Well, that's different. For some reason Star Wars occasionally passes into the same realm drugs pass into. No matter how miserable the monkey on your back makes you - some people simply crave their next hit regardless. You know it's bad but somehow you just don't care.
I did, and honestly didn't care for those either. They were a little closer to the book, but still had baffling changes. It's been too long for me to be specific, but I do remember a few things that were off. Like Irulan seducing Feyd. What was the deal with that? Why did that need to happen???
Plus the look was all wrong. Castle Caladan looked like the bridge of the new Star Trek's Enterprise. And the guy they got to play Gurney was all wrong. He looked like a high school guidance counselor, not a killer of men. "A rolling ugly lump of a man, altogether terrifying to some..." Not that guy. At least the Laurentis Dune got most of the look right. Discounting the stillsuits that is. No cloaks.
BTW, very few are as picky as I am with book conversions. I could easily do three pages on what Peter Jackson screwed up in LOTR, but I don't think my karma could handle the beating I'd get.
One thing gives me hope
on
Watchmen Watched
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've seen a lot of book-to-movie attempts. Some are watchable, like Lord of the Rings. Some are not, like Dune. I can't help myself. I'm nitpicky. Occasionally very nitpicky.
But I'm keeping high hopes that The Watchmen will not be too far off the mark. Why you ask?
I do know that my company at the time was taking in almost $50M a year and didn't have the cash and the resources to fight them. It was decided that it was more expensive to pursue the matter.
So while there may be legitimate avenues to pursue with regards to these sorts of complaints, I also know that a company taking in that kind of money decided it wasn't even worth it to try.
Here is an absolutely infringing device being sold. It is as blatant of a ripoff as you could possibly get. They didn't even change the freaking color of the unit.
They reverse engineered our unit and built clones. We know this because we bought one and used it. It duplicates subtle bugs in our unit. It is absolutely 100% certainly an illegal copy. And the patent space in the OBD2 market is carved up VERY tightly, so they are certainly breaking patent law by selling this unit. Not to mention the whole "theft of IP" issues.
And you'll notice that nobody is kicking down any doors to get these people to stop.
Face it - this sort of thing is absolutely unenforceable. It's naive to think otherwise.
I don't need luck - it happened at my last job. We used to make an OBD2 car code scanner.
The Chinese would buy them, disassemble them, reverse engineer them, and then sell clones. Not just patent infringement but blatant theft of IP. They'd copy our units even down to the bugs.
And there are loads of patents in this particular product space. I worked on a team that wrote about half of them.
But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement - including from companies in China, India and other countries
Yeah, because our American patent system has certainly stopped China and India from infringing thus far! Are these people nuts? Why the hell should these countries obey our patent laws regardless of whatever they happened to be? We're not the law there!
And another thing while I'm at it:
The legislation would bring U.S. patent law in line with global laws
This legislation would have the best chance for getting China and India to respect our patents, since we'd be adhering to a global standard and not a local one.
So this Innovation Alliance is, as far as I can tell - arguing against the very legislation that would have the best chance of supporting its agenda. In other words - yeah. They're nuts.
I'm not sure who you are, read your profile and there aren't any hints there. But if you were on the design team for Amiga, all I have to say is Wow. And thank you.
I have never owned a computer that I've enjoyed more. It was miles ahead of everything else. It made those IBM beige boxes look pathetic.
The design was absolutely elegant.
And it still makes my PC with it's Athlon X2 4400 look silly in a way. The PC has roughly 2*2.20Ghz/8mhz = 550 times the computing power of my old Ami. But it sure as hell doesn't have 550 times the performance. Pound for pound the Amiga is probably one of the best computers that has ever been.
So thanks for the great machine. I still miss her.
I don't think a contempt charge is possible since the order doesn't name a specific person to show up. It just asks for somebody in authority, don't care who. IANAL though.
But from the tone it sounds like "if you don't do this - you forfeit." And I don't think anyone wants that to happen.
Reason being, this bit:
If complete agreement is not reached, each
attorney shall deliver to chambers on or before March 23, 2009 by noon, a letter which
shall include: (1) the parties' respective settlement positions before the meeting; (2) the
parties' respective positions following the meeting; (3) a concise analysis of each remaining
liability issue, with citation to relevant authority; (4) a reasoned, itemized computation of
each element of the alleged damages, with a concise summary of the testimony of each
witness who will testify in support of the damage computations; and (5) a reasoned analysis
justifying their client's last stated settlement position as well as any additional information
believed to be helpful to the process of reaching agreement.
