Dude! (itsnotme) I just had to put in my own two cents because of the overwhelming negative response to your post.
You are NOT on the wrong track. These posters are in every likelihood programmed zombie clones who believe that certain trucks are, 'Like a Rock', 'McDonald's Makes You Smile', and who, 'Just Do It'. --Either that, or they are Cointelpro agents assigned to keeping the bias and percieved popular opinion on Slashdot in the far, far right on sensitive issues. (--Naturally I'm just joking about the agents. Programmed zombie people are more than enough to get the job done.)
I don't give a hoot about how such morons interpret privacy law. Having my face scanned, databased and tracked by tax funded agencies while I walk through a public area is creepy and fascist. Period.
It's the "Spirit of the Law", you twits!
-Fantastic Lad
Thank Goodness the damned thing didn't win BP!
on
LoTR Takes 4 Oscars
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Maybe one of the next LOTR films will win a 'Best Picture' award if it bloody well deserves one. The first certainly did not.
I know I am in the extreme minority here, but, for goodness sake!
While FOTR was cleverly made in certain places, the overall product was middling at best.
I would have liked to see 6 or 10 episodes, perhaps done on television, WITH the light parts included with the dark, (so much beauty cut out, so much sorrow left in!), WITH Tom B included, WITH Elves that didn't fail to score in multiple ways, ("Welcome to Rivendale Mr. Anderson. You have now been knocked out of the story teller's embrace.") --WITH the proper pacing restored!
LOTR is a story about a Journey. --One where you live and grow with the characters to the point where you genuinely love them by the end. In this film, even Sam felt like a stranger to me. What bullshit! This was not a Journey. --I did not get the idea at all in the film that any significant time had passed from beginning to end. This was a massive problem for me! Tolkien understood the importance of pacing in this respect; he understood the importance of the Journey to the point where he was moved to write that wonderful little line, which I will misquote here: "The road begins at your front door.")
The movie felt like a high-speed, over-slick, Cole's-Notes version of the real thing which was trying like mad to adhere to some sort of Advertiser's guidebook about winning the viewer with hypnotically fast images. It felt afterwards as though I'd just eaten a piece of greasy McMeat stuffed in an over-sugared bun. Maybe Jackson was earnest in his attempt, and maybe he made a passable film. But LOTR it was not.
--And I have heard every apologist's excuse for why it 'Had To Be This Way' for reasons of funding, film pacing, blah, fucking blah.
Sorry, but Tolkien would have hated it. This is NOT what he intended. And the worst thing is knowing that it could have been done right with a proper captain at the helm.
Jackson is an uppity kid with a handful of childish horror flicks under his belt. Of COURSE he was going to fall short of the mark in capturing a Master Work which took Tolkien a lifetime to create; Jackson is a grasshopper with a budget. And that's alright. We all must learn, but damn if it isn't a crying shame that he had to cut his teeth on such a culturally significant work.
Best Picture, my ass. The Oscars are basically the embodiment of pure evil, but at least they made the right call, even if it was for the wrong reasons.
There is no way I am gonna read that entire paragraph. Seems like a real hoot though (*cough*).
Hm. Yeah, in re-reading, it does strike me as having come from one of those inner spirals where I didn't realize just how far I'd wandered from the herd.
Ah well. I guess you can go pirate a Pauly-Shore DVD if you want some cheep laughs which don't require any input energy whatsoever.
Weirdly enough, I just found in the last five minutes an article which talks about how Alzheimer's is much less prevelent in those who actively use their brains during their lives. You have lots of medical insurance, I trust?
Sorry about this, but everybody is away from their phones at the moment and, aw shucks, the Slashdot crowd was the only other place I could think of where something like this might be appreciated.
In doing some reading on ancient comet impacts, I ran across the following which made me chuckle:
All over the Mediterranean there were kingdoms and cultures that communicated and traded with one another. Reading the many books on each region, produced by the various experts on the different cultures, again and again one encounters the fact that a period of severe disruption was noted in the historical and archaelogical record. [Yet] somehow, such an event in one region is not necessarily connected to a similar event in another region. The idea that all of the disruptions in a given general time period may be simultaneous cannot be considered because it would disrupt the carefully constructed chronology that is based on endless acts of tetraphyloctomy.[60].
It is only in recent years that these disruptions have been related to celestial phenomena by serious scientific researchers, and even their observations have not moved the Egyptologist one inch from their firm adherence to their chronology. After corresponding with a few of them, reading their books and technical papers, I finally realized that Egyptology is actually a mental illness. I am not joking here. After a certain number of such interactions, after endless reading of the material that is little more than magical thinking using vague and metaphoric speech, I noticed that nearly every single Egyptologist I had encountered could be classified somewhere between Narcissistic and Schizotypal personality disorders.[61] Not one of them was capable of answering a single question directly, though one of them did suggest to me in a roundabout way that he had a few mildly radical ideas. Obviously, he didn't want to say it too loudly for fear of being run out of Dodge.
I now return you to our regularly scheduled item on DVD copying about which I have nothing useful to add. Sorry.
People who use PC's are, by neccessity, aware of how the guts of their machines work to a degree, especially on-line gamers. THIS means that 90% of Steam users will worry about the two following items:
1) Invasion of privacy. What else is Steam doing in my system?
2) Pay-per-use Data. "You mean I don't own what I just paid for? Games are not movies. You want to access them many many more times than once or twice.
People who use PC's are not quite as sheepish as game platform users. --That is, platform users are less likely to understand why something like Steam is invasive and ecconomically corrupt.
This is just another 'softener' for the eventual establishment of virtual money, bio-metrics and similar attempts at massive population control.
Has anybody else noticed that this so-called, 'Beta Testing' phase is in fact a mass distribution effort? "2000 more users a day???" This is not a beta test. The program is already in the bag. This is wide scale marketing, and people are falling for it.
You ARE aware that using a pseudonym to release code you're not legally allowed to is about as clever and legal as wearing a Potato Head Mask while robbing a bank?
Care to explain your rationale? So long as you take only the most basic of precautions in covering your tracks, (i.e., don't use your employer's ISP), then how the heck is a giant comany going to isolate a piece of GPL'd code floating around in the jungle of cyberspace and recognize it as something one of their employers created?
