That's ironic; I remember reading quite a bit how when the American railroads went to the west coast, quite a few people were fairly upset about the railroad going through their land because they weren't paid enough: thus, it was a bad thing. Noteably, the Jessie James Gang, but quite a few others, were upset by the railroad.
On the other hand, Jessie James' personal economics greatly improved after the railroad effectively stole his land...
This will allow for several functional differences for the user, under the single premise of "making things easier for lazy developers who shouldn't be allowed to work on computers in the first place":
1) it'll make programs bloat up even more, providing more hardware-based computer purchases when people start experiencing more and more bloat as new versions of their software packages are released, and more and more versions of various DLLs are added into the fray. 2) it will likely make older windows-based programs have a hard time figuring out what DLL is required, and as a result, will cause instability. This, in turn, will 'require' the latest version of the product, which is "Microsoft-certified" and provides a -whole- yaer's worth of free software updates (after that, they're 5$/month (whatevre)
Your "for educational uses and communication" blather asside...
Never mind that a user could get a much lower price on a local dialup account, allowing them a theoretical 17Gb/month and a realistic rate of (oh, let's be conservative) 5Gb/month, for 10-20 dollars. One user posted that cornell charges 30k a year, plus 250$ a semester for bandwidth. Semesters are approximately 4 months long.
That's roughly $50/month for internet that is metered down to 2Gb a month. That's more draconian than any cable or DSL company I've heard of. The least the school could do is do something more reasonable, like just an upload cap, or the fairly commmon "500K/128K" download/upload caps.
Now, as far as "for educational use", that's argueable. I've known most schools to offer students an on-campus (intranet) email account with a global address, but it maily gets used for the dozens of daily anouncements from student orginizations and faculty. They also have very vast repositories of research information - often mirrored from other schools - in on-campus databases and through the library. This considered, the school has no reason to even offer in-dorm internet connectivity. Sure, you'll get more research opportunities online, but most of that information isn't even useable as a source in a research paper.
What's "educational"? What's "research"? I could be, say, working on a 400-level research project for a psych course that involved the psychology of, say, pornography, which would involve an indepth study of the advertising procedures, etc. used. You'll gobble bandwidth faster than a cum-hungry whore doing that - or possible analyzing patterns in p2p file sharing. Etc. etc. Those are all seemably valid research and educational uses, but they would both go over 2Gb in 1 week with ease. I personally get about 15-20M a day, all said and told with attachments, etc.
Now consider logically that someone might have 10M of email per day, and they check slashdot only 2 times a day - and they only click through once to read additional user comments. They don't read the CNN (etc etc) article, just the comments. An additional 17Mb/month or so, all said and done. From a single web site.
Now consider how many pages people view a day, the occasional fan site, the porn, the half an hour of games, and sharing digital photos with friends, and downloading several new songs or movies (I'm thinking about reasonable file sharing here). The chat and browsing alone would nearly saturate someone's 2Gb/month.
Someone else stated that students will just go elsewhere for their bandwidth needs - this is very true. I predict that there will be an 802.11 WIFI provider opening up in the area that will provide normal broadband rates for normal bandwidth prices, with little overhead cost to themselves - possibly even going through the university for their bandwidth (I've heard of colleges helping small companiescompanies out by offering them discount broadband, thus helping the community).
Any philosphy professor would quickly state that Gandi's statement doesn't compute. An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but not if the first one-eyed man chopped off the arm of the offender first.
It really shouldn't be necessary to point out that Debian, Slackware, RedHat, Mandrake, et al, all have distro releases made in the last 6 months. On the other hand, there's been hardly even any bug patches released from MS in that long. Software from a decade and a half ago does not quantify as a choice any more than software that's 5 years old - unless, of course, you have a 33MHz system as your primary desktop.
I'd say that it is 'cool' to bash MS bugs. Those in know do it out of frustration (linux folks), and the un-knows see that this subset knows what they're talking about. Wanting to look like they know what they're talking about, they try and follow suit. 1337speak came about the same way, basically, but was based off an unknowledgeable populace, unknowingly;)
I can only see this doing one thing for windows: shutting out competitors. It will likely enable windows to (eventually):
* run PPC/mac applications * run linux applications * run win16 applications (or older win32 applications) * run X or Y applications * provide a much more productive development environment
Now, everything but that last item would require he augmentation of the code with, say, OS emulators and the linux kernel (which they could 'bundle,' wiht a developer's CD, no? I see no reason why not, but then, I'm not a GNU pro.
