Disclaimer: IAAEMBNAP (I am an english major, but not a professor)
When reading LOTR I always felt that Tolken used heroic and Arthurian styleing and language to wonderful effect. The first time I read LOTR when I was younger I felt that he must have just gotten confused near the end of his work when he extensively used heroic language, now re-reading it with a bit deeper appreciation of literary technique I am always impressed with the appropriateness of Tolken's use of heroic and Arthurian language. It's plain that Tolken used his intense immersion in the language of Heroic and Arthurian epics (imagine how intense the immersion must have been to learn the original language and then create a translation) to good effect in his writing.
Having read Beowulf, Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, and LOTR all within the last 6 months a few distinct stylistic parallels have stood out to me. The romance between Eowyn and Aragorn is scented with the aura of Arthurian legends. They were always big on a sort of strange courtly love that at times bordered on infidelity, but was apparently socially acceptable. (Think Lancelot and Gwenevire). When looked at in the context of Arthurian legends the story of Eowyn and Aragorn makes a wonderful kind of sense, but without that context it can be a bit confusing. Likely that is why the movie chose to portray that story in a manner which isn't quite faithful to the literary effect of the book.
The other strong prominent Aurtherian influence in LOTR seems to be the importance of 'doing the right thing'. While heroic epics like Beowulf, (and the Odyssey and others for that matter) are centered completely around the hero and his conception of right and wrong, Arthurian epics are based on a definite moral code, and their conflicts often rest on the 'the code' conflicting with the heroes personal desires. Look at the conflict between destroying the ring (the absolute good) and various characters' desires to use the ring to fulfill personal desires.
The most Heroic "Beowulf'ian" part of LOTR is its' "improbability." In a heroic epic it's much more important for the story to come to its rightful conclusion than to have the taste of realism. Therefore it's perfectly acceptable, (and probably necessary) for Beowulf or Aragorn to perform unbelievable feats of strength, valor, or leadership. If the reader can get over their sense of the impossible, the feat's unbelievable'ness and the language's brief matter of fact descriptions will just push the reader further into the fantasy world and develop their feelings about the hero.
Tragically post reads too much like an essay I'd write for an English class, but I was just impressed with the distinctness of the parallels when I read the article. The moral is that Tolken's study of Beowulf and Sir Gwain and the Green Knight probably had a bit to do with the way that LOTR turned out.
Every time I get asked if I have one of their cards for "saving", I just say "Sorry, I don't join cults"!
Wait to stick it to the man. Your socially abrasive behavior is a pinnacle to which all of us geeks should aspire.
The truth is that most people will simply find this system convenient. The majority of the populace isn't terribly concerned with their right to privacy. While there will likely be shortfalls with this system, it seems to be generally a useful good idea, especially if other payment options continue to be available. I'd rather carry around my finger than my credit card.
This year I lived in a college dorm, and found that approximately 2% of the software people have on their computers has been payed for. One person would buy a game, and then in a week or so 50 people would be playing it on the network. Alternately, there were a few people that had access to pretty good Warez ftp's, and so new games would be shared on the network a week or so before they were in stores. The moral is that I know alot of people who have windows boxes that forked over less money for software than someone that pays for a single linux distro.
Why? I remember when I first got a digital video camera, the first thing I went out and did was set it up on a tripod, pointing to a full pop bottle, and then shoot it. I ran back to my computer, put it into Premiere, slowed it down, and was vastly dissapointed that I couldn't see every instant of the process. Mostly the bottle's there, then in the next frame, the bottle has a hole in it, then it's up in the air, and it falls. How much fun would it be to see the bullet make its way towards the bottle, see every moment of the impact, and the exit of the bullet in a fine spray of mist? I'd love to shoot in 1000 fps instead of 29.whatever.
Terry Pratchett is the most clever author I've ever ingested. (Well, I suppose I ingested his work, not him, just to make things clear.) And his novels all seem to have happy-everything-worked-out endings without seeming trite. His subtile and not so subtile satire might even make you a better person. Go ahead and pick up one of his discworld novels.
