If you are in US, the chances of getting good South Indian food (even Indian food) in restaurants is low. Outside India, mid
eastern cities/countries (Dubai, cities of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc.) with a large number of expatriate Keralites are the best places for food.
You are one of the few non-Indians who understand the diversity of India. Think of India like Europe. Rabindranath Tagore said - "whatever you think of India is true, and its opposite".
In the 90s multinationals introduced breakfast cereals in India. In their advertisements they were arrogant to depict traditional Indian cooking as unhealthy. Anyways, cereals never became popular - a box was costing more than Rs.100 - too costly for most Indians except for the rich who anyways had servants to cook food.
Bangalore is the capital of the southern state of Karnataka and the language is Kannada. North Indians generally speak Hindi, but thats not true of South Indians.
Well, 2nd one first...corporations are NOT countries...different argument there, that's private industry.
The ownership of the private industry rests wit the shareholders - and who are the shareholders - they are Americans for most of the part. There is no argument - if US corporations get rich, its Americans get rich even if the profit/wealth is not shared as you or I may like.
As to the first one...yes. I do believe that the US had resolutions passed by the UN, numerous ones that specified serious actions would be taken if Saddam didn't cooperate. He didn't, we invaded. If it were Iraq you were alluding to.
The UN resolutions asked Saddam to disclose weapons of mass destruction which IRAQ did not possess. I was following mainstream/non-mainstream media and I realized the then Iraqi administration had given full access to weapons inspectors (they went through even the palaces/living quarters of Saddam). And do you believe in whatever lies/propaganda the US government cooked up (yellow cake/Niger etc.) to justify the invasion?
Illegal immigration sucks money from the economy and stresses our entire infrastructure.
Just like pork barrel projects, declaring war with countries on hyped up lies, overthrowing governments on the pretext of stopping communism/socialism/whatever-the-flavor-of-the times, and so on.
Many of the comments in this discussion harp on the cost factor associated with illegal immigration. It reminds me of the saying - "you can torture date to confess to anything".
It is here to give people the changes you mention IF they follow the rules. If you are not a citizen here, then, there are rules you need to follow to either get a work permit, or become a citizen. No, the US is not here for a free-for-all. If anarchy is the purpose and anyone can do anything they want...then it won't work for anyone.
Why is 'follow the rules' applied selectively?
Did US follow any rules whatsoever (common sense/reasonable) in its foreign policy in the last many decades? Do US corporations follow rules whatsoever in dealing with other countries and its resources?
But when a human being wants to better his living condition by making a relocation to another part of the world he/she has to immediately start following rules!
I am not saying illegal immigration should be practiced and supported. But when I look from the perspective of an illegal immigrant (I am legal immigrant living in a different country) it makes sense and sometimes is the only way out to survive.
Yahoo messenger forced a security update last week. And IE7 mysteriously received a Yahoo toolbar - occupying sizable real estate with useless icons/links. Nowhere in the security update it was mentioned a new toolbar will be installed - this is hideous backdoor stuff.
Americans are lazy people who cheat on their wives and fuck in the streets and cannot be trusted. They do not know about nuclear weapons, don't know the cold war, don't really know anything about the world context in which the Vietnam War happened. Everyone treated me very nicely of course.
The average American is clueless and believes what he sees on TV (which is rarely accurate and never puts anything in context.) The world context of a war is not important to the victims. We know the world context behind 'Iraq war' - do you think the half a million dead Iraqi's and the ones who survived care for the context?
My coworker overstayed his visa by a day.
In US, if you overstay your visa by for a similar short period you are banned from the country for 10 years. And try getting a visa to US/UK/G7 nations for anyone from the third world for a legitimate purpose.
You did not get what you wanted from Vietnam. And you were not the first one. Please stop badmouthing.
You have no idea about India. And if you are an Indian you are seriously misinformed.
India is really a pretty xenophobic place, generally hostile to most everything non-Indian.
India is a country with 5000 plus year old civilization which produced 3 of the major religions in this world. India has the plurality your narrow mind is unable to grasp. There are xenophobic Indians, just like there are xenophobic Russians, Australians, Americans (or name your ethnic group).
India is deeply conservative and fearful of change.
You absolutely have no idea about India. Have you heard of Kamasutra? I can understand if a person is conservative. But how can you say a country is conservative? What barometers do you use? Look more than 100 years into the history to put everything in context.
