"This is a nation where a loudmouthed lawyer can file a lawsuit to prevent a game from being sold, on the basis that it would unleash a generation of "school shooters", even though the closest thing to a firearm in the game is a spud gun. "...and it's also a nation where that lawsuit gets unceremoniously bounced out of court, without stopping anything from being sold.
The nation may be undereducated, but Jack Thompson's mania is not evidence thereof.
IAAL, and I can't figure out how 45% of law students cheat. Most every school in the country follows the same model - each class, you have one exam at the end of the term, and that exam is 100% of your grade. The exams are almost always essays, and the grades are based upon your ability to spot the legal issues in a fact pattern, state the rule of law, and apply it to the facts. Many exams are "open book" because the book doesn't matter. Memorization is not that important. There aren't papers to write or mid-term quizzes.
Really the only opportunities to "cheat" would be if you're on the staff of an academic journal, or in an advocacy/legal skills course, but those are rarely part of one's GPA. Even if 45% of the students could figure out some way to cheat, I seriously doubt many would. Most schools put the fear of God into you, because if you're caught, your career is basically doomed. And most schools make it an ethics violation if you know that another student is cheating, and you fail to turn him/her in. There's paranoia aplenty.
Just to illustrate a little further where Sen. Stevens' priorities (and shame) lie, remember that this is the man who said, when the Senate voted NOT to allow drilling in ANWR earlier this year, that it was the "saddest day of his life." Remember also that his wife died in a plane crash in 1978.
Now, maybe his wife was a very nasty person, but when an 83-year old man thinks that the saddest day of his life is not getting Exxon into a wildlife preserve....
Welp back in 1993 I left my 2400 baud modem on all night to download Mosaic. And then I doggedly stuck to Netscape until IE just seemed like the easier choice, somewhere around 1996. And for 8 years I've been using IE.
Last night I installed Firefox for the hell of it, and it seemed a lot less annoying than IE. So I plan to stick with it.
I'm not an IT person, and I value retarded convenience over geek functionality. But Firefox it is from now on. So there is some appeal to more dim-witted types here, don't sell it short.
If you think the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for ripping off someone the value of a few CB radio parts, please write your state representative and encourage him to make such a law.
In the meantime, mailing pipe bombs that kill people because they ripped you off for a minor chunk of cash is a lot more detestable than the crime being "punished." But I guess ANY vigilante reaction to anyone being a "prick" is excusable?
Because to the downloader, its value is less than the price of a ticket, but more than the labor cost of the download. Especially with the imperfect information available to the downloader.
I'm sure a large number of movie downloads are done by people who would not pay to see the movie, even if it wasn't available to DL. Because they're sort of curious about the movie; not curious enough to buy a ticket, but what the hell, as long as the DL is "free," they'll look at it.
By the same token, there probably are a lot of downloads that represent a lost ticket sale, for someone that would have otherwise been willing to pay $10 for if they couldn't get it online.
The post to which you're replying was talking about unions and collective bargaining, not federal wage and hour laws.
The presence of union means very little except that management is obliged to bargain with it in good faith. If a company can't afford higher salaries and benefits, it can present its case during the contract negotiations. It's not hard to grasp that there is a point beyond which employers cannot afford certain demands, and it's counterproductive for unions to insist on such bargains.
The presence of a union gives employees the right to have management bargain with them in good faith. It does not guarantee higher wages, shorter hours, longer vacations, or even the creation of a collective bargaining agreement itself. It's not a particularly significant intrusion on a free employment market, since the protections are basically all procedural and not substantive.
How did this "taking on all our sins" exactly happen? Did he start a pledge drive where we mailed them in? Redeemable coupons? And was it consensual? What if some people out there didn't want him taking their sins, and they wanted to accept Personal Responsibility(tm) for their misdeeds and death of divine relationship, instead of just pawning them off on some guy they didn't know?
