This is not the sort of thing to do in front of the average girlfriend, (if you like average). But. ..
When I go to see films, I take my audio-engineer friend who invariably finds some fault with the sound system in whatever movie he watches. --He's the kind of guy who used to phone that number which comes up on the screen in THX cinemas to report bad audio settings.
In any case, he will often say to me, "Sorry. I have to do this." --To which I often reply, "Go right ahead. I know you enjoy it."
He hunts down the manager and lectures him/her about their crappily managed sound system and how he was driven insane during the performance by a speaker to his upper left which was cutting off the high end, (or whatever). The manager is usually just some poor worker clocking time, and just wants my friend to go away and stop talking scary, so he or she will offer free passes at us. (I always stick close and shake my head in displeasure as though I know what the hell my friend is talking about. "Oh yeah. The high end sucks when it's cut off. Shameful." Or most recently, at the X-Men film when he waved his hand at the passes and said, "I don't want free passes, I just want you to fix your sound system!" I reached across and took them, "I'll take those. He may not care, but my viewing experience was ruined by your speakers because he was complaining in my right ear the whole way through."
And voila. Free passes.
Failing an actual technical difficulty, you can nearly always find something to complain about. -Mind you, I never do. I've been too well programmed by society. I'm an agreeable little Ohm most of the time, but my friend has no problem doing so. He never raises his voice or actually gets angry. He just complains and points out flaws and, bingo. Free passes.
I think on average, I've paid about $2 per movie outing over the last five years. Though some of that was through a stack of stolen passes lifted by a different friend of mine who worked a cruddy movie house job for a year or so.
If you try just a little bit, you can get a virtually cashless ride through many aspects of life, I've found. And when it comes to bone-headed pop culture, I feel no guilt whatsoever in doing so. The last films I actually paid for (and did so with pride) were the second Lord of the Rings film and, Bowling for Collumbine.
I swear I must have paid more in late fees than I ever paid for video rentals. I bet I'm not alone. Late fees are an important revenue stream for video stores. Since there is no chance of them collecting late fees on these disposable disks, they will definitely have to charge each customer more per rental. And that's saying nothing about the actual cost of the disposable disk itself...
--Which I think is an interesting point!
Mind you, (when I last checked, and this was years ago), the average cost of a new video cassette of a recent movie release purchased by a video rental store was about $100. --All those rows of the latest Bruce Willis film represent a one or two thousand dollar investment for your local Schlock Buster. This expense will clearly not be an issue with a disposable medium.
Which is interesting! The video rental market, if this meidum is adopted, will transform into something resembling the book or direct comics market, where disks are paid for by the retailer at a discount on the 'cover' price, which is then paid in full by the customer.
--And here's the best part; There will probably be some system whereby disks are returnable after a set period of time if they don't sell. (Talk about time-sensitive media!) Which means that the selection in the average video store will become even worse. Yay for that. Now, more than ever, our media libraries will be as limited as people's memories. People will watch what they are directed to watch. (You can have your car in any color, so long as it's black.)
Hopefully, this will only spur on the media pirate market, which will almost certainly NOT sell self-destructing media. --In this sense, China is a good example of the free market driving in a sensible direction. Go out to a Chinese mall sometime and look at the pricing scheme on DVD's and VCD's. Pirating is rampant, with stolen disks costing only about $5 each. Strangely enough, the official media companies, (in Asia at any rate), don't seem to be suffering much, still making lots of movies with huge sales. --They have been able to compete, selling new and offical disks for about $8. Which would you rather own? A half-assed copy or a well made real copy for a couple of dollars more? Instead of buying no DVD's when I last visited a mall, I bought 4, one of which was an official disk. That's exactly $8 more than I would have normally spent.
And this is exactly the way a free market is supposed to work! Pirating is the American way. Too bad the American is no longer the American way. --Through state sanctioned monopolies and the whiney, patent-based outlawing of competetion, the US has managed to become a communist state, (and without any of the benefits of communism, no less!)
I seriously doubt the trigger mechanism is gas-related. That would mean all one needs to do is spray, (as somebody already suggested), the disk with a plastic coating of some sort. 3M the disk into immortality. I'm sure a company charged with coming up with a paranoid scheme of self-destructing media is smart enough to out-wit the average Slashdotter armed with a spray can.
I'm betting that the disk is made with photo-sensitive plastic, and that the envelope it comes in is sealed against light, not air.
To activate the disk, (to make it readable), you probably need to let it expose for a while, (like a Polaroid snapshot), and then 48 hours later, after the initial exposure, the chemical photo-alters beyond the range readable by the average disk player.
Not a bad system. --If you're a paranoid media company charged with keeping a stranglehold on knowledge.
If you want to crack such a system, you'll need to own a computer with ripping software. Luckily, this will remain a possibility forever, since the National Security State wants people to remain distracted with all the dumb movies and bullshit media designed to keep their attention away from the actual important things going on in the world.
The best way to lock down a geek? Give them a technical puzzle and 'forbid' them from solving it. You could sell pig-shit to a nerd if you encrypted it first.
Ahh. My girlfriend played through this game. She always played it alone because she hated when I would solve the problems over her shoulder before she did. I never said anything, but she claimed she could 'feel' me silently knowing the answers. I don't blame her at all, so I left her in peace.
(I heard once that if you were ever stranded on a deserted island, all you do is pull out a deck of cards and start playing solitare. Within about fifteen minutes, somebody is bound to come up behind you and say, "You can move that seven of spades to the eight.")
Anyway, we both loved the story, characters and voice acting in that game, so every hour or so, she'd call me to the computer and re-play the last hour's worth of stuff and all the cut scenes for me.
By the end of that game, I have to admit that I was a little heart-achey to see those characters for the last time.
Nobody made games with quite the same high, high degree of writing skill as Lucasarts did. George ran the best ship on the ocean for a good long while. Until his brain melted, that is. --That made my heart ache as well, in the same kind of way. ..
