.
Yes, it is sometimes refered to as "Taxachusetts."
Being from NY I have no right to throw stones though.
How's this for a thought? Maybe by moving to open standards and not throwing money uselessly at Washington State and Microsoft everytime they type a simple memo would help reduce the tax burden.
" I also believe that according the the current law, internet sales aren't taxed even when the buyer and the seller are in the same state."
This part is incorrect.
In fact you will likely find that sales tax will be charged on your purchase by the seller even if you order it from out of state, so long as the seller has a "presence" in your state.
If there's a Gateway Country store in your local mall you aren't going to save a penny by buying it over the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
To put it less crudely than the AC, being a vegetarian may hurt beef farmers, but a jury has already rejected the idea that this creates some sort of liability.
In any case, how many best boys, camera men, stunt men, stunt coordinators, makeup artists, costumers et al does Pixar employ? How about extras?
Some of my best friends are extras. Think of their children.
Herein lies the reason the studios like elaborate effects. Live action is messy, expensive, requires more people at higher risk and defies micromanagement.
Now then, I have fairly recently, as these things go, spent money on Harvery, Dr. Strangelove and To Have and Have Not, and am about to spend even more money on THAHN (it's finally coming out on DVD in November), showing that such movies are better long term investments and help the entire distribution chain for decades at a time, right down to the kid at your local mall.
When Dr. S showed up at a local theater a few years ago I went to see it, even though I own a DVD, just to see Slim ride the big Brahma 20 feet high
Haven't spent a dime on The Mummy Returns. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Not at this or any other juncture.
Driven is right out.
Bought Le Mans, Grand Prix and Winning though; and I'll go see them in the theater again if anyone wants to make me happy.
What this new movie coming out? I can't even remember the name. The one with the whip that you can tell is cheesy CGI on the TV ad.
I'll go see Dr. Indy Jones again, maybe even buy it.
I have nothing against effects, but their purpose is to add something to the script, acting, camera work and direction, not stand in their place.
The Fifth Element was visually stunning and told a story. Time Bandits is a masterpiece that couldn't have told the story without the effects. Blade Runner, Hidden Something Crouching Some other Thing,
Hell, even Pixar knows that it's the story that counts and even Luxor Jr. told one.
Studios use big effects these days not to draw people into the theaters. They use big effects because the people who decide what to use lack any ideas. They're exectutives, not film makers.
And they're not even very good executives.
KFG
"Maybe that's what you meant by "our fair share is 100%", but if so, I think the phrase needs to be stronger. Microsoft's has been pushing not only toward ownership of the software market, but toward complete control of computing."
The scary part is that's an actual quote by a Microsoft executive. The truly horrifying part is that it reflects Bill's personal attitude toward everything, and everything is what he wants.
He doesn't want to control computing. Controling computing is simply the key to controling everything. He doesn't simply want to "win," or even make money. He wants to rule. He's a control freak.
I can't think of anything that will drive more "normal" people to adopt free alternatives faster than his rental model though. Why rent at great expense when you can own for free?
That's the core of Palladium. He needs to get that in place, and backed by law, or the whole thing falls apart.
KFG
can I harvest his email address from the article?
KFG
I don't necessarily think that parent poster was suggesting that Dances with Wolves wasn't worthy of kudos, but that his named directors have made many, many Dances with Wolves between them.
KFG
"Perhaps the current trends (to spend more money on better effects etc) are actually reflective of a need to get audiences to come to theatres (to get a better experience than they'd get with their home 5.1 surround and 17" monitor)."
Or perhaps they could simply start making better movies that rely on story, acting, direction and other such old fashioned notions?
Just a thought.
I think I'll spend the afternoon rewatching Harvey, To Have and Have Not and Dr. Strangelove.
KFG
"So how many Kilo-VW-Beetles is one
San Francisco?"
Stop, you're making my head hurt.
I'm still just trying to figure out whether a San Francisco is larger or smaller than a Philidelphia.
KFG
Indeed, unfortunately integrity is now an extreme position. Go figure.
Most will just take the money. They can use it to buy a facsimile of integrity from the Rotary Club.
