Really, it's great to see a law practice doing something positive online for once. I'm sure there are others, but they never seem to be mentioned in the press (and are no doubt outnumbered by the idiots suing over patents, linking, etc.).
The problem with paper is that only highly specific types of paper are all that durable over many years. Most normal kinds of paper that you typically see have a high acid content, which causes them to yellow and then disintegrate with age. Your average paperback book will start to crumble in a few decades or so, most newspapers even earlier. I have quite a few paperbacks that are about 20 years old (which is when I started buying my own books), and they have definitely started to yellow and turn brittle even though they have been stored in a dry, clean, reasonably climate-controlled place (i.e. my living room).
Acid-free paper can also deteriorate over time, especially if handled a lot (since sweat from fingers also contains acids and bacteria) or just exposed to the air (which is also slightly acidic in normal circumstances, especially if the air is at all polluted), and also depending on the kind of inks used. Soy inks, which are increasingly popular with mass-printed media, may decay or fade over time (though they have not been in use long enough to know for sure); offset inks can also turn acidic if not properly mixed and/or discolor over time.
So it's not as simple as just "printing on paper". You need to use specially-produced acid-free (slightly alkaline) paper; use a non-acidic ink with a chemically stable pigment; and store it in climate-controlled conditions, where it can't be handled or even breathed upon.
Ironically, parchment and soot ink have proven remarkably stable over time. So long as parchment books were not stored in overly bad conditions (too damp or in polluted air), they held up for many hundreds of years with no trouble.
In a way, this story comes as no surprise to anyone who's interested in calligraphy and medieval history -- take a look at the books in museums, like the Lindisfarne Gospels at the British Museum or the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin, and they look amazingly bright and fresh some 1300 years after they were made.
Those monks wanted to write for a very long posterity, and stumbled on just the way to do it -- sheepskins (vellum) and ink out of bone black.
If you're interested in medieval writing materials, check out these pages:
A few years ago in the Hamburg (Germany) main newspaper, the Abendblatt, they reported (I'm not joking) that Russians program especially dangerous virii -- because the code is in Cyrillic, which "normal" computers can't handle.
I figure some jerk reporter was pecking some geek to provide him with some juicy info, and the geek made something up...
All German citizens are required to have a national ID card. The card is about the same size as a passport (see below for why). It has a photo, place of birth, ID number (which is not the Social Security number -- since the national ID has its own number, there is no need for using the pension fund number for everything as in the US), physical description and city/state of current residency.
The ID card also is used in the German passport (which is why the size is what it is), thus killing two birds with one stone.
The card must be renewed every few years, with a new photo and so on; any time you move, you must also get a new card or have the current one updated with the new place of residency. You have to show proof of residency -- a rental contract, a lease or a deed for land, for example. (Foreigners have to do a lot more -- proof of right to work, proof of employment or place of study, proof of income, statement of renouncing of rights to social services, no prior criminal record, in some cases an affidavit from a German sponsor, etc.)
The thing is, the whole infrastructure of making this work is missing in the US. Not only is there a lack of legislation regulating the use and defining abuse of the ID card (privacy is actually strictly protected in Germany, at least against private individuals), but a lack of people to manage that information.
Every German city and county (Landkreis or Gemeinde) has a residency office, or Einwohnermeldeamt, where all residents (citizens and foreigners) are required to register (and unregister if you move), along with showing documentation for previous places of residency, next of kin and so on. It is a serious offense to lie on any of those forms or to have a false ID; it is a minor offense to not carry an ID at all times (driver's license doesn't count).
Because the national ID is not directly linked to the retirement system (or anything else), there is a greatly reduced danger of identity theft WRT the pension or health insurance system. (Cashing checks almost never happens in Germany -- checks are rarely used -- and for an ID at the bank, you use your bank card anyway.)
The information stored is decentralized -- meaning, while the authorities can quickly access it if need be, it's not all in one spot waiting to be abused; and no one but the government and the inidividual may access that individual's information. Anyone caught trying to misuse or hand over that information to third parties is in deep doo-doo.
What I want to know is, why not have such a system in the States, rather than this half-arsed idea with driver's licenses? As many have pointed out already, it's vastly open to abuse or chaos and won't do a thing to identify people out-of-state...
I am writing to ask you for your name and address, as I want to sue you. I am suing you for damages to my new 17" flatscreen monitor incurred by you providing a link to the webpage "Bernard Shifman Is A Moron Spammer", which I was compelled to click on, resulting in my aforementioned monitor being destroyed in a spray of Coca-Cola (which I was drinking calmly until being compelled to click on the link) issuing from my nostrils.
