First of all, since Pez is a trademark, the Pez company has a lot of leeway as to what they can and cannot do with their trademark. In this case, it seems to me like they are trying to cover their ass - preventing their trademark from being used by porn sites and the like. Has anyone actually heard of any of the Pez collectors being approached by Pez, Inc, to have sites taken down? I doubt it, since it isn't mentioned. Have they sued anyone yet? How long has this policy been in place?
In this case, I'd bet dollars to donuts that this policy is not meant to be used against legit collectors - only against people who try to resell in violation of their reseller agreements(which is a massive violation, and not of free speech), who slander the company(Pez is poison!), and those who use it in a sex site ( That girl's got a great set of Pez!) Like many other topics here on Slashdot, I think there is a large amount of overreacting going on here. Lawyers occasionally overstep while attempting to cover their butts. Their policy says one thing - let's not worry until they start enforcing it hardcore. I got better things to do with my time.
Well, crap, I've been holding the AI/Turing Test problem solution for years now, but now that Dartmouth wants to offer me a HUGE 100K for it, I might as well release it! Yay!
There's one everlasting truth you need to realize:
If there is some weird, cool theory out there, Clarke probably thought of it ages ago. That's his thing in life.:-) Regardless, this raining diamonds thing is interesting - and dangerous. Diamonds are pretty hard - if one's got a sharp edge, it could do some nasty damage. Heck, even smacking you a good one would do it. I'd much rather have it rain faster processors and PC100 RAM.
You know, there's one other scenario that I haven't seen anyone else bring up here - did they possibly patent this so that it would NOT be used? Think of it, what better way to prevent something from being used then if you own it, and the government agrees? Albeit, I have yet to read the patent, due to the/. effect, so I don't know exactly what it reads, but this is a possibility.
"LinuxChix isn't gender biased, though. Men are welcome at meetings and, by Richardson's count, about 20 percent of the 200 members of LinuxChix list are male."
Then don't call it LinuxChix. This is one of my major peeves in this world. For crap's sake, is it a Linux group for women? Then why are men there. If it's not a Linux group for women, then don't call it LinuxChix. Same goes for the Society of Women Engineers, which allows men, scientists, writers, etc. in to their little organization. How 'bout giving it a name that makes sense?
You know, whenever a natural disaster, or a massacre, or whatever occurs, a few of us refuse to see it as a serious life-changing event. Then, people on message boards like this, or Usenet, or editorials in your local rag, get on us because "this isn't funny! Remember all the people who were hurt/died/homeless!" Know what? If I wanna find humor in this, I will. Nobody freaks when my county gets a tornado warning. Or a tornado. It affects you, not me. It'd be really shitty of me if I made these jokes around someone who had lost home and family, but you know what? I don't really give a damn. What affects you doesn't affect me, and be damned if you're gonna try to make me feel bad because you got property in a hurricane zone. I hope your home and family survive OK. But don't expect me or/. to censor what we say because of where you live.
Tim - How exactly do you decide which topics are "flash-in-the-pan" and which topics are going to stick around longer, and thus worth writing a book about? Also, how much does customer input factor in on your decisions as to which books to write/print?
Next week's Jon Katz article will be about the demise of Prodigy Classic; how it spells the downfall of the Net "as we know it"... how geeks should all rally together and keep Prodigy Classic alive; and how Prodigy Classic really, really helped with that whole Buffy censorship thing.
I dunno about the rest of you, but this sounds REAL fishy to me. Not the screwed-up crypto - I don't doubt that. But the NSA? I don't frigging think so. First of all, this guy has zero proof that NSA is involved at all - his only "proof" is the name of one key in one subsystem of the windows operating code, and the fact that that uses the three letter term NSA. I doubt that the NSA would have such a blatantly named key in there. Second, what would be the NSA's benefit in getting MS to do this for them? Seems a little strange, doesn't it? Finally, this strikes me like this guy is jumping on the government paranoia bandwagon for publicity's sake. I don't think this would be a huge story if he just said "There's a crypto problem in Windows systems".
The reason the entire machine is seized is that the people who execute the search warrant are very rarely the people who handled the investigation, or who will investigate in the future. They recieve directions like "Seize all computer and computer related equipment", and just to be safe, they take everything.
