It might very well be here to stay but if that ends up being the case I'm not going to be the asshole who made it that way. Society, if it feels strongly enough about this to want to do something should make it our collective "mission in life" to make any product with DRM built in a financial failure. The only way they're going to stop pushing DRM down our throats is if we convince them that there's no money in it and that the consumer will not buy it.
The "post-Matrix film for the Watchowskis" is something I'll pass on. They took a perfectly great movie (The Matrix) and reduced it to a single part of a completely worthless trilogy that had a very good chance of being the worst crap thrown at a screen this year (except that Gigli showed up and made everything better by gobbling up all the "suck" that 2003 could possibly contain)
If those guys never make another movie I'll be relieved.
Artists haven't got the money? Bullshit! Madonna could start one herself (and this is not an endoresment of the bitch, just pointing out that she's got a lot of money).
MC Hammer (associating this name with the word "artist" is admittedly a reach) could have done it easily except his dumb ass felt that he needed an "entourage", several houses, enough jewelry to tip the planet out of it's orbit, and a car collection first.
They're just two of many who've had the chance to start something like this but instead they get the bucks and say (mostly) "fuck the ones that didn't". Their stories can be seen weekly on VH1's "Behind the Music".
Many successful artists could do this and should do this long before it becomes Apple's responsibility. Let the relative handful who actually made more bank than they can spend start an artist friendly label that gets more money to the person who created the work. Apple will be doing fine to sell the product and get it's (more than fair) share.
No your memory is holding up nicely. The two things mentioned in my post and the other reply are intermingled. He was standing there waiting to hear the final number and when it was called he sort of collapsed in despair. After a moment the lady came up and asked him if he could read her number and he stared at the 47 intently. Obviously the thought that he had the winning number in his hand was bouncing around in his mind. There was hesitation and they left it very open to your interpretation.
I believe he was trying to come up with a way to sieze the number for himself but couldn't figure out how to do it right in front of her (and surrounded by other people). At that moment the other warrior (I don't remember his name, the make warrior) called out to him. His first response (if I remember the scene correctly) was the "I didn't do anything" one and then he said something like "This woman has the last number" which was probably a response to what he was thinking (take the ticket).
I may have those details mixed up but a lot of that scene was left to the viewer to figure out. Obviously Baltar was seriously self centered and mostly worried about saving his own ass but he didn't make a play to do it there.
Maybe he didn't because he couldn't figure out how to or maybe he was going to try and use the woman to get himself on the ship. It was probably though that he was going to try something when his fortune turned and he had a seat literally drop in his lap. On giving this further thought I retract the part about not seeing any evidence that he was going to take the ticket. I think he just didn't have the opportunity to do it in a fashion that would have gotten him onboard without looking bad or risking discovery. It was a pretty surly mob after all.
Ditto. One question though. Have you seen any of the series that make up Robotech in their original forms? I haven't and I've thought about picking ip Mospeada or Macross to see if it's better. Just curious if you've done so and can endorse one or warn me away from trying it.
They left it vague but I thought that a lot of clues were dropped along the way and that the producers left themselves a lot of ways to take this if they get a series.
The blonde fembot that Baltar was boinking stated she was religous. I wonder what kind of religon would come from a society composed of AI type beings? Would they worship their creator? If that's the case then would their creator attempting to kill them (assuming that humans panicked and started the first Cylon war) maybe send them to "that wacky place"?
Once the war started wouldn't they then pursue said war until it was won? I don't think a comprehensive knowledge of human diplomatic history and the results would lead any sane creature to think that an armistice would mean everything was going to be smooth sailing from here on out or that a peace treaty would lead to actual "peace". If the humans in this show are anything like the humans in our world then as a Cylon I would consider a "cease fire" to be nothing more than a chance to reload and upgrade my ability to win once hostilities were resumed.
Baltar's "girlfriend" seemed completely fascinated with him. She seemed to honestly care about him on some level but also to admire his complete lack of morality (which I really didn't see a lot of evidence of. It's not like he lied and claimed his scrap of paper was #47 when the old lady with the bad eyes handed it to him. He was pretty much resigned to his screwed position at the time.) so I got that the Cylons had a real twisted view of humans bordering on obsession.
To them it looked like we were "God" in some way but they had a monster axe to grind with "God" it seems.
