Yes, like one of those countries we try to ship food to, but the local overlord hoards it for himself and his thugs.
Well, the world tries, but we can't fix everything. Not immediately anyway.
Or on the other side of the coin, perhaps one of the countries that accepts aid (from both governments and NGOs) and manages to get it to their people. Where distribution exists but could still be a lot more efficient...
The food is there - the production capacity exists - we just have to figure out how to get it all round, past the thugs and bureaucracies and poor roads and storage facilities.
Re:Agricultural output
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 5, Informative
Not at all. The problem these days is not quantity of food, but lack of effective distribution thereof.
Agricultural output
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Since agricultural output has already multipled and skyrocketed over the years thanks to technology and IPM, this isn't necessarily a burning crisis..
What you (and Cregg) are claiming is that because one single incident couldn't have been prevented by being armed, then none of them could, so no one needs to carry anything at all.
That's ridiculous. You're saying none of those 480 sexual assaults would have been stopped by shoving a pistol in the assailant's face? You're saying none of those 3685 aggravated assaults would have been stopped by the victim having a weapon to defend with? You're saying none of those 36 homicides could have been prevented by threatening the life of the murderer in return?
"Well, Reagan was shot while surrounded by his gun-toting Secret Service guard, so clearly there are exactly zero incidents in the entire rest of the world that can ever be avoided by having a gun to protect yourself." That's what you're saying. And it's stupid.
Good point, you may be right. Lets see what RotK delivers, it may work out in the end. Probably not as definitively as what you point out, but I think it'll turn out ok.
Elrond was there when Isildur took it, he has an marked advantage in avoiding the call of the Ring. He knows from first-hand experience what it does to people.
Tom Bombadil is an Elder creature, a 'god', a who the hell knows what. All rules of human psychology can pretty much be tossed out the window with Tom.
Aragorn you have more of a point with. Especially since he is Isildur's Heir. However, he's got a lot more to deal with than Faramir. And he's been with the Elves for most of his life. Perhaps Elrond taught him well.
The reason Faramir was changed is covered in the commentaries.. basically, most of the audience wouldn't understand why this one guy could say "Meh, no thanks" without so much as considering it first. And since he ends up refusing to take the ring and sending the hobbits on their way, no permanent damage was done, and it gives Faramir a growth of character that is not present in the book, where he is basically the same from the first time you see him till the last.
How do you think they screwed up Fangorn? I thought they did a great job with the character.. the bluescreen effects were shit, but Treebeard himself was done well. At least, I thought it was.
Andy Serkis does indeed deserve an Oscar. Or two. I can't wait to see him as pre-Ring Smeagol =)
"Gandalf and Galadriel also chose not to take it,..."
And oddly enough, neither of them had as easy a time refusing to take it as Faramir did. Neither one just said, "Eh", and had total disinterest in it.
"... as did all the folks at the meeting in Rivendel." None of whom were given the choice or the opportunity. Boromir came close to snatching it up the first time he saw it. Presumably the elves and dwarves had a slightly easier time of it, but they were still squabbling over it.
Oh really? Let's see just how effective being Numenorean is:
Boromir - succumbed early on to the will of the Ring. Led him to his death. He did redeem himself in the end, but he's still dead.
Denethor - I forget exactly why he's a right bastard (need to read the book again, I guess), but he's got some serious personality issues of his own that his Numenorean heritage wasn't able to help him with.
Faramir - same lineage, same bloodline, flesh and blood of the above, but somehow he's a saint who can do no wrong and withstand any temptation?
Hmm. Perhaps he got all the good of his family. You may yet have a point. =) But I still say that it would have lessened the power and force of the Ring to just have this random guy (for those people who haven't read the book) shrug off its influence. Especially when they find out he's related to a pack of people who apparently *dont* have the ability to resist temptation.
"The Two Towers, considered on its merits as a movie and not in any relation to the book, is not a good film in many people's opinions."
And you are willfully refusing to consider that TTT is the middle part of what is essentially a 14 hour movie. It cannot truly be separated from the other two films. It has no true beginning, no true end. It simply *cannot* stand on its own against single-part films. Especially when you front-load the opposition like that.
As for Tolkien - he was not God with a typewriter. He made mistakes, fewer than average for an amateur writer, but perfection eludes even the Lord of the Rings.
They have an excellent reason for Faramir to deviate from his character in the book.
Look, here you have this Ring, this totally evil, corrupting, terrible power, and you go to great lengths to make sure the audience knows about it and that even hobbits can't resist its effects forever (Bilbo). Then along comes this Man, Faramir, brother of corruptible Boromir, whose weakness led to his own death even. Faramir says "Nah, fuck it, I wouldn't even pick it up if it were lying there on the ground"
You've just killed the Ring's power. It's impotent now. Here's this guy who can just shrug it off. He's nothing special, was just introduced. Is *everyone else* in Middle Earth so pants-pissing weak then?