Here comes the mibibyte... Too much to remember.. Na-na-na-na The good guys dress in black, remember that In case we ever face-to-face in a deathmatch The prefix MiB means 10 ** (2*#)
Killian's, all the way. Or, if I wanna freak my friends out, I'll drink this weird-ass German beer. It's called Kierkan Dunkel or something like that. Apparently, it tastes extremely bitter to them. Me, it tastes just fine. They hate that.:-
As I seem to recall from my HS days when I was fascinated with nuclear power, this really isn't a big worry. First of all, AFAIK, the machines that would actually do the controlling, such as dropping rods and such, aren't time-sensitive. Second of all, the default configuration in emergencies for the control rods is to scram the reactor - they'll drop if there is a problem. Compare this to Cherynobyl, where the reactors had to be pushed up!! into the reactor to scram it.
I'm not real worried about these reactors giving us problems here. Way to much regulation, to many trained people. Other countries, yes. But, I'm worried about other countries a lot anyhow.
BTW - TMI doesn't scare me a bit. It was relatively innocous, it just got a lotta press. You wanna be scared? Read about the Fermi accident outside of Detroit. I can guaran-damn-tee ya that if that had gone any farter, many, many people, including myself and CmdrTaco, wouldn't be here anymore.
...and I can easily see this happening. Fact is, lots of Linux users are caught up in the "love-it-cause-it's-cool" bandwagon. If you read some of the Linux ng's, you'll see quite a few people who seem to be installing it because people tell them it's "cool". Even worse, though, is the people who insist that Linux is the do-all, be-all, and end-all of operating systems. Those people are delusional - Linux ain't the answer to everything. And Microsoft isn't always the wrong answer, either.
Well, perusing the list of current votes, I can honestly say that, of the top 20, fully eight are total bullshit. The Person of the Year/Century/Decade/whatever awards are meant to be the most influential - whether good or bad. Repeat - the MOST influential. Elvis? Bull. Just because a lot of people can't believe that their beloved Elvis isn't eating nuggets at a BK somewhere doesn't make him influential. And no, I don't think he had a large impact on the music industry, and no, I don't care how many Elvis impersonators there are. Same with Madonna. She's done nothing but be popular. Maybe you could say she influenced a few people, but she has not changed the world.
Skip to Billy Graham. What? He's a TV preacher. What has he influenced? A few people who already believed in God to believe more? Good work. Ronald Reagan? Nothing against Ronny, personally, but he was a pretty mediocre President. Hell, IMHO, we haven't had a non-mediocre President since Truman. One could argue that JFK was non-mediocre, thanks to his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I might buy that.
Speaking of that, where is Truman? Truman ended the Pacific War of WWII with one swift, brutal decisive move. He probably saved millions of lives with those two bombs, and ended the war earlier and with less bloodshed then predicted, but apparently, ending this century's greatest war is less important then singing "Imagine"(John Lennon) or marrying a rich guy(Princess Diana). By the way, people - that's all Diana did. She married a rich guy. Forget thos "touching" photos of her holding poor childrens who have been harmed by land mines.
Remember Mother Theresa, who gave all she could and more, and worked herself to the bone to help the poor. Diana did some nice shit, yeah, but she could afford to. Mother Theresa couldn't, but did so anyhow.
Toss out Linus, definetly. Nice OS and everything, and I use it and love it, but in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that influential. I'd much rather put Gates on that list, because he's been part of computing for much, much longer. However, I don't believe that Gates is that influential in the grand, worldwide scheme of things, so I'd toss him off too.
Move up FDR, Truman, Neville Chamberlain...Heck, I'd probably move Shimon Peres up some. In addition, the problem with polls like this is that people are fixated on the last ten-twenty years. Arguably, WWI and WWII changed the world more this century then ANY other events...but only Hitler and Churchill are mentioned. Not Yamamoto or Hirohito, no Mussolini, no Goehring, no FDR, no Truman, no Harding, nothing.
Toss out those pop-culture knee-jerk answers, and let's get this Linus bullshit out of there - let's pick people who really changed the world.
Does this sound like a new UPN sequel to anyone else?
VO:"You're about to be let in on the best-kept secret America has to date. We've developed a machine that'll let you work on nothing and get paid for the next....
Thirty Days!"
Cameos by Charo, the Gabors, The Kennedy's, and various other people who got famous and rich through no fault of their own.
I envision a day where every product comes with a pamphlet/book of warnings, ie: Warning: A pencil in the eye can cause blindness. A pencil in the ear can cause brain damage.