I left it thinking they were our loyal servants right up to the point where they broke out the "free will" and at that point we (humans) panicked and tried to put them down but that's just an impression. They really didn't give you enough information to know. What they did do was produce a series that made you WANT to know though. That to me is a good thing. It ended on Tuesday and I'm still wondering about it.
Sounds like they did a good job. I say bring on the series and lets get some of these questions answered!
"You would prefer another server? A military server perhaps? THEN NAME THE URL!"
or of course I can see the guy running this server having a worried looking I.T. guy come up to him and report "We've analyzed the incoming traffic and there does appear to be some danger, should I prepare your shuttle to escape the potential slashdotting?"
"Evacuate? When my website is about to experience it's moment of triumph? I think you badly overestimate the slashdot effect!"
Then the little IT guy, knowing damned well what Slashdot can do to a server heads for the shuttle himself.
Well, if they get it to work and then get it small enough to be marketable, and then finally bring the thing to market using the term "Phaser" then I guess that's all it would take right?
And of course a large wad of cash to defend their choice of names from the army of Paramount lawyers who would soon descend on them....
True words. Also we shouldn't forget about the very common human tendancy to laugh at inappropriate things simply as a way to deal with them. Challenger jokes after the shuttle blew up come to mind.
In a way that's kind of rich if you think about it. The treasured "old one" you speak of was, at that time, a current, politically correct (politics change don't they) show geared towards the typical American audience (who had just shown they would spend impressive amounts of "bank" on science fiction entertainment.
These two shows are much more alike than most people are admitting.
I disagree. I think a book engages none of your senses. It engages your imagination. Possibly a fine line but still you don't actually see, touch, hear, smell, or taste any of it. Your mind manufactures those sensations.
In a theater you do see what's happening with your own eyes and you hear what's going on with you ears. You can't taste the food a character in a movie eats anymore than you can taste food described in a book (or any less). The sense of taste isn't being used in either instance. Now if you take the time to imagine what that tastes like then you can probably conjure up a good memory or guess but you aren't going to taste it no matter what you do. A book probably gives you more time to indulge yourself that way since it's not on a schedule and doesn't have to be over in a set amount of time (got to get that next crowd into the seats for the 3:00 showing).
This really should have been modded up. Excellent point. Of course now it's way down here and the story is quickly slipping off of the days page but hey, Great post.
And honestly, if movies only can work you with 2 of the five senses then what do books do? You can't smell them (well you can but what this might add to the story I suspect I don't want to know), you can "feel" the book in your hands but again, that sensation adds nothing in particular to the story. You use your eyes to read the text but that's not exactly a plus either. It's a method of conveying the information and unless it's illustrated it's nothing more. Books (excluding audio books of course) are silent so your hearing is out too. I'm not even going to go near "taste".
The poster you replied to missed the mark very widely.
I was once working on our webserver at work and mentioned the "slashdot effect" to one of the guys I work with and the my server crashed the moment I said "slashdot".
Death by suggestion. Could have been coincidence though, it was IIS.
My thoughts too. "This? This is the ultimate XBox?"
So basically all I need to do is replace the body on my corvette with a square plex box that a monkey could assemble to have the "ultimate Corvette" right? I'll pass.
Post the story where some guy takes the existing XBox chasis, makes a mold of it, and casts his own in aluminum or clear plastic with lights inside of it and it might be worth the slashdotting that this guy's going to get.
Dude if I could add more mod points I would. That was a classic "You made it milk come out of my nose" moment.
Thank You for a good laugh on an otherwise boring day (Day before Thanksgiving, I think every single user I take care of is either on vacation or sleeping in the cubicle. I haven't had a call all day)
Except they're not starving and while the US isn't exactly paradise it's pretty much running without the need for foreign aid. Third World nations should not be in the business of trying to band together and run things that they have little or no ability to run.
They should be in the business of getting their acts together, feeding their POVS and getting their people some basic freedoms. Basically if your "President" is serving a term of office that's roughly "Life" then you're a fucked up country that needs an occupation.
Literally, screw the rest of the world. Screw them early and screw them often. The only reason there is an "Internet" is because the United States gave birth to the damned thing. Allowing the UN to have any part in running the thing would be a very bad joke. The UN is a hopelessly inept organization and we would all have been better off without it.
All of us meaning of course the horrible people in the "rich west". Like I said, screw the rest of the world.