The Coca-Cola Company will also be a party to this suit, as the Coke that went through my nostrils has also caused serious damage to my sinuses. I am afraid a telephone discussion with you regarding the suit is therefore out of the question.
I am no longer embarrased to admit that I have read the Silmarillion multiple times.
Good for you! Nothing to be ashamed of!;-)
I do know the difference between the Maiar and the Valar, and I know how Feanor died. I can tell you who Luthien's parents were, and why Earendil was important.
Well, if you really want to gain more insight, may I suggest reading "The Book of Lost Tales" and "Unfinished Tales". "The Silmarillion" does explain a lot, but there are even more details and background information in the other books I mentioned -- more about Númenór, for example, and more about the Valar, Maiar and so on. There are also more details on the lineage of Beren, Lúthien and so on -- the stories of Túrin Turambar and Níniel are particularly tragic, but give more insight into Tolkien's worldview.
(Túrin Turambar and Níniel were cousins of Tuor, who in turn was the father of Ëarendil the Mariner. They were cursed by Morgoth and bewitched by Glaurung the Dragon. I won't reveal the rest, if you haven't read it.)
A word of warning -- "Unfinished Tales" is just as the name implies. Some are "unfinished" in the sense that the prose is not so polished or the story has some serious contradictions (either within themselves or with other material), which is okay if you know that in advance; but some literally stop in mid-sentence, just in a gripping part...
There is also an account of the Fall of Númenór and how Sauron was involved in it, along with an account of the Kings of Númenór and their colonization of Middle-Earth (which led over time to the founding of the Two Kingdoms, Arnor and Gondor). Very interesting stuff.
My point? That I am not, goddammit, going to be embarrassed any longer about my extensive knowledge of Tolkien. I don't CARE if Julia Roberts or Tyler Durden would make fun of me. They can go fuck themselves.
My sentiments exactly. I wouldn't be caught dead watching a Julia Roberts movie anyway. Hell, I hardly watch movies...rather read a book...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Allgeory and C.S. Lewis and Tolkien
on
LotR Cleans Up at AFI
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Lord of the rings is a allegorically based on biblical stories. Tolkien being profoundly Catholic, will obviously have a big influence on North America's western society, most of it rooted in some sort of Christian moral basis.
As others have already pointed out, Tolkien denies any sort of intentional allgeory or historical reference in his books.
At the same time, don't forget that many of the same right-wing Christian groups that go around burning "Harry Potter" books also tend to take a very dim view of Catholics (or "papists" as they would call them). I know, my niece's mother takes my niece to just one such church, much to my and my brother's annoyance.
I gave her LOTR for Christmas...and "A Wrinkle in Time", which I call the "stealth bomb for eight-year-olds". >:-)
At any rate, it's interesting to note that the "Narnia" series from C.S. Lewis is not so often objected to by these same groups -- even though Lewis and Tolkien were close friends and shared many of the same views. (Lewis had been agnostic, and Tolkien tried to convert him to Catholicism, but Lewis became an Anglican instead -- i.e. Protestant, if only barely.) However, "Narnia" is clearly an allegory, with Aslan the Lion directly representing Christ -- Lewis said so himself.
To be more precise, Men were not only given a special place in Ilúvatar's chorus, but they were given the Gift of Death. This is difficult to explain (and Men had a hard time understanding it -- which is why they fell so easily under the Shadow, as many, even the Númenóreans, learned to fear Death), but the explanation goes like this:
The Elves, if they died, went to Mandos, the Halls of Doom on Valinor. (Valinor was what LotR refers to as "the West", i.e. the "undying lands" where world-weary Elves would travel on the Straight Road from the Grey Havens, aided by Círdan the Shipwright and guided by Ëarendil.) Therefore they did not rejoin Eru Ilúvatar if they died, but rather lived for eternity on Valinor, the lands untouched by death. In other words, even if an Elf is slain, he/she is not really "dead" per se.
But Men who died would leave Ëa, i.e. go beyond the circles of the world to return to Eru Ilúvatar, thus being nearer to him than the Eldar/Elves, who could leave Middle-Earth but not Ëa itself.
The Elves therefore became world-weary, longing to return to Eru, but unable to do so, while Men were only on Middle-Earth a (relatively) short time, after which they came back to him.
From one Tolkien nerd to another.;-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
Most importantly, it works for pizza
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
I ordered a pizza tonight and paid for it in Euros (€5.80 to be exact). And the delivery guy was surprised and amused -- we were the first people to pay in Euros today (he had to carry around two change purses, one for DM, one for Euros).
Goody. I can claim to be the first guy to have bought a pizza with Euros in my city. (Well, okay, maybe not...)
