Cruise missiles can't attack multiple targets - single payload release and you're done. Also if you have to recall the mission you're out 1.5M with a cruise missile - the only recall is to destroy it. With a UCAV you just tell it to come home.
The loitering and attacking targets of opportunity is also a good point (as made by someone else), and it's not something a cruise missile can do, period. If you have a UCAV circling an area it may be able to spot and take out a target in under a minute. If you have a Predator surveying the area, identify a target, and then launch a cruise missle it's a 5-10 minute delay -- more than enough time for a target to move from one safe spot to another, or to disappear entirely into unobservable terrain.
A good bit of this, of course, depends on the payload of a UCAV. If it only has 1 or 2 bomb bays/missile racks then it's not much better than a cruise missile. If it has 4-6 then it has a good bit of versatility above and beyond cruise missiles.
Oh, and finally, a UCAV is still piloted. Which means that it can react to changing conditions far better than a cruise missile can. It's really, really, REALLY hard to have a cruise missile hit a moving target - since they're programmed prior to launch. A UCAV would have no problems targeting and eliminating a tank, motorcade, or ship.
Dogfighting is dead... I don't know of any recent air-to-air combats that have ended in dogfighting - AVRAM's take out your opponent from 50+ miles away, and I suspect there are missiles that do it even further now.
About the only (fixed wing) aircraft which significantly used its guns was the A-10, and it's in the process of being decomissioned as helicoptors and laser-guided bombs take over its missions. Even then, that wasn't air-to-air combat - not unless the A-10 driver wanted to go down in a fireball.
Paper towels, maybe, but doubtful. Toilet paper? Uh... with the very strong societal taboo against bodily functions in the Western hemisphere do you honestly think any company would advertise on something you're about to wipe your ass with? Very negative association there.
There has been some advertising on the inside door of public toilets, but even that hasn't proven very successful. Plus it tends to get vandalized a lot.
As for the fetus - I don't think anyone's conclusively shown any effect of normal audio levels on the unborn. And since babies don't have the capability to process langugage for at least several months (and more commonly a year or so) after birth, I don't think you have to worry about it so much.
There's a company that provides this data, and pretty much provides it to everyone. I'm afraid the name of the company escapes me at the moment.
Could they subvert the data? Sure. Fat lot of good it'll do them - because then TV Guide, newspaper TV listings, satellite listings, and cable box listings will all show the wrong information. They're nearly all sourced from the same place.
And while you may say "so what", the fact is if you don't tell anybody when you're showing Friends, the odds of anyone watching it at all is seriously reduced. Which means advertising revenue goes into the toilet.
Wow... amazing... you think that competition may actually lead to lower prices? Major revelation there.
I'd also suggest you ensure that "basic cable" means the same thing in both places. Most cable companies offer an absolute low end service which consists of only the local broadcast networks for those who have no reception. It generally runs in the $7-12 range. The packages with CNN, Weather Channel, etc. generally range in the $20-40 area.
Cable TV is a rip though - it's an unregulated monopoly. Oh, sure, there's competition. Don't like your cable company? Sell your house and move. Because in some cases that is the only option - poor over the air reception and an obstructed view of satellites mean either you get cable or you get nothing. Plenty of choice there!
Depends on who all is on the other side, but associations like CEA and NWU aren't small... CEA is one of the heavyweights of the industry associations - you're talking about virtually every single company that sells consumer electronics in the US. How big a market is that, exactly? We're talking about Sony, Phillips, Toshiba, GE, and so forth here. BIG MONEY. And, of course, Intel.
Some of the individual names are noteworthy too - not just Friedman, but also well regarded authors like Le Guinn, Berry, and Matthiessen.
The light at the end of the tunnel may be wavering, but it's not out. Yet.
As many others have pointed out, it's between a rock and a hard place. Allow weak passwords and you'll get them. Force strong ones and they'll be written down where anyone can find them (I used to work at a company whose Unix admin wrote down all the root passwords on the bottom of his keyboard wrist rest. Yes, he sucked.)
