One of the reviews I read of 300 said Gladiator (the Russell Crowe movie) was more historically accurate... thus fulfilling my weekly quota of wishing I could strangle a movie reviewer.
The movie 300 was an adaptation of the graphic novel 300, which in turn was based both upon the actual battle at Thermopylae AND inspired by the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans, which Frank Miller saw when he was young.
It's not exceptionally historically accurate (as the Spartans didn't die alone in the final battle, Xerxes was not a 7-foot tall bald gay man, etc.) but it's not a bad movie or a bad graphic novel.
No, it's not. Breaking and entering actually requires you to either break in (forcing a door, picking a lock, breaking a window, etc.) or enter under false pretenses (lie about having permission to be allowed it, present false credentials, use a stolen ID card/entry card). Also, you must be shown to have had the intent to commit a felony, whether or not the felony actually occurred.
Therefore, if you open an unlocked door, and enter a building without permission, you are not breaking and entering. Trespassing, sure. But not B & E.
It's still a bad move. Basically, the judge should have thrown the case out because it's a piece of shit (or whatever the legal term is). If any of the gambling sites had corporate sites in Kentucky or web-hosting in Kentucky, then the suit has some legal basis.
But since they don't, it's setting a bad precedent of "Well, it's illegal here, so our laws apply to the website no matter where it's located".
Hang on tight, kids, it's a slippery slope coming up!
Yeah, but wasn't it one of those 2004 debates where Bush had that bulge from something under his jacket? Did anyone ever really find out what the heck that thing was?
Perhaps because: A) They don't pay taxes B) They don't own land C) They don't have families D) They don't have any interaction with most laws (from cars to copyright)...and so on...
You do realize that in the United States, the minimum age to register to vote is 18, right?
And a lot of 18-year-olds are still living at home, may not have jobs and are therefore not paying taxes (BTW, poll taxes were eliminated in the U.S. by 1966.), and probably don't have dependents of their own?
Wow... by your qualifications, they shouldn't be allowed to vote either, huh?
You're absolutely right. After all, Obama is also 72 years old, was held prisoner for five years, and has had the most dangerous form of skin cancer a year after he released all his medical records.
He hasn't been disbarred yet, but it's proceeding that way. He's been recommended for an "Enhanced disbarrment" which would increase the length of time before he can reapply to the Bar from five years to ten years.
Given that Jack is 57 now, if he got that, he'd be 67 before he could reapply, and by then, who knows...
*nod* I'm not sure which type of quest I hate more... the "bring me 10 goblin livers" type (and honestly, after killing a few goblins and not being to find a suitable liver in the resulting carnage, you'd think I'd just stop attacking them in the liver) or the "do something completely disgusting" like WoW's recent fascination with digging through animal poop.
Yes, but unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop, so I'm living in the now, rather then living in the 11th century.
It's possible that 1000 years from now, Scientology will be just as accepted as Christianity, and their documents/religious texts will be as available then as the Bible is available now.
Right now, I can go to practically any moderate-sized bookstore and find multiple copies of the Bible. I can also find the Qu'ran, the Old Testament, probably stuff on Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American beliefs, and so on. But I cannot find, say, the OT III documents, because the CoS hides those away and only lets people who they think have earned them (i.e. paid thousands upon thousands of dollars and been indoctrinated into the higher echelons of the organization) read them.
Is that wrong? Technically, no. It's their "religion" and they can run it the way they want to. But name me one other religion that hides their main religious documents behind the concept of trade secrets. And it's what lengths they go to in the name of protecting those (IMAO) obviously ridiculous stories that irritate me.
If you go to a group of Christians, and ask questions about their beliefs, they may engage you in a debate on Christian theology, they may give you a Bible to read, and so forth, but you can generally access these materials for free. If you go a group of Muslims and do the same thing, you will likely get the same results. Same goes for the Jewish religion, or Mormonism, or Hinduism.
If you go to a Scientology center and ask questions about their beliefs, what it will come down to is "Here are some classes you can take, they cost many thousands of dollars". Scientology is not willing to give away their beliefs just as every other major religion is willing to do so. Scientology is not willing to discuss their beliefs in an open and free environment, as the other major religions are willing to do. And Scientology hides many tenets of their beliefs behind copyright and trade secret laws.
That last one is the big one. You don't officially learn about their secret beliefs until you have paid many thousands of dollars and been sufficiently indoctrinated into the Church of Scientology.