I bought a new multi-tool and some MagLites the other day. The Maglites, billed as waterproof, contain a warning not to use near water. The multi-tool, which contains two knives, has a warning that the contents may be sharp. No, really? Never thought of that.....
1. Freedom of Speech is not absolute. In this case, it looks like the posters have made defamatory comments. This speech is not protected under free speech laws.
2. You have the right to say what you want - but not necessarily the right to be free from the consequences of such.
3. Don't say it if you aren't willing to pay the price for it. In other words, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Free speech has a PRICE - and that is the price that we all must pay to have it.
Having said that, I don't think there is near enough accountabililty in the world today. Personally, I'd rather see people not be able to post anonymously, and take consequences for what they say. Augustus Hill, anyone?
I don't think you've made a valid distinction. Maybe skipping ads doesn't directly affect the TV networks but the people who pay to have the ads displayed will still feel ripped because they didn't get whatever value they expected when they paid for their ads.
Well, i think it's very valid. For one, the advertisers don't even know if you've skipped their commercials or not - the ratings system, which is just about the only point of feedback, doesn't register commercials. So, if your ratings show that 100,000 people watched this TV show last night, it won't show that maybe 50,000 were skipping the commercials. They don't know how many actually saw it - all they have to go by is the ratings system itself.
This argument strikes me as bogus, but, as IANAL, I'll just talk about an analogy: Do TV networks have the right to sue VCR manufacturers who put technology in their players that detect and screen out commercials? Or what about the VCR itself, which allows users to see the shows without watching the ads? The fact is that if they want to prevent access from outside, they can do what everyone else does: require registration, or use cookies.
Different technology. With the banner ads, you get x cents for every load - so, if someone doesn't load the ad, the money isn't there. If you skip commercials with your VCR, the money has already been paid out - they don't care if you directly watch the commercials or not. Of course, they do in terms of ratings, but those don't measure directly what you're watching every second.
I agree with you that they probably could've blocked them in a technical manner....however, I agree with Universal's position in the matter, and that the movisite guy should've pulled the links when he was asked. Besides, don't Slashboxes get permission from the site before they create one? I seem to recall CT mentioning that when they brought the new boxes online a couple weeks back.
What's the problem with preventing links to your server? A lot of sites stay up because of loading images as advertisements. If you link through to that, the content owners may not get the money. I bet if I linked to Slashdot without loading up any of the graphics, thereby causing Rob and pals to lose out on cash while still having to server the page,/. would have a hissy. And rightfully so. Second, a link can be very damaging to a server. I used to run a small ftp server which I used to let my friends get sounds and files from my University-networked machine. Someone on the outside with a lot more hits then I got decided to link to my sounds, and BOOM - saturation. I was plenty pissed. Finally, there's a real important point here - this is UNVIERSAL's content. If they don't want anyone linking to it, then no one should. Intellectual Property, people - if you want their product/service, do it their way or not at all.
OK, Jon, Part 1 had a good point - that movie theaters were restricting kids who obviously had parental permission because they weren't following some silly rule.
However, in Part 2, you lost out. What kind of crap is this? Take 13 or 9 year olds to movies like SP or American Pie? Kids - lie to anyone and everyone! It's OK! Parents - lie, cheat and steal rather then spend time with your kids. Here's a clue, Jon - just because a kid WANTS to see something doesn't mean that he or she is mature enough or ready to see it. That's one of the reasons that these restrictions are in place - to make sure that parents know what their children are watching, so that they can keep an eye on them. You've got this idea stuck in your head that people are mature enough from Day One, or that somehow, people become mature at a young age, like four. That's absolutely nuts. And, what is this crap about lying to get into the theater? What the hell kind of moral message is that? "Here, kids, it's OK to do whatever you want to get whatever you want! It's OK! Adults! Lie as well! Pretend you're a priest! Or a doctor! Hell, pretend you're a cop and arrest them! That'd be a great day!" C'mon, Jon. This has got to be one of the dumbest things that you have ever written. If kids want to see a film, and their parents won't let them, who are you to decide they are wrong? If the parents do care, they can sit through the movie for a couple hours. Yeah, it'd be spending time with them, which a lot of parents today would rather pull out their teeth then do, but maybe, for once, they could actually find out what their children are really like.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, since Pez is a trademark, the Pez company has a lot of leeway as to what they can and cannot do with their trademark. In this case, it seems to me like they are trying to cover their ass - preventing their trademark from being used by porn sites and the like. Has anyone actually heard of any of the Pez collectors being approached by Pez, Inc, to have sites taken down? I doubt it, since it isn't mentioned. Have they sued anyone yet? How long has this policy been in place?
