Hmmm... I can pay 30 or so bucks and watch it on a big tv, with high quality picture and sound, spending the four hour movie time sitting on my comfy sofa.
Or, I can spend an hour or two downloading it off the internet so I can watch it on my 17" monitor, with mediocre video and mediocre sound, all while sitting in my less comfortable desk chair for 4 hours.
The difference is that the Lord of the Rings is such a significant piece of cultural art that it cannot just be dismissed as "corporate franchise".
Yeah, people are making gobs of money off of this... which is good if you ask me. Better America spend its money on something of depth and quality than on the usual Hollywood garbage.
Encouraging high-quality theatrical productions of classic literature by spending is probably going to work better for us in the long run. People spend money to see awful crap all the time- its when those with taste manage go out and spend for once that the industry stands up and takes notice.
Don't shy away from the Hip-Hop side of techno
on
Electronic Music 101?
·
· Score: 1
DJ Shadow, Automator, and Cannibal Ox are among the many artists that are sort of bridging the gap between hip-hop and techno.
Learning to appreciate the broken rhythms and melodies of Aphex and Autechre is only a few steps away from seeing the artistry in creative breakbeats and turntablism.
You'll quickly develop a critical ear when it comes to sampling listening to Electronica, and if you make the transition to hip-hop you might end up a "sample snob".
Pick up some good hip hop insturmental tracks after you have a few months of listening to abstract electronica, you won't regret it.
From what I hear, he got the role because of the foreward he wrote for Kevin Smith's latest Daredevil book. So hopefully, Affleck will have some real intrest in playing a good Matt Murdock.
Also, word around the campfire is that the movie is going to be based mostly on Miller's "Man Without Fear" book.
I'm still more excited about Batman: Year One, but both of them are going to put this Batman vs Superman shlock to shame.
You can get a lot more info from www.comics2film.com
Okay, so the soundtrack is pretty awful.(Including Wierd Al's "Dare to Be Stupid" and that "You got the touch" song from Boogie Nights) The opening song is really very good though. And of course, some of the characters are downright annoying/useless (Writers: "okay guys, we need a robot that turns into a Telescope!")
On the other hand, it also has Orson Welles' final role. Whether it was Welles or Nimoy, the "I...am...Unicron..." still sends chills up my spine.
Other voice acting from Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Scatman Cruthers, one of the Monty Python guys, and the Micromachines guy.
As far as plot goes, I can think of few things that are more devestating than watching a childhood icon, Optimus Prime, die. There is the surprise ending where it turns out that Magnus isn't the leader after all. Or what about the gut wrenching scene where a robot stands on an unfair trial as the last of his race, only to be sentenced to death in the maws of those Pirhanna bots.
Even the humor is several notches above the usual crap from Hollywood Sci-Fi. Mean ol' Grimlock would rather hear another of Cup's old war stories than go out to kick Decepticon butt. I'll take Grimlock over Jar Jar any day of the month.
Don't go bashing the Transformers Movie, it's really pretty good sci-fi if you can look past the soundtrack.
Which one of these versions of the movie is closest to the Philip K. Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
It's been years since I read the book or watched the movie, but I remember being appalled at how butchered the storyline was, especially the much-maligned ending.
-Lobbied Heavily and successfully for "Right to Work" to kill any hope of organized labor in the state.
-Been censured time and time again for starting price wars and undercutting competition by selling things BELOW cost until the competition is out of business.
-Has vigorously lobbied the state government to get rid of the laws that keep it from selling below cost.
There are a lot of reasons to hate Wal-Mart, especially if you're from the mid-west.
Saving DNA doesn't mean that we're saving the creatures.
Taking DNA samples from creatures on the verge of extinction keeps the doors of research open, which will hopefully lead to breakthroughs in medicine and biology.
If you can't have the animal, having the DNA is probably the next best thing. It's one more piece of the puzzle that we put together to figure out why extinction is happening in the first place.
But you also get very interesting territory control. You have to capture an airstrip so that you can fly in new mercenaries and weapons (and to get food to the rebels you're helping). Later, you'll get access to a helicopter, giving you another reason to hold and protect the airstrip. Also, you'll need to take and hold the SAM sites so that your chopper doesn't get blown out of the air. You have to take over a hospital so that the helicopter can do medivac. You have to take over gold mines to insure a steady flow of income (to pay for merc wages, weapons/ammo, chopper fuel, hospital costs, and even bribe money).
Your mercs can train local militia to defend an area, so you can concentrate on expanding your territory, but you have to train them well or the territory will fall into enemy hands.
