Re:Read between the lines
on
Halo 3 Review
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You could look at it that way. But even as a non-XBox, non-Halo fan, I can see why they would call it that. There are the preorders for one, and then the merchandising. I was at Target a couple weeks ago and the had stacks upon stacks of these Halo preorder cards you coul buy. I've never seen anything like that. Nor have I seen anywhere near the level of merchandising (tie-ins at 7-11?) for any other game.
So, while I don't give half a shit about Halo, clearly somebody does, for some odd reason. And it's huge.
I think it's fair to believe him when he says he reads. And he's *always* been a proponent of literacy. In theory, that was a big part of the motivation for No Child Left Behind, nevermind that it's a terrible policy. Also, it's pretty much Laura Bush's main cause (she was a librarian). I also always thought that a big part of it was that he was partially illiterate himself, and that's why he cared so much about the issue.
The question shouldn't be whether or not he reads, but whether or not he gets anything intellectually out of it.
I'm as much of a Bush-hating leftie as anyone, but I will point out that he's actually a pretty avid reader. And of real books too--not just 'My Pet Goat'. Not that he necessarily learns anythin from what he reads, or has the necessary abstract reasoning abilities to apply what he learns to his own job as president. But he is a supporter of books and literacy. I doubt he would do anything to stop this sort of policy, but I'd be highly surprised if he has anything directly to do with it either.
There are special courts for dealing with these issues that are separate from the civilian criminal court system. No one is saying that enemy combatants captured in battlefields should be treated the same as anyone else. But this is being used to indefinitely detain people who have done nothing at all. I already gave you one example. And she was lucky--all she got was deported, ultimately. There are other people who have fared far, far worse. Just search Google News; it's not like this is a secret.
If every single person accused of being a terrorist should be dealt with in a theater of war, then I guess we shouldn't even bother interrogating them and holding them. Might as well just drag them out and shoot them.
In other words, that would be you. How your logic breaks down at this issue, I cannot be certain.
One assumes that you have nothing but the best intent. Tossing terrorists in prison and throwing away the key is a fine thing to aspire to. But first let's make sure they're actually terrorists.
Sure. Same for guys captured after shooting at US troops in Iraq. That's fine--I don't care what gets done to them.
But a lot of the people that are being arrested now aren't just guys in Nazi uniforms being picked up off the battlefield. People are being arrested at airports and tossed into cells just because their name came up on some list. It doesn't even matter if they're not the same person, or if the name was a known alias for some terrorist.
I'm not saying they shouldn't necessarily be detained initially--that's what the list is there for. But they are never even given the chance to prove that they are not who the officials think they are, and that they have done nothing wrong. Believe me--if they were actual terrorists the government would be able to prove as much, and they would be tossed away for good. Otherwise an innocent person is being held with no recourse.
Those who would seek to have our Constitution destroyed? You mean like Nalini Ghuman, a British musicologist who taught in the US until she was detained for no given reason, denied access to legal counsel, and excluded from any sort of due process only to have her visa and passport destroyed and be deported.
Yeah, good thing we god rid of that one. Shit, if she had had a chance to have crimes (what were they again?) reviewed by a judge, there's no telling what havoc she'd be wreaking upon our nation and our children. What a horrible, horrible person.
Yeah, destroying the Constitution in order to protect it makes so much more sense than using our existing Constitutional powers to prosecute and detain those who actually do wish to destroy it.
Eh, wouldn't it still be preferrable to have it on a more portable format? Sure DVD has CSS, but practically speaking that's easily broken anyways. Then you could play it on your XBox, your computer, your portable DVD player, your PSP...whatever. And the DVDs are probably better quality too (can't say for sure, but it seems a reasonable guess).
I do see what someone above was saying about sampling--that makes sense. But for purchasing an entire TV series it seems a ripoff.
Also, as far as Ghost in the Shell goes, the so-called "filler" episodes are still mostly damn good and worth seeing (though they're generally better in the first season). Also, some of them fill in bits related to the main plot, even if the rest of the episode isn't related. Or they provide some character development. And if you *really* just care about the main plot arc, for the first season anyways there was a release in Japan called "Laughing Man", which was just the Laughing Man plot from the first season edited together into a coherent whole. I believe it is also scheduled for the release in the US, but I'm not certain. I believe there are also plans to do something similar for the second season.
That's reasonable for the first few episodes, but by then if you think you'll like it, it become uneconomical.