In this case, I'd bet dollars to donuts that this policy is not meant to be used against legit collectors - only against people who try to resell in violation of their reseller agreements(which is a massive violation, and not of free speech), who slander the company(Pez is poison!), and those who use it in a sex site ( That girl's got a great set of Pez!) Like many other topics here on Slashdot, I think there is a large amount of overreacting going on here. Lawyers occasionally overstep while attempting to cover their butts. Their policy says one thing - let's not worry until they start enforcing it hardcore. I got better things to do with my time.
Well, crap, I've been holding the AI/Turing Test problem solution for years now, but now that Dartmouth wants to offer me a HUGE 100K for it, I might as well release it! Yay!
There's one everlasting truth you need to realize:
:-) Regardless, this raining diamonds thing is interesting - and dangerous. Diamonds are pretty hard - if one's got a sharp edge, it could do some nasty damage. Heck, even smacking you a good one would do it. I'd much rather have it rain faster processors and PC100 RAM.
If there is some weird, cool theory out there, Clarke probably thought of it ages ago. That's his thing in life.
You know, there's one other scenario that I haven't seen anyone else bring up here - did they possibly patent this so that it would NOT be used? Think of it, what better way to prevent something from being used then if you own it, and the government agrees? Albeit, I have yet to read the patent, due to the /. effect, so I don't know exactly what it reads, but this is a possibility.
"LinuxChix isn't gender biased, though. Men are welcome at meetings and, by Richardson's count, about 20 percent of the 200 members of
LinuxChix list are male."
Then don't call it LinuxChix. This is one of my major peeves in this world. For crap's sake, is it a Linux group for women? Then why are men there. If it's not a Linux group for women, then don't call it LinuxChix. Same goes for the Society of Women Engineers, which allows men, scientists, writers, etc. in to their little organization. How 'bout giving it a name that makes sense?
We get storms in California?
Not much..
My apologies. Mudslides was what I was really thinking of, which I assumed perpetrated by storms. Sorry for any slight.
You know, whenever a natural disaster, or a massacre, or whatever occurs, a few of us refuse to see it as a serious life-changing event. Then, people on message boards like this, or Usenet, or editorials in your local rag, get on us because "this isn't funny! Remember all the people who were hurt/died/homeless!" Know what? If I wanna find humor in this, I will. Nobody freaks when my county gets a tornado warning. Or a tornado. It affects you, not me. It'd be really shitty of me if I made these jokes around someone who had lost home and family, but you know what? I don't really give a damn. What affects you doesn't affect me, and be damned if you're gonna try to make me feel bad because you got property in a hurricane zone. I hope your home and family survive OK. But don't expect me or
Tim - How exactly do you decide which topics are "flash-in-the-pan" and which topics are going to stick around longer, and thus worth writing a book about? Also, how much does customer input factor in on your decisions as to which books to write/print?
Next week's Jon Katz article will be about the demise of Prodigy Classic; how it spells the downfall of the Net "as we know it"... how geeks should all rally together and keep Prodigy Classic alive; and how Prodigy Classic really, really helped with that whole Buffy censorship thing.
I dunno about the rest of you, but this sounds REAL fishy to me. Not the screwed-up crypto - I don't doubt that. But the NSA? I don't frigging think so. First of all, this guy has zero proof that NSA is involved at all - his only "proof" is the name of one key in one subsystem of the windows operating code, and the fact that that uses the three letter term NSA. I doubt that the NSA would have such a blatantly named key in there. Second, what would be the NSA's benefit in getting MS to do this for them? Seems a little strange, doesn't it? Finally, this strikes me like this guy is jumping on the government paranoia bandwagon for publicity's sake. I don't think this would be a huge story if he just said "There's a crypto problem in Windows systems".
The reason the entire machine is seized is that the people who execute the search warrant are very rarely the people who handled the investigation, or who will investigate in the future. They recieve directions like "Seize all computer and computer related equipment", and just to be safe, they take everything.
Everybody Sing Along....
:-)
Here comes the mibibyte...
Too much to remember..
Na-na-na-na
The good guys dress in black, remember that
In case we ever face-to-face in a deathmatch
The prefix MiB means 10 ** (2*#)
Etc, etc...fill in the blanks yourself.
