Re:Didn't know there was a Comic Code
on
Comics Code Dead
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· Score: 1
Yes, but my guesses are based on looking at the reality of the 1950's, not an abstract reading of the Constitution. Congress has repeatedly passed censorship legislation based on the principle of protecting children from (supposedly) harmful material. Court cases successfully challenging them are a fairly recent phenomenon. In the 1950s, before the "permissiveness" movement of the 1960s, the idea that children and their reading material ought to be strictly monitored for negative influences was a very popular point of view, and almost certainly would have been upheld by the courts of the day.
Archie and Bongo stayed with the CCA until now because it didn't limit them: they're in the business of making comics for pre-teens (though Bongo's are smart enough for adults too), so the Code wasn't a problem. Stan Lee (who defied the Code exactly once, when he agreed to a government request to publish a drugs-are-bad story in 1971) said that he never had any trouble with the Code, because he wasn't interested in writing stories about all the stuff the Code prohibited.
On the other hand, there's pretty persuasive evidence that the publishers who drafted the Code used it to cripple one of their upstart competitors. EC Comics was publishing horror and crime stories that appealed to older readers (and therefore to younger readers too), and doing pretty well at it. At the same time, EC's books were drawing a lot of "concerned" attention to the industry. I can easily imagine the execs at 1950s DC thinking, "If we can just get rid of EC and its creepy stories, we'll have fewer busybodies looking for homosexual subtext in Batman and Wonder Woman."
The reason adults-only works don't sell has nothing to do with lack of consumer demand, and everything to do with distributors refusing to carry them. This is very much like what happened with comics and the Code: you could still publish and sell comics that (for example) showed police in a negative light, or included lurid images of women in ripped clothing, but you could not distribute them through the newsstand sales network (which was pretty much the only way of selling comics in those days).
Re:The "Comic Code" never had any "teeth".
on
Comics Code Dead
·
· Score: 1
True. One of the early comics to run into trouble getting through the Code was an EC sci-fi allegory about racism, in which the protagonist was revealed in the final panel to be black. The judge reviewing the story (yes, that's right: an official of the US government was evaluating comics for their suitability to be published) insisted that the character be made a white guy instead.
Re:The "Comic Code" never had any "teeth".
on
Comics Code Dead
·
· Score: 1
You have no idea what you're talking about. The fact that Code had "teeth" is demonstrated clearly by the fate of EC Comics. The specifics of the Code appear to have been crafted by their competitors to drive them out of business, for example banning the words "crime" and "horror" in titles, when EC's best-selling series include Crime SuspenStories and The Vault of Horror. Intentionally targeted or not, EC had to cancel their most successful titles, and fairly quickly floundered and then went out of business. Although it isn't very well-known any more today, EC was not just an insignificant publisher of garbage that wouldn't be missed. They employed some of the best writers and artists of the day, and despite the often-lurid subject matter, their books were some of the most sophisticated available. They were comics for adolescents and adults rather than for pre-teen children, and those were the characteristics that got them blocked by the CCA... that is, their competitors.
Although participation in the CCA was "voluntary", there were teeth attached to that as well. If your books didn't have the Code seal, distributors wouldn't carry them. Newsstands wouldn't stock them. Whether it was because they supported the standards of the Code or they feared the wrath of those who did, the periodical distribution industry of North America made it impossible for a non-Code publication to make money. By 2000 or even 1970 that was no longer the case; there were marginal distribution channels which developed and supported a few (and later quite a few) non-Code comics (head shops in the 70s, comics shops in the 80s and 90s). But in the mid-1950s the Code could and did impose external censorship upon individual publishers.
Re:Didn't know there was a Comic Code
on
Comics Code Dead
·
· Score: 1
You can point enthusiastically at the First Amendment all you want, but it doesn't change the reality that half a century ago the US government would have legislated restrictions on comics publishers (under the premise of protecting children), and they probably would have gotten away with it. Just like laws mandating racial segregation remained on the books for a century after the 14th Amendment went into effect. Bad laws only get overturned when there's a Supreme Court willing to do it, and the Supreme Court of the day was not particularly enthusiastic about the First Amendment.
It is true that a "G" rating was pretty much the kiss of death at the box office around 30 years ago. When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released with a "G", my nerd heart sank like a stone, because I was sure it would flop because of it. The Trekkies came through and watched it over and over, but Paramount aimed for a "PG" for Wrath of Khan and the rest of them. It wasn't until Disney and Pixar resumed/started making good "G" films in the 1990s that the rating regained its commercial acceptability.