WHether anarchists view anarchy as stateless communism or not, it does not matter. THere are a number of reasons why.
First off, stateless communism is impossible. Sure, in theory it could exist, but given some basic things like human desires, human psychology, and natural ecology of biological systems, it is possible for a social system to remain stateless. It would polarize into either absolute chaos (very unlikely, due to people joining into pacts for protection) or, the more likely, that these groups would struggle for dominance until they're all dead, someone has gained dominance, or some combination. This is why anarchy is lawlessness and disorder as a result of governmental failure.
Second, anarchy in practice is nothing more than a state of flux which occurs between governmental systems. THere was anarchy in America during the time of the American Revolution, to an extent - from the perspective of the English government. Much of the discent was quite pacifistic originally - until the British decided to bring arms against the colonists. Even then, most of them only begrudgingly decided they would fight. That's when America emancipated.
It would be, by definition, impossible to have a stateless commune. People are incapable of simply providing the various things of Marxist communism without some sort of structure (government) to make sure everyone is provided for.
Never mind that with Middle Eastern countries, where most of the seen terrorism generally originates, the political systems are run by religious figures.
The very definition of politics is "social relations involving authority or power". Now, given that organized religion is generally an institution dealing with power and authority (if only by proxy), it would make sense, then, that organized religion is a political system.
There are too many people here on slashdot like you, who do not know the base definitions of the words you use. Get a fucking dictionary, and go read a book.
Now that IT jobs are following the manufacturing jobs, what are the displaced resident workers supposed to do?
Well, the only thing I can think of is prostitution. That, and start finding a way to get rid of as many Asian IT workers as possible - but that's not really feasable.
Yes, it's true. You're dreaming. You are in a fictional bubble world where jobs exist in the computer industry (particularly NYC, of all places to expect such a thing to be the case!), minimal computer knowledge (a single OS - Windows, at that), minimal applicable networking knowledge, an unrealistic expectation of educational facilities and organizations, and a truely truely perverse view of what you think you're worth to the economy.
First off: where have you been? The economy has been in increased recession for the last two years, nearly. I know of people in large metropolitan areas who have 4 year CS degrees at prestigious schools, plus 2+ years of high level administration experience making 22.5k USD a year, with no benefits.
Meanwhile, here you are, a -Windows- administrator (do not even think of calling that a sysadmin - sysadmin is a UNIX has always been UNIX-specific), just expecting for someone to bight your resume? I've got news for you: if you haven't figured out yet after sending out even 400 applications that you're under-qualified for the kinds of jobs you're applying for, you need a serious reality adjustment.
If anything, the type of job you've applied for is the type that companies are cutting back on the most, relying on a skeleton crew until the recession ends.
If you really want to work with computers, -try- and get a tech support job. I wish you luck. You'll need it.
I know of quite a few people who are stellar programmers, experienced UNIX sysadmins and windows administrators - your all-around qualified individuals for pretty damned near anything you could put them to - who are working tech-support level jobs right now because there's just nothing else in the field available. Given your (apparent) mindset, you'd be bantha fodder against people like this, even with 4 more years of schooling.
Now, I too find I learn in the same fashion that you do - it only makes sense, because most humans do. It's the way we've been designed, evolved - whatever. The point being, what you're asking for is direct hands-on tutlage or an apprenticeship. If it's apprenticeship you want, seek out a company and ask to pay them to work under strict supervision of their dominant sysadmin. That's probably your best chance.
Here is my honest and most sincere advice for you: forget about computers. There are many, many more qualified people, many, many more -skilled- people. It's a recession, for crying out loud - one that doesn't promise to let up for a while, either, as any Econ 101 student would be able to tell you. Use your head and go to school for something that's got a fairly high failsafe level with a diverse career choice after graduation - like a business or telecommunications major. You've already demonstrated your lack of head for computers by asking one too many stupid questions.