Naturally, the more sensitive the code and the more aligned with Evil the employer, it couldn't hurt to hike across town with a fake moustache, a baseball cap you'd never wear normally, an old jacket from your camping days, (to fool the video cameras), and post the code from one of those internet cafe places.
Though, of course, a good 50% of Slashdotters keep raving about how 'cool' face scanning technology is, and how we need a national I.D. system to stop, 'Terrorists'. ..
Hm. ..
You know, this is just another example of why NOT to make the shift toward a cashless, bio-metrics based society, --Or allow yourself to be implanted with a GPS-I.D. chip. "Sure you can use our internet cafe, but we only take debit or credit. Please look into the eye scanner, sir."
Terrorists, my sweet arse! This reality is all about control, greed, and repression. Publicly shared software created for the good of all flies in the face of this. It makes Evil boil and fume and get all pissy.
-Fantastic Lad --I miss the days when people robbed banks with potatoes!
Re:Search by model - not specs!
on
Low-end Laptops?
·
· Score: 2
I second the motion on the Dell Latitude XPi.
I picked one of those up last year for a song and it runs like a trooper. It is limited, mind you, but for word processing and web surfing, the machine is just great. I can even run graphics layout programs on the thing with little difficulty. Plus, it's one of the last laptops made which uses a track ball; my favorite of all the alternative pointer systems. Those little red rubber dots get so grimy and they hurt after a while. . . Nowhere nearly as fast or precise as a track ball. And those touch pads are just nasty; talk about working your fingers to the bone!
Also, I was happy to discover that the little Dell machine is tough as nails. --Reminds me of a Fisher-Price toy; You can practically drop the thing down the stairs and expect it to still be working when it hits the bottom.
-Fantastic Lad
Thanks for the info! --However. . .
on
Wireless Mania
·
· Score: 2
Some good notes there; thanks!
One of the points I regularly find that people miss, however, is that the dangers of EM are not only heat related; indeed, heat in the case of Cell Phone hand sets is undoubtably one of the lesser concerns.
I like to put it this way: The human body is about 70% electrolyte. The human brain and nervous system are electrochemical in nature. EEG machines work for a reason.
Based on everything we currently know regarding the behavior of electricity, electromagnetism, inductance, etc., it is either a vast oversight or simply downright foolish not to consider the non-mechanical effects of EM on the human nervous system.
There have been many studies; by private groups of varying degrees of reliability, by governments, (the Swedish and Polish studies being among the few which have seen public light). --There have been studies leaked from the American military. (As well as counter-studies by such agencies as the U.S. Airforce which has spent a great deal of effort to scientifically 'de-bunk' that which hardly anybody in the public arena is even aware is going on in the first place.) --Of course, little damning research has surfaced among peer-reviewed material in the journals of the publically accepted version of science. (Peer-review being a concept, unfortunately, very much bought and paid for by Corporate interests and Governments, and therefore of questionable reliability when dealing with matters of Big Money, Public Health and Political Ramification. --I have a couple of friends who work in a couple of different areas of science, and they tell me of the bald-faced corruption they witness regularly in order to maintain funding and professional credit.)
In any case, more than enough data has been raised to worry anybody who bothers to investigate the whole Cell Phone phenomenon.
-Fantastic Lad
Let the brain frying begin!
on
Wireless Mania
·
· Score: 2
Wow.
Talk about a total conquest. The sales job is complete. And the (one would think), otherwise intelligent geek elite has bought it hook line and sinker. (Control the geeks, and you control the world.)
Of course, people can choose wishful thinking and ignorance; they can surround their brains with as much electromagnetic fog as they choose. It can be a little frustrating when you watch people you care about put themselves in harm's way, but hey, life is all about free choice and letting people learn from their own mistakes. So sure, let the people microwave their heads with their dandy little toys. Fine.
However. ., when all the hobbits start re-defining our COLLECTIVE environment through said ignorance; that is, when I have to sit next to a microwave emitter/amplifier, (tastefully concealed behind some innocuous wall or potted plant), in my local coffee shop, bus shelter, library, etc., then I start to get annoyed.
Hobits en mass are extraordinarily dangerous. And let me count the ways the ignorant have poisoned the water I drink, the food I eat, the air I breathe and have altered my city in a thousand ways which serve to bring down the quality of life for me and everybody around me. . ,
The only reason people are now allowed to have thin-screens is that CRT EM has been replaced by the far more effective and ubiquitous cell phone radiation. Cities are turning into low-level microwave furnaces designed, in conjunction with a dozen other attacks, to turn people's awareness, strength of mind and decision making abilities to mush. Welcome to zombiville.
Before you knee-jerk, do some reading and exploration, and (horrors!), thinking. And don't turn on the indoctrination station. Science-news television is the among the slickest forms of propaganda. If you've been watching and believing everything without question up until now, you've been duped and controled.
And watch: When you poke at the more sensitive spots, that's when you can expect the harshest auto-attacks to spring from people's programming. The intensity of auto-response is directly proportional to the importance of the lie.
-Fantastic Lad --Why has the media been so careful to make sure that those with concerns look ridiculous and 'uncool'? Tin foil hatters, indeed!
I always kind of wondered... Why did Scotty even need the aluminum to be transparent? They could've carried the whale in a regular aluminum tank.:)
I'm curious: did you realize this right away, or did it take you a few years after seeing the film fresh and new on the big screen? I know in my case, it was, like a whole decade later that I stopped and thought, "Heyyyy. Now hold on a moment!"
Perhaps I'm generalizing here, but I'll ask the question as though I weren't:
"Why is it that this sort of thing never seems so apparent at the time? Why are films so much more alive and real-seeming when they first come out? Do new films have a shelf-life or something? Is it more than just color which fades?"
While energy weapons can be pretty devastating and while they offer a number of unique uses, a physical round is usually going to be less expensive and more reliable. Especially in ground situations. My guess is that the only reason they'd bring such a dumb-ass device into a ground battle for a conventional, made for TV war (like this war on terrorism crap), is to affect the minds of the public back home.
And about this airplane mounted laser system. . .
