Re:Now that does not make sense?
on
Star Wars on DVD
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· Score: 1
I've been completely sure that Anakin would die in the prequels for years.
I used to have a whole elaborate theory with references to comments both in the original trilogy and the prequels backing it up, but then I decided to pretend to have a life and forgot most of them.;)
In a nutshell, however, my argument was that they are clearly setting Anakin/Vader up to be one of the most powerful Jedi ever(at least in terms of raw 'force-potential', please no mention of midcholirians and whatnot) if not THE most powerful Jedi ever.
And remember what Yoda says in ESB when he tells Luke he's dying. Luke says: "You can't die!" (in that adorable whining voice of his) and Yoda responds: "Strong in the Force am I, but not that strong.", implying that were one strong enough in the force, stronger even that Yoda, one could prevent oneself from dying.
Anakin was that strong in the force. Obi Wan killed him and he (Anakin) 'prevented himself from dying' or resurected himself as Vader.
This explanation always seemed to make perfect sense to me, especially given the pseudo-mythological overtones throughout the series (particularly in the originals).
It also ties in nicely with Obi Wan's statement that his student Vader killed Anakin, and we all know how much of a bizarre stickler Lucas has become for literal interpretations of things from the originals (example, Uncle Owen to Anakin in Clones: "I guess that makes us brothers." which to my mind was retarded, but that's an argument for another time.)
Wow, it's amazing how the Star Wars nitpicking comes right back when you let it! It's like riding a bike, I guess...
Boy, oh boy do I wish I had some mod points. And that you hadn't posted AC, as I'd be interested in reading other posts of yours.
What a nice, insightful post. Good, quick discussion of some basic principles of the U.S. system that all too often remain unknown or, worse, misunderstood.
In fact it's exactly like a marginal revenue curve.
It's a generally applicable economic principle that is called "declining marginal utility".
As you add more resources to any production the "marginal utility" of each new resource will be less than the last until eventually they start getting negative.
In plain English what this means is that if you can do somthing with one person, adding a second will probably speed things along. Adding a third person may also help, but less than adding the second did... eventually you will reach a point where adding another resource (people, in this example) will actually slow things down.
Like I say, this is a general economic principle. Usually the example used is agricultural (a little ferilizer allows for more crops, other things being equal, keep adding more and more fertilizer, eventually you'll start reducing your yield instead of increasing it) but it's widely applicable and just one of the reasons that a more widespread understanding of basic economics would be a Good Thing.
While I think you may be onto something in that the increased capabilities of computers have come with increased complexity, responsibility and potential for disaster, you should realize that the evil operating system XP does have a rudimentary "undo" feature: System Restore.
So perhaps we will see more progress on the ease of maintenance front along with all of these pie-in-the-shy predictions about raw power.
But I think it needs some reworking to more accurately reflect the role that the RIAA is playing now-a-days...
Let's say that the car companies got together to form the APIA (Auto Producers Industry Association) and used their considerable lobbying clout to influence Congress to pass new legislation that outlaws the selling of or owning of used cars.
Say then that the automakers decide to not sell cars in the tradional way anymore, but only lease them with extensive "appropriate-use" regulations attached and extensive monitoring equipment to ensure that you comply.
Additionally, after a couple of years when the car makers release a new model they refuse to offer any of the older models for lease and instead recall them and refuse to make these models available for any purpose.
That is closer to the situation that the RIAA is trying to bring into existence.
And, to more precisely aim your critique back at the original post, not only have the plays been known to entertain one or two people their primary purpose was entertainment.
Shakespeare wasn't trying to write art for the ages... or at least not *just* trying to write for the ages, his primary goal was to fill a theatre and get paid.
Not to be obnoxious but that is actually not at all how the Smithsonian started.
The Smithsonian was founded by a bequest by James Smithson (hence Smithsonian) an English Scientist. Read all about it here.
The Smithsonian does have a lot of old patent model submissions in the Museum of American History but the Smithsonian itself encompasses far more than just that one museum.
If you thought Cryptonomicon had 500 pages too much, woah-nelly are you in for a seriously bad time with Quicksilver.
Until Quicksilver, I considered myself a pretty big Stephenson fan. Pre-ordered Quicksilver (and got it the day before it was supposed to go on sale, neat trick that) and still haven't finished it.
I petered out about 200 pages from the end.
