I know what you mean...I started reading Jordan's Wheel of Time trilogy, and although the first one was decent (I never made it past the third one) the series quickly degenerated into a blatant, 2nd rate ripoff of the Lord of the Rings meets Dune with some clearly fsked up m/f relationships.
Speaking of which... have you read the Dune series at all? I'm just not sure if they truly constitute fantasy or whether they're sci-fi.
How many (casual) tolkien fans are aware that there was sequel planned in the works for The Lord of the Rings?. Tolkien never got to far on it - he said it was developing into too much of a thriller - but the first few pages are in The Peoples of Middle Earth v12 of the History of Middle Earth. IMHO, there is nothing more exciting than those first few pages, and I dearly wish tolkien had continued to write them - the plot took place about 100 years into the reign of Aragorn's son. The story was entitled "The New Shadow" and I believe that it would have dealt a lot with the black arts of the Númenórean.
At any rate, pick up a copy of that book and also - if you're not familiar with the History of Middle Earth - the middle 4 volumes
The Return of the Shadow
The Treason of Isengard
The War of the Ring
Sauron Defeated
have a lot of the original portions of the Lord of the Rings before Tolkien revised them in very readable form. eg. Aragorn started off as a hobbit named Trotter, but Tolkien felt there was already too many hobbits in the story... etc.
corporations have "personhood" under the law, but no one has to pay the price of any wrong they do
Government, on the other hand, is fairly easy to attack should that become necessary
I'm not sure I agree. How is big business any less difficult to attack than government? (eg tabacco, GM - sued for $4 billion, McDonalds for the coffee incident - basically any lawsuit whether well founded or not). I believe it's much easier to attack/sue businesses.
As for businesses having better lawyers? Some of them maybe, but not all of them. Just like some agencies in the government have access to DoJ lawyers and some don't. You won't catch any one suing the FBI or CIA or NSA and getting away with it, now will you?
As for it being easier to dispose of a corrupt government than a corrupt business - yes, in a third world country. But how many successful revolutions against the government (Waco being an attempt, I guess) do we have vs. successful revolutions/attacks against corporate business policies?
It would be easy to debate this all day, but I feel much more certain that the government is the danger. Big super-bodies, whether federal or capitalistic, are dangerous to us little guys, but the businesses seem the easier of the two to check.
In July, during the trial, 2600 lawyer Martin Garbus filed a motion to kick Kaplan off the case, saying the judge displayed "deep-seated antagonism" and once worked at a firm that had represented Time Warner on DVD antitrust issues. Kaplan denied the request.
You don't say...
Re:19,000 Botched Votes?
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
well, I have no proof of course that every voter who voted wrong requested a new ballot, however, the process of voting would have made this obvious. If you vote for multiple candidates the ballot in invalid. I'm not sure that any bells go off and a whistle blows, but if a user were to look at the ballot and see two holes, they would request a new one. And apparently, all of them did. This was reported almost immediately on election night and shortly thereafter, but for some reason it hasn't been reported since.
19,000 Botched Votes?
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
Listen doofus, you keep parotting this mantra about there being 19,000 botched votes like everyone else in the media. This is a misrepresentation. Every single one of these voters that made an error (they accidentally voted for >1 candidate at once) requested a brand new ballot at runtime and revoted on the spot. Daley (Gore's campaign manager) has been having a field day with this but in essence he's been lying to the public.
I believe Smalltalk was developed by Xerox? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is true. And no one needs a reminder of how great Xerox has always been at marketing their products. I believe if Smalltalk had been marketed correctly at the outset, Java would either never have been written, or at least not have the place it has today in the market.
I learned Smalltalk as part of my school's CS curriculum about 3 yrs ago, and although I don't remember much about it (aside from the fact that IBM's visual age tool was just as slow as the one they've created for Java) it wasn't a half bad language...
ummm...I wish I could believe that, but my feeling is that the government is not being benificient.
This is just another example of them "looking after us" like when they sued the tabacco companies. Do you think they really cared about children? Hell, no!. They're just a bunch of damned greedy bastards themselves, jumping on every bandwagon they can find to sue private industries.
Where do you think the money from these lawsuits will go? Back to us? Yea, friggin' right!