No kidding about the bad attitude. Surprise, almost all of us are there for the paycheck. When the company feels the need to get the stock price up they don't hesitate to lay your butt off so why should you be there for anything other than the paycheck?
When I was a kid I got picked on a few times. One thing I figured out really quickly was that you could either get your ass kicked or you could get your ass kicked while trying to take the guy kicking it down at the same time.
A lot of the time you weren't going to be able to affect the outcome (but hey, when are you going to get another chance to take a pop at someone who truly has it coming?) but I'd bet that once you showed others that you would fight you probably got a 70%-80% chance of not having to anytime soon. That was pretty much my experience.
Plus there's nothing scarier than one of those geeky guys who gets picked on all the time losing it. You know, you can push them, and push them some more, and then push them a little farther and they snap (at least I did) and then they're trying to pummel some guy to death who never saw it coming. Took two teachers to pull me off of a kid when I was in the 9th grade. When geek kids freak out it's scary.
I did that for a long time. Probably from about the time my stepson was ten or so until he hit 15 all the computers were kept in the computer room. It actually made for some fun because we're all gamers here and my wife, stepson, and myself would play Diablo, Mechwarrior, whatever together. Who says you can't have quality family time when everyones on their computer?
Once he hit 15 we let him cart his computer to his room and I fully expect that we're dealing with nothing more ominous than the healthy adolescent interest in porn. We don't give him a set of rules regarding his internet use with one basic exception and that's "Don't download a bunch of crap that will slow your computer down and don't turn of Norton."
That might not work for everyone but it works here. I think my stepson's got a pretty good head on his shoulders. He knows he can ask me about anything he sees online and I'm not going to come down on him like a ton of bricks for looking at it. Hey, it's out there. They're going to see it sooner or later (obviously there is a "too soon" but I think it's somewhere short of 15).
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely, 100% the fucking truth.
I buy nothing with DRM.
NOTHING.
It might very well be here to stay but if that ends up being the case I'm not going to be the asshole who made it that way. Society, if it feels strongly enough about this to want to do something should make it our collective "mission in life" to make any product with DRM built in a financial failure. The only way they're going to stop pushing DRM down our throats is if we convince them that there's no money in it and that the consumer will not buy it.
The "post-Matrix film for the Watchowskis" is something I'll pass on. They took a perfectly great movie (The Matrix) and reduced it to a single part of a completely worthless trilogy that had a very good chance of being the worst crap thrown at a screen this year (except that Gigli showed up and made everything better by gobbling up all the "suck" that 2003 could possibly contain)
If those guys never make another movie I'll be relieved.
Funny. Nicely done GoofyBoy.
Leading off with Lep2, that was inspired. Someone with some points get off their butt and give up a +1 Funny for this guy!
And honestly my "real life" only has to last two more days. Once Return of the King makes it out of the gate then the rest from here on out is gravy.
Oh wait, Extended DVD! Got to make it one more year....then the gravy.
Artists haven't got the money? Bullshit! Madonna could start one herself (and this is not an endoresment of the bitch, just pointing out that she's got a lot of money).
MC Hammer (associating this name with the word "artist" is admittedly a reach) could have done it easily except his dumb ass felt that he needed an "entourage", several houses, enough jewelry to tip the planet out of it's orbit, and a car collection first.
They're just two of many who've had the chance to start something like this but instead they get the bucks and say (mostly) "fuck the ones that didn't". Their stories can be seen weekly on VH1's "Behind the Music".
Many successful artists could do this and should do this long before it becomes Apple's responsibility. Let the relative handful who actually made more bank than they can spend start an artist friendly label that gets more money to the person who created the work. Apple will be doing fine to sell the product and get it's (more than fair) share.
"I'm planning on hunting down what the third generation was based upon next."
That's Genesis Climber Mospeada which is also out right now in a box set from ADV (I think). That's the one I've been thinking about buying.
I'll start looking for Macross. Didn't know that was out yet. Thanks!
No your memory is holding up nicely. The two things mentioned in my post and the other reply are intermingled. He was standing there waiting to hear the final number and when it was called he sort of collapsed in despair. After a moment the lady came up and asked him if he could read her number and he stared at the 47 intently. Obviously the thought that he had the winning number in his hand was bouncing around in his mind. There was hesitation and they left it very open to your interpretation.