I watched some bullshit documentary on 'cutting edge' technology a month ago, and the 'cutting edge' is apparently a jumbo jet with a big-ass laser good for about 30 shots using hopelessly out of date chemical fuel to direct power technology of some sort. The contraption is designed for use as an anti-missle defense system; part of Bush's highschool campaign/drama of unmaking every last fragment of stability in the make-believe world so's he or his people can declare military rule on home soil at a moment's notice.
As for the laser jet; the U.S. is supposedly putting a (small) fleet of about these expensive aircraft into operation in the coming months, with one or two already in service.
(All this from memory taken from a piece of P.R. crap full of lies and propaganda, so take what you will with plenty of salt).
"The Internal Combustion Engine is anything but a [realistic] idea"
What?
While I agree it is time to move on, I still think you are a schmuck.
Just so long as you move on while maintaining that egotism and wilfull misunderstanding of yours, then I'm sure you'll be happy pretending I'm the schmuck.
while caring for the environement is a very important thing when it's taken to your point it becomes EcoNazism. Your level of virulent hatred tword realistic society shows naivity, ignorance and embitterment.
Realistic society?
The Internal Combustion Engine is anything but a realistic idea. Just because every second person in the West happens to use one doesn't make it a 'realistic' idea. The fact of the matter is that continued use of automobiles at current levels will eliminate life on Earth in a few more short decades.
Of course, the average mother driving her kids to school is just being a good Mom by nearly every standard taught to her by society. She's not likely to give much thought to how many hundreds or thousands of pounds of CO2 and Monoxide her one SUV pumps into everybody's air each year. I'm afraid I can more than see the origin of the poster's bitterness.
Although saying s/he posts with 'Virulent Hatred'? 'Nazism'? And 'ignorance'?
This case is an exception to the rule: SK is putting together an excellent game (not FPS; it's RE-esque) and will end up getting cheated by one of these cookie-cutter reviews. Silicon Knights isn't a juvenile-pandering developer, and anyone who thinks that Nintendo is run by unimaginative execs is a fool.
If you'd like to take a preview of what to sort of expect from Eternal Darkness, pick up Legacy of Kain for the PS1, and ignore the terrible loading times. It's a great game, with a highly original story. (No, Silicon Knights didn't have *ANYTHING* to do with the garbage Soul Reaver titles.)
During the 300 years of multi generational travel about the "U.S.S. ARK" or whatever, they arrive only to find that the destination planet has already been populated by Earthlings because. . .
100 years into their journey, faster than light travel was worked out by the techies back home.
Never seen that idea before.
Also. . .
Here's another idea nobody ever seems to contemplate:
What would prevent aliens from using generation ships to come here? This is possible right now without the need for 'magic' space travel tech.
A couple of guys with the word, 'journalist,' printed on their business cards are presenting half-informed opinions as media content?
Jeez! I can flip to CNN for that!
The only difference between these guys and every second person on the web is that they're getting paid to do it.
Except, weirdly enough, in this case, I can't actually blame them.
--Game titles offer few surprises these days. Plus, the description and declared subject matter offered by the publishers to the reviewers sounds both sick and lame.
The only thing these reviewers did wrong is to not say up front that they were only looking at demos and press kit material. The fact of the matter is that they've told me all I want to know:
"Newsflash: Another cookie cutter over-violent FPS released by some company run either by (a)Sick juvenile twit programmers, or (b)Unimaginative corporate executives trying to make a buck by designing what their market analysts tell them is 'hip with the kids'."
They installed one of the new digital projection systems on one of the screens at a new theater in my home town.
Fascinated, I went to the giant flagship theater to watch, "Mission to Mars", which was being presented on the new digital system.
Anyway, I stood there with my friend in the expansive, pulsating lobby, and we were dirty and damp from the smog and rain outdoors, and we'd just eaten some bad fast food. The city was winning. I turned to him. . .
"You know, I just realized. I don't care enough about digital technology to go through with this. I really don't want to watch this movie. Everything I've seen regarding it looks absolutely awful."
"Yeah. I thought I could do it, but now I just don't feel so good. This place makes me feel like I'm in the middle of the "Terminator" future waste land. Why are there so many lasers and ultra violet lamps? Why is the floor black?"
"Well, this is the new, cool thing! You're supposed to feel naked without a BMFG-2000. --You know what they say; "The theater is the new social gathering place." --And how better to enrich the social fabric than to make people worry about being fragged?"
"BMFG?"
"Don't worry about it. Let's get the hell out of here."
And that was my experience with the new digital projection system! All in all, I'd have to say that it has some front-end and content problems to overcome before it becomes popular with cynical bastards who pine for the good old days when theaters had red carpets, soft lighting, and ornate wooden banister railings rich and dark from years of use.
Xenu won't be happy that you're spilling the beans.
For those who don't know, "Xenu" is a character from L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology.
Hubbard is associated with some very dangerous affairs and forces, all of it cloaked in mis-representations and (imo) rather ridiculous fictions. Hubbard's secret writings have the confused ring common to many insane or negatively influenced communications from beyond. Essentially, if 'Higher Beings' can't even communicate clearly, then they're probably not terribly special.
The other thing to notice:
Hubbard's people have a long track record of manipulations and circumventions of free will on many different levels. This sort of behavior and its intensity are powerful clues as to the true nature of a given force.
what am I going to do, sue the people who run Echelon?
Actually, according to certain information sources which most Slashdotters would shut their eyes and shake their heads at, the technology exists to actually listen in on your thoughts.
It is figured by some that the technology used by 'secret government' (for lack of a less cheesy term), and secret military, (same), is in the order of 135 years ahead of current public technology.
(I know, I know. "Crazy, Lone Gunman stuff." Heard it already. Read on if you want to be entertained, but don't waste my time with flames. I'm pretty much made of asbestos at this point.) In any case, the attitude of the above poster is actually fairly pragmatic.
See, the bad guys have the power and nobody can do a damned thing about it. Things are also going to get a lot worse. Violent. Like, Nazi Germany was a dry run, kind of violent. There are those who 'eat' fear and negative emotion. (Yeah. I know. Weird-ass concept.)
In any case, it's how you react that counts in the long run. Denial is a popular option, and not even a necessarily a bad one. You're going to learn regardless, (even if it is more painful and terrifying), but if that's what you need to do, then so be it. Live and die. It's all a big school house in the end. You'll get other chances.