I submit that the Faramir of the book is the flawed character. Surely with all that willpower he would have been greater than he was. Interesting to imagine what might have happened if Faramir *had* been allowed to go to the meeting instead of Boromir, though.
It's not the most important part of the book, it's the most important part of the movie.
And no, it doesn't have to be taken in as an overall story. You don't have to have it all in there verbatim. You want that? Go read the book again. It doesn't have to be transcribed scene for scene, word for word, for the *point* of the story to be made.
The greatness of the book is shown in the craftsmanship of the props and sets and everything else on the screen.
You need to watch the documentaries and listen to the commentaries for FotR and TTT. They have some very good reasons for doing what they did - the main one, which a whole lot of people seem to be forgetting:
Book != film. Some things you can do in a book drop flaming turds on screen, and vice versa.
Heh, just goes to show the mod points are not going where they're supposed to go - I agree, that was a bad mod.
On the flip side, just because Michael Moore is making statements doesn't mean they're true. He's already shown his colors with his lying spliced-speech crapumentaries and hysteria-laden invectives. He's got his own agenda, and that's to make Republicans and conservatives look as bad as possible, no matter what he has to do or say.
Heheh. Why not just link to democraticunderground.com and be done with it? Why stop at just slightly psychotic ravings when you can have the real thing?
I suppose the Smurfs and Dr. Evil also figure in somehow to this vast cauldron of deception and subversion too, eh? I mean, if they can hide such a large operation for that long, they can surely integrate fictional evil scientists and blue midgets too, right?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, like one of those countries we try to ship food to, but the local overlord hoards it for himself and his thugs.
Well, the world tries, but we can't fix everything. Not immediately anyway.
Or on the other side of the coin, perhaps one of the countries that accepts aid (from both governments and NGOs) and manages to get it to their people. Where distribution exists but could still be a lot more efficient...
The food is there - the production capacity exists - we just have to figure out how to get it all round, past the thugs and bureaucracies and poor roads and storage facilities.
Not at all. The problem these days is not quantity of food, but lack of effective distribution thereof.
Since agricultural output has already multipled and skyrocketed over the years thanks to technology and IPM, this isn't necessarily a burning crisis..
It's not complete, you don't have the Zeroth Law there:
0. A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
No no, no worries - as long as it's a generalising, blanket hatred against Christianity or any other religion, you'll never catch a Flamebait here.
Well, maybe there's not that huge a difference between BSD versions, not as much as between, say, Windows 1 and Windows 3.11.
Or maybe he's still working on it.
Besides, the older Windows and DOS versions are tiny.. makes them easier to install.
The sooner we get rid of that foul language-mangling stench known as text messaging, the better we'll all be.
"OMG hi2u kthxby 4 evar!!" -- evil must die.
What you (and Cregg) are claiming is that because one single incident couldn't have been prevented by being armed, then none of them could, so no one needs to carry anything at all.
That's ridiculous. You're saying none of those 480 sexual assaults would have been stopped by shoving a pistol in the assailant's face? You're saying none of those 3685 aggravated assaults would have been stopped by the victim having a weapon to defend with? You're saying none of those 36 homicides could have been prevented by threatening the life of the murderer in return?
"Well, Reagan was shot while surrounded by his gun-toting Secret Service guard, so clearly there are exactly zero incidents in the entire rest of the world that can ever be avoided by having a gun to protect yourself." That's what you're saying. And it's stupid.
Not really.. maybe if it was 'magnetic induction' and 'jockstrap'...
Settle down, Beavis.
Good point, you may be right. Lets see what RotK delivers, it may work out in the end. Probably not as definitively as what you point out, but I think it'll turn out ok.
Elrond was there when Isildur took it, he has an marked advantage in avoiding the call of the Ring. He knows from first-hand experience what it does to people.
Tom Bombadil is an Elder creature, a 'god', a who the hell knows what. All rules of human psychology can pretty much be tossed out the window with Tom.
Aragorn you have more of a point with. Especially since he is Isildur's Heir. However, he's got a lot more to deal with than Faramir. And he's been with the Elves for most of his life. Perhaps Elrond taught him well.
The reason Faramir was changed is covered in the commentaries.. basically, most of the audience wouldn't understand why this one guy could say "Meh, no thanks" without so much as considering it first. And since he ends up refusing to take the ring and sending the hobbits on their way, no permanent damage was done, and it gives Faramir a growth of character that is not present in the book, where he is basically the same from the first time you see him till the last.
How do you think they screwed up Fangorn? I thought they did a great job with the character.. the bluescreen effects were shit, but Treebeard himself was done well. At least, I thought it was.
Andy Serkis does indeed deserve an Oscar. Or two. I can't wait to see him as pre-Ring Smeagol =)
"Gandalf and Galadriel also chose not to take it,..."
And oddly enough, neither of them had as easy a time refusing to take it as Faramir did. Neither one just said, "Eh", and had total disinterest in it.
"... as did all the folks at the meeting in Rivendel."
None of whom were given the choice or the opportunity. Boromir came close to snatching it up the first time he saw it. Presumably the elves and dwarves had a slightly easier time of it, but they were still squabbling over it.
Oh really? Let's see just how effective being Numenorean is:
Boromir - succumbed early on to the will of the Ring. Led him to his death. He did redeem himself in the end, but he's still dead.
Denethor - I forget exactly why he's a right bastard (need to read the book again, I guess), but he's got some serious personality issues of his own that his Numenorean heritage wasn't able to help him with.
Faramir - same lineage, same bloodline, flesh and blood of the above, but somehow he's a saint who can do no wrong and withstand any temptation?
Hmm. Perhaps he got all the good of his family. You may yet have a point. =) But I still say that it would have lessened the power and force of the Ring to just have this random guy (for those people who haven't read the book) shrug off its influence. Especially when they find out he's related to a pack of people who apparently *dont* have the ability to resist temptation.
"The Two Towers, considered on its merits as a movie and not in any relation to the book, is not a good film in many people's opinions."
And you are willfully refusing to consider that TTT is the middle part of what is essentially a 14 hour movie. It cannot truly be separated from the other two films. It has no true beginning, no true end. It simply *cannot* stand on its own against single-part films. Especially when you front-load the opposition like that.
As for Tolkien - he was not God with a typewriter. He made mistakes, fewer than average for an amateur writer, but perfection eludes even the Lord of the Rings.
I still think Faramir would have to have been toned down somewhat. After all, Aragorn is no simple Man, he is a Dunedain.
Stupid fucktard mod - that's how it was typo'd to begin with. Or perhaps it was CmdrCocksucker that can't handle any editing criticism?
Either way, you idiots are no fun. At all.
They have an excellent reason for Faramir to deviate from his character in the book.
Look, here you have this Ring, this totally evil, corrupting, terrible power, and you go to great lengths to make sure the audience knows about it and that even hobbits can't resist its effects forever (Bilbo). Then along comes this Man, Faramir, brother of corruptible Boromir, whose weakness led to his own death even. Faramir says "Nah, fuck it, I wouldn't even pick it up if it were lying there on the ground"
You've just killed the Ring's power. It's impotent now. Here's this guy who can just shrug it off. He's nothing special, was just introduced. Is *everyone else* in Middle Earth so pants-pissing weak then?
I submit that the Faramir of the book is the flawed character. Surely with all that willpower he would have been greater than he was. Interesting to imagine what might have happened if Faramir *had* been allowed to go to the meeting instead of Boromir, though.
But as for dwarf-tossing, I agree. Toss it. =)
It's not the most important part of the book, it's the most important part of the movie.
And no, it doesn't have to be taken in as an overall story. You don't have to have it all in there verbatim. You want that? Go read the book again. It doesn't have to be transcribed scene for scene, word for word, for the *point* of the story to be made.
The greatness of the book is shown in the craftsmanship of the props and sets and everything else on the screen.
"SpamassAssin"?
It burns us, yes! Shut it off! Pleeeeze, shuts it offfff! *Athlon*! *Athlon*!
You need to watch the documentaries and listen to the commentaries for FotR and TTT. They have some very good reasons for doing what they did - the main one, which a whole lot of people seem to be forgetting:
Book != film. Some things you can do in a book drop flaming turds on screen, and vice versa.
Heh, just goes to show the mod points are not going where they're supposed to go - I agree, that was a bad mod.
On the flip side, just because Michael Moore is making statements doesn't mean they're true. He's already shown his colors with his lying spliced-speech crapumentaries and hysteria-laden invectives. He's got his own agenda, and that's to make Republicans and conservatives look as bad as possible, no matter what he has to do or say.
He's not exactly a fount of truth and honesty.
Heheh. Why not just link to democraticunderground.com and be done with it? Why stop at just slightly psychotic ravings when you can have the real thing?
I suppose the Smurfs and Dr. Evil also figure in somehow to this vast cauldron of deception and subversion too, eh? I mean, if they can hide such a large operation for that long, they can surely integrate fictional evil scientists and blue midgets too, right?
Hee.
Ah yes, the complete lack of integrity of the Slashdot sheepmods shines forth once again.