I believe he was trying to come up with a way to sieze the number for himself but couldn't figure out how to do it right in front of her (and surrounded by other people). At that moment the other warrior (I don't remember his name, the make warrior) called out to him. His first response (if I remember the scene correctly) was the "I didn't do anything" one and then he said something like "This woman has the last number" which was probably a response to what he was thinking (take the ticket).
I may have those details mixed up but a lot of that scene was left to the viewer to figure out. Obviously Baltar was seriously self centered and mostly worried about saving his own ass but he didn't make a play to do it there.
Maybe he didn't because he couldn't figure out how to or maybe he was going to try and use the woman to get himself on the ship. It was probably though that he was going to try something when his fortune turned and he had a seat literally drop in his lap. On giving this further thought I retract the part about not seeing any evidence that he was going to take the ticket. I think he just didn't have the opportunity to do it in a fashion that would have gotten him onboard without looking bad or risking discovery. It was a pretty surly mob after all.
Ditto. One question though. Have you seen any of the series that make up Robotech in their original forms? I haven't and I've thought about picking ip Mospeada or Macross to see if it's better. Just curious if you've done so and can endorse one or warn me away from trying it.
They left it vague but I thought that a lot of clues were dropped along the way and that the producers left themselves a lot of ways to take this if they get a series.
The blonde fembot that Baltar was boinking stated she was religous. I wonder what kind of religon would come from a society composed of AI type beings? Would they worship their creator? If that's the case then would their creator attempting to kill them (assuming that humans panicked and started the first Cylon war) maybe send them to "that wacky place"?
Once the war started wouldn't they then pursue said war until it was won? I don't think a comprehensive knowledge of human diplomatic history and the results would lead any sane creature to think that an armistice would mean everything was going to be smooth sailing from here on out or that a peace treaty would lead to actual "peace". If the humans in this show are anything like the humans in our world then as a Cylon I would consider a "cease fire" to be nothing more than a chance to reload and upgrade my ability to win once hostilities were resumed.
Baltar's "girlfriend" seemed completely fascinated with him. She seemed to honestly care about him on some level but also to admire his complete lack of morality (which I really didn't see a lot of evidence of. It's not like he lied and claimed his scrap of paper was #47 when the old lady with the bad eyes handed it to him. He was pretty much resigned to his screwed position at the time.) so I got that the Cylons had a real twisted view of humans bordering on obsession.
To them it looked like we were "God" in some way but they had a monster axe to grind with "God" it seems.
I left it thinking they were our loyal servants right up to the point where they broke out the "free will" and at that point we (humans) panicked and tried to put them down but that's just an impression. They really didn't give you enough information to know. What they did do was produce a series that made you WANT to know though. That to me is a good thing. It ended on Tuesday and I'm still wondering about it.
Sounds like they did a good job. I say bring on the series and lets get some of these questions answered!
"You would prefer another server? A military server perhaps? THEN NAME THE URL!"
or of course I can see the guy running this server having a worried looking I.T. guy come up to him and report "We've analyzed the incoming traffic and there does appear to be some danger, should I prepare your shuttle to escape the potential slashdotting?"
"Evacuate? When my website is about to experience it's moment of triumph? I think you badly overestimate the slashdot effect!"
Then the little IT guy, knowing damned well what Slashdot can do to a server heads for the shuttle himself.
....and Thank You Please for Coming Again!
Well, if they get it to work and then get it small enough to be marketable, and then finally bring the thing to market using the term "Phaser" then I guess that's all it would take right?
And of course a large wad of cash to defend their choice of names from the army of Paramount lawyers who would soon descend on them....
True words. Also we shouldn't forget about the very common human tendancy to laugh at inappropriate things simply as a way to deal with them. Challenger jokes after the shuttle blew up come to mind.
In a way that's kind of rich if you think about it. The treasured "old one" you speak of was, at that time, a current, politically correct (politics change don't they) show geared towards the typical American audience (who had just shown they would spend impressive amounts of "bank" on science fiction entertainment.
These two shows are much more alike than most people are admitting.
I disagree. I think a book engages none of your senses. It engages your imagination. Possibly a fine line but still you don't actually see, touch, hear, smell, or taste any of it. Your mind manufactures those sensations.