I have no sympathy for the music industry, but this doesn't make my any happier...
who's the one using the wrong definition? I chose the 4th because I felt it was most applicable to the subject. You chose the first for the same reason.
Calling electricity a theory is a fallacy. A theory (sorry, I don't have websters on me, had to use dictionary.com) is "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture."
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi -bin/dict.pl?term=theory
A theory is a conjecture. Electricity may once have been a theory (back in Ben Franklin's day) but it can't be considered that any longer.
Ok thanks - The pot roast is back, better than it was before, if possible. however, I do agree with some of the other posts that a really is needed. The reason this needs to be added is not from grammatical neccessity, but it adds to the punchline. (a) That's when things really got weird vs. (b)That's when things got weird Version A implies that there was already something weird going on, lending depth to the statement. Version B just doesn't go as far as A; it is redundant because it describes what we already know to be weird as weird. Just my $.02
I was personally disapointed to see that you had taken out the part about the pot roast. I don't think the three headed newt fit, simply because I can't imagine it. But the pot roast was a sheer work of genius.
yea well, while Thomas Jefferson may have expounded upon the ideal that a revolution was a handy sort of thing to have around every now and again, He's no model for anti-censorship claims. If you visit the Jefferson museum, the Bible he owned is proof positive of this point. Througout the entire book, he took a razor blade and cut out certain verses or entire passages that he didn't agree with. Like every censor, he came across ideas he didn't agree with and eliminated them. I just thought it was ironic that someone, who while he may have supported free speech (and event only for priveleged classes) was an active censor himself.
well naturally he didn't want the ring - anyone with enough humility and wisdom would see that the task was too great for them and would not want it. But I was thinking specifically of the line where Frodo says
I, Frodo, son of Drogo, will take the ring, although I do not know the way (pp)
Frodo was unwilling, and everyone else (of wisdom) were willing he should, but he still volunteered for it.
My point is that the council would not have thrust the ring upon anyone, as you have suggested.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe he wrote a lot of his original text in Quenya (one of his own languages). Rather amazing...
I believe I read that he invented 14 all told.
Yes - I highly recommend them. The Mind's Eye (American) version was also worth listening to, though not quite so good.
I know what you mean...I started reading Jordan's Wheel of Time trilogy, and although the first one was decent (I never made it past the third one) the series quickly degenerated into a blatant, 2nd rate ripoff of the Lord of the Rings meets Dune with some clearly fsked up m/f relationships.
... have you read the Dune series at all? I'm just not sure if they truly constitute fantasy or whether they're sci-fi.
Speaking of which
memorized most of them too...
How many (casual) tolkien fans are aware that there was sequel planned in the works for The Lord of the Rings?. Tolkien never got to far on it - he said it was developing into too much of a thriller - but the first few pages are in The Peoples of Middle Earth v12 of the History of Middle Earth. IMHO, there is nothing more exciting than those first few pages, and I dearly wish tolkien had continued to write them - the plot took place about 100 years into the reign of Aragorn's son. The story was entitled "The New Shadow" and I believe that it would have dealt a lot with the black arts of the Númenórean.
... etc.
At any rate, pick up a copy of that book and also - if you're not familiar with the History of Middle Earth - the middle 4 volumes
The Return of the Shadow
The Treason of Isengard
The War of the Ring
Sauron Defeated
have a lot of the original portions of the Lord of the Rings before Tolkien revised them in very readable form. eg. Aragorn started off as a hobbit named Trotter, but Tolkien felt there was already too many hobbits in the story
a smashing good read all of it.
like palmOS I'd switch immediately...
mmm...lucas personally pulled in $400 million after everyone and everything was paid off for TPM. I think in the mind of Lucas, he did just fine.
corporations have "personhood" under the law, but no one has to pay the price of any wrong they do
Government, on the other hand, is fairly easy to attack should that become necessary
I'm not sure I agree. How is big business any less difficult to attack than government? (eg tabacco, GM - sued for $4 billion, McDonalds for the coffee incident - basically any lawsuit whether well founded or not). I believe it's much easier to attack/sue businesses.
As for businesses having better lawyers? Some of them maybe, but not all of them. Just like some agencies in the government have access to DoJ lawyers and some don't. You won't catch any one suing the FBI or CIA or NSA and getting away with it, now will you?