Compare that to the other religions. To the best of my knowledge, there is no super-secret ultra-eyes-only version of the Bible that only the elite Christians get to read. There is no "not for the viewing of non-believers" version of the Qu'ran that only the most devout Muslims get to read. But there are secret Scientology documents which explain core beliefs of Scientology that the general rank and file of the CoS do not have access to.
And then, when people try to promulgate that information, it irks the CoS leadership. Because, for some reason, they don't want it spread that they believe that a galactic overlord named Xenu did all the wacky poor-scripted science-fictiony things he did many millions of years ago, here on Earth. (Excuse me, it was called Teegeeack then, according to these docs.) Because then people would go, "Wow, this reads like it was written by a hack science fiction author." (Which, you know, is what the guy who founded Scientology was.)
Well, here's the thing. It does, but it does it in what I consider a weird and annoying way. If I start to type in news.google.com... well, in Firefox 2, as soon as I got the first couple letters typed, it would well, not auto-complete the URL, but show the rest of it in the first dropdown option, if you understand what I'm saying.
In Firefox 3, however, when I start typing in news.google.com, it lists Slashdot first because "News for nerds, stuff that matters" is the sub-heading for the main site. Once I get "news.go" typed in, then Firefox 3 realizes where I want to go, but not before then.
It's even weirder with other sites. Even though I have the main page for Order of the Stick bookmarked, it doesn't seem to remember that at all. Also, it can't seem to save other bookmarks properly, adding an extra "www." at the beginning of some of them.
I mean, if there was a simple "Turn off awesome bar, and have address bar work just like in Firefox 2 (or hell, EVERY other browser I've used in the last decade)" option, I'd take it and stop complaining. But there doesn't seem to be one.
I don't much care how it works... when I start typing in the address for Penny Arcade, it should not, even for an instant, show me a link to wikipedia. Yet it does. It also can't seem to remember the addresses for Order of the Stick or Ctrl Alt Del, no matter how many times I go there. I should not have to bookmark every last page I go to simply to get the address bar to work the way it did in Firefox 2. (You know, correctly.)
THANK YOU! It's good to know I'm not the only one who feels like this. I mean, what's wrong with keeping something simple if it works?
Yes, there probably are some new features of Firefox 3 that I will come to love. But I liked the way the Firefox 2 address bar worked because it wasn't trying to guess my intentions. It was simple, and it worked. And the oldbar add-on does not seem to fix the problem, nor do the about:config alterations I've tried.
have they fixed the damn "Awesome Bar" so it works? I'm getting a little tired of the way it currently works, where if I start typing "news" (to go to news.google.com, for example), slashdot is listed in the links because the sub-heading is "news for nerds".
No, no... when a politician gets up in front of a bunch of cameras and insists that multi-national ISPs should respect human rights and so forth, he's not doing it because he gives a fuck about some Chinese blogger getting hauled off by this generation's version of good little Maoists.
He wants to look good on human rights. That's it.
It would actually be worse for these ISPs business if Congress somehow managed to get them to adhere to this, regardless of whatever the local law is.
since when has the fact that U.S. law != world law every stopped that collection of idiots in Congress from ever trying to pass any legislation that is designed to affect more then the U.S.?
They're not doing it for the belief in human rights, they're doing it for the good press.
Well, we could start by not teaching them junk science, crap theories, and by not wasting the time of the administrators, teachers AND students on metrics that do not show comprehension of the material (but rather rote recitation).
We could actually fund science and math programs instead of funneling all the money and attention to the high school football teams.
We could work to raise the pay rates of teachers so we could attract more qualified and dedicated individuals, instead of raising the pay of administrators and bureaucrats.
How about an end to passing underachiever students into the next grade simply to keep your failure rates low? I KNOW. What a shock, actually making sure the little bastards learn something before kicking them up a grade.
And hey, how about an actual usable and comprehensive policy regarding drugs and medication that wouldn't kick a kid out of school for taking an aspirin that the school nurse didn't dispense? (For those schools that had school nurses, that is. Mine didn't.) Instead of a knee-jerk reaction of expulsion to someone taking an unauthorized Flintstones vitamin?
Yeah, he tried that (well, inasmuch as it could be considered a serious run, which it wasn't).
He didn't even get on the South Carolina Democratic primary ballot, despite getting enough support, because the SC Democratic party are a bunch of humorless dicks.
Mind you, the rally he attended here in Columbia was fun.
Slashdot Mirror
This went a little further then calling someone an insensitive clod, you insensitive clod.
One of the reviews I read of 300 said Gladiator (the Russell Crowe movie) was more historically accurate... thus fulfilling my weekly quota of wishing I could strangle a movie reviewer.
