You do understand the words "lousy imititation", right?
I did read the article, and I've just read it again. Thanks for making me waste five minutes of my time. At no point do they talk about protecting buyers' interests. On the counterfeiting issue, it is their brand name and solely their brand name they are trying to protect.
"Sounds like a perfect excuse for the French to stop paying sales tax."
They don't pay Sales tax though. They pay VAT, which differs from sales tax in that it applies all the way up to the root of the supply chain. To put it simplistically, the manufacturer adds VAT onto his price to the wholesaler, who gets it back by adding it onto his price to the retailer, who adds it onto his price to the customer, where the buck stops since he has nobody to pass the VAT onto.
"In many ways their country is better than ours, and this should be a source of embarrassment for us because they have a similar sized economy and population."
But not similar resources. We no longer have an empire; France far outweighs us in terms of most things physical (I'm talking about the land, not the way its inhabitants are endowed;) And with the size of their territory they have far more need of fast trains.
None of that is intended as criticism; just reasons we shouldn't be embarrassed.
Having said that, France is a great country but it is not without its downside. I speak with the advantage of having lived there 20 years and recently returned to the UK. Some things are better here, some things are better there. Shame we can't have all the good bits in one place. *shrug*
Following the Fat Duck link we see that "Blumenthal has a deep interest in the history of food, and the French culinary traditions in particular. The Fat Duck began as a bourgeois French restaurant, and many of the dishes are variations on traditional French dishes, such as petit sale -- a method of cooking poultry by steeping it in spicy salt water."
As for the non-French dishes in his restaurant and other highly rated British restaurants (a lot of which can be classed as "experimental") many of them are largely inspired by this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Bulli
OK, I know this has wandered dreadfully off topic but...
As a Brit who's just got back to living in the homeland after 20 years in France, I'd argue our reputation is more than warranted. One restaurant doesn't change that. But if it's any consolation to you, Britain isn't the only country at the wrong end of the culinary scale.
Maybe the sun exploding and wiping out the planet....that might qualify Yes but if the sun wipes out the planet and there's nobody left to grieve does it still make a noise, if you see what I mean?
How would you like it if the whole world could simply go to Google and see a photograph of you walking into a motel with a prostitute, leaving a strip club, getting mugged on the side of the street, or caught in the act of accidentally hitting somebody in a crosswalk with your car? It's that kind of publicity that most people are concerned about.
What's the difference between that and the same unknowing bystanders appearing in any random person's snapshots they've published on the web? Except perhaps for one of site frequentation volume.
...Arwen as the completely pointless character he wastes a good half hour of film time on? The novel The Hobbit was written for children. I bet the film isn't.
I had the misfortune to buy a Toshiba compact laptop three weeks ago pre-loaded with Vista Home Basic and a shitload of Toshiba stuff. And the WOW factor was well and truly there... as in "WOW what a load of shite!"
After using (or trying to use) it for a couple of weeks, I can confidently say Vista is not just inferior to XP; for any serious work at all, that machine is to all intents and purposes unusable. It reduced my productivity by a factor of two or three.
This week I was forced to give up and install XP on it instead. I had no real choice. It was a struggle to get it on but now it's done it's been well worth it and it's back to business as normal.
Vista? What's the point? What IS the point? It's a sad, sad product. I did look for a computer without Vista on it but found nothing (apart from Macs which with all due respect don't provide what I need from a computer).
I hope for other buyer's sakes this upgrade to XP gathers momentum fast.
I'm allergic to PDF because it takes me out of the integrated browsing environment I was in, simple as that. The browser's functions don't work any more.
If I'm on the Web I expect HTML web pages, not flash/PDF/whatever else the author decides is best for me.
Orientate is another one. I think it happens by analogy. E.g., differentiation is a noun derived from differentiate so orientation/administration must be a noun derived from orientate/administrate.
I believe the original reason for putting the punctuation inside the quotes was a mechanical one. The insertion of a quotation mark leaves the fragile comma or dot exposed, causing breakage on the printing plate.
I prefer the format myself, but for [a]esthetic reasons.
That is indeed what I meant about the elves. After Jackson's comprehensive misrepresentation of them in LOTR I'd have real doubts about his ability to give them their real face in the Hobbit. Instead of Bilbo rescuing the dwarves from the spiders he'd probably have Arwen rescuing Bilbo then taking him to those nice wood elves to receive splendid gifts and advice on how to kill dragons. No cancel that he'll probably have Arwen riding the damn dragon.
No cancel all of that I don't want to put ideas into his head!
I'd be gutted if Jackson directed The Hobbit and shudder to think what he is going to change this time round. Will the cavalry come to the rescue again in the battle of the five armies? Will he really portray the elves as nasty pieces of work? Will he be able to capture the humour of the moment in a story that is often very amusing? LOTR (the film) wasn't exactly a laugh a minute was it despite having two natural comics in Pippin and Merry.