Second, what did Jesus' death change? Were people unable to repent and get back on speaking terms with God before the crucifixion? And if so, why did Jesus' death make God rethink the whole forgiveness issue? If humans could kiss and make up with God before Jesus, why did Jesus "have to" sponge up all our sins like some Middle Eastern Extra Strength Bounty? Would I be unable to accept God's awesomeness and be forgiven for my wickedness if Jesus hadn't died 2000 years ago for the sins of the people that were alive at the time? And if so, isn't that kind of arbitrary and unfair? Why does our willingness to repent carry any more weight now than it pre-Christ? If anything, you'd think it would carry less weight, since we know we have an out now.
They also have ears directly connected to the online community and they listen to what people like and dislike.
So did Shadowbane, and Horizons, and Asheron's Call 2, and Star Wars Galazies, and Neocron, and Anarchy Online, etc. etc.
There are two problems here. What online RPGers -say- they like and what they will play are two different things. Everyone claims to hate camping and level grinding, and yet...you build an online Skinner box and you'll get players camping ph4t l3wtz that they have a 10% chance of getting once a month. Second, the ideal MMORPG is basically not possible with current technology. Developers aren't able to make a living, breathing world with millions of independent intelligent NPCs, a game world that adapts on the fly to player behavior, deformable terrain, meaningful political systems, and so on. In the real world, the best you can hope for is a sort of virtual Disneyworld, which is able to move thousands of players through scripted encounters and quests. The notion of a gameplay experience truly unique to any particular player is just not going to happen....yet.
Whatever Microsoft and Sigil games may offer, it's not going to change the world.
Didn't get anything off-the-wall, because my relatives are all conscious enough to buy straight off my Amazon wish list - PC games, DVDs, Richard Dawkins books....the weekend isn't long enough for all this loot:)
"What person out there would take a company to court that is allowing them to distribute and download music that a lot of the major companies don't want you to do? "
The end-users wouldn't have much to sue about, but the companies who are losing referral commissions are being hit in the wallet, and they certainly didn't agree to any EULA with the p2p folks. Amazon and Co. may also have claims against the companies, either in contract or tort, depending on the agreements made with the affiliates...
"Check out the labor laws in your state. Some are also federal, but the bottom line is that you can't be fired simply because the boss found someone who will do your job for less pay."
You would be hard-pressed to find a state where this is prohibited. In most states, the baseline law is "at will" employment...you can quit whenever you want, for whatever reason, and you can get fired for any reason the boss likes. The major exception are anti-discrimination laws. But assuming that isn't going on, the boss could ask you to stand on your head all day for half your salary, and get the hell out if you don't like it. And s/he'd be well within their rights to do it, in most states.
The major limits on "at will" employment are anti-discrimination laws, and labor unions/collective bargaining agreements. The presumption that there's some "good cause" standard for employment decisions is just not the case....
I'm a Number Slate subscriber, and my experience has been more or less similar to that described by the Netflix people. They have an awesome selection of movies, much better than the Top10 crap at Blockbuster. And while some of the discs do look like they were used as frisbees, the customer service has been excellent.
If a movie takes more than 4 days to arrive or get returned by snail mail, they have options to tag it as "temporarily lost," and they sent a replacement out right away...very good customer service feature i'm happy about. And since they're not as popular as netflix, apparently, their inventory seems to be usually well-stocked.
The lawyer checks his ethics, and especially his honesty, at the door, and in many cases does exactly what the hacker does: try to exploit the person's emotional persona in order to get them to do something they wouldn't ordinarily do--like acquit a murderer or rapist, or allow M$ to walk with a deal that will destroy their competition in the educational market. You watch too many movies. Only a very small amount of "litigation" involves actual trials, let alone jury trials. Being a litigator has a lot more to do with careful research of relevant facts and applicable law, motion practice, and negotiation with the opposing side (as most litigation is usually civil, not criminal).
In -most- cases where you actually get to a trial, it's because there's a genuine dispute of facts, so to pre-suppose that "getting your guilty client to walk" is a lawyer's job is just not the case. If the facts and law are really unambiguous, it's only the rare case that will get to trial without a settlement or plea bargain. And if the facts and/or law -are- ambiguous, then it's not really a question of perverting justice, like you suggest.