BTW, assuming you aren't just saying you haven't seen it for the sake of arguing, it's a really damn good show whether you like anime or not. I'd highly recommend sampling it whether through this medium, or whatever else is available!
Apparently, the Ghost in the Shell episodes, for example, would cost $4 a piece. Hmm, let's see...I recently got the entire second season box set from rightstuf.com for like $70. $4x26 episodes = $104 to buy the series on XBL. Plus mine are on DVD, so I can play them, you know, just about anywhere (with or without breaking the encryption).
Also, like other people said, "Same crap you can see on TV anyways."
I still don't think that what he did was an arrestable offense, but I apparently he was being a giant asshole, and it explains why no one was in a rush to defend him.
Just from the perspective of the police officers, I don't think that the use of the taser was completely unjustified. He was resisting arrest, flailing around uncontrollably. They seemed to use it on a low setting as it didn't even seem to affect him much. Fine, whatever.
The issue is that he was being arrested in the first place. What the hell? Was he being annoying? Maybe--that's debatable I think. But since when is it an arrestable offense to harangue a public official in a public forum? That's what it's *there* for. Not everyone has to be nice, or even polite. If Senator Kerry had felt that this guy was taking up too much time with his "question" (which he was), then he could have asked him to sit down and shut up so that he could answer. But arrest him? No, I would like to know what he did that was arrestable.
First of all, he's not a presidential candidate. He's a former presidential candidate. He *is* a senator--he serves the public. What's wrong with taking "two minutes" of his time to ask some questions? I think that some of those questions were a little unfair, and rambled over too many topics. But I wouldn't say he was a raving lunatic either.
And the crowd? A bunch of little proto-nazis as far as I'm concerned. This is UF after all.
I don't think the tasering is the issue though. The issue is that he was arrested in the first place. Whether or not he was being annoying is up for debate, but since when is being annoying/asking a senator tough questions in a public forum an arrestable offense?
Great. And how would that music remain organized the same way if it were accessed in any way other than iTunes (which, if it isn't already clear I DON'T LIKE).
You obviously didn't read my post either. In the post that you just replied to I wrote that I know damn well you can turn that feature off.
But perhaps I would actually *like* that feature if it allowed some flexibility as to how it organizes things. *That's* where iTunes is lacking. I use my music on several different platforms with different purposes and usages. I can't depend on a proprietary, application-specific database for organization. It is useful to have some unified, predictable file structure everywhere I access my music from. Then individual applications are free to read the meta data (if they can--my car mp3 player for example is useless when it comes to ID3 tags since it is clueless about UTF-8) and present more dynamic views of the music.
Who says a directory hierarchy has to be arbitrary? Also, of course that's what playlists, etc are for. In a music playing program. Sometimes I'm using my music files in other ways that preclude dynamic views. Perhaps I have all my music files on a central server, and have different computers accessing them with different applications, but want a unified organizational structure. Filesystems still have a use--meta data isn't always the solution to everything.
Another related annoyance. iTunes really likes to do things by genre. Sure, you don't have to *use* it, but it's there. As long as files have a 'genre' entry in their metadata, iTunes will try to sort things around it. I don't put genre tags on my music files. It's annoying because so many songs could fall into so many different genres, and sometimes it's highly subjective. So I just don't use it (a tag system would work better for things like genres). And since I don't use it, I don't want to see it. It's just taking up space.
>> 1) Find specific music. 2) Play said music. 3) Put a subset of your music on an mp3 >> player. 4) Burn cds of subsets of your music. >None of that requires anything beyond a file manager.
Exactly. Furthermore, iTunes is not the end all be all of my interaction with my music files. I know there's been this shift away from exposing users to the physical filesystem, but I still prefer to know where my files are, and to put things where I want to.
Then I can use all the metadata and third party software in the world for more specialized views of those files.
I understand and agree with this philosophy of software that just gets things done without forcing me to worry about intermediate steps. But not if it leaves a mess in its wake. Again, that's why I wrote a plugin for foobar that automatically organizes my music files. But it does it the way I want, and that works best with the other ways I interact with my files.
Slashdot Mirror
You could look at it that way. But even as a non-XBox, non-Halo fan, I can see why they would call it that. There are the preorders for one, and then the merchandising. I was at Target a couple weeks ago and the had stacks upon stacks of these Halo preorder cards you coul buy. I've never seen anything like that. Nor have I seen anywhere near the level of merchandising (tie-ins at 7-11?) for any other game.