Good lord. Somebody recalling back to the days of the old TRS-80 Color Computer? I thought I was the only one who remembered!
Though, the most fun I had on that machine was making my own dungeon-style game in Basic, (a sprawling 32 kilobytes worth of fairly-cool-for-their-time graphics and miles of d&d stylings. Never finished, of course), --and thinking that I too would become a big fish in a small pond selling tape cassettes in stapled shut plastic baggies. Tom Mix was my hero when I was 15!
I'm sure I wasn't alone. I wonder how many creations never saw the light of day?
I wonder. Not everybody can deal, since it requires several levels of fighting through concepts which most people find frightening, and often which are themselves corrupted. . . Still it makes for interesting reading/thinking.
That session was from 1994. There are a couple hundred others up 'till today. This particular rabbit hole goes very deep. Interesting part is that in retrospect, one can see the patterns. Neat stuff. Freaky stuff.
Just doing my research beyond the accepted parameters of what the talking heads on TV and my fine government sponsored teachers and text books had to tell me while I was growing up with a fertile and malleable mind!
The knowledge is all out there, and yes, it seems quite nuts at first. But then you start to realize just how programmed people have been. Your response for instance, I would be willing to bet, doesn't come from any actual knowledge you went out and found/verified for yourself, but simply from your going along with the flow of society. Society doesn't know much of anything. (They 70-80% believe in 'foam', for instance.) --But lambs to the slaughter, and all. ..
Though you're still young (??) and have not yet been jerked awake. I find it quite amazing that the current world events unfolding around us these days aren't a dead give-away. Time is short, my friend!
The foam is closer in density to styrofoam like in a bicycle helmet, and came off the tank at 300mph relative to the shuttle's wing. I'd love to see you taking a bicycle helmet in the face at 300mph. Or a Nerf football for that matter. Or best yet, the M1A1 tank round.
Wow. That almost sounds reasonable. Is this your own invention, or is this the stuff NASA is selling these days? I'm rather amazed that such 'plausible' stuff can actually be spun into a product people will buy! --But then, somebody found that encasing chicken feces in plastic key ring holders made poultry bio-refuse a viable commodity. Wonders never cease.
First off, the foam wasn't moving at anywhere near 300mph relative to the wing, (despite what NASA may have been telling people). Until the moment it fell and bounced off the wing, the foam had been flying at the same speed as the rest of the rocket, which never experiences an acceleration of more than 3G's during any point of its flight. --Assuming that the rocket was accelerating at its fastest, and the foam took about one second to travel from where it became separated to where it bounced off the wing, (and not taking air resistance, etc. into account), you're looking at a relative speed of around 22-23 Mph. I've been hit with a Nerf football at speeds much greater than that and it's called, 'Play'.
Consider ice. --Ice due to condensation often falls off liquid fuel rocket engines and strikes against vehicle superstructure, and it would do so at about the same relative speed as that piece of foam, (at between 1-3 G's acceleration). Ice is denser than foam, but ice doesn't cause rockets to blow up. If it did, then it would be a sign of very poor engineering. --Engineers must take these sorts of impacts into account, and certainly do to tolerances much higher than what can be expected from pieces of foam; bird impacts must be survivable, as well as ice crystals up to a certain size, (while ice can be avoided upon launch, it cannot be guaranteed absent upon re-entry). --Objects which, when they impact, are for all intents and purposes considered stationary relative to the vehicle.
NASA is grasping at straws because it knows the real reason their craft exploded, (look up EM weapons, aliens and NWO,) and it certainly hasn't got anything to do with foam.
The foam is closer in density to styrofoam like in a bicycle helmet, and came off the tank at 300mph relative to the shuttle's wing. I'd love to see you taking a bicycle helmet in the face at 300mph. Or a Nerf football for that matter. Or best yet, the M1A1 tank round.
Wow. That almost sounds reasonable. Is this your own invention, or is this the stuff NASA is selling these days? I'm rather amazed that such 'plausible' stuff can actually be spun into a product people will buy! --But then, somebody found that encasing chicken feces in plastic key ring holders made poultry bio-refuse a viable commodity. Wonders never cease.
First off, the foam wasn't moving at anywhere near 300mph relative to the wing, (despite what NASA may have been telling people). Until the moment it fell and bounced off the wing, the foam had been flying at the same speed as the rest of the rocket, which never experiences an acceleration of more than 3G's during any point of its flight. --Assuming that the rocket was accelerating at its fastest, and the foam took about one second to travel from where it became separated to where it bounced off the wing, (and not taking air resistance, etc. into account), you're looking at a relative speed of around 22-23 Mph. I've been hit with a Nerf football at speeds much greater than that and it's called, 'Play'.
Consider ice. --Ice due to condensation often falls off liquid fuel rocket engines and strikes against vehicle superstructure, and it would do so at about the same relative speed as that piece of foam, (at between 1-3 G's acceleration). Ice is denser than foam, but ice doesn't cause rockets to blow up. If it did, then it would be a sign of very poor engineering. --Engineers must take these sorts of impacts into account, and certainly do to tolerances much higher than what can be expected from pieces of foam; bird impacts must be survivable, as well as ice crystals up to a certain size, (while ice can be avoided upon launch, it cannot be guaranteed absent upon re-entry). --Objects which, when they impact, are for all intents and purposes considered stationary relative to the vehicle.
NASA is grasping at straws because it knows the real reason their craft exploded, and it certainly hasn't got anything to do with foam.
You don't see too many of these anymore. Slashdot has shifted its editorial approach in the last few months. It's very rare to see any stories which are not hard-core geek/tech related. Somebody, somewhere made a decision, methinks. ..
And this article is only worthy by default. Re, accidentally associated with something of real interest on the world stage, as opposed to yet another piece of consumerist/materialist distraction designed to keep the monkeys happy.