Being as terrorists have some sort of political agenda, and these k1ddi3s that attacked the root servers did NOT, makes them non-terrorists. Terrorism requires a political agenda.
A better description would be anarchists. Anarchy is lawlessness and disorder as a result of governmental failure (in this case, to set up a system where the root servers are safe, but not particularly so).
But then,we can't say that, can we? Anarchy is popular here on slashdot.
You can't put a price on a life. If you can, you have other issues to deal with first.
If we're going to count 'lives lost' due to MS products (which isn't really possible due to magnitude of what's involved) then we might as well just hand MS over to the US Gov't for management.
I, for one, will be making another SW fan film. We made one last year for my kid brother's high school film class, and it was the best thing that teacher ever saw - even though she was a bitch and didn't realize it.
This year we won't have time restrictions, and it's already turning out better than last (more people, better weather, more props, more overall knowledge in production, etc). This one should definately be on TF.N.
Re:The Review of a Film Student and Tolkien Fan
on
LOTR: The Two Towers
·
· Score: 2
that wasn't what I was getting at. you completely missed the point...
I don't know if you've read the books or not, and I'm not 100% sure (though close) that my memory serves me correctly, but in the book, gandalf and the survivors of helm's deep are returning to their kingdoms, and they pass through a grove of trees that wasn't there originally... well, it's the ents, and the'd slaughtered the orcs as they fled back to isenguard. so gandalf talks to treebeard, etc...
Myfiance wanted to drive to the next largest town (an hour drive) to see Nemesis a week ago, because it wasn't playing locally yet. I told her no dice, I had finals the next day. So she settled on watching Die Another Day instead - but only because Two Towers wasn't out yet.
And to top it off, she's definately not a cow, cybercow - whatever. She's more attractive than Eowyn, in Two Towers, actually, by quite a bit - but the same basic blonde hair, eyes, and build.:)
The Review of a Film Student and Tolkien Fan
on
LOTR: The Two Towers
·
· Score: 2
the more I think about this film the more frustrated I get. I need to vent, so here it goes:
hrm. well, considering I'm a film student now, I've got a lot of technical criticism... just how he had the story unfold. he went directly according to how the book went - as far as 'scene changes' is concerned... and it made for a fairly anticlimatic situation. that, and helm's deep took up half the film, ents didn't get their full play, and faromir's (shoot, that's mispelled... borimir's ranger, son of the host of gondor) role was really screwed up... hell, frodo and sam even went to gondor, which wasn't supposed to happen at all...
the fact that they went to gondor would have been an acceptable convention, given the medium change, in my mind, but they didn't even do anything with their trip to gondor - they wer ejust taken prisoner by foramir, who had sinister plans, and brought to gondor... and released when a ringwraith came overhead on a worm...
it's been a couple years since I've read the books, but if I'm not mistaken, the ents are supposed to show up and slay the fleeing oruku-ki orcs... don't hold your breath. it doesn't happen. it ends as anti-climatically as the first one does, with sam and frodo walking around. sure, that's the point of the trilogy, but it doesn't work cinematographically.
HomogenizedTurd: the ents - they're certainly there. damned cool, too. they just don't do a thing after isenguard.
the orc slaughter at the end would have been a really cool place to end the film, as opposed to how they did... it'd have a, "hey, we won this one" feel, and would have had some closure, at least. (Similar to how things ended in the original Star Wars. Hell, even like Empire - that had more closure than this.)
iirc, that's pretty near the books... I don't remember exactly where one cuts off and the other ends, but doing that wouldn't have been that different than what they did do... pretty sure they cut some off the end.
I think the problem is that peter jackson really isn't such a great director, and he's doing a very, very litteral and technical adaptation of tolkien's work, instead of making a true cinematic adaptation. He's doing a damned good job at the coordination of actors and other talent, certainly - but that doesn't mean he's got an eye, or even a feel, for cinematography and cinematographic storytelling.
his approach dulls the epic feel, IMO. cinema and novelization are two entirely different mediums, and to expect a book to directly translate to film is crazy. but that's what he's tried to do.