TAB HUNTER? You mean to tell me that they so quickly ran out of satirical fodder that they had to go back....checks imdb...40 years (The Tab Hunter Show) for material?
You want to see a much better satiric use of Tab Hunter? Go watch Polyester and watch him roll around on a floor with Divine.
A guest appearance for its own sake kinda pales in comparison to a horrible "romance" with a 300 pound transvestite.
The problem is that spoofing "teen movies" is shooting fish in a barrel.
No, I take that back, it's even less challenging than shooting fish in a barrel. The inanity behind "teen movies" is so self-evident, that claiming to spoof them is redundant. It's like trying to spoof Roger Corman movies - unnecessary, and not particularly clever.
I will admit, normally I don't mind Katz articles, but the movie reviews are just off the wall. I read the reviewers whom I usually trust, and invariably what they call boring, derivative, and recycled drek will apparently get raves from Mr. Katz. I guess that's the beauty of opinion being, well, opinion and all, but still....is there ANY lowest-common-denominator entertainment he doesn't lap up and ask for seconds?
Maybe the specific "jokes" in Not Another Teen Movie are worth a chuckle, but the satirizing the "teen movie" genre is like aiming at the kid in the wheelchair in dodgeball....there's just no sport in it whatsoever. And to read a gushing review like it's some genius stroke of parodic insight...stick to sermonizing about the youth-empowering effects of the net, Katz!
However there also remains some practical considerations. For example, say I leave my car unlocked and the keys in the ignition. Surprise, surprise, in the morning its not there. When I o to the cops they are going to tell me its my own damn fault for making it so easy. Sure, it's still a crime to steal my car, but I'm also asking for it.
Actually, the cops may say that, but then they will file a stolen car report, and then treat your case like any other stolen car. I've seen it happen before, and just this week that same situation occurred in my town. Guy left his keys in while he ran into a pharmacy, came out to see the car being driven away. The cops put out an APB, found the car, and spent the next 30 minutes chasing it.
Yes, your actions can make you more or less likely to be victimized by a crime. This does not absolve the criminal, nor does it keep you from being protected by the law. Slashdot posters may insult you, and the cops may roll their eyes and lecture you, but they're still obliged to treat your case like the rest.
Next time you're arrested for walking into someone's house and burglarizing them, see how far you get by arguing that their door was wide open....
It happens a lot more when it comes to arbitration. In all sorts of goods and (especially) service contracts, the fine print includes provisions for binding arbitration to settle disputes, instead of litigation. You see them a lot in doctor/dentist-patient agreements, financial services, and many other agency situations, like getting your house sold or repaired, etc. It's cropping up a lot in sales of goods, too - especially high cost items.
Binding arbitration can offer some advantages to litigation, in terms of speed and efficiency, but just as with domain name disputes, the deck often gets stacked. Most of that fine print lets the person who wrote it choose the arbitrator, choose the location for the arbitration (wherever the company's counsel is located, often a plane flight away from where you are), and even the rules for the arbitration. Now, many times these are ostensibly neutral - the arbitrator and rules are adopted from the standards set for by the American Arbitration Association - but the location for the hearing is rarely convenient for the non-drafting party (i.e., you).
The subtler problem is what you see here with domain name disputes. Arbitration firms aren't stupid, they know who butters their bread. If their firm has handled 200 arbitration cases from a particular HMO in the past, and that HMO comes before them yet again with a malpractice dispute, it's entirely possible they are going to feel just a -hint- of pressure to avoid a ruling that pisses off their repeat customers, even though both sides are splitting the fee, in a display of "fairness."
Privitizing justice runs the risk of selling it to the highest bidder, whether it's domain names or medical malpractice. Many mediators and arbitrators are entirely fair - or at least think they are. But there's a reason that extra-judicial dispute resolution is getting increasingly popular among those that are usually on the "defendant" side of the dispute.