What about the 60 years in-between? Well I do think we have enough information for a good scriptwriter to extrapolate a decent story line from it. My only problem is that if Jackson gets hold of it we're going to have to put up with half an hour discovering how and when Aragorn met and fell in love with frigging Arwen.
Explain to me why the police having your DNA is a bad thing?
Easy. It's a Bad Thing because I don't want them to have it. And don't ask why. I don't consider I need to justify my reasons. What part of "I DON'T WANT TO BE IN A DATABASE" don't people understand?
The "deal is a deal" approach seems only fair to me. But apparently reneging is fair practice. It was quite common in the UK, maybe 25 years ago when there was a seller's market, for people buying houses to find their agreed upon price suddenly outbid. There was even a special word invented for the phenomenon: gazumping.
Personally I don't see why anyone should get away with reneging on an auction sale. If you put an item up for auction "just to test the water" you should get what's coming to you. If you weren't prepared to sell at the reserve price then you shouldn't have put it up for auction in the first place.
"I'm not talking about things like amplifying Arwen's role throughout the trilogy"
I recently rewatched the whole of LOTR on DVD and it'll be the last time I do watch it. And Arwen is the main reason for that. To be honest, once the initial CGI wow factor has worn off I find it a supremely boring, disjointed film, and Arwen is the main source of that boredom. I'm willing to bite the bullet and accept silly changes and dumbing down, like the cavalry coming to the rescue in TTT, but I can't accept being bored. Would the film REALLY have suffered without all those endless scenes between Arwen and her dad?
I've never had any problem with Armstrong's words.
I always took "man" to mean simply "the biped known as homo sapiens", a physical thing, whereas mankind is a concept representing that biped's history, culture, hopes, fears, ambitions - the whole deal.
In which case Armstrong's words can be interpreted as "One small step for homo sapiens, but a whole chapter turned in his story on earth."
...a good example of the exception that proves the rule!
"Second, the implication of the exception is that using publicly available Internet materials is not permitted unless one has prior authorization or qualifies for the exception. This suggests that millions of Canadians outside the education system who use Internet-based materials are somehow violating the law."
Slashdot Mirror
You do understand the words "lousy imititation", right?
I did read the article, and I've just read it again. Thanks for making me waste five minutes of my time.
At no point do they talk about protecting buyers' interests. On the counterfeiting issue, it is their brand name and solely their brand name they are trying to protect.
I somehow doubt Louis Vuiton have sued because they are worried about you getting a lousy imitation.
"Sounds like a perfect excuse for the French to stop paying sales tax."
They don't pay Sales tax though. They pay VAT, which differs from sales tax in that it applies all the way up to the root of the supply chain.
To put it simplistically, the manufacturer adds VAT onto his price to the wholesaler, who gets it back by adding it onto his price to the retailer, who adds it onto his price to the customer, where the buck stops since he has nobody to pass the VAT onto.
... never heard of him. If he is worthy of mourning then I wish all those affected all my condolences.
"In many ways their country is better than ours, and this should be a source of embarrassment for us because they have a similar sized economy and population."
;)
But not similar resources. We no longer have an empire; France far outweighs us in terms of most things physical (I'm talking about the land, not the way its inhabitants are endowed
And with the size of their territory they have far more need of fast trains.
None of that is intended as criticism; just reasons we shouldn't be embarrassed.
Having said that, France is a great country but it is not without its downside. I speak with the advantage of having lived there 20 years and recently returned to the UK.
Some things are better here, some things are better there. Shame we can't have all the good bits in one place. *shrug*
British cuisine?
Following the Fat Duck link we see that "Blumenthal has a deep interest in the history of food, and the French culinary traditions in particular. The Fat Duck began as a bourgeois French restaurant, and many of the dishes are variations on traditional French dishes, such as petit sale -- a method of cooking poultry by steeping it in spicy salt water."
As for the non-French dishes in his restaurant and other highly rated British restaurants (a lot of which can be classed as "experimental") many of them are largely inspired by this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Bulli
OK, I know this has wandered dreadfully off topic but...
As a Brit who's just got back to living in the homeland after 20 years in France, I'd argue our reputation is more than warranted. One restaurant doesn't change that.
But if it's any consolation to you, Britain isn't the only country at the wrong end of the culinary scale.
Maybe the sun exploding and wiping out the planet....that might qualify
Yes but if the sun wipes out the planet and there's nobody left to grieve does it still make a noise, if you see what I mean?
How would you like it if the whole world could simply go to Google and see a photograph of you walking into a motel with a prostitute, leaving a strip club, getting mugged on the side of the street, or caught in the act of accidentally hitting somebody in a crosswalk with your car? It's that kind of publicity that most people are concerned about.
What's the difference between that and the same unknowing bystanders appearing in any random person's snapshots they've published on the web? Except perhaps for one of site frequentation volume.
Don't worry, Smirnoff have already taken matters in hand. Drink more vodka and we'll all be safe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iXwzBvdrIY
Apart from carrying a toothbrush around what do you excel at?