Did I mention that it's on Linux?
EA Brings this upon themselves
on
Ultima Revived
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The bottom line is that this wouldn't be happening if Electronic Arts hadn't run Ultima into the ground.
It's been nearly ten years since the last good Ultimas came out (U7, and Underworld 2). Since then we've gotten the half-hearted Ultima 8, an un-Ultima Ultima Online, a vastly flawed Ultima 9, and an ambitious but canned Ultima Online 2 (cancelled a week before beta testing was to begin).
The only current choice from EA for ultima right now is to play Ultima Online, which has traditionally been comepletely void of "Ultimaness". This could change, but it's still a four year old game on it's last legs.
Alternatively you could play Ultima 7 via Exult on Linux or Windows.
Or you could wait a bit for remakes like the article mentions, if EA ever lets them see the light of day.
But don't expect any new Ultima from EA. I hear things aren't going well for them as it is.
Let's assume that some serious actions are going to be taken by the United States (and possibly her allies) in the near future- very likely actions against the Taliban in Afganistan.
What then becomes of the rest of the world- and who do we end up fighting?
Pakistan is extremely friendly with the Taliban, and also happens to have a Nuclear arsenal.
If Pakistan joins the fight, you can bet India will hop on our side to finish off the Pakistanis in an effort to win back Kashmir.
As I understand, relations are currently strained between India and China, so it would take a bit of diplomacy to make sure China isn't convinced to support Pakistan. Does anyone know the Chinese foreign policy in terms of the mid-east and mid-asia?
In addition, we have to worry about the other Arab nations that are lending moral support to these attacks. Palestine is just waiting for us to make a wrong move so that the Arab nations will unite against us and Israel. It will take some diplomacy and maybe some mid-east withdrawl to make sure things stay peachy with our Arab friends.
Bin Laden's number one priority is overthrowing the Saudi government, so we'll likely find support there, despite their friendly attitude to the Taliban government.
Russia is likely to stay neutral, maybe providing support for the removal of Taliban. Russia hasn't had the best track record in Afghanistan, and it might be best if they stayed out of this altogether. The people of afghanistan are more likely to support an effort to overthrow the Taliban as long as it isn't also supported by old enemies.
Along those lines, there is likely to be support among the Afghan people themselves who have an interest in seeing the Taliban removed. The Northern Alliance needs help, and is fairly popular in Afghanistan from what I understand. As long as we don't start shelling the villages and killing civilians, we might be able to get the Afghani people to support our elimination of the Taliban, and ensure that a pro-US sentiment is put in place to avoid future terrorist influences.
Other than that, most of the world shows support. East Asia will likely stay neutral, trying to rebuild it's economy. Western Europe, North/Central/South America, and many other countries seem to be willing to either help us or keep their nose out of our business.
Can anyone else think of any other possible international ramifications? All of this is assuming that overwhelming evidence confirming bin Laden's involvement in the attack is presented. Not many nations would support an attack that is unwarranted.
Yes, I know we have a republic- but we also do have a Representative Democracy. The people should be in control of their representatives. Right now votes are a matter of money, not a matter of ideal, and that should be changed.
The reason money should not be considered speech is because money is controlled by organizations and not individuals. Yes, it would be nice to donate a few hundred dollars to your favorite politician, but it won't matter when some corporation is donating a few million to his competitor. Or worse, some corporation is paying a few million dollars to the politician you elected so that he'd enact legislation that you and your countrymen oppose.
Besides that, you are naive to think that third parties will in any way benefit with fewer contribution limits. We didn't get anywhere near reaching donation limits to third parties in the last several elections- why would getting rid of those limits help them? It seems to me it would only hurt them as the two major parties (whose multi million dollar campaigns are held in check by the regulations) would be getting even more money.
I just don't think the problem is government. It is corporate control of government. The people should control the government- not the businesses.
In our democracy, we must always remember that the government should always belong to the people- the individuals that give it legitimacy.
Our government is currently controlled by nebulous business organizations with the money to influence the government to favor these organizations over individuals.
We should not just give up on government, we should take it back.
These "Orwellian Measures" came about because someone created a supply and convinced the government that there should be a demand.
As long as money is considered speech, and corporations are considered citizens (without citizen responsiblity), government is going to be untrustworthy.
Asheron's Call launched with the upmost smoothness, doing everything it set out to do.
Bugs have been found and bugs have been exploited- but the game has always been playable, stable, and without the crippling lag associated with AO and the early days of Ultima Online.