The Shuttle was blasted by occupying alien forces because Bush was dragging his feet on the whole 'culling of the human race' thing. Think of it as a sort of, "We're not messing around here. Get your act in gear. You humans and your technology are nothing. Perhaps we won't spare your sorry butt if we decide you're not doing as you've been instructed. Now go kill all the Semites, release SARS, crash the economy and ripen up your world. When the shift comes, we want 5.5 billion of you dead, and the remaining bunch ready to wear collars. Now hop to it."
Foam bouncing against the leading edge of a wing designed to withstand launch and re-entry forces? That's rich.
I don't get how the 'case' on this thing was modded.
More like 'removed altogether', thus reducing a car into a go-cart.
But who am I to judge? I used to get my kicks. . . Well, actually I never got my kicks doing anything even remotely similar. Or expensive. But whatever.
Oh! I thought of one! I thought the Phantom Edit was cool idea. And Guerilla Advertising. That's sort of the same; taking post conusmuer idiocy and restructuring it so that it becomes something equally ridiculous, but which satisfies the male need to tinker with things and thereby stamp some sort of individuality upon pre-fab nonsense.
People are funny that way. It's how you avoid gazing into the void to face your ultimate aloneness. It's much easier to pull apart flashy consumer junk, feel self-congratulatory for no good reason, confuse your girlfriends, and say, "Cool" a lot with your buds.
When playing that game finally fills you with nausea to the point where you start wishing for death, you're probably 75 years old, and nobody cares what you think at that point anyway.
I think copyright lawers were sent here to put a stop to all the good things humanity might do if left to its own devices. --I think they were the ones who, as Douglas Adams once put it, nailed to a piece of wood the guy who suggested that everybody be nice to everybody else for a change.
It's not as though Slashdot isn't set up to deal with the bandwidth. Just the relevent news pages. I'm sure the smart guys who run this joint could automate something with relatively little effort.
And that would solve the 5000 pound gorilla problem. --People getting hammered with unexpected $500 over-run fees? That'd screw some people pretty badly. (Does this still happen? Do Hosting companies still nail people like that?)
Either way, the Gods Of Slashdot should look into it. It think it's a solid idea. It's responsible.
And anyway, I sooo wanted to see a starship made out of junk. It is a slow day. ..
Ok, I'll do my best to resist my programming for a moment while you explain to me this secret source of free energy. Precisely what is it? Who is developing it? Why are they hiding it? Facts please, no vague generalizations.
Are you typing with your eyes shut or something?
You demand from me an exhaustively written treatise on Free Energy filled with Facts and Figures, Who's, Why's and Wherefores. --Now how is that ANY different from demanding that I, (to quote myself), "plunk a Free Energy machine down in your living room to offer a demonstration?"
Pardon the all caps bold italics here, but it seems you need it: THAT IS THE ROGRAMMING!!!!
NOTHING I type here regarding Zero Point Energy, suppressed Tesla technology, Cold Fusion, etc., etc., is going to be convincing to somebody who has bought into the "Burdon of Proof" line of crap which has been sold wholesale to the public.
Very simply. ..
Society has been programmed with this set of lies and procedures:
1. "You are not to lift a finger to do any research into any subject which has been defined as socially taboo."
2. "You are to ridicule any who suggest anything outside the scope of acceptable ideas"
3. "You are very, very special, and as such you are entitled to sit on your ass and demand 'proof' even though your own level of awareness is nobody's responsibility but your own."
4. "If, by some fat chance, you do end up doing any of your own research, you WILL at all times be biased, closed-minded and determined not to see anything but what you have set out to see."
You don't watch CNN? You don't own a television? That's a good start. But obviously you have bought into the bullshit nonetheless, so I am guessing that you went to school taught by people who DO watch television, you socialize with drones, and unless you live on a freeking island, you are subjected to regular doses of advertising and propaganda. Whatever the vector, you have had your head filled with lies.
Get real. No one (e.g., the government, giant corporations, `The Man', the `military-industrial complex') is trying hide some source of Free Energy through some conspiracy. If we had some source of Free Energy, no one would be able to hide it or even try to.
Nonsense. It's incredibly easy to hide stuff. It's done all the time. The manhattan project is one of the better examples; thousands of scientists and support crew, and nobody in the larger world had a clue.
--It's especially easy to hide stuff when there are millions of programmed people out there who, through their own assertion, wouldn't accept a Free Energy machine until somebody plunks one down in their living room and gives a demonstration. And even then, they'd almost certainly remain skeptical until the Voice Of Authority, (A Talking Head on CNN), tells them that it's okay to believe now, because its existence has been made official.
You are a drone. The fact of the matter is that you are so conditioned that you can actually be told what to believe. Drones are well-behaved that way.
Truth hurts. --But don't worry. Another heaping load of denial will make that feeling go away. (Also what you've been taught to do since birth.)
My favorite perpetual motion machine driven on free-energy works like this. ..
1. Build Hydroelectric Damn/wind farm/tide converter/solar collector, etc. 2. Engage turbine, (or whatever). 3. Run an extension cord to the Perpetual Motion Machine.
Barring widget failures and the eventual running down of the Universe, my design will otherwise function indefinitely.
The meme about perpetual motion being impossible is based on the fact that closed systems can't carry a load. To which I quote a once popular cartoon feline: "Big Fat Hairy Deal."
The meme is designed to marginalize the harnessing of Free Energy (both in the forms described above, and through devices that exist but which the public is not allowed to know about), so that the Powers That Be can maintain their positions at the top of the food chain.
Oh, and feel free to corect me, I'm only in college but have a facination in the things
Wouldn't dream of it! You're on the right track, probably, precisely because you haven't been completely processed yet by your schooling.
Perpetual motion based on using the mountains of ambient free energy floating around in the universe is a fine idea to me! That's how wind farms and hydroelectrics damns work. Free energy.
atoms seem to be stable. electrons are moving. Isn't this perpetual motion? I know it's not the same but i've never heard a good reason why.
That's because they are the same thing. Perpetual motion is entirely possible. (Although, it's not actually perpetual. That is, it only lasts for as long as there is free energy floating around the universe to be tapped. Fortunately, the limit has yet to be found. Unfortunately, all the public is allowed to do is make energy by burning dead ferns and moluscs.)
