"But as soon as someone has a problem with their brain then it must be a lack of will power, or moral degeneracy. Couldn't possibly be an organic problem."
This is not the orginal poster's point at all. The original poster said that "Attention Deficit is not a disorder inasmuch as it is a different form of thinking and interacting with the world which can have both its downsides and its blessings."
A more interesting parallell than your completely fabricated, inaccurate stance would be some people who are deaf. There are many deaf people who don't see their deafness as a disease, and actually have no interest in recieving treatment to gain hearing.
The conclusion to me is that these are personal stances, and you really have no right enforcing your beliefs on another person as to whether or not they are ill. I would say that ADD/ADHD in particular is something that only an adult should decide if they want to treat, not only in that many of it's "symptoms" are just personality traits, but that pumping children with speed to make them fill out homework sheets better seems, well, evil. When they are older, and are mature enough to understand the pros and cons of taking mind altering substances, I say let them make call.
I couldn't agree more. I too was a "poster child" for ADD, and never fit well into the conventional school paradigm. They knew I was smart, and couldn't figure out why i wouldn't be able to handle doing boring, mindless tasks for the majority of the day.
I then transferred to an "alternative" school in my district, which our city of Madison, WI is blessed to have, and was given the opportunity to learn in my style on my rules. I kicked ass there, and learned that my style of thinking and learning aren't "diseases", they're different.
Numbering your possibilities doesn't mean they are the only things possible. How about:
3) The two brothers began development of the movie and recorded the service rep before the $99 plan was released. They finished the movie and created the website just after the plan was released, but they hadn't heard about it yet.
Or, my personal pick:
4) The two brothers began development of the movie and recorded the service rep before the $99 plan was released. They finished the movie and created the website just after the plan was released, and heard about it soon after, but had already invested too much time, emotion and resources into the project to change course.
The AC might be flamebaiting, but it's true. There are not nearly enough Linux users to make Google concerned about whether selling to MS would make a dent on their traffic. I mean, c'mon. Seriously.
Would all linux users even necessarily stop using Google if it was linux? There are plenty of Linux users who still use MS products, because sometimes, MS products are the right ones for the job.
Like when you need a paperweight. Or iridescent frisbees.
I may be misinterpreting him, but I believe that the post you responded too was saying that sex is a way to maintain enough genetic variation to prevent parasites (viruses, for example) from destroying a species.
If reproduction was non-sexual, DNA wouldn't be as varied every generation, and easier for a parasite that figures out the right strategy to exploit. Think monocultures of genetic crops. All genetically identical...but if the right blight comes along, they will all perish.
However, there are some species on this planet who get by just fine without sexual reproduction. Some of the walking stick insects (Phasmatodea) can actually reproduce with or without a male! It's true!
"Usually the figure is put about 10%, or something similarly low. Hard to believe that such a business would be worthwhile..."
Firstly, I think the number is probably much lower than 10 percent. More likely a fraction of one percent. I haven't conducted a spammer poll lately.
Let's say that.1 percent return money. So let's say that you get 10 bucks for your Vi@gra each time you sell it.
What's the cost of sending out 1000 emails, and getting 10 dollars? Nothing. How about 10,000 emails, and getting 100 dollars? Same cost. 100,000 emails should get 1000 bucks. At no cost.
Sure, there may be bandwidth, but email isn't exactly a bandwidth hog. And plenty of these guys will just use H4X0r3d boxes to pump out spam remotely.
So as long as there is one idiot among a thousand, spam will exist.
I completely agree. We've all seen our fair democracy at work when it comes to legislating fairness in the music industry. It fails miserably.
Maybe it's time for music consumers to cast their REAL VOTE. With Their dollars.
If this takes off, less people will buy the physical albums, and the music business model will be FORCED to adapt. And that's the only thing that's going to work: economic force.
Actually, if I recall, the ROBOT knocked all the pieces off the board, because Napoleon was playing in a bogus manner, just mirroring the Turk's moves.
There actually is an entire book about the whole story. I perused it once. So I could be wrong.
I can't agree more. However, you look at the article, and it suggests that these kids were doing more than just freeing information: they may have been profiting from it:
" Police said the alleged piracy concerned music, album covers and music videos from Universal Music, Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Festival Mushroom Records."