The forced password changes really piss me off though, especially when combined with long memories of "previous passwords". I use secure, uncrackable passwords for most things, and particularly for work. But when I'm forced to change them every 30 days you can bet I'll run out of things that I can easily remember, especially since I have passwords for work, for home, for email, for websites, my ATM card(s), the company's alarm system, and so forth. Eventually I end up relying on wonderful passwords like "abcdef1" which may as well be an invitation to use my UID.
It really is a catch-22 situation. I suppose SecureID and the like are the "best" solution, but they're nearly as unwieldy for the user as strong passwords. But at least they can't just be written down -- just lost or stolen.
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
on
Fair IP Laws?
·
· Score: 2
Our whole economy is shifting away from MATERIAL to KNOWLEDGE/INFORMATION/SERVICE.
Ding, ding, ding.
The issue is that our current IP system is not designed to handle this... or, rather, I think 50 years ago it would've done ok, but recent changes in legislative, judicial, and administrative policies have skewed it deeply to the wrong end of the spectrum. If we don't fix these problems then we'll wind up with a legal system that is so overburdoned that another area of the world will wind up preeminant.
This is much the same as what happened in Europe with the industrial revolution -- various European countries were the world leaders from 1600-1900. As the industrial revolution progressed various laws were passed to protect workers' rights, and while many of them were badly needed (child labor laws for instance), some were over the top. What happened? The industrial revolution continued in full swing. Elsewhere. Namely the US, where the labor laws weren't quite as burdonsome (and now the labor is moving elsewhere again).
Right now it's looking like SE Asia is going to be the powerhouse for the information age, if they can keep the Islamic fundamentalists out. They have very loose IP laws (too loose, but that will change), and large areas which are ready to move into the 21st century, instead of trying to protect the industries that sprouted in the 20th.
If not them, I'm sure South America would be happy to take it's spot in the limelight for a hundred years or so. But either way, current law makers, corporations, and even individuals are paving the way to obsolecense.
The question is the same as it always has been - "What have you done for me lately?". In the business world that's largely what it comes down to. Of course, you also have to execute on innovation, which they've failed at too.
They were buying companies left and right and increasing thier already huge debt burdon. And then failing to utilize many of the technologies they bought.
Once upon a time Bell Labs was the leader in numerous fields, largely because they invented them. Now they're in second place or worse in virtually every field. They'll occasionally come out with something innovative and then someone else will do the same thing without violating their patent, for less, and with a better business plan.
Disclaimer - I do realize this is off topic a little, but I want people to think about how much great tech comes out of there!)
I'd also put that in the past tense.
Lucent is rapidly becoming the Xerox PARC of the 1990s/2000s - lots of nifty stuff which proceeds to rot or be taken by other companies.
All of the early presidents were born in America, so they were natural born citizens (c.f. - http://www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS/).
I don't know if there was ever any debate about someone born on foreign soil trying to become president in the first 50 years or so, but I suspect that "natural born citizen" would have ruled them out.
That's like claiming that the program you just compiled should belong to the compiler maker, the standards committee, and whoever wrote the editor. After all, all you did was string words together and throw in some creative parts (e.g. - the logic).
Or maybe all books should belong to the font maker and the word processor vendor. Again, all you provided was the "creative part".
Perhaps music should belong to the instrument makers and other electronics companies involved. Once more, just using someone else's tools. The creative part is obviously irrelevant.
Sorry, things are provided for an intended use. When they are used for that intended use then you should retain intellectual property -- because that is all you're providing in the first place. The IP laws are written with this concept clearly in mind. I'm sorry that you, along with numerous companies (Activision amongst them) have completely missed out on this.
Oh, and finally, yes Id did see many, many pennys from those people "reselling their mindshare". They had to buy Doom afterall.
Which is why a lot of people with high end remotes simply remap the Mute button to Pause for DVD's, VCR's, and TiVo's.
