Re:Canaries in the coal mine baby!
on
Three Headed Frog
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Yes, the environment is indeed self-purifying, I never said it wasn't, but just not fast enough to account for the amount of toxins that released. Actually, I should have been more specific - there are two kinds of toxins, some cumulative, some not.
A simple Google search came up with a ton of pages supporting this, like this one should that shows the accumulation of toxins in marine biology ("Non-cumulative toxins do not increase in concentration in the body, even if the organism is chronically exposed to the toxin. Conversely, cumulative toxins, tend to increase in concentration, and are often associated with a specific tissue, e.g., cadmium tends to increase over time in the digestive gland of blue crabs."). this link, this link and this one also talk about the cumulative nature of pollution. etc.etc.
So where are your links?
I agree that a single mutated frog isn't PROOF that pollution is involved, that mutations will occur to surrounding mammals, whatever, BUT it should at least make you stop and think for a second, asks questions, etc., instead of just shrug and ignore it completely - which is what I was getting at.
Sadly, you're just as bad as those environmentalists you attack... ignoring everybody else.
Re:Canaries in the coal mine baby!
on
Three Headed Frog
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
So when do we stop? When snakes start to grow heads at both ends? When deer start getting extra legs? Pollution is a cumulative thing - if there's enough now to cause mutations in frogs to this degree, pretty soon it WILL start affecting mammals such as ourselves (if it hasn't already).
I never understood why people just don't care about this type of thing, even though there's horrible proof right in their faces.
It's like a friend driving his Hummer down the smog-filled street (and not capable of seeing the tops of the skyscrapers) but telling me that pollution is just a big scare by all the environmentalists and that there's nothing wrong - HE'S HEALTHY. Although I'm not Green either (like the grandparent post), I can't understand the reasoning. What will it take to change their minds?
I'm not sure about the new rules, but I generally like the old (pre-Age of Shadows) rules that a lot of the free public UO servers are using - you die, your items can be looted, you lose some stats, nothing too harsh, but still frustrating enough to not want to die too often.
What I/do/ like, and other systems should implement is that UO has areas that are obviously meant for stronger players, but also areas where there's simply no player-killing, so that newbies and everybody else for that matter, can go there and play without fearing that some jerk off will come and slaughter them... I always appreciated that. And then, whenever you're brave/strong enough, you can head over to the PKing-allowed sections...
Basically, if MMORPG designers would implement certain sections (i.e. around a few cities, a couple of dungeons, whatever) that I knew that only the NPCs could kill, then I'm sure a lot of the problems would be solved.
As somsone else already mentioned, monotheistic religions in particular would be affected by this. For example, a friend of mine who is strongly Protestant told me over the phone just a few weeks ago (when the whole Mars mission was big news) that if life was found on Mars (even simple life) she would immediately dump her religion - which to me seemed utterly idiotic. She claims that God would have mentioned that he created other life in the Bible, and not have made it out that we were the sole beings in the universe.
Even though I'm not Christian, I still don't see why you couldn't believe in God... He never mentioned so many things that science (and astronomy in particular) has uncovered, but we still don't use that as a way of disproving his existence (that would be downright silly). Why then would he have had to mention other planets, and possible life on them?
For some people, sure, their religion is in danger, but most religions are more spiritual than that. Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, etc. are all just fine with or without life on other planets.
This has most definitely been a long time coming, considering Origin even hinted at their unhappiness with EA in Ultima 7: The Black Gate. Sure, EA gave them the money to finish the game, but that doesn't mean EA had to slow suffocate Origin to death.
In Ultima 7 (and later games as well I believe), the Guardian needed three generators to help control the minds and hearts of the people in Britannia, shaped as a square, triangle(tetrahedron) and circle, which all just happen to be a part of EA's logo. I'm sure it was quite intentional to hint at EA's controlling of Origin within the game (especially considering all of the subtle in-jokes and such in all of their games).
Sadly, it seems, the Guardian has won in the real world...
No, I understand the difference, one being random numbers generated from a set seed, which would therefore be the same everytime you run the test, while the other type ("real") would literally be random, and so you can never know what you'll get.
Thanks to the replies, though, I can understand why having a known set of "random" numbers could be useful.. It's just nothing I would have ever used, so never even thought of. Maybe I was just more thrown off by the word "study"...
I'm honestly curious, what kind of study would require you to use pseudo-random numbers? Shouldn't any valid study require truly random numbers to be proven accurate?