The inclusion of covers on that list gives me the impression they were repackaging the cds, possibly to resell them.
It's hard to wave the "Information Wants To Be Free!" banner when you are profiting from cd sales yourself.
Whatever the case, though, 5 years is an absurd amount of jail time.
The thing I remember about HL the most were it's in-game vignettes. Looking into an office, and seeing a dead scientist with a headcrab on his skull, still seated in front of his laptop, which was the only illumination in the room. I remember the shock of watching the scientists getting gunned down by the marines at first contact.
And most of all, I remember the triple-tentacled monster in the engine room. I remember the guard whispering to me about the monster's weakness- it was blind.
The game always had something fresh and interesting right around the corner. There were either new guns, monsters, plot points or interactive sequences constantly coming at you.
And that was what worked. You were always propelled through the story with something new.
No one here is trying to say that Half Life was Shakespeare. But I tell you this:
Shakespeare would have been a terrible First Person Shooter game designer.
What a small, sad strange world these "upset" people live in...
It's one thing to have a specialty interest, and to have special vocabulary in that interest. That's fine, and useful.
It's ANOTHER thing to get UPSET when someone, presumably someone who is not a specialist, makes a simple error in that vocabulary.
And it's yet ANOTHER layer of absurdity that the vocabulary is divided up beyond the point of even having any use- the verbs attached to either will imply the type of media. Splitting up SF and Sci-Fi is just pathetic obscure pedantry.
Getting upset about pathetic obscure pedantry is something that makes the world a little sadder place to be.
If ants can do it, nano-robot swarms could do it it too. If you could have a "hive" of robots doing constant hull mainenance, that could save a lot of dangerous spacewalks. Or even a nano-swarm doing exploration on Mars...
Not that this is something that is feasible with current technology, but we're getting there, and it's this kind of space research that is going to help us get there.
I completely agree. This whole article was Brin just willfuly ignoring components of the books and movie when they didn't fit into his article's point of view.
In fact, I would go further, and say that it is Frodo and Samwise's humility and smallness that enable them to complete the quest. They aren't super heroes, they aren't interested in the ring for power. They just want to go home. And their lack of power-thirst and super-heroness is what enables them to carry the ring and not be destroyed.
First and foremost, there is no problem with idealism. Idealism is not a bad thing. Idealism is what pushes people to change the world.
Secondly, the front porch IS the portal to the rest of the world. I am currently on crutches, due to an accident, and just getting myself to the front frikkin door of my building requires work, some pain, and ingenuity. But it's a start. And if I figure out a new crutching technique while hitting those stairs, well, things have just got a little easier next time.
In fact, stepping out on your front porch is a NECESSITY to getting halfway around the globe.
I believe that Tolkien is in my corner for this one:
"...there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
I know, not exactly a scientific authority, but I think it speaks to my viewpoint- if we take that first step out the door, the stars don't seem so far away.
LOTR! Two Towers! Two days! Oh man!
I digress.
I believe that the space station offers us the challenges of surviving and working in space, in a very real, day to day way. We will encounter problems, setbacks and innovations that we simply wouldn't get just from unmanned satellites and on-Earth experiments.
As far as it being a waste of government money, I can think of plenty of off-topic things that the geovernment wastes it's resources on, that are far less valuable, interesting and inspiring as the ISS.
well, I did not set out to strawman you, and I certainly appreciate the response. I have to admit, I got myself a little worked up there.
This is no different than the current garment industry.
I think I agree. I think the only place where they differ is that stealing shoes would be actual theft. Copying music is not. One is taking a physical object away from it's owner. The other is replicating a piece of information.
Nobody used the t word. I did not say anybody was stealing. I said they were violating copyright.
This is true. You did not say theft, and I apologize that my post took that leap in logic. However, my point was more that the whole concept of copyright is kinda not very solid.
Your point about violating the GPL is very true. But I've always seen the GPL as sort of a workaround to the fact that information isn't acknowledged in it's very nature to be free. The GPL is kind of an enforced, viral freedom designed to work around the current system of information oppression.
"You know how much it takes to burn a CD. You are ignoring the costs of production, marketing"
Actually, I was trying to address that issue directly in my post, so let me restate it here. I know kids who have their own studios. Basement jobs with styrofoam sound proofing, going from their equipment straight into digital mixing. And you know what? It sounds fine. So production does not need to be the justification for whatever multiple of 100% markup they charge at Sam Goody.