I think my VCR actually does mute too, since they tend to decide to "Stop" instead of pause after a few minutes, but I haven't used a VCR in about 2 years now, so I'm not sure.
I agree with you - some people want to play tradesman, some want to play peasants, and some want to play adventurers. And there's all kinds of other things and shades in between.
The real issue is that you have to allow for this without forcing it. What if nobody wants to play a serf? Ok, that's fine... but how do you replace the function that they were supposed to serve, without making who play the role have to compete too much against the game itself? If they don't serve a function then what's the point of having them at all?
And you have to balance the need/not-needed very, very finely or else things get out of whack badly (look at clerics in EQ - single most necessary class in the game and the single most boring, mind-numbing class to play too, especially at the uber end of the game. My wife played one. I played an enchanter. Neither of us play anymore.)
The craft issue becomes a problem because it's a lot easier to add an item to a monster than it is to add 5 items in various spots in the world and add a recipe to create the original item you wanted to create in the first place. Plus you start entering trust issues with tradesman in a world where there's little recourse.
It wouldn't accept 18xx years, however I am now born on a date that is equally useless to them.
It also doesn't ask for street address or income - just birthdate, country/state (state changes depending on country selection, as does available time zones -- apparantly there are no "outlying US islands" in EST/EDT), and occupation (now "Other").
First off, if you haven't used your account in "weeks", it's probably deactivated. If you let the account go idle for 30 days it goes poof.
Second, what new disclaimer? There isn't one. And I just checked my hotmail account - it was indeed changed to "share e-mail address" and "share other personal information". "Share first and last name" was not checked though.
Not that it matters much. The flood of spam to my hotmail account has grown so bad I'm probably going to abandon it. And I've had that account for 6 years now.
Starting to? Heck, the magazine industry is virtually the hotbed of them.
Publisher's Clearing House is one example, where it was intimitated that buying more subscriptions would improve your chances of winning the sweepstakes - which is why some senior citizens wound up with magazine subscriptions that should run out right around 2300 AD or so. (Buying a subscription didn't affect your odds at all, but that was often less than clear)
Publishers will often try to get you to renew when you're nowhere near your expiration. I only subscribe to one magazine and they were sending renewal notices well over a year in advance of my subscription ending.
To make it even better, the new trend is to remove the expiration of your subscription from the mailer on the magazine cover or protective wrap. So unless you've kept good records the publisher will send you "Renew now before your subscription runs out!" every 6 months or so, regardless of how much time is left (which results in people having decades of subscriptions).
What Verisign is/was doing isn't anything new... but I agree with another poster that it's unfortunate how long it took the judicial system to realize that just because it was Internet didn't mean it was a new scam.
Blue-spectrum LED lasers isn't even necessary. There have been several proof-of-concept displays that would allow HD content to fit on a disk the size of a CD/DVD using red lasers. They generally use varying pit sizes and up to 10 layers per side to accomplish this though, and none have been commercialized yet (I dunno why, but I can guess a 10-layer disk would be rather expensive to produce).
Digital distribution is expected to virtually eliminate distribution costs. Forget distributing on media - all the theater needs is a satellite dish and a keycode to decrypt the datastream. At least one movie has already been distributed this way (erm... and I forget what it was - an computer animated movie from last year I think).
Thing is, the distribution cost reduction doesn't really help the theater chains. It helps the filmmakers and studios. They want to reap the cost reductions, but I doubt they're talking about passing them on to the chains. So the chains have very little incentive to move forward here.
When a theater charges me $13 so that I can watch a 2 hour movie (thats $7 admission, $6 refreshments), I expect the latest technology!
Know how ticket prices work? Well, it varies by movie, but for your typical summer blockbuster the theater receives pretty close to 0% of the take for the first week, 20% the second week, 40% the third week, etc. For some movies it's even worse, with the 0-20% extending for more than one week. The studios claim that money as part of payment for the film.
Which is why, as another poster mentioned, the theaters make their money off refreshments.