...Arwen as the completely pointless character he wastes a good half hour of film time on?
The novel The Hobbit was written for children. I bet the film isn't.
I had the misfortune to buy a Toshiba compact laptop three weeks ago pre-loaded with Vista Home Basic and a shitload of Toshiba stuff. And the WOW factor was well and truly there ... as in "WOW what a load of shite!"
After using (or trying to use) it for a couple of weeks, I can confidently say Vista is not just inferior to XP; for any serious work at all, that machine is to all intents and purposes unusable. It reduced my productivity by a factor of two or three.
This week I was forced to give up and install XP on it instead. I had no real choice. It was a struggle to get it on but now it's done it's been well worth it and it's back to business as normal.
Vista? What's the point? What IS the point? It's a sad, sad product. I did look for a computer without Vista on it but found nothing (apart from Macs which with all due respect don't provide what I need from a computer).
I hope for other buyer's sakes this upgrade to XP gathers momentum fast.
I'm allergic to PDF because it takes me out of the integrated browsing environment I was in, simple as that. The browser's functions don't work any more.
If I'm on the Web I expect HTML web pages, not flash/PDF/whatever else the author decides is best for me.
...Miss Teen South Carolina seem like a bit of a chump now doesn't it, eh?
Orientate is another one. I think it happens by analogy.
E.g., differentiation is a noun derived from differentiate so orientation/administration must be a noun derived from orientate/administrate.
I believe the original reason for putting the punctuation inside the quotes was a mechanical one. The insertion of a quotation mark leaves the fragile comma or dot exposed, causing breakage on the printing plate.
I prefer the format myself, but for [a]esthetic reasons.
That is indeed what I meant about the elves. After Jackson's comprehensive misrepresentation of them in LOTR I'd have real doubts about his ability to give them their real face in the Hobbit.
Instead of Bilbo rescuing the dwarves from the spiders he'd probably have Arwen rescuing Bilbo then taking him to those nice wood elves to receive splendid gifts and advice on how to kill dragons.
No cancel that he'll probably have Arwen riding the damn dragon.
No cancel all of that I don't want to put ideas into his head!
I'd be gutted if Jackson directed The Hobbit and shudder to think what he is going to change this time round.
Will the cavalry come to the rescue again in the battle of the five armies?
Will he really portray the elves as nasty pieces of work?
Will he be able to capture the humour of the moment in a story that is often very amusing? LOTR (the film) wasn't exactly a laugh a minute was it despite having two natural comics in Pippin and Merry.
What about the 60 years in-between? Well I do think we have enough information for a good scriptwriter to extrapolate a decent story line from it. My only problem is that if Jackson gets hold of it we're going to have to put up with half an hour discovering how and when Aragorn met and fell in love with frigging Arwen.
Explain to me why the police having your DNA is a bad thing?
Easy. It's a Bad Thing because I don't want them to have it.
And don't ask why. I don't consider I need to justify my reasons.
What part of "I DON'T WANT TO BE IN A DATABASE" don't people understand?
The "deal is a deal" approach seems only fair to me. But apparently reneging is fair practice. It was quite common in the UK, maybe 25 years ago when there was a seller's market, for people buying houses to find their agreed upon price suddenly outbid. There was even a special word invented for the phenomenon: gazumping.
Personally I don't see why anyone should get away with reneging on an auction sale. If you put an item up for auction "just to test the water" you should get what's coming to you. If you weren't prepared to sell at the reserve price then you shouldn't have put it up for auction in the first place.
"For some reason the phrase "as big of" has always grated with me."
Don't sound apologetic; it should grate. The "of" is noise. "As big an issue" is the correct construction.
I find it funny that the final sentence was so bad that even a grammar nazi hater was shocked by it, and yet said person still springs to its defence.
"I'm not talking about things like amplifying Arwen's role throughout the trilogy"
I recently rewatched the whole of LOTR on DVD and it'll be the last time I do watch it. And Arwen is the main reason for that. To be honest, once the initial CGI wow factor has worn off I find it a supremely boring, disjointed film, and Arwen is the main source of that boredom. I'm willing to bite the bullet and accept silly changes and dumbing down, like the cavalry coming to the rescue in TTT, but I can't accept being bored. Would the film REALLY have suffered without all those endless scenes between Arwen and her dad?
I've never had any problem with Armstrong's words.
I always took "man" to mean simply "the biped known as homo sapiens", a physical thing, whereas mankind is a concept representing that biped's history, culture, hopes, fears, ambitions - the whole deal.
In which case Armstrong's words can be interpreted as "One small step for homo sapiens, but a whole chapter turned in his story on earth."
...a good example of the exception that proves the rule!
"Second, the implication of the exception is that using publicly available Internet materials is not permitted unless one has prior authorization or qualifies for the exception. This suggests that millions of Canadians outside the education system who use Internet-based materials are somehow violating the law."