So hey, maybe the economy will go to hell, but at least I can buy my extra cheese pizza.
Cheers,
Ethelred
Technically, it is Deutsche Mark
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
As a matter of fact, the official name is "Deutsche Mark" (so it says on the banknotes). This is to differentiate them from the earlier Reichsmark of the Imperial/Weimar Republic/NSDAP days and the so-called "Ostmark" (i.e. "eastern Marks") of the former East Germany.
FWIW I still have some 1,000,000 RM notes around here somewhere from the late Weimar Republic period -- from 1931, I think. Ain't I special.
In everyday language, yes, people in Germany just say "Mark", with no difference between singular and plural. But in the same way people say "US dollars" as opposed to "Canadian dollars", so too do people say "Deutsche Mark" (which is often corrupted to "Deutschmark").
After all, the abbreviation for marks *is* "DEM" or "DM"...
It's "The Fellowship of the Ring", a.k.a. "The Lord of the Rings: Game One" for MS-DOS, from 1985. It was actually just sort of a text-based adventure with occasional illustrations, and as I remember I always got hopelessly stuck somewhere before getting to Bree (before which I got hopelessly stuck in Michel Delving -- the plot of the game is rather different from the book). It had amazing CGA graphics (wow! four colors!) and ran on two 5.25" floppy drives (our computer didn't even have a hard drive at that point).
The funny thing is, I was just thinking about that game a day or so ago. It's buried in a box of my stuff at my parents' place...*sigh*
I also was pretty amazed at how UGLY the Atari 2600 game looks. I was addicted to the 2600 in the late 70s/early 80s (and the 5200 was awesome), though I didn't have one of my own. But I never remembered the graphics being THAT bad. Just a sign how far we've progressed, I suppose...
1. MS still has the Findings of Fact hanging around its neck -- read: civil suits from Sun, Netscape/AOL, just about anybody who wants to bring an antitrust case. Remember, AT&T was broken up after a civil suit by MCI way-back-when in the early 80s, not because of the Feds initiating the action.
2. The conduct remedies are not yet set in stone, just based on Jackson's final judgement minus the breakup (which was pretty harsh already) and not necessarily limited to that. It would be interesting, for example, if one of the remedies were to force MS to take Windows XP from the market...and that is strongly implied in both the BBC and CNNfn articles.
So MS has dodged the breakup bullet, but OTOH the breakup as specified -- AppsCo and SystemsCo (or whatever the heck the stupid names were) -- would have just created two monopolies where only one existed before, and with both still having the same kick-'em-when-they're-down culture of MS. If you ask me, that would have been worse than the current situation.
And XP may yet be barred from the market (at least for a while) -- and later come to market sans Messenger, Hailstorm, Passport and so on. Maybe. *fingers crossed*
Of course, IANAL and all that.
So there is a silver lining...well, maybe a mercury lining. Oh, whatever.
"Fritz the Cat" or Mr. Natural was not exactly everyone's cup of tea, for example. But Crumb has quite a cult following. Zippy is in the same general ballpark.
If you don't like it, don't feel bad. It's just not something you can explain, I guess.
What's the fascination with Zippy? Is unfunny humor somehow funny? Is it like whiskey and cigars which taste and smell terrible until you know what finer points you are supposed to be noticing?
You're not far off there. I read Zippy for quite some time, mainly because the artwork was so off the wall. I never found it funny, until one day, it just somehow clicked -- and from then on it was hilarious. Not unlike the way I watched "Wild at Heart" from David Lynch, didn't laugh at all through the whole movie, then as the credits rolled, suddenly "got it" and busted a lung laughing so hard. It's just quirky, edgy humor.
The humor isn't as accessible as Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts, but then again it didn't try to be. Zippy grew out of a totally different background -- underground comics and so on -- and never really went mainstream, which is why I think I grew to like it.
Breathed was also basically Trudeau on speed -- same kind of humor, but even more on the edge, always dancing on the line of good taste, and even more cynical than Doonesbury. But he was still fundamentally mainstream in his style of humor, even if he offended the religious right a lot. Zippy, on the other hand, is more of a coffee-house artist kind of thing...
O, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. -- Henry V, I:1
and
Can such things be, and o'ercome us like a summer's cloud, without our special wonder? -- Macbeth, III:4
Now, mind you, it sounded like a TV weatherman reading it, rather than anything like a Shakespearean actor (no, not even Kevin Costner;-) ) -- but if you think that this is intended to be a generic male voice...hey, maybe they could take Ian McKellen's or Patrick Stewart's or Emma Thompson's or (God forbid) Keanu Reeve's voices. Who knows?