As for the 70mm projector - I would be surprised if $6k buys you a new projector. I'd be surprised if it even buys you a decent used one. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Ebert only footed part of the bill for the projector... but I could be wrong. 70mm is essentially dead, so there may be fire sales on them in the industry. Even if the theaters buy them though, the additional cost of producing and distributing 70mm makes it very unlikely that the industry will ever move back to that format.
Again, if you want the best movie-going experience, push for digital projection. Why? Because while the resolution and color depth may not be as good as on a fresh can of film, it is better than the film by the time you see it in the theater.
Names and star quality mean jack when it comes to whether or not a movie is a "B movie" or not IMO. It all has to do with whether or not it's sensible, consistant, and succeeds in the key "suspension of disbelief".
Star Wars succeeds in the latter at times, fails at others.
If you happen to think that names and directorial experience can keep you from making a B-grade movie, well then, I'd like to refer you to this classic, which is a movie released a few years ago that was directed by Michael Bay and stars several very highly accomplished actors (some of them Oscar winners) such as Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Liv Tyler. It also happens to be one of the worst (big-budget) movies of all time in my opinion.
I suppose it varies on the skillset needed and your location, but $40-80/hour is a wage that a lot of American contractors would happily take, even the more experienced ones (at the higher end of that spectrum).
The real issues are communication ones, which I've seen a few people address. Of course, the funny thing is that most of the suggestions are things that should be done anyway - like nailing down requirements.
Your comparison is valid only if you happen to have a 70mm film projector available to view a fresh print of Lawrence of Arabia on. If you don't, then the comparison is fairly meaningless - DVD is pretty much the best home viewing video format available to date (some may argue LD is better, but frankly that depends entirely on the bitrate of the DVD).
As for digital cinema, I belive the theater-grade DLP systems are 2048x1536. No, this may not be as much resolution as you can pull out of a 35mm slide, but the flip side is that the chroma values can be insured to be perfect (virtually never true with film), you'll get a better black level then you get with traditional film projection, and the image won't degrade with repeated showings. That 35mm film may be wonderfully crisp and clear the first showing. It won't be by the 500th showing.
Ebert is spewing smoke. He admits that a digital projection of AotC is better than the film, but attempts to justify it by saying that it's because the film was shot digitally. Virtually any movie with special effects goes through a digital pass (or at least elements of the film do) nowadays. If it really was a "pure digital" issue then he should do a great deal more complaining about the fuzziness of any SFX shots in traditional filming. He doesn't. And while it's a stretch to say "so he's wrong", I really do suspect that digital cinema will _vastly_ improve the quality of the movie experience, contrary to what celluloid buffs claim.
During the time that has elapsed, the Star Wars fan base has been able to get used to the chintziness of the originals.
Eh... personally I recall loving the movies when I was a kid, loving them when I was a young teen, but when I watched them in my early 20's I kinda wondered why I thought it was so good. The acting is very stilted with a few notable exceptions, there are huge gaps in the storyline, and at points it just seems very disjointed.
Sure, there's still bits where brilliance shines through, but by and large Star Wars is a B movie. What it did do was usher in a new era of special effects, changed the general public's view of science fiction movies, and further helped to create the phenomenon now known as blockbuster movies.
Personally, I long ago lost respect for Lucas as a film maker. I'm going to wind up seeing AotC this weekend (I hadn't planned to, but some friends are going, so my wife and I are herding along), but my expectations for it are rather whacked - I expect to be disappointed.
Why? Because everytime I watch one of the Star Wars movies I once again discover that it doesn't hold up to my dim childhood memories of "The Best Movie EVER!". And while that may be an unrealistic benchmark, it's still what I, and many others, keep hoping for from Lucas.
Slashdot Mirror
Cruise missiles can't attack multiple targets - single payload release and you're done. Also if you have to recall the mission you're out 1.5M with a cruise missile - the only recall is to destroy it. With a UCAV you just tell it to come home.