What struck me, was that even though he was quite well known and successful, at that point he possessed a quality I've rarely seen in programmers : Humility
I imagine he's grown up and lost that quality, but that's the way I remember him...
A couple years ago - during my honeymoon of all things - I ended up standing in a line at DisneyWorld next to him. I couldn't help myself, so I started pestering him and talking about his games, having played them since grade school and recently finished one of them.
He was in fact a real polite, friendly guy. Tolerated the dumb questions with good humor, and seemed quite happy to talk about his games. This was after he bought his castle, so I guess it hadn't gone to his head then either:)
Great quote! States the issue nicely...using absolute running time as a criterion for judging the movie is just too cynical - like buying paintings by the pound or something.
And speaking of Ebert, this review made me curious what he'd have to say about the movie, since he's quite a prolific writer of well-crafted and insightful reviews...not just the "thumbs up/thumbs down" stuff. Here's what he had to say about it...
T he premiere of "Behind Enemy Lines" was held aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. I wonder if it played as a comedy. Its hero is so reckless and its villains so incompetent that it's a showdown between a man begging to be shot, and an enemy that can't hit the side of a Bos-nian barn.
This is not the story of a fugitive trying to sneak through enemy terrain and be rescued, but of a movie character magically transported from one photo opportunity to another.
...
The movie recycles the old howler where hundreds of rounds of ammo miss the hero, but all he has to do is aim and fire, and--pow! another bad guy jerks back, dead. I smiled during the scene where Admiral Reigart is able to use heat-sensitive satellite imagery to look at high-res silhouettes of Burnett stretched out within feet of the enemy. Maybe this is possible. What I do not believe is that the enemies in this scene could not spot the American uniform in a pile of enemy corpses.
Do I need to tell you that the ending involves a montage of rueful grins, broad smiles, and meaningful little victorious nods, scored with upbeat rock music? No, probably not.
Hrm...whom to trust...Katz or Ebert...
Re:From the "Reminds me of this classic prose" guy
on
Review: Harry Potter
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· Score: 1
If the Harry Potter books are "plagiarised," it's just from the collective hero mythologies that are so transparent in the stories.
But not from Nancy Stouffer. Yeah, her books have "muggles," "Larry Potter," and a "Nimbus," but beyond a few names, there's nothing in common at all. If Dekard in Blade Runner was named "Yoda" instead, would you claim that the entire thing was a plagiarisation of Star Wars....?
Unseemly? Sure. Plagiarisation? No.
Re:Why 'Sorcerer's Stone' and not Philosopher's st
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Review: Harry Potter
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· Score: 1
A discussion of the "Philosopher's Stone," taken from this link, and quoting the Encylopedia Britannica:
The stone, also referred to as the "tincture," or the "powder" (Greek xerion, which passed through Latin into Arabic as elixir), was allied to an elixir of life, believed by alchemists to be a liquid derived from it. Inasmuch as alchemy was concerned not only with the search for a method of upgrading less valuable metals but also of perfecting the human soul, the philosopher's stone was thought to cure illnesses, prolong life, and bring about spiritual revitalization. The philosopher's stone, described variously, was sometimes said to be a common substance, found everywhere but unrecognized and unappreciated.
The "upgrading less valuable metals" part refers to its supposed ability to turn stuff into gold. So, in an attempt to make the title sound more "magical" or imagination-friendly, the meaning got obscured completely.
I thought the point of the review was not to hype the movie, but to present an assessment of the substance. I'm as suspect of "hype" as the next guy, but an absolute negative prejudice is just as foolish as an absolute prejudicial adoration. And it seems that Taco was saying he liked the books and movies despite the hype, not because of it.
While -most- mass-marketed entertainment of the Harry Potter sort ends up being sterilized, condescending, manipulative, and uninteresting, not all of it is. Sometimes you find entertainment that has value beyond the hype.