Well, I'm impressed...
Now, if you want to have some fun, try some Bushisms with it.;-)
It's pretty odd that Apple did the Cube at all, really. Anyone remember the original four-box strategy that they implemented to prevent themselves from going overboard on models, like they used to?
In the old days, Apple had Quadras, Performas, Centrises and Classics, and no one could tell from the name or even case design which Mac was which. Futhermore, within each line (Centris/Performa/Quadra) there were myriad variations that made little sense, and often there was overlap. This confused both customer and sales team, and caused a lot of trouble.
Enter the four-box strategy:
Consumer portable: iBook
Consumer desktop: iMac
Pro portable: PowerBook
Pro desktop: G3/G4
This strategy worked just fine, and then Jobs got a wild hair and decided to add the Cube, which was neither cheap enough to be a Consumer box (like an iMac) nor powerful and expandable enough to be a Pro box. Sure, it looked great, but it was just a bad decision (unless they had cut the price dramatically, but then they would have run into problems with the Cube cannibalizing iMac sales).
They should stick to a simple product line, like they started to do, much in the same way that carmakers recycle chassis designs and parts to keep things simple and costs down.
For all the coolness of the Cube, it was simply a blunder IMO.
Granted, the G4 towers are a lot bulkier than the Cubes, but OTOH they are also amazingly quiet. I've been pleased with my dual 450 G4 in that regard -- it's the quietest computer I have, even quieter than my Powerbook (which, while it has a fan, only rarely turns on the fan).
For that matter, the iMacs are also very quiet. My family-in-law has an iMac DV, and it's also very decent (though it does crash a lot...;-P ).
You young whippersnappers...Robotech was nothing compared to "Battle of the Planets" (also known as Gatchaman or G-Force). I remember watching it on a black and white TV in the back room of my dad's gas station after school, way back in the late '70s (later got to see it in color, too). Now THAT was an awesome series. Nothing I've seen since then has gotten me like G-Force did. Voltron, Robotech, all those TV series that came after paled in comparison IMO. Zoltar/Berg Katse was a pretty cool villain...or was it villainess?;-)
I've heard you can get G-Force on DVD now...hmm, gotta see if I can get it...but then again, if I watch it now, it'll probably ruin it (kinda like watching Star Trek OS today). *sigh*
...someone were to try to take an open source audio standard, like Ogg Vorbis, and add some kind of content protection to it (a la WMP) so that the RIAA would be happy with that as a format. In many ways, Microsoft seems to be trying to encourage use of WMP because of its content protection schemes, and recording artists (read: RIAA) like that idea.
Of course, there are the usual complaints and caveats: for every content protection scheme, there is a potential hack (though one wonders if open source could do better at content protection); why should there be protection in the first place (though suppliers -- i.e. RIAA -- will never go along with that line of argument IMO); would such an effort result in a fork of OV (since I doubt the main body of developers would go along with such an idea); and so on.
I don't really advocate this, but I think it's an interesting idea nonetheless, and it would at least be a way to put a dent in WMP as a format of choice for the RIAA...
Oh hell, I'll just go back to ripping my own MP3s with iTunes. Rip, mix, burn and all that.;-P
For that matter, in World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II (or Kaiser Bill;-) ) had a Mercedes limosine, on display at the Daimler-Benz museum in Stuttgart, that had a mobile radio system -- so that old Bill could keep in touch with the general staff. Whether it was like a cellphone or more like a CB, though, I don't know. But interesting to note how far ahead of its time *that* was.
(On that note: How do you pronounce "DaimlerChrysler"? The "chrysler" is silent...);-P
Cheers,
John
There is a fairly simple and obvious fix. Why not use key-pair methods like PGP, combined with this sort of thing?
Think about it. PGP just turns a message into "gibberish"; a spamified PGP would turn it into (admittedly rather long) halfway intelligible spam messages, only decodable by the recipient.
I'm the guy who did a lot of the graphics on
Aethera (note to/. editors: check the spelling next
time...). Anyway, I also worked with the other
guys at theKompany.com (note the spelling there, too)
on the UI, and I can assure you we did NOT try to copy Outlook.
We did, of course, try to make a good e-mail and groupware
client. I have only even seen Outlook once, I think
(I normally only use Linux, Mac OS and on rare
occasions Windows) -- if anything, my inspiration
was more a dash of Eudora (the Mac version) and a bit of Claris E-Mailer.
Whatever -- e-mail GUI programs tend to look alike,
and that's not really a bad thing. At least people recognize
what's going on immediately and don't have to
familiarize themselves with it too much -- especially
when you're trying to replace/compete with Outlook (*including* the database and back office
functions), it doesn't hurt to be a little familiar.