As for marketing, I specifically used Kid A as my example because the only real marketing they did WAS P2P sharing. I've gotten into several bands only because I found them through filesharing, and when they are bands that are self-publishing, I have bought their albums.
"We know that the artists are getting ripped off, too
Sure, but you using it as a justification to pirate their music is laughable. You aren't going to do anything to drive the associated organizations out of business, you aren't sending a check to the author...you just want "free" music. Admit it.
No, I will not admit it. I stated it before, but I will restate it here. We will wait to support the artist, but we will not stop listening to music.
"That is simply stupid. The entire concept of property is completely artifical anyway (remember the deals struck with the American Indians by settlers over land rights, which frequently the natives didn't comprehend?). To say that "intellectual property" or a potential customer has no value or legitimacy is just dumb."
I feel like you are contradicting yourself here. You present a culture that didn't even believe in property owning, and then state that differing viewpoints copyright are "just dumb"?
The point I was trying to make is that a lot of young people just don't agree with the concept of owning information. We both read Slashdot. Every day there are stupid patent pieces, innovation squashing lawsuits from Big business, and draconian new laws that limit our freedom just to protect our Big Media's "intellectual property". Can you really own an idea? I just don't know anymore.
You can send them a check now. Have you?
This one I just don't get. How can I send them a check? I am willing to wager that even if I could find the mailing addresses of the bands I listen to, that it is almost certainly illegal for me to directly compensate them, without paying their labels.
There are a lot of reasons why stealing music is the preferred method for basically this whole upcoming generation.
a)We are aware of actually how much money it takes to create a cd. We all have cd burners, and know how cheap the media is. Many of us even have friends that have their own hobbled-together studios, and can record their music in their basement. We know that we are getting totally and utterly ripped off if we buy a cd.
b)We know that the artist will most likely hardly see a dime anyway. We've watched enough VH1 behind the music to know that even the most successful stars in the most popular music can wind up owing their record label money, unless they throw a tantrum and acquire a new contract. We know that the artists are getting ripped off, too.
c)We know that we aren't actually taking something physical. We are copying an arrangement of bits in a file into a replication on our computer. There is no cost to the company. There is only the supposed lack of profit, which assumes that we would have paid for the album just to hear that one song we downloaded. We are aware that Radiohead "released" Kid A on Napster before it was in stores, and that people went out and made it a collossal best seller. It had no marketing campaign to speak of. The only marketing used was word of mouth from people who had downloaded it.We understand the difference between music downloading and theft, and we aren't afraid to pay for music worth paying for.
d)We respect musicians. We don't really care if the day of super-millionaire pop-stars disappears. What we want to see is musicians with websites, where you can just pay them directly, per song, and support who you listen to, without the huge, outdated, corrupt, technophobic, greedy, bloated middleman that is the music industry. We will wait to support the artist, but we will not stop listening to music.
Well, it has always been my impression that these movies are sort of an homage to the books, a loving tribute, and that the director would rather that you had read the books than not. I'm sure he wasn't interested in being exclusionary, but since they are a major work of English literature, they probably operated under the assumption that the majority of the viewers have read the book, and those who haven't bloody well SHOULD.
Of course, I'm sure in interviews there will be quotes like "Oh, we made these movies for the hardcore fans AND the newcomers". But there is just soooo much geek-goodness, it isn't hard to see where the director's heart really is: with the dorks.;)
Slashdot Mirror
"But as soon as someone has a problem with their brain then it must be a lack of will power, or moral degeneracy. Couldn't possibly be an organic problem."
This is not the orginal poster's point at all. The original poster said that "Attention Deficit is not a disorder inasmuch as it is a different form of thinking and interacting with the world which can have both its downsides and its blessings."
A more interesting parallell than your completely fabricated, inaccurate stance would be some people who are deaf. There are many deaf people who don't see their deafness as a disease, and actually have no interest in recieving treatment to gain hearing.