And no, I'm not referring to my Slashdot comments to date.
1. To answer the question about why a VW Bug: "Because everybody knows how big a VW Bug is." Just try finding another object of similar size which everybody on the continent can use as a happy reference.
2. Laugh while you can. These suckers are going to turn the Earth's surface into ash and kick-start the next ice age. --Notice how they're getting more frequent, larger in size, and generally more destructive as time goes by? We never this many many rocks falling from the sky when I was a kid!
Heck, the last really big near miss nobody knew about because NASA cut the live feed from SOHO. They did this because this near miss was really near and that's just bad for business as usual. Can't have people leaving work early, now can we?
These rocks are just remnants of the last comet cluster which visits us ever 3600 years or so. (Go look at Ice Core samples if you want yer dang proof.) Anyway, there's a new load of big rocks on the way, due to arrive within the next ten years thanks to the Dark Star which either just passed, or will soon pass through the Kuiper Belt and knock some shit out of orbit and into a nice, quick, Smash the Inner Planets kind of trajectory.
If the twin sun came or went, I'm not sure. Something big made a brief appearance a few years ago way out Pluto-way, but it's so hard to keep on top of what is a lie and what is a fact when you don't have you're own observatory and red flashlight.
Anyway, in other words. . , if you manage to survive the all war and the fascism, (and the final defeat of the U.S. by continental Europe and Asia), and all the other exciting chapter ending stuff the next decade is bringing, (and what an amazing show that is already turning into!), then you're going get to see some pretty dazzling fireworks as the land turns into a molten furnace from all the comet strikes.
So you'd better back up your hard drives now, kids!
When you choose to smudge your own reality and dwell within it's distorted boundries, it is at that point then you have chosen to deny reality for whatever mental reasons you may have. If you cannot deal with reality then perhaps instead of vegging out infront of games with drugs/booze you should be seeing a therapist and investing in a perscription meant to help your mental position and outlook. Accept the responsibility of your choices, actions, and mental state of being instead of pointing fingers and crying poor poor me look what that did to poor poor me.
Aside from the fact that I don't drink or take drugs, I heartily agree with most of what you say. --And also, except for the part about prescription psyche drugs being a good solution for the kind of problems you refer to. I know you were being facetious, but still; Drugs of that sort are some of the nastiest mind-deadening juju people can get hit with. Worse even than video games!
If the cover of this game is not graphic, then it should not be hidden away like trying to pretend it does not exist no unlike people trying to pretend reality does not exist by zoning out in front of games etc.
You're thinking too small there, brother! It's not about trying to pretend the stuff doesn't exist. It's about Germany deliberately trying to cripple the sale and consumption of a toxic material to kids who are too young to have any guard up against powerful brainwashing techniques.
Sure, in the broadest sense, it's a violation of free will, which in the long run prevents people from learning through painful error. But frankly, (and you talked about children and the need to take care of them), most adults are no more aware enough of themselves or of their world than the average child. It is for this reason that Bush and co were able to get us into this war as easily as they did.
Think of it this way;
If Joseph Goebbels had managed to gain wide and popular distribution for his propaganda films in toy stores, then as a govnerment elected by the people to act in society's best interest, wouldn't you want to do something to prevent kids being exposed to his crap?
There is a constant war raging to win the minds of the public. The side which wins, literally, rules the world. --Germany just wants to stop the proliferation of American mind-control media within their own borders. And I think that's cool.
I know this runs counter to comfy, popular belief, but. ..
Most games, from The Sims, to Command And Conquer have several unilateral effects:
1. The undermining of social fabric as people withdraw from un-safe real-world interaction.
2. The re-writing of synaptic pathways so that make-believe realities and their solutions begin affect all aspects of the brain's opperation.
You think that playing violent video games for thousands of hours where gruesome, careless murder is a standard practice, "gore levels" are a setting, and the flickering monitor has been proven without any doubt to lull its viewers into a semi-hypnotic state, won't have any effect whatsoever?
That's just wishful thinking! -And I know it sucks, because I've spent thousands of hours I'll never get back enjoying video game (drug) as well.
But really. ..
If Hitler had been in a position to de-sensitize German youth through video games and television for twenty years prior to launching his bid for world domination, if he had the ability to forge synaptic links in the brains of all his followers between the emotion of 'Fun' and the act of 'Murder', do you think for a second he'd have balked at doing so?
Me neither.
Everybody claims that, "Video Games have no effect on me." Bullshit. I've seen kids get fucking excited with anticipation when they consider the amount of devestation an air-fuel bomb can cause. We're at war because our media put us there. Period.
The greatest lie ever perpetrated upon the public by advertisers is that people are immune to media manipulation.
Germanic tribesmen had an old saying: Never have by sweat and work what you can take by sword. Historically speaking, there is only one country on earth that's had the power of ancient Rome without the expansionist policies. One that has fought wars on principle and not occupied, expanded or enslaved. That country is not Germany.
You have GOT to be kidding. Who makes your Nikes? Which occupied Middle Eastern country does most of the U.S. supply of cocaine come from? Where did all the blacks in America come from? Heck, who set up and aided Bin Laden in his terrorist activities? (So that the U.S. would have an excuse to launch its bid for empire?)
You're right. It's not Germany.
Put blood in your video games, Germany. Show violent war movies. Let your youth understand the consequences. Or forget all too soon how horrible it really is. That is truely what's dangerous.
No, no, NO!
Media violence has NOTHING to do with raising public awareness about the evils of war. It has EVERYTHING to do with cultural programming.
Think of it this way:
If Hitler had been in a position to de-sensitize German youth through video games and television for twenty years prior to launching his bid for world domination, if he had the ability to forge synaptic links in the brains of all his followers between the emotion of 'Fun' and the act of 'Murder', do you think for a second he'd have balked at doing so?