I don't read a lot of legal documents, but specifically points (3) and (4) sound an awful lot like a judge who's absolutely sick and tired of being jerked around.
If I read this right the judge is trying to expose exactly what's going on here. I hope that is his intention. It sounds like it to me. If that's the case, the RIAA will drop the case. If they don't, if the judge has his way, that that's it for the RIAA. And it certainly sounds like that's on the judge's agenda.
Because if the judge exposes this for the scam that it is, there will be the Mother Of All Class Action Countersuits, where the previous victims of this scam unite and get their money back. With damages added, of course.
Yeah basically, but the Mac was missing the key element of "helper" coprocessors.
That's it exactly. Amiga was years ahead of the competition. The design was simply brilliant. We didn't have a lot of speed. The processor is 8 freaking MHz. But with clever and elegant design, the thing could do miracles.
And the thought I have now is - what if this had been the main thrust of computing? What if this had become the dominant design paradigm? Add 20+ years of work and research onto that idea rather than the IBM beige box. Take the Amiga design concept and move that into a 3Ghz processor realm, with nVidia doing the Angus chip equivalent.
Computers today would look like the things we see in sci-fi movies. It'd be unreal.
Buy an A1000 and run some graphics demos on one. Then try to remember that it was made in 1985.
I've always dreamed of what the world would be like if modern computing had gone this route. Imagine your OS as a bank of roms, and your PC as a fully integrated machine rather than a patchwork of PCI cards and third party drivers.
Massive layoffs just as consumers are starting to bring litigation against them. Just as soon as they actually need those lawyers...they're gone. With any luck we'll see more countersuits now that people know they're less able to defend themselves.
The irony is obvious if this trend continues. I'd love to see more layoffs and then a freaking gigantic class action countersuit of some kind. Nothing like having to defend against a vastly superior opponent, eh RIAA?
The more stuff in your toolbox, the faster you can solve problems. Yes, I know you can solve a lot of the problems you face with the tools you have. It's true you can solve any realistic problem in any Turing complete language. But would you really want to write a pinball simulation in Cobol?
Learn more languages, and you'll develop a feel for when they're appropriate. I've been known to spend a day looking at different languages before starting a project. It saves time later on.
And I hope as much as the next guy that this means what it says in the summary. The RIAA is finally getting the results it has worked so hard for.
But it might just be the crappy economy.
Music is a luxury item, and they're usually the first thing to go when things get tough. This might be nothing more than a consequence of the current economic picture. I've seen massive layoffs pretty much everywhere lately.
Sorry if this dampens the mood in here. But it's worth considering. The last thing we need to do is to start bullshitting ourselves. Seeing things as they are best prepares you to deal with them.
But that being said, this is still a good thing. The less of these goons working the better. It would be nice if it was simply their just desserts for their failed plan, but if they go out as collateral damage to our ailing economy, well...at least some good has come from that.
Nope. They just went out on a Tuesday for lunch. Started drinking. Had a "moment of clarity" and never came back.
I wish I had been there to see it. They had to hurry up and replace the CFO because she was in charge of payroll and nobody was getting paid. I guess it was a real clusterf*ck.
I have always hoped to run into that HR girl again and ask her if she had any new insights about the right way to quit a job. "Should I have been drunk? Would that have made it more professional? Is tequila before 1pm the right way to do it?"
I'm an incurable smart ass though. But it would still be fun to hear what she would have to say.
Yeah, seriously. Figure out what worm/malware is the most prolific in Quebecor's customer base.
Have that program dl a simple client that hooks up to a P2P network and begins asking for Britney Spears albums nonstop. Then watch as Quebecor's customer base drops to zero.
Remember, it's three allegations of copyright infringement that gets you bumped off their network. Not three proven incidents.
Perhaps this would show them the error in their policy.
Oh yes, absolutely. I'm especially fond of the Robert Frost reference - he's a favorite of mine.
And although I don't understand it - I do have a theory on why those types do well.
Stupid people excel at taking because greed is a very base desire. Three year olds understand it perfectly. Mine! Mine mine mine! And business responds well to those to take. Because business is about taking. Taking opportunities, taking your competitor's marketspace, taking in money...taking.
