...with Boba Fett stuck in it for no reason other to pander to the fans...
This is not a secret. Lucas has been quoted several times saying he was flabbergasted that Boba Fett became so popular among the fans. He was intended only as a bit character for Episodes V and VI. So, yes. I'd go so far as to say that Ep II was rewritten to give the Fett Family as big a role as possible.
Question: Why would the creator of an imperial clone army ever have to work at bounty hunting (or anything) ever again? Why isn't he at least a general in said army? Why is Boba so poor in Ep V that he can't afford to keep his armor in good condition? Does Boba Fett have an alcoholism problem or something?
1. I predict the war will end with one side completely conquering and occupying the other. Since the American Civil War seems to be the model for this conflict, I predict it will ent the same way.
*sigh* this attitude gets on my nerves as well. Pity, it sounded like an interesting book.
Your ideas remind me a great deal of James Burke. Ever read him? He writes histories of science where the reader has only as much information as the people at the time did. You're right, most things we think of as "obvious" are really quite counter-intuitive.
My favorite quote: "Wow, an alphabet! This would be perfect for writing the king's name in very large letters!"
Hah! Whoever thinks Westerners are rapacious needs to read some Chinese history.
For example, if a Ming emperor disliked you and decided to execute you, he would also execute everyone in your extended family, all the way out to nine generations removed.
How much did the geography and climate of NW Europe influence the social order of the people who lived there, and by extention their attitudes regarding the natural world? Specifically, given enough time, would a group of Arabs or Chinese living in the dense German forests and subjected to periodic small Ice Ages come to develop a culture similar to that of NW Europe today?
A strong mercantile class and (more or less) commercial culture existed in all East Asian cultures when they were more or less near their peaks. The question really is, what do people choose to do with their surplus wealth, power, and time?
In just about any society, many of the people who have these things (landed nobles, mostly) turn to the arts and sciences. (Not all of them, obviously. Many more spent their time drinking, womanizing, conquering, or on fox hunts.)
I think the basic difference between the wealthy classes in Europe and (for example) Japan, is that Japanese nobles look to their own pasts (or other cultures) for inspiration. They compete with each other to perfect existing arts and sciences. The push is to have the best handwriting, paint the best landscape, keep the most perfect garden, or write the most moving poem.
Europeans, rather than perfect existing genres of art and science, compete with each other to produce better and better genres. Europeans want to be leaders (or independent), but usually not followers. What better way to lead than to be the first person to write a great psychological novel, be the first person to document certain properties of electricity, or be the first person to the North Pole?
The peers of the European say "wow, that's new and interesting!" The peers of the Japanese say "wow, that's really well done!"
The "stealth bomber", I assume you're talking about is the B2-B Flying Wing, which is approx. $2.2 bil each (actually a bit less now, I think I heard as low as $1.2b).
Wow, that is low! If the gas mileage was jus t a bit better I might consider trading up!
Ah, the better is truly the eternal enemy of the good, isn't it.
Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but being able to point out visible flaws or inequalities in a system (ie, capitalism) is in my mind not adequate justification for junking said system -- or even radically altering it.
When I read Marx and his critique of capitalism, I thought he made several valid points. However, agreeing with his analysis of the problem and agreeing with his proposed solutions are two different things entirely.
What impels some people to ceaselessly fiddle with things until they end up breaking them? Are all politicians basically engineers at heart?
3) The new form of slavery (if there is one) are sweat-shops... If you want to do your part, inform yourself and do not buy products that are manufactured in them (Nike, etc)
*sigh* If only this particular form of slavery was new. Sweatshop (ie, "wage") slavery has been around since the dawn of the industrial revolutiuon. I have even read arguments for American-style slavery that say that black slaves in the South were better treated than wage-slaves in the North at the time of the Civil War.
The argument is that since black slaves were owned, the slaveowner had a good deal of incentive to take good care of them, feed them well, make sure they were well-rested and strong, etc. so he could get work out of them year after year. Wage slaves are only rented, used, and then discarded, so the Yankee slaveowners tended to work them to the point of exhaustion. Since the wage slaves are nominally "free", he had no responsibility to them whatsoever.
Not to come off as a proponent of slavery, but it is indeed economical.
For an object lesson, read up on the history of the Republic of Texas.
IIRC, Steve Austin was against slavery, but decided to make it legal in Texas since (as he put it) the choice was between slaveowning prosperity or "log cabin poverty."
1) Go in, overthrow the government, install a new one, and do "nation building", or 2) Subtly push and prod various governments to give more freedom to their people.
3) Leave poor nations the hell alone. This means not only no foreign aid, but also no IMF/World Bank indervention, as well as no securing of their markets or natural resources for exploitation/investment by US companies. The rest, as they say, will happen naturally.