The loitering and attacking targets of opportunity is also a good point (as made by someone else), and it's not something a cruise missile can do, period. If you have a UCAV circling an area it may be able to spot and take out a target in under a minute. If you have a Predator surveying the area, identify a target, and then launch a cruise missle it's a 5-10 minute delay -- more than enough time for a target to move from one safe spot to another, or to disappear entirely into unobservable terrain.
A good bit of this, of course, depends on the payload of a UCAV. If it only has 1 or 2 bomb bays/missile racks then it's not much better than a cruise missile. If it has 4-6 then it has a good bit of versatility above and beyond cruise missiles.
Oh, and finally, a UCAV is still piloted. Which means that it can react to changing conditions far better than a cruise missile can. It's really, really, REALLY hard to have a cruise missile hit a moving target - since they're programmed prior to launch. A UCAV would have no problems targeting and eliminating a tank, motorcade, or ship.
Dogfighting is dead... I don't know of any recent air-to-air combats that have ended in dogfighting - AVRAM's take out your opponent from 50+ miles away, and I suspect there are missiles that do it even further now.
About the only (fixed wing) aircraft which significantly used its guns was the A-10, and it's in the process of being decomissioned as helicoptors and laser-guided bombs take over its missions. Even then, that wasn't air-to-air combat - not unless the A-10 driver wanted to go down in a fireball.
Paper towels, maybe, but doubtful. Toilet paper? Uh... with the very strong societal taboo against bodily functions in the Western hemisphere do you honestly think any company would advertise on something you're about to wipe your ass with? Very negative association there.
There has been some advertising on the inside door of public toilets, but even that hasn't proven very successful. Plus it tends to get vandalized a lot.
As for the fetus - I don't think anyone's conclusively shown any effect of normal audio levels on the unborn. And since babies don't have the capability to process langugage for at least several months (and more commonly a year or so) after birth, I don't think you have to worry about it so much.
There's a company that provides this data, and pretty much provides it to everyone. I'm afraid the name of the company escapes me at the moment.
Could they subvert the data? Sure. Fat lot of good it'll do them - because then TV Guide, newspaper TV listings, satellite listings, and cable box listings will all show the wrong information. They're nearly all sourced from the same place.
And while you may say "so what", the fact is if you don't tell anybody when you're showing Friends, the odds of anyone watching it at all is seriously reduced. Which means advertising revenue goes into the toilet.
the only ones i'll actually stay still for now are those funny blockbuster ones with the guinea pig and the rabbit
:)
Hrm... haven't seen that... and my wife used to work at BlockBuster too.
May have something to do with the two TiVo's in the house though
Wow... amazing... you think that competition may actually lead to lower prices? Major revelation there.
I'd also suggest you ensure that "basic cable" means the same thing in both places. Most cable companies offer an absolute low end service which consists of only the local broadcast networks for those who have no reception. It generally runs in the $7-12 range. The packages with CNN, Weather Channel, etc. generally range in the $20-40 area.
Cable TV is a rip though - it's an unregulated monopoly. Oh, sure, there's competition. Don't like your cable company? Sell your house and move. Because in some cases that is the only option - poor over the air reception and an obstructed view of satellites mean either you get cable or you get nothing. Plenty of choice there!
Sony is one of the biggest corporations in the world. Does it really surprise you that different divisions have different objectives?
Sony Electronics is certainly not for perpetual copyright.
Depends on who all is on the other side, but associations like CEA and NWU aren't small... CEA is one of the heavyweights of the industry associations - you're talking about virtually every single company that sells consumer electronics in the US. How big a market is that, exactly? We're talking about Sony, Phillips, Toshiba, GE, and so forth here. BIG MONEY. And, of course, Intel.
Some of the individual names are noteworthy too - not just Friedman, but also well regarded authors like Le Guinn, Berry, and Matthiessen.
The light at the end of the tunnel may be wavering, but it's not out. Yet.