Lastly, nobody's stopping you from contributing
to Aethera's further development. If you wanna help out,
please do so.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, wait....
Go lawyers!
Really, it's great to see a law practice doing something positive online for once. I'm sure there are others, but they never seem to be mentioned in the press (and are no doubt outnumbered by the idiots suing over patents, linking, etc.).
Cheers,
Ethelred
The problem with paper is that only highly specific types of paper are all that durable over many years. Most normal kinds of paper that you typically see have a high acid content, which causes them to yellow and then disintegrate with age. Your average paperback book will start to crumble in a few decades or so, most newspapers even earlier. I have quite a few paperbacks that are about 20 years old (which is when I started buying my own books), and they have definitely started to yellow and turn brittle even though they have been stored in a dry, clean, reasonably climate-controlled place (i.e. my living room).
Acid-free paper can also deteriorate over time, especially if handled a lot (since sweat from fingers also contains acids and bacteria) or just exposed to the air (which is also slightly acidic in normal circumstances, especially if the air is at all polluted), and also depending on the kind of inks used. Soy inks, which are increasingly popular with mass-printed media, may decay or fade over time (though they have not been in use long enough to know for sure); offset inks can also turn acidic if not properly mixed and/or discolor over time.
So it's not as simple as just "printing on paper". You need to use specially-produced acid-free (slightly alkaline) paper; use a non-acidic ink with a chemically stable pigment; and store it in climate-controlled conditions, where it can't be handled or even breathed upon.
Ironically, parchment and soot ink have proven remarkably stable over time. So long as parchment books were not stored in overly bad conditions (too damp or in polluted air), they held up for many hundreds of years with no trouble.
In a way, this story comes as no surprise to anyone who's interested in calligraphy and medieval history -- take a look at the books in museums, like the Lindisfarne Gospels at the British Museum or the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin, and they look amazingly bright and fresh some 1300 years after they were made.
Those monks wanted to write for a very long posterity, and stumbled on just the way to do it -- sheepskins (vellum) and ink out of bone black.
If you're interested in medieval writing materials, check out these pages:
Ink Recipes
Handmade Paper -- Archival Paper
Medieval Manuscripts
Cheers,
Ethelred
I figure some jerk reporter was pecking some geek to provide him with some juicy info, and the geek made something up...
cya
Ethelred
cya
Ethelred
All German citizens are required to have a national ID card. The card is about the same size as a passport (see below for why). It has a photo, place of birth, ID number (which is not the Social Security number -- since the national ID has its own number, there is no need for using the pension fund number for everything as in the US), physical description and city/state of current residency.
The ID card also is used in the German passport (which is why the size is what it is), thus killing two birds with one stone.
The card must be renewed every few years, with a new photo and so on; any time you move, you must also get a new card or have the current one updated with the new place of residency. You have to show proof of residency -- a rental contract, a lease or a deed for land, for example. (Foreigners have to do a lot more -- proof of right to work, proof of employment or place of study, proof of income, statement of renouncing of rights to social services, no prior criminal record, in some cases an affidavit from a German sponsor, etc.)
The thing is, the whole infrastructure of making this work is missing in the US. Not only is there a lack of legislation regulating the use and defining abuse of the ID card (privacy is actually strictly protected in Germany, at least against private individuals), but a lack of people to manage that information.
Every German city and county (Landkreis or Gemeinde) has a residency office, or Einwohnermeldeamt, where all residents (citizens and foreigners) are required to register (and unregister if you move), along with showing documentation for previous places of residency, next of kin and so on. It is a serious offense to lie on any of those forms or to have a false ID; it is a minor offense to not carry an ID at all times (driver's license doesn't count).
Because the national ID is not directly linked to the retirement system (or anything else), there is a greatly reduced danger of identity theft WRT the pension or health insurance system. (Cashing checks almost never happens in Germany -- checks are rarely used -- and for an ID at the bank, you use your bank card anyway.)
The information stored is decentralized -- meaning, while the authorities can quickly access it if need be, it's not all in one spot waiting to be abused; and no one but the government and the inidividual may access that individual's information. Anyone caught trying to misuse or hand over that information to third parties is in deep doo-doo.
What I want to know is, why not have such a system in the States, rather than this half-arsed idea with driver's licenses? As many have pointed out already, it's vastly open to abuse or chaos and won't do a thing to identify people out-of-state...
Anyway...