One way of doing this is to raise the price of its products or services, but there's these tricky little supply and demand curves that can mess that up. You see, if you charge more for something, typically fewer people will buy it.
I'm not arguing against your post, but if the government (or should I say, Congress) decides to raise taxes, it would do so across the board, or at the very least on all corporations in a specific industry.
If all corporations suddenly incurred the additional taxes, and all of them raised their prices, then the supply/demand curve should be unaffected. That is assuming consumers truly need whatever that industry makes, and have no other means to come by it.
Here and I thought that savings was a good thing for the economy.
I assume MS keeps its $40 million cash in a bank (if it is indeed as liquid as the article says). Keeping money in banks makes it avalable to be borrowed by other people. People borrowing money keeps the money in circulation, and therefore (by your reasoning) would stimulate growth.
Now, if MS is keeping its cash in a mayonaise jar buried in the back yard, that would be another matter.
The argument that "capitalists" are nothing but a drain on the economy because their function is to amass wealth, and therefore make it unavailable as a medium of exchange is classic Marx (chapter XIV of Das Kapital, IIRC).
I think history proves Marx wrong on this point. Without the large sums of cash created by corporations (like MS) and deposited in banks, there would not be enough money available for large-scale industries like railroads, or steamships, or telephone networks. That is, unless you have a huge centralized state filling the role of both the corporations and the banks, but wouldn't that be an even bigger drain on the ammount of available currency?
I thought that under some 1890 law (the name escapes me at the moment), corporations are indeed legal persons -- with all the legal rights that implies.
(interesting sidenote: the Japanese word for "corporation" is houjingaisha, or "legal-person company".)
Slashdot Mirror
...with Boba Fett stuck in it for no reason other to pander to the fans ...
This is not a secret. Lucas has been quoted several times saying he was flabbergasted that Boba Fett became so popular among the fans. He was intended only as a bit character for Episodes V and VI.
So, yes. I'd go so far as to say that Ep II was rewritten to give the Fett Family as big a role as possible.
Question: Why would the creator of an imperial clone army ever have to work at bounty hunting (or anything) ever again? Why isn't he at least a general in said army? Why is Boba so poor in Ep V that he can't afford to keep his armor in good condition? Does Boba Fett have an alcoholism problem or something?
Seems to me that would take less Force energy then suspending several tons of rock or whatever in mid-air...
You have forgotten your Jedi training from Episode V!
Size makes no difference. (Judge you me by my size?)
The idea's been in books for years...
I'll say it has. Books like the Bible maybe?
I don't think it's a secret that the Matrix draws on older material.
Left in French is "gauche". Anakin gets his right hand chopped off. What's left?
his gauche side.
1. I predict the war will end with one side completely conquering and occupying the other. Since the American Civil War seems to be the model for this conflict, I predict it will ent the same way.
Funny. 3PO doesn't remember Tatooine, Ben Kenobi, or Luke; but he does remember the Clone Wars.
Remember? He tells Luke "there's not much to tell."
That Vader is Luke's father was obvious from the first movie to anyone who speaks Dutch.
*sigh* this attitude gets on my nerves as well. Pity, it sounded like an interesting book.
Your ideas remind me a great deal of James Burke. Ever read him? He writes histories of science where the reader has only as much information as the people at the time did. You're right, most things we think of as "obvious" are really quite counter-intuitive.
My favorite quote: "Wow, an alphabet! This would be perfect for writing the king's name in very large letters!"
Hah! Whoever thinks Westerners are rapacious needs to read some Chinese history.
For example, if a Ming emperor disliked you and decided to execute you, he would also execute everyone in your extended family, all the way out to nine generations removed.
How much did the geography and climate of NW Europe influence the social order of the people who lived there, and by extention their attitudes regarding the natural world?
:)
Specifically, given enough time, would a group of Arabs or Chinese living in the dense German forests and subjected to periodic small Ice Ages come to develop a culture similar to that of NW Europe today?
Discuss.
I would say they were already "catching up", not "moving ahead".
Oh, and Japan does have a standing army. Quite a large one, in fact. The Japanese navy, for example, is about five times the size of the Chinese navy.
A strong mercantile class and (more or less) commercial culture existed in all East Asian cultures when they were more or less near their peaks.
The question really is, what do people choose to do with their surplus wealth, power, and time?
In just about any society, many of the people who have these things (landed nobles, mostly) turn to the arts and sciences. (Not all of them, obviously. Many more spent their time drinking, womanizing, conquering, or on fox hunts.)
I think the basic difference between the wealthy classes in Europe and (for example) Japan, is that Japanese nobles look to their own pasts (or other cultures) for inspiration. They compete with each other to perfect existing arts and sciences. The push is to have the best handwriting, paint the best landscape, keep the most perfect garden, or write the most moving poem.