The conclusion to me is that these are personal stances, and you really have no right enforcing your beliefs on another person as to whether or not they are ill. I would say that ADD/ADHD in particular is something that only an adult should decide if they want to treat, not only in that many of it's "symptoms" are just personality traits, but that pumping children with speed to make them fill out homework sheets better seems, well, evil. When they are older, and are mature enough to understand the pros and cons of taking mind altering substances, I say let them make call.
I couldn't agree more. I too was a "poster child" for ADD, and never fit well into the conventional school paradigm. They knew I was smart, and couldn't figure out why i wouldn't be able to handle doing boring, mindless tasks for the majority of the day. I then transferred to an "alternative" school in my district, which our city of Madison, WI is blessed to have, and was given the opportunity to learn in my style on my rules. I kicked ass there, and learned that my style of thinking and learning aren't "diseases", they're different.
Numbering your possibilities doesn't mean they are the only things possible. How about:
3) The two brothers began development of the movie and recorded the service rep before the $99 plan was released. They finished the movie and created the website just after the plan was released, but they hadn't heard about it yet.
Or, my personal pick:
4) The two brothers began development of the movie and recorded the service rep before the $99 plan was released. They finished the movie and created the website just after the plan was released, and heard about it soon after, but had already invested too much time, emotion and resources into the project to change course.
The AC might be flamebaiting, but it's true. There are not nearly enough Linux users to make Google concerned about whether selling to MS would make a dent on their traffic. I mean, c'mon. Seriously.
Would all linux users even necessarily stop using Google if it was linux? There are plenty of Linux users who still use MS products, because sometimes, MS products are the right ones for the job.
Like when you need a paperweight. Or iridescent frisbees.
I may be misinterpreting him, but I believe that the post you responded too was saying that sex is a way to maintain enough genetic variation to prevent parasites (viruses, for example) from destroying a species.
If reproduction was non-sexual, DNA wouldn't be as varied every generation, and easier for a parasite that figures out the right strategy to exploit. Think monocultures of genetic crops. All genetically identical...but if the right blight comes along, they will all perish.
However, there are some species on this planet who get by just fine without sexual reproduction. Some of the walking stick insects (Phasmatodea) can actually reproduce with or without a male! It's true!
"Usually the figure is put about 10%, or something similarly low. Hard to believe that such a business would be worthwhile..."
Firstly, I think the number is probably much lower than 10 percent. More likely a fraction of one percent. I haven't conducted a spammer poll lately.
Let's say that .1 percent return money. So let's say that you get 10 bucks for your Vi@gra each time you sell it.
What's the cost of sending out 1000 emails, and getting 10 dollars? Nothing. How about 10,000 emails, and getting 100 dollars? Same cost. 100,000 emails should get 1000 bucks. At no cost.
Sure, there may be bandwidth, but email isn't exactly a bandwidth hog. And plenty of these guys will just use H4X0r3d boxes to pump out spam remotely.
So as long as there is one idiot among a thousand, spam will exist.
is one that caters to the digital artist/graphic designer. Some custom software, a hefty chunk of RAM, and a good screen, and I'm sold.
Are you listening, Apple?
Of course, that's not a bad thing. But seriously. Read it again. And tally up the nerd points:
Also, that "precious bodily fluids" port seemed a bit strange to me...
I completely agree. We've all seen our fair democracy at work when it comes to legislating fairness in the music industry. It fails miserably. Maybe it's time for music consumers to cast their REAL VOTE. With Their dollars. If this takes off, less people will buy the physical albums, and the music business model will be FORCED to adapt. And that's the only thing that's going to work: economic force.
Actually, if I recall, the ROBOT knocked all the pieces off the board, because Napoleon was playing in a bogus manner, just mirroring the Turk's moves. There actually is an entire book about the whole story. I perused it once. So I could be wrong.
"definately."
Maybe these guys?...
I'm very excited that Slashdot has finally decided to tackle the question "what is art?" .
Based on the quality philosophical debates I've seen here, I have no doubt that we'll have the answer in the next half hour or so.
Do I need a /sarcasm tag? I hope not.
I can't agree more. However, you look at the article, and it suggests that these kids were doing more than just freeing information: they may have been profiting from it:
" Police said the alleged piracy concerned music, album covers and music videos from Universal Music, Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Festival Mushroom Records."
The inclusion of covers on that list gives me the impression they were repackaging the cds, possibly to resell them.
