I installed ATI drivers for my ATI card, thanks, and Windows still sucks. When a company has to guarantee 100% uptime with redundant NT servers, why would they need to rewrite the fscking kernel? Because it isn't stable. What makes you so special?
Thanks, two people called me on that one. I watched them all at the same time (about 6 years ago, except GitS), and between theme, mood and art style the FILMS look the same. I have Shirow's manga, but not Kishiro's, which is where I went wrong, apparently.
Side note for Taco: The best place to start for info on anime is The Anime Turnpike. I was able to verify your correction at Rei's, those crazy MIT kids have/did have(?) a fan club and screenings and stuff.
PS RPGs are great anime! FF7 really is the best, but there's others with both CG sequences and pure anime cutscenes that are worth seeing. I'm playing through Vagrant Story now: great gameplay, great CG. Very nice.
-jpowers
Sci-Fi Channel has SOME anime.
on
Essential Anime
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· Score: 1
I've watched it. They showed MD Geist within the last 2 months. Like most of what they show, that movie sucks, but they did show it. I think maybe Cartoon Network ramping up their anime stuff scared them off. Sci-Fi Channel's not going to have much left worth watching at this rate.
I forgot Miyazaki. He made this little Princess Mononoke film last year. There's a new DVD of his Castle Cagliostro that's supposed to be great. Also, My Neigbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service are good.
I've seen so many...Akira's usually the big one people name, but I can't say I loved it.
Dubbing usually sucks, unless it's the Ranma series (pre Outta-Control Season). The voice acting is superb and the translation doesn't change much, except the name of the martial arts school.
-jpowers
Video stores which != Blockbuster
on
Essential Anime
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· Score: 1
Gundam Wing's already on Cartoon Network at 5:30 and 12PM (I made a mistake above, it's NOT Sci-Fi) The Sci-Fi channel shows anime on Sat or Sun at midnight and sometimes during the day, but not always.
You need to rent most of the good ones, though. Blockbuster usually sucks about carrying them (though they had a good selection at this one store in FL and people drove from all over to rent there). Hollywood Video, frighteningly enough, makes a point of stocking up on them. The one near my apt has 600+! If you're in Boston, Tokyo Kid is the place. If not, just find some RPG geeks like me in your hometown and ask them.
Bubblegum Crisis/Crash Neon Genesis Evangelion (I third that!) Gundam Wing (12PM Sci-fi Channel!) I love old Star Blazers Comedy TV: Ranma (funny!), Urusei Yatsura if you like Ranma a lot (based on manga by same artist: Takahashi)
Tenchi Muyo, Project A-KO, Slayers, Those Who Hunt Elves and Oh My Goddess if you're bored/stoned
Movies: Battle Angel Alita was a manga by Masamune Shirow, who's chicks-and-hardware formula was the standard for while. Try the films based on his other work: Appleseed, Black Magic M-66, Ghost in the Shell
Vampire Hunter D and Venus Wars are Okay
Some people like Fist of the North Star, MD Geist and Root Search. I don't, but here's an interesting bit all the same:
Root Search and the awful Event Horizon are the same film! I don't know how Warner's avoided a lawsuit over it.
It's only a problem if the software uses an account on Napster to search. They should change their EULA to include a seven figure fine for it. That would be an interesting lawsuit.
doesn't that make you as bad as the people ripping off music?
Not really. Though both could be termed "theft" in the most forgiving of rationales, neither is "bad" by the purest definiton. Sharing mp3s and using someone else's bandwith/hardware in an unauthorized fashion are both, in the grand shceme of things, no more that mild nuisances.
Now, if someone wrote software to help kidnap 400 UN peacekeepers in a foreign land, that might be worth getting worked up over. The guy above who wrote about getting busted for MUDs at school probably has the most accurate assessment of the situation: you had your fun, and now you have to stop.
More like: It's a big budget movie, they also spent a lot on marketing, marketing which suggests the movie will be great, I'm tired of being disappointed, I'll lower my expectations, thereby the film can only fail by matching my expectations for it. All this gives actually seeing the movie a bigger "upside."
about 3 billion times better then the first one
Can I see the math on that? I thought anything times zero was still zero. Just kidding. The first one didn't suck. Completely. Seriously, though, it's not unfair to think this movie could be rotten. Woo makes the same film over and over (the same good film, mind you), which means his films are only as good as the acting (the only thing different from film to film, see?).
In this case, you have Tom Cruise, who isn't anyone's idea of the greatest action hero. You want someone who seems wither very mortal (Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage) or completely inhuman (Arnie). Since Cruise produced it, his decision-making was less about doing something original than marketing: remember the complaints about the original film? That's because they cut out the whole subplot with him and the girl, per market testing.