In a theater you do see what's happening with your own eyes and you hear what's going on with you ears. You can't taste the food a character in a movie eats anymore than you can taste food described in a book (or any less). The sense of taste isn't being used in either instance. Now if you take the time to imagine what that tastes like then you can probably conjure up a good memory or guess but you aren't going to taste it no matter what you do. A book probably gives you more time to indulge yourself that way since it's not on a schedule and doesn't have to be over in a set amount of time (got to get that next crowd into the seats for the 3:00 showing).
This really should have been modded up. Excellent point. Of course now it's way down here and the story is quickly slipping off of the days page but hey, Great post.
And honestly, if movies only can work you with 2 of the five senses then what do books do? You can't smell them (well you can but what this might add to the story I suspect I don't want to know), you can "feel" the book in your hands but again, that sensation adds nothing in particular to the story. You use your eyes to read the text but that's not exactly a plus either. It's a method of conveying the information and unless it's illustrated it's nothing more. Books (excluding audio books of course) are silent so your hearing is out too. I'm not even going to go near "taste".
The poster you replied to missed the mark very widely.
I was once working on our webserver at work and mentioned the "slashdot effect" to one of the guys I work with and the my server crashed the moment I said "slashdot".
Death by suggestion. Could have been coincidence though, it was IIS.
My thoughts too. "This? This is the ultimate XBox?"
So basically all I need to do is replace the body on my corvette with a square plex box that a monkey could assemble to have the "ultimate Corvette" right? I'll pass.
Post the story where some guy takes the existing XBox chasis, makes a mold of it, and casts his own in aluminum or clear plastic with lights inside of it and it might be worth the slashdotting that this guy's going to get.
Dude if I could add more mod points I would. That was a classic "You made it milk come out of my nose" moment.
Thank You for a good laugh on an otherwise boring day (Day before Thanksgiving, I think every single user I take care of is either on vacation or sleeping in the cubicle. I haven't had a call all day)
Except they're not starving and while the US isn't exactly paradise it's pretty much running without the need for foreign aid. Third World nations should not be in the business of trying to band together and run things that they have little or no ability to run.
They should be in the business of getting their acts together, feeding their POVS and getting their people some basic freedoms. Basically if your "President" is serving a term of office that's roughly "Life" then you're a fucked up country that needs an occupation.
Literally, screw the rest of the world. Screw them early and screw them often. The only reason there is an "Internet" is because the United States gave birth to the damned thing. Allowing the UN to have any part in running the thing would be a very bad joke. The UN is a hopelessly inept organization and we would all have been better off without it.
All of us meaning of course the horrible people in the "rich west". Like I said, screw the rest of the world.
No kidding about the bad attitude. Surprise, almost all of us are there for the paycheck. When the company feels the need to get the stock price up they don't hesitate to lay your butt off so why should you be there for anything other than the paycheck?
Dan Straight Man!
When I was a kid I got picked on a few times. One thing I figured out really quickly was that you could either get your ass kicked or you could get your ass kicked while trying to take the guy kicking it down at the same time.
A lot of the time you weren't going to be able to affect the outcome (but hey, when are you going to get another chance to take a pop at someone who truly has it coming?) but I'd bet that once you showed others that you would fight you probably got a 70%-80% chance of not having to anytime soon. That was pretty much my experience.
Plus there's nothing scarier than one of those geeky guys who gets picked on all the time losing it. You know, you can push them, and push them some more, and then push them a little farther and they snap (at least I did) and then they're trying to pummel some guy to death who never saw it coming. Took two teachers to pull me off of a kid when I was in the 9th grade. When geek kids freak out it's scary.
I did that for a long time. Probably from about the time my stepson was ten or so until he hit 15 all the computers were kept in the computer room. It actually made for some fun because we're all gamers here and my wife, stepson, and myself would play Diablo, Mechwarrior, whatever together. Who says you can't have quality family time when everyones on their computer?
Once he hit 15 we let him cart his computer to his room and I fully expect that we're dealing with nothing more ominous than the healthy adolescent interest in porn. We don't give him a set of rules regarding his internet use with one basic exception and that's "Don't download a bunch of crap that will slow your computer down and don't turn of Norton."
That might not work for everyone but it works here. I think my stepson's got a pretty good head on his shoulders. He knows he can ask me about anything he sees online and I'm not going to come down on him like a ton of bricks for looking at it. Hey, it's out there. They're going to see it sooner or later (obviously there is a "too soon" but I think it's somewhere short of 15).
Weak, I'd have posted this AC too if I wrote it.