Mandrake, the word, has extremely old associations with "magic". Witches back a few hundred years ago claimed that mandrake root could cure various illnesses (blindness, disease). So, basically, we have a cartoon that is using a word already associated with magic for a magician's name, as well as for a linux distribution. Unless there's/proof/ that MandrakeSoft got the name from Mandrake the Magician and/not/ from mandrake root, then I don't see why they should have to change.
"General information: The roots of Mandrake resemble the human form. Many Witchs' traditions collected round the Mandrake root. As an amulet, it is placed on a mantelpiece to avert misfortune and to bring prosperity and happiness to the house. In Henry VIII's time, little images made from the roots, cut into the figure of a man, with grains of millet inserted into the face as eyes, fetched high prices. They were known as puppettes or mammettes, and were accredited with magical powers. Italian ladies were known to pay high prices for similar amulets of Mandrake.
Women who want to conceive, and men seeking to cure impotency carry the root. Where there is mandrake, demons cannot reside, and so the root is used in exorcism.
Use of minute prepared portions can enhance psychic awareness & abilities, and in magickal spells mandrake is used to increase sexual desire. "
Playing devil's advocate (since I agree with you): If you start the car and fail the test (i.e. you don't do it), the car's lights flash and the horn honks - if you're being attacked, isn't that a good thing? I doubt any mugger or stalker would want to be trying to break in the car with you scream and the horn blaring away...
Of course, 30 seconds may be enough time for them to get in and turn the engine back off...
Why the hell do we need new words to mean "stupid", when it's quite obvious that the word has a specific, cultural meaning which means its use would, therefore, imply contempt for those people that are, in fact, gay - otherwise, it wouldn't be a swear.
Ignoring your words, how about these other words that basically mean the same thing, but would not offend anyone:
Tell me again why we must create a new meaning for a word that already has several, when so many other good words exist? Saying that something "is gay" (when it's not homosexual, happy or colorful) just creates an air of childishness and bigotry on the part of the speaker.
(And yes, I understand and partially agree on your point about PC-ness going to far, but sometimes controlling what you say and actually not insulting other people's beliefs/lifestyles/etc. is a good thing).
I don't think being called part of the Nintendo Generation is necessarily a bad thing. For me, Nintendo (and especially games like Zelda in all its gold-cartridge glory) were an amazingly huge part of my childhood (more so than anything other my parents should have been). Considering the role that Link, Mario, R.C. Pro Am, TMNT, Tetris, etc. had on my upbringing, I can safely say that I'm in that "Nintendo Generation" group... Okay, maybe it isn't such a good thing afterall... hmmm..
Good point, I totally forgot about that quote. Seems more fitting as an introduction to the character, I guess (it would be pretty silly to have Cereal be seen as a Bible thumper). I bow to your Hacker-nature. *bow*
Sadly, I think he/she was quoting Hackers, not realizing (or remembering the full scene in the movie) that the actual quote is from the Bible. The scene has various students writing quotes on the blackboard:
Cereal Killer: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. What? It's Corinthians one, chapter thirteen verse eleven. Duh!
(Personally, I think the movie is fun to watch...)
For anyone who's interested, a good (but possibly biased) source for the history of the word can be found here.
Elohim is the common name for God. It is a plural form, but "The usage of the language gives no support to the supposition that we have in the plural form Elohim, applied to the God of Israel, the remains of an early polytheism, or at least a combination with the higher spiritual beings" (Kautzsch). Grammarians call it a plural of majesty or rank, or of abstraction, or of magnitude (Gesenius, Grammatik, 27th ed., nn. 124 g, 132 h). The Ethiopic plural amlak has become a proper name of God. Hoffmann has pointed out an analogous plural elim in the Phoenician inscriptions (Ueber einige phon. Inschr., 1889, p. 17 sqq.), and Barton has shown that in the tablets from El-Amarna the plural form ilani replaces the singular more than forty times (Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, 21-23 April, 1892, pp. cxcvi-cxcix).
Sometimes, though, doctor's aren't right. In my case, I had an old doctor who treated my stomach pains by prescribing Metamucil. Thanks to the internet, I was able to diagnose myself and found that I actually had a hernia. I saw a second doctor immediately, and once I mentioned that I may have a hernia, he immediately agreed and got me an appointment with a specialist.
If I trusted my doctor 100%, I may have had a much more severe problem. Of course, you shouldn't trust the information on the internet fully, but sometimes double checking can be a good thing.
Maybe you're thinking of the once popular Russian made "Emergency Boot CD"? I can't find a working website for it anymore (unofficial site here.)
I still have a copy of the CD. It was quite a useful CD, especially since it had some tools/programs that were obviously not supposed to be on there, like Symantec tools;-)
A) Some people have a larger vocabulary - why should they restrict themselves for your benefit?
B) Maybe saying "use unused" didn't sound and/or look proper, and so the poster used an alternative word?
Considering "leverage" has less syllables than what I just used above, stop your whining. I personally would love a language that flows and utilizes different sounding words to fit with a specific sounding phrase, context or emotion, then have a language that is robotic and harsh sounding, simply because no other words exist that would fit in the sentence.
As someone hinted at elsewhere in the posts, Lucas may be pulling an intentional version of the "New Coke" fiasco. According to Wikipedia:
The public were unhappy with the new taste, and even more unhappy that they were no longer able to obtain the original product, and so the company had to backtrack and return to the older formula. However, when they went back to the original formula - now renamed Classic Coke/Coca Cola Classic - demand for the classic taste grew to a greater extent than before New Coke...
Sounds like something an evil marketer might want to try... Who knows, maybe we'll see Classic Star Wars in 2006, when all of the marketing from the newer Star Wars' is finished and Lucas is scrounging around for something to sell before making Episode 7. G'ah.
I'm not disagreeing with you - I just wanted to point out that "most scientists" don't believe in God. In fact, since only half or so do, then there's no reason to even bother continuing with that argument.
I just wanted to second LoD! Of course, I played LORD, TradeWars, BRE and a whack of other games, but for some reason, I just loved LoD enough to want to play it offline (which was a nice option).
Wow, the days of redialing at 12:01am to get my turns in before anyone else (and then whining about how I had to wait allll day to continue what I just did). What ever happened to those simpler days?
(Whoa, memory rush: I just remembered how happy I was to find Kirk, Spock or some other such character stranded on the planet and trying my hardest to kill him.... ack).
And note: "There are some 1620 paid registered sysops of the original Land Of Devastation. I promised them registration for life, and yes, they will be granted free registration to the new NETLOD."
Try using a less biased source next time! Don't you think Atheists.org would try to downplay the number of God-fearing/loving scientists?
In the US, according to a survey published in Nature in 1997, four out of 10 scientists believe in God. Just over 45% said they did not believe, and 14.5% described themselves as doubters or agnostics. This ratio of believers to non-believers had not changed in 80 years. Should anybody be surprised?
Just to show another angle (as opposed to the highly doubtful statement that only 7% believe in God), I Googled and found:
In the US, according to a survey published in Nature in 1997, four out of 10 scientists believe in God. Just over 45% said they did not believe, and 14.5% described themselves as doubters or agnostics. This ratio of believers to non-believers had not changed in 80 years. Should anybody be surprised? (from http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,130 26,1034872,00.html)
So no, it's not most scientists, as it's mostly half and half (according to Nature/Guardian).
What I was getting at is that if you insult people, they will mod you down later on. Perhaps you used a similar term like nutsack in a previous post that pissed someone off? Just because you were modded down during a ROTK-love-in, doesn't mean it's because you were bashing it.
Really, I loved the movies, and I did think Sean Astin did a wonderful job (honestly, look at the other nominees - are they that much better? Johnny Depp?!) but there/were/ problems - wargs were completely useless, Aragorn's "fall to his death" wasn't necessary (and reminded us of the repetitive nature of the first movie), the Ents were too easily tricked for being some of the oldest and wisest creatures in Middle Earth, etc.etc. But nothing's perfect - I could pick apart Monster or Mystic River, both beautiful movies, by why bother? As a whole, all of these movies were worth the money I spent on them, and that, not devoted people's opinion on Slashdot, is what matters.
And yes, mods are definitely encouraged to mod up, but sometimes you just don't have the words to fight with someone (or you already modded something else and so can't write a comment) and so you're only option for opinion is mod down. And all opinions are welcomed: I've seen Score:5's given to people from all sides of the political fence, all tastes in movies, etc. Some people will not like what you say, but that's just the way humans are, right? *shrug*
I dunno, but maybe you got modded down because you insult people who love the movie? Fanboys, to me anyway, isn't the nicest term - it implies someone who's hysterically in love with the movie (and not in a good way). Calling a movie corny and cheesy is just fine (I agree with you, although I thought other parts of the movie were cheesy), but you really should explain yourself.