Killian's, all the way. Or, if I wanna freak my friends out, I'll drink this weird-ass German beer. It's called Kierkan Dunkel or something like that. Apparently, it tastes extremely bitter to them. Me, it tastes just fine. They hate that. :-
The book I read was called "We almost lost Detroit". I originally grabbed it because I thought it was about the Michigan/Ohio Toledo argument.
As I seem to recall from my HS days when I was fascinated with nuclear power, this really isn't a big worry. First of all, AFAIK, the machines that would actually do the controlling, such as dropping rods and such, aren't time-sensitive. Second of all, the default configuration in emergencies for the control rods is to scram the reactor - they'll drop if there is a problem. Compare this to Cherynobyl, where the reactors had to be pushed up!! into the reactor to scram it.
I'm not real worried about these reactors giving us problems here. Way to much regulation, to many trained people. Other countries, yes. But, I'm worried about other countries a lot anyhow.
BTW - TMI doesn't scare me a bit. It was relatively innocous, it just got a lotta press. You wanna be scared? Read about the Fermi accident outside of Detroit. I can guaran-damn-tee ya that if that had gone any farter, many, many people, including myself and CmdrTaco, wouldn't be here anymore.
...and I can easily see this happening. Fact is, lots of Linux users are caught up in the "love-it-cause-it's-cool" bandwagon. If you read some of the Linux ng's, you'll see quite a few people who seem to be installing it because people tell them it's "cool". Even worse, though, is the people who insist that Linux is the do-all, be-all, and end-all of operating systems. Those people are delusional - Linux ain't the answer to everything. And Microsoft isn't always the wrong answer, either.
Well, perusing the list of current votes, I can honestly say that, of the top 20, fully eight are total bullshit. The Person of the Year/Century/Decade/whatever awards are meant to be the most influential - whether good or bad. Repeat - the MOST influential. Elvis? Bull. Just because a lot of people can't believe that their beloved Elvis isn't eating nuggets at a BK somewhere doesn't make him influential. And no, I don't think he had a large impact on the music industry, and no, I don't care how many Elvis impersonators there are. Same with Madonna. She's done nothing but be popular. Maybe you could say she influenced a few people, but she has not changed the world.
Skip to Billy Graham. What? He's a TV preacher. What has he influenced? A few people who already believed in God to believe more? Good work. Ronald Reagan? Nothing against Ronny, personally, but he was a pretty mediocre President. Hell, IMHO, we haven't had a non-mediocre President since Truman. One could argue that JFK was non-mediocre, thanks to his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I might buy that.
Speaking of that, where is Truman? Truman ended the Pacific War of WWII with one swift, brutal decisive move. He probably saved millions of lives with those two bombs, and ended the war earlier and with less bloodshed then predicted, but apparently, ending this century's greatest war is less important then singing "Imagine"(John Lennon) or marrying a rich guy(Princess Diana). By the way, people - that's all Diana did. She married a rich guy. Forget thos "touching" photos of her holding poor childrens who have been harmed by land mines.
Remember Mother Theresa, who gave all she could and more, and worked herself to the bone to help the poor. Diana did some nice shit, yeah, but she could afford to. Mother Theresa couldn't, but did so anyhow.
Toss out Linus, definetly. Nice OS and everything, and I use it and love it, but in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that influential. I'd much rather put Gates on that list, because he's been part of computing for much, much longer. However, I don't believe that Gates is that influential in the grand, worldwide scheme of things, so I'd toss him off too.
Move up FDR, Truman, Neville Chamberlain...Heck, I'd probably move Shimon Peres up some. In addition, the problem with polls like this is that people are fixated on the last ten-twenty years. Arguably, WWI and WWII changed the world more this century then ANY other events...but only Hitler and Churchill are mentioned. Not Yamamoto or Hirohito, no Mussolini, no Goehring, no FDR, no Truman, no Harding, nothing.
Toss out those pop-culture knee-jerk answers, and let's get this Linus bullshit out of there - let's pick people who really changed the world.
Does this sound like a new UPN sequel to anyone else?
VO:"You're about to be let in on the best-kept secret America has to date. We've developed a machine that'll let you work on nothing and get paid for the next....
Thirty Days!"
Cameos by Charo, the Gabors, The Kennedy's, and various other people who got famous and rich through no fault of their own.