Gates is the only one trying to make a difference?
Nelson Mandela has plenty of faults, but "not actually trying to make a difference" is not one of them. He helped lead an armed rebellion, then led a political revolution after his release from prison. You don't have to like the guy or agree with his politics (or even his goals) to admire what he's done, or at least respect his tenacity.
Also, Jimmy Carter, agree with him politically or not, has a pretty good track record of putting his time and energy where his mouth is.
FYI, I have it on good authority from my formerly-Gemini (now Taurus) boyfriend that Geminis tend to be bisexual. So you might want to give it a try....
You don't even need to lose fingers for some of these multitouch gestures to be problematic. I have a pinched nerve that affects coordination with my index finger, so I tend to use my middle finger instead. One of my friends has cerebral palsy and has diminished coordination with all 10 fingers. People with arthritis or early-stage Parkinson's can have pain and/or difficulty with more complex gestures. Heck, I've seen people (mostly in Jobs' age group and older) who struggle a little with pinch and zoom.
Replacing a simple method for an often-used feature (push home button), with a complex method (move X fingers in pattern A), would be Just Plain Bad interface design. I hope that Apple UI folks realize that. It's bad enough that the "home" button has already lost some of its simplicity (originally it always took you to the same familiar place with a single click no matter where you were; now it takes a varying number of successive clicks to get back to the "home" screen, depending on whether you're in a app group, whether that's on the first screen of apps or not, etc). But requiring a repeated multifinger gesture to get "home" would be a huge step backward in usability.
There's something fundamentally perverse about developers making efforts to remove features from their products, and/or issue press releases bragging about features they will not offer. It's almost as if they had some agenda other than making their software more useful to end-users and content publishers.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but my guesses are based on looking at the reality of the 1950's, not an abstract reading of the Constitution. Congress has repeatedly passed censorship legislation based on the principle of protecting children from (supposedly) harmful material. Court cases successfully challenging them are a fairly recent phenomenon. In the 1950s, before the "permissiveness" movement of the 1960s, the idea that children and their reading material ought to be strictly monitored for negative influences was a very popular point of view, and almost certainly would have been upheld by the courts of the day.
Archie and Bongo stayed with the CCA until now because it didn't limit them: they're in the business of making comics for pre-teens (though Bongo's are smart enough for adults too), so the Code wasn't a problem. Stan Lee (who defied the Code exactly once, when he agreed to a government request to publish a drugs-are-bad story in 1971) said that he never had any trouble with the Code, because he wasn't interested in writing stories about all the stuff the Code prohibited.
On the other hand, there's pretty persuasive evidence that the publishers who drafted the Code used it to cripple one of their upstart competitors. EC Comics was publishing horror and crime stories that appealed to older readers (and therefore to younger readers too), and doing pretty well at it. At the same time, EC's books were drawing a lot of "concerned" attention to the industry. I can easily imagine the execs at 1950s DC thinking, "If we can just get rid of EC and its creepy stories, we'll have fewer busybodies looking for homosexual subtext in Batman and Wonder Woman."
The reason adults-only works don't sell has nothing to do with lack of consumer demand, and everything to do with distributors refusing to carry them. This is very much like what happened with comics and the Code: you could still publish and sell comics that (for example) showed police in a negative light, or included lurid images of women in ripped clothing, but you could not distribute them through the newsstand sales network (which was pretty much the only way of selling comics in those days).
True. One of the early comics to run into trouble getting through the Code was an EC sci-fi allegory about racism, in which the protagonist was revealed in the final panel to be black. The judge reviewing the story (yes, that's right: an official of the US government was evaluating comics for their suitability to be published) insisted that the character be made a white guy instead.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The fact that Code had "teeth" is demonstrated clearly by the fate of EC Comics. The specifics of the Code appear to have been crafted by their competitors to drive them out of business, for example banning the words "crime" and "horror" in titles, when EC's best-selling series include Crime SuspenStories and The Vault of Horror. Intentionally targeted or not, EC had to cancel their most successful titles, and fairly quickly floundered and then went out of business. Although it isn't very well-known any more today, EC was not just an insignificant publisher of garbage that wouldn't be missed. They employed some of the best writers and artists of the day, and despite the often-lurid subject matter, their books were some of the most sophisticated available. They were comics for adolescents and adults rather than for pre-teen children, and those were the characteristics that got them blocked by the CCA... that is, their competitors.