Personally, I think the movie came close. It was entertaining, and fairly rich for something made by Chris Columbus. It wasn't a great movie, or a classic, but worth my lousy $6. Like a lot of the other people who have posted here, I didn't know much about the Potter phenomenon except that the books were selling very well. Just before a recent cross-country drive, I had a pair of well-read, intelligent friends suggest that I read one. They said it wasn't great literature, but still entertaining stuff, even for adults. So I threw one of the books on the reading pile. Sure enough, it was imaginative and fairly entertaining. Maybe if I had been more in tune with pop culture and known about the phenomenon I'd have avoided it. But what the hell, it was a fun, quick little read.
The movie was a faithful, meticulous adaptation, and I think the reviews I've read got it basically right - a pretty good film, overall, with a lot of imagination and not overboard on the cynical, empty manipulation you'd expect from that director. But because it's such an exact replica of the book, it's lacking it's own artistic heart. Kind of like a photocopy rather than a piece of art.
I dunno, maybe I'm as brainwashed as everyone else, but it seems like plenty of thinking, critical adults are able to enjoy the stories despite the hype, not because of it. It is true, though, that the stories are kind of Frankenstein's monsters cobbled together from most every hero fable and archetype that you've all read before. Not to mention Raold Dahl....
Obviously, most of the appeal from the Evil Dead series stems from its unapologetic camp value. However, a lot of "camp classics" were entirely unintentional, and stem from misguided but sincere efforts. What are some of the secrets to making camp that is intentionally funny, and is it possible to go overboard? Similarly, is it easier than acting in a "serious" or at least non-ironic role?
Slashdot Mirror
"This is a nation where a loudmouthed lawyer can file a lawsuit to prevent a game from being sold, on the basis that it would unleash a generation of "school shooters", even though the closest thing to a firearm in the game is a spud gun. " ...and it's also a nation where that lawsuit gets unceremoniously bounced out of court, without stopping anything from being sold.
The nation may be undereducated, but Jack Thompson's mania is not evidence thereof.
IAAL, and I can't figure out how 45% of law students cheat. Most every school in the country follows the same model - each class, you have one exam at the end of the term, and that exam is 100% of your grade. The exams are almost always essays, and the grades are based upon your ability to spot the legal issues in a fact pattern, state the rule of law, and apply it to the facts. Many exams are "open book" because the book doesn't matter. Memorization is not that important. There aren't papers to write or mid-term quizzes.
Really the only opportunities to "cheat" would be if you're on the staff of an academic journal, or in an advocacy/legal skills course, but those are rarely part of one's GPA. Even if 45% of the students could figure out some way to cheat, I seriously doubt many would. Most schools put the fear of God into you, because if you're caught, your career is basically doomed. And most schools make it an ethics violation if you know that another student is cheating, and you fail to turn him/her in. There's paranoia aplenty.
It's a head-scratcher....
Just to illustrate a little further where Sen. Stevens' priorities (and shame) lie, remember that this is the man who said, when the Senate voted NOT to allow drilling in ANWR earlier this year, that it was the "saddest day of his life." Remember also that his wife died in a plane crash in 1978.
Now, maybe his wife was a very nasty person, but when an 83-year old man thinks that the saddest day of his life is not getting Exxon into a wildlife preserve....
Welp back in 1993 I left my 2400 baud modem on all night to download Mosaic. And then I doggedly stuck to Netscape until IE just seemed like the easier choice, somewhere around 1996. And for 8 years I've been using IE.
Last night I installed Firefox for the hell of it, and it seemed a lot less annoying than IE. So I plan to stick with it.
I'm not an IT person, and I value retarded convenience over geek functionality. But Firefox it is from now on. So there is some appeal to more dim-witted types here, don't sell it short.
If you think the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for ripping off someone the value of a few CB radio parts, please write your state representative and encourage him to make such a law.
In the meantime, mailing pipe bombs that kill people because they ripped you off for a minor chunk of cash is a lot more detestable than the crime being "punished." But I guess ANY vigilante reaction to anyone being a "prick" is excusable?
If it sucks, why are people downloading it?