Asheron's call got the following stuff right:
-Ongoing storyline and new monthly content
-High levels of character customization
-Beautiful far-off vistas and the freedom to explore them
-High levels of developer/player communication
-The most stable, lag- and bug-free MMORPG on the market for over a year and a half.
If they could just make the actual gameplay itself interesting and encourage social playing a bit more, I bet it would dominate the MMORPG market.
Others have pretty much put holes all over your argument with sledge hammers. I can't contribute much, but I'll lend this in support of their arguments.
"Generation of more complex chemical compounds. Not proven. Generation of amino-acids from the elements in primordial soup is chemically impossible. First: water is deadly for their stability (if those *were* ever formed, they would instanteniously dissolve). Second: amino-acids are composed entirely of 'right-hand' compounds (chirality: elements having same chemical characteristics but being mirror image of each other). So, if needed compounds were indeed formed by chance, the result would be 50-50, which would cancel the whole reaction altogether."
Tell that to Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago who in 1953 showed that organic molecules could indeed be formed on primordial earth, given the correct circumstances. The experiment has been done before and it has been observed.
The water problem you speak of was circumvented in the lab by vaporising the water out of the solutions by a hot surface. The theory is that in nature the water was vaporised by waves against the smoldering rocks of a volcanic island. After the polypeptides are formed, they can exist in water and were probably swept back into the sea at some point.
Finally your point about there being only a 50/50 chance. A 50% chance is a fairly good chance in Nature- especially given that the first cells had millions of years to form. Thats millions of years of 50/50 chances.
"How is it that, in January, I bought a dang-fast TNT2 for $60, while the Voodoo2, a slower card, sold for over $100 everywhere I looked? Simple - the different board manufacturers compete with each other"
The Voodoo 2 WAS sold by different board manufacturers, and you can still find V2's by Creative and Diamond in some places.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm... I can pay 30 or so bucks and watch it on a big tv, with high quality picture and sound, spending the four hour movie time sitting on my comfy sofa.
Or, I can spend an hour or two downloading it off the internet so I can watch it on my 17" monitor, with mediocre video and mediocre sound, all while sitting in my less comfortable desk chair for 4 hours.
Jackson is a genius, kill piracy with comfort.
The difference is that the Lord of the Rings is such a significant piece of cultural art that it cannot just be dismissed as "corporate franchise".
Yeah, people are making gobs of money off of this... which is good if you ask me. Better America spend its money on something of depth and quality than on the usual Hollywood garbage.
Encouraging high-quality theatrical productions of classic literature by spending is probably going to work better for us in the long run. People spend money to see awful crap all the time- its when those with taste manage go out and spend for once that the industry stands up and takes notice.
DJ Shadow, Automator, and Cannibal Ox are among the many artists that are sort of bridging the gap between hip-hop and techno.
Learning to appreciate the broken rhythms and melodies of Aphex and Autechre is only a few steps away from seeing the artistry in creative breakbeats and turntablism.
You'll quickly develop a critical ear when it comes to sampling listening to Electronica, and if you make the transition to hip-hop you might end up a "sample snob".
Pick up some good hip hop insturmental tracks after you have a few months of listening to abstract electronica, you won't regret it.
From what I hear, he got the role because of the foreward he wrote for Kevin Smith's latest Daredevil book. So hopefully, Affleck will have some real intrest in playing a good Matt Murdock.
Also, word around the campfire is that the movie is going to be based mostly on Miller's "Man Without Fear" book.
I'm still more excited about Batman: Year One, but both of them are going to put this Batman vs Superman shlock to shame.
You can get a lot more info from www.comics2film.com
Somewhere, a native american is laughing at us.
If you don't think that King of the Hill is smart satire, you've never been to suburban Texas.
No, it may not have the "here is the absurd joke, laugh now" style of Monty Python that is so used by sketch comedy and the Familiy Guy.
What King of the Hill DOES have is smart, subtle humor that allows working class middle America to poke fun at itself every once in a while.
Okay, so the soundtrack is pretty awful.(Including Wierd Al's "Dare to Be Stupid" and that "You got the touch" song from Boogie Nights) The opening song is really very good though. And of course, some of the characters are downright annoying/useless (Writers: "okay guys, we need a robot that turns into a Telescope!")
On the other hand, it also has Orson Welles' final role. Whether it was Welles or Nimoy, the "I...am...Unicron..." still sends chills up my spine.
Other voice acting from Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Scatman Cruthers, one of the Monty Python guys, and the Micromachines guy.