It's hard to wave the "Information Wants To Be Free!" banner when you are profiting from cd sales yourself.
Whatever the case, though, 5 years is an absurd amount of jail time.
The thing I remember about HL the most were it's in-game vignettes. Looking into an office, and seeing a dead scientist with a headcrab on his skull, still seated in front of his laptop, which was the only illumination in the room. I remember the shock of watching the scientists getting gunned down by the marines at first contact.
And most of all, I remember the triple-tentacled monster in the engine room. I remember the guard whispering to me about the monster's weakness- it was blind.
The game always had something fresh and interesting right around the corner. There were either new guns, monsters, plot points or interactive sequences constantly coming at you.
And that was what worked. You were always propelled through the story with something new.
No one here is trying to say that Half Life was Shakespeare. But I tell you this:
Shakespeare would have been a terrible First Person Shooter game designer.
What a small, sad strange world these "upset" people live in...
It's one thing to have a specialty interest, and to have special vocabulary in that interest. That's fine, and useful.
It's ANOTHER thing to get UPSET when someone, presumably someone who is not a specialist, makes a simple error in that vocabulary.
And it's yet ANOTHER layer of absurdity that the vocabulary is divided up beyond the point of even having any use- the verbs attached to either will imply the type of media. Splitting up SF and Sci-Fi is just pathetic obscure pedantry.
Getting upset about pathetic obscure pedantry is something that makes the world a little sadder place to be.
And, no I'm not upset. ;)
If ants can do it, nano-robot swarms could do it it too. If you could have a "hive" of robots doing constant hull mainenance, that could save a lot of dangerous spacewalks. Or even a nano-swarm doing exploration on Mars...
Not that this is something that is feasible with current technology, but we're getting there, and it's this kind of space research that is going to help us get there.
Besides: Space ants! Cool!
I completely agree. This whole article was Brin just willfuly ignoring components of the books and movie when they didn't fit into his article's point of view.
In fact, I would go further, and say that it is Frodo and Samwise's humility and smallness that enable them to complete the quest. They aren't super heroes, they aren't interested in the ring for power. They just want to go home. And their lack of power-thirst and super-heroness is what enables them to carry the ring and not be destroyed.
First and foremost, there is no problem with idealism. Idealism is not a bad thing. Idealism is what pushes people to change the world.
Secondly, the front porch IS the portal to the rest of the world. I am currently on crutches, due to an accident, and just getting myself to the front frikkin door of my building requires work, some pain, and ingenuity. But it's a start. And if I figure out a new crutching technique while hitting those stairs, well, things have just got a little easier next time.
In fact, stepping out on your front porch is a NECESSITY to getting halfway around the globe.
I believe that Tolkien is in my corner for this one:
"...there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."
I know, not exactly a scientific authority, but I think it speaks to my viewpoint- if we take that first step out the door, the stars don't seem so far away.
LOTR! Two Towers! Two days! Oh man!
I digress.
I believe that the space station offers us the challenges of surviving and working in space, in a very real, day to day way. We will encounter problems, setbacks and innovations that we simply wouldn't get just from unmanned satellites and on-Earth experiments.
As far as it being a waste of government money, I can think of plenty of off-topic things that the geovernment wastes it's resources on, that are far less valuable, interesting and inspiring as the ISS.This is for that PayPal scam site. Final results obtained from whois.arin.net.
Results:
OrgName: Autobahn Access Corporation
OrgID: ATOB
NetRange: 66.187.64.0 - 66.187.79.255
CIDR: 66.187.64.0/20
NetName: AUTOBAHN-1BLK
NetHandle: NET-66-187-64-0-1
Parent: NET-66-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: ONE.AUTOBAHN.MB.CA
NameServer: TWO.AUTOBAHN.MB.CA
Comment: ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON- PORTABLE
RegDate: 2001-11-14
Updated: 2001-11-14
TechHandle: AD163-ARIN
TechName: Dostmohamed, Arif
TechPhone: +1-204-982-6629
TechEmail: Arif@autobahn.mb.ca
well, I did not set out to strawman you, and I certainly appreciate the response. I have to admit, I got myself a little worked up there.
This is no different than the current garment industry.
I think I agree. I think the only place where they differ is that stealing shoes would be actual theft. Copying music is not. One is taking a physical object away from it's owner. The other is replicating a piece of information.