Because to the downloader, its value is less than the price of a ticket, but more than the labor cost of the download. Especially with the imperfect information available to the downloader.
I'm sure a large number of movie downloads are done by people who would not pay to see the movie, even if it wasn't available to DL. Because they're sort of curious about the movie; not curious enough to buy a ticket, but what the hell, as long as the DL is "free," they'll look at it.
By the same token, there probably are a lot of downloads that represent a lost ticket sale, for someone that would have otherwise been willing to pay $10 for if they couldn't get it online.
Is there a better way short of two car chases in a single movie?/i?
Zombies, duh.
The post to which you're replying was talking about unions and collective bargaining, not federal wage and hour laws.
The presence of union means very little except that management is obliged to bargain with it in good faith. If a company can't afford higher salaries and benefits, it can present its case during the contract negotiations. It's not hard to grasp that there is a point beyond which employers cannot afford certain demands, and it's counterproductive for unions to insist on such bargains.
The presence of a union gives employees the right to have management bargain with them in good faith. It does not guarantee higher wages, shorter hours, longer vacations, or even the creation of a collective bargaining agreement itself. It's not a particularly significant intrusion on a free employment market, since the protections are basically all procedural and not substantive.
A few things I'm not clear on.
How did this "taking on all our sins" exactly happen? Did he start a pledge drive where we mailed them in? Redeemable coupons? And was it consensual? What if some people out there didn't want him taking their sins, and they wanted to accept Personal Responsibility(tm) for their misdeeds and death of divine relationship, instead of just pawning them off on some guy they didn't know?
Second, what did Jesus' death change? Were people unable to repent and get back on speaking terms with God before the crucifixion? And if so, why did Jesus' death make God rethink the whole forgiveness issue? If humans could kiss and make up with God before Jesus, why did Jesus "have to" sponge up all our sins like some Middle Eastern Extra Strength Bounty? Would I be unable to accept God's awesomeness and be forgiven for my wickedness if Jesus hadn't died 2000 years ago for the sins of the people that were alive at the time? And if so, isn't that kind of arbitrary and unfair? Why does our willingness to repent carry any more weight now than it pre-Christ? If anything, you'd think it would carry less weight, since we know we have an out now.
BTW, this is only half-sarcastic and rhetorical.
"'E's not the messiah! 'E's a very naughty boy!"
So did Shadowbane, and Horizons, and Asheron's Call 2, and Star Wars Galazies, and Neocron, and Anarchy Online, etc. etc.
There are two problems here. What online RPGers -say- they like and what they will play are two different things. Everyone claims to hate camping and level grinding, and yet...you build an online Skinner box and you'll get players camping ph4t l3wtz that they have a 10% chance of getting once a month.
Second, the ideal MMORPG is basically not possible with current technology. Developers aren't able to make a living, breathing world with millions of independent intelligent NPCs, a game world that adapts on the fly to player behavior, deformable terrain, meaningful political systems, and so on. In the real world, the best you can hope for is a sort of virtual Disneyworld, which is able to move thousands of players through scripted encounters and quests. The notion of a gameplay experience truly unique to any particular player is just not going to happen....yet.
Whatever Microsoft and Sigil games may offer, it's not going to change the world.
Didn't get anything off-the-wall, because my relatives are all conscious enough to buy straight off my Amazon wish list - PC games, DVDs, Richard Dawkins books....the weekend isn't long enough for all this loot :)
"What person out there would take a company to court that is allowing them to distribute and download music that a lot of the major companies don't want you to do? "
The end-users wouldn't have much to sue about, but the companies who are losing referral commissions are being hit in the wallet, and they certainly didn't agree to any EULA with the p2p folks. Amazon and Co. may also have claims against the companies, either in contract or tort, depending on the agreements made with the affiliates...
"Check out the labor laws in your state. Some are also federal, but the bottom line is that you can't be fired simply because the boss found someone who will do your job for less pay."