As an aside, I thought the movie and its story were wonderful - it's a children's story with strong undertones of industrial-revolution-gone-awry (machines vs. nature), the negative aspects of war and the outcomes from addiction. If you didn't see those, then explain why the director failed and not just call it "corny" or "cheesy" (of course, this is Slashdot, so I shouldn't expect too much thought put into posts).
And what was with the nutsack comment later on? Insulting people WILL get you modded down, at least, in my experience here. (And pissing somebody in particular off will usually get them to mod you down later on no matter what you're writing about).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the environment is indeed self-purifying, I never said it wasn't, but just not fast enough to account for the amount of toxins that released. Actually, I should have been more specific - there are two kinds of toxins, some cumulative, some not.
A simple Google search came up with a ton of pages supporting this, like this one should that shows the accumulation of toxins in marine biology ("Non-cumulative toxins do not increase in concentration in the body, even if the organism is chronically exposed to the toxin. Conversely, cumulative toxins, tend to increase in concentration, and are often associated with a specific tissue, e.g., cadmium tends to increase over time in the digestive gland of blue crabs."). this link, this link and this one also talk about the cumulative nature of pollution. etc.etc.
So where are your links?
I agree that a single mutated frog isn't PROOF that pollution is involved, that mutations will occur to surrounding mammals, whatever, BUT it should at least make you stop and think for a second, asks questions, etc., instead of just shrug and ignore it completely - which is what I was getting at.
Sadly, you're just as bad as those environmentalists you attack... ignoring everybody else.
I think that's the point.
So when do we stop? When snakes start to grow heads at both ends? When deer start getting extra legs? Pollution is a cumulative thing - if there's enough now to cause mutations in frogs to this degree, pretty soon it WILL start affecting mammals such as ourselves (if it hasn't already).
/rant off.
I never understood why people just don't care about this type of thing, even though there's horrible proof right in their faces.
It's like a friend driving his Hummer down the smog-filled street (and not capable of seeing the tops of the skyscrapers) but telling me that pollution is just a big scare by all the environmentalists and that there's nothing wrong - HE'S HEALTHY. Although I'm not Green either (like the grandparent post), I can't understand the reasoning. What will it take to change their minds?
Whoa.
I'm not sure about the new rules, but I generally like the old (pre-Age of Shadows) rules that a lot of the free public UO servers are using - you die, your items can be looted, you lose some stats, nothing too harsh, but still frustrating enough to not want to die too often.
/do/ like, and other systems should implement is that UO has areas that are obviously meant for stronger players, but also areas where there's simply no player-killing, so that newbies and everybody else for that matter, can go there and play without fearing that some jerk off will come and slaughter them... I always appreciated that. And then, whenever you're brave/strong enough, you can head over to the PKing-allowed sections...
What I
Basically, if MMORPG designers would implement certain sections (i.e. around a few cities, a couple of dungeons, whatever) that I knew that only the NPCs could kill, then I'm sure a lot of the problems would be solved.
As somsone else already mentioned, monotheistic religions in particular would be affected by this. For example, a friend of mine who is strongly Protestant told me over the phone just a few weeks ago (when the whole Mars mission was big news) that if life was found on Mars (even simple life) she would immediately dump her religion - which to me seemed utterly idiotic. She claims that God would have mentioned that he created other life in the Bible, and not have made it out that we were the sole beings in the universe.
Even though I'm not Christian, I still don't see why you couldn't believe in God... He never mentioned so many things that science (and astronomy in particular) has uncovered, but we still don't use that as a way of disproving his existence (that would be downright silly). Why then would he have had to mention other planets, and possible life on them?
For some people, sure, their religion is in danger, but most religions are more spiritual than that. Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, etc. are all just fine with or without life on other planets.
This has most definitely been a long time coming, considering Origin even hinted at their unhappiness with EA in Ultima 7: The Black Gate. Sure, EA gave them the money to finish the game, but that doesn't mean EA had to slow suffocate Origin to death.
In Ultima 7 (and later games as well I believe), the Guardian needed three generators to help control the minds and hearts of the people in Britannia, shaped as a square, triangle(tetrahedron) and circle, which all just happen to be a part of EA's logo. I'm sure it was quite intentional to hint at EA's controlling of Origin within the game (especially considering all of the subtle in-jokes and such in all of their games).
Sadly, it seems, the Guardian has won in the real world...
No, I understand the difference, one being random numbers generated from a set seed, which would therefore be the same everytime you run the test, while the other type ("real") would literally be random, and so you can never know what you'll get.
Thanks to the replies, though, I can understand why having a known set of "random" numbers could be useful.. It's just nothing I would have ever used, so never even thought of. Maybe I was just more thrown off by the word "study"...