As many others have pointed out, it's between a rock and a hard place. Allow weak passwords and you'll get them. Force strong ones and they'll be written down where anyone can find them (I used to work at a company whose Unix admin wrote down all the root passwords on the bottom of his keyboard wrist rest. Yes, he sucked.)
The forced password changes really piss me off though, especially when combined with long memories of "previous passwords". I use secure, uncrackable passwords for most things, and particularly for work. But when I'm forced to change them every 30 days you can bet I'll run out of things that I can easily remember, especially since I have passwords for work, for home, for email, for websites, my ATM card(s), the company's alarm system, and so forth. Eventually I end up relying on wonderful passwords like "abcdef1" which may as well be an invitation to use my UID.
It really is a catch-22 situation. I suppose SecureID and the like are the "best" solution, but they're nearly as unwieldy for the user as strong passwords. But at least they can't just be written down -- just lost or stolen.
Our whole economy is shifting away from MATERIAL to KNOWLEDGE/INFORMATION/SERVICE.
Ding, ding, ding.
The issue is that our current IP system is not designed to handle this... or, rather, I think 50 years ago it would've done ok, but recent changes in legislative, judicial, and administrative policies have skewed it deeply to the wrong end of the spectrum. If we don't fix these problems then we'll wind up with a legal system that is so overburdoned that another area of the world will wind up preeminant.
This is much the same as what happened in Europe with the industrial revolution -- various European countries were the world leaders from 1600-1900. As the industrial revolution progressed various laws were passed to protect workers' rights, and while many of them were badly needed (child labor laws for instance), some were over the top. What happened? The industrial revolution continued in full swing. Elsewhere. Namely the US, where the labor laws weren't quite as burdonsome (and now the labor is moving elsewhere again).
Right now it's looking like SE Asia is going to be the powerhouse for the information age, if they can keep the Islamic fundamentalists out. They have very loose IP laws (too loose, but that will change), and large areas which are ready to move into the 21st century, instead of trying to protect the industries that sprouted in the 20th.
If not them, I'm sure South America would be happy to take it's spot in the limelight for a hundred years or so. But either way, current law makers, corporations, and even individuals are paving the way to obsolecense.
The question is the same as it always has been - "What have you done for me lately?". In the business world that's largely what it comes down to. Of course, you also have to execute on innovation, which they've failed at too.
They were buying companies left and right and increasing thier already huge debt burdon. And then failing to utilize many of the technologies they bought.
Once upon a time Bell Labs was the leader in numerous fields, largely because they invented them. Now they're in second place or worse in virtually every field. They'll occasionally come out with something innovative and then someone else will do the same thing without violating their patent, for less, and with a better business plan.
Disclaimer - I do realize this is off topic a little, but I want people to think about how much great tech comes out of there!)
I'd also put that in the past tense.
Lucent is rapidly becoming the Xerox PARC of the 1990s/2000s - lots of nifty stuff which proceeds to rot or be taken by other companies.
All of the early presidents were born in America, so they were natural born citizens (c.f. - http://www.ipl.org/ref/POTUS/).
I don't know if there was ever any debate about someone born on foreign soil trying to become president in the first 50 years or so, but I suspect that "natural born citizen" would have ruled them out.
Yes, I know this is offtopic.
That's like claiming that the program you just compiled should belong to the compiler maker, the standards committee, and whoever wrote the editor. After all, all you did was string words together and throw in some creative parts (e.g. - the logic).
Or maybe all books should belong to the font maker and the word processor vendor. Again, all you provided was the "creative part".
Perhaps music should belong to the instrument makers and other electronics companies involved. Once more, just using someone else's tools. The creative part is obviously irrelevant.
Sorry, things are provided for an intended use. When they are used for that intended use then you should retain intellectual property -- because that is all you're providing in the first place. The IP laws are written with this concept clearly in mind. I'm sorry that you, along with numerous companies (Activision amongst them) have completely missed out on this.
Oh, and finally, yes Id did see many, many pennys from those people "reselling their mindshare". They had to buy Doom afterall.