Three chapters in a row were both so impenatrably written and had so little or nothing to do with the plot (such as it was, there are actually at least 3 plots, none of which seem to relate at all -- or even share the same decade for that matter) that I couldn't even view the remainder of the book as a "sprint to the finish." (And after 6 or 7 _hundred_ pages, 200 should feel like running downhill, not struggling up.)
Amazingly, I loved his earlier books so much that I am considering trying to struggle the rest of the way through Quicksilver and pick up Confusion if I get even a _hint_ that it might be redeeming.
But I'm not hopeful.
The truly amazing thing, to me, is that after writing one of the world's most unapproachable, plodding books and naming it QUICKsilver, he would have the unmitigated gall to name the second 900 page tome "Confusion".
I'm not sure, but I would imagine that you would calculate the number of unique positions the pieces on a chess board could take.
Perhaps you could then winnow out ones made impossible by the rules governing piece movement and finally perhaps only look at the board positions that are a checkmate.
It seems like a fairly straightforward problem, given enough time to think about it.
That might be a problem in India or other places where the modern economy hasn't fully penetrated, but not so much in the U.S.
Bill Gates doesn't keep all his money in a stack of mattresses or in a giant money-bin a la Scrooge McDuck, most of his wealth is in the form of Microsoft stock, which money is being used by Microsoft. You might disagree with how it's being used, but it is not sitting around doing nothing.
And this is generally true of the very, very wealthy. The amount of money that they keep "out of circulation" is usually a very small percentage of their total worth. This is because they don't hoard gold or physical money, their wealth is invested; investment allows for growth and economic development. Even money that they are keeping as "cash" is usually in the form of bank deposits where it is re-lent out to finance other opportunities.
At any rate. I don't want to get off into a whole rant about the capitalist system being mis-understood and mis-interpreted, but know that it is there! ; )
Thanks for the advice, perhaps this will be the inspiration that I need to finally finish it off.
I'm definitely going to hold off on buying the second two in the cycle until I either recover a jones for Stephenson or hear great things. It's a shame too because most everything else he wrote I really like.
I've loved me some Stephenson in the past but this thing was just ridiculous. Bought it the day it came out and still haven't finished it.
It was the long, long history-lesson-style monologue by Shaftoe's brother immediately followed by a second chapter of Waterhouse presented as a period-style drama that did me in.
I've only got like 120 pages left (out of what felt like several thousand when reading) so maybe I'll finish it. But reading novels shouldn't feel like an uphill battle, you know?
The new Gillette Mach 37. 37 blades mean a closer shave than ever before. Blades one through seven draw the hair out and cleanly slice it away. Blade 12 may cause bleeding...
That's a remarkably ill-informed summary of the plot of Matchstick Men.
A better one would be (trying to avoid spoilers) a con-man so troubled by the immorality of his chosen lifestyle that he has developed severe psychological problems reunites with his daughter and through his relationship with her comes to a deeper understanding of his own life choices.
You probably wouldn't pick up on that from the trailer though, and so, despite disliking people who use the "RTFA" acronym, I must implore you to WTFM before you comment on it's societal messages.
None of which is to disagree with your general point about the hypocrisy inherent in industries whose products largely disdain conventional morality complaining about the public's lack of respect for their conventional rights; it's just I saw the movie and thought that you were rather drastically mischaracterizing it.
Big business has money, but only government can turn that money into power. Without the aid of government, big business would have no more or less power than you or me.
In point of fact, this is almost precisely wrong.
Only government can preventmoney from becoming power.
Or do you think that in the absence of any governmental prohibition to the forming of private armies, yours would be able to compete with Microsoft's?
Or even that an Open Source army could compete with one sponsored by an alliance of the Fortune 500?
My Dad used AOL for years, for email and the content (stock information etc.). Finally he had enough of the incompatibilities inherent in AOL's proprietary email format and switched, but still used their content until I showed him Yahoo's free financial pages.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke
Truer words were never spake.
And while the basic science may not seem like magic, the eventual implementation might. Imagine a featureless ball with anti-matter somewhere within that plugs into a fitted hollow and all other necessary steps for the transfer of the matter and the creation of energy take place without any visible activity. Magic. (At least from our limited point of view.)
Okay, so the US scams internet use off of the rest of the world.
Bully on us
An important piece of the puzzle, however, is how much consumer traffic (which is what we are discussing here, yes?) is transoceanic.
If, as I suspect is the case, US surfers use the vast majority of their bandwidth within the US, there are no meaningful subsidies being extracted from the poor oppressed peoples of Europe.