The Indian educational system penalises innovation and creative thinking.
The above comment does not warrant my time. Any educational system has its own pluses and minuses - there are excellent teachers (look around an American campus, some of the best teachers would be Indian) and there are total morons who became teachers for whatever reason - just like any other society.
Indian politics are always parochial. If a proposal doesn't somehow poke a stick in the eye of those bastards in the next village/city/state/country, then it's not going to pass.
Parochial as opposed to what! A president who attacks a country with false evidence. With all the problems, Indian political system will not do such horrendous mistakes. I have always felt that the mistakes made by many American governments with great cost of non-Americans would not have happened if US had a multi-party system like in India.
There is a saying - India is unity in diversity. And as a beginning go and read 'The Argumentative Indian' by Amartya Sen. Some of your misconceptions about India and Indians will be taken care of.
I was a Yahoo email and messenger user for years - because there were no decent alternatives to many of the services they offer.
Till GMAIL introduced the increased storage limits the yahoos who run Yahoo was sleeping. The interface of Yahoo Mail is the worst. The standard webmail interface of my company is better designed.
The Yahoo messenger in its default installed state is a classic example of a cluttered bloated design. Plus why should I see an annoying flash ad in the bottom pane? At least put a text ad which does not flash itself every millisecond.
The liberalisation of Indian economy in the 90s, the banking sector had multinational banks entering catering to the upper/middle class. Citigroup is one of those 'new age banks' (as they are called in India). They behave like western financial institutions - high fees, web/telephone connectivity, hidden charges, legalese, and a lot more.
New age banks does not allow provisions like a zero balance account. Older nationalized banks are flexible with such provisions (service may not be efficient) and that is very important for Indians who do not belong to the upper/middle class - the 80% of the population. The 'new age banks' also have aggressive finance/loan schemes and failure to comply with monthly payments (credit cards, vehicle/housing loans etc.) can lead to physical assaults/manhandling by third party collection agents. When such issues happen, the bank schmucks use the usual line of 'we are not aware of the tactics used by our collection agents'.
This experiment by Citibank is for data collection, testing new biometric services etc. - but the motive is not philanthropic nor as a profit center.
I will reply to only the first two paragraphs of your distorted picture of India. A complete reply will take an hour.
I was shocked at the competitive and relatively free market of India.
What did you expect in a country which is the worlds biggest democracy for the last 50 plus years? Did you expect some sort of wild wild west? I am always amazed by the distorted picture educated Westerners carry about other parts of the world.
-- only recently did we really see socialism take over -
India never had socialism the way a westerner like yourself understands it. And Communist parties currently run the state governments in Kerala and West Bengal - two of the most developed states in India.
The Indians are already grasping the idea of advertising-funded online media.
The percentage of population currently online in India is very low - online media is an offshoot of traditional media and largely caters of the non resident Indians. I don't see any grasping whatsoever.
If you buy anything large (car, house, land, business) you pay a small portion of "white" money (that is heavily taxed) and a big portion of "black" money (that is under the table, and often comes in the form of bullion).
Indians generally use gold/silver as a sort of future investment. In traditional arranged marriages a part of dowry might be paid in gold/silver. Paying for an acre of land by a kilo of silver is not the norm. And if you buy a car from a dealer, you have to pay the tax and you cannot dodge the system. The property and land registration taxes you pay are close to the market value (might be 10-15% less.)
Always remember what Rabindranath Tagore said about India - whatever you think of India is true and the opposite.
...presumably some re-inventing-the-wheel R&D that was done 50 years ago and has been repeated in Pakistan, India, and now North Korea...
Please add Britain, France, Russia, China, Israel etc. to the list. Your explanation implies Pakistan, India or North Korea are somehow unworthy of having a nuclear bomb. I don't think any country in this planet is worthy of having one for whatever reason. My attitude towards such weapons of mass destruction changed after I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And I would not trust Britain or France with nuclear weapons with their colorful colonial past. About USA - the less said the better.
Installed the latest IE from M$ - the installer forgot to add an icon/shortcut and I had to search for the exe file (intalls on the ie7 directory under Windows.)
Click the exe file, what opens is the old IE. Go to a website and a new window opens with the new IE. Total waste and very annoying.
But guess what? Although I speak fluent german, I can't work in Germany or Austria. A company has to advertise for 3 months for an EU resident to fill a slot before they can sponsor a visa for me. And I'm not even picky--I can't find an IT/programming job for an american anywhere outside of the US from Cape Town to Kabul.