These people are takers, and business is about taking.
And back to your point - that's why these people have driven the economy into the ground. It's the financial equivalent of overfishing.
They've depleted the free money in the economy by overharvesting it. Now there's not enough money in the pool to "multiply" and sustain the economy at its current level. Hence the crash. Housing prices falling, Dow Jones tanking, gas dropping from $4/gal back down to $1.60. It's just the ecosystem righting itself.
Also why I think the bailouts are such a bad idea. The system needs the feedback to correct itself. Some of the predators need to die off so the smaller lifeforms can flourish again. Too many sharks in the ecosystem.
On a gut level most people understand that. That's why when you see stories about how factories lay off thousands and then give the execs a raise rub people the wrong way. Deep down, even the execs know this is bad for the system. But they're stupid takers, and consequences are just something they're not good at thinking about.
or he's very politically connected (which is unlikely if he's stupid enough to try a move like this).
The large majority of the most successful people I've seen in the corporate world are stupid, egotistical, loud-mouthed bullies who live their lives without an ounce of introspection or regret. Mostly due to the complete and total lack of repercussions they receive for being so.
You send out that email and he'll probably get a promotion.
I don't understand it either - but I've seen things go that way often enough to understand that that's the way it works.
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Strange examples. Dune is somewhat flawed but a truly incredible movie. Among the greatest sci-fi films ever made imho.
Unless you've read the book, that is. Weirding modules? Rain? Please.
That movie looked good. That's the only part it got right. That's it. Period.
The LOTR films represents a complete and utter betrayal of the books - very few people i know who were seriously into the books approved.
I said 'watchable'. Not faithful to the original. Because it absolutely isn't.
Again, I could do a three page dissertation on what PJ got wrong. But I'm not in the mood for the karma hit.
Well, that's different. For some reason Star Wars occasionally passes into the same realm drugs pass into. No matter how miserable the monkey on your back makes you - some people simply crave their next hit regardless. You know it's bad but somehow you just don't care.
Try not to fault him too much for that.
I did, and honestly didn't care for those either. They were a little closer to the book, but still had baffling changes. It's been too long for me to be specific, but I do remember a few things that were off. Like Irulan seducing Feyd. What was the deal with that? Why did that need to happen???
Plus the look was all wrong. Castle Caladan looked like the bridge of the new Star Trek's Enterprise. And the guy they got to play Gurney was all wrong. He looked like a high school guidance counselor, not a killer of men. "A rolling ugly lump of a man, altogether terrifying to some..." Not that guy. At least the Laurentis Dune got most of the look right. Discounting the stillsuits that is. No cloaks.
BTW, very few are as picky as I am with book conversions. I could easily do three pages on what Peter Jackson screwed up in LOTR, but I don't think my karma could handle the beating I'd get.
I've seen a lot of book-to-movie attempts. Some are watchable, like Lord of the Rings. Some are not, like Dune. I can't help myself. I'm nitpicky. Occasionally very nitpicky.
But I'm keeping high hopes that The Watchmen will not be too far off the mark. Why you ask?
Because Kevin Smith liked it.
Let's face it - he's probably a bigger comic book geek than almost all of us. And if it passes muster with him, it may just be great.
We'd better not talk about usenet, or they'll find the usenet main node at 127.0.0.1 and then we'll be screwed!
So for God's sake don't let them know about the server at 127.0.0.1!
I'm in software - I don't do legal stuff.
I do know that my company at the time was taking in almost $50M a year and didn't have the cash and the resources to fight them. It was decided that it was more expensive to pursue the matter.
So while there may be legitimate avenues to pursue with regards to these sorts of complaints, I also know that a company taking in that kind of money decided it wasn't even worth it to try.
So make of that what you will.
And you are showing your naivete. China knows there is no way to enforce this.
Examples, you ask? Sure.
Here is the family of devices I worked on.
Here is an absolutely infringing device being sold. It is as blatant of a ripoff as you could possibly get. They didn't even change the freaking color of the unit.
They reverse engineered our unit and built clones. We know this because we bought one and used it. It duplicates subtle bugs in our unit. It is absolutely 100% certainly an illegal copy. And the patent space in the OBD2 market is carved up VERY tightly, so they are certainly breaking patent law by selling this unit. Not to mention the whole "theft of IP" issues.
And you'll notice that nobody is kicking down any doors to get these people to stop.