Far more transoceanic consumer internet traffic is likely to come from Europeans surfing US sites. And they pay for it. Tough luck.
They don't just make $ on software that they themselves make, they make it on all software licensed to run on their machine -- which is, of course, all software sold for the machine. So you'd have to stay away from any M$ licensed software.
Best idea I've seen is just don't buy it.
How long until X-box functionality is somehow integrated into Windows?
For consumer convenience of course...
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I used to have a whole elaborate theory with references to comments both in the original trilogy and the prequels backing it up, but then I decided to pretend to have a life and forgot most of them. ;)
In a nutshell, however, my argument was that they are clearly setting Anakin/Vader up to be one of the most powerful Jedi ever(at least in terms of raw 'force-potential', please no mention of midcholirians and whatnot) if not THE most powerful Jedi ever.
And remember what Yoda says in ESB when he tells Luke he's dying. Luke says: "You can't die!" (in that adorable whining voice of his) and Yoda responds: "Strong in the Force am I, but not that strong.", implying that were one strong enough in the force, stronger even that Yoda, one could prevent oneself from dying.
Anakin was that strong in the force. Obi Wan killed him and he (Anakin) 'prevented himself from dying' or resurected himself as Vader.
This explanation always seemed to make perfect sense to me, especially given the pseudo-mythological overtones throughout the series (particularly in the originals).
It also ties in nicely with Obi Wan's statement that his student Vader killed Anakin, and we all know how much of a bizarre stickler Lucas has become for literal interpretations of things from the originals (example, Uncle Owen to Anakin in Clones: "I guess that makes us brothers." which to my mind was retarded, but that's an argument for another time.)
Wow, it's amazing how the Star Wars nitpicking comes right back when you let it! It's like riding a bike, I guess...
What a nice, insightful post. Good, quick discussion of some basic principles of the U.S. system that all too often remain unknown or, worse, misunderstood.
Kudos!
In fact it's exactly like a marginal revenue curve.
It's a generally applicable economic principle that is called "declining marginal utility".
As you add more resources to any production the "marginal utility" of each new resource will be less than the last until eventually they start getting negative.
In plain English what this means is that if you can do somthing with one person, adding a second will probably speed things along. Adding a third person may also help, but less than adding the second did... eventually you will reach a point where adding another resource (people, in this example) will actually slow things down.
Like I say, this is a general economic principle. Usually the example used is agricultural (a little ferilizer allows for more crops, other things being equal, keep adding more and more fertilizer, eventually you'll start reducing your yield instead of increasing it) but it's widely applicable and just one of the reasons that a more widespread understanding of basic economics would be a Good Thing.
Awesome.
So perhaps we will see more progress on the ease of maintenance front along with all of these pie-in-the-shy predictions about raw power.
But I think it needs some reworking to more accurately reflect the role that the RIAA is playing now-a-days...
Let's say that the car companies got together to form the APIA (Auto Producers Industry Association) and used their considerable lobbying clout to influence Congress to pass new legislation that outlaws the selling of or owning of used cars.
Say then that the automakers decide to not sell cars in the tradional way anymore, but only lease them with extensive "appropriate-use" regulations attached and extensive monitoring equipment to ensure that you comply.
Additionally, after a couple of years when the car makers release a new model they refuse to offer any of the older models for lease and instead recall them and refuse to make these models available for any purpose.
That is closer to the situation that the RIAA is trying to bring into existence.
Probably put it the same place we put all those extra u's the Brits insist on throwing into all kinds of words.
And, to more precisely aim your critique back at the original post, not only have the plays been known to entertain one or two people their primary purpose was entertainment.
Shakespeare wasn't trying to write art for the ages... or at least not *just* trying to write for the ages, his primary goal was to fill a theatre and get paid.
The Smithsonian was founded by a bequest by James Smithson (hence Smithsonian) an English Scientist. Read all about it here.
The Smithsonian does have a lot of old patent model submissions in the Museum of American History but the Smithsonian itself encompasses far more than just that one museum.
The "Big Mac Song" went more like:
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, letucce, pickles on a sesame seed bun.
If you thought Cryptonomicon had 500 pages too much, woah-nelly are you in for a seriously bad time with Quicksilver.
Until Quicksilver, I considered myself a pretty big Stephenson fan. Pre-ordered Quicksilver (and got it the day before it was supposed to go on sale, neat trick that) and still haven't finished it.
I petered out about 200 pages from the end.