KFG
Which is why the word radical itself has been demonized.
The current mode of attack seems to be being formed into a trident.
One prong is trying to force GPLed code either into the public domain or claim it as propriatary (SCO's attack). The middle prong will replace it with the BSD license which allows propriatizing open code. The third prong is trying to pretend that fully propriatary code is actually Open Source ( a weird combo of MS and Sun).
I've been trying to imagine a more extreme position than Microsoft's "our fair share is 100%," but I can't.
May you live in interesting times.
KFG
My significant other's father was in charge of the Cray at General Electric's Nuclear Research Laboratory.
So far as she was ever able to determine ( since he really couldn't talk about his work very much ) his main duty seemed to be porting Zork to it.
So here we have Stallman ( who some would consider a Barbarian) dreaming of Empire, and the guys in charge of building the actual tools and infrastructure for World Domination dreaming of just being a Barbarian and going out for a bit of the hack and slash.
It kinda reminds me of my neices. One has very curly hair, the other pin straight, so one spends all of her time with a curling iron and the other with a flat iron.
Some people just aren't happy with who they are, ya know?
KFG
Just about anything of note that has ever been done has been done by a freak.
A freak is that which is unusual. The nail that sticks up and won't be whacked back down.
If one only does that which is usual only the usual results will come of it.
Take a good look around you right now. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, central heating, television, your computer, the internet. Outside cars, planes and even the odd space ship or two.
All made by freaks, all of whom were resisted, whacked and even reviled by some for trying to give us what they did.
Whither thou goest Goddard and Tesla?
Would that freaks were a bit more usual and that the usual would take a bit less care about trying to whack them down.
KFG
As I just posted a while ago in the preceding thread we have ESR representing the pragmatic point of view with the Open Source Initiative.
.RMS and his "no you won't, either" position.
I'd say this is a Good Thing and obviously so does most of the commercial world.
However, the middle ground is always defined by the end points. Move the end points to the right and the "moderate" point of view moves to the right right along with them. (Errrr, right?)
So, on one end of the field we have Microsoft and their "we intend to own it all" position and on the other end of the field you have. .
I don't care if he's a nut, whack job, unrealistic idealist, extremist radical or what have you.
But I do very much care that his flag stays staked very firmly, right where it is, and that someone is protecting it.
God bless the crazy old bastard for taking on the job.
KFG
Which is why Linus allowed his arm to be twisted into releasing Linux under the GPL.
However little twisting it took you have to remember that it did take twisting.It wasn't his idea.
Moreover, what won him was a purely technological arguement. The GPL allowed generation of most code and the best code in the shortest time.That's all.
Without Linux BSD would almost surely be the dominant force in the Unix world, and many propriatary companies would prefer that it were.
History is, however, what history turned out to be. As it happens I think we're all the better for it. We have Linux under the GPl and BSD under the BSD license.
We have choice and the choice is ours. I rather think Linus likes it that way.
KFG
" he really doesn't emotionally involve himself does he?"
Once again warming up my best Basil Fawlty:
"It's OK. He's from Finland."
KFG
On the other hand it's a well known truism that mixed breeds are smarter, stronger and overall genetically superiour to pure breds.
You might have a bit of trouble backing this hypothesis up by casual observance around the trailer park, however.
KFG
"I see a lot of aging programmers with families, content to do the least they can do without getting fired, until such time as their skills are no longer marketable."
.RMS. Thompson, Ritchie, Stroustop et al have given us Plan 9. . .and nobody seems to care.
.er, a geek.
To be at least somewhat fair to at least some of these aging programers they have been taught to act like this by the companies they work for.
Remember, most of older guys got into it for technology and the joy of it. There was no money in particular "back in the day." If you didn't do it for the love it there was no reason to do it all.
Get kicked around, treated like shit, turned into a code monkey and generally be made to understand you're a disposable cog in the machine and it's easy to go through the motions, take the checks as long as they last and cover your own ass.
As they say, no one else will.
Most of these guys had young wives, young children and young mortgages before they learned the score and then got stuck.