The movie 300 was an adaptation of the graphic novel 300, which in turn was based both upon the actual battle at Thermopylae AND inspired by the 1962 movie The 300 Spartans, which Frank Miller saw when he was young.
It's not exceptionally historically accurate (as the Spartans didn't die alone in the final battle, Xerxes was not a 7-foot tall bald gay man, etc.) but it's not a bad movie or a bad graphic novel.
We salute you, sir.
Wasn't the "Mission Accomplished" over five years ago?
No, it's not. Breaking and entering actually requires you to either break in (forcing a door, picking a lock, breaking a window, etc.) or enter under false pretenses (lie about having permission to be allowed it, present false credentials, use a stolen ID card/entry card). Also, you must be shown to have had the intent to commit a felony, whether or not the felony actually occurred.
Therefore, if you open an unlocked door, and enter a building without permission, you are not breaking and entering. Trespassing, sure. But not B & E.
It's still a bad move. Basically, the judge should have thrown the case out because it's a piece of shit (or whatever the legal term is). If any of the gambling sites had corporate sites in Kentucky or web-hosting in Kentucky, then the suit has some legal basis.
But since they don't, it's setting a bad precedent of "Well, it's illegal here, so our laws apply to the website no matter where it's located".
Hang on tight, kids, it's a slippery slope coming up!
Yeah, but wasn't it one of those 2004 debates where Bush had that bulge from something under his jacket? Did anyone ever really find out what the heck that thing was?
Perhaps because: ...and so on...
A) They don't pay taxes
B) They don't own land
C) They don't have families
D) They don't have any interaction with most laws (from cars to copyright)
You do realize that in the United States, the minimum age to register to vote is 18, right?
And a lot of 18-year-olds are still living at home, may not have jobs and are therefore not paying taxes (BTW, poll taxes were eliminated in the U.S. by 1966.), and probably don't have dependents of their own?
Wow... by your qualifications, they shouldn't be allowed to vote either, huh?
You're absolutely right. After all, Obama is also 72 years old, was held prisoner for five years, and has had the most dangerous form of skin cancer a year after he released all his medical records.
Oh wait.....
Senator McCain, why won't you release your full medical records?
He hasn't been disbarred yet, but it's proceeding that way. He's been recommended for an "Enhanced disbarrment" which would increase the length of time before he can reapply to the Bar from five years to ten years.
Given that Jack is 57 now, if he got that, he'd be 67 before he could reapply, and by then, who knows...
*nod* I'm not sure which type of quest I hate more... the "bring me 10 goblin livers" type (and honestly, after killing a few goblins and not being to find a suitable liver in the resulting carnage, you'd think I'd just stop attacking them in the liver) or the "do something completely disgusting" like WoW's recent fascination with digging through animal poop.
Yes, but unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop, so I'm living in the now, rather then living in the 11th century.
It's possible that 1000 years from now, Scientology will be just as accepted as Christianity, and their documents/religious texts will be as available then as the Bible is available now.
Right now, I can go to practically any moderate-sized bookstore and find multiple copies of the Bible. I can also find the Qu'ran, the Old Testament, probably stuff on Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American beliefs, and so on. But I cannot find, say, the OT III documents, because the CoS hides those away and only lets people who they think have earned them (i.e. paid thousands upon thousands of dollars and been indoctrinated into the higher echelons of the organization) read them.
Is that wrong? Technically, no. It's their "religion" and they can run it the way they want to. But name me one other religion that hides their main religious documents behind the concept of trade secrets. And it's what lengths they go to in the name of protecting those (IMAO) obviously ridiculous stories that irritate me.
Here's a short breakdown.
If you go to a group of Christians, and ask questions about their beliefs, they may engage you in a debate on Christian theology, they may give you a Bible to read, and so forth, but you can generally access these materials for free. If you go a group of Muslims and do the same thing, you will likely get the same results. Same goes for the Jewish religion, or Mormonism, or Hinduism.
If you go to a Scientology center and ask questions about their beliefs, what it will come down to is "Here are some classes you can take, they cost many thousands of dollars". Scientology is not willing to give away their beliefs just as every other major religion is willing to do so. Scientology is not willing to discuss their beliefs in an open and free environment, as the other major religions are willing to do. And Scientology hides many tenets of their beliefs behind copyright and trade secret laws.
That last one is the big one. You don't officially learn about their secret beliefs until you have paid many thousands of dollars and been sufficiently indoctrinated into the Church of Scientology.