As far as plot goes, I can think of few things that are more devestating than watching a childhood icon, Optimus Prime, die. There is the surprise ending where it turns out that Magnus isn't the leader after all. Or what about the gut wrenching scene where a robot stands on an unfair trial as the last of his race, only to be sentenced to death in the maws of those Pirhanna bots.
Even the humor is several notches above the usual crap from Hollywood Sci-Fi. Mean ol' Grimlock would rather hear another of Cup's old war stories than go out to kick Decepticon butt. I'll take Grimlock over Jar Jar any day of the month.
Don't go bashing the Transformers Movie, it's really pretty good sci-fi if you can look past the soundtrack.
Dude, you get to see Jodie Foster pee.
Which one of these versions of the movie is closest to the Philip K. Dick novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
It's been years since I read the book or watched the movie, but I remember being appalled at how butchered the storyline was, especially the much-maligned ending.
Here in Oklahoma, Wal-Mart has:
-Lobbied Heavily and successfully for "Right to Work" to kill any hope of organized labor in the state.
-Been censured time and time again for starting price wars and undercutting competition by selling things BELOW cost until the competition is out of business.
-Has vigorously lobbied the state government to get rid of the laws that keep it from selling below cost.
There are a lot of reasons to hate Wal-Mart, especially if you're from the mid-west.
You don't think that obstruction of justice and contempt of court would be an incentive for MS to be more compliant?
Saving DNA doesn't mean that we're saving the creatures.
Taking DNA samples from creatures on the verge of extinction keeps the doors of research open, which will hopefully lead to breakthroughs in medicine and biology.
If you can't have the animal, having the DNA is probably the next best thing. It's one more piece of the puzzle that we put together to figure out why extinction is happening in the first place.
But you also get very interesting territory control. You have to capture an airstrip so that you can fly in new mercenaries and weapons (and to get food to the rebels you're helping). Later, you'll get access to a helicopter, giving you another reason to hold and protect the airstrip. Also, you'll need to take and hold the SAM sites so that your chopper doesn't get blown out of the air. You have to take over a hospital so that the helicopter can do medivac. You have to take over gold mines to insure a steady flow of income (to pay for merc wages, weapons/ammo, chopper fuel, hospital costs, and even bribe money).
Your mercs can train local militia to defend an area, so you can concentrate on expanding your territory, but you have to train them well or the territory will fall into enemy hands.
Did I mention that it's on Linux?
The bottom line is that this wouldn't be happening if Electronic Arts hadn't run Ultima into the ground.
It's been nearly ten years since the last good Ultimas came out (U7, and Underworld 2). Since then we've gotten the half-hearted Ultima 8, an un-Ultima Ultima Online, a vastly flawed Ultima 9, and an ambitious but canned Ultima Online 2 (cancelled a week before beta testing was to begin).
The only current choice from EA for ultima right now is to play Ultima Online, which has traditionally been comepletely void of "Ultimaness". This could change, but it's still a four year old game on it's last legs.
Alternatively you could play Ultima 7 via Exult on Linux or Windows.
Or you could wait a bit for remakes like the article mentions, if EA ever lets them see the light of day.
But don't expect any new Ultima from EA. I hear things aren't going well for them as it is.
Do I pick the Red Visor or the Blue Visor?
Let's assume that some serious actions are going to be taken by the United States (and possibly her allies) in the near future- very likely actions against the Taliban in Afganistan.
What then becomes of the rest of the world- and who do we end up fighting?
Pakistan is extremely friendly with the Taliban, and also happens to have a Nuclear arsenal.
If Pakistan joins the fight, you can bet India will hop on our side to finish off the Pakistanis in an effort to win back Kashmir.
As I understand, relations are currently strained between India and China, so it would take a bit of diplomacy to make sure China isn't convinced to support Pakistan. Does anyone know the Chinese foreign policy in terms of the mid-east and mid-asia?
In addition, we have to worry about the other Arab nations that are lending moral support to these attacks. Palestine is just waiting for us to make a wrong move so that the Arab nations will unite against us and Israel. It will take some diplomacy and maybe some mid-east withdrawl to make sure things stay peachy with our Arab friends.
Bin Laden's number one priority is overthrowing the Saudi government, so we'll likely find support there, despite their friendly attitude to the Taliban government.
Russia is likely to stay neutral, maybe providing support for the removal of Taliban. Russia hasn't had the best track record in Afghanistan, and it might be best if they stayed out of this altogether. The people of afghanistan are more likely to support an effort to overthrow the Taliban as long as it isn't also supported by old enemies.
