And another director will be better how? The changes weren't arbitrary - if you haven't done so already, watch the (hours of) behind-the-scenes extras on the Special Edition DVDs. While I don't agree with all of them, I can understand why they were made.
Well, another director might make more simple cosmetic changes and less sweeping story altering changes. I've watched all the behind the scenes stuff, I have all the DVDs. They're good. Just not great is all. You have to admit - a lot of the changes were simply there because PJ felt he could tell a better story, or had better ideas than Tolkien. Which, I'm sorry, simply isn't true.
An example. The elves at Helm's Deep. PJ likes the elves, pre-screening audiences preferred having the elves show up, so they're in.
Except, if you're more into the books, you know how absolutely wrong it is to have the elves show up then. The Third Age is ending. The elves are leaving - why stay and defend something you're abandoning? And more than that, it's the beginning of the Fourth Age - the age of Man. It's up to mortal man to determine the fate of Middle Earth. That's the point. Having the elves show up and bail out mankind goes against the whole idea of the Fourth Age.
I could go on like this for hours (and have), but hopefully it's enough to where you'll understand my take on this. Will another director do a better job? Probably not. But I'd be willing to gamble Good to get Great. Here's hoping.
First off, we all know how corrupt the movie industry is, and I hope PJ nails those guys to the wall and gets his due. But that being said, I'd like to see someone else make The Hobbit. PJ made too many arbitrary changes to the story for me to truly enjoy his work. He's a brilliant director and makes lovely visuals, but shouldn't be doing the screenplays.
We're a fledgling corporate oligarchy. Lobbyists and corporate interests have seen to that.
Most of the laws being passed these days concern business interests. I won't get too heavily into it but a good example is to study our DMCA and see how our original ideas of freedom of speech and expression have been "curtailed" to benefit a few businesses. Or how eminent domain was recently expanded to cover business interests, not just civic ones. Plenty of examples, and this is Slashdot so I shouldn't have to get too heavy into it.
So as things are, business controls the legal system, or at least has a gigantic influence upon it. At this point in our history it isn't so much about right and wrong, so much as it's about influence and money. Given enough influence and/or money, you can pretty much get away with anything. There are exceptions - notably the Enron guys, but give us some time. We're new at being a oligarchy. Check back in 100 years or so.
And since most of the legal machinery these days involves business interests, it's disastrous when businesses conflict. A no-brainer like this SCO case can drag on for 5 years, easily. You'd be hard pressed to find a murder trial in the USA that takes that long. Why? No corporate interest. No money is at stake, or oil drilling rights, or lucrative patents. Nothing "important" is at stake, so why waste time with it?
We used to be a government by the people and for the people, but now we're a government by the elite and for the corporations.
You'll get an inadvertent consumer revolution in the form of a wave of returned merchandise from your mouth breathers at Best Buy. They'll leave the store perhaps only barely conscious of the effect they just had on the whole DRM issue by returning the DRM-managed paperweights they bought- paperweights that had pretended to be computers and high end electronics in the store.
Gods, I hope so. But I'm just too old and cynical to think it'll play out that way. Most likely (IMHO at least), you'll have salesweasels saying, "Oh, but your new movie would work if you bought the compatible monitor! Just look at that picture - it really is worth it."
A lot of this whole DRM war isn't just about controlling content. It's about getting the consumer base to buy yet another round of hardware to do the same damn thing their current hardware already does.
First off, I never worked a help desk. I did on site service. To put me through college with an engineering degree, I might add. Second, calling the actual computer the CPU is not incorrect, it's merely old school.
I've done end user support. I did that for about 3 years while I was in college. What you'll actually get if an uncrackable DRM comes about is long lines of mouth breathers at the help counter at Best Buy. "Mah movie don' work."
I'm sure that's how it will go. Hell, I had a customer once tell me that his computer wouldn't work because the box under his desk was missing. I thought he meant a power strip. No. He meant the CPU. He sat there typing and moving his mouse trying to make the screen come on. And he was a lawyer, so I'm assuming he has at least been to school.