I enjoyed the movie a lot. it just frustrates me. especially since I don't get to see the 3rd one for a year.
I've heard a lot of people already complain (including the Salon article) about how this movie seems to jump around a lot - from Merry and Pippen, to Helm's Deep, and then to Frodo and Sam. They complain it breaks up the suspense, dulling the moment.
My question to these people is simple: have you ever read a book? This is how things are done. Many other movies do this. The problem lies in your attention span, not in the film's ability to hold suspense.
In the case of Tolkien's writing, I've always found myself reading through the Two Towers, wanting to skip over the slow parts, to get back to the urgent happenings, to see what happens. It builds suspense, because while the slow stuff is going on, you're sitting there, thinking, "Damn, I wonder what is happening right now to the other guy". It's a very good, and frequently used, story telling suspense device. If it doesn't work in this case for you, it's because your attention span is crippled.
I know it's not cool what your company's doing, but here's a counter-example - from a 'small American business', the very (supposed) backbone of the American people! (*cough*politicalbullshit*cough*)
I know someone that runs a company. Not only does he own it, but he's also the manager, project scheduler, whatever - you name it. If it has to do with organizational work, it's his responsibility. He has a handful of employees - it tends to vary seasonally due to the availability of work (damned economy). Just the same, the people he employs would be either out of work, or working somewhere paying them significantly less. I know this to be the case, because most of these employees are sufficiently incompetent.
Now, mind, they're not that different than most people, albiet some are fairly poor at their job - they just don't put any effort into their work, and basically piss about. Being as it's a small company, they're expected to pull their weight: if they're hired to do X job function, they damned well perform that job function - at least to the extend where they're an asset, not a liability.
But that isn't the case in this situation. They don't put any effort into the job. My friend can't fire them, because he needs them on his staff, and he'd never be able to get someone to replace them out here, and the employees knows this. Thus, most of them slack off and basically see it as job security, despite the hellish economy here. (NO matter how bad it is in your part of the country, I promise you, it's worse here.)
Slashdot Mirror
That's ironic; I remember reading quite a bit how when the American railroads went to the west coast, quite a few people were fairly upset about the railroad going through their land because they weren't paid enough: thus, it was a bad thing. Noteably, the Jessie James Gang, but quite a few others, were upset by the railroad.
On the other hand, Jessie James' personal economics greatly improved after the railroad effectively stole his land...
This will allow for several functional differences for the user, under the single premise of "making things easier for lazy developers who shouldn't be allowed to work on computers in the first place":
1) it'll make programs bloat up even more, providing more hardware-based computer purchases when people start experiencing more and more bloat as new versions of their software packages are released, and more and more versions of various DLLs are added into the fray.
2) it will likely make older windows-based programs have a hard time figuring out what DLL is required, and as a result, will cause instability. This, in turn, will 'require' the latest version of the product, which is "Microsoft-certified" and provides a -whole- yaer's worth of free software updates (after that, they're 5$/month (whatevre)
Your "for educational uses and communication" blather asside...
Never mind that a user could get a much lower price on a local dialup account, allowing them a theoretical 17Gb/month and a realistic rate of (oh, let's be conservative) 5Gb/month, for 10-20 dollars. One user posted that cornell charges 30k a year, plus 250$ a semester for bandwidth. Semesters are approximately 4 months long.
That's roughly $50/month for internet that is metered down to 2Gb a month. That's more draconian than any cable or DSL company I've heard of. The least the school could do is do something more reasonable, like just an upload cap, or the fairly commmon "500K/128K" download/upload caps.
Now, as far as "for educational use", that's argueable. I've known most schools to offer students an on-campus (intranet) email account with a global address, but it maily gets used for the dozens of daily anouncements from student orginizations and faculty. They also have very vast repositories of research information - often mirrored from other schools - in on-campus databases and through the library. This considered, the school has no reason to even offer in-dorm internet connectivity. Sure, you'll get more research opportunities online, but most of that information isn't even useable as a source in a research paper.