I'm honestly curious, what kind of study would require you to use pseudo-random numbers? Shouldn't any valid study require truly random numbers to be proven accurate?
Mandrake, the word, has extremely old associations with "magic". Witches back a few hundred years ago claimed that mandrake root could cure various illnesses (blindness, disease). So, basically, we have a cartoon that is using a word already associated with magic for a magician's name, as well as for a linux distribution. Unless there's /proof/ that MandrakeSoft got the name from Mandrake the Magician and /not/ from mandrake root, then I don't see why they should have to change.
From PoTO:
"General information: The roots of Mandrake resemble the human form. Many Witchs' traditions collected round the Mandrake root. As an amulet, it is placed on a mantelpiece to avert misfortune and to bring prosperity and happiness to the house. In Henry VIII's time, little images made from the roots, cut into the figure of a man, with grains of millet inserted into the face as eyes, fetched high prices. They were known as puppettes or mammettes, and were accredited with magical powers. Italian ladies were known to pay high prices for similar amulets of Mandrake.
Women who want to conceive, and men seeking to cure impotency carry the root. Where there is mandrake, demons cannot reside, and so the root is used in exorcism.
Use of minute prepared portions can enhance psychic awareness & abilities, and in magickal spells mandrake is used to increase sexual desire. "
Playing devil's advocate (since I agree with you): If you start the car and fail the test (i.e. you don't do it), the car's lights flash and the horn honks - if you're being attacked, isn't that a good thing? I doubt any mugger or stalker would want to be trying to break in the car with you scream and the horn blaring away...
Of course, 30 seconds may be enough time for them to get in and turn the engine back off...
Why the hell do we need new words to mean "stupid", when it's quite obvious that the word has a specific, cultural meaning which means its use would, therefore, imply contempt for those people that are, in fact, gay - otherwise, it wouldn't be a swear.
Ignoring your words, how about these other words that basically mean the same thing, but would not offend anyone:
stupid, idiotic, asinine, daft, foolish, half-witted, hare-brained,imbecilic, inane, moronic, senseless, silly, thick-witted, unintelligent,
foolish, illogical, irrational, nonsensical, laughable, preposterous, senseless, absurd, cracked, barmy, bonkers, cracked, demented, flaky
Tell me again why we must create a new meaning for a word that already has several, when so many other good words exist? Saying that something "is gay" (when it's not homosexual, happy or colorful) just creates an air of childishness and bigotry on the part of the speaker.
(And yes, I understand and partially agree on your point about PC-ness going to far, but sometimes controlling what you say and actually not insulting other people's beliefs/lifestyles/etc. is a good thing).
I don't think being called part of the Nintendo Generation is necessarily a bad thing. For me, Nintendo (and especially games like Zelda in all its gold-cartridge glory) were an amazingly huge part of my childhood (more so than anything other my parents should have been). Considering the role that Link, Mario, R.C. Pro Am, TMNT, Tetris, etc. had on my upbringing, I can safely say that I'm in that "Nintendo Generation" group... Okay, maybe it isn't such a good thing afterall... hmmm..
Good point, I totally forgot about that quote. Seems more fitting as an introduction to the character, I guess (it would be pretty silly to have Cereal be seen as a Bible thumper). I bow to your Hacker-nature. *bow*
(Personally, I think the movie is fun to watch...)
Sometimes, though, doctor's aren't right. In my case, I had an old doctor who treated my stomach pains by prescribing Metamucil. Thanks to the internet, I was able to diagnose myself and found that I actually had a hernia. I saw a second doctor immediately, and once I mentioned that I may have a hernia, he immediately agreed and got me an appointment with a specialist.
If I trusted my doctor 100%, I may have had a much more severe problem. Of course, you shouldn't trust the information on the internet fully, but sometimes double checking can be a good thing.
Maybe you're thinking of the once popular Russian made "Emergency Boot CD"? I can't find a working website for it anymore (unofficial site here.)
;-)
I still have a copy of the CD. It was quite a useful CD, especially since it had some tools/programs that were obviously not supposed to be on there, like Symantec tools
A) Some people have a larger vocabulary - why should they restrict themselves for your benefit?
B) Maybe saying "use unused" didn't sound and/or look proper, and so the poster used an alternative word?
Considering "leverage" has less syllables than what I just used above, stop your whining. I personally would love a language that flows and utilizes different sounding words to fit with a specific sounding phrase, context or emotion, then have a language that is robotic and harsh sounding, simply because no other words exist that would fit in the sentence.