Cheers,
Ethelred
I am writing to ask you for your name and address, as I want to sue you. I am suing you for damages to my new 17" flatscreen monitor incurred by you providing a link to the webpage "Bernard Shifman Is A Moron Spammer", which I was compelled to click on, resulting in my aforementioned monitor being destroyed in a spray of Coca-Cola (which I was drinking calmly until being compelled to click on the link) issuing from my nostrils.
The Coca-Cola Company will also be a party to this suit, as the Coke that went through my nostrils has also caused serious damage to my sinuses. I am afraid a telephone discussion with you regarding the suit is therefore out of the question.
My legal team (me and my cat) agree that I have a watertight case.
Thank you.
Ethelred
P.S. First post!
Cheers,
Ethelred
So what? The Elves have been doing this for ages. Just ask Galadriel.
O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!
OK, so I've been reading LOTR too much again...
Cheers,
Ethelred
From one Tolkien nerd to another. ;-)
I am no longer embarrased to admit that I have read the Silmarillion multiple times.
Good for you! Nothing to be ashamed of! ;-)
I do know the difference between the Maiar and the Valar, and I know how Feanor died. I can tell you who Luthien's parents were, and why Earendil was important.
Well, if you really want to gain more insight, may I suggest reading "The Book of Lost Tales" and "Unfinished Tales". "The Silmarillion" does explain a lot, but there are even more details and background information in the other books I mentioned -- more about Númenór, for example, and more about the Valar, Maiar and so on. There are also more details on the lineage of Beren, Lúthien and so on -- the stories of Túrin Turambar and Níniel are particularly tragic, but give more insight into Tolkien's worldview.
(Túrin Turambar and Níniel were cousins of Tuor, who in turn was the father of Ëarendil the Mariner. They were cursed by Morgoth and bewitched by Glaurung the Dragon. I won't reveal the rest, if you haven't read it.)
A word of warning -- "Unfinished Tales" is just as the name implies. Some are "unfinished" in the sense that the prose is not so polished or the story has some serious contradictions (either within themselves or with other material), which is okay if you know that in advance; but some literally stop in mid-sentence, just in a gripping part...
There is also an account of the Fall of Númenór and how Sauron was involved in it, along with an account of the Kings of Númenór and their colonization of Middle-Earth (which led over time to the founding of the Two Kingdoms, Arnor and Gondor). Very interesting stuff.
My point? That I am not, goddammit, going to be embarrassed any longer about my extensive knowledge of Tolkien. I don't CARE if Julia Roberts or Tyler Durden would make fun of me. They can go fuck themselves.
My sentiments exactly. I wouldn't be caught dead watching a Julia Roberts movie anyway. Hell, I hardly watch movies...rather read a book...
Cheers,
Ethelred
As others have already pointed out, Tolkien denies any sort of intentional allgeory or historical reference in his books.
At the same time, don't forget that many of the same right-wing Christian groups that go around burning "Harry Potter" books also tend to take a very dim view of Catholics (or "papists" as they would call them). I know, my niece's mother takes my niece to just one such church, much to my and my brother's annoyance.
I gave her LOTR for Christmas...and "A Wrinkle in Time", which I call the "stealth bomb for eight-year-olds". >:-)
At any rate, it's interesting to note that the "Narnia" series from C.S. Lewis is not so often objected to by these same groups -- even though Lewis and Tolkien were close friends and shared many of the same views. (Lewis had been agnostic, and Tolkien tried to convert him to Catholicism, but Lewis became an Anglican instead -- i.e. Protestant, if only barely.) However, "Narnia" is clearly an allegory, with Aslan the Lion directly representing Christ -- Lewis said so himself.
Cheers,
Ethelred
The Elves, if they died, went to Mandos, the Halls of Doom on Valinor. (Valinor was what LotR refers to as "the West", i.e. the "undying lands" where world-weary Elves would travel on the Straight Road from the Grey Havens, aided by Círdan the Shipwright and guided by Ëarendil.) Therefore they did not rejoin Eru Ilúvatar if they died, but rather lived for eternity on Valinor, the lands untouched by death. In other words, even if an Elf is slain, he/she is not really "dead" per se.
But Men who died would leave Ëa, i.e. go beyond the circles of the world to return to Eru Ilúvatar, thus being nearer to him than the Eldar/Elves, who could leave Middle-Earth but not Ëa itself.
The Elves therefore became world-weary, longing to return to Eru, but unable to do so, while Men were only on Middle-Earth a (relatively) short time, after which they came back to him.
From one Tolkien nerd to another. ;-)
Cheers,
Ethelred
I ordered a pizza tonight and paid for it in Euros (€5.80 to be exact). And the delivery guy was surprised and amused -- we were the first people to pay in Euros today (he had to carry around two change purses, one for DM, one for Euros).