So, while I don't give half a shit about Halo, clearly somebody does, for some odd reason. And it's huge.
Exactly.
I think it's fair to believe him when he says he reads. And he's *always* been a proponent of literacy. In theory, that was a big part of the motivation for No Child Left Behind, nevermind that it's a terrible policy. Also, it's pretty much Laura Bush's main cause (she was a librarian). I also always thought that a big part of it was that he was partially illiterate himself, and that's why he cared so much about the issue.
The question shouldn't be whether or not he reads, but whether or not he gets anything intellectually out of it.
Right, it's rarely a clearcut case. I was trying to make the point that if it is, then that's fine. However, that's usually naive.
I'm as much of a Bush-hating leftie as anyone, but I will point out that he's actually a pretty avid reader. And of real books too--not just 'My Pet Goat'. Not that he necessarily learns anythin from what he reads, or has the necessary abstract reasoning abilities to apply what he learns to his own job as president. But he is a supporter of books and literacy.
I doubt he would do anything to stop this sort of policy, but I'd be highly surprised if he has anything directly to do with it either.
There are special courts for dealing with these issues that are separate from the civilian criminal court system. No one is saying that enemy combatants captured in battlefields should be treated the same as anyone else. But this is being used to indefinitely detain people who have done nothing at all. I already gave you one example. And she was lucky--all she got was deported, ultimately. There are other people who have fared far, far worse. Just search Google News; it's not like this is a secret.
If every single person accused of being a terrorist should be dealt with in a theater of war, then I guess we shouldn't even bother interrogating them and holding them. Might as well just drag them out and shoot them.
In other words, that would be you. How your logic breaks down at this issue, I cannot be certain.
One assumes that you have nothing but the best intent. Tossing terrorists in prison and throwing away the key is a fine thing to aspire to. But first let's make sure they're actually terrorists.
Sure. Same for guys captured after shooting at US troops in Iraq. That's fine--I don't care what gets done to them.
But a lot of the people that are being arrested now aren't just guys in Nazi uniforms being picked up off the battlefield. People are being arrested at airports and tossed into cells just because their name came up on some list. It doesn't even matter if they're not the same person, or if the name was a known alias for some terrorist.
I'm not saying they shouldn't necessarily be detained initially--that's what the list is there for. But they are never even given the chance to prove that they are not who the officials think they are, and that they have done nothing wrong. Believe me--if they were actual terrorists the government would be able to prove as much, and they would be tossed away for good. Otherwise an innocent person is being held with no recourse.
No, that was the parent I was replying to. *I* was being sarcastic.
If they're most likely terrorist suspects then they will most likely be served the justice that they deserve under due process.
The process isn't there to protect the guilty--it's there to protect the innocent.
Those who would seek to have our Constitution destroyed? You mean like Nalini Ghuman, a British musicologist who taught in the US until she was detained for no given reason, denied access to legal counsel, and excluded from any sort of due process only to have her visa and passport destroyed and be deported.
Yeah, good thing we god rid of that one. Shit, if she had had a chance to have crimes (what were they again?) reviewed by a judge, there's no telling what havoc she'd be wreaking upon our nation and our children. What a horrible, horrible person.
Yeah, destroying the Constitution in order to protect it makes so much more sense than using our existing Constitutional powers to prosecute and detain those who actually do wish to destroy it.
Eh, wouldn't it still be preferrable to have it on a more portable format? Sure DVD has CSS, but practically speaking that's easily broken anyways. Then you could play it on your XBox, your computer, your portable DVD player, your PSP...whatever. And the DVDs are probably better quality too (can't say for sure, but it seems a reasonable guess).
I do see what someone above was saying about sampling--that makes sense. But for purchasing an entire TV series it seems a ripoff.
Also, as far as Ghost in the Shell goes, the so-called "filler" episodes are still mostly damn good and worth seeing (though they're generally better in the first season). Also, some of them fill in bits related to the main plot, even if the rest of the episode isn't related. Or they provide some character development. And if you *really* just care about the main plot arc, for the first season anyways there was a release in Japan called "Laughing Man", which was just the Laughing Man plot from the first season edited together into a coherent whole. I believe it is also scheduled for the release in the US, but I'm not certain. I believe there are also plans to do something similar for the second season.
That's reasonable for the first few episodes, but by then if you think you'll like it, it become uneconomical.