Face it - this sort of thing is absolutely unenforceable. It's naive to think otherwise.
I don't need luck - it happened at my last job. We used to make an OBD2 car code scanner.
The Chinese would buy them, disassemble them, reverse engineer them, and then sell clones. Not just patent infringement but blatant theft of IP. They'd copy our units even down to the bugs.
And there are loads of patents in this particular product space. I worked on a team that wrote about half of them.
Good enough?
But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement - including from companies in China, India and other countries
Yeah, because our American patent system has certainly stopped China and India from infringing thus far! Are these people nuts? Why the hell should these countries obey our patent laws regardless of whatever they happened to be? We're not the law there!
And another thing while I'm at it:
The legislation would bring U.S. patent law in line with global laws
This legislation would have the best chance for getting China and India to respect our patents, since we'd be adhering to a global standard and not a local one.
So this Innovation Alliance is, as far as I can tell - arguing against the very legislation that would have the best chance of supporting its agenda. In other words - yeah. They're nuts.
I'm not sure who you are, read your profile and there aren't any hints there. But if you were on the design team for Amiga, all I have to say is Wow. And thank you.
I have never owned a computer that I've enjoyed more. It was miles ahead of everything else. It made those IBM beige boxes look pathetic.
The design was absolutely elegant.
And it still makes my PC with it's Athlon X2 4400 look silly in a way. The PC has roughly 2*2.20Ghz/8mhz = 550 times the computing power of my old Ami. But it sure as hell doesn't have 550 times the performance. Pound for pound the Amiga is probably one of the best computers that has ever been.
So thanks for the great machine. I still miss her.
I don't think a contempt charge is possible since the order doesn't name a specific person to show up. It just asks for somebody in authority, don't care who. IANAL though.
But from the tone it sounds like "if you don't do this - you forfeit." And I don't think anyone wants that to happen.
Reason being, this bit:
If complete agreement is not reached, each attorney shall deliver to chambers on or before March 23, 2009 by noon, a letter which shall include: (1) the parties' respective settlement positions before the meeting; (2) the parties' respective positions following the meeting; (3) a concise analysis of each remaining liability issue, with citation to relevant authority; (4) a reasoned, itemized computation of each element of the alleged damages, with a concise summary of the testimony of each witness who will testify in support of the damage computations; and (5) a reasoned analysis justifying their client's last stated settlement position as well as any additional information believed to be helpful to the process of reaching agreement.
I don't read a lot of legal documents, but specifically points (3) and (4) sound an awful lot like a judge who's absolutely sick and tired of being jerked around.
If I read this right the judge is trying to expose exactly what's going on here. I hope that is his intention. It sounds like it to me. If that's the case, the RIAA will drop the case. If they don't, if the judge has his way, that that's it for the RIAA. And it certainly sounds like that's on the judge's agenda.
Because if the judge exposes this for the scam that it is, there will be the Mother Of All Class Action Countersuits, where the previous victims of this scam unite and get their money back. With damages added, of course.
Yeah basically, but the Mac was missing the key element of "helper" coprocessors.
That's it exactly. Amiga was years ahead of the competition. The design was simply brilliant. We didn't have a lot of speed. The processor is 8 freaking MHz. But with clever and elegant design, the thing could do miracles.
And the thought I have now is - what if this had been the main thrust of computing? What if this had become the dominant design paradigm? Add 20+ years of work and research onto that idea rather than the IBM beige box. Take the Amiga design concept and move that into a 3Ghz processor realm, with nVidia doing the Angus chip equivalent.
Computers today would look like the things we see in sci-fi movies. It'd be unreal.
Really? Go back and look at those Atari pictures. The gray is darker after the process.
I challenge you to get a sun faded t shirt and bleach it back to a darker color. Let me know how that works out for you.
It's not bleaching - they use it to undo the yellowing chemical reaction on a gray Atari 130XE. It goes from yellow-brown right back to gray.
It's absolutely amazing.
Yeah, prior art would kick in - but you have to have somebody who cares enough to hire a lawyer and argue that point. And that means money.
And if nobody does fight it right away, if the patent troll gets in a first win, it gets much harder to prove your prior art case.
See Jeff Bezos for more on the topic.
Back in the day, Ami was a real contender.
Buy an A1000 and run some graphics demos on one. Then try to remember that it was made in 1985.