No, I think these "sheep" as you so kindly refer to them have developed an intuition for films: this film falls on the 'maybe sucks, maybe not' borderline, so assuming it's bad only gives it a better opportunity to impress us later.
-jpowers
You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...
Is there a good reference work on this stuff that could be absorbed in a weekend? I.e. as easy to read as your post, but with some math? I'm not a physicist either, my stepfather was a hard-core stereophile. I think there's an episode of NOVA about it, though. IANAPhysicist, but it seems to me that the facts that a) the particles are oscillating, and b) the volumes occupied by individual oscillating particles may overlap, allow the waveform to be defined with a point resolution something less than the diameter(?) of the particle. This may be possible in a lab setting, and it would sure sound good. If the particles at that scale oscillate at random, though, how would you reproduce sounds that precise with any accuracy? Anything smaller than needle-tip steel molecule to pressed-vinyl molecule is going to be in motion, and therefore could probably not be called a "reproduction" of the original sound.
-jpowers
You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...
Are you supporting the Solipsists, or some other concept?
No reasonable person would argue ethics from a position of Solipsism. The two are mutually exclusive, what with ethics being about human (inter)action, Solipsism discounts the possibility. Speaking of which, I did not give Descartes a Solipsist position, at no point did I suggest his statement precluded the existence of more than one being.
Are you supporting the Solipsists, or some other concept? If Solipsist, don't give me a resonse since I talk to myself enough already -- or am "I" even "here"?
Actually, existence as being-in-itself is more late Existentialism (Heidegger, Sartre), the description I used being the quickest to type without stepping on any of their toes. Solipsism is an amusing aside to the history of philosophical thought, but it contributed more by others' refutations of it than by its own concepts. Descartes' use of thought as the basis of interacting with everything he could perceive is exactly what I was talking about as the basis for the Natural Rights Jefferson was writing about in the DoI: Because a human's basic essence is the decision making process, it is therefore immoral for a government or other organization to subvert that process in any way. The real purpose of government was, in their estimation, to enforce the will of the people and mediate conflict between two entities.
My own argument is that an orginazation's essential nature is founded on a purpose different that a human's essential nature: they are not capable of thinking morally. Thus the argument that proves our natural rights (only some of which are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights) can not be used to grant those same rights to an organization. Therefore the Supreme Court was wrong to extend the Bill of Rights to cover Corporations, and the only way to change a Supreme Court precedent is to amend the Constitution.
-jpowers
You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...
My question is, how do we explain why we believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are natural rights?
The right to life Jefferson referred to was in reference to a citizen's relationship with other citizens and organizations. The ocean was not included, as, unlike Soylent Green, it is not made up of people.
Good question. At the time that document was written, philosophical thought pretty much revolved around Descartes: I think therefore I am. Not true, of course, as you don't really think yourself into existence. Your whole grasp of existence (the little circle inside the big one) comes from thinking, though, so it's most central to it, though no real center exists.
According to the though of the time, in the statement from the DoI you quoted,
Life = Existence of the Citizen (That thing that predicates thinking)
Liberty = Action based on the Citizen's Moral Reason (moral as in right!=wrong, not moral as in Bible). Accepts that the capability of moral thought implies the responsibility to use it. (The "think" in any philosophical statement implies moral thought)
Pursuit of Happiness = Basically in place to allow people to determine what is best -for themselves-, in cases where moral reason produces a tie (vanilla or chocolate?).
Thus the argument for natural right: The fact that a person has the natural ability to determine the difference between right and wrong implies that that person has a responsibility to use that reason. Since this is (to Descartes, under existentialism, it would be the basic part of our Essence, which is different) the basis of our existence, it precedes all other responsibilities.
It therefore follows that any entity which cannot lay claim to the same right also cannot weigh its own responsibility equally against that of a person's.
Skip to the modern day, and here's where we go wrong. An organization's existence is predicated on something other than Moral Reason, which is the sole realm of sentient individuals, maybe gods if you swing that way. Corporations, for example, have a primary responisibility to make a profit (except the kind I work for;)). Their responsibility to make money can never be given equal weight to a person's responsibility to moral reason. Thus they have no moral access to Rights derived from moral reason.
However, thanks to a Supreme Court decision back during Reconstruction (late 1800s), Corporations have been granted those rights, despite having no responsibility to moral reason. Thus they get to participate in the political process, and we get to put up with the DMCA.
Just as a side note: all this is also the reason Campaign Finance Reform will never work, once political speech was granted to the Corps, nothing short of an Amendment will take it away.