As someone hinted at elsewhere in the posts, Lucas may be pulling an intentional version of the "New Coke" fiasco. According to Wikipedia:
The public were unhappy with the new taste, and even more unhappy that they were no longer able to obtain the original product, and so the company had to backtrack and return to the older formula. However, when they went back to the original formula - now renamed Classic Coke/Coca Cola Classic - demand for the classic taste grew to a greater extent than before New Coke...
Sounds like something an evil marketer might want to try... Who knows, maybe we'll see Classic Star Wars in 2006, when all of the marketing from the newer Star Wars' is finished and Lucas is scrounging around for something to sell before making Episode 7. G'ah.
I'm not disagreeing with you - I just wanted to point out that "most scientists" don't believe in God. In fact, since only half or so do, then there's no reason to even bother continuing with that argument.
I just wanted to second LoD! Of course, I played LORD, TradeWars, BRE and a whack of other games, but for some reason, I just loved LoD enough to want to play it offline (which was a nice option).
Wow, the days of redialing at 12:01am to get my turns in before anyone else (and then whining about how I had to wait allll day to continue what I just did). What ever happened to those simpler days?
Here's the official Land of Devestation site by the original author.
(Whoa, memory rush: I just remembered how happy I was to find Kirk, Spock or some other such character stranded on the planet and trying my hardest to kill him.... ack).
And note: "There are some 1620 paid registered sysops of the original Land Of Devastation. I promised them registration for life, and yes, they will be granted free registration to the new NETLOD."
Try using a less biased source next time! Don't you think Atheists.org would try to downplay the number of God-fearing/loving scientists?
0 26,1034872,00.html
In the US, according to a survey published in Nature in 1997, four out of 10 scientists believe in God. Just over 45% said they did not believe, and 14.5% described themselves as doubters or agnostics. This ratio of believers to non-believers had not changed in 80 years. Should anybody be surprised?
(from http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13
How many scientists believe in God?
0 26,1034872,00.html)
Just to show another angle (as opposed to the highly doubtful statement that only 7% believe in God), I Googled and found:
In the US, according to a survey published in Nature in 1997, four out of 10 scientists believe in God. Just over 45% said they did not believe, and 14.5% described themselves as doubters or agnostics. This ratio of believers to non-believers had not changed in 80 years. Should anybody be surprised? (from http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13
So no, it's not most scientists, as it's mostly half and half (according to Nature/Guardian).
Gah, offtopic.
/were/ problems - wargs were completely useless, Aragorn's "fall to his death" wasn't necessary (and reminded us of the repetitive nature of the first movie), the Ents were too easily tricked for being some of the oldest and wisest creatures in Middle Earth, etc.etc. But nothing's perfect - I could pick apart Monster or Mystic River, both beautiful movies, by why bother? As a whole, all of these movies were worth the money I spent on them, and that, not devoted people's opinion on Slashdot, is what matters.
What I was getting at is that if you insult people, they will mod you down later on. Perhaps you used a similar term like nutsack in a previous post that pissed someone off? Just because you were modded down during a ROTK-love-in, doesn't mean it's because you were bashing it.
Really, I loved the movies, and I did think Sean Astin did a wonderful job (honestly, look at the other nominees - are they that much better? Johnny Depp?!) but there
And yes, mods are definitely encouraged to mod up, but sometimes you just don't have the words to fight with someone (or you already modded something else and so can't write a comment) and so you're only option for opinion is mod down. And all opinions are welcomed: I've seen Score:5's given to people from all sides of the political fence, all tastes in movies, etc. Some people will not like what you say, but that's just the way humans are, right? *shrug*
Anyhoo....
I dunno, but maybe you got modded down because you insult people who love the movie? Fanboys, to me anyway, isn't the nicest term - it implies someone who's hysterically in love with the movie (and not in a good way). Calling a movie corny and cheesy is just fine (I agree with you, although I thought other parts of the movie were cheesy), but you really should explain yourself.
As an aside, I thought the movie and its story were wonderful - it's a children's story with strong undertones of industrial-revolution-gone-awry (machines vs. nature), the negative aspects of war and the outcomes from addiction. If you didn't see those, then explain why the director failed and not just call it "corny" or "cheesy" (of course, this is Slashdot, so I shouldn't expect too much thought put into posts).
And what was with the nutsack comment later on? Insulting people WILL get you modded down, at least, in my experience here. (And pissing somebody in particular off will usually get them to mod you down later on no matter what you're writing about).