You would be hard-pressed to find a state where this is prohibited. In most states, the baseline law is "at will" employment...you can quit whenever you want, for whatever reason, and you can get fired for any reason the boss likes. The major exception are anti-discrimination laws. But assuming that isn't going on, the boss could ask you to stand on your head all day for half your salary, and get the hell out if you don't like it. And s/he'd be well within their rights to do it, in most states.
The major limits on "at will" employment are anti-discrimination laws, and labor unions/collective bargaining agreements. The presumption that there's some "good cause" standard for employment decisions is just not the case....
I'm a Number Slate subscriber, and my experience has been more or less similar to that described by the Netflix people. They have an awesome selection of movies, much better than the Top10 crap at Blockbuster. And while some of the discs do look like they were used as frisbees, the customer service has been excellent.
If a movie takes more than 4 days to arrive or get returned by snail mail, they have options to tag it as "temporarily lost," and they sent a replacement out right away...very good customer service feature i'm happy about. And since they're not as popular as netflix, apparently, their inventory seems to be usually well-stocked.
So for now anyway, I'm sticking with them...
The lawyer checks his ethics, and especially his honesty, at the door, and in many cases does exactly what the hacker does: try to exploit the person's emotional persona in order to get them to do something they wouldn't ordinarily do--like acquit a murderer or rapist, or allow M$ to walk with a deal that will destroy their competition in the educational market.
You watch too many movies. Only a very small amount of "litigation" involves actual trials, let alone jury trials. Being a litigator has a lot more to do with careful research of relevant facts and applicable law, motion practice, and negotiation with the opposing side (as most litigation is usually civil, not criminal).
In -most- cases where you actually get to a trial, it's because there's a genuine dispute of facts, so to pre-suppose that "getting your guilty client to walk" is a lawyer's job is just not the case. If the facts and law are really unambiguous, it's only the rare case that will get to trial without a settlement or plea bargain. And if the facts and/or law -are- ambiguous, then it's not really a question of perverting justice, like you suggest.
The problem is that spoofing "teen movies" is shooting fish in a barrel.
No, I take that back, it's even less challenging than shooting fish in a barrel. The inanity behind "teen movies" is so self-evident, that claiming to spoof them is redundant. It's like trying to spoof Roger Corman movies - unnecessary, and not particularly clever.
I will admit, normally I don't mind Katz articles, but the movie reviews are just off the wall. I read the reviewers whom I usually trust, and invariably what they call boring, derivative, and recycled drek will apparently get raves from Mr. Katz. I guess that's the beauty of opinion being, well, opinion and all, but still....is there ANY lowest-common-denominator entertainment he doesn't lap up and ask for seconds?
Maybe the specific "jokes" in Not Another Teen Movie are worth a chuckle, but the satirizing the "teen movie" genre is like aiming at the kid in the wheelchair in dodgeball....there's just no sport in it whatsoever. And to read a gushing review like it's some genius stroke of parodic insight...stick to sermonizing about the youth-empowering effects of the net, Katz!
Yes, your actions can make you more or less likely to be victimized by a crime. This does not absolve the criminal, nor does it keep you from being protected by the law. Slashdot posters may insult you, and the cops may roll their eyes and lecture you, but they're still obliged to treat your case like the rest.
Next time you're arrested for walking into someone's house and burglarizing them, see how far you get by arguing that their door was wide open....
It happens a lot more when it comes to arbitration. In all sorts of goods and (especially) service contracts, the fine print includes provisions for binding arbitration to settle disputes, instead of litigation. You see them a lot in doctor/dentist-patient agreements, financial services, and many other agency situations, like getting your house sold or repaired, etc. It's cropping up a lot in sales of goods, too - especially high cost items.
Binding arbitration can offer some advantages to litigation, in terms of speed and efficiency, but just as with domain name disputes, the deck often gets stacked. Most of that fine print lets the person who wrote it choose the arbitrator, choose the location for the arbitration (wherever the company's counsel is located, often a plane flight away from where you are), and even the rules for the arbitration. Now, many times these are ostensibly neutral - the arbitrator and rules are adopted from the standards set for by the American Arbitration Association - but the location for the hearing is rarely convenient for the non-drafting party (i.e., you).