After working in US for 5 years in well paying IT jobs, I applied for a Green Card. I had to advertise in local newspapers for 3 weeks for candidates with my qualifications, reject them after interviews and apply for a labor permit.
What Germans are doing to non-Germans are what Americans are doing to non-Americans. Even the H1 visa procedure is a very bureaucratic process and is very similar to what you described. As an American you have no moral right to complain about draconic German rules/regulations.
I use and like Gentoo Linux, primarily because it is a distribution that lets me install virtually anything, including odd obscure scientific software, with a minimum of fuss. Additionally, many times when things work, they REALLY work because the distribution doesn't get in the way.
I dont find any (practical) difference between Gentoo and an distro like SUSE. And all the fuss seems to be about how difficult its to use Gentooo!!!
I have to drive for a living...and I frequently come across bicyclists who has absolutely no regard for traffic rules/etiquettes. They squeezes to as little as space they can find and forget they can be in a blind spot to the person driving the vehicle. I am tolerant to bicyclists, but the looks and angry shouts I get from bicyclists for no fault of mine is disturbing.
Reverse offshoring (or whatever its called) is good.
Traditionally the West gives emphasis on individualism and the East favours interdependence. A western tourist to India will see a lot of colour and crowd - but they may not get the idea behind India - a nation of a billion people with 15 official languages more than 500 languages and 2000 dialects. But someone who works in India for a short while (even on a sterilised IT campus) will get a better perception of the country. They can also dispel the lingering half truths that persist amongst westerners.
Now Indians know occupying a country of its size and exploiting is not a viable idea for any superpower (it can still happen with western transnational corporations)- so the general mistrust towards the West is a bit lesser.
A few months back in New Bombay I saw a few western technology workers. They women looked happier (though a bit perplexed) compared to their counterparts in Western cities - Karma+Nirvana+Brahma+tropical climate+chaos+anarchy in action.
How much money would this culture cost the entertainment producers?
How can you monetize/calculate the revenue of your work released under "Creative Commons" or other licenses?
I am an entertainment producer. Its easy to make cheap copies of whatever (CD/DVD/download) you are selling. So one cannot determine the loss of revenue if you release your work under a "Creative Commons" license.
I dont put any type of restrictions on the DVDs (there is an FBI warning, but who takes it seriously) I sell. Instead I tell my customers I trust their judgement.
its ridiculous to pay me $25 when they could just spend the 50 hours themselves...
One of the issues I have with smaller shareware apps is the price - rather than $25 for your app, if you cut the price to say $10 more people will be tempted to pay rather than look for a crack/serial. And I am writing from experience.
Try foriegn films, especially films from Asia - there are excellent films coming from South Korea (films of Kim Ki Duk and if you like love stories try 'My Sassy Girl'), Hong Kong (Johnny To, Wong Kar Wai), Iran (Majid Majidi), Russia (try the Nightwatch/Daywatch series), India (films of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Vishal Bharadwaj, films like PIRAVI, COMPANY etc.), Argentina (La Cianega)
The above are filmmakers who are actively making films. If you go back a bit, you can start with Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini and others and end up at your own countrymen like David Lynch, Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch and others.
Seriously, you havent seen interesting cinema...you and many others were prisoners of pop-culture.
The article says 'profit projections disappoint ' - this means amazon cannot match the growth they had the last 5-8 years anymore. I think its normal for a company of the size of Amazon.
But I am curious how 'filmy business' will increase the profit of Amazon? If you make 5-8 films one might become a hit and rest (if you are lucky) will breakeven. If you make a really good film, over several years it will give you a profit - but that is not going to reflect on your quarterly statements/projections.
I think they are tempted after seeing the DVD sales of films like CRASH (sold more than 5 million units.)
Slashdot Mirror
If you are in US, the chances of getting good South Indian food (even Indian food) in restaurants is low. Outside India, mid eastern cities/countries (Dubai, cities of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain etc.) with a large number of expatriate Keralites are the best places for food.
You are one of the few non-Indians who understand the diversity of India. Think of India like Europe. Rabindranath Tagore said - "whatever you think of India is true, and its opposite".