Which is why a lot of people with high end remotes simply remap the Mute button to Pause for DVD's, VCR's, and TiVo's.
I think my VCR actually does mute too, since they tend to decide to "Stop" instead of pause after a few minutes, but I haven't used a VCR in about 2 years now, so I'm not sure.
I agree with you - some people want to play tradesman, some want to play peasants, and some want to play adventurers. And there's all kinds of other things and shades in between.
The real issue is that you have to allow for this without forcing it. What if nobody wants to play a serf? Ok, that's fine... but how do you replace the function that they were supposed to serve, without making who play the role have to compete too much against the game itself? If they don't serve a function then what's the point of having them at all?
And you have to balance the need/not-needed very, very finely or else things get out of whack badly (look at clerics in EQ - single most necessary class in the game and the single most boring, mind-numbing class to play too, especially at the uber end of the game. My wife played one. I played an enchanter. Neither of us play anymore.)
The craft issue becomes a problem because it's a lot easier to add an item to a monster than it is to add 5 items in various spots in the world and add a recipe to create the original item you wanted to create in the first place. Plus you start entering trust issues with tradesman in a world where there's little recourse.
It wouldn't accept 18xx years, however I am now born on a date that is equally useless to them.
It also doesn't ask for street address or income - just birthdate, country/state (state changes depending on country selection, as does available time zones -- apparantly there are no "outlying US islands" in EST/EDT), and occupation (now "Other").
First off, if you haven't used your account in "weeks", it's probably deactivated. If you let the account go idle for 30 days it goes poof.
Second, what new disclaimer? There isn't one. And I just checked my hotmail account - it was indeed changed to "share e-mail address" and "share other personal information". "Share first and last name" was not checked though.
Not that it matters much. The flood of spam to my hotmail account has grown so bad I'm probably going to abandon it. And I've had that account for 6 years now.
Starting to? Heck, the magazine industry is virtually the hotbed of them.
Publisher's Clearing House is one example, where it was intimitated that buying more subscriptions would improve your chances of winning the sweepstakes - which is why some senior citizens wound up with magazine subscriptions that should run out right around 2300 AD or so. (Buying a subscription didn't affect your odds at all, but that was often less than clear)
Publishers will often try to get you to renew when you're nowhere near your expiration. I only subscribe to one magazine and they were sending renewal notices well over a year in advance of my subscription ending.
To make it even better, the new trend is to remove the expiration of your subscription from the mailer on the magazine cover or protective wrap. So unless you've kept good records the publisher will send you "Renew now before your subscription runs out!" every 6 months or so, regardless of how much time is left (which results in people having decades of subscriptions).
What Verisign is/was doing isn't anything new... but I agree with another poster that it's unfortunate how long it took the judicial system to realize that just because it was Internet didn't mean it was a new scam.
that guy in the back has a red shirt--must be gay
I thought he was just the obligatory soon-to-be-dead crew member.
Blue-spectrum LED lasers isn't even necessary. There have been several proof-of-concept displays that would allow HD content to fit on a disk the size of a CD/DVD using red lasers. They generally use varying pit sizes and up to 10 layers per side to accomplish this though, and none have been commercialized yet (I dunno why, but I can guess a 10-layer disk would be rather expensive to produce).
Digital distribution is expected to virtually eliminate distribution costs. Forget distributing on media - all the theater needs is a satellite dish and a keycode to decrypt the datastream. At least one movie has already been distributed this way (erm... and I forget what it was - an computer animated movie from last year I think).
Thing is, the distribution cost reduction doesn't really help the theater chains. It helps the filmmakers and studios. They want to reap the cost reductions, but I doubt they're talking about passing them on to the chains. So the chains have very little incentive to move forward here.
When a theater charges me $13 so that I can watch a 2 hour movie (thats $7 admission, $6 refreshments), I expect the latest technology!