The subtler problem is what you see here with domain name disputes. Arbitration firms aren't stupid, they know who butters their bread. If their firm has handled 200 arbitration cases from a particular HMO in the past, and that HMO comes before them yet again with a malpractice dispute, it's entirely possible they are going to feel just a -hint- of pressure to avoid a ruling that pisses off their repeat customers, even though both sides are splitting the fee, in a display of "fairness."
Privitizing justice runs the risk of selling it to the highest bidder, whether it's domain names or medical malpractice. Many mediators and arbitrators are entirely fair - or at least think they are. But there's a reason that extra-judicial dispute resolution is getting increasingly popular among those that are usually on the "defendant" side of the dispute.
A couple years ago - during my honeymoon of all things - I ended up standing in a line at DisneyWorld next to him. I couldn't help myself, so I started pestering him and talking about his games, having played them since grade school and recently finished one of them.
He was in fact a real polite, friendly guy. Tolerated the dumb questions with good humor, and seemed quite happy to talk about his games. This was after he bought his castle, so I guess it hadn't gone to his head then either
And speaking of Ebert, this review made me curious what he'd have to say about the movie, since he's quite a prolific writer of well-crafted and insightful reviews...not just the "thumbs up/thumbs down" stuff. Here's what he had to say about it... Hrm...whom to trust...Katz or Ebert...
If the Harry Potter books are "plagiarised," it's just from the collective hero mythologies that are so transparent in the stories.
But not from Nancy Stouffer. Yeah, her books have "muggles," "Larry Potter," and a "Nimbus," but beyond a few names, there's nothing in common at all. If Dekard in Blade Runner was named "Yoda" instead, would you claim that the entire thing was a plagiarisation of Star Wars....?
Unseemly? Sure. Plagiarisation? No.
/golfclap publishers
I thought the point of the review was not to hype the movie, but to present an assessment of the substance. I'm as suspect of "hype" as the next guy, but an absolute negative prejudice is just as foolish as an absolute prejudicial adoration. And it seems that Taco was saying he liked the books and movies despite the hype, not because of it.
While -most- mass-marketed entertainment of the Harry Potter sort ends up being sterilized, condescending, manipulative, and uninteresting, not all of it is. Sometimes you find entertainment that has value beyond the hype.
Personally, I think the movie came close. It was entertaining, and fairly rich for something made by Chris Columbus. It wasn't a great movie, or a classic, but worth my lousy $6. Like a lot of the other people who have posted here, I didn't know much about the Potter phenomenon except that the books were selling very well. Just before a recent cross-country drive, I had a pair of well-read, intelligent friends suggest that I read one. They said it wasn't great literature, but still entertaining stuff, even for adults. So I threw one of the books on the reading pile. Sure enough, it was imaginative and fairly entertaining. Maybe if I had been more in tune with pop culture and known about the phenomenon I'd have avoided it. But what the hell, it was a fun, quick little read.
The movie was a faithful, meticulous adaptation, and I think the reviews I've read got it basically right - a pretty good film, overall, with a lot of imagination and not overboard on the cynical, empty manipulation you'd expect from that director. But because it's such an exact replica of the book, it's lacking it's own artistic heart. Kind of like a photocopy rather than a piece of art.
I dunno, maybe I'm as brainwashed as everyone else, but it seems like plenty of thinking, critical adults are able to enjoy the stories despite the hype, not because of it. It is true, though, that the stories are kind of Frankenstein's monsters cobbled together from most every hero fable and archetype that you've all read before. Not to mention Raold Dahl....
Obviously, most of the appeal from the Evil Dead series stems from its unapologetic camp value. However, a lot of "camp classics" were entirely unintentional, and stem from misguided but sincere efforts. What are some of the secrets to making camp that is intentionally funny, and is it possible to go overboard? Similarly, is it easier than acting in a "serious" or at least non-ironic role?