For a Malayalee (person from Kerala, India - who speaks Malayalam) breakfast will be usually one of the following -
Dosa or Idly with chutney
Puttu with Kadala
Kappa (tapioca) vevichatu (boiled) - mashed with coconut, ginger etc. and fish curry
Idiyappam and egg curry
In the 90s multinationals introduced breakfast cereals in India. In their advertisements they were arrogant to depict traditional Indian cooking as unhealthy. Anyways, cereals never became popular - a box was costing more than Rs.100 - too costly for most Indians except for the rich who anyways had servants to cook food.
Real simple choice. Speak Hindi??
Bangalore is the capital of the southern state of Karnataka and the language is Kannada. North Indians generally speak Hindi, but thats not true of South Indians.
Well, 2nd one first...corporations are NOT countries...different argument there, that's private industry.
The ownership of the private industry rests wit the shareholders - and who are the shareholders - they are Americans for most of the part. There is no argument - if US corporations get rich, its Americans get rich even if the profit/wealth is not shared as you or I may like.
As to the first one...yes. I do believe that the US had resolutions passed by the UN, numerous ones that specified serious actions would be taken if Saddam didn't cooperate. He didn't, we invaded. If it were Iraq you were alluding to.
The UN resolutions asked Saddam to disclose weapons of mass destruction which IRAQ did not possess. I was following mainstream/non-mainstream media and I realized the then Iraqi administration had given full access to weapons inspectors (they went through even the palaces/living quarters of Saddam). And do you believe in whatever lies/propaganda the US government cooked up (yellow cake/Niger etc.) to justify the invasion?
I don't have anything more to say.
Illegal immigration sucks money from the economy and stresses our entire infrastructure.
Just like pork barrel projects, declaring war with countries on hyped up lies, overthrowing governments on the pretext of stopping communism/socialism/whatever-the-flavor-of-the times, and so on.
Many of the comments in this discussion harp on the cost factor associated with illegal immigration. It reminds me of the saying - "you can torture date to confess to anything".
It is here to give people the changes you mention IF they follow the rules. If you are not a citizen here, then, there are rules you need to follow to either get a work permit, or become a citizen. No, the US is not here for a free-for-all. If anarchy is the purpose and anyone can do anything they want...then it won't work for anyone.
Why is 'follow the rules' applied selectively?
Did US follow any rules whatsoever (common sense/reasonable) in its foreign policy in the last many decades? Do US corporations follow rules whatsoever in dealing with other countries and its resources?
But when a human being wants to better his living condition by making a relocation to another part of the world he/she has to immediately start following rules!
I am not saying illegal immigration should be practiced and supported. But when I look from the perspective of an illegal immigrant (I am legal immigrant living in a different country) it makes sense and sometimes is the only way out to survive.
Its not only the redesign.
Yahoo messenger forced a security update last week. And IE7 mysteriously received a Yahoo toolbar - occupying sizable real estate with useless icons/links. Nowhere in the security update it was mentioned a new toolbar will be installed - this is hideous backdoor stuff.
No wonder they are becoming irrelevant.
I hope Iranian bloggers are not using Opera.
Americans are lazy people who cheat on their wives and fuck in the streets and cannot be trusted. They do not know about nuclear weapons, don't know the cold war, don't really know anything about the world context in which the Vietnam War happened. Everyone treated me very nicely of course.
The average American is clueless and believes what he sees on TV (which is rarely accurate and never puts anything in context.) The world context of a war is not important to the victims. We know the world context behind 'Iraq war' - do you think the half a million dead Iraqi's and the ones who survived care for the context?
My coworker overstayed his visa by a day.
In US, if you overstay your visa by for a similar short period you are banned from the country for 10 years. And try getting a visa to US/UK/G7 nations for anyone from the third world for a legitimate purpose.
You did not get what you wanted from Vietnam. And you were not the first one. Please stop badmouthing.
You have no idea about India. And if you are an Indian you are seriously misinformed.
India is really a pretty xenophobic place, generally hostile to most everything non-Indian.
India is a country with 5000 plus year old civilization which produced 3 of the major religions in this world. India has the plurality your narrow mind is unable to grasp. There are xenophobic Indians, just like there are xenophobic Russians, Australians, Americans (or name your ethnic group).
India is deeply conservative and fearful of change.
You absolutely have no idea about India. Have you heard of Kamasutra? I can understand if a person is conservative. But how can you say a country is conservative? What barometers do you use? Look more than 100 years into the history to put everything in context.