Europeans, rather than perfect existing genres of art and science, compete with each other to produce better and better genres. Europeans want to be leaders (or independent), but usually not followers. What better way to lead than to be the first person to write a great psychological novel, be the first person to document certain properties of electricity, or be the first person to the North Pole?
The peers of the European say "wow, that's new and interesting!" The peers of the Japanese say "wow, that's really well done!"
He could buy 160000 Congressmen[...]
Is there a discount if one buys in bulk?
Profitalbe, eh. Don't know if I can name 5, but:
Sendmail
MySQL
Redhat (I know their stock tanked, but aren't they profitable?)
I know for a fact that Sendmail at least is honestly profitable.
The "stealth bomber", I assume you're talking about is the B2-B Flying Wing, which is approx. $2.2 bil each (actually a bit less now, I think I heard as low as $1.2b).
Wow, that is low! If the gas mileage was jus t a bit better I might consider trading up!
Are there sharks with frikkin laser beams in your plan somewhere?
Ah, the better is truly the eternal enemy of the good, isn't it.
Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but being able to point out visible flaws or inequalities in a system (ie, capitalism) is in my mind not adequate justification for junking said system -- or even radically altering it.
When I read Marx and his critique of capitalism, I thought he made several valid points. However, agreeing with his analysis of the problem and agreeing with his proposed solutions are two different things entirely.
What impels some people to ceaselessly fiddle with things until they end up breaking them? Are all politicians basically engineers at heart?
HanzoSan, you remind me of myself when I was 17.
3) The new form of slavery (if there is one) are sweat-shops... If you want to do your part, inform yourself and do not buy products that are manufactured in them (Nike, etc)
*sigh* If only this particular form of slavery was new.
Sweatshop (ie, "wage") slavery has been around since the dawn of the industrial revolutiuon. I have even read arguments for American-style slavery that say that black slaves in the South were better treated than wage-slaves in the North at the time of the Civil War.
The argument is that since black slaves were owned, the slaveowner had a good deal of incentive to take good care of them, feed them well, make sure they were well-rested and strong, etc. so he could get work out of them year after year.
Wage slaves are only rented, used, and then discarded, so the Yankee slaveowners tended to work them to the point of exhaustion. Since the wage slaves are nominally "free", he had no responsibility to them whatsoever.
Not to come off as a proponent of slavery, but it is indeed economical.
For an object lesson, read up on the history of the Republic of Texas.
IIRC, Steve Austin was against slavery, but decided to make it legal in Texas since (as he put it) the choice was between slaveowning prosperity or "log cabin poverty."
Capitalism and alot of people starve, or Socialism and no one ever starves.
Indeed?
Ever hear of the Great Leap Forward?
(link chosen at random)
Under socialism, you either all eat together, or all starve together.
1) Go in, overthrow the government, install a new one, and do "nation building", or
2) Subtly push and prod various governments to give more freedom to their people.
3) Leave poor nations the hell alone. This means not only no foreign aid, but also no IMF/World Bank indervention, as well as no securing of their markets or natural resources for exploitation/investment by US companies. The rest, as they say, will happen naturally.
One way of doing this is to raise the price of its products or services, but there's these tricky little supply and demand curves that can mess that up. You see, if you charge more for something, typically fewer people will buy it.
I'm not arguing against your post, but if the government (or should I say, Congress) decides to raise taxes, it would do so across the board, or at the very least on all corporations in a specific industry.
If all corporations suddenly incurred the additional taxes, and all of them raised their prices, then the supply/demand curve should be unaffected.
That is assuming consumers truly need whatever that industry makes, and have no other means to come by it.
Here and I thought that savings was a good thing for the economy.
I assume MS keeps its $40 million cash in a bank (if it is indeed as liquid as the article says). Keeping money in banks makes it avalable to be borrowed by other people.
People borrowing money keeps the money in circulation, and therefore (by your reasoning) would stimulate growth.
Now, if MS is keeping its cash in a mayonaise jar buried in the back yard, that would be another matter.
The argument that "capitalists" are nothing but a drain on the economy because their function is to amass wealth, and therefore make it unavailable as a medium of exchange is classic Marx (chapter XIV of Das Kapital, IIRC).
I think history proves Marx wrong on this point. Without the large sums of cash created by corporations (like MS) and deposited in banks, there would not be enough money available for large-scale industries like railroads, or steamships, or telephone networks. That is, unless you have a huge centralized state filling the role of both the corporations and the banks, but wouldn't that be an even bigger drain on the ammount of available currency?
I thought that under some 1890 law (the name escapes me at the moment), corporations are indeed legal persons -- with all the legal rights that implies.
(interesting sidenote: the Japanese word for "corporation" is houjingaisha, or "legal-person company".)