There are a few of us who have decided it's better to walk the razor's edge, and there is often a price to pay. Fabian Pascal even has trouble just writing and talking about technology these days, let alone getting "a good job" because of his absolute dedication to the technology, rather than buzzword compliant commercial products. RMS is, well. .
It ain't easy being gree. .
Although it isn't exactly the path I've chosen for myself I'm not inclined to over criticise those older guys just trying to make it to retirement in one piece.
KFG
I thought it was pretty well understood that RMS is the "Free Software" ideological leader ( who as it happens is also a technological visionary ), ESR is the "Open Source(tm)" spokesperson for pragmatism (and also a technological visionary), and that Linus' rallying cry is, was and likely always shall be:
"Show me the code."
To the extent that he is the "ideological" leader of anyone I know it's always for his basic folksy refusal to be anyone's ideological leader. We like him. We don't "follow" him.
Did I miss a meeting or a memo or something?
KFG
That's a GEE, a GEE.
Would you like your gerbil regular recipe or extra crispy?
On a steeeek.
Hey, don't talk to me, talk to my parents. At least my name isn't (R)oot (M)ean (S)quare. Although there are some who claim that RMS is all of the above.
KFG
I'm actually rather impressed with the Segway's safty record so far. 3 injuries per 6000 riders is really quite good given the nature of the machine. Bicycles do much worse. Segway says they aren't sure that the accidents were caused by the "flaw," it may well be that they were caused by the riders simply being dumbasses.
Although they didn't phrase it quite that way.
KFG
And I pose that people fall off bicycles in similar conditions (Yep, I've seen people fall over because their energy got low)and that balance on both is maintained by balance, not steering.
And maybe the guy who had to get stitches in his head will wear a helmet from now on.
We disagree. It happens.
KFG
To paraphrase Basil Fawlty:
"It's ok. I'm from NY."
KFG
Well, as it happens I originally changed my own business from an all Microsoft shop to an all Linux shop for this very reason. I got tired of chasing MS "standards" which broke my code, made my data inaccessable ( as it were ) without Microsoft products and yes, charged me for fixes for these problems. Not to mention making me largely reliant on MS for core coding even though I'm a vaguely competent coder myself.
The thing is that while I can easily quantify the monetary savings (haven't spent one bloody dime on software since switching to Linux as opposed to several hundred a year for a three computer shop. Ok, I'm not a major player. I happen to think small is beautiful), I can't quantify the real benefits.
Oh, I can enumerate them easily enough, just not quantify.
What is the "quantity" of not having to worry about license compliance? What is the "quantity" of having all my text and data files in plain ASCII so I can access them ( and even Access them if need be ) with any text editor in any computer system? What is the "quantity" of being able to build my own OS from scratch, from source? What is the "quantity" of not having to wait for a "feature" in Word because I can whip up whatever I need in Lisp, Perl, Python or sed? What is the "quantity" of knowing that mutt won't be running arbitrary malicious code attached to email on my system?
In short, what is the "quantity" of freedom, power and control?
American governments, ironically enough, are not geared to think in terms of freedom. They are geared to think in terms of purchase requisitions.
Hence they're most likely to adopt Linux solutions based on cost.
They'll manage to get the rest of it for "free" though. Then they'll start to understand.
KFG
Yes, it is sometimes refered to as "Taxachusetts."
Being from NY I have no right to throw stones though.
How's this for a thought? Maybe by moving to open standards and not throwing money uselessly at Washington State and Microsoft everytime they type a simple memo would help reduce the tax burden.
Or maybe it's just me.
KFG
Geez, someone told me "Information."
Have I been doing it wrong all these years?
KFG
" I also believe that according the the current law, internet sales aren't taxed even when the buyer and the seller are in the same state."
This part is incorrect.
In fact you will likely find that sales tax will be charged on your purchase by the seller even if you order it from out of state, so long as the seller has a "presence" in your state.
If there's a Gateway Country store in your local mall you aren't going to save a penny by buying it over the internet.
KFG
Ah, but how many people are likely to stop spending money when they're using someone else's checkbook and credit card?
And they have a gun?
KFG