Know how ticket prices work? Well, it varies by movie, but for your typical summer blockbuster the theater receives pretty close to 0% of the take for the first week, 20% the second week, 40% the third week, etc. For some movies it's even worse, with the 0-20% extending for more than one week. The studios claim that money as part of payment for the film.
Which is why, as another poster mentioned, the theaters make their money off refreshments.
As for the 70mm projector - I would be surprised if $6k buys you a new projector. I'd be surprised if it even buys you a decent used one. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Ebert only footed part of the bill for the projector... but I could be wrong. 70mm is essentially dead, so there may be fire sales on them in the industry. Even if the theaters buy them though, the additional cost of producing and distributing 70mm makes it very unlikely that the industry will ever move back to that format.
Again, if you want the best movie-going experience, push for digital projection. Why? Because while the resolution and color depth may not be as good as on a fresh can of film, it is better than the film by the time you see it in the theater.
Names and star quality mean jack when it comes to whether or not a movie is a "B movie" or not IMO. It all has to do with whether or not it's sensible, consistant, and succeeds in the key "suspension of disbelief".
Star Wars succeeds in the latter at times, fails at others.
If you happen to think that names and directorial experience can keep you from making a B-grade movie, well then, I'd like to refer you to this classic, which is a movie released a few years ago that was directed by Michael Bay and stars several very highly accomplished actors (some of them Oscar winners) such as Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Liv Tyler. It also happens to be one of the worst (big-budget) movies of all time in my opinion.
I suppose it varies on the skillset needed and your location, but $40-80/hour is a wage that a lot of American contractors would happily take, even the more experienced ones (at the higher end of that spectrum).
The real issues are communication ones, which I've seen a few people address. Of course, the funny thing is that most of the suggestions are things that should be done anyway - like nailing down requirements.
Your comparison is valid only if you happen to have a 70mm film projector available to view a fresh print of Lawrence of Arabia on. If you don't, then the comparison is fairly meaningless - DVD is pretty much the best home viewing video format available to date (some may argue LD is better, but frankly that depends entirely on the bitrate of the DVD).
As for digital cinema, I belive the theater-grade DLP systems are 2048x1536. No, this may not be as much resolution as you can pull out of a 35mm slide, but the flip side is that the chroma values can be insured to be perfect (virtually never true with film), you'll get a better black level then you get with traditional film projection, and the image won't degrade with repeated showings. That 35mm film may be wonderfully crisp and clear the first showing. It won't be by the 500th showing.
Ebert is spewing smoke. He admits that a digital projection of AotC is better than the film, but attempts to justify it by saying that it's because the film was shot digitally. Virtually any movie with special effects goes through a digital pass (or at least elements of the film do) nowadays. If it really was a "pure digital" issue then he should do a great deal more complaining about the fuzziness of any SFX shots in traditional filming. He doesn't. And while it's a stretch to say "so he's wrong", I really do suspect that digital cinema will _vastly_ improve the quality of the movie experience, contrary to what celluloid buffs claim.
During the time that has elapsed, the Star Wars fan base has been able to get used to the chintziness of the originals.
Eh... personally I recall loving the movies when I was a kid, loving them when I was a young teen, but when I watched them in my early 20's I kinda wondered why I thought it was so good. The acting is very stilted with a few notable exceptions, there are huge gaps in the storyline, and at points it just seems very disjointed.
Sure, there's still bits where brilliance shines through, but by and large Star Wars is a B movie. What it did do was usher in a new era of special effects, changed the general public's view of science fiction movies, and further helped to create the phenomenon now known as blockbuster movies.
Personally, I long ago lost respect for Lucas as a film maker. I'm going to wind up seeing AotC this weekend (I hadn't planned to, but some friends are going, so my wife and I are herding along), but my expectations for it are rather whacked - I expect to be disappointed.
Why? Because everytime I watch one of the Star Wars movies I once again discover that it doesn't hold up to my dim childhood memories of "The Best Movie EVER!". And while that may be an unrealistic benchmark, it's still what I, and many others, keep hoping for from Lucas.