Tech is way over most people's heads. If it don't work, that means it's broke and they will never figure out why. Without knowing why, you'll get no glorious consumer revolution.
You can't be tried for a law that doesn't exist. IANAL, but if it wasn't against the law when you did it, you can't be arrested for it. Ignorance of the law is one thing, but ignorance of a non-existant law is quite another.
But what if they aren't being abused and never will be?
It's been the tendency for law enforcement to expand up to the maximum limits of any law or technology. See forfeiture laws for a good example. Or how about Patriot act abuses. Originally meant to stop terrorism, but currently being used for quick-and-easy drug busts.
It's not a question of if they will be abused, it's a question of when. That's why this is the time to put limits in place. Once the genie is out of the bottle, that's that.
Every thousand years I test each life system in the universe. I visit it with mysteries,
earthquakes, unpredicted eclipses. Strange craters in the wilderness.
If these are taken as natural, l judge
that system ignorant and harmless. I spare it. But if the hand of Ming
is recognized in these events...
I judge that system dangerous.
I call upon the great god Dyzan. And for his greater glory,
and our mutual pleasure...
"No Virtual machine"... -that is a HUUGE downside not upside.Net is fairly well performing for example
"Fairly well". Me, I'd rather have good. Or exceptional. What you're describing there is "marginal", and that's an excellent reason to steer clear of.NET.
Slashdot Mirror
If you draw a straight line, my nose is a few feet from one.
At least, nobody I know. I voted Democratic to have Congress run in opposition to the President.
The machine works best at a standstill, IMHO.
It wastes your time, and annoys the pig.
True. An interesting side effect of all of this is that we now know that 3 red mana = 140 amps.
And another director will be better how? The changes weren't arbitrary - if you haven't done so already, watch the (hours of) behind-the-scenes extras on the Special Edition DVDs. While I don't agree with all of them, I can understand why they were made.
Well, another director might make more simple cosmetic changes and less sweeping story altering changes. I've watched all the behind the scenes stuff, I have all the DVDs. They're good. Just not great is all. You have to admit - a lot of the changes were simply there because PJ felt he could tell a better story, or had better ideas than Tolkien. Which, I'm sorry, simply isn't true.
An example. The elves at Helm's Deep. PJ likes the elves, pre-screening audiences preferred having the elves show up, so they're in.
Except, if you're more into the books, you know how absolutely wrong it is to have the elves show up then. The Third Age is ending. The elves are leaving - why stay and defend something you're abandoning? And more than that, it's the beginning of the Fourth Age - the age of Man. It's up to mortal man to determine the fate of Middle Earth. That's the point. Having the elves show up and bail out mankind goes against the whole idea of the Fourth Age.
I could go on like this for hours (and have), but hopefully it's enough to where you'll understand my take on this. Will another director do a better job? Probably not. But I'd be willing to gamble Good to get Great. Here's hoping.
At the risk of making a "me too" post - me too.
First off, we all know how corrupt the movie industry is, and I hope PJ nails those guys to the wall and gets his due. But that being said, I'd like to see someone else make The Hobbit. PJ made too many arbitrary changes to the story for me to truly enjoy his work. He's a brilliant director and makes lovely visuals, but shouldn't be doing the screenplays.
I'm imagining a huge pringles can antenna pointed at Great Britain. All your WiFi are belong to SeaLand...
We're a fledgling corporate oligarchy. Lobbyists and corporate interests have seen to that.
Most of the laws being passed these days concern business interests. I won't get too heavily into it but a good example is to study our DMCA and see how our original ideas of freedom of speech and expression have been "curtailed" to benefit a few businesses. Or how eminent domain was recently expanded to cover business interests, not just civic ones. Plenty of examples, and this is Slashdot so I shouldn't have to get too heavy into it.
So as things are, business controls the legal system, or at least has a gigantic influence upon it. At this point in our history it isn't so much about right and wrong, so much as it's about influence and money. Given enough influence and/or money, you can pretty much get away with anything. There are exceptions - notably the Enron guys, but give us some time. We're new at being a oligarchy. Check back in 100 years or so.