-jpowers
You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...
I have moved those lawyers - or some of them - but I have done so, and will continue to do so - not to attack the Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to protect it. For its benefit.
Therefore, we had to burn the village in order to save it. The raping and pillaging was just an added bonus.
-jpowers
You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When...
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I installed ATI drivers for my ATI card, thanks, and Windows still sucks. When a company has to guarantee 100% uptime with redundant NT servers, why would they need to rewrite the fscking kernel? Because it isn't stable. What makes you so special?
-jpowers
They used to show it on WSBK 38 here in Massachusetts, right before Force 5/Gaiking/Grandizer/etc. I suspect it was shown in other places, too.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Thanks, two people called me on that one. I watched them all at the same time (about 6 years ago, except GitS), and between theme, mood and art style the FILMS look the same. I have Shirow's manga, but not Kishiro's, which is where I went wrong, apparently.
Side note for Taco: The best place to start for info on anime is The Anime Turnpike. I was able to verify your correction at Rei's, those crazy MIT kids have/did have(?) a fan club and screenings and stuff.
-jpowers
So don't forget to read the mangas!
Got that covered.
PS RPGs are great anime! FF7 really is the best, but there's others with both CG sequences and pure anime cutscenes that are worth seeing. I'm playing through Vagrant Story now: great gameplay, great CG. Very nice.
-jpowers
I've watched it. They showed MD Geist within the last 2 months. Like most of what they show, that movie sucks, but they did show it. I think maybe Cartoon Network ramping up their anime stuff scared them off. Sci-Fi Channel's not going to have much left worth watching at this rate.
-jpowers
I forgot Miyazaki. He made this little Princess Mononoke film last year. There's a new DVD of his Castle Cagliostro that's supposed to be great. Also, My Neigbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service are good.
I've seen so many...Akira's usually the big one people name, but I can't say I loved it.
-jpowers
Dubbing usually sucks, unless it's the Ranma series (pre Outta-Control Season). The voice acting is superb and the translation doesn't change much, except the name of the martial arts school.
-jpowers
Gundam Wing's already on Cartoon Network at 5:30 and 12PM (I made a mistake above, it's NOT Sci-Fi) The Sci-Fi channel shows anime on Sat or Sun at midnight and sometimes during the day, but not always.
You need to rent most of the good ones, though. Blockbuster usually sucks about carrying them (though they had a good selection at this one store in FL and people drove from all over to rent there). Hollywood Video, frighteningly enough, makes a point of stocking up on them. The one near my apt has 600+! If you're in Boston, Tokyo Kid is the place. If not, just find some RPG geeks like me in your hometown and ask them.
-jpowers
You hit my favorite topic!
Series:
Three words: Vampire Princess Miyu
Bubblegum Crisis/Crash
Neon Genesis Evangelion (I third that!)
Gundam Wing (12PM Sci-fi Channel!)
I love old Star Blazers
Comedy TV: Ranma (funny!), Urusei Yatsura if you like Ranma a lot (based on manga by same artist: Takahashi)
Tenchi Muyo, Project A-KO, Slayers, Those Who Hunt Elves and Oh My Goddess if you're bored/stoned
Movies:
Battle Angel Alita was a manga by Masamune Shirow, who's chicks-and-hardware formula was the standard for while. Try the films based on his other work:
Appleseed, Black Magic M-66, Ghost in the Shell
Vampire Hunter D and Venus Wars are Okay
Some people like Fist of the North Star, MD Geist and Root Search. I don't, but here's an interesting bit all the same:
Root Search and the awful Event Horizon are the same film! I don't know how Warner's avoided a lawsuit over it.
-jpowers
It's only a problem if the software uses an account on Napster to search. They should change their EULA to include a seven figure fine for it. That would be an interesting lawsuit.
doesn't that make you as bad as the people ripping off music?
Not really. Though both could be termed "theft" in the most forgiving of rationales, neither is "bad" by the purest definiton. Sharing mp3s and using someone else's bandwith/hardware in an unauthorized fashion are both, in the grand shceme of things, no more that mild nuisances.
Now, if someone wrote software to help kidnap 400 UN peacekeepers in a foreign land, that might be worth getting worked up over. The guy above who wrote about getting busted for MUDs at school probably has the most accurate assessment of the situation: you had your fun, and now you have to stop.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Why doesn't the patent office just set up a
-jpowers
they tried and lost like 8-10 years ago.
-jpowers
uce@ftc.gov
just like I always do.