Goody. I can claim to be the first guy to have bought a pizza with Euros in my city. (Well, okay, maybe not...)
So hey, maybe the economy will go to hell, but at least I can buy my extra cheese pizza.
Cheers,
Ethelred
As a matter of fact, the official name is "Deutsche Mark" (so it says on the banknotes). This is to differentiate them from the earlier Reichsmark of the Imperial/Weimar Republic/NSDAP days and the so-called "Ostmark" (i.e. "eastern Marks") of the former East Germany.
FWIW I still have some 1,000,000 RM notes around here somewhere from the late Weimar Republic period -- from 1931, I think. Ain't I special.
In everyday language, yes, people in Germany just say "Mark", with no difference between singular and plural. But in the same way people say "US dollars" as opposed to "Canadian dollars", so too do people say "Deutsche Mark" (which is often corrupted to "Deutschmark").
After all, the abbreviation for marks *is* "DEM" or "DM"...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Cover Art
Description
It's "The Fellowship of the Ring", a.k.a. "The Lord of the Rings: Game One" for MS-DOS, from 1985. It was actually just sort of a text-based adventure with occasional illustrations, and as I remember I always got hopelessly stuck somewhere before getting to Bree (before which I got hopelessly stuck in Michel Delving -- the plot of the game is rather different from the book). It had amazing CGA graphics (wow! four colors!) and ran on two 5.25" floppy drives (our computer didn't even have a hard drive at that point).
The funny thing is, I was just thinking about that game a day or so ago. It's buried in a box of my stuff at my parents' place...*sigh*
I also was pretty amazed at how UGLY the Atari 2600 game looks. I was addicted to the 2600 in the late 70s/early 80s (and the 5200 was awesome), though I didn't have one of my own. But I never remembered the graphics being THAT bad. Just a sign how far we've progressed, I suppose...
Ah well, Memory Lane. *sigh* I feel old...
cya
Ethelred
...keep in mind two things.
1. MS still has the Findings of Fact hanging around its neck -- read: civil suits from Sun, Netscape/AOL, just about anybody who wants to bring an antitrust case. Remember, AT&T was broken up after a civil suit by MCI way-back-when in the early 80s, not because of the Feds initiating the action.
2. The conduct remedies are not yet set in stone, just based on Jackson's final judgement minus the breakup (which was pretty harsh already) and not necessarily limited to that. It would be interesting, for example, if one of the remedies were to force MS to take Windows XP from the market...and that is strongly implied in both the BBC and CNNfn articles.
So MS has dodged the breakup bullet, but OTOH the breakup as specified -- AppsCo and SystemsCo (or whatever the heck the stupid names were) -- would have just created two monopolies where only one existed before, and with both still having the same kick-'em-when-they're-down culture of MS. If you ask me, that would have been worse than the current situation.
And XP may yet be barred from the market (at least for a while) -- and later come to market sans Messenger, Hailstorm, Passport and so on. Maybe. *fingers crossed*
Of course, IANAL and all that.
So there is a silver lining...well, maybe a mercury lining. Oh, whatever.
cya
Ethelred
"Fritz the Cat" or Mr. Natural was not exactly everyone's cup of tea, for example. But Crumb has quite a cult following. Zippy is in the same general ballpark.
If you don't like it, don't feel bad. It's just not something you can explain, I guess.
cya
Ethelred
You're not far off there. I read Zippy for quite some time, mainly because the artwork was so off the wall. I never found it funny, until one day, it just somehow clicked -- and from then on it was hilarious. Not unlike the way I watched "Wild at Heart" from David Lynch, didn't laugh at all through the whole movie, then as the credits rolled, suddenly "got it" and busted a lung laughing so hard. It's just quirky, edgy humor.
The humor isn't as accessible as Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts, but then again it didn't try to be. Zippy grew out of a totally different background -- underground comics and so on -- and never really went mainstream, which is why I think I grew to like it.
Breathed was also basically Trudeau on speed -- same kind of humor, but even more on the edge, always dancing on the line of good taste, and even more cynical than Doonesbury. But he was still fundamentally mainstream in his style of humor, even if he offended the religious right a lot. Zippy, on the other hand, is more of a coffee-house artist kind of thing...
cya
Ethelred
I tried a bit of Shakespeare:
O, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. -- Henry V, I:1
and
Can such things be, and o'ercome us like a summer's cloud, without our special wonder? -- Macbeth, III:4
Now, mind you, it sounded like a TV weatherman reading it, rather than anything like a Shakespearean actor (no, not even Kevin Costner ;-) ) -- but if you think that this is intended to be a generic male voice...hey, maybe they could take Ian McKellen's or Patrick Stewart's or Emma Thompson's or (God forbid) Keanu Reeve's voices. Who knows?