And now, I'll mention Neal Stephenson. Not for any good reason, just so I'll get moderated up.
Well, seems as though either they've gone offline for some reason relating to the lawusit, or we just slashdotted them, now listen4ever.com directly links to mp3mediaworld. Congradulations us.
Because this article renewed my anger at the RIAA, I decided to go ahead and pirate some music from listen4ever.com. Right after a slashdotting, I'm still getting about 20k/sec. That's pretty damn impressive, considering that most sites curl up into the fetal position, start sucking their thumb, and whimper after a slashdotting.
For the past two summers I've been a counselor at a summer camp. For a week at a time, I am responsible for the well-being of 7-9 children. It is my responsiblilty to know where my campers are at all times, and when you have those little buggers running around, wanting to run off in to the woods, wanting to talk to girls, wanting to run off into the woods with girls, it can be kind of a pain to keep track of all of them. On a more searious note, I know at camps around the country every summer a few campers die, and it seems like something like this could prevent some of those deaths.
Don't you remember, in the Diamond Age, about the guy who had optical implants, got a virus that constantly displayed advertising, and killed himself? Geez, if people would just read more Neal Stephenson they wouldn't half to waste their time inventing stuff like this.
Plus, crossairs on sunglasses for your skull-gun look so much cooler.....
Oh god, I've been waiting for this article for years. There is little more satisfying than gaining another level in Legend Of The Dragon, or giving your character a venereal disease visiting the prostitutes in Usurper, (heck, when I first played usurper I didn't know the meaning of venereal or usurper.) I remember the sheer glory of becoming friends with a sysop and becoming a co-sysop, being able to change things, snoop around, and all that. But none of that could compare to my discovery of Warez on a BBS. I remember all of the secretive glances shared by those of us at the local BBS picnic who had access to the Warez section of one of the BBS's, and that wonderful feeling of superiority. I think I ended up actually successfully downloading one warez game, Sim Ant, but it wasn't so much what you did do, it was what you could do, and the smugness, never estimate the power of smugness.
Anything but a hundred dollar wal-mart bike, for multiple reasons.
College kids, (myself included) are concerned with image, and many college kids can instantly tell the difference between a hundred dollar wal-mart bike and a 3-5 hundred dollar bike shop bike. (Except for some mongoose bikes, mongoose makes both types, expensive bikes and wal-mart bikes, and sometimes if you don't know all the models the only way to tell is to look closely at the components, so if you must get a wal-mart bike, get a hardtail mongoose.) Nobody wants to be seen on a wal-mart bike.
Secondly, bikes inherently break a lot. The more complicated the bike, the more it will break. Wal-mart sells bikes that are supposed to look cool, and therefore have extraneous features, like gears you'll hardly ever use, and grip shifters and horrendous rear suspension. All that crap, (well, crap for someone who is just using their bike to ride back and forth to class) is just more stuff to break.
Thirdly, Wal-Mart won't fix her bike for free when it breaks, and lots of bike shops will. If she doesn't already have a bike, she probably doesn't know a lot about bike maintenance and repair, and if she's in college she probably doesn't have a lot of money to throw at the bike shop whenever her bike breaks.
So, now that I've ranted about what you shouldn't do, here's what you should do.
First, get the bike from a local, (local to her, not you) bike shop. Many bike shops will offer free service for anywhere from a few months to a year or two, buy the bike from one of these shops.
Now, what bike to actually look for: This can be complicated, and it all depends on the students needs. If she's going to be using the bike for exclusively getting to and from class in a non-hilly environment the best type of bike to get would be a single-gear cyclecross bike. Cyclecross bikes are kind of hybrids between a mountain bike and a street bike, they're fast and light, but they can handle the occasional curb and so fourth. If the area has hills, get a cyclecross type bike with gears, simple. If the student will be using the bike on weekends for trail rides, (mountain biking) get a hard-tail (no rear suspension) mountain bike. Rear suspension will smooth out bumps on the trial, but it takes away down stroke power, adds weight, and adds significant money, (for anything quality.) Then, put some semi-slick tires in the bike, knobby around the edges for the occasional weekend ride, but smooth down the middle for speed, instead of the knobbies that will likely come standard with any mountain bike. If you can afford it go with an aluminum frame instead of a chromo steel frame, most everybody likes the responsiveness of aluminum better than steel, but the biggest reason to go for Al is weight.
Next, a lock. Figure out how much bike theft is a problem in the area she's going to school in, and base your dicision on that. Ask someone in the bike shop (preferably the person working on bikes in back and not the cash register worker in front) about the theftproof-ness of the various locks. Some locks (in the upwards of $100 range) even come with a warranty, i.e. your bike gets stolen when it's locked up with their lock and the company buys you a new lock.)
Lastly, make sure she thinks the bike looks cool, or else she'll never ride it. Either go to the shop with her to buy it, or give her a gift certificate to a local shop.
I think that's about it, hope that advice helps any prospective bike buyers out there.
Say what you want about forced dialogue, or annoying relationships, but seeing what Yoda does more than makes up for it. When the little green guy walked in on the Count Doku fight scene, I screamed like a little school girl. When he whipped out his light saber, I truly couldn't contain myself. And when he was flipping around with his saber blazing, I realized that I was jumping up and down in my seat.
Until that scene, I was wondering why I had spent two days in line, missed a few classes, gotten pushed and shoved, prodded and yelled at; all for some forced dialogue and a bitchy teenager. Then, when Yoda came in, it all seemed very much worth it.
All right, now this is getting slightly off topic, but possibly still just slightly, so: in response. Let me preface this by saying this is anecdotal personal experience.
In my early teen years I used to be all about the porn, "raging hormones" and whatnot. Then I came to the realization that looking at porn affected my view of women. No, it didn't completely desensitize me to their feelings and needs, but I did think about them in a purely sexual context more often when I was regularly looking at porn. Now that I consciously avoid pr0n the amount of time that i spend thinking about women in a sexual context has greatly decreased.
I'm not saying that the viewing of pornography is necessarily bad, but especially at the very impressionable stages in a young boy's life (or girl's life, although girls seem to have less of a propensity for pornography), viewing pornography could cause a boy to view the opposite sex more as objects, and less as equal humans.
I know from personal experience... err... a friend told me.... errr.... rumor has it that yahoo mobile has a WAP bookmark feature, which could, in the purely theoretical sense, be useful for bookmarking the aforementioned genre of interwap pages.
Anyway, the new schedule is: Monday: Boycott Sony/MPAA Tuesday: Relax, check out new tech products and video games. Wednesday: Boycott RIAA, Call congresscritters over latest atrocious bill. Thursday: Relax, check out the latest CDs coming on the market. Friday: Boycott the MPAA in the daytime, go see a movie at night. Saturday & Sunday: Pretend we have lives outside of work and don't post on Slashdot.
You fergot Wednsday - Sunday Watch AOTC Twice a day at the theatre, (and the bootleg twice a day at home, but that isn't too hypocritical)
Idonno, twice during the movie I felt physically sick because of the romantic dialogue, it was just so terribly written. True, some of the dialogue was written 'badly' to sound like a comic book, but in the hospital love scene, and the final MJ/Peter talk, it went way beyond comic book badness into the realm of sickening.
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: IAAEMBNAP (I am an english major, but not a professor)
When reading LOTR I always felt that Tolken used heroic and Arthurian styleing and language to wonderful effect. The first time I read LOTR when I was younger I felt that he must have just gotten confused near the end of his work when he extensively used heroic language, now re-reading it with a bit deeper appreciation of literary technique I am always impressed with the appropriateness of Tolken's use of heroic and Arthurian language. It's plain that Tolken used his intense immersion in the language of Heroic and Arthurian epics (imagine how intense the immersion must have been to learn the original language and then create a translation) to good effect in his writing.
Having read Beowulf, Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, and LOTR all within the last 6 months a few distinct stylistic parallels have stood out to me. The romance between Eowyn and Aragorn is scented with the aura of Arthurian legends. They were always big on a sort of strange courtly love that at times bordered on infidelity, but was apparently socially acceptable. (Think Lancelot and Gwenevire). When looked at in the context of Arthurian legends the story of Eowyn and Aragorn makes a wonderful kind of sense, but without that context it can be a bit confusing. Likely that is why the movie chose to portray that story in a manner which isn't quite faithful to the literary effect of the book.
The other strong prominent Aurtherian influence in LOTR seems to be the importance of 'doing the right thing'. While heroic epics like Beowulf, (and the Odyssey and others for that matter) are centered completely around the hero and his conception of right and wrong, Arthurian epics are based on a definite moral code, and their conflicts often rest on the 'the code' conflicting with the heroes personal desires. Look at the conflict between destroying the ring (the absolute good) and various characters' desires to use the ring to fulfill personal desires.
The most Heroic "Beowulf'ian" part of LOTR is its' "improbability." In a heroic epic it's much more important for the story to come to its rightful conclusion than to have the taste of realism. Therefore it's perfectly acceptable, (and probably necessary) for Beowulf or Aragorn to perform unbelievable feats of strength, valor, or leadership. If the reader can get over their sense of the impossible, the feat's unbelievable'ness and the language's brief matter of fact descriptions will just push the reader further into the fantasy world and develop their feelings about the hero.
Tragically post reads too much like an essay I'd write for an English class, but I was just impressed with the distinctness of the parallels when I read the article. The moral is that Tolken's study of Beowulf and Sir Gwain and the Green Knight probably had a bit to do with the way that LOTR turned out.
Every time I get asked if I have one of their cards for "saving", I just say "Sorry, I don't join cults"!
Wait to stick it to the man. Your socially abrasive behavior is a pinnacle to which all of us geeks should aspire.
The truth is that most people will simply find this system convenient. The majority of the populace isn't terribly concerned with their right to privacy. While there will likely be shortfalls with this system, it seems to be generally a useful good idea, especially if other payment options continue to be available. I'd rather carry around my finger than my credit card.
Fuzzy Logic it's like Wolly Thinking, only softer, and with less sheep.
(Terry Pratchett thought it first)
who has ever been told to gargle with salt water for a sore throat?
1. Claim to have invented salt water
This year I lived in a college dorm, and found that approximately 2% of the software people have on their computers has been payed for. One person would buy a game, and then in a week or so 50 people would be playing it on the network. Alternately, there were a few people that had access to pretty good Warez ftp's, and so new games would be shared on the network a week or so before they were in stores. The moral is that I know alot of people who have windows boxes that forked over less money for software than someone that pays for a single linux distro.
I love TuxKart. I still play it. You're a hero.
Why? I remember when I first got a digital video camera, the first thing I went out and did was set it up on a tripod, pointing to a full pop bottle, and then shoot it. I ran back to my computer, put it into Premiere, slowed it down, and was vastly dissapointed that I couldn't see every instant of the process. Mostly the bottle's there, then in the next frame, the bottle has a hole in it, then it's up in the air, and it falls. How much fun would it be to see the bullet make its way towards the bottle, see every moment of the impact, and the exit of the bullet in a fine spray of mist? I'd love to shoot in 1000 fps instead of 29.whatever.
When the evil press
Puts violence in bad light
I want to shoot them
I desire to
Go splatter their intestines
With my RPG
That would teach them to
Accuse video games of
Causing violence
Terry Pratchett is the most clever author I've ever ingested. (Well, I suppose I ingested his work, not him, just to make things clear.) And his novels all seem to have happy-everything-worked-out endings without seeming trite. His subtile and not so subtile satire might even make you a better person. Go ahead and pick up one of his discworld novels.
And now, I'll mention Neal Stephenson. Not for any good reason, just so I'll get moderated up.
Well, seems as though either they've gone offline for some reason relating to the lawusit, or we just slashdotted them, now listen4ever.com directly links to mp3mediaworld. Congradulations us.
Because this article renewed my anger at the RIAA, I decided to go ahead and pirate some music from listen4ever.com. Right after a slashdotting, I'm still getting about 20k/sec. That's pretty damn impressive, considering that most sites curl up into the fetal position, start sucking their thumb, and whimper after a slashdotting.
For the past two summers I've been a counselor at a summer camp. For a week at a time, I am responsible for the well-being of 7-9 children. It is my responsiblilty to know where my campers are at all times, and when you have those little buggers running around, wanting to run off in to the woods, wanting to talk to girls, wanting to run off into the woods with girls, it can be kind of a pain to keep track of all of them. On a more searious note, I know at camps around the country every summer a few campers die, and it seems like something like this could prevent some of those deaths.
Don't you remember, in the Diamond Age, about the guy who had optical implants, got a virus that constantly displayed advertising, and killed himself? Geez, if people would just read more Neal Stephenson they wouldn't half to waste their time inventing stuff like this.
Plus, crossairs on sunglasses for your skull-gun look so much cooler.....
Oh god, I've been waiting for this article for years. There is little more satisfying than gaining another level in Legend Of The Dragon, or giving your character a venereal disease visiting the prostitutes in Usurper, (heck, when I first played usurper I didn't know the meaning of venereal or usurper.) I remember the sheer glory of becoming friends with a sysop and becoming a co-sysop, being able to change things, snoop around, and all that. But none of that could compare to my discovery of Warez on a BBS. I remember all of the secretive glances shared by those of us at the local BBS picnic who had access to the Warez section of one of the BBS's, and that wonderful feeling of superiority. I think I ended up actually successfully downloading one warez game, Sim Ant, but it wasn't so much what you did do, it was what you could do, and the smugness, never estimate the power of smugness.
As a matter of fact we are, we're planning to rape and pillage Valenti this very evening... well, at least pillage. Arr!
Anything but a hundred dollar wal-mart bike, for multiple reasons.
College kids, (myself included) are concerned with image, and many college kids can instantly tell the difference between a hundred dollar wal-mart bike and a 3-5 hundred dollar bike shop bike. (Except for some mongoose bikes, mongoose makes both types, expensive bikes and wal-mart bikes, and sometimes if you don't know all the models the only way to tell is to look closely at the components, so if you must get a wal-mart bike, get a hardtail mongoose.) Nobody wants to be seen on a wal-mart bike.
Secondly, bikes inherently break a lot. The more complicated the bike, the more it will break. Wal-mart sells bikes that are supposed to look cool, and therefore have extraneous features, like gears you'll hardly ever use, and grip shifters and horrendous rear suspension. All that crap, (well, crap for someone who is just using their bike to ride back and forth to class) is just more stuff to break.
Thirdly, Wal-Mart won't fix her bike for free when it breaks, and lots of bike shops will. If she doesn't already have a bike, she probably doesn't know a lot about bike maintenance and repair, and if she's in college she probably doesn't have a lot of money to throw at the bike shop whenever her bike breaks.
So, now that I've ranted about what you shouldn't do, here's what you should do.
First, get the bike from a local, (local to her, not you) bike shop. Many bike shops will offer free service for anywhere from a few months to a year or two, buy the bike from one of these shops.
Now, what bike to actually look for: This can be complicated, and it all depends on the students needs. If she's going to be using the bike for exclusively getting to and from class in a non-hilly environment the best type of bike to get would be a single-gear cyclecross bike. Cyclecross bikes are kind of hybrids between a mountain bike and a street bike, they're fast and light, but they can handle the occasional curb and so fourth. If the area has hills, get a cyclecross type bike with gears, simple. If the student will be using the bike on weekends for trail rides, (mountain biking) get a hard-tail (no rear suspension) mountain bike. Rear suspension will smooth out bumps on the trial, but it takes away down stroke power, adds weight, and adds significant money, (for anything quality.) Then, put some semi-slick tires in the bike, knobby around the edges for the occasional weekend ride, but smooth down the middle for speed, instead of the knobbies that will likely come standard with any mountain bike. If you can afford it go with an aluminum frame instead of a chromo steel frame, most everybody likes the responsiveness of aluminum better than steel, but the biggest reason to go for Al is weight.
Next, a lock. Figure out how much bike theft is a problem in the area she's going to school in, and base your dicision on that. Ask someone in the bike shop (preferably the person working on bikes in back and not the cash register worker in front) about the theftproof-ness of the various locks. Some locks (in the upwards of $100 range) even come with a warranty, i.e. your bike gets stolen when it's locked up with their lock and the company buys you a new lock.)
Lastly, make sure she thinks the bike looks cool, or else she'll never ride it. Either go to the shop with her to buy it, or give her a gift certificate to a local shop.
I think that's about it, hope that advice helps any prospective bike buyers out there.
Thank the good Lord for warez, err.... did I say that out loud?
I just drove on the autoban a few weeks ago, and it seemed to be working fine to me
.... what? You say that's bahn... Ohh, my bad.
[Yoda Related Spoiler Warning]
Say what you want about forced dialogue, or annoying relationships, but seeing what Yoda does more than makes up for it. When the little green guy walked in on the Count Doku fight scene, I screamed like a little school girl. When he whipped out his light saber, I truly couldn't contain myself. And when he was flipping around with his saber blazing, I realized that I was jumping up and down in my seat.
Until that scene, I was wondering why I had spent two days in line, missed a few classes, gotten pushed and shoved, prodded and yelled at; all for some forced dialogue and a bitchy teenager. Then, when Yoda came in, it all seemed very much worth it.
All right, now this is getting slightly off topic, but possibly still just slightly, so: in response. Let me preface this by saying this is anecdotal personal experience.
In my early teen years I used to be all about the porn, "raging hormones" and whatnot. Then I came to the realization that looking at porn affected my view of women. No, it didn't completely desensitize me to their feelings and needs, but I did think about them in a purely sexual context more often when I was regularly looking at porn. Now that I consciously avoid pr0n the amount of time that i spend thinking about women in a sexual context has greatly decreased.
I'm not saying that the viewing of pornography is necessarily bad, but especially at the very impressionable stages in a young boy's life (or girl's life, although girls seem to have less of a propensity for pornography), viewing pornography could cause a boy to view the opposite sex more as objects, and less as equal humans.
I know from personal experience... err... a friend told me.... errr.... rumor has it that yahoo mobile has a WAP bookmark feature, which could, in the purely theoretical sense, be useful for bookmarking the aforementioned genre of interwap pages.
Anyway, the new schedule is:
Monday: Boycott Sony/MPAA
Tuesday: Relax, check out new tech products and video games.
Wednesday: Boycott RIAA, Call congresscritters over latest atrocious bill.
Thursday: Relax, check out the latest CDs coming on the market.
Friday: Boycott the MPAA in the daytime, go see a movie at night.
Saturday & Sunday: Pretend we have lives outside of work and don't post on Slashdot.
You fergot Wednsday - Sunday Watch AOTC Twice a day at the theatre, (and the bootleg twice a day at home, but that isn't too hypocritical)
Idonno, twice during the movie I felt physically sick because of the romantic dialogue, it was just so terribly written. True, some of the dialogue was written 'badly' to sound like a comic book, but in the hospital love scene, and the final MJ/Peter talk, it went way beyond comic book badness into the realm of sickening.
Since when did thirteen year old 1337 Hax0rz BUY videogames?
I was fairly surprised when I went to the theatre this afternoon to buy tickets and found the 3:45pm showing of Spider Man sold out three hours early.