What's "educational"? What's "research"? I could be, say, working on a 400-level research project for a psych course that involved the psychology of, say, pornography, which would involve an indepth study of the advertising procedures, etc. used. You'll gobble bandwidth faster than a cum-hungry whore doing that - or possible analyzing patterns in p2p file sharing. Etc. etc. Those are all seemably valid research and educational uses, but they would both go over 2Gb in 1 week with ease. I personally get about 15-20M a day, all said and told with attachments, etc.
Now consider logically that someone might have 10M of email per day, and they check slashdot only 2 times a day - and they only click through once to read additional user comments. They don't read the CNN (etc etc) article, just the comments. An additional 17Mb/month or so, all said and done. From a single web site.
Now consider how many pages people view a day, the occasional fan site, the porn, the half an hour of games, and sharing digital photos with friends, and downloading several new songs or movies (I'm thinking about reasonable file sharing here). The chat and browsing alone would nearly saturate someone's 2Gb/month.
Someone else stated that students will just go elsewhere for their bandwidth needs - this is very true. I predict that there will be an 802.11 WIFI provider opening up in the area that will provide normal broadband rates for normal bandwidth prices, with little overhead cost to themselves - possibly even going through the university for their bandwidth (I've heard of colleges helping small companiescompanies out by offering them discount broadband, thus helping the community).
Any philosphy professor would quickly state that Gandi's statement doesn't compute. An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but not if the first one-eyed man chopped off the arm of the offender first.
I don't believe there are chemical weapons in Iraq.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't, and that there isn't at least sircumstantial evidence to support it.
Same thing applies here. However, I believe there -has- been documents stating so much, research, whatever. I'm just too tired to google for 'em atm.
I can't wait to check out all the new features.
I think he meant that she -does- like the taste of metal; that's good for you.
It really shouldn't be necessary to point out that Debian, Slackware, RedHat, Mandrake, et al, all have distro releases made in the last 6 months. On the other hand, there's been hardly even any bug patches released from MS in that long. Software from a decade and a half ago does not quantify as a choice any more than software that's 5 years old - unless, of course, you have a 33MHz system as your primary desktop.
Please, get a clue. Not that you'd know how.
I'd say that it is 'cool' to bash MS bugs. Those in know do it out of frustration (linux folks), and the un-knows see that this subset knows what they're talking about. Wanting to look like they know what they're talking about, they try and follow suit. 1337speak came about the same way, basically, but was based off an unknowledgeable populace, unknowingly ;)
I can only see this doing one thing for windows: shutting out competitors. It will likely enable windows to (eventually):
* run PPC/mac applications
* run linux applications
* run win16 applications (or older win32 applications)
* run X or Y applications
* provide a much more productive development environment
Now, everything but that last item would require he augmentation of the code with, say, OS emulators and the linux kernel (which they could 'bundle,' wiht a developer's CD, no? I see no reason why not, but then, I'm not a GNU pro.
WHether anarchists view anarchy as stateless communism or not, it does not matter. THere are a number of reasons why.
First off, stateless communism is impossible. Sure, in theory it could exist, but given some basic things like human desires, human psychology, and natural ecology of biological systems, it is possible for a social system to remain stateless. It would polarize into either absolute chaos (very unlikely, due to people joining into pacts for protection) or, the more likely, that these groups would struggle for dominance until they're all dead, someone has gained dominance, or some combination. This is why anarchy is lawlessness and disorder as a result of governmental failure.
Second, anarchy in practice is nothing more than a state of flux which occurs between governmental systems. THere was anarchy in America during the time of the American Revolution, to an extent - from the perspective of the English government. Much of the discent was quite pacifistic originally - until the British decided to bring arms against the colonists. Even then, most of them only begrudgingly decided they would fight. That's when America emancipated.
It would be, by definition, impossible to have a stateless commune. People are incapable of simply providing the various things of Marxist communism without some sort of structure (government) to make sure everyone is provided for.
Never mind that with Middle Eastern countries, where most of the seen terrorism generally originates, the political systems are run by religious figures.
The very definition of politics is "social relations involving authority or power". Now, given that organized religion is generally an institution dealing with power and authority (if only by proxy), it would make sense, then, that organized religion is a political system.
There are too many people here on slashdot like you, who do not know the base definitions of the words you use. Get a fucking dictionary, and go read a book.
I got my definition straight from Princton's dictionary.