-jpowers
More like: It's a big budget movie, they also spent a lot on marketing, marketing which suggests the movie will be great, I'm tired of being disappointed, I'll lower my expectations, thereby the film can only fail by matching my expectations for it. All this gives actually seeing the movie a bigger "upside."
about 3 billion times better then the first one
Can I see the math on that? I thought anything times zero was still zero. Just kidding. The first one didn't suck. Completely. Seriously, though, it's not unfair to think this movie could be rotten. Woo makes the same film over and over (the same good film, mind you), which means his films are only as good as the acting (the only thing different from film to film, see?).
In this case, you have Tom Cruise, who isn't anyone's idea of the greatest action hero. You want someone who seems wither very mortal (Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage) or completely inhuman (Arnie). Since Cruise produced it, his decision-making was less about doing something original than marketing: remember the complaints about the original film? That's because they cut out the whole subplot with him and the girl, per market testing.
No, I think these "sheep" as you so kindly refer to them have developed an intuition for films: this film falls on the 'maybe sucks, maybe not' borderline, so assuming it's bad only gives it a better opportunity to impress us later.
-jpowers
-jpowers
No reasonable person would argue ethics from a position of Solipsism. The two are mutually exclusive, what with ethics being about human (inter)action, Solipsism discounts the possibility. Speaking of which, I did not give Descartes a Solipsist position, at no point did I suggest his statement precluded the existence of more than one being.
Are you supporting the Solipsists, or some other concept? If Solipsist, don't give me a resonse since I talk to myself enough already -- or am "I" even "here"?
Actually, existence as being-in-itself is more late Existentialism (Heidegger, Sartre), the description I used being the quickest to type without stepping on any of their toes. Solipsism is an amusing aside to the history of philosophical thought, but it contributed more by others' refutations of it than by its own concepts. Descartes' use of thought as the basis of interacting with everything he could perceive is exactly what I was talking about as the basis for the Natural Rights Jefferson was writing about in the DoI: Because a human's basic essence is the decision making process, it is therefore immoral for a government or other organization to subvert that process in any way. The real purpose of government was, in their estimation, to enforce the will of the people and mediate conflict between two entities.
My own argument is that an orginazation's essential nature is founded on a purpose different that a human's essential nature: they are not capable of thinking morally. Thus the argument that proves our natural rights (only some of which are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights) can not be used to grant those same rights to an organization. Therefore the Supreme Court was wrong to extend the Bill of Rights to cover Corporations, and the only way to change a Supreme Court precedent is to amend the Constitution.
-jpowers
The right to life Jefferson referred to was in reference to a citizen's relationship with other citizens and organizations. The ocean was not included, as, unlike Soylent Green, it is not made up of people.
Good question. At the time that document was written, philosophical thought pretty much revolved around Descartes: I think therefore I am. Not true, of course, as you don't really think yourself into existence. Your whole grasp of existence (the little circle inside the big one) comes from thinking, though, so it's most central to it, though no real center exists.
According to the though of the time, in the statement from the DoI you quoted,
Life = Existence of the Citizen (That thing that predicates thinking)
Liberty = Action based on the Citizen's Moral Reason (moral as in right!=wrong, not moral as in Bible). Accepts that the capability of moral thought implies the responsibility to use it. (The "think" in any philosophical statement implies moral thought)
Pursuit of Happiness = Basically in place to allow people to determine what is best -for themselves-, in cases where moral reason produces a tie (vanilla or chocolate?).
Thus the argument for natural right: The fact that a person has the natural ability to determine the difference between right and wrong implies that that person has a responsibility to use that reason. Since this is (to Descartes, under existentialism, it would be the basic part of our Essence, which is different) the basis of our existence, it precedes all other responsibilities.
It therefore follows that any entity which cannot lay claim to the same right also cannot weigh its own responsibility equally against that of a person's.
Skip to the modern day, and here's where we go wrong. An organization's existence is predicated on something other than Moral Reason, which is the sole realm of sentient individuals, maybe gods if you swing that way. Corporations, for example, have a primary responisibility to make a profit (except the kind I work for
However, thanks to a Supreme Court decision back during Reconstruction (late 1800s), Corporations have been granted those rights, despite having no responsibility to moral reason. Thus they get to participate in the political process, and we get to put up with the DMCA.
Just as a side note: all this is also the reason Campaign Finance Reform will never work, once political speech was granted to the Corps, nothing short of an Amendment will take it away.
-jpowers
I think Napster IS pissing them off.
-jpowers
-jpowers
-jpowers
-jpowers
Therefore, we had to burn the village in order to save it. The raping and pillaging was just an added bonus.
-jpowers
-jpowers