I envision a day where every product comes with a pamphlet/book of warnings, ie: Warning: A pencil in the eye can cause blindness. A pencil in the ear can cause brain damage.
I bought a new multi-tool and some MagLites the other day. The Maglites, billed as waterproof, contain a warning not to use near water. The multi-tool, which contains two knives, has a warning that the contents may be sharp. No, really? Never thought of that.....
1. Freedom of Speech is not absolute. In this case, it looks like the posters have made defamatory comments. This speech is not protected under free speech laws.
2. You have the right to say what you want - but not necessarily the right to be free from the consequences of such.
3. Don't say it if you aren't willing to pay the price for it. In other words, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Free speech has a PRICE - and that is the price that we all must pay to have it.
Having said that, I don't think there is near enough accountabililty in the world today. Personally, I'd rather see people not be able to post anonymously, and take consequences for what they say. Augustus Hill, anyone?
I don't think you've made a valid distinction. Maybe skipping ads doesn't directly affect the TV networks but the people who pay to have the ads displayed will still feel ripped because they didn't get whatever value they expected when they paid for their ads.
Well, i think it's very valid. For one, the advertisers don't even know if you've skipped their commercials or not - the ratings system, which is just about the only point of feedback, doesn't register commercials. So, if your ratings show that 100,000 people watched this TV show last night, it won't show that maybe 50,000 were skipping the commercials. They don't know how many actually saw it - all they have to go by is the ratings system itself.
This argument strikes me as bogus, but, as IANAL, I'll just talk about an analogy: Do TV networks have the right to sue VCR manufacturers who put technology in their players that detect and screen out commercials? Or what about the VCR itself, which allows users to see the shows without watching the ads? The fact is that if they want to prevent access from outside, they can do what everyone else does: require registration, or use cookies.
Different technology. With the banner ads, you get x cents for every load - so, if someone doesn't load the ad, the money isn't there. If you skip commercials with your VCR, the money has already been paid out - they don't care if you directly watch the commercials or not. Of course, they do in terms of ratings, but those don't measure directly what you're watching every second.
I agree with you that they probably could've blocked them in a technical manner....however, I agree with Universal's position in the matter, and that the movisite guy should've pulled the links when he was asked. Besides, don't Slashboxes get permission from the site before they create one? I seem to recall CT mentioning that when they brought the new boxes online a couple weeks back.
What's the problem with preventing links to your server? A lot of sites stay up because of loading images as advertisements. If you link through to that, the content owners may not get the money. I bet if I linked to Slashdot without loading up any of the graphics, thereby causing Rob and pals to lose out on cash while still having to server the page, /. would have a hissy. And rightfully so. Second, a link can be very damaging to a server. I used to run a small ftp server which I used to let my friends get sounds and files from my University-networked machine. Someone on the outside with a lot more hits then I got decided to link to my sounds, and BOOM - saturation. I was plenty pissed. Finally, there's a real important point here - this is UNVIERSAL's content. If they don't want anyone linking to it, then no one should. Intellectual Property, people - if you want their product/service, do it their way or not at all.
OK, Jon, Part 1 had a good point - that movie theaters were restricting kids who obviously had parental permission because they weren't following some silly rule.
However, in Part 2, you lost out. What kind of crap is this? Take 13 or 9 year olds to movies like SP or American Pie? Kids - lie to anyone and everyone! It's OK! Parents - lie, cheat and steal rather then spend time with your kids. Here's a clue, Jon - just because a kid WANTS to see something doesn't mean that he or she is mature enough or ready to see it. That's one of the reasons that these restrictions are in place - to make sure that parents know what their children are watching, so that they can keep an eye on them. You've got this idea stuck in your head that people are mature enough from Day One, or that somehow, people become mature at a young age, like four. That's absolutely nuts. And, what is this crap about lying to get into the theater? What the hell kind of moral message is that? "Here, kids, it's OK to do whatever you want to get whatever you want! It's OK! Adults! Lie as well! Pretend you're a priest! Or a doctor! Hell, pretend you're a cop and arrest them! That'd be a great day!" C'mon, Jon. This has got to be one of the dumbest things that you have ever written. If kids want to see a film, and their parents won't let them, who are you to decide they are wrong? If the parents do care, they can sit through the movie for a couple hours. Yeah, it'd be spending time with them, which a lot of parents today would rather pull out their teeth then do, but maybe, for once, they could actually find out what their children are really like.