You're absolutely right. But dinosaurs also existed before Imperial units, so according to your logic the story should have read:
...a Dinosaur bird twice the size of Ugg when he stands on that big, mossy stone just near the creek, and weighing in at about five times as much as that mammoth leg we hacked off that really big bull mammoth we killed last winter and dragged back to the cave, remember?
Happy now?
Then again, you do know that dinosaurs existed way before humans, and therefore any measurement system, right?
I know! Let's just use SI units and get over ourselves, eh? Whadda ya say?!
Selling in-game cash for real cash is not the primary cause of MUDflation! I know you've heard a lot of people say it is, but that doesn't make it true.
Think about how most MUD game economies work from first principles for a minute: you "harvest" unlimited resources mostly to sell to in-game "vendors" that have unlimited cash. That's what causes the inflation -- an unlimited supply of money!
Consider, too, what most purchasers of in-game cash use it for: to pour into the in-game money sinks (buying your "spells", buying your "horse") which instantly removes it from circulation.
MUD economies are broken, and primed for massive inflation from the get-go. In-game money-sinks are efforts to stave this off, but whenever there is infinite supply of money, there will be inflation.
Most MUDs also have players of widely disparate levels (and thus "incomes") playing "together" which further exacerbates the inflation (Eg. It's worth less to me, a high level, to haggle with you, a low level, about some in-game resource I'm buying from you than to simply pay you whatever you're asking. Pretty soon the "accepted price" for whatever it is rises.)
All the above considered, gold farming might slightly increase the inflation rate --- but this is dwarfed by factors that are built into the system.
Sparter has an extensive FAQ which answers everything from how they make money (commission) to how they "guarantee" you get the "goods" (they stick your money in escrow until you say "got the gold!" from the seller)
So let's ask some questions not in the FAQ, eh?! Here's mine:
For such an incredibly simple service, you seem to have a hugely top-heavy management team, which means big running costs, which explains your exorbitant 10 percent commission. What's to stop me (or anyone) setting up a simpler, leaner service doing exactly the same thing and charging 5 percent?
Or, if that's too hard, try this one:
You claim you use (quoting from your site) "state-of-the-art technology to root out fraud". Since simple fraud -- I say I didn't get something that someone says they gave me in game -- can't be checked by you unless you have the keys to WoW or EQ2 or SWG (or whatever) what "state-of-the-art technology" would you be talking about?
Ah, where in my post did I say the world was flat?!
I just said "edge of the world". I guess that was unclear. I should have said "edge of the big continent surrounded by water" -- but since the Romans believed that was the "world" that's what I said.
So, nice attack on the straw man over there, but sorry, not much to do with what I actually posted.
It seems unclear only because you're not thinking with a 50BC brain -- you're thinking with a 2007AD brain.
Your brain sees -- clearly -- a picture map of the world from space.
A 50BC brain sees no such thing.
To the well-educated 50BC brain, it would be self-evident that continuing to travel East will bring you to the edge of the world. Perhaps they planned to then circle around the "edge" and come back "up" the Nile -- something that's hinted at in the "Alexander" film that came out a couple of years back.
Or perhaps they figured they'd circle "around" to the North, and come down "through" Gaul to get home.
This is all assuming that such a "lost legion" did, in fact, exist -- something I personally feel is unlikely.
Seriously, it's basic style-guide for pretty much all journalism everywhere to DAFU (define at first use). After you've gone to the trouble to DAFU, you can go ahead and use those acronyms all you like. C'mon, it's an acronym-heavy industry, and it ain't that hard to DAFU.
In the case of slashdot, if the article you're linking to is a heavy user, then you could DAFU for the people who will (presumably!) click through and read the article.
Even if they don't RTFA (read the funky article) then the DAFU will help them pretend they did RTFA.
Sunglasses as in "darkened glass" were certainly in use. But actually useful sunglasses that cut out the correct parts of the spectrum while leaving you able to see in dim light were, actually, developed on the space program dime.
Smoke detectors -- as in the useful radioactive ones that work -- were developed on the space program dime.
Cordless drills were spinoffs from the "reactionless" drills used by astronauts. Your point about batteries "being invented in Mesopotamia" is just silly curmudgeonly-ness and you know it.
But why should I have to do your Googleing for you? Here's a recent list (that doesn't include the three above which you can look up yourself).
>>The space program did not develop Tang. NASA bought it at the grocery store just like anyone else who wanted it could and did.
Absolutely correct. Tang is just powdered sugar, and has been available in supermarkets since 1959.
Sunglasses, smoke detectors, and cordless drills, however, ARE three spinoffs from the space program.
In fact, just about the only thing in our modern lives that doesn't trace back to either the space program or "big public science" (like the web coming from CERN) is Tang!