I totally missed the name 'Shephard' in Command and Conquer; a cheesey biblical reference if there ever was one! --Though no doubt fairly effective on a subconscious level. (They often are when your top layer of awareness fails to notice!)
Typically, I find that most of the huge and pervasive media coups, (Star Wars, Matrix, C&C, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc.), are largely mediums for channeled messages from either the dark or light side regarding current and upcoming events during these end of times when the stakes are so high. --Usually completely without the knowledge of the human writers. Every good writer will tell you, "It just comes to me! I'm just writing as fast as I can to keep up! I don't know where I get my ideas! Etc."
I think my one of favorite examples appears in The Matrix. (What a battle ground of warring messages, that film was!) Next time you get a chance, check out the package art. Those weird sunglasses Neo and Trinity were wearing? Notice how their faces are transformed when they had them on? Now, where else have we all seen that kind of facial configuration?
Be careful, though. Greys are NOT saviors. They're tools and agents of the dark side. A really insidious subliminal message if there ever was one! But well worth it, for all the other stuff The Matrix delivered into popular thought!
...The Sims causes introverts to become socialites. yeah. right.
Poor argument.
The Sims, and C&C, and virtually ALL video games have several unilateral effects:
1. The undermining of social fabric as people withdraw from un-safe real-world interaction. 2. The re-writing of synaptic pathways so that make-believe realities and their solutions begin affect all aspects of the brain's opperation.
You think that playing games for thousands of hours where gruesome, careless murder is a standard practice, "gore levels" are a setting, and the flickering monitor lulls the viewer into a semi-hypnotic state won't have any effect whatsoever?
That's just wishful thinking.
The greatest lie ever perpetrated upon the public by advertisers is that people are immune to advertising. Or in this case, media in general.
Slashdot Mirror
When I go to see films, I take my audio-engineer friend who invariably finds some fault with the sound system in whatever movie he watches. --He's the kind of guy who used to phone that number which comes up on the screen in THX cinemas to report bad audio settings.
In any case, he will often say to me, "Sorry. I have to do this." --To which I often reply, "Go right ahead. I know you enjoy it."
He hunts down the manager and lectures him/her about their crappily managed sound system and how he was driven insane during the performance by a speaker to his upper left which was cutting off the high end, (or whatever). The manager is usually just some poor worker clocking time, and just wants my friend to go away and stop talking scary, so he or she will offer free passes at us. (I always stick close and shake my head in displeasure as though I know what the hell my friend is talking about. "Oh yeah. The high end sucks when it's cut off. Shameful." Or most recently, at the X-Men film when he waved his hand at the passes and said, "I don't want free passes, I just want you to fix your sound system!" I reached across and took them, "I'll take those. He may not care, but my viewing experience was ruined by your speakers because he was complaining in my right ear the whole way through."
And voila. Free passes.
Failing an actual technical difficulty, you can nearly always find something to complain about. -Mind you, I never do. I've been too well programmed by society. I'm an agreeable little Ohm most of the time, but my friend has no problem doing so. He never raises his voice or actually gets angry. He just complains and points out flaws and, bingo. Free passes.
I think on average, I've paid about $2 per movie outing over the last five years. Though some of that was through a stack of stolen passes lifted by a different friend of mine who worked a cruddy movie house job for a year or so.
If you try just a little bit, you can get a virtually cashless ride through many aspects of life, I've found. And when it comes to bone-headed pop culture, I feel no guilt whatsoever in doing so. The last films I actually paid for (and did so with pride) were the second Lord of the Rings film and, Bowling for Collumbine.
I can't wait to see Fahrenheit 9-11!
-Fantastic Lad
I swear I must have paid more in late fees than I ever paid for video rentals. I bet I'm not alone. Late fees are an important revenue stream for video stores. Since there is no chance of them collecting late fees on these disposable disks, they will definitely have to charge each customer more per rental. And that's saying nothing about the actual cost of the disposable disk itself...
--Which I think is an interesting point!
Mind you, (when I last checked, and this was years ago), the average cost of a new video cassette of a recent movie release purchased by a video rental store was about $100. --All those rows of the latest Bruce Willis film represent a one or two thousand dollar investment for your local Schlock Buster. This expense will clearly not be an issue with a disposable medium.
Which is interesting! The video rental market, if this meidum is adopted, will transform into something resembling the book or direct comics market, where disks are paid for by the retailer at a discount on the 'cover' price, which is then paid in full by the customer.
--And here's the best part; There will probably be some system whereby disks are returnable after a set period of time if they don't sell. (Talk about time-sensitive media!) Which means that the selection in the average video store will become even worse. Yay for that. Now, more than ever, our media libraries will be as limited as people's memories. People will watch what they are directed to watch. (You can have your car in any color, so long as it's black.)
Hopefully, this will only spur on the media pirate market, which will almost certainly NOT sell self-destructing media. --In this sense, China is a good example of the free market driving in a sensible direction. Go out to a Chinese mall sometime and look at the pricing scheme on DVD's and VCD's. Pirating is rampant, with stolen disks costing only about $5 each. Strangely enough, the official media companies, (in Asia at any rate), don't seem to be suffering much, still making lots of movies with huge sales. --They have been able to compete, selling new and offical disks for about $8. Which would you rather own? A half-assed copy or a well made real copy for a couple of dollars more? Instead of buying no DVD's when I last visited a mall, I bought 4, one of which was an official disk. That's exactly $8 more than I would have normally spent.
And this is exactly the way a free market is supposed to work! Pirating is the American way. Too bad the American is no longer the American way. --Through state sanctioned monopolies and the whiney, patent-based outlawing of competetion, the US has managed to become a communist state, (and without any of the benefits of communism, no less!)
What a joke.
-FL
I'm betting that the disk is made with photo-sensitive plastic, and that the envelope it comes in is sealed against light, not air.
To activate the disk, (to make it readable), you probably need to let it expose for a while, (like a Polaroid snapshot), and then 48 hours later, after the initial exposure, the chemical photo-alters beyond the range readable by the average disk player.