See, people don't realize just how amazingly interesting times are right now. There is SO much great stuff going on! (Though much of it is behind the veil.) Watch and learn. This is why you're here, and awareness is the key.
--In any case, the more you know, the less vulnerable you are to the nasties. It's a great idea to learn as much as you can about as much as you can; the realms of science present the ultimate spiritual quest, despite how it has been framed and restricted by the powers that be.
And the ultimate trick is this; choose who you are. Are you a self-serving individual, or the opposite. Both ends of the spectrum are valid, but both lead in very different directions. One limitation is that there's only so far you can go with self-service, with a fair amount of misery being ultimately involved. Whereas material indulgences are not the realm of 'service to others'. No sex for those who ascend high enough on the path of enlightenment! Bummer. (Though I gather from my reasearch that there are aspects of higher awareness which makes sex look like a joke. But what do I know?).
One of the coolest things I've managed to pick up is that Fear, Jealousy, Anger. . , all these negative emotions are actually a choice. Something you can actually turn off. (It's a bit of an effort; we've been 'designed' to have easy access to these feelings.) But once you get the hang of it, it's really cool! I've not been caught at the whim of painful emotions for a couple of years now. Conserves energy big time, too. Doesn't matter where I go these days, I'm usually the most on-the-ball alert person in any room. The amount of energy people waste indulging in stupid emotional responses is just nuts! One of the coolest things you can share with somebody is to explain how jealosy and envy and self-pity are actually dip-shit sub-routines which are not, as we have been led to believe all our lives, automatic and required. We only run them because we've been told we're supposed to in certain situtations. (By crap like, "Friends," and the general mind programming broadcast in the form of pop-music. "Oooh. I'm so lonely!") Mind programming on this level is a very simple affair. --Although the strobing CRT's do act as a hypnotic opener to a degree, making it easier for these messages to implant themselves. There are dozens of other 'softeners' but I won't go into that rat's nest.).
Gads. It's very late and I need major sleep. (The little clock in the corner says. ..) I'm shooting my mouth off a little much here.
This case is prima facie one of an insane person whose rantings closely resembled actual events.
I considered this too, except then I went back and looked more closely, and tried to think about how the event would have gone down in the context of what was happening during his incarceration. . .
"There are going to be attacks on these places!"
"We don't believe you."
"There will be! It's going to happen very soon!"
"Bullshit."
"Okay. I'll write down the targets. We'll have the document court sealed. Then after one of the targets is hit, you'll see I'm not full of shit. Their plan has multiple stages designed to unfold over several years. So let one of them happen, but after you see I'm right, work to prevent the rest!" (Look again at the document.)
And so the list was created, signed & sealed.
The point you're missing is that the document wasn't meant to be a clearly written, self-contained essay designed to pass mustard with flag waving skeptics on Slashdot. (And even if it had been, I somehow doubt it would be enough to convince most twits unless CNN gave it their approval.)
What it is, is a list which was created in the heat of the moment which has no value outside of the conversation during which it was made. It's designed to prove himself to the people who were there for the whole conversation. Now, obviously, the bailiff and judge remember him making noise about this, and they remember the context under which it was written. Nobody is disputing this aspect of his claim. Just because the handwriting looks messy to you, doesn't mean the guy is crazy.
And what about the actions of the U.S. Navy? --A 2000 page document, with a number of dates they actually overlooked and failed to fudge in their rush to disprove Vreeland's claim that he has been working for them for the last fifteen years. What do you make of that? Why would the Navy lie unless he was part of covert activity?
Be careful. I'm not saying that this is hard proof, but you are not using well thought arguments to discount anything. Some people are very prone to sticking your heads back in the sand at the first semi-plausible explanation, ("he's just crazy"). Once they find a simple, half-assed explanation, all other questions are immediately disregarded. That's just sloppy.
Now, I recognize that people must be allowed to make their own choices; it's a violation of free will to force people to open their eyes when all they want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. That's fine.
But it's also a powerful choice which leads to other things. . .
Oh, you hear stuff first on slashdot all the time. Like when Stephen King died.
Try reading the links before you make your smart remarks.
More than half of the significant advances in science and general human knowledge which have gone on to form important foundation stones in our current society, were ridiculed and disbelieved by the supposedly 'educated' masses.
When I look back upon how much energy and effort was put into disbelieving guys like Graham Bell, (Front pagees on newspapers and scoffing articles in respected science journals of the day!), the disbelievers always seemed like such over-stuffed cartoon characters. --Hobbits and Muggles of the first order, who didn't deserve the gifts being offered.
Even as a kid, the lesson here seemed more than obvious.
And yet, I remain baffled that so few people are aware of this endless parade of irony!
Ignorance may be funny, but hobbits en masse are dangerous little fuckers! Women burned alive, and all that. Why would anybody want to number themselves among the willfully ignorant?
When stuff is imported via cargo ship from Japan, a certain number of damaged units are expected, and so they ship extra ones in order to make up for this. On paper, it all works out in the insurance, and so everybody is happy.
However, when a shipment arrives with no damage, these 'extra' items must now be paid for by the receiver. Since some of these items are sometimes worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, when you suddenly have to pay for more than you bargained for, it hurts the balance sheet.
A friend of mine described how a government tax agent and several company officers had to witness the destruction of a perfectly working, hand-crafted, grand piano. Warehouse workers raised and dropped the two ton monster fifteen times from a forklift before it was destroyed to the point where the tax agent would allow it to be written off.
Spend a month hand crafting a top of the line musical instrument, ship it overseas, and then have it destroyed. All just to satisfy the red tape. This is so Muggle/Douglas Adams, it makes my head spin!
I almost look forward to the day when society is decimated by a comet!
-Fantastic Lad
More circumstantial evidence. . .
on
Collateral Damage
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
There are what? Now three war films all shot just before 9-11.
Since Hollywood is the pumping heart of mind-control media production for the West, is it any wonder they had films already in the bag designed to keep the embers of war-mongering public hate and nationalistic pride burning brightly?
What blows me away is that they would be so blatent! You'd think they would at least wait until after the 9-11 display, just to keep the books clean, so to speak. The fact that can get away with this sort of thing demonstrates just how little work there is left to do in terms of programming the public.