Well, I'm impressed...
Now, if you want to have some fun, try some Bushisms with it. ;-)
cya
Ethelred
It's pretty odd that Apple did the Cube at all, really. Anyone remember the original four-box strategy that they implemented to prevent themselves from going overboard on models, like they used to?
In the old days, Apple had Quadras, Performas, Centrises and Classics, and no one could tell from the name or even case design which Mac was which. Futhermore, within each line (Centris/Performa/Quadra) there were myriad variations that made little sense, and often there was overlap. This confused both customer and sales team, and caused a lot of trouble.
Enter the four-box strategy:
Consumer portable: iBook
Consumer desktop: iMac
Pro portable: PowerBook
Pro desktop: G3/G4
This strategy worked just fine, and then Jobs got a wild hair and decided to add the Cube, which was neither cheap enough to be a Consumer box (like an iMac) nor powerful and expandable enough to be a Pro box. Sure, it looked great, but it was just a bad decision (unless they had cut the price dramatically, but then they would have run into problems with the Cube cannibalizing iMac sales).
They should stick to a simple product line, like they started to do, much in the same way that carmakers recycle chassis designs and parts to keep things simple and costs down.
For all the coolness of the Cube, it was simply a blunder IMO.
Ethelred
Granted, the G4 towers are a lot bulkier than the Cubes, but OTOH they are also amazingly quiet. I've been pleased with my dual 450 G4 in that regard -- it's the quietest computer I have, even quieter than my Powerbook (which, while it has a fan, only rarely turns on the fan).
For that matter, the iMacs are also very quiet. My family-in-law has an iMac DV, and it's also very decent (though it does crash a lot... ;-P ).
My Duron 800, though, is just *loud*...
Ethelred
You young whippersnappers...Robotech was nothing compared to "Battle of the Planets" (also known as Gatchaman or G-Force). I remember watching it on a black and white TV in the back room of my dad's gas station after school, way back in the late '70s (later got to see it in color, too). Now THAT was an awesome series. Nothing I've seen since then has gotten me like G-Force did. Voltron, Robotech, all those TV series that came after paled in comparison IMO. Zoltar/Berg Katse was a pretty cool villain...or was it villainess? ;-)
I've heard you can get G-Force on DVD now...hmm, gotta see if I can get it...but then again, if I watch it now, it'll probably ruin it (kinda like watching Star Trek OS today). *sigh*
Ah well. There's an old site about G-Force/BotP with lots of pics here: http://www.pearl-jam.com/botp/home.html
Transmute!
Ethelred
...someone were to try to take an open source audio standard, like Ogg Vorbis, and add some kind of content protection to it (a la WMP) so that the RIAA would be happy with that as a format. In many ways, Microsoft seems to be trying to encourage use of WMP because of its content protection schemes, and recording artists (read: RIAA) like that idea.
;-P
Of course, there are the usual complaints and caveats: for every content protection scheme, there is a potential hack (though one wonders if open source could do better at content protection); why should there be protection in the first place (though suppliers -- i.e. RIAA -- will never go along with that line of argument IMO); would such an effort result in a fork of OV (since I doubt the main body of developers would go along with such an idea); and so on.
I don't really advocate this, but I think it's an interesting idea nonetheless, and it would at least be a way to put a dent in WMP as a format of choice for the RIAA...
Oh hell, I'll just go back to ripping my own MP3s with iTunes. Rip, mix, burn and all that.
cya
Ethelred
For that matter, in World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm II (or Kaiser Bill ;-) ) had a Mercedes limosine, on display at the Daimler-Benz museum in Stuttgart, that had a mobile radio system -- so that old Bill could keep in touch with the general staff. Whether it was like a cellphone or more like a CB, though, I don't know. But interesting to note how far ahead of its time *that* was.
(On that note: How do you pronounce "DaimlerChrysler"? The "chrysler" is silent...) ;-P
Cheers,
John
Think about it. PGP just turns a message into "gibberish"; a spamified PGP would turn it into (admittedly rather long) halfway intelligible spam messages, only decodable by the recipient.
Now THAT would be cool...
cya
Ethelred
Whatever -- e-mail GUI programs tend to look alike, and that's not really a bad thing. At least people recognize what's going on immediately and don't have to familiarize themselves with it too much -- especially when you're trying to replace/compete with Outlook (*including* the database and back office functions), it doesn't hurt to be a little familiar.
Lastly, nobody's stopping you from contributing to Aethera's further development. If you wanna help out, please do so. :-)
cya
Ethelred