As for it being easier to dispose of a corrupt government than a corrupt business - yes, in a third world country. But how many successful revolutions against the government (Waco being an attempt, I guess) do we have vs. successful revolutions/attacks against corporate business policies?
It would be easy to debate this all day, but I feel much more certain that the government is the danger. Big super-bodies, whether federal or capitalistic, are dangerous to us little guys, but the businesses seem the easier of the two to check.
In July, during the trial, 2600 lawyer Martin Garbus filed a motion to kick Kaplan off the case, saying the judge displayed "deep-seated antagonism" and once worked at a firm that had represented Time Warner on DVD antitrust issues. Kaplan denied the request.
You don't say ...
well, I have no proof of course that every voter who voted wrong requested a new ballot, however, the process of voting would have made this obvious. If you vote for multiple candidates the ballot in invalid. I'm not sure that any bells go off and a whistle blows, but if a user were to look at the ballot and see two holes, they would request a new one. And apparently, all of them did. This was reported almost immediately on election night and shortly thereafter, but for some reason it hasn't been reported since.
Listen doofus, you keep parotting this mantra about there being 19,000 botched votes like everyone else in the media. This is a misrepresentation. Every single one of these voters that made an error (they accidentally voted for >1 candidate at once) requested a brand new ballot at runtime and revoted on the spot. Daley (Gore's campaign manager) has been having a field day with this but in essence he's been lying to the public.
thanks man!
I believe Smalltalk was developed by Xerox? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is true. And no one needs a reminder of how great Xerox has always been at marketing their products. I believe if Smalltalk had been marketed correctly at the outset, Java would either never have been written, or at least not have the place it has today in the market.
I learned Smalltalk as part of my school's CS curriculum about 3 yrs ago, and although I don't remember much about it (aside from the fact that IBM's visual age tool was just as slow as the one they've created for Java) it wasn't a half bad language...
whatthehell...the sig is good.
nice sig...
I like that title...
yea, it sucks...
This is just another example of them "looking after us" like when they sued the tabacco companies. Do you think they really cared about children?
Hell, no!. They're just a bunch of damned greedy bastards themselves, jumping on every bandwagon they can find to sue private industries.
Where do you think the money from these lawsuits will go? Back to us? Yea, friggin' right!
I have no sympathy for the music industry, but this doesn't make my any happier...
who's the one using the wrong definition? I chose the 4th because I felt it was most applicable to the subject. You chose the first for the same reason.
Calling electricity a theory is a fallacy. A theory (sorry, I don't have websters on me, had to use dictionary.com) is "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture." http://www.dictionary.com/cgi -bin/dict.pl?term=theory
A theory is a conjecture. Electricity may once have been a theory (back in Ben Franklin's day) but it can't be considered that any longer.
Evolution is still a theory; still a conjecture.
Ok thanks -
The pot roast is back, better than it was before, if possible. however, I do agree with some of the other posts that a really is needed.
The reason this needs to be added is not from grammatical neccessity, but it adds to the punchline.
(a) That's when things really got weird
vs.
(b)That's when things got weird
Version A implies that there was already something weird going on, lending depth to the statement. Version B just doesn't go as far as A; it is redundant because it describes what we already know to be weird as weird.
Just my $.02
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
I was personally disapointed to see that you had taken out the part about the pot roast. I don't think the three headed newt fit, simply because I can't imagine it.
But the pot roast was a sheer work of genius.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
why is this a troll???? It makes perfect sense.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
yea well, while Thomas Jefferson may have expounded upon the ideal that a revolution was a handy sort of thing to have around every now and again, He's no model for anti-censorship claims.
If you visit the Jefferson museum, the Bible he owned is proof positive of this point. Througout the entire book, he took a razor blade and cut out certain verses or entire passages that he didn't agree with.
Like every censor, he came across ideas he didn't agree with and eliminated them.
I just thought it was ironic that someone, who while he may have supported free speech (and event only for priveleged classes) was an active censor himself.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
I, Frodo, son of Drogo, will take the ring, although I do not know the way (pp)
Frodo was unwilling, and everyone else (of wisdom) were willing he should, but he still volunteered for it.
My point is that the council would not have thrust the ring upon anyone, as you have suggested.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit