Just go back to nature, eschew all this horrible modern sanitation and antibiotics, they are all poisoning you. Of course you expected lifespan will be changed from ~80 to about 35, but at least you won't be destroying our precious internal ecosystem. Come on, take one for the team!
Brett
So many things wrong with this...
First of all, a large reason our average lifespan is going up is not because everyone is living to 100+. It's because we're eliminating a large amount of infant mortality.
You're also taking an all-or-nothing kind of approach that's simply idiotic. Nobody is suggesting we do away with modern sanitation and antibiotics... But maybe we don't need antibacterial chemicals built into every single object we touch. Maybe we don't need hand sanitizer stationed every 10 feet. Maybe we don't need to be pumped full of antibiotics every time we get the sniffles.
And they way you're calling it "our precious internal ecosystem"... You do know what they're talking about, right? This isn't some kind of tree-hugging PETA nonsense... This is about the insides of our bodies. It's about beneficial microbes that we need in order to function properly. Have you ever been on a heavy round of antibiotics that killed off a large amount of your intestinal fauna? It's potentially life-threatening, which is why they'll also have you on some heavy pro-biotics at the same time.
The idea that comes into my head when I hear the word "evolution" is a process by which life as we know it developed from very, very simple organisms.
Well, yes... And then those very, very simple organisms became less simple... And then those less simple organisms became just simple... And then those simple organisms became kind of complex...
Just because an organism is currently fairly complex, doesn't mean evolution has somehow magically stopped. Evolution is happening everywhere, 24/7.
The process mentioned in the article is not this.
Yes it is.
It's being guided by human beings, instead of natural forces... And it's been taking place over a short timeframe... But it's still evolution. The exact same kind of stuff that created all the biodiversity on this planet.
No new genetic information has been added to the gene pool.
Again the "information" word.
If I breed a new kind of fox with black fur, instead of red... Is that new information? Is that more information, or less? What if some fox randomly mutates and is born with neon green fur? Is that new information? More information? Less?
All that has occurred is that existing genes have been rearranged.
Well, but that's kind of the point.
I mean, we've only got the four bases... They can only combine in so many different ways... It's all about the order of the base pairs.
Just like binary - you've only got two digits, it's the order that matters.
You cannot continue the same process and get a cow or an elephant.
Probably not. Not because this isn't evolution, but because those are two very specific and unique species. It would take a hell of a lot of work, and more understanding than we currently have, to turn a fox into an elephant.
But, if we were to keep this up long enough we could very well wind up with an entirely new non-fox species.
The way mutations are worked into the gene pool seems, to me, to be the main interesting thing about evolution, and this article has nothing to do that.
Mutations are essential to biodiversity. They're what introduce new and different things.
Which is specifically why they're avoided and weeded out in selective breeding. With selective breeding you have a specific trait that you are intentionally trying to emphasize. You want to avoid random mutation as much as possible and, to the best of your ability, produce a predictable result.
Evolution - Has new genetic information been added? Or has existing information, already within the genome been lost through selective breeding. The latter I think! Foxes still produce after their kind and their offspring are still foxes (albeit with less genetic material than their progenitors)
Information is a rather abstract concept.
The digit "1"... how much information does that contain? Is it an "on" state? Does it symbolize a single object? Is it being used instead of an "i"? What if we stick a "0" digit beside it... "10" - is that ten? Or just two? Or maybe an "on" state and an "off" state? How much information is contained in those digits? If I move from a binary system to a decimal system, have I created more information? Lost information?
Just because somebody is born with webbed toes doesn't mean they have "more" information in their DNA. It's just being processed and expressed differently.
People really need to learn the difference between Evolution (which is adding new material, through unintelligent, uncontrolled random accidental chance process) and Selective Breeding (which is not evolution, but rather devolution).
Evolution is the process by which various traits and mutations are selected to be passed on to future generations. Typically we talk about "survival of the fittest" where the most beneficial mutations and traits are most likely to be passed on... But that isn't necessarily the case. Plenty of non-negative traits and mutations can be passed on as well.
Selective breeding is simply intelligently-driven evolution. Instead of letting environmental pressures and blind luck select the traits or mutations we want to pass along, human beings do it, by only allowing the right animals to breed.
If you want proof that evolution happens you need look no further than your nearest dog show.
So you're expecting all the people who set up private LANs to also setup a DNS on that LAN? Like that will happen.
Nope.
When you set up a Windows PC you give it a host name... Or sometimes it comes pre-configured with one from the manufacturer. Windows is able to communicate with other machines on the network, by host name, without actually setting up a private DNS server. Right out of the box.
Not to mention the games have to support IPv6 too...
They do, but I suspect that isn't terribly hard for your average game. There might be some packet optimization to reduce latency or something like that... But unless you're talking about the server side of some massive MMOG, they're probably just using somebody else's library or pushing the calls off to the OS.
Ya know, I looked and I don't see any IPv6 support on DynDNS. Until more DNS servers support IPv6 it's adoption will still fall short. Fundamentally changing how you network is no small feat. I predict organizations will deploy IPv6 internally first, then upgrades will move further out.
It's kind of a chicken/egg problem right now.
Individual businesses don't want to upgrade to IPv6 because there's no real return on the money. It doesn't really enable them to do anything new and amazing.
Various web sites don't want to upgrade to IPv6 for the same reason. Since hardly anyone is using IPv6, there's no return for their money.
And ISPs don't want to roll out IPv6 for the same reason. Their customers aren't demanding it, and the websites don't generally support it, so there's no reason to roll it out.
For instance, my 4 month old top-end Sonicwall doesn't have IPv6 support. Not exactly a fringe piece of hardware. My Barracuda load balancers don't support IPv6.
I suspect that they're capable of IPv6... If the world were to suddenly switch over tomorrow I'm sure there'd be a software update available to keep them functional.
What worries me are all the crappy little home routers... The Netgear WGR614s and similar... I doubt if they'd have any kind of software update. You'd have thousands of people required to buy new hardware.
Right now it will cause more problems than it solves.
Which is why nobody really uses IPv6. And nobody will use it, until it solves more problems than it causes.
Who the hell needs 13 Gazillion addresses on their LAN? On the internet sure, ok....who the fuck going to connect a Windows box to the internet without NAT/Firewall?
While I don't think I'd recommend connecting any machine - Windows or otherwise - to the Internet without a firewall... I don't see why you think you need NAT.
NAT is Network Address Translation. It has absolutely nothing to do with security. It's a way to overload a single public IP address and funnel multiple private IP addresses through it.
Yes, NAT gives you a default, basic firewall just because you have to explicitly define incoming translations. But there's absolutely no reason you need NAT in order to do a firewall.
I've got dozens of servers sitting behind firewalls with absolutely no NAT going on at all.
Theres lots of places that don't really use DNS tho, for example game servers or other servers run by individuals. In some games you even have to manually type in the address if you want to connect to your friends server. Maybe we see a major increase in those FreeDNS type of services.
Pretty much every machine has a DNS name these days. They aren't usually authoritative... But for a LAN game it'll do.
For non-LAN games you've frequently got some kind of server listing service or match-making service out there that can help you find your buddy's server. Or you could always use DynDNS/No-IP/whatever to get yourself a DNS name.
But at least one pain in the ass there is; if you need to transfer the address on paper or otherwise manually (setting up or fixing networking etc)
Again, many (most?) devices have a DNS name of some sort.
If not... Yes, it can be a pain to write down an address. And the extra address space in IPv6 is going to make that more painful... Although there are shortcuts built into IPv6 that let you shorten the address...
But, seriously, is that a reason not to adopt IPv6? There's too many digits, it's too hard to write out by hand?
The difference is that the other features you listed (3D, speed, administration) are features of the software, while the "freeness" is a characteristic of the folks producing the software.
Again, the "freeness" isn't a price point, the source code is open. Which is certainly a choice that the developers make while building a product... But it is also a feature.
Open Source means that you can audit the code yourself, fix your own bugs, or roll in new features if you want to.
Depending on the application, you may very well want open source code.
If I go to read a review of a bunch of new car models to try to determine what to buy, I wouldn't expect the characteristics of the car company to be included in the review scores, unless it's relevant to the job the car is supposed to be doing.
Let's say you're looking to buy some kind of commercial truck.
You plan on driving the thing around, obviously. So you want to know about cargo capacity and mileage and whatnot.
Now, if you plan on hauling it in to the shop any time it breaks down, you probably don't care what it looks like under the hood.
But if you're planning on doing some of the maintenance yourself... Or if you've already got a fleet and some folks to keep them up and running... Then you probably do care what's under the hood. You might buy one truck instead of another based largely on the fact that your folks are already certified to work on it. Or because you already have the right tools or spare parts.
Likewise, if you already have a number of coders in-house who are maintaining various bits of software, it might make an awful lot of sense to go with an open source product that you can maintain yourself.
We originally wanted to go with Dish. They sent someone out to our house and he quickly determined that the only way it would work was if they stuck a pole in the middle of our yard. Oh, and there would be two separate dishes. We told him no and sent him on his way... The guy was only there for about 10 minutes.
Then we had to explain to Dish that we didn't have their equipment, weren't going to pay monthly bills, didn't cancel any agreement because we never agreed to anything, etc. Lots of fun. Ultimately we didn't pay for any of it.
We've got DirecTV now. They put a single dish on the corner of our roof and it is working fine. We've been pretty happy with it so far... But we tried an HD trial for about three months, and then canceled it... And for some reason our bill went up by $10. I tried to correct it on the website, but couldn't find anything useful. I tried emailing them, and got nothing helpful in response. I've called them, and they claim it will be fixed, but we'll see...
Says it all really. This company didn't even bother trying to establish trademark rights until two months after Microsoft, after news of the new engine had leaked. This screams trademark troll.
I know absolutely nothing about this case, so take my comments with as much salt as you feel necessary...
But, just to play devil's advocate...
It could also be that the company never felt the need to establish trademark rights until news of the new engine leaked. Perhaps this Bing! company was fairly unique in the area it does business in... And if anyone said Bing! they thought immediately of this company... But with Microsoft's re-branded search engine folks now think of Microsoft instead of this Bing! company.
The idea is to keep honest people honest. Just like the lock on your front/back door that is no match for a good kick. Face it, crooks are crooks and defending them by claiming that a lock is out dated is just wrong.
I would suggest that if a person is actually honest, they require no help in staying that way. And that if a person is dishonest, little is going to compel them to be honest.
And I don't know who you think I'm defending. I think DRM is a bad idea in general, but I'm not suggesting everyone run out and pirate stuff.
Civilization is about respecting boundaries and you guys have just forgotten how to behave in polite company. You have shown that you are no longer able to live within a structure of civilized behavior and therefore deserve no more respect than any common criminal.
"You guys"? What guys? Last time I checked I'm just a single human being...
And how have I forgotten how to behave in polite company? By disagreeing with you in a fairly civil manner on a public message board? That somehow makes me a common criminal?
Being PG-13 wasn't way the first AvP was bad, that was just the salt on the wound.
I'm not saying that it would have been a great movie if only it had been R rated... I'm saying that it would have sucked less if we could have at least enjoyed some of the set-piece scenes that we've come to expect from the respective franchises.
When all those people got impregnated, and then the camera cut away when the chestbursters popped... I was genuinely insulted. It's an Alien (vs Predator) movie - I want to see chestbursters!
It was bad because one Alien, "Net-Scar", killed 2 Predators. WTF seriously, I don't care if they were in the middle of their right of passage, the Predators wouldn't go down that easy.
I have less of a problem with an Alien killing multiple Predators (remember, not only were they n00bs, but they didn't even have their shoulder guns) than I do with them trying to turn an Alien into a real character. That was the whole point with the "net scar" thing... To let us distinguish that Alien from the rest of them. So we could keep score and cheer it on.
Aliens are bugs. They're part of a hive mind. They're as interchangeable and disposable as our individual skin cells are. We shouldn't be individualizing them, we should see them as a faceless ravening horde.
Then you get to the part where the human woman saves the remaining Predator and he adopts her into the tribe and gives her a spear and shield made out of dead Alien.
This is right out of Aliens vs. Predator: Prey - a book that pre-dates the movie by a good couple of years. In it you've got a Predator fighting against a bunch of Aliens on a human-settled world, and a human woman who winds up on his side. At the end of the book he gives her the head of the Alien queen as a trophy and marks her as a Predator warrior. In the sequels she actually winds up joining a predator hunting party and going off to hunt more Aliens.
I'm not claiming that the fact it happened on paper before it happened on the screen makes it somehow better... But I can see where they got the idea and why they thought it would work.
Books contain some pretty graphic descriptions of scenes without showing them, and they're just as emotive. My point is that the game doesn't change; It's still a mad zombie-fest survival piece. It's not like they turned the zombies into marionettes and had the words "YOU ARE NOT SHOOTING REAL PEOPLE." emblazoned across the screen. Nor did they make it into Barbie Fun House of Horse Riding Escapades.
It's the same game, with the same mechanics, the same plot. Gore shouldn't even be an issue.
Books get the reader to feel things through text - words, sentences, verbs, nouns, paragraphs. Claiming that they have graphic scenes without showing them just doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting that authors start drawing pictures in the margins of the text? Authors do show those graphic scenes - with text.
Games and movies are largely visual, not textual, mediums. Sure, there's dialogue and soundtracks and all that stuff... But most of the impact comes from the visuals. You don't have some character call out I've been shot! - you instead show some bad guy point a gun at him and pull the trigger, then you cut to a shot of your character falling to the ground, maybe throw in a couple agonized looks on his face, some tears from a bystander, whatever. You show things with actual images on the screen, not with text.
You claim that a book is "just as emotive" without "showing" these things... But that's just wrong. Books do "show" these things.
Compare:
SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
To:
She's pretty.
Not exactly the same thing, is it? But the general message remains the same... Both quotes are talking about how beautiful someone is. I just took out a bunch of un-necessary words... It's still the same sentiment, right?
Censoring a movie, or a video game, is the same thing. You may very well understand that someone has been shot and is dying, but if you do it all off-screen then we've got absolutely no feel for what is going on. We can't see the pain on his face. We can't see the horror of the wound itself. We can't see the expression on the villain's face. All that information is lost. As is much of the emotional impact of that character's death.
I played the L4D2 demo... One of the first things I tried, of course, was a melee weapon. I grabbed a machete off a table and charged right into the thick of things. Killing zombies with a machete is messy business. Limbs come off and blood splatters everywhere. L4D2 portrays this by having blood actually splatter on your screen.
My gut reaction when that happened was to back the hell out of melee range and re-evaluate the wisdom of chopping up zombies with a machete. I've watched enough zombie movies to know that the sickness is usually transmitted through bodily fluids. I was immediately thinking about getting some of that blood splattered in my eyes, or nose, or mouth. There was an instinctive repulsion to that. I didn't want to wade into melee and get covered with gore.
Obviously, they conveyed an awful lot with just a few red pixels on my screen. And while those red pixels mean absolutely nothing
So what about Left 4 Dead 2? Valve might have been too quick to cater to their demands. I hope for the Australians that this ban will also be reversed, and they get to play the game as it was meant to be.
I doubt it.
Zombies are basically human. Rotting, ugly, shambling humans... But humans anyway.
There's a world of difference between dismembering some kind of disgusting Alien that bleeds acid, and dismembering a human being. Yes, I know that there's some graphic dismemberment of human beings in the new AVP game... But that dismemberment is being done by aliens and monsters, not other human beings.
I have a hard time seeing Australia change their mind about L4D2.
Hey, it took a lackluster title to refuse to water down their game, most likely because they have no more budget to do so and had no expected sales to lose, but if it results in real change for good games in the future, so be it.
With the first AVP movie they went for a PG-13 rating to try to get a wider audience, and it bit them in the ass.
The fact of the matter is that both the Predator and Alien franchises are built on R rated movies. They're full of violence. There really isn't a good way to portray a Predator skinning his victims and hanging the corpses out to dry that isn't going to get you an R rating. Nor is there a good way to show an Alien chestburster working its way out of a host that isn't R rated.
In going for the PG-13 rating on AVP they cut out a lot of things that fans expect from the franchise - like shots of a chestburster ripping loose.
AVP:R realized those mistakes and went back to the R rating. It wasn't a great movie... The acting wasn't anything special and the plot was a little bit silly. But it at least delivered the basic things that fans of the two franchises were looking for. Sales were much, much better.
I think, after seeing the comparative performance of those two movies, that Fox knew a watered-down game wouldn't do them any good. And bad reviews for a watered-down Australian release might even negatively impact the non-watered game elsewhere.
AvP is one of the worst games I've had the displeasure of playing. Through dumb luck Australians have been able to avoid direct exposure to it, but now with its full scale release in Oz that utopia is gone.
Save your money. Get a better game.
There have been a number of AvP games now... And while I can certainly make a guess as to which one you're referring... You seem to think there's only one out there.
Then there was Aliens versus Predator - which was developed by Rebellion for the PC. This game was pretty rough for an FPS at the time... But you need to realize that it was not a standard FPS title. The game introduced different vision modes for the Predator and Alien, as well as the Alien's wall-climbing ability, which were all fairly revolutionary at the time. The storyline was pretty crap. The graphics were chunky. The campaigns were pretty short. But it still managed to deliver some real thrills in the Marine campaign.
Next up was Aliens versus Predator 2 - again developed for the PC. This was a genuinely good game. The graphics were roughly on-par with other contemporary titles... The individual campaigns were much longer... And the storyline wove between the three campaigns nicely. I don't know that this title really did anything new and interesting - the vision modes and wall-climbing was already established... But it did everything better than the first PC game did. I had many hours of fun with this title.
And now we've got Aliens vs. Predator on the way from SEGA for the PC. The visuals look as good as any other FPS I've seen recently. The visual modes look better than before, and they appear to have done a better job of capturing the brutality of the old movies. Ultimately I doubt if it'll be some epic feat of video game engineering... But it looks like it'll be a fun ride.
No, the theaters (thousands of them) have in the past indeed ripped off the distributors by playing the movie in more houses than they licensed. You really need to remember that if there is a counter measure for something then it has probably already occurred.
I'm sure they have. And thousands of people have mugged people... And stabbed them... And raped them... And whatever else. But you don't see me walking around treating every other human being I encounter like a thief/murderer/rapist.
When you get right down to it, DRM just doesn't work. It doesn't much matter if we're talking about music, or video games, or productivity applications, or theatrical resolution movies.
You bolt on some kind of DRM mechanic. Someone out there, somewhere, if they're motivated enough can remove that DRM mechanic. I don't care what it is, there's a crack for it. If you decide that you want to pirate that thing, whatever it is, you're going to locate the crack for it. At which point the DRM no longer matters.
So if your DRM requires a $1,000 DRM server... The pirates don't need to buy that server. If your DRM requires standing on one foot and clucking like a chicken... The pirates don't need to do that. If your DRM requires leaving the disc in your computer to play... The pirates don't need to do that. And if you DRM requires some kind of cryptographic key to play the movie... The pirates don't need that key.
So when your DRM mechanic breaks down... When that $1,000 DRM server dies, or somebody has a lousy sense of balance, or the disc is too scratched, or the key distributor has issues... It is only your legitimately paying, legal customers who are affected. The reason they couldn't show this movie in certain theaters is because those theaters were doing it legally. If they'd pirated the movie they'd be able to show it just fine.
The end result is that you're treating your legitimate, paying, legal customers like they're thieves. While not inconveniencing the thieves one bit.
You guys have no real clue about this business model and don't really know what you are talking about.
Sure I do. It's the same business model the RIAA and the MPAA and whoever else is using.
Take an essentially unlimited commodity (a few bits of data)... Encumber it with enough DRM and legal agreements that it becomes a limited commodity (like a chunk of platinum)... Then pretend it is just as valuable as a limited commodity and get outraged if somebody doesn't agree with you.
Ultimately this movie is a few hundred (thousadnd?) gigs of data on a computer somewhere. It could be reproduced infinitely without affecting the quality at all. You could give copies away on a street corner if you wanted to, without impacting the original at all.
Originally it might have made sense to treat these movies like precious metals - back when they were all printed on real celluloid. Back when making a copy wasn't a point & click endeavor. Back when there was some real value associated with a copy of the film. Just as, once upon a time, it took real time and effort to record music onto a record or tape or CD.
These days, however, the copies are worthless. Given sufficient disk space and access to the original, absolutely anybody could make a copy. It requires absolutely no special effort or knowledge or training.
And just like the music industry - the movie industry is now trying to encumber these digital copies with enough DRM and legalese that they behave more like the old analog copies.
I think you misunderstand. The DRM would be there to prevent the theater from showing the movie on more than one screen, or sending a copy to their other locations. The theater is the end-user the DRM is being used against.
I do not misunderstand. I just don't think it makes sense to treat your business partners (the theaters) like thieves. I think that creates more problems than it fixes.
What's interesting is that, once again, DRM is only affecting legitimately paying customers.
Though you wouldn't hear about it If the DRM prevented theft of the movie.
Are you kidding? With all the bad press surrounding DRM and anti-piracy tactics and everything else? If some studio had proof that their DRM was actually preventing theft they'd be shouting it from the rooftops.
Actually the screener is a low resolution copy of the actual film and has very little relationship to what is on the disk we ship. The DRM is there to make sure we get paid by the theater for the box office not to stop consumers from getting a copy. None of your arguments have any meaning in this context.
Actually, that makes the DRM make even less sense to me...
I mean, you're telling me that some guy is going to build a theater... Hire a bunch of employees... Put in multiple thousands of dollars worth of 3D projection equipment... Contact at least some studios to get legal copies of their films for presentation (they couldn't possibly pirate all of it, could they?)... And then go and run a pirated copy of this movie... That just doesn't make sense.
I kind of assumed, from the context of the article, that it was more about licensing the right number of screens. Sounds like the "film" is actually a digital file sitting on a server, and streamed out to multiple projectors. And they want to make sure that they get paid a licensing fee for each and every screen it shows on. Which actually makes plenty of sense.
But where it stops making sense is when you throw the DRM in. That seems to set you up in some kind of adversarial relationship where you view those theater owners more like the enemy than your business partners. Which doesn't seem like a good situation to me.
Of course you'll point out that there are plenty of shady people out there who would do underhanded things if they were allowed to... Which is certainly true. But I don't think the solution is to alienate your loyal business partners (the folks who did everything legally) by treating them like criminals. Again - this DRM only affects the people doing things legally. If you're pirating the movie - regardless of whether it's a screener copy or something theatrical resolution - you aren't dealing with the DRM.
Who the fuck watches avatar for the plot anyway? Look, you watch avatar for the same reasons that you watch the first three star wars episodes. You don't watch for the plot, you watch for the "BOOM BANG POW POW POW BZZZSH LIGHTSABER FIGHT!!" and the obscene amount of special effects. You watch avatar for the special effects, the bang boom bzzzsh, and the smoking hot 10 foot tall blue alien women.
I went to watch Phantom Menace (that is the first episode you're talking about, right?) because I thought Lucas might deliver a worthy prequel to the original trilogy. After that monstrosity I didn't bother seeing Attack of the Clones in the theater, but I did rent it because folks kept saying it was better. After that, I didn't even bother to rent Revenge of the Sith.
Yes, special effects and action can be entertaining. I'll readily admit that. But without a substantial storyline and some decent acting there's really very little to hold your attention. The days when I would watch a movie for no other reason than to see a giant robot or some skin or a big explosion are long gone. If you aren't giving me a storyline or characters to care about, I'll get bored and go do something else with myself.
Avatar certainly looks like it has nifty visuals. And I may very well wind up renting it some day just to see what it looks like. But there's no way in hell I'm going to spend the $30 it will take for my wife and I to go see this in the theater. There are far better ways for me to spend both my time and my money.
I don't care what you think of it we are not shipping first run theatrical resolution films unencrypted. Get over it people at this level encryption is here to stay.
What's interesting is that, once again, DRM is only affecting legitimately paying customers.
In this case somebody ripped a screener copy of the movie a couple weeks ago, so this first run theatrical resolution film isn't terribly interesting to the pirates anymore. Anybody who wants to grab a pirated copy of the movie has been able to do so for a little while now. They don't need this DRM-laden film.
The folks who do need this DRM-laden film are the theater owners who are trying to show the movie to their patrons. And they have, presumably, acquired their copy of the movie through legitimate means. Which is why the lack of a key to the DRM matters to them. If they were using a pirated copy they wouldn't be having any trouble showing it.
By far, this is the most annoying thing about DVD's. So-called "acceptable user operations". The DVD decides what you get to do or not do, including watching a bunch of previews for movies you don't want to see. I could understand this happening once, the first time you watch it. But really, its an insult to avid movie fans with movie libraries. Forcing them to watch ads for movies that came out 10 fucking years ago is ridiculous.
I was so thrilled with the first DVD I bought specifically because it didn't have ads at the beginning...
I'd grown used to fast-forwarding through the ads at the beginning of a VHS tape, and just having the menu pop right up was terrific. I couldn't believe how convenient that was.
A little while later I got a DVD with ads on it... But that was OK, because I could just hit the MENU button and skip right over them. Even easier than fast-forwarding through the ads on a VHS tape.
These days, however, it's worse than a VHS tape. The MENU button is disabled and I'm forced to sit through them just like before. But the extra capacity on a DVD means they can cram even more ads on there. At least I haven't found one that disabled the fast-forward button yet...
It's still a great field with good salary, sane work hours and prospects for advancements.
I'm really not sure how to take this... We really need a sarcasm tag or something... Because I'm having a hard time believing you're serious, but I just don't know.
The point is to make sure that it takes two launch officers to launch a missile.
Or one officer with an angle grinder or bolt cutters?
I suspect that under normal operating conditions somebody going after that cabinet with an angle grinder or bolt cutters would probably arouse suspicion.
However... Under abnormal operating conditions, it might be desirable to be able to get into that cabinet without too much trouble.
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Just go back to nature, eschew all this horrible modern sanitation and antibiotics, they are all poisoning you. Of course you expected lifespan will be changed from ~80 to about 35, but at least you won't be destroying our precious internal ecosystem. Come on, take one for the team!
Brett
So many things wrong with this...
First of all, a large reason our average lifespan is going up is not because everyone is living to 100+. It's because we're eliminating a large amount of infant mortality.
You're also taking an all-or-nothing kind of approach that's simply idiotic. Nobody is suggesting we do away with modern sanitation and antibiotics... But maybe we don't need antibacterial chemicals built into every single object we touch. Maybe we don't need hand sanitizer stationed every 10 feet. Maybe we don't need to be pumped full of antibiotics every time we get the sniffles.
And they way you're calling it "our precious internal ecosystem"... You do know what they're talking about, right? This isn't some kind of tree-hugging PETA nonsense... This is about the insides of our bodies. It's about beneficial microbes that we need in order to function properly. Have you ever been on a heavy round of antibiotics that killed off a large amount of your intestinal fauna? It's potentially life-threatening, which is why they'll also have you on some heavy pro-biotics at the same time.
The idea that comes into my head when I hear the word "evolution" is a process by which life as we know it developed from very, very simple organisms.
Well, yes... And then those very, very simple organisms became less simple... And then those less simple organisms became just simple... And then those simple organisms became kind of complex...
Just because an organism is currently fairly complex, doesn't mean evolution has somehow magically stopped. Evolution is happening everywhere, 24/7.
The process mentioned in the article is not this.
Yes it is.
It's being guided by human beings, instead of natural forces... And it's been taking place over a short timeframe... But it's still evolution. The exact same kind of stuff that created all the biodiversity on this planet.
No new genetic information has been added to the gene pool.
Again the "information" word.
If I breed a new kind of fox with black fur, instead of red... Is that new information? Is that more information, or less? What if some fox randomly mutates and is born with neon green fur? Is that new information? More information? Less?
All that has occurred is that existing genes have been rearranged.
Well, but that's kind of the point.
I mean, we've only got the four bases... They can only combine in so many different ways... It's all about the order of the base pairs.
Just like binary - you've only got two digits, it's the order that matters.
You cannot continue the same process and get a cow or an elephant.
Probably not. Not because this isn't evolution, but because those are two very specific and unique species. It would take a hell of a lot of work, and more understanding than we currently have, to turn a fox into an elephant.
But, if we were to keep this up long enough we could very well wind up with an entirely new non-fox species.
The way mutations are worked into the gene pool seems, to me, to be the main interesting thing about evolution, and this article has nothing to do that.
Mutations are essential to biodiversity. They're what introduce new and different things.
Which is specifically why they're avoided and weeded out in selective breeding. With selective breeding you have a specific trait that you are intentionally trying to emphasize. You want to avoid random mutation as much as possible and, to the best of your ability, produce a predictable result.
Also, now I really want a pet fox.
Agreed.
Evolution - Has new genetic information been added? Or has existing information, already within the genome been lost through selective breeding. The latter I think! Foxes still produce after their kind and their offspring are still foxes (albeit with less genetic material than their progenitors)
Information is a rather abstract concept.
The digit "1" ... how much information does that contain? Is it an "on" state? Does it symbolize a single object? Is it being used instead of an "i"? What if we stick a "0" digit beside it... "10" - is that ten? Or just two? Or maybe an "on" state and an "off" state? How much information is contained in those digits? If I move from a binary system to a decimal system, have I created more information? Lost information?
Just because somebody is born with webbed toes doesn't mean they have "more" information in their DNA. It's just being processed and expressed differently.
People really need to learn the difference between Evolution (which is adding new material, through unintelligent, uncontrolled random accidental chance process) and Selective Breeding (which is not evolution, but rather devolution).
Evolution is the process by which various traits and mutations are selected to be passed on to future generations. Typically we talk about "survival of the fittest" where the most beneficial mutations and traits are most likely to be passed on... But that isn't necessarily the case. Plenty of non-negative traits and mutations can be passed on as well.
Selective breeding is simply intelligently-driven evolution. Instead of letting environmental pressures and blind luck select the traits or mutations we want to pass along, human beings do it, by only allowing the right animals to breed.
If you want proof that evolution happens you need look no further than your nearest dog show.
So you're expecting all the people who set up private LANs to also setup a DNS on that LAN? Like that will happen.
Nope.
When you set up a Windows PC you give it a host name... Or sometimes it comes pre-configured with one from the manufacturer. Windows is able to communicate with other machines on the network, by host name, without actually setting up a private DNS server. Right out of the box.
Not to mention the games have to support IPv6 too...
They do, but I suspect that isn't terribly hard for your average game. There might be some packet optimization to reduce latency or something like that... But unless you're talking about the server side of some massive MMOG, they're probably just using somebody else's library or pushing the calls off to the OS.
Ya know, I looked and I don't see any IPv6 support on DynDNS. Until more DNS servers support IPv6 it's adoption will still fall short. Fundamentally changing how you network is no small feat. I predict organizations will deploy IPv6 internally first, then upgrades will move further out.
It's kind of a chicken/egg problem right now.
Individual businesses don't want to upgrade to IPv6 because there's no real return on the money. It doesn't really enable them to do anything new and amazing.
Various web sites don't want to upgrade to IPv6 for the same reason. Since hardly anyone is using IPv6, there's no return for their money.
And ISPs don't want to roll out IPv6 for the same reason. Their customers aren't demanding it, and the websites don't generally support it, so there's no reason to roll it out.
For instance, my 4 month old top-end Sonicwall doesn't have IPv6 support. Not exactly a fringe piece of hardware. My Barracuda load balancers don't support IPv6.
I suspect that they're capable of IPv6... If the world were to suddenly switch over tomorrow I'm sure there'd be a software update available to keep them functional.
What worries me are all the crappy little home routers... The Netgear WGR614s and similar... I doubt if they'd have any kind of software update. You'd have thousands of people required to buy new hardware.
Right now it will cause more problems than it solves.
Which is why nobody really uses IPv6. And nobody will use it, until it solves more problems than it causes.
Who the hell needs 13 Gazillion addresses on their LAN? On the internet sure, ok....who the fuck going to connect a Windows box to the internet without NAT/Firewall?
While I don't think I'd recommend connecting any machine - Windows or otherwise - to the Internet without a firewall... I don't see why you think you need NAT.
NAT is Network Address Translation. It has absolutely nothing to do with security. It's a way to overload a single public IP address and funnel multiple private IP addresses through it.
Yes, NAT gives you a default, basic firewall just because you have to explicitly define incoming translations. But there's absolutely no reason you need NAT in order to do a firewall.
I've got dozens of servers sitting behind firewalls with absolutely no NAT going on at all.
Theres lots of places that don't really use DNS tho, for example game servers or other servers run by individuals. In some games you even have to manually type in the address if you want to connect to your friends server. Maybe we see a major increase in those FreeDNS type of services.
Pretty much every machine has a DNS name these days. They aren't usually authoritative... But for a LAN game it'll do.
For non-LAN games you've frequently got some kind of server listing service or match-making service out there that can help you find your buddy's server. Or you could always use DynDNS/No-IP/whatever to get yourself a DNS name.
But at least one pain in the ass there is; if you need to transfer the address on paper or otherwise manually (setting up or fixing networking etc)
Again, many (most?) devices have a DNS name of some sort.
If not... Yes, it can be a pain to write down an address. And the extra address space in IPv6 is going to make that more painful... Although there are shortcuts built into IPv6 that let you shorten the address...
But, seriously, is that a reason not to adopt IPv6? There's too many digits, it's too hard to write out by hand?
The difference is that the other features you listed (3D, speed, administration) are features of the software, while the "freeness" is a characteristic of the folks producing the software.
Again, the "freeness" isn't a price point, the source code is open. Which is certainly a choice that the developers make while building a product... But it is also a feature.
Open Source means that you can audit the code yourself, fix your own bugs, or roll in new features if you want to.
Depending on the application, you may very well want open source code.
If I go to read a review of a bunch of new car models to try to determine what to buy, I wouldn't expect the characteristics of the car company to be included in the review scores, unless it's relevant to the job the car is supposed to be doing.
Let's say you're looking to buy some kind of commercial truck.
You plan on driving the thing around, obviously. So you want to know about cargo capacity and mileage and whatnot.
Now, if you plan on hauling it in to the shop any time it breaks down, you probably don't care what it looks like under the hood.
But if you're planning on doing some of the maintenance yourself... Or if you've already got a fleet and some folks to keep them up and running... Then you probably do care what's under the hood. You might buy one truck instead of another based largely on the fact that your folks are already certified to work on it. Or because you already have the right tools or spare parts.
Likewise, if you already have a number of coders in-house who are maintaining various bits of software, it might make an awful lot of sense to go with an open source product that you can maintain yourself.
We had a lot of trouble with the installation...
We originally wanted to go with Dish. They sent someone out to our house and he quickly determined that the only way it would work was if they stuck a pole in the middle of our yard. Oh, and there would be two separate dishes. We told him no and sent him on his way... The guy was only there for about 10 minutes.
Then we had to explain to Dish that we didn't have their equipment, weren't going to pay monthly bills, didn't cancel any agreement because we never agreed to anything, etc. Lots of fun. Ultimately we didn't pay for any of it.
We've got DirecTV now. They put a single dish on the corner of our roof and it is working fine. We've been pretty happy with it so far... But we tried an HD trial for about three months, and then canceled it... And for some reason our bill went up by $10. I tried to correct it on the website, but couldn't find anything useful. I tried emailing them, and got nothing helpful in response. I've called them, and they claim it will be fixed, but we'll see...
Says it all really. This company didn't even bother trying to establish trademark rights until two months after Microsoft, after news of the new engine had leaked. This screams trademark troll.
I know absolutely nothing about this case, so take my comments with as much salt as you feel necessary...
But, just to play devil's advocate...
It could also be that the company never felt the need to establish trademark rights until news of the new engine leaked. Perhaps this Bing! company was fairly unique in the area it does business in... And if anyone said Bing! they thought immediately of this company... But with Microsoft's re-branded search engine folks now think of Microsoft instead of this Bing! company.
The idea is to keep honest people honest. Just like the lock on your front/back door that is no match for a good kick. Face it, crooks are crooks and defending them by claiming that a lock is out dated is just wrong.
I would suggest that if a person is actually honest, they require no help in staying that way. And that if a person is dishonest, little is going to compel them to be honest.
And I don't know who you think I'm defending. I think DRM is a bad idea in general, but I'm not suggesting everyone run out and pirate stuff.
Civilization is about respecting boundaries and you guys have just forgotten how to behave in polite company. You have shown that you are no longer able to live within a structure of civilized behavior and therefore deserve no more respect than any common criminal.
"You guys"? What guys? Last time I checked I'm just a single human being...
And how have I forgotten how to behave in polite company? By disagreeing with you in a fairly civil manner on a public message board? That somehow makes me a common criminal?
What the hell kind of world are you living in?
Being PG-13 wasn't way the first AvP was bad, that was just the salt on the wound.
I'm not saying that it would have been a great movie if only it had been R rated... I'm saying that it would have sucked less if we could have at least enjoyed some of the set-piece scenes that we've come to expect from the respective franchises.
When all those people got impregnated, and then the camera cut away when the chestbursters popped... I was genuinely insulted. It's an Alien (vs Predator) movie - I want to see chestbursters!
It was bad because one Alien, "Net-Scar", killed 2 Predators. WTF seriously, I don't care if they were in the middle of their right of passage, the Predators wouldn't go down that easy.
I have less of a problem with an Alien killing multiple Predators (remember, not only were they n00bs, but they didn't even have their shoulder guns) than I do with them trying to turn an Alien into a real character. That was the whole point with the "net scar" thing... To let us distinguish that Alien from the rest of them. So we could keep score and cheer it on.
Aliens are bugs. They're part of a hive mind. They're as interchangeable and disposable as our individual skin cells are. We shouldn't be individualizing them, we should see them as a faceless ravening horde.
Then you get to the part where the human woman saves the remaining Predator and he adopts her into the tribe and gives her a spear and shield made out of dead Alien.
This is right out of Aliens vs. Predator: Prey - a book that pre-dates the movie by a good couple of years. In it you've got a Predator fighting against a bunch of Aliens on a human-settled world, and a human woman who winds up on his side. At the end of the book he gives her the head of the Alien queen as a trophy and marks her as a Predator warrior. In the sequels she actually winds up joining a predator hunting party and going off to hunt more Aliens.
I'm not claiming that the fact it happened on paper before it happened on the screen makes it somehow better... But I can see where they got the idea and why they thought it would work.
Books contain some pretty graphic descriptions of scenes without showing them, and they're just as emotive. My point is that the game doesn't change; It's still a mad zombie-fest survival piece. It's not like they turned the zombies into marionettes and had the words "YOU ARE NOT SHOOTING REAL PEOPLE." emblazoned across the screen. Nor did they make it into Barbie Fun House of Horse Riding Escapades.
It's the same game, with the same mechanics, the same plot. Gore shouldn't even be an issue.
Books get the reader to feel things through text - words, sentences, verbs, nouns, paragraphs. Claiming that they have graphic scenes without showing them just doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting that authors start drawing pictures in the margins of the text? Authors do show those graphic scenes - with text.
Games and movies are largely visual, not textual, mediums. Sure, there's dialogue and soundtracks and all that stuff... But most of the impact comes from the visuals. You don't have some character call out I've been shot! - you instead show some bad guy point a gun at him and pull the trigger, then you cut to a shot of your character falling to the ground, maybe throw in a couple agonized looks on his face, some tears from a bystander, whatever. You show things with actual images on the screen, not with text.
You claim that a book is "just as emotive" without "showing" these things... But that's just wrong. Books do "show" these things.
Compare:
SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
To:
She's pretty.
Not exactly the same thing, is it? But the general message remains the same... Both quotes are talking about how beautiful someone is. I just took out a bunch of un-necessary words... It's still the same sentiment, right?
Censoring a movie, or a video game, is the same thing. You may very well understand that someone has been shot and is dying, but if you do it all off-screen then we've got absolutely no feel for what is going on. We can't see the pain on his face. We can't see the horror of the wound itself. We can't see the expression on the villain's face. All that information is lost. As is much of the emotional impact of that character's death.
I played the L4D2 demo... One of the first things I tried, of course, was a melee weapon. I grabbed a machete off a table and charged right into the thick of things. Killing zombies with a machete is messy business. Limbs come off and blood splatters everywhere. L4D2 portrays this by having blood actually splatter on your screen.
My gut reaction when that happened was to back the hell out of melee range and re-evaluate the wisdom of chopping up zombies with a machete. I've watched enough zombie movies to know that the sickness is usually transmitted through bodily fluids. I was immediately thinking about getting some of that blood splattered in my eyes, or nose, or mouth. There was an instinctive repulsion to that. I didn't want to wade into melee and get covered with gore.
Obviously, they conveyed an awful lot with just a few red pixels on my screen. And while those red pixels mean absolutely nothing
So what about Left 4 Dead 2? Valve might have been too quick to cater to their demands. I hope for the Australians that this ban will also be reversed, and they get to play the game as it was meant to be.
I doubt it.
Zombies are basically human. Rotting, ugly, shambling humans... But humans anyway.
There's a world of difference between dismembering some kind of disgusting Alien that bleeds acid, and dismembering a human being. Yes, I know that there's some graphic dismemberment of human beings in the new AVP game... But that dismemberment is being done by aliens and monsters, not other human beings.
I have a hard time seeing Australia change their mind about L4D2.
Hey, it took a lackluster title to refuse to water down their game, most likely because they have no more budget to do so and had no expected sales to lose, but if it results in real change for good games in the future, so be it.
Actually, I think it has more to do with the performance of Alien vs. Predator compared to Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.
With the first AVP movie they went for a PG-13 rating to try to get a wider audience, and it bit them in the ass.
The fact of the matter is that both the Predator and Alien franchises are built on R rated movies. They're full of violence. There really isn't a good way to portray a Predator skinning his victims and hanging the corpses out to dry that isn't going to get you an R rating. Nor is there a good way to show an Alien chestburster working its way out of a host that isn't R rated.
In going for the PG-13 rating on AVP they cut out a lot of things that fans expect from the franchise - like shots of a chestburster ripping loose.
AVP:R realized those mistakes and went back to the R rating. It wasn't a great movie... The acting wasn't anything special and the plot was a little bit silly. But it at least delivered the basic things that fans of the two franchises were looking for. Sales were much, much better.
I think, after seeing the comparative performance of those two movies, that Fox knew a watered-down game wouldn't do them any good. And bad reviews for a watered-down Australian release might even negatively impact the non-watered game elsewhere.
AvP is one of the worst games I've had the displeasure of playing. Through dumb luck Australians have been able to avoid direct exposure to it, but now with its full scale release in Oz that utopia is gone.
Save your money. Get a better game.
There have been a number of AvP games now... And while I can certainly make a guess as to which one you're referring... You seem to think there's only one out there.
There was Alien vs Predator on the Atari Jaguar - which I never played.
Then there was Aliens versus Predator - which was developed by Rebellion for the PC. This game was pretty rough for an FPS at the time... But you need to realize that it was not a standard FPS title. The game introduced different vision modes for the Predator and Alien, as well as the Alien's wall-climbing ability, which were all fairly revolutionary at the time. The storyline was pretty crap. The graphics were chunky. The campaigns were pretty short. But it still managed to deliver some real thrills in the Marine campaign.
Next up was Aliens versus Predator 2 - again developed for the PC. This was a genuinely good game. The graphics were roughly on-par with other contemporary titles... The individual campaigns were much longer... And the storyline wove between the three campaigns nicely. I don't know that this title really did anything new and interesting - the vision modes and wall-climbing was already established... But it did everything better than the first PC game did. I had many hours of fun with this title.
And now we've got Aliens vs. Predator on the way from SEGA for the PC. The visuals look as good as any other FPS I've seen recently. The visual modes look better than before, and they appear to have done a better job of capturing the brutality of the old movies. Ultimately I doubt if it'll be some epic feat of video game engineering... But it looks like it'll be a fun ride.
No, the theaters (thousands of them) have in the past indeed ripped off the distributors by playing the movie in more houses than they licensed. You really need to remember that if there is a counter measure for something then it has probably already occurred.
I'm sure they have. And thousands of people have mugged people... And stabbed them... And raped them... And whatever else. But you don't see me walking around treating every other human being I encounter like a thief/murderer/rapist.
When you get right down to it, DRM just doesn't work. It doesn't much matter if we're talking about music, or video games, or productivity applications, or theatrical resolution movies.
You bolt on some kind of DRM mechanic. Someone out there, somewhere, if they're motivated enough can remove that DRM mechanic. I don't care what it is, there's a crack for it. If you decide that you want to pirate that thing, whatever it is, you're going to locate the crack for it. At which point the DRM no longer matters.
So if your DRM requires a $1,000 DRM server... The pirates don't need to buy that server. If your DRM requires standing on one foot and clucking like a chicken... The pirates don't need to do that. If your DRM requires leaving the disc in your computer to play... The pirates don't need to do that. And if you DRM requires some kind of cryptographic key to play the movie... The pirates don't need that key.
So when your DRM mechanic breaks down... When that $1,000 DRM server dies, or somebody has a lousy sense of balance, or the disc is too scratched, or the key distributor has issues... It is only your legitimately paying, legal customers who are affected. The reason they couldn't show this movie in certain theaters is because those theaters were doing it legally. If they'd pirated the movie they'd be able to show it just fine.
The end result is that you're treating your legitimate, paying, legal customers like they're thieves. While not inconveniencing the thieves one bit.
You guys have no real clue about this business model and don't really know what you are talking about.
Sure I do. It's the same business model the RIAA and the MPAA and whoever else is using.
Take an essentially unlimited commodity (a few bits of data)... Encumber it with enough DRM and legal agreements that it becomes a limited commodity (like a chunk of platinum)... Then pretend it is just as valuable as a limited commodity and get outraged if somebody doesn't agree with you.
Ultimately this movie is a few hundred (thousadnd?) gigs of data on a computer somewhere. It could be reproduced infinitely without affecting the quality at all. You could give copies away on a street corner if you wanted to, without impacting the original at all.
Originally it might have made sense to treat these movies like precious metals - back when they were all printed on real celluloid. Back when making a copy wasn't a point & click endeavor. Back when there was some real value associated with a copy of the film. Just as, once upon a time, it took real time and effort to record music onto a record or tape or CD.
These days, however, the copies are worthless. Given sufficient disk space and access to the original, absolutely anybody could make a copy. It requires absolutely no special effort or knowledge or training.
And just like the music industry - the movie industry is now trying to encumber these digital copies with enough DRM and legalese that they behave more like the old analog copies.
I think you misunderstand. The DRM would be there to prevent the theater from showing the movie on more than one screen, or sending a copy to their other locations. The theater is the end-user the DRM is being used against.
I do not misunderstand. I just don't think it makes sense to treat your business partners (the theaters) like thieves. I think that creates more problems than it fixes.
What's interesting is that, once again, DRM is only affecting legitimately paying customers.
Though you wouldn't hear about it If the DRM prevented theft of the movie.
Are you kidding? With all the bad press surrounding DRM and anti-piracy tactics and everything else? If some studio had proof that their DRM was actually preventing theft they'd be shouting it from the rooftops.
Actually the screener is a low resolution copy of the actual film and has very little relationship to what is on the disk we ship. The DRM is there to make sure we get paid by the theater for the box office not to stop consumers from getting a copy. None of your arguments have any meaning in this context.
Actually, that makes the DRM make even less sense to me...
I mean, you're telling me that some guy is going to build a theater... Hire a bunch of employees... Put in multiple thousands of dollars worth of 3D projection equipment... Contact at least some studios to get legal copies of their films for presentation (they couldn't possibly pirate all of it, could they?)... And then go and run a pirated copy of this movie... That just doesn't make sense.
I kind of assumed, from the context of the article, that it was more about licensing the right number of screens. Sounds like the "film" is actually a digital file sitting on a server, and streamed out to multiple projectors. And they want to make sure that they get paid a licensing fee for each and every screen it shows on. Which actually makes plenty of sense.
But where it stops making sense is when you throw the DRM in. That seems to set you up in some kind of adversarial relationship where you view those theater owners more like the enemy than your business partners. Which doesn't seem like a good situation to me.
Of course you'll point out that there are plenty of shady people out there who would do underhanded things if they were allowed to... Which is certainly true. But I don't think the solution is to alienate your loyal business partners (the folks who did everything legally) by treating them like criminals. Again - this DRM only affects the people doing things legally. If you're pirating the movie - regardless of whether it's a screener copy or something theatrical resolution - you aren't dealing with the DRM.
Who the fuck watches avatar for the plot anyway? Look, you watch avatar for the same reasons that you watch the first three star wars episodes. You don't watch for the plot, you watch for the "BOOM BANG POW POW POW BZZZSH LIGHTSABER FIGHT!!" and the obscene amount of special effects. You watch avatar for the special effects, the bang boom bzzzsh, and the smoking hot 10 foot tall blue alien women.
I went to watch Phantom Menace (that is the first episode you're talking about, right?) because I thought Lucas might deliver a worthy prequel to the original trilogy. After that monstrosity I didn't bother seeing Attack of the Clones in the theater, but I did rent it because folks kept saying it was better. After that, I didn't even bother to rent Revenge of the Sith.
Yes, special effects and action can be entertaining. I'll readily admit that. But without a substantial storyline and some decent acting there's really very little to hold your attention. The days when I would watch a movie for no other reason than to see a giant robot or some skin or a big explosion are long gone. If you aren't giving me a storyline or characters to care about, I'll get bored and go do something else with myself.
Avatar certainly looks like it has nifty visuals. And I may very well wind up renting it some day just to see what it looks like. But there's no way in hell I'm going to spend the $30 it will take for my wife and I to go see this in the theater. There are far better ways for me to spend both my time and my money.
I don't care what you think of it we are not shipping first run theatrical resolution films unencrypted. Get over it people at this level encryption is here to stay.
What's interesting is that, once again, DRM is only affecting legitimately paying customers.
In this case somebody ripped a screener copy of the movie a couple weeks ago, so this first run theatrical resolution film isn't terribly interesting to the pirates anymore. Anybody who wants to grab a pirated copy of the movie has been able to do so for a little while now. They don't need this DRM-laden film.
The folks who do need this DRM-laden film are the theater owners who are trying to show the movie to their patrons. And they have, presumably, acquired their copy of the movie through legitimate means. Which is why the lack of a key to the DRM matters to them. If they were using a pirated copy they wouldn't be having any trouble showing it.
By far, this is the most annoying thing about DVD's. So-called "acceptable user operations". The DVD decides what you get to do or not do, including watching a bunch of previews for movies you don't want to see. I could understand this happening once, the first time you watch it. But really, its an insult to avid movie fans with movie libraries. Forcing them to watch ads for movies that came out 10 fucking years ago is ridiculous.
I was so thrilled with the first DVD I bought specifically because it didn't have ads at the beginning...
I'd grown used to fast-forwarding through the ads at the beginning of a VHS tape, and just having the menu pop right up was terrific. I couldn't believe how convenient that was.
A little while later I got a DVD with ads on it... But that was OK, because I could just hit the MENU button and skip right over them. Even easier than fast-forwarding through the ads on a VHS tape.
These days, however, it's worse than a VHS tape. The MENU button is disabled and I'm forced to sit through them just like before. But the extra capacity on a DVD means they can cram even more ads on there. At least I haven't found one that disabled the fast-forward button yet...
It's still a great field with good salary, sane work hours and prospects for advancements.
I'm really not sure how to take this... We really need a sarcasm tag or something... Because I'm having a hard time believing you're serious, but I just don't know.
Or one officer with an angle grinder or bolt cutters?
I suspect that under normal operating conditions somebody going after that cabinet with an angle grinder or bolt cutters would probably arouse suspicion.
However... Under abnormal operating conditions, it might be desirable to be able to get into that cabinet without too much trouble.