Oh. And here's an interesting tid-bit: In Toronto, there is a fellow claiming to be a U.S. Navy spy claiming that he had foreknowledge of 9-11. The interesting part is that he was locked up in a Canadian jail back in August. He was screaming and yelling about the impending September attacks, to the point where he signed a document to this effect, had it witnessed and court sealed, several weeks before they happened.
My point is, allowing art to effect your reality in a negative light is one of the worse things you can do with your life. Art and media are the expressions of individuals or groups and unless they directly effect you, can be shrugged off with just a little effort that can lead to a happier life.
This is only true for the enlightened. Clearly, my comments were not directed at people who are powerful enough to understand this. But that's not the point I was making.
For instance, take your comment:
"The danger of such an attack happening has been there for years and the incompetence of the security staff at the majority of airports will ensure that something similar will be possible in the future."
This very thought demonstrates that your thinking was directly affected by the display. Look at how the U.S. has followed up: Civil liberties revoked. Privacy diminished. General war-mongering.
You may not, but I call this a darkening of culture.
And if you consider that there is every possibility that the events of 9-11 were engineered in part by the U.S. secret services, then an enlightened person might begin to see just how media and reality are in fact intertwined to the point where society can be played like a musical instrument.
Now I am not saying that GTA3 is the cause of society's downfall, (though it contributes). And I'm not even saying that it should be pulled from the shelves. (People MUST be allowed to choose.) What I AM saying is that people should know that indulging in darkness WILL affect them, and to be enlightened means one recognizes this and chooses not to diminish oneself by indulging.
How many digital depictions of girls have you set on fire with a flame thrower for the sake of entertainment? If more than 1, then why? What associations do you think your subconscious mind made, particularly in regard to pleasure associations? Please review.
Slashdot Mirror
You are NOT on the wrong track. These posters are in every likelihood programmed zombie clones who believe that certain trucks are, 'Like a Rock', 'McDonald's Makes You Smile', and who, 'Just Do It'. --Either that, or they are Cointelpro agents assigned to keeping the bias and percieved popular opinion on Slashdot in the far, far right on sensitive issues. (--Naturally I'm just joking about the agents. Programmed zombie people are more than enough to get the job done.)
I don't give a hoot about how such morons interpret privacy law. Having my face scanned, databased and tracked by tax funded agencies while I walk through a public area is creepy and fascist. Period.
It's the "Spirit of the Law", you twits!
-Fantastic Lad
I know I am in the extreme minority here, but, for goodness sake!
While FOTR was cleverly made in certain places, the overall product was middling at best.
I would have liked to see 6 or 10 episodes, perhaps done on television, WITH the light parts included with the dark, (so much beauty cut out, so much sorrow left in!), WITH Tom B included, WITH Elves that didn't fail to score in multiple ways, ("Welcome to Rivendale Mr. Anderson. You have now been knocked out of the story teller's embrace.") --WITH the proper pacing restored!
LOTR is a story about a Journey. --One where you live and grow with the characters to the point where you genuinely love them by the end. In this film, even Sam felt like a stranger to me. What bullshit! This was not a Journey. --I did not get the idea at all in the film that any significant time had passed from beginning to end. This was a massive problem for me! Tolkien understood the importance of pacing in this respect; he understood the importance of the Journey to the point where he was moved to write that wonderful little line, which I will misquote here: "The road begins at your front door.")
The movie felt like a high-speed, over-slick, Cole's-Notes version of the real thing which was trying like mad to adhere to some sort of Advertiser's guidebook about winning the viewer with hypnotically fast images. It felt afterwards as though I'd just eaten a piece of greasy McMeat stuffed in an over-sugared bun. Maybe Jackson was earnest in his attempt, and maybe he made a passable film. But LOTR it was not.
--And I have heard every apologist's excuse for why it 'Had To Be This Way' for reasons of funding, film pacing, blah, fucking blah.
Sorry, but Tolkien would have hated it. This is NOT what he intended. And the worst thing is knowing that it could have been done right with a proper captain at the helm.
Jackson is an uppity kid with a handful of childish horror flicks under his belt. Of COURSE he was going to fall short of the mark in capturing a Master Work which took Tolkien a lifetime to create; Jackson is a grasshopper with a budget. And that's alright. We all must learn, but damn if it isn't a crying shame that he had to cut his teeth on such a culturally significant work.
Best Picture, my ass. The Oscars are basically the embodiment of pure evil, but at least they made the right call, even if it was for the wrong reasons.
-Fantastic Lad
There is no way I am gonna read that entire paragraph. Seems like a real hoot though (*cough*).
Hm. Yeah, in re-reading, it does strike me as having come from one of those inner spirals where I didn't realize just how far I'd wandered from the herd.
Ah well. I guess you can go pirate a Pauly-Shore DVD if you want some cheep laughs which don't require any input energy whatsoever.
Weirdly enough, I just found in the last five minutes an article which talks about how Alzheimer's is much less prevelent in those who actively use their brains during their lives. You have lots of medical insurance, I trust?
-Fantastic Lad
In doing some reading on ancient comet impacts, I ran across the following which made me chuckle:
I now return you to our regularly scheduled item on DVD copying about which I have nothing useful to add. Sorry.
-Fantastic Lad
People who use PC's are not quite as sheepish as game platform users. --That is, platform users are less likely to understand why something like Steam is invasive and ecconomically corrupt.
This is just another 'softener' for the eventual establishment of virtual money, bio-metrics and similar attempts at massive population control.
Has anybody else noticed that this so-called, 'Beta Testing' phase is in fact a mass distribution effort? "2000 more users a day???" This is not a beta test. The program is already in the bag. This is wide scale marketing, and people are falling for it.
-Fantastic Lad
Care to explain your rationale? So long as you take only the most basic of precautions in covering your tracks, (i.e., don't use your employer's ISP), then how the heck is a giant comany going to isolate a piece of GPL'd code floating around in the jungle of cyberspace and recognize it as something one of their employers created?
Naturally, the more sensitive the code and the more aligned with Evil the employer, it couldn't hurt to hike across town with a fake moustache, a baseball cap you'd never wear normally, an old jacket from your camping days, (to fool the video cameras), and post the code from one of those internet cafe places.
Though, of course, a good 50% of Slashdotters keep raving about how 'cool' face scanning technology is, and how we need a national I.D. system to stop, 'Terrorists'. .