Not a bad system. --If you're a paranoid media company charged with keeping a stranglehold on knowledge.
If you want to crack such a system, you'll need to own a computer with ripping software. Luckily, this will remain a possibility forever, since the National Security State wants people to remain distracted with all the dumb movies and bullshit media designed to keep their attention away from the actual important things going on in the world.
The best way to lock down a geek? Give them a technical puzzle and 'forbid' them from solving it. You could sell pig-shit to a nerd if you encrypted it first.
-FL
(I heard once that if you were ever stranded on a deserted island, all you do is pull out a deck of cards and start playing solitare. Within about fifteen minutes, somebody is bound to come up behind you and say, "You can move that seven of spades to the eight.")
Anyway, we both loved the story, characters and voice acting in that game, so every hour or so, she'd call me to the computer and re-play the last hour's worth of stuff and all the cut scenes for me.
By the end of that game, I have to admit that I was a little heart-achey to see those characters for the last time.
Nobody made games with quite the same high, high degree of writing skill as Lucasarts did. George ran the best ship on the ocean for a good long while. Until his brain melted, that is. --That made my heart ache as well, in the same kind of way. .
-FL
Though, the most fun I had on that machine was making my own dungeon-style game in Basic, (a sprawling 32 kilobytes worth of fairly-cool-for-their-time graphics and miles of d&d stylings. Never finished, of course), --and thinking that I too would become a big fish in a small pond selling tape cassettes in stapled shut plastic baggies. Tom Mix was my hero when I was 15!
I'm sure I wasn't alone. I wonder how many creations never saw the light of day?
-FL
I wonder. Not everybody can deal, since it requires several levels of fighting through concepts which most people find frightening, and often which are themselves corrupted. . . Still it makes for interesting reading/thinking.
here.
That session was from 1994. There are a couple hundred others up 'till today. This particular rabbit hole goes very deep. Interesting part is that in retrospect, one can see the patterns. Neat stuff. Freaky stuff.
You were warned.
-Fantastisc Lad
The knowledge is all out there, and yes, it seems quite nuts at first. But then you start to realize just how programmed people have been. Your response for instance, I would be willing to bet, doesn't come from any actual knowledge you went out and found/verified for yourself, but simply from your going along with the flow of society. Society doesn't know much of anything. (They 70-80% believe in 'foam', for instance.) --But lambs to the slaughter, and all. .
Though you're still young (??) and have not yet been jerked awake. I find it quite amazing that the current world events unfolding around us these days aren't a dead give-away. Time is short, my friend!
Take care!
-Fantastic Lad
Wow. That almost sounds reasonable. Is this your own invention, or is this the stuff NASA is selling these days? I'm rather amazed that such 'plausible' stuff can actually be spun into a product people will buy! --But then, somebody found that encasing chicken feces in plastic key ring holders made poultry bio-refuse a viable commodity. Wonders never cease.
First off, the foam wasn't moving at anywhere near 300mph relative to the wing, (despite what NASA may have been telling people). Until the moment it fell and bounced off the wing, the foam had been flying at the same speed as the rest of the rocket, which never experiences an acceleration of more than 3G's during any point of its flight. --Assuming that the rocket was accelerating at its fastest, and the foam took about one second to travel from where it became separated to where it bounced off the wing, (and not taking air resistance, etc. into account), you're looking at a relative speed of around 22-23 Mph. I've been hit with a Nerf football at speeds much greater than that and it's called, 'Play'.
Consider ice. --Ice due to condensation often falls off liquid fuel rocket engines and strikes against vehicle superstructure, and it would do so at about the same relative speed as that piece of foam, (at between 1-3 G's acceleration). Ice is denser than foam, but ice doesn't cause rockets to blow up. If it did, then it would be a sign of very poor engineering. --Engineers must take these sorts of impacts into account, and certainly do to tolerances much higher than what can be expected from pieces of foam; bird impacts must be survivable, as well as ice crystals up to a certain size, (while ice can be avoided upon launch, it cannot be guaranteed absent upon re-entry). --Objects which, when they impact, are for all intents and purposes considered stationary relative to the vehicle.
NASA is grasping at straws because it knows the real reason their craft exploded, (look up EM weapons, aliens and NWO,) and it certainly hasn't got anything to do with foam.
-Fantastic Lad
Wow. That almost sounds reasonable. Is this your own invention, or is this the stuff NASA is selling these days? I'm rather amazed that such 'plausible' stuff can actually be spun into a product people will buy! --But then, somebody found that encasing chicken feces in plastic key ring holders made poultry bio-refuse a viable commodity. Wonders never cease.
First off, the foam wasn't moving at anywhere near 300mph relative to the wing, (despite what NASA may have been telling people). Until the moment it fell and bounced off the wing, the foam had been flying at the same speed as the rest of the rocket, which never experiences an acceleration of more than 3G's during any point of its flight. --Assuming that the rocket was accelerating at its fastest, and the foam took about one second to travel from where it became separated to where it bounced off the wing, (and not taking air resistance, etc. into account), you're looking at a relative speed of around 22-23 Mph. I've been hit with a Nerf football at speeds much greater than that and it's called, 'Play'.
Consider ice. --Ice due to condensation often falls off liquid fuel rocket engines and strikes against vehicle superstructure, and it would do so at about the same relative speed as that piece of foam, (at between 1-3 G's acceleration). Ice is denser than foam, but ice doesn't cause rockets to blow up. If it did, then it would be a sign of very poor engineering. --Engineers must take these sorts of impacts into account, and certainly do to tolerances much higher than what can be expected from pieces of foam; bird impacts must be survivable, as well as ice crystals up to a certain size, (while ice can be avoided upon launch, it cannot be guaranteed absent upon re-entry). --Objects which, when they impact, are for all intents and purposes considered stationary relative to the vehicle.
NASA is grasping at straws because it knows the real reason their craft exploded, and it certainly hasn't got anything to do with foam.