I've always dreamed of what the world would be like if modern computing had gone this route. Imagine your OS as a bank of roms, and your PC as a fully integrated machine rather than a patchwork of PCI cards and third party drivers.
Seriously, Amiga was an excellent design.
What if a patent troll pharma company just reads the site and applies for patents on everything posted there?
Massive layoffs just as consumers are starting to bring litigation against them. Just as soon as they actually need those lawyers...they're gone. With any luck we'll see more countersuits now that people know they're less able to defend themselves.
The irony is obvious if this trend continues. I'd love to see more layoffs and then a freaking gigantic class action countersuit of some kind. Nothing like having to defend against a vastly superior opponent, eh RIAA?
I like where this is heading.
Learn new things.
The more stuff in your toolbox, the faster you can solve problems. Yes, I know you can solve a lot of the problems you face with the tools you have. It's true you can solve any realistic problem in any Turing complete language. But would you really want to write a pinball simulation in Cobol?
Learn more languages, and you'll develop a feel for when they're appropriate. I've been known to spend a day looking at different languages before starting a project. It saves time later on.
And I hope as much as the next guy that this means what it says in the summary. The RIAA is finally getting the results it has worked so hard for.
But it might just be the crappy economy.
Music is a luxury item, and they're usually the first thing to go when things get tough. This might be nothing more than a consequence of the current economic picture. I've seen massive layoffs pretty much everywhere lately.
Sorry if this dampens the mood in here. But it's worth considering. The last thing we need to do is to start bullshitting ourselves. Seeing things as they are best prepares you to deal with them.
But that being said, this is still a good thing. The less of these goons working the better. It would be nice if it was simply their just desserts for their failed plan, but if they go out as collateral damage to our ailing economy, well...at least some good has come from that.
Fascinating if true. Do you have anything documenting this that I could read?
Nope. They just went out on a Tuesday for lunch. Started drinking. Had a "moment of clarity" and never came back.
I wish I had been there to see it. They had to hurry up and replace the CFO because she was in charge of payroll and nobody was getting paid. I guess it was a real clusterf*ck.
I have always hoped to run into that HR girl again and ask her if she had any new insights about the right way to quit a job. "Should I have been drunk? Would that have made it more professional? Is tequila before 1pm the right way to do it?"
I'm an incurable smart ass though. But it would still be fun to hear what she would have to say.
Yeah, seriously. Figure out what worm/malware is the most prolific in Quebecor's customer base.
Have that program dl a simple client that hooks up to a P2P network and begins asking for Britney Spears albums nonstop. Then watch as Quebecor's customer base drops to zero.
Remember, it's three allegations of copyright infringement that gets you bumped off their network. Not three proven incidents.
Perhaps this would show them the error in their policy.
Oh yes, absolutely. I'm especially fond of the Robert Frost reference - he's a favorite of mine.
And although I don't understand it - I do have a theory on why those types do well.
Stupid people excel at taking because greed is a very base desire. Three year olds understand it perfectly. Mine! Mine mine mine! And business responds well to those to take. Because business is about taking. Taking opportunities, taking your competitor's marketspace, taking in money...taking.
These people are takers, and business is about taking.
And back to your point - that's why these people have driven the economy into the ground. It's the financial equivalent of overfishing.
They've depleted the free money in the economy by overharvesting it. Now there's not enough money in the pool to "multiply" and sustain the economy at its current level. Hence the crash. Housing prices falling, Dow Jones tanking, gas dropping from $4/gal back down to $1.60. It's just the ecosystem righting itself.
Also why I think the bailouts are such a bad idea. The system needs the feedback to correct itself. Some of the predators need to die off so the smaller lifeforms can flourish again. Too many sharks in the ecosystem.
On a gut level most people understand that. That's why when you see stories about how factories lay off thousands and then give the execs a raise rub people the wrong way. Deep down, even the execs know this is bad for the system. But they're stupid takers, and consequences are just something they're not good at thinking about.
or he's very politically connected (which is unlikely if he's stupid enough to try a move like this).
The large majority of the most successful people I've seen in the corporate world are stupid, egotistical, loud-mouthed bullies who live their lives without an ounce of introspection or regret. Mostly due to the complete and total lack of repercussions they receive for being so.
You send out that email and he'll probably get a promotion.
I don't understand it either - but I've seen things go that way often enough to understand that that's the way it works.