Well, the only thing I can think of is prostitution. That, and start finding a way to get rid of as many Asian IT workers as possible - but that's not really feasable.
Yes, it's true. You're dreaming. You are in a fictional bubble world where jobs exist in the computer industry (particularly NYC, of all places to expect such a thing to be the case!), minimal computer knowledge (a single OS - Windows, at that), minimal applicable networking knowledge, an unrealistic expectation of educational facilities and organizations, and a truely truely perverse view of what you think you're worth to the economy.
First off: where have you been? The economy has been in increased recession for the last two years, nearly. I know of people in large metropolitan areas who have 4 year CS degrees at prestigious schools, plus 2+ years of high level administration experience making 22.5k USD a year, with no benefits.
Meanwhile, here you are, a -Windows- administrator (do not even think of calling that a sysadmin - sysadmin is a UNIX has always been UNIX-specific), just expecting for someone to bight your resume? I've got news for you: if you haven't figured out yet after sending out even 400 applications that you're under-qualified for the kinds of jobs you're applying for, you need a serious reality adjustment.
If anything, the type of job you've applied for is the type that companies are cutting back on the most, relying on a skeleton crew until the recession ends.
If you really want to work with computers, -try- and get a tech support job. I wish you luck. You'll need it.
I know of quite a few people who are stellar programmers, experienced UNIX sysadmins and windows administrators - your all-around qualified individuals for pretty damned near anything you could put them to - who are working tech-support level jobs right now because there's just nothing else in the field available. Given your (apparent) mindset, you'd be bantha fodder against people like this, even with 4 more years of schooling.
Now, I too find I learn in the same fashion that you do - it only makes sense, because most humans do. It's the way we've been designed, evolved - whatever. The point being, what you're asking for is direct hands-on tutlage or an apprenticeship. If it's apprenticeship you want, seek out a company and ask to pay them to work under strict supervision of their dominant sysadmin. That's probably your best chance.
Here is my honest and most sincere advice for you: forget about computers. There are many, many more qualified people, many, many more -skilled- people. It's a recession, for crying out loud - one that doesn't promise to let up for a while, either, as any Econ 101 student would be able to tell you. Use your head and go to school for something that's got a fairly high failsafe level with a diverse career choice after graduation - like a business or telecommunications major. You've already demonstrated your lack of head for computers by asking one too many stupid questions.
Being as terrorists have some sort of political agenda, and these k1ddi3s that attacked the root servers did NOT, makes them non-terrorists. Terrorism requires a political agenda.
A better description would be anarchists. Anarchy is lawlessness and disorder as a result of governmental failure (in this case, to set up a system where the root servers are safe, but not particularly so).
But then,we can't say that, can we? Anarchy is popular here on slashdot.
Lives lost?
You can't put a price on a life. If you can, you have other issues to deal with first.
If we're going to count 'lives lost' due to MS products (which isn't really possible due to magnitude of what's involved) then we might as well just hand MS over to the US Gov't for management.
For instance, would it be feasable for me to mail my licenses/software to a cali resident, for them to claim a voucher? how does that work?
This year we won't have time restrictions, and it's already turning out better than last (more people, better weather, more props, more overall knowledge in production, etc). This one should definately be on TF.N.
that wasn't what I was getting at. you completely missed the point...
I don't know if you've read the books or not, and I'm not 100% sure (though close) that my memory serves me correctly, but in the book, gandalf and the survivors of helm's deep are returning to their kingdoms, and they pass through a grove of trees that wasn't there originally... well, it's the ents, and the'd slaughtered the orcs as they fled back to isenguard. so gandalf talks to treebeard, etc...
Myfiance wanted to drive to the next largest town (an hour drive) to see Nemesis a week ago, because it wasn't playing locally yet. I told her no dice, I had finals the next day. So she settled on watching Die Another Day instead - but only because Two Towers wasn't out yet.