-Fantastic Lad
And this article is only worthy by default. Re, accidentally associated with something of real interest on the world stage, as opposed to yet another piece of consumerist/materialist distraction designed to keep the monkeys happy.
The Shuttle was blasted by occupying alien forces because Bush was dragging his feet on the whole 'culling of the human race' thing. Think of it as a sort of, "We're not messing around here. Get your act in gear. You humans and your technology are nothing. Perhaps we won't spare your sorry butt if we decide you're not doing as you've been instructed. Now go kill all the Semites, release SARS, crash the economy and ripen up your world. When the shift comes, we want 5.5 billion of you dead, and the remaining bunch ready to wear collars. Now hop to it."
Foam bouncing against the leading edge of a wing designed to withstand launch and re-entry forces? That's rich.
Have a nice day.
-Fantastic Lad
More like 'removed altogether', thus reducing a car into a go-cart.
But who am I to judge? I used to get my kicks. . . Well, actually I never got my kicks doing anything even remotely similar. Or expensive. But whatever.
Oh! I thought of one! I thought the Phantom Edit was cool idea. And Guerilla Advertising. That's sort of the same; taking post conusmuer idiocy and restructuring it so that it becomes something equally ridiculous, but which satisfies the male need to tinker with things and thereby stamp some sort of individuality upon pre-fab nonsense.
People are funny that way. It's how you avoid gazing into the void to face your ultimate aloneness. It's much easier to pull apart flashy consumer junk, feel self-congratulatory for no good reason, confuse your girlfriends, and say, "Cool" a lot with your buds.
When playing that game finally fills you with nausea to the point where you start wishing for death, you're probably 75 years old, and nobody cares what you think at that point anyway.
Cheers!
-Fantastic Lad
I think copyright lawers were sent here to put a stop to all the good things humanity might do if left to its own devices. --I think they were the ones who, as Douglas Adams once put it, nailed to a piece of wood the guy who suggested that everybody be nice to everybody else for a change.
-Fantastic Lad
And that would solve the 5000 pound gorilla problem. --People getting hammered with unexpected $500 over-run fees? That'd screw some people pretty badly. (Does this still happen? Do Hosting companies still nail people like that?)
Either way, the Gods Of Slashdot should look into it. It think it's a solid idea. It's responsible.
And anyway, I sooo wanted to see a starship made out of junk. It is a slow day. .
-Fantastic Lad
Are you typing with your eyes shut or something?
You demand from me an exhaustively written treatise on Free Energy filled with Facts and Figures, Who's, Why's and Wherefores. --Now how is that ANY different from demanding that I, (to quote myself), "plunk a Free Energy machine down in your living room to offer a demonstration?"
Pardon the all caps bold italics here, but it seems you need it: THAT IS THE ROGRAMMING!!!!
NOTHING I type here regarding Zero Point Energy, suppressed Tesla technology, Cold Fusion, etc., etc., is going to be convincing to somebody who has bought into the "Burdon of Proof" line of crap which has been sold wholesale to the public.
Very simply. .
Society has been programmed with this set of lies and procedures:
You don't watch CNN? You don't own a television? That's a good start. But obviously you have bought into the bullshit nonetheless, so I am guessing that you went to school taught by people who DO watch television, you socialize with drones, and unless you live on a freeking island, you are subjected to regular doses of advertising and propaganda. Whatever the vector, you have had your head filled with lies.
As I said before, Good Luck.
-Fantastic Lad
Nonsense. It's incredibly easy to hide stuff. It's done all the time. The manhattan project is one of the better examples; thousands of scientists and support crew, and nobody in the larger world had a clue.
--It's especially easy to hide stuff when there are millions of programmed people out there who, through their own assertion, wouldn't accept a Free Energy machine until somebody plunks one down in their living room and gives a demonstration. And even then, they'd almost certainly remain skeptical until the Voice Of Authority, (A Talking Head on CNN), tells them that it's okay to believe now, because its existence has been made official.
You are a drone. The fact of the matter is that you are so conditioned that you can actually be told what to believe. Drones are well-behaved that way.
Truth hurts. --But don't worry. Another heaping load of denial will make that feeling go away. (Also what you've been taught to do since birth.)
Good luck.
-Fantastic Lad
There goes any hope of self-awareness.
Okay. I have to admit, that was cute. I couldn't think of a single worthy comeback. Plus it made me chuckle.
-Fantastic Lad
Barring widget failures and the eventual running down of the Universe, my design will otherwise function indefinitely.
The meme about perpetual motion being impossible is based on the fact that closed systems can't carry a load. To which I quote a once popular cartoon feline: "Big Fat Hairy Deal."
The meme is designed to marginalize the harnessing of Free Energy (both in the forms described above, and through devices that exist but which the public is not allowed to know about), so that the Powers That Be can maintain their positions at the top of the food chain.
-Fantastic Lad
Wouldn't dream of it! You're on the right track, probably, precisely because you haven't been completely processed yet by your schooling.
Perpetual motion based on using the mountains of ambient free energy floating around in the universe is a fine idea to me! That's how wind farms and hydroelectrics damns work. Free energy.
-Fantastic Lad
That's because they are the same thing. Perpetual motion is entirely possible. (Although, it's not actually perpetual. That is, it only lasts for as long as there is free energy floating around the universe to be tapped. Fortunately, the limit has yet to be found. Unfortunately, all the public is allowed to do is make energy by burning dead ferns and moluscs.)
-Fantastic Lad
1. To answer the question about why a VW Bug: "Because everybody knows how big a VW Bug is." Just try finding another object of similar size which everybody on the continent can use as a happy reference.
2. Laugh while you can. These suckers are going to turn the Earth's surface into ash and kick-start the next ice age. --Notice how they're getting more frequent, larger in size, and generally more destructive as time goes by? We never this many many rocks falling from the sky when I was a kid!
Heck, the last really big near miss nobody knew about because NASA cut the live feed from SOHO. They did this because this near miss was really near and that's just bad for business as usual. Can't have people leaving work early, now can we?
These rocks are just remnants of the last comet cluster which visits us ever 3600 years or so. (Go look at Ice Core samples if you want yer dang proof.) Anyway, there's a new load of big rocks on the way, due to arrive within the next ten years thanks to the Dark Star which either just passed, or will soon pass through the Kuiper Belt and knock some shit out of orbit and into a nice, quick, Smash the Inner Planets kind of trajectory.
If the twin sun came or went, I'm not sure. Something big made a brief appearance a few years ago way out Pluto-way, but it's so hard to keep on top of what is a lie and what is a fact when you don't have you're own observatory and red flashlight.
Anyway, in other words. . , if you manage to survive the all war and the fascism, (and the final defeat of the U.S. by continental Europe and Asia), and all the other exciting chapter ending stuff the next decade is bringing, (and what an amazing show that is already turning into!), then you're going get to see some pretty dazzling fireworks as the land turns into a molten furnace from all the comet strikes.
So you'd better back up your hard drives now, kids!
-Fantastic Lad --Run Chicken Little, Run!
Aside from the fact that I don't drink or take drugs, I heartily agree with most of what you say. --And also, except for the part about prescription psyche drugs being a good solution for the kind of problems you refer to. I know you were being facetious, but still; Drugs of that sort are some of the nastiest mind-deadening juju people can get hit with. Worse even than video games!
You're thinking too small there, brother! It's not about trying to pretend the stuff doesn't exist. It's about Germany deliberately trying to cripple the sale and consumption of a toxic material to kids who are too young to have any guard up against powerful brainwashing techniques.
Sure, in the broadest sense, it's a violation of free will, which in the long run prevents people from learning through painful error. But frankly, (and you talked about children and the need to take care of them), most adults are no more aware enough of themselves or of their world than the average child. It is for this reason that Bush and co were able to get us into this war as easily as they did.
Think of it this way;
If Joseph Goebbels had managed to gain wide and popular distribution for his propaganda films in toy stores, then as a govnerment elected by the people to act in society's best interest, wouldn't you want to do something to prevent kids being exposed to his crap?
There is a constant war raging to win the minds of the public. The side which wins, literally, rules the world. --Germany just wants to stop the proliferation of American mind-control media within their own borders. And I think that's cool.
-Fantastic Lad
Most games, from The Sims, to Command And Conquer have several unilateral effects:
You think that playing violent video games for thousands of hours where gruesome, careless murder is a standard practice, "gore levels" are a setting, and the flickering monitor has been proven without any doubt to lull its viewers into a semi-hypnotic state, won't have any effect whatsoever?
That's just wishful thinking! -And I know it sucks, because I've spent thousands of hours I'll never get back enjoying video game (drug) as well.
But really. .
If Hitler had been in a position to de-sensitize German youth through video games and television for twenty years prior to launching his bid for world domination, if he had the ability to forge synaptic links in the brains of all his followers between the emotion of 'Fun' and the act of 'Murder', do you think for a second he'd have balked at doing so?
Me neither.
Everybody claims that, "Video Games have no effect on me." Bullshit. I've seen kids get fucking excited with anticipation when they consider the amount of devestation an air-fuel bomb can cause. We're at war because our media put us there. Period.
The greatest lie ever perpetrated upon the public by advertisers is that people are immune to media manipulation.
-Fantastic Lad
You have GOT to be kidding. Who makes your Nikes? Which occupied Middle Eastern country does most of the U.S. supply of cocaine come from? Where did all the blacks in America come from? Heck, who set up and aided Bin Laden in his terrorist activities? (So that the U.S. would have an excuse to launch its bid for empire?)
You're right. It's not Germany.
Put blood in your video games, Germany. Show violent war movies. Let your youth understand the consequences. Or forget all too soon how horrible it really is. That is truely what's dangerous.
No, no, NO!
Media violence has NOTHING to do with raising public awareness about the evils of war. It has EVERYTHING to do with cultural programming.
Think of it this way:
If Hitler had been in a position to de-sensitize German youth through video games and television for twenty years prior to launching his bid for world domination, if he had the ability to forge synaptic links in the brains of all his followers between the emotion of 'Fun' and the act of 'Murder', do you think for a second he'd have balked at doing so?
Me neither.
-Fantastic Lad
I totally missed the name 'Shephard' in Command and Conquer; a cheesey biblical reference if there ever was one! --Though no doubt fairly effective on a subconscious level. (They often are when your top layer of awareness fails to notice!)
Typically, I find that most of the huge and pervasive media coups, (Star Wars, Matrix, C&C, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc.), are largely mediums for channeled messages from either the dark or light side regarding current and upcoming events during these end of times when the stakes are so high. --Usually completely without the knowledge of the human writers. Every good writer will tell you, "It just comes to me! I'm just writing as fast as I can to keep up! I don't know where I get my ideas! Etc."
I think my one of favorite examples appears in The Matrix. (What a battle ground of warring messages, that film was!) Next time you get a chance, check out the package art. Those weird sunglasses Neo and Trinity were wearing? Notice how their faces are transformed when they had them on? Now, where else have we all seen that kind of facial configuration?
Be careful, though. Greys are NOT saviors. They're tools and agents of the dark side. A really insidious subliminal message if there ever was one! But well worth it, for all the other stuff The Matrix delivered into popular thought!
-Fantastic Lad
Poor argument.
The Sims, and C&C, and virtually ALL video games have several unilateral effects:
1. The undermining of social fabric as people withdraw from un-safe real-world interaction.
2. The re-writing of synaptic pathways so that make-believe realities and their solutions begin affect all aspects of the brain's opperation.
You think that playing games for thousands of hours where gruesome, careless murder is a standard practice, "gore levels" are a setting, and the flickering monitor lulls the viewer into a semi-hypnotic state won't have any effect whatsoever?
That's just wishful thinking.
The greatest lie ever perpetrated upon the public by advertisers is that people are immune to advertising. Or in this case, media in general.
-Fantastic Lad