Three chapters in a row were both so impenatrably written and had so little or nothing to do with the plot (such as it was, there are actually at least 3 plots, none of which seem to relate at all -- or even share the same decade for that matter) that I couldn't even view the remainder of the book as a "sprint to the finish." (And after 6 or 7 _hundred_ pages, 200 should feel like running downhill, not struggling up.)
Amazingly, I loved his earlier books so much that I am considering trying to struggle the rest of the way through Quicksilver and pick up Confusion if I get even a _hint_ that it might be redeeming.
But I'm not hopeful.
The truly amazing thing, to me, is that after writing one of the world's most unapproachable, plodding books and naming it QUICKsilver, he would have the unmitigated gall to name the second 900 page tome "Confusion".
Now that's what I call chutzpah.
Perhaps you could then winnow out ones made impossible by the rules governing piece movement and finally perhaps only look at the board positions that are a checkmate.
It seems like a fairly straightforward problem, given enough time to think about it.
Bill Gates doesn't keep all his money in a stack of mattresses or in a giant money-bin a la Scrooge McDuck, most of his wealth is in the form of Microsoft stock, which money is being used by Microsoft. You might disagree with how it's being used, but it is not sitting around doing nothing.
And this is generally true of the very, very wealthy. The amount of money that they keep "out of circulation" is usually a very small percentage of their total worth. This is because they don't hoard gold or physical money, their wealth is invested; investment allows for growth and economic development. Even money that they are keeping as "cash" is usually in the form of bank deposits where it is re-lent out to finance other opportunities.
At any rate. I don't want to get off into a whole rant about the capitalist system being mis-understood and mis-interpreted, but know that it is there! ; )
I'm definitely going to hold off on buying the second two in the cycle until I either recover a jones for Stephenson or hear great things. It's a shame too because most everything else he wrote I really like.
I've loved me some Stephenson in the past but this thing was just ridiculous. Bought it the day it came out and still haven't finished it.
It was the long, long history-lesson-style monologue by Shaftoe's brother immediately followed by a second chapter of Waterhouse presented as a period-style drama that did me in.
I've only got like 120 pages left (out of what felt like several thousand when reading) so maybe I'll finish it. But reading novels shouldn't feel like an uphill battle, you know?
The new Gillette Mach 37. 37 blades mean a closer shave than ever before. Blades one through seven draw the hair out and cleanly slice it away. Blade 12 may cause bleeding...
with apologies to snl.
A better one would be (trying to avoid spoilers) a con-man so troubled by the immorality of his chosen lifestyle that he has developed severe psychological problems reunites with his daughter and through his relationship with her comes to a deeper understanding of his own life choices.
You probably wouldn't pick up on that from the trailer though, and so, despite disliking people who use the "RTFA" acronym, I must implore you to WTFM before you comment on it's societal messages.
None of which is to disagree with your general point about the hypocrisy inherent in industries whose products largely disdain conventional morality complaining about the public's lack of respect for their conventional rights; it's just I saw the movie and thought that you were rather drastically mischaracterizing it.
Big business has money, but only government can turn that money into power. Without the aid of government, big business would have no more or less power than you or me.
In point of fact, this is almost precisely wrong.
Only government can preventmoney from becoming power.
Or do you think that in the absence of any governmental prohibition to the forming of private armies, yours would be able to compete with Microsoft's?
Or even that an Open Source army could compete with one sponsored by an alliance of the Fortune 500?
My Dad used AOL for years, for email and the content (stock information etc.). Finally he had enough of the incompatibilities inherent in AOL's proprietary email format and switched, but still used their content until I showed him Yahoo's free financial pages.
He's completely off the AOL now.
And doing fine.
- Arthur C. Clarke
Truer words were never spake.
And while the basic science may not seem like magic, the eventual implementation might. Imagine a featureless ball with anti-matter somewhere within that plugs into a fitted hollow and all other necessary steps for the transfer of the matter and the creation of energy take place without any visible activity. Magic. (At least from our limited point of view.)
Bully on us
An important piece of the puzzle, however, is how much consumer traffic (which is what we are discussing here, yes?) is transoceanic.
If, as I suspect is the case, US surfers use the vast majority of their bandwidth within the US, there are no meaningful subsidies being extracted from the poor oppressed peoples of Europe.
Far more transoceanic consumer internet traffic is likely to come from Europeans surfing US sites. And they pay for it. Tough luck.
Best idea I've seen is just don't buy it.
How long until X-box functionality is somehow integrated into Windows? For consumer convenience of course...