BTW, assuming you aren't just saying you haven't seen it for the sake of arguing, it's a really damn good show whether you like anime or not. I'd highly recommend sampling it whether through this medium, or whatever else is available!
...you could just buy them on DVD.
Apparently, the Ghost in the Shell episodes, for example, would cost $4 a piece.
Hmm, let's see...I recently got the entire second season box set from rightstuf.com for like $70. $4x26 episodes = $104 to buy the series on XBL. Plus mine are on DVD, so I can play them, you know, just about anywhere (with or without breaking the encryption).
Also, like other people said, "Same crap you can see on TV anyways."
On the other hand, I take back the proto-nazis thing, based on an eyewitness account of the event here on Daily Kos: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/18/10649/5334
I still don't think that what he did was an arrestable offense, but I apparently he was being a giant asshole, and it explains why no one was in a rush to defend him.
*snerk* I see now, master. Asking questions clearly must pose them a physical threat. It is not a matter to be taken lightly.
Just from the perspective of the police officers, I don't think that the use of the taser was completely unjustified. He was resisting arrest, flailing around uncontrollably. They seemed to use it on a low setting as it didn't even seem to affect him much. Fine, whatever.
The issue is that he was being arrested in the first place. What the hell? Was he being annoying? Maybe--that's debatable I think. But since when is it an arrestable offense to harangue a public official in a public forum? That's what it's *there* for. Not everyone has to be nice, or even polite. If Senator Kerry had felt that this guy was taking up too much time with his "question" (which he was), then he could have asked him to sit down and shut up so that he could answer. But arrest him? No, I would like to know what he did that was arrestable.
First of all, he's not a presidential candidate. He's a former presidential candidate. He *is* a senator--he serves the public. What's wrong with taking "two minutes" of his time to ask some questions? I think that some of those questions were a little unfair, and rambled over too many topics. But I wouldn't say he was a raving lunatic either.
And the crowd? A bunch of little proto-nazis as far as I'm concerned. This is UF after all.
I don't think the tasering is the issue though. The issue is that he was arrested in the first place. Whether or not he was being annoying is up for debate, but since when is being annoying/asking a senator tough questions in a public forum an arrestable offense?
Great. And how would that music remain organized the same way if it were accessed in any way other than iTunes (which, if it isn't already clear I DON'T LIKE).
Newtonian physics also provides the answer to a damn lot of problems. Doesn't mean it's everything to everyone.
You obviously didn't read my post either. In the post that you just replied to I wrote that I know damn well you can turn that feature off.
But perhaps I would actually *like* that feature if it allowed some flexibility as to how it organizes things. *That's* where iTunes is lacking. I use my music on several different platforms with different purposes and usages. I can't depend on a proprietary, application-specific database for organization. It is useful to have some unified, predictable file structure everywhere I access my music from. Then individual applications are free to read the meta data (if they can--my car mp3 player for example is useless when it comes to ID3 tags since it is clueless about UTF-8) and present more dynamic views of the music.
Who says a directory hierarchy has to be arbitrary? Also, of course that's what playlists, etc are for. In a music playing program. Sometimes I'm using my music files in other ways that preclude dynamic views. Perhaps I have all my music files on a central server, and have different computers accessing them with different applications, but want a unified organizational structure. Filesystems still have a use--meta data isn't always the solution to everything.
Another related annoyance. iTunes really likes to do things by genre. Sure, you don't have to *use* it, but it's there. As long as files have a 'genre' entry in their metadata, iTunes will try to sort things around it. I don't put genre tags on my music files. It's annoying because so many songs could fall into so many different genres, and sometimes it's highly subjective. So I just don't use it (a tag system would work better for things like genres). And since I don't use it, I don't want to see it. It's just taking up space.
>> 1) Find specific music. 2) Play said music. 3) Put a subset of your music on an mp3
>> player. 4) Burn cds of subsets of your music.
>None of that requires anything beyond a file manager.
Exactly. Furthermore, iTunes is not the end all be all of my interaction with my music files. I know there's been this shift away from exposing users to the physical filesystem, but I still prefer to know where my files are, and to put things where I want to.
Then I can use all the metadata and third party software in the world for more specialized views of those files.
I understand and agree with this philosophy of software that just gets things done without forcing me to worry about intermediate steps. But not if it leaves a mess in its wake. Again, that's why I wrote a plugin for foobar that automatically organizes my music files. But it does it the way I want, and that works best with the other ways I interact with my files.