Compare that to the other religions. To the best of my knowledge, there is no super-secret ultra-eyes-only version of the Bible that only the elite Christians get to read. There is no "not for the viewing of non-believers" version of the Qu'ran that only the most devout Muslims get to read. But there are secret Scientology documents which explain core beliefs of Scientology that the general rank and file of the CoS do not have access to.
And then, when people try to promulgate that information, it irks the CoS leadership. Because, for some reason, they don't want it spread that they believe that a galactic overlord named Xenu did all the wacky poor-scripted science-fictiony things he did many millions of years ago, here on Earth. (Excuse me, it was called Teegeeack then, according to these docs.) Because then people would go, "Wow, this reads like it was written by a hack science fiction author." (Which, you know, is what the guy who founded Scientology was.)
Well, here's the thing. It does, but it does it in what I consider a weird and annoying way. If I start to type in news.google.com... well, in Firefox 2, as soon as I got the first couple letters typed, it would well, not auto-complete the URL, but show the rest of it in the first dropdown option, if you understand what I'm saying.
In Firefox 3, however, when I start typing in news.google.com, it lists Slashdot first because "News for nerds, stuff that matters" is the sub-heading for the main site. Once I get "news.go" typed in, then Firefox 3 realizes where I want to go, but not before then.
It's even weirder with other sites. Even though I have the main page for Order of the Stick bookmarked, it doesn't seem to remember that at all. Also, it can't seem to save other bookmarks properly, adding an extra "www." at the beginning of some of them.
I mean, if there was a simple "Turn off awesome bar, and have address bar work just like in Firefox 2 (or hell, EVERY other browser I've used in the last decade)" option, I'd take it and stop complaining. But there doesn't seem to be one.
I don't much care how it works... when I start typing in the address for Penny Arcade, it should not, even for an instant, show me a link to wikipedia. Yet it does. It also can't seem to remember the addresses for Order of the Stick or Ctrl Alt Del, no matter how many times I go there. I should not have to bookmark every last page I go to simply to get the address bar to work the way it did in Firefox 2. (You know, correctly.)
THANK YOU! It's good to know I'm not the only one who feels like this. I mean, what's wrong with keeping something simple if it works?
Yes, there probably are some new features of Firefox 3 that I will come to love. But I liked the way the Firefox 2 address bar worked because it wasn't trying to guess my intentions. It was simple, and it worked. And the oldbar add-on does not seem to fix the problem, nor do the about:config alterations I've tried.
have they fixed the damn "Awesome Bar" so it works? I'm getting a little tired of the way it currently works, where if I start typing "news" (to go to news.google.com, for example), slashdot is listed in the links because the sub-heading is "news for nerds".
No, no... when a politician gets up in front of a bunch of cameras and insists that multi-national ISPs should respect human rights and so forth, he's not doing it because he gives a fuck about some Chinese blogger getting hauled off by this generation's version of good little Maoists.
He wants to look good on human rights. That's it.
It would actually be worse for these ISPs business if Congress somehow managed to get them to adhere to this, regardless of whatever the local law is.
since when has the fact that U.S. law != world law every stopped that collection of idiots in Congress from ever trying to pass any legislation that is designed to affect more then the U.S.?
They're not doing it for the belief in human rights, they're doing it for the good press.
Well, we could start by not teaching them junk science, crap theories, and by not wasting the time of the administrators, teachers AND students on metrics that do not show comprehension of the material (but rather rote recitation).
We could actually fund science and math programs instead of funneling all the money and attention to the high school football teams.
We could work to raise the pay rates of teachers so we could attract more qualified and dedicated individuals, instead of raising the pay of administrators and bureaucrats.
How about an end to passing underachiever students into the next grade simply to keep your failure rates low? I KNOW. What a shock, actually making sure the little bastards learn something before kicking them up a grade.
And hey, how about an actual usable and comprehensive policy regarding drugs and medication that wouldn't kick a kid out of school for taking an aspirin that the school nurse didn't dispense? (For those schools that had school nurses, that is. Mine didn't.) Instead of a knee-jerk reaction of expulsion to someone taking an unauthorized Flintstones vitamin?
Yeah, he tried that (well, inasmuch as it could be considered a serious run, which it wasn't).
He didn't even get on the South Carolina Democratic primary ballot, despite getting enough support, because the SC Democratic party are a bunch of humorless dicks.
Mind you, the rally he attended here in Columbia was fun.
Perhaps the judge realized he was out of his element in the whole computer field and decided not to base his judgement on ignorance?
Yeah, I know... scary.
Well, let's face it... San Francisco has a loooong history of crazy. It is the city where a homeless man declared himself Emperor of the United States and the city went along with him.