Hm. .
You know, this is just another example of why NOT to make the shift toward a cashless, bio-metrics based society, --Or allow yourself to be implanted with a GPS-I.D. chip. "Sure you can use our internet cafe, but we only take debit or credit. Please look into the eye scanner, sir."
Terrorists, my sweet arse! This reality is all about control, greed, and repression. Publicly shared software created for the good of all flies in the face of this. It makes Evil boil and fume and get all pissy.
-Fantastic Lad --I miss the days when people robbed banks with potatoes!
I picked one of those up last year for a song and it runs like a trooper. It is limited, mind you, but for word processing and web surfing, the machine is just great. I can even run graphics layout programs on the thing with little difficulty. Plus, it's one of the last laptops made which uses a track ball; my favorite of all the alternative pointer systems. Those little red rubber dots get so grimy and they hurt after a while. . . Nowhere nearly as fast or precise as a track ball. And those touch pads are just nasty; talk about working your fingers to the bone!
Also, I was happy to discover that the little Dell machine is tough as nails. --Reminds me of a Fisher-Price toy; You can practically drop the thing down the stairs and expect it to still be working when it hits the bottom.
-Fantastic Lad
One of the points I regularly find that people miss, however, is that the dangers of EM are not only heat related; indeed, heat in the case of Cell Phone hand sets is undoubtably one of the lesser concerns.
I like to put it this way: The human body is about 70% electrolyte. The human brain and nervous system are electrochemical in nature. EEG machines work for a reason.
Based on everything we currently know regarding the behavior of electricity, electromagnetism, inductance, etc., it is either a vast oversight or simply downright foolish not to consider the non-mechanical effects of EM on the human nervous system.
There have been many studies; by private groups of varying degrees of reliability, by governments, (the Swedish and Polish studies being among the few which have seen public light). --There have been studies leaked from the American military. (As well as counter-studies by such agencies as the U.S. Airforce which has spent a great deal of effort to scientifically 'de-bunk' that which hardly anybody in the public arena is even aware is going on in the first place.) --Of course, little damning research has surfaced among peer-reviewed material in the journals of the publically accepted version of science. (Peer-review being a concept, unfortunately, very much bought and paid for by Corporate interests and Governments, and therefore of questionable reliability when dealing with matters of Big Money, Public Health and Political Ramification. --I have a couple of friends who work in a couple of different areas of science, and they tell me of the bald-faced corruption they witness regularly in order to maintain funding and professional credit.)
In any case, more than enough data has been raised to worry anybody who bothers to investigate the whole Cell Phone phenomenon.
-Fantastic Lad
Talk about a total conquest. The sales job is complete. And the (one would think), otherwise intelligent geek elite has bought it hook line and sinker. (Control the geeks, and you control the world.)
Of course, people can choose wishful thinking and ignorance; they can surround their brains with as much electromagnetic fog as they choose. It can be a little frustrating when you watch people you care about put themselves in harm's way, but hey, life is all about free choice and letting people learn from their own mistakes. So sure, let the people microwave their heads with their dandy little toys. Fine.
However. .
Hobits en mass are extraordinarily dangerous. And let me count the ways the ignorant have poisoned the water I drink, the food I eat, the air I breathe and have altered my city in a thousand ways which serve to bring down the quality of life for me and everybody around me. . ,
The only reason people are now allowed to have thin-screens is that CRT EM has been replaced by the far more effective and ubiquitous cell phone radiation. Cities are turning into low-level microwave furnaces designed, in conjunction with a dozen other attacks, to turn people's awareness, strength of mind and decision making abilities to mush. Welcome to zombiville.
Before you knee-jerk, do some reading and exploration, and (horrors!), thinking. And don't turn on the indoctrination station. Science-news television is the among the slickest forms of propaganda. If you've been watching and believing everything without question up until now, you've been duped and controled.
And watch: When you poke at the more sensitive spots, that's when you can expect the harshest auto-attacks to spring from people's programming. The intensity of auto-response is directly proportional to the importance of the lie.
-Fantastic Lad --Why has the media been so careful to make sure that those with concerns look ridiculous and 'uncool'? Tin foil hatters, indeed!
Ah. But of course! And transparent = 'looks good on camera'. Snappy problem solving there.
Now that's film making!
-Fantastic Lad --Give me ten years and I'm sure I'll remember it bigger, faster, better!
aluminum tank.
I'm curious: did you realize this right away, or did it take you a few years after seeing the film fresh and new on the big screen? I know in my case, it was, like a whole decade later that I stopped and thought, "Heyyyy. Now hold on a moment!"
Perhaps I'm generalizing here, but I'll ask the question as though I weren't:
"Why is it that this sort of thing never seems so apparent at the time? Why are films so much more alive and real-seeming when they first come out? Do new films have a shelf-life or something? Is it more than just color which fades?"
-Fantastic Lad
While energy weapons can be pretty devastating and while they offer a number of unique uses, a physical round is usually going to be less expensive and more reliable. Especially in ground situations. My guess is that the only reason they'd bring such a dumb-ass device into a ground battle for a conventional, made for TV war (like this war on terrorism crap), is to affect the minds of the public back home.
And about this airplane mounted laser system. . .
I watched some bullshit documentary on 'cutting edge' technology a month ago, and the 'cutting edge' is apparently a jumbo jet with a big-ass laser good for about 30 shots using hopelessly out of date chemical fuel to direct power technology of some sort. The contraption is designed for use as an anti-missle defense system; part of Bush's highschool campaign/drama of unmaking every last fragment of stability in the make-believe world so's he or his people can declare military rule on home soil at a moment's notice.
As for the laser jet; the U.S. is supposedly putting a (small) fleet of about these expensive aircraft into operation in the coming months, with one or two already in service.
(All this from memory taken from a piece of P.R. crap full of lies and propaganda, so take what you will with plenty of salt).
-Fantastic Lad
What?
While I agree it is time to move on, I still think you are a schmuck.
Just so long as you move on while maintaining that egotism and wilfull misunderstanding of yours, then I'm sure you'll be happy pretending I'm the schmuck.
-Fantastic Lad
Realistic society?
The Internal Combustion Engine is anything but a realistic idea. Just because every second person in the West happens to use one doesn't make it a 'realistic' idea. The fact of the matter is that continued use of automobiles at current levels will eliminate life on Earth in a few more short decades.
Of course, the average mother driving her kids to school is just being a good Mom by nearly every standard taught to her by society. She's not likely to give much thought to how many hundreds or thousands of pounds of CO2 and Monoxide her one SUV pumps into everybody's air each year. I'm afraid I can more than see the origin of the poster's bitterness.
Although saying s/he posts with 'Virulent Hatred'? 'Nazism'? And 'ignorance'?
Please.
-Fantastic Lad
If you'd like to take a preview of what to sort of expect from Eternal Darkness, pick up Legacy of Kain for the PS1, and ignore the terrible loading times. It's a great game, with a highly original story. (No, Silicon Knights didn't have *ANYTHING* to do with the garbage Soul Reaver titles.)
Point taken. Thanks for the heads up!
-Fantastic Lad
100 years into their journey, faster than light travel was worked out by the techies back home.
Never seen that idea before.
Also. . .
Here's another idea nobody ever seems to contemplate:
What would prevent aliens from using generation ships to come here? This is possible right now without the need for 'magic' space travel tech.
Hmmm. . .
-Fantastic Lad
Jeez! I can flip to CNN for that!
The only difference between these guys and every second person on the web is that they're getting paid to do it.
Except, weirdly enough, in this case, I can't actually blame them.
--Game titles offer few surprises these days. Plus, the description and declared subject matter offered by the publishers to the reviewers sounds both sick and lame.
The only thing these reviewers did wrong is to not say up front that they were only looking at demos and press kit material. The fact of the matter is that they've told me all I want to know:
"Newsflash: Another cookie cutter over-violent FPS released by some company run either by (a)Sick juvenile twit programmers, or (b)Unimaginative corporate executives trying to make a buck by designing what their market analysts tell them is 'hip with the kids'."
Yep. Now that's reporting!
-Fantastic Lad
Fascinated, I went to the giant flagship theater to watch, "Mission to Mars", which was being presented on the new digital system.
Anyway, I stood there with my friend in the expansive, pulsating lobby, and we were dirty and damp from the smog and rain outdoors, and we'd just eaten some bad fast food. The city was winning. I turned to him. . .
"You know, I just realized. I don't care enough about digital technology to go through with this. I really don't want to watch this movie. Everything I've seen regarding it looks absolutely awful."
"Yeah. I thought I could do it, but now I just don't feel so good. This place makes me feel like I'm in the middle of the "Terminator" future waste land. Why are there so many lasers and ultra violet lamps? Why is the floor black?"
"Well, this is the new, cool thing! You're supposed to feel naked without a BMFG-2000. --You know what they say; "The theater is the new social gathering place." --And how better to enrich the social fabric than to make people worry about being fragged?"
"BMFG?"
"Don't worry about it. Let's get the hell out of here."
And that was my experience with the new digital projection system! All in all, I'd have to say that it has some front-end and content problems to overcome before it becomes popular with cynical bastards who pine for the good old days when theaters had red carpets, soft lighting, and ornate wooden banister railings rich and dark from years of use.
-Fantastic Lad
For those who don't know, "Xenu" is a character from L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology.
Hubbard is associated with some very dangerous affairs and forces, all of it cloaked in mis-representations and (imo) rather ridiculous fictions. Hubbard's secret writings have the confused ring common to many insane or negatively influenced communications from beyond. Essentially, if 'Higher Beings' can't even communicate clearly, then they're probably not terribly special.
The other thing to notice:
Hubbard's people have a long track record of manipulations and circumventions of free will on many different levels. This sort of behavior and its intensity are powerful clues as to the true nature of a given force.
-Fantastic Lad
Actually, according to certain information sources which most Slashdotters would shut their eyes and shake their heads at, the technology exists to actually listen in on your thoughts.
It is figured by some that the technology used by 'secret government' (for lack of a less cheesy term), and secret military, (same), is in the order of 135 years ahead of current public technology.
(I know, I know. "Crazy, Lone Gunman stuff." Heard it already. Read on if you want to be entertained, but don't waste my time with flames. I'm pretty much made of asbestos at this point.) In any case, the attitude of the above poster is actually fairly pragmatic.
See, the bad guys have the power and nobody can do a damned thing about it. Things are also going to get a lot worse. Violent. Like, Nazi Germany was a dry run, kind of violent. There are those who 'eat' fear and negative emotion. (Yeah. I know. Weird-ass concept.)
In any case, it's how you react that counts in the long run. Denial is a popular option, and not even a necessarily a bad one. You're going to learn regardless, (even if it is more painful and terrifying), but if that's what you need to do, then so be it. Live and die. It's all a big school house in the end. You'll get other chances.
See, people don't realize just how amazingly interesting times are right now. There is SO much great stuff going on! (Though much of it is behind the veil.) Watch and learn. This is why you're here, and awareness is the key.
--In any case, the more you know, the less vulnerable you are to the nasties. It's a great idea to learn as much as you can about as much as you can; the realms of science present the ultimate spiritual quest, despite how it has been framed and restricted by the powers that be.
And the ultimate trick is this; choose who you are. Are you a self-serving individual, or the opposite. Both ends of the spectrum are valid, but both lead in very different directions. One limitation is that there's only so far you can go with self-service, with a fair amount of misery being ultimately involved. Whereas material indulgences are not the realm of 'service to others'. No sex for those who ascend high enough on the path of enlightenment! Bummer. (Though I gather from my reasearch that there are aspects of higher awareness which makes sex look like a joke. But what do I know?).
One of the coolest things I've managed to pick up is that Fear, Jealousy, Anger. . , all these negative emotions are actually a choice. Something you can actually turn off. (It's a bit of an effort; we've been 'designed' to have easy access to these feelings.) But once you get the hang of it, it's really cool! I've not been caught at the whim of painful emotions for a couple of years now. Conserves energy big time, too. Doesn't matter where I go these days, I'm usually the most on-the-ball alert person in any room. The amount of energy people waste indulging in stupid emotional responses is just nuts! One of the coolest things you can share with somebody is to explain how jealosy and envy and self-pity are actually dip-shit sub-routines which are not, as we have been led to believe all our lives, automatic and required. We only run them because we've been told we're supposed to in certain situtations. (By crap like, "Friends," and the general mind programming broadcast in the form of pop-music. "Oooh. I'm so lonely!") Mind programming on this level is a very simple affair. --Although the strobing CRT's do act as a hypnotic opener to a degree, making it easier for these messages to implant themselves. There are dozens of other 'softeners' but I won't go into that rat's nest.).
Gads. It's very late and I need major sleep. (The little clock in the corner says. .
Pardon me, and goodnight!
-Fantastic Lad
This case is prima facie one of an insane person whose rantings closely resembled actual events.
I considered this too, except then I went back and looked more closely, and tried to think about how the event would have gone down in the context of what was happening during his incarceration. . .
"There are going to be attacks on these places!"
"We don't believe you."
"There will be! It's going to happen very soon!"
"Bullshit."
"Okay. I'll write down the targets. We'll have the document court sealed. Then after one of the targets is hit, you'll see I'm not full of shit. Their plan has multiple stages designed to unfold over several years. So let one of them happen, but after you see I'm right, work to prevent the rest!" (Look again at the document.)
And so the list was created, signed & sealed.
The point you're missing is that the document wasn't meant to be a clearly written, self-contained essay designed to pass mustard with flag waving skeptics on Slashdot. (And even if it had been, I somehow doubt it would be enough to convince most twits unless CNN gave it their approval.)
What it is, is a list which was created in the heat of the moment which has no value outside of the conversation during which it was made. It's designed to prove himself to the people who were there for the whole conversation. Now, obviously, the bailiff and judge remember him making noise about this, and they remember the context under which it was written. Nobody is disputing this aspect of his claim. Just because the handwriting looks messy to you, doesn't mean the guy is crazy.
And what about the actions of the U.S. Navy? --A 2000 page document, with a number of dates they actually overlooked and failed to fudge in their rush to disprove Vreeland's claim that he has been working for them for the last fifteen years. What do you make of that? Why would the Navy lie unless he was part of covert activity?
Be careful. I'm not saying that this is hard proof, but you are not using well thought arguments to discount anything. Some people are very prone to sticking your heads back in the sand at the first semi-plausible explanation, ("he's just crazy"). Once they find a simple, half-assed explanation, all other questions are immediately disregarded. That's just sloppy.
Now, I recognize that people must be allowed to make their own choices; it's a violation of free will to force people to open their eyes when all they want to do is roll over and go back to sleep. That's fine.
But it's also a powerful choice which leads to other things. . .
Be careful.
-Fantastic Lad
Try reading the links before you make your smart remarks.
More than half of the significant advances in science and general human knowledge which have gone on to form important foundation stones in our current society, were ridiculed and disbelieved by the supposedly 'educated' masses.
When I look back upon how much energy and effort was put into disbelieving guys like Graham Bell, (Front pagees on newspapers and scoffing articles in respected science journals of the day!), the disbelievers always seemed like such over-stuffed cartoon characters. --Hobbits and Muggles of the first order, who didn't deserve the gifts being offered.
Even as a kid, the lesson here seemed more than obvious.
And yet, I remain baffled that so few people are aware of this endless parade of irony!
Ignorance may be funny, but hobbits en masse are dangerous little fuckers! Women burned alive, and all that. Why would anybody want to number themselves among the willfully ignorant?
Grow a damned spine.
-Fantastic Lad
When stuff is imported via cargo ship from Japan, a certain number of damaged units are expected, and so they ship extra ones in order to make up for this. On paper, it all works out in the insurance, and so everybody is happy.
However, when a shipment arrives with no damage, these 'extra' items must now be paid for by the receiver. Since some of these items are sometimes worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, when you suddenly have to pay for more than you bargained for, it hurts the balance sheet.
A friend of mine described how a government tax agent and several company officers had to witness the destruction of a perfectly working, hand-crafted, grand piano. Warehouse workers raised and dropped the two ton monster fifteen times from a forklift before it was destroyed to the point where the tax agent would allow it to be written off.
Spend a month hand crafting a top of the line musical instrument, ship it overseas, and then have it destroyed. All just to satisfy the red tape. This is so Muggle/Douglas Adams, it makes my head spin!
I almost look forward to the day when society is decimated by a comet!
-Fantastic Lad
Since Hollywood is the pumping heart of mind-control media production for the West, is it any wonder they had films already in the bag designed to keep the embers of war-mongering public hate and nationalistic pride burning brightly?
What blows me away is that they would be so blatent! You'd think they would at least wait until after the 9-11 display, just to keep the books clean, so to speak. The fact that can get away with this sort of thing demonstrates just how little work there is left to do in terms of programming the public.
Oh. And here's an interesting tid-bit: In Toronto, there is a fellow claiming to be a U.S. Navy spy claiming that he had foreknowledge of 9-11. The interesting part is that he was locked up in a Canadian jail back in August. He was screaming and yelling about the impending September attacks, to the point where he signed a document to this effect, had it witnessed and court sealed, several weeks before they happened.
You can read the article here
-Fantastic Lad
Death camps in America filled to capacity before this decade is out. They are empty and waiting already. .
This is only true for the enlightened. Clearly, my comments were not directed at people who are powerful enough to understand this. But that's not the point I was making.
For instance, take your comment:
"The danger of such an attack happening has been there for years and the incompetence of the security staff at the majority of airports will ensure that something similar will be possible in the future."
This very thought demonstrates that your thinking was directly affected by the display. Look at how the U.S. has followed up: Civil liberties revoked. Privacy diminished. General war-mongering.
You may not, but I call this a darkening of culture.
And if you consider that there is every possibility that the events of 9-11 were engineered in part by the U.S. secret services, then an enlightened person might begin to see just how media and reality are in fact intertwined to the point where society can be played like a musical instrument.
Now I am not saying that GTA3 is the cause of society's downfall, (though it contributes). And I'm not even saying that it should be pulled from the shelves. (People MUST be allowed to choose.) What I AM saying is that people should know that indulging in darkness WILL affect them, and to be enlightened means one recognizes this and chooses not to diminish oneself by indulging.
How many digital depictions of girls have you set on fire with a flame thrower for the sake of entertainment? If more than 1, then why? What associations do you think your subconscious mind made, particularly in regard to pleasure associations? Please review.
-Fantastic Lad