:)
And to top it off, she's definately not a cow, cybercow - whatever. She's more attractive than Eowyn, in Two Towers, actually, by quite a bit - but the same basic blonde hair, eyes, and build.
the more I think about this film the more frustrated I get. I need to vent, so here it goes:
hrm. well, considering I'm a film student now, I've got a lot of technical criticism... just how he had the story unfold. he went directly according to how the book went - as far as 'scene changes' is concerned... and it made for a fairly anticlimatic situation. that, and helm's deep took up half the film, ents didn't get their full play, and faromir's (shoot, that's mispelled... borimir's ranger, son of the host of gondor) role was really screwed up... hell, frodo and sam even went to gondor, which wasn't supposed to happen at all...
the fact that they went to gondor would have been an acceptable convention, given the medium change, in my mind, but they didn't even do anything with their trip to gondor - they wer ejust taken prisoner by foramir, who had sinister plans, and brought to gondor... and released when a ringwraith came overhead on a worm...
it's been a couple years since I've read the books, but if I'm not mistaken, the ents are supposed to show up and slay the fleeing oruku-ki orcs... don't hold your breath. it doesn't happen. it ends as anti-climatically as the first one does, with sam and frodo walking around. sure, that's the point of the trilogy, but it doesn't work cinematographically.
HomogenizedTurd: the ents - they're certainly there. damned cool, too. they just don't do a thing after isenguard.
the orc slaughter at the end would have been a really cool place to end the film, as opposed to how they did... it'd have a, "hey, we won this one" feel, and would have had some closure, at least. (Similar to how things ended in the original Star Wars. Hell, even like Empire - that had more closure than this.)
iirc, that's pretty near the books... I don't remember exactly where one cuts off and the other ends, but doing that wouldn't have been that different than what they did do... pretty sure they cut some off the end.
I think the problem is that peter jackson really isn't such a great director, and he's doing a very, very litteral and technical adaptation of tolkien's work, instead of making a true cinematic adaptation. He's doing a damned good job at the coordination of actors and other talent, certainly - but that doesn't mean he's got an eye, or even a feel, for cinematography and cinematographic storytelling.
his approach dulls the epic feel, IMO. cinema and novelization are two entirely different mediums, and to expect a book to directly translate to film is crazy. but that's what he's tried to do.
I enjoyed the movie a lot. it just frustrates me.
especially since I don't get to see the 3rd one for a year.
I've heard a lot of people already complain (including the Salon article) about how this movie seems to jump around a lot - from Merry and Pippen, to Helm's Deep, and then to Frodo and Sam. They complain it breaks up the suspense, dulling the moment.
My question to these people is simple: have you ever read a book? This is how things are done. Many other movies do this. The problem lies in your attention span, not in the film's ability to hold suspense.
In the case of Tolkien's writing, I've always found myself reading through the Two Towers, wanting to skip over the slow parts, to get back to the urgent happenings, to see what happens. It builds suspense, because while the slow stuff is going on, you're sitting there, thinking, "Damn, I wonder what is happening right now to the other guy". It's a very good, and frequently used, story telling suspense device. If it doesn't work in this case for you, it's because your attention span is crippled.
I know it's not cool what your company's doing, but here's a counter-example - from a 'small American business', the very (supposed) backbone of the American people! (*cough*politicalbullshit*cough*)
I know someone that runs a company. Not only does he own it, but he's also the manager, project scheduler, whatever - you name it. If it has to do with organizational work, it's his responsibility. He has a handful of employees - it tends to vary seasonally due to the availability of work (damned economy). Just the same, the people he employs would be either out of work, or working somewhere paying them significantly less. I know this to be the case, because most of these employees are sufficiently incompetent.
Now, mind, they're not that different than most people, albiet some are fairly poor at their job - they just don't put any effort into their work, and basically piss about. Being as it's a small company, they're expected to pull their weight: if they're hired to do X job function, they damned well perform that job function - at least to the extend where they're an asset, not a liability.
But that isn't the case in this situation. They don't put any effort into the job. My friend can't fire them, because he needs them on his staff, and he'd never be able to get someone to replace them out here, and the employees knows this. Thus, most of them slack off and basically see it as job security, despite the hellish economy here. (NO matter how bad it is in your part of the country, I promise you, it's worse here.)
Um.
When I see, "50 CDRs for $20" at Best Buy, with a, "Get $15 back!" sticker on the package, it makes me wonder where the hell you are.