And since most of the legal machinery these days involves business interests, it's disastrous when businesses conflict. A no-brainer like this SCO case can drag on for 5 years, easily. You'd be hard pressed to find a murder trial in the USA that takes that long. Why? No corporate interest. No money is at stake, or oil drilling rights, or lucrative patents. Nothing "important" is at stake, so why waste time with it?
We used to be a government by the people and for the people, but now we're a government by the elite and for the corporations.
The coins may have been given in some immoral/illegal situation by Canada's equivalent of the CIA. Perhaps by one posing as a prostitute?
I believe you're implying that a Canadian prostitute is worth less than a dollar. "Here's yer fifty cents change, honey."
If I had been "kickin' it" on a playground in the 90's I'd have been quickly arrested for stalking.
I'll bet you're a lot of fun at parties.
Oops, how embarrassing! I forgot to provide my number. You can call me at work. 1-800-986-8378. Ask for Weaselmancer, or "That Weasel guy".
You'll get an inadvertent consumer revolution in the form of a wave of returned merchandise from your mouth breathers at Best Buy. They'll leave the store perhaps only barely conscious of the effect they just had on the whole DRM issue by returning the DRM-managed paperweights they bought- paperweights that had pretended to be computers and high end electronics in the store.
Gods, I hope so. But I'm just too old and cynical to think it'll play out that way. Most likely (IMHO at least), you'll have salesweasels saying, "Oh, but your new movie would work if you bought the compatible monitor! Just look at that picture - it really is worth it."
A lot of this whole DRM war isn't just about controlling content. It's about getting the consumer base to buy yet another round of hardware to do the same damn thing their current hardware already does.
First off, I never worked a help desk. I did on site service. To put me through college with an engineering degree, I might add. Second, calling the actual computer the CPU is not incorrect, it's merely old school.
Now get off my lawn.
I mean seriously. We've been hearing variations of the "OMG SCO is teh doomed!" now for so long my eyes just glaze over when I see another one.
Call me when Darl is in jail or flees the country.
I've done end user support. I did that for about 3 years while I was in college. What you'll actually get if an uncrackable DRM comes about is long lines of mouth breathers at the help counter at Best Buy. "Mah movie don' work."
I'm sure that's how it will go. Hell, I had a customer once tell me that his computer wouldn't work because the box under his desk was missing. I thought he meant a power strip. No. He meant the CPU. He sat there typing and moving his mouse trying to make the screen come on. And he was a lawyer, so I'm assuming he has at least been to school.
Tech is way over most people's heads. If it don't work, that means it's broke and they will never figure out why. Without knowing why, you'll get no glorious consumer revolution.
DVD Jon to the white courtesy phone, please.
That's the only way to be sure.
We will have earned it.
Be warned.
You can't be tried for a law that doesn't exist. IANAL, but if it wasn't against the law when you did it, you can't be arrested for it. Ignorance of the law is one thing, but ignorance of a non-existant law is quite another.
Tell that to this guy.
But what if they aren't being abused and never will be?
It's been the tendency for law enforcement to expand up to the maximum limits of any law or technology. See forfeiture laws for a good example. Or how about Patriot act abuses. Originally meant to stop terrorism, but currently being used for quick-and-easy drug busts.
It's not a question of if they will be abused, it's a question of when. That's why this is the time to put limits in place. Once the genie is out of the bottle, that's that.
If these are taken as natural, l judge that system ignorant and harmless. I spare it. But if the hand of Ming is recognized in these events...
I judge that system dangerous.
I call upon the great god Dyzan. And for his greater glory, and our mutual pleasure...
I destroy it utterly.
I mean honestly, look at the company they keep. Two out of five of their peers are confessed liars.
"No Virtual machine"... -that is a HUUGE downside not upside .Net is fairly well performing for example
"Fairly well". Me, I'd rather have good. Or exceptional. What you're describing there is "marginal", and that's an excellent reason to steer clear of .NET.