Nobody used the t word. I did not say anybody was stealing. I said they were violating copyright.
This is true. You did not say theft, and I apologize that my post took that leap in logic. However, my point was more that the whole concept of copyright is kinda not very solid.
Your point about violating the GPL is very true. But I've always seen the GPL as sort of a workaround to the fact that information isn't acknowledged in it's very nature to be free. The GPL is kind of an enforced, viral freedom designed to work around the current system of information oppression.
"You know how much it takes to burn a CD. You are ignoring the costs of production, marketing"
Actually, I was trying to address that issue directly in my post, so let me restate it here. I know kids who have their own studios. Basement jobs with styrofoam sound proofing, going from their equipment straight into digital mixing. And you know what? It sounds fine. So production does not need to be the justification for whatever multiple of 100% markup they charge at Sam Goody.
As for marketing, I specifically used Kid A as my example because the only real marketing they did WAS P2P sharing. I've gotten into several bands only because I found them through filesharing, and when they are bands that are self-publishing, I have bought their albums.
"We know that the artists are getting ripped off, too
Sure, but you using it as a justification to pirate their music is laughable. You aren't going to do anything to drive the associated organizations out of business, you aren't sending a check to the author...you just want "free" music. Admit it.
No, I will not admit it. I stated it before, but I will restate it here. We will wait to support the artist, but we will not stop listening to music.
"That is simply stupid. The entire concept of property is completely artifical anyway (remember the deals struck with the American Indians by settlers over land rights, which frequently the natives didn't comprehend?). To say that "intellectual property" or a potential customer has no value or legitimacy is just dumb."
I feel like you are contradicting yourself here. You present a culture that didn't even believe in property owning, and then state that differing viewpoints copyright are "just dumb"?
The point I was trying to make is that a lot of young people just don't agree with the concept of owning information. We both read Slashdot. Every day there are stupid patent pieces, innovation squashing lawsuits from Big business, and draconian new laws that limit our freedom just to protect our Big Media's "intellectual property". Can you really own an idea? I just don't know anymore.
You can send them a check now. Have you?
This one I just don't get. How can I send them a check? I am willing to wager that even if I could find the mailing addresses of the bands I listen to, that it is almost certainly illegal for me to directly compensate them, without paying their labels.
There are a lot of reasons why stealing music is the preferred method for basically this whole upcoming generation.
a)We are aware of actually how much money it takes to create a cd. We all have cd burners, and know how cheap the media is. Many of us even have friends that have their own hobbled-together studios, and can record their music in their basement. We know that we are getting totally and utterly ripped off if we buy a cd.
b)We know that the artist will most likely hardly see a dime anyway. We've watched enough VH1 behind the music to know that even the most successful stars in the most popular music can wind up owing their record label money, unless they throw a tantrum and acquire a new contract. We know that the artists are getting ripped off, too.
c)We know that we aren't actually taking something physical. We are copying an arrangement of bits in a file into a replication on our computer. There is no cost to the company. There is only the supposed lack of profit, which assumes that we would have paid for the album just to hear that one song we downloaded. We are aware that Radiohead "released" Kid A on Napster before it was in stores, and that people went out and made it a collossal best seller. It had no marketing campaign to speak of. The only marketing used was word of mouth from people who had downloaded it.We understand the difference between music downloading and theft, and we aren't afraid to pay for music worth paying for.
d)We respect musicians. We don't really care if the day of super-millionaire pop-stars disappears. What we want to see is musicians with websites, where you can just pay them directly, per song, and support who you listen to, without the huge, outdated, corrupt, technophobic, greedy, bloated middleman that is the music industry. We will wait to support the artist, but we will not stop listening to music.
What were they thinking?
Well, it has always been my impression that these movies are sort of an homage to the books, a loving tribute, and that the director would rather that you had read the books than not. I'm sure he wasn't interested in being exclusionary, but since they are a major work of English literature, they probably operated under the assumption that the majority of the viewers have read the book, and those who haven't bloody well SHOULD.
Of course, I'm sure in interviews there will be quotes like "Oh, we made these movies for the hardcore fans AND the newcomers". But there is just soooo much geek-goodness, it isn't hard to see where the director's heart really is: with the dorks. ;)