Although participation in the CCA was "voluntary", there were teeth attached to that as well. If your books didn't have the Code seal, distributors wouldn't carry them. Newsstands wouldn't stock them. Whether it was because they supported the standards of the Code or they feared the wrath of those who did, the periodical distribution industry of North America made it impossible for a non-Code publication to make money. By 2000 or even 1970 that was no longer the case; there were marginal distribution channels which developed and supported a few (and later quite a few) non-Code comics (head shops in the 70s, comics shops in the 80s and 90s). But in the mid-1950s the Code could and did impose external censorship upon individual publishers.
You can point enthusiastically at the First Amendment all you want, but it doesn't change the reality that half a century ago the US government would have legislated restrictions on comics publishers (under the premise of protecting children), and they probably would have gotten away with it. Just like laws mandating racial segregation remained on the books for a century after the 14th Amendment went into effect. Bad laws only get overturned when there's a Supreme Court willing to do it, and the Supreme Court of the day was not particularly enthusiastic about the First Amendment.
It is true that a "G" rating was pretty much the kiss of death at the box office around 30 years ago. When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released with a "G", my nerd heart sank like a stone, because I was sure it would flop because of it. The Trekkies came through and watched it over and over, but Paramount aimed for a "PG" for Wrath of Khan and the rest of them. It wasn't until Disney and Pixar resumed/started making good "G" films in the 1990s that the rating regained its commercial acceptability.
Just say its name three times and it'll all be under control.
The phrase I used was "you can't".... and I stand by that. :P
"We call that lazy and smart."
Well, you're right about one of those. (Hint: You can't write iPhone apps using Fortran.)
Now, don't go starting any "Blasphemous Rumours". :)
This doesn't refute Intelligent Design, it just suggests that the Designer isn't as Intelligent as He's cracked up to be.
Gates is the only one trying to make a difference?
Nelson Mandela has plenty of faults, but "not actually trying to make a difference" is not one of them. He helped lead an armed rebellion, then led a political revolution after his release from prison. You don't have to like the guy or agree with his politics (or even his goals) to admire what he's done, or at least respect his tenacity.
Also, Jimmy Carter, agree with him politically or not, has a pretty good track record of putting his time and energy where his mouth is.
I predict that bad things will come of this.
Not that anyone will believe me.
In Soviet version, the features are bugs!
If it's from Microsoft, I'll wait for version 3. Then I'll keep waiting until Service Pack 1 is released.
FYI, I have it on good authority from my formerly-Gemini (now Taurus) boyfriend that Geminis tend to be bisexual. So you might want to give it a try....
I think the battery needed for my current single-core processor is big enough already.
You don't even need to lose fingers for some of these multitouch gestures to be problematic. I have a pinched nerve that affects coordination with my index finger, so I tend to use my middle finger instead. One of my friends has cerebral palsy and has diminished coordination with all 10 fingers. People with arthritis or early-stage Parkinson's can have pain and/or difficulty with more complex gestures. Heck, I've seen people (mostly in Jobs' age group and older) who struggle a little with pinch and zoom.
If true, it wouldn't be very difficult to just make a sturdier button.
I don't think that the preferences of a few ubergeeks are representative of the population at large.
Replacing a simple method for an often-used feature (push home button), with a complex method (move X fingers in pattern A), would be Just Plain Bad interface design. I hope that Apple UI folks realize that. It's bad enough that the "home" button has already lost some of its simplicity (originally it always took you to the same familiar place with a single click no matter where you were; now it takes a varying number of successive clicks to get back to the "home" screen, depending on whether you're in a app group, whether that's on the first screen of apps or not, etc). But requiring a repeated multifinger gesture to get "home" would be a huge step backward in usability.
I don't believe that games teach children to be violent in real life. I do wonder, however, whether they teach children to look for the reset button.
There's something fundamentally perverse about developers making efforts to remove features from their products, and/or issue press releases bragging about features they will not offer. It's almost as if they had some agenda other than making their software more useful to end-users and content publishers.
Too on-the-nose.
OK, it's cool technology, but this is almost as pointless as Homer Simpson's book of already-solved crossword puzzles.