Along those lines, there is likely to be support among the Afghan people themselves who have an interest in seeing the Taliban removed. The Northern Alliance needs help, and is fairly popular in Afghanistan from what I understand. As long as we don't start shelling the villages and killing civilians, we might be able to get the Afghani people to support our elimination of the Taliban, and ensure that a pro-US sentiment is put in place to avoid future terrorist influences.
Other than that, most of the world shows support. East Asia will likely stay neutral, trying to rebuild it's economy. Western Europe, North/Central/South America, and many other countries seem to be willing to either help us or keep their nose out of our business.
Can anyone else think of any other possible international ramifications? All of this is assuming that overwhelming evidence confirming bin Laden's involvement in the attack is presented. Not many nations would support an attack that is unwarranted.
>So, the Stones beat the Birds, 2 to 1?
Time was on their side.
I stole one of those old IBM's from someone's yard/trash pile last week, and I thought: "wow I should really make a cool looking case out of this!"
But I gave it to my friend the art major so he could make a sculpture with it or something.
Darn.
Are you kidding?
Yes, I know we have a republic- but we also do have a Representative Democracy. The people should be in control of their representatives. Right now votes are a matter of money, not a matter of ideal, and that should be changed.
The reason money should not be considered speech is because money is controlled by organizations and not individuals. Yes, it would be nice to donate a few hundred dollars to your favorite politician, but it won't matter when some corporation is donating a few million to his competitor. Or worse, some corporation is paying a few million dollars to the politician you elected so that he'd enact legislation that you and your countrymen oppose.
Besides that, you are naive to think that third parties will in any way benefit with fewer contribution limits. We didn't get anywhere near reaching donation limits to third parties in the last several elections- why would getting rid of those limits help them? It seems to me it would only hurt them as the two major parties (whose multi million dollar campaigns are held in check by the regulations) would be getting even more money.
I just don't think the problem is government. It is corporate control of government. The people should control the government- not the businesses.
how the hell did you know i'm from florida? I dunno... I must have seen your picture somewhere :)
In our democracy, we must always remember that the government should always belong to the people- the individuals that give it legitimacy. Our government is currently controlled by nebulous business organizations with the money to influence the government to favor these organizations over individuals. We should not just give up on government, we should take it back. These "Orwellian Measures" came about because someone created a supply and convinced the government that there should be a demand. As long as money is considered speech, and corporations are considered citizens (without citizen responsiblity), government is going to be untrustworthy.
Say what you will about us Oklahomans, at least we don't use scary face-recognition cameras on our streets. Jerks.
Asheron's Call launched with the upmost smoothness, doing everything it set out to do. Bugs have been found and bugs have been exploited- but the game has always been playable, stable, and without the crippling lag associated with AO and the early days of Ultima Online. Asheron's call got the following stuff right: -Ongoing storyline and new monthly content -High levels of character customization -Beautiful far-off vistas and the freedom to explore them -High levels of developer/player communication -The most stable, lag- and bug-free MMORPG on the market for over a year and a half. If they could just make the actual gameplay itself interesting and encourage social playing a bit more, I bet it would dominate the MMORPG market.
Others have pretty much put holes all over your argument with sledge hammers. I can't contribute much, but I'll lend this in support of their arguments.
"Generation of more complex chemical compounds. Not proven. Generation of amino-acids from the elements in primordial soup is chemically impossible. First: water is deadly for their stability (if those *were* ever formed, they would instanteniously dissolve). Second: amino-acids are composed entirely of 'right-hand' compounds (chirality: elements having same chemical characteristics but being mirror image of each other). So, if needed compounds were indeed formed by chance, the result would be 50-50, which would cancel the whole reaction altogether."
Tell that to Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago who in 1953 showed that organic molecules could indeed be formed on primordial earth, given the correct circumstances. The experiment has been done before and it has been observed.
The water problem you speak of was circumvented in the lab by vaporising the water out of the solutions by a hot surface. The theory is that in nature the water was vaporised by waves against the smoldering rocks of a volcanic island. After the polypeptides are formed, they can exist in water and were probably swept back into the sea at some point.
Finally your point about there being only a 50/50 chance. A 50% chance is a fairly good chance in Nature- especially given that the first cells had millions of years to form. Thats millions of years of 50/50 chances.
"How is it that, in January, I bought a dang-fast TNT2 for $60, while the Voodoo2, a slower card, sold for over $100 everywhere I looked? Simple - the different board manufacturers compete with each other" The Voodoo 2 WAS sold by different board manufacturers, and you can still find V2's by Creative and Diamond in some places.