The Indian educational system penalises innovation and creative thinking.
The above comment does not warrant my time. Any educational system has its own pluses and minuses - there are excellent teachers (look around an American campus, some of the best teachers would be Indian) and there are total morons who became teachers for whatever reason - just like any other society.
Indian politics are always parochial. If a proposal doesn't somehow poke a stick in the eye of those bastards in the next village/city/state/country, then it's not going to pass.
Parochial as opposed to what! A president who attacks a country with false evidence. With all the problems, Indian political system will not do such horrendous mistakes. I have always felt that the mistakes made by many American governments with great cost of non-Americans would not have happened if US had a multi-party system like in India.
There is a saying - India is unity in diversity. And as a beginning go and read 'The Argumentative Indian' by Amartya Sen. Some of your misconceptions about India and Indians will be taken care of.
I was a Yahoo email and messenger user for years - because there were no decent alternatives to many of the services they offer.
Till GMAIL introduced the increased storage limits the yahoos who run Yahoo was sleeping. The interface of Yahoo Mail is the worst. The standard webmail interface of my company is better designed.
The Yahoo messenger in its default installed state is a classic example of a cluttered bloated design. Plus why should I see an annoying flash ad in the bottom pane? At least put a text ad which does not flash itself every millisecond.
'It's not a philanthropic exercise,'
The liberalisation of Indian economy in the 90s, the banking sector had multinational banks entering catering to the upper/middle class. Citigroup is one of those 'new age banks' (as they are called in India). They behave like western financial institutions - high fees, web/telephone connectivity, hidden charges, legalese, and a lot more.
New age banks does not allow provisions like a zero balance account. Older nationalized banks are flexible with such provisions (service may not be efficient) and that is very important for Indians who do not belong to the upper/middle class - the 80% of the population. The 'new age banks' also have aggressive finance/loan schemes and failure to comply with monthly payments (credit cards, vehicle/housing loans etc.) can lead to physical assaults/manhandling by third party collection agents. When such issues happen, the bank schmucks use the usual line of 'we are not aware of the tactics used by our collection agents'.
This experiment by Citibank is for data collection, testing new biometric services etc. - but the motive is not philanthropic nor as a profit center.
I will reply to only the first two paragraphs of your distorted picture of India. A complete reply will take an hour.
I was shocked at the competitive and relatively free market of India.
What did you expect in a country which is the worlds biggest democracy for the last 50 plus years? Did you expect some sort of wild wild west? I am always amazed by the distorted picture educated Westerners carry about other parts of the world.
-- only recently did we really see socialism take over -
India never had socialism the way a westerner like yourself understands it. And Communist parties currently run the state governments in Kerala and West Bengal - two of the most developed states in India.
The Indians are already grasping the idea of advertising-funded online media.
The percentage of population currently online in India is very low - online media is an offshoot of traditional media and largely caters of the non resident Indians. I don't see any grasping whatsoever.
If you buy anything large (car, house, land, business) you pay a small portion of "white" money (that is heavily taxed) and a big portion of "black" money (that is under the table, and often comes in the form of bullion).
Indians generally use gold/silver as a sort of future investment. In traditional arranged marriages a part of dowry might be paid in gold/silver. Paying for an acre of land by a kilo of silver is not the norm. And if you buy a car from a dealer, you have to pay the tax and you cannot dodge the system. The property and land registration taxes you pay are close to the market value (might be 10-15% less.)
Always remember what Rabindranath Tagore said about India - whatever you think of India is true and the opposite.
Now we're paying the price. And much more than just troop loss (which is actually quite minimal, compared to other world conflicts, like, say WWII).
Go to hell with your simulations and troop loss!!!
What about the thousands of Iraqi's who died?
What about that country which you thoroughly destroyed including its history?
Even the well meaning Americans are so narrow minded they cannot think beyond their losses.
...presumably some re-inventing-the-wheel R&D that was done 50 years ago and has been repeated in Pakistan, India, and now North Korea...
Please add Britain, France, Russia, China, Israel etc. to the list. Your explanation implies Pakistan, India or North Korea are somehow unworthy of having a nuclear bomb. I don't think any country in this planet is worthy of having one for whatever reason. My attitude towards such weapons of mass destruction changed after I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And I would not trust Britain or France with nuclear weapons with their colorful colonial past. About USA - the less said the better.
Installed the latest IE from M$ - the installer forgot to add an icon/shortcut and I had to search for the exe file (intalls on the ie7 directory under Windows.)
Click the exe file, what opens is the old IE. Go to a website and a new window opens with the new IE. Total waste and very annoying.
Time to go back to Opera/Firefox.
library of the future...
Libraries are already closed. Try selling an item - book/DVD/video - to any public library in North America.
But guess what? Although I speak fluent german, I can't work in Germany or Austria. A company has to advertise for 3 months for an EU resident to fill a slot before they can sponsor a visa for me. And I'm not even picky--I can't find an IT/programming job for an american anywhere outside of the US from Cape Town to Kabul.
After working in US for 5 years in well paying IT jobs, I applied for a Green Card. I had to advertise in local newspapers for 3 weeks for candidates with my qualifications, reject them after interviews and apply for a labor permit.
What Germans are doing to non-Germans are what Americans are doing to non-Americans. Even the H1 visa procedure is a very bureaucratic process and is very similar to what you described. As an American you have no moral right to complain about draconic German rules/regulations.
I use and like Gentoo Linux, primarily because it is a distribution that lets me install virtually anything, including odd obscure scientific software, with a minimum of fuss. Additionally, many times when things work, they REALLY work because the distribution doesn't get in the way.
I dont find any (practical) difference between Gentoo and an distro like SUSE. And all the fuss seems to be about how difficult its to use Gentooo!!!
I have to drive for a living...and I frequently come across bicyclists who has absolutely no regard for traffic rules/etiquettes. They squeezes to as little as space they can find and forget they can be in a blind spot to the person driving the vehicle. I am tolerant to bicyclists, but the looks and angry shouts I get from bicyclists for no fault of mine is disturbing.
Reverse offshoring (or whatever its called) is good.
Traditionally the West gives emphasis on individualism and the East favours interdependence. A western tourist to India will see a lot of colour and crowd - but they may not get the idea behind India - a nation of a billion people with 15 official languages more than 500 languages and 2000 dialects. But someone who works in India for a short while (even on a sterilised IT campus) will get a better perception of the country. They can also dispel the lingering half truths that persist amongst westerners.
Now Indians know occupying a country of its size and exploiting is not a viable idea for any superpower (it can still happen with western transnational corporations)- so the general mistrust towards the West is a bit lesser.
A few months back in New Bombay I saw a few western technology workers. They women looked happier (though a bit perplexed) compared to their counterparts in Western cities - Karma+Nirvana+Brahma+tropical climate+chaos+anarchy in action.
How much money would this culture cost the entertainment producers?
How can you monetize/calculate the revenue of your work released under "Creative Commons" or other licenses?
I am an entertainment producer. Its easy to make cheap copies of whatever (CD/DVD/download) you are selling. So one cannot determine the loss of revenue if you release your work under a "Creative Commons" license.
I dont put any type of restrictions on the DVDs (there is an FBI warning, but who takes it seriously) I sell. Instead I tell my customers I trust their judgement.
its ridiculous to pay me $25 when they could just spend the 50 hours themselves...
One of the issues I have with smaller shareware apps is the price - rather than $25 for your app, if you cut the price to say $10 more people will be tempted to pay rather than look for a crack/serial. And I am writing from experience.
...but it seems you started to grow up :)
Try foriegn films, especially films from Asia - there are excellent films coming from South Korea (films of Kim Ki Duk and if you like love stories try 'My Sassy Girl'), Hong Kong (Johnny To, Wong Kar Wai), Iran (Majid Majidi), Russia (try the Nightwatch/Daywatch series), India (films of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Vishal Bharadwaj, films like PIRAVI, COMPANY etc.), Argentina (La Cianega)
The above are filmmakers who are actively making films. If you go back a bit, you can start with Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini and others and end up at your own countrymen like David Lynch, Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch and others.
Seriously, you havent seen interesting cinema...you and many others were prisoners of pop-culture.
The article says 'profit projections disappoint ' - this means amazon cannot match the growth they had the last 5-8 years anymore. I think its normal for a company of the size of Amazon.
But I am curious how 'filmy business' will increase the profit of Amazon? If you make 5-8 films one might become a hit and rest (if you are lucky) will breakeven. If you make a really good film, over several years it will give you a profit - but that is not going to reflect on your quarterly statements/projections.
I think they are tempted after seeing the DVD sales of films like CRASH (sold more than 5 million units.)