What is it with the Tang meme?! Was there an ad campaign featuring astronauts, or something? Is it one of those "false memory" things like the meme that links "fake moon landings" to the movie "Capricorn One"?
From TFA: "A failure of such magnitude could have been caused by a major electrical or computer fault, or even a collision of the booster nose faring with the satellite during launch on its Long March 3B booster. Command errors have also been the cause of major U.S. European satcom losses in the past." (Emphasis mine)
Upshot? Lots of people have lost lots of sats. This ain't the first, won't be the last. So let's quit with the "made in China" fnarr fnarrs before they begin, eh?
From TFA: "...the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program"
Upshot? Yeah, but you can say that about every new launch which incorporates tech that's never been flown before. And you can say that about every failure in every "all-up" development program. Cheaper, faster --- gotta be a problem here somewhere...
From TFA: "Although it is a painful way to initiate reform, such a major loss has prompted Chinese aerospace to rise to higher standards in the past. Chinese quality control measures were tightened across the Long March booster program after fatal launch accidents at Xichang in the early 1990s. [...] The loss of such a critical spacecraft could spark similar reforms in the satellite industry"
Upshot? A big loss, but probably a bigger opportunity.
Quoting you: "The main complaints I find about ROTK is not that people wanted more added, they wanted something either taken out or revised."
This is idiotic. "People" complaining that "they" want something "taken out" or "revised" is the very definition of fanboi lunacy. If you want something "taken out" then, oh, I don't know, rip the movie to your computer and edit away. You are, of course, free to say you didn't find the acting convincing. Or thought the script was poorly written. Or thought the movie poorly shot. But saying "It wasn't the movie that _I_ would have made" as an excuse for criticism is just, well, sad. Sad and pathetically obvious. Of _course_ it's not the film you would have made -- you didn't make it!
Quoting you: "IMHO, PJ went out of his way when he did stuff like...[stuff you didn't like]"
"Went out of his way"? What's that mean? You're picturing, I take it, PJ in a room somewhere laughing crazily, saying "Suck it up JRR!" as he rewrites LoTR as a detective novel set in 1670s Moscow? Joking aside, it's funny you should pick the Ents, because they were pretty much exactly as I had pictured them from the novel. Remember, Tolkien didn't write the novel that's in either of our heads. How many of the things you would "revise" if it were up to you are actually just your personal interaction with the novel?
Quoting you: "I agree with you on good old Tom...."
And so does everyone else. Hardly, quoting you about your own writing, "insightful" stuff there.
Quoting you: "I do know where you're coming from in part with your argument but I think you think that the Tolkien fans who are complaining about the films wanted an exact copy of the book. We're not that stupid."
Really? When the points you use to illustrate are, in fact, you wanting the films to be closer to the book in your head? Hence my original post about the irony of your comments when taken IN CONTEXT. Taken out of context and there is no irony about what you originally said, it's just uninspired pseudo-criticism. Your bleating about being misconstrued is just illogical. Only in context are your comments worthy of comment. "Saying "make your own" is silly -- we're not saying it should have been changed -- but anyway here's how I would have changed it" is _exactly_ your thread of reasoning.
Quoting you: "...for my part I just wish Jackson had not gone out of the way to take Tolkiens work and rework it for no obvious reason."
But he didn't. This is the central failing of every point you make. Every single change he made had very good reasons. He's talked, in fact, in some detail about all of the "changes". That people who had never read the book were able to enjoy the film is a testament to the extremely obvious overarching "super reason" behind it all.
Quoting you: "You had to take a single sentence out of context to make you feel good about yourself?"
Ah, no. But watching you try and wriggle out from under your own badly made argument has been pretty fun, I must admit.
Quoting you: "Do you realize how much of an ass you have made of yourself?"
Hehehe! Nice one! Play the man! Right back atcha, big guy! Do you _seriously_ believe that anyone but us is reading this?! Issues, dude, issues.
Your "original point", by the way, although I'm sure you've forgotten it, was "I have yet to find a single Tolkien fan who said he did an excellent job at capturing Tolkien's over all vision."
That's as "insightful" as you got. Read your own parent posts. Like my g/p title says, "Do you listen to yourself?"
And to your "insightful" point one can only respond "you should get out more". I personally know dozens of Tolkien fans who think exactly that. I am a Tolkien fan. I think PJ did as good a job as it is possible to do with that material.
Then, when your insightfulness was called for the nonsense it was, you qualified with "what I'm saying is that no-one wanted him to be religious".
Then, when that was called, by me and others, you qualified again, not with a new point, but with "I've been misrepresented!" ROFLOL!
You're right, too. I misrepresented you to the world as someone who was actually saying something, and worthy of response.
If I'm misrepresenting you, then _say clearly what you mean_.
Frankly, I don't think you can, as you've already had three shots at it, and your "points" are the same tired arguing-the-general-from-the-specific that fanbois everywhere delight in, and that we've all seen replicated everywhere on the Intarweb.
But please, I beg you, have another shot. I could be wrong. However unlikely, your radical ideas may not have already occurred to someone else. You may actually have something original to say.
And, god bless me, I am actually interested to know if there's anything at all behind your startling originality besides "I didn't like it".
Again, you're saying exactly what you say you're not saying.
I quote your "clarification": He could have used the same time and resources and made the Ents come out just as Tolkien had written them.
And who are you to say what, exactly, is represented by "just as Tolkien had written them"? What other long-dead authors do you channel? I'm a little intrugued, and if you do Kipling I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
To use the example that you picked yourself we can briefly discuss the Ents. Wise, you say? They ignored the evil plans being made in their midst that would lead to their destruction for how long, and were alerted to it by who again? Otherworldy I would have bought. But wise?
So, again, what your point boils down to is exactly the sort of whine that characterises people with your obsession: Peter Jackson didn't make THE MOVIE THAT WAS IN MY HEAD!
And you're right, you're right, you're right. He didn't. Thank god. Because that would have been a terribly confused mess that made exactly $20 at the cinema when you went to see it twice, shaking your head at the millions of people missing out on all the fun. Yep, everyone's crazy except me and you, and I have my doubts about you.
Here's a scarier take-home truth for you, my friend: Tolkien didn't write the book that's in your head, either.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
We've completely forgotten that last bit over the last 50 years.
If you want to take these "radical" ideas of ultra-capitalists further, and get even wilder with a true "Free Market" -- compared to the joke we have today -- you also might like to note that shareholders are entitled to exactly one thing: a share of the residual profits. They are NOT entitled to tell buinesses how to run, nor to demand that residual profits be maximized. This whole idea of "shareholder value" is completely broken, and is anti-competitive and anti-innovation (and I mean real innovation, not the Microsoft kind). Look it up.
Hopelessly misleading blurb. Here's the edited-for-truth version. The italics indicate the original text:
An anonymous reader A NeoSmart staffer writes:
"NeoSmart Technologies has a recap an attack article on Firefox 2.0 and it's shortcomings we say some things that we thought would get some traffic.
Aside from the technical aspects the things we don't understand but will criticize anyway, the article raises some good questions ridiculous mischaracterizations about the Firefox "community," [Editor's Note: Why the "sarcasm quotes"? Are you saying it isn't a community?] it's future, and what it's goals are at the end of the day we inserted a meaningless sports metaphor here.
Their conclusion sophomoric trolling you can safely ignore? Who cares!
There. Now what was so hard about that, Slashdot eds? Oh, and while you're at it, "its" was incorrectly spelled three times out of three.
You said: "I have yet to see anyone say that they wanted or expected a film religious to the original writings."
When one paragraph earlier, you had said: "He could have used the same time and resources and made the Ents come out just as Tolkien had written them."
What you're saying, is that you wanted and/or expected a film religious to the original writings.
I know that not many people listen to you. You're a Tolkien bore, and you have to expect that. But I'm a little amazed that not even YOU listen to you... poor you.
Breaking news: Fourteen people were killed today by a rogue Britannica article. When asked what they were going to do about the fatally incorrect information in their popular dead-tree product, Britannica managers stated "Well, we just hope that no-one else finds that article! I mean, we haven't got a new edition out until the year after next."
Independant investigators have looked at other Britannica articles edited by the same "expert" -- a task that was complicated by Britannica's non-transparent editorial schema -- and say there may be a systematic problem. There may be other fatal articles in the 28-volume set.
No-one seems to be willing to put a figure on how many more people might be killed before these rogue articles are changed "year after next."
Hello, Brandt. If you're going to post Anonymous Coward at least _make sense_.
What Brandt _should_ do, rather than crowing
on
Wikipedia and Plagiarism
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Is release the script or code that he used to generate his 142 plagiarised articles out of 12,000.
Such a script, if tuned and more widely applied, could be extraordinarily useful in weeding out future instances of plagiarism.
142 articles flagged, 142 articles fixed within hours. That's Wikipedia working as no dead-tree encyclopedia can.
Of course, Brandt would never do anything as useful as that, but will probably content himself with continuing to "shoot from the hip" and claim this as a blow against the Wikipedia community, rather than a bravura demonstration of exactly how well it works.
Interviewer: "So really, Candidate 3, the budget of the largest actual project you've managed was $1 million?"
Candidate 3: "Yes, but..."
Interviewer: "No, no, thanks, that's quite sufficient." *makes mark on clipboard* "Thanks for coming in. We'll call you."
Again, refusal to see the point I'm making doesn't change the point I'm making!
Of _course_ in an ideal environment all aspects of a person's experience would be taken into account. However, we're dealing with the real world, and the very real "pissing contest" that goes on in these kinds of environments, where people are measured by the _size_ of their last project.
You're saying, I presume, that this doesn't happen, or that this isn't a factor in low OSS takeup? Fair enough. I don't agree, clearly, but you're entitled to that view.
The current defamation and libel laws in China are regularly used by companies to stifle criticism.
ANY Google News search with terms like, say, "china company defamation" will turn up dozens of stories with this subtext.
China is writing its legal system even as we speak, and making great strides towards the rule of law, but the results so far have been patchy. From 6,000 years of imperial rule to rule of law in under a decade? Unprecedented, but China's trying it.
This story is another example of this particular area of law being misused, and the person pointing it out gets "Troll" slapped on their post?
You're right. And companies generally do try, albeit internally, although their methods differ, which is half the point.
When a person leaves a company, though, the measure of projects used in interviews (which is what I was talking about) is generally just cost.
Candidate 1 Interview Excerpt: "I put in a new X system that cost $20 million." "How successful was it?" "Oh, extremely."
Candidate 2 Interview Excerpt: "I put in a new X system that cost $5 million." "How successful was it?" "Oh, extremely."
Who do you hire?
It doesn't really matter that this is really a criticism of HR -- it's still a significant driver in the slow uptake of OSS, IMO.
It's the fact that the license cost is zero that works against open source.
Huh?! Yeah, I know, that's hard to understand, but stay with me.
Think about it from the POV of whatever the "head of IT" is called in your company.
What's going to work for him come new job time? What will most qualify him for a "step up" in his career?
In one sentence: the size of the projects he's run. How is that size measured? Budget.
So there is zero incentive for "heads of IT" to go open source. That just reduces the overall size of project budgets, and reduces their standing in the pecking order the next time a sweet job comes up.
"I managed the implementation of a $20million project to replace the finance system." The interviewer will probably be further impressed if that sentence is followed up by "I decided on Big Brand Name X" especially if the interviewer has seen expensive ads for that brand name on billboards in airports.
Be nice to think that people were making technical decisions on the grounds of techincal excellence, or suitability for purpose, but that's an idealistic dream. People make decisions based on "what's best for me", and your head of IT is no different.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right. But dinosaurs also existed before Imperial units, so according to your logic the story should have read:
Happy now?
Then again, you do know that dinosaurs existed way before humans, and therefore any measurement system, right?
I know! Let's just use SI units and get over ourselves, eh? Whadda ya say?!
Selling in-game cash for real cash is not the primary cause of MUDflation! I know you've heard a lot of people say it is, but that doesn't make it true.
Think about how most MUD game economies work from first principles for a minute: you "harvest" unlimited resources mostly to sell to in-game "vendors" that have unlimited cash. That's what causes the inflation -- an unlimited supply of money!
Consider, too, what most purchasers of in-game cash use it for: to pour into the in-game money sinks (buying your "spells", buying your "horse") which instantly removes it from circulation.
MUD economies are broken, and primed for massive inflation from the get-go. In-game money-sinks are efforts to stave this off, but whenever there is infinite supply of money, there will be inflation.
Most MUDs also have players of widely disparate levels (and thus "incomes") playing "together" which further exacerbates the inflation (Eg. It's worth less to me, a high level, to haggle with you, a low level, about some in-game resource I'm buying from you than to simply pay you whatever you're asking. Pretty soon the "accepted price" for whatever it is rises.)
All the above considered, gold farming might slightly increase the inflation rate --- but this is dwarfed by factors that are built into the system.
Sparter has an extensive FAQ which answers everything from how they make money (commission) to how they "guarantee" you get the "goods" (they stick your money in escrow until you say "got the gold!" from the seller)
So let's ask some questions not in the FAQ, eh?! Here's mine:
For such an incredibly simple service, you seem to have a hugely top-heavy management team, which means big running costs, which explains your exorbitant 10 percent commission. What's to stop me (or anyone) setting up a simpler, leaner service doing exactly the same thing and charging 5 percent?
Or, if that's too hard, try this one:
You claim you use (quoting from your site) "state-of-the-art technology to root out fraud". Since simple fraud -- I say I didn't get something that someone says they gave me in game -- can't be checked by you unless you have the keys to WoW or EQ2 or SWG (or whatever) what "state-of-the-art technology" would you be talking about?
Sure, tag the article summary with "bullshit" -- but please, please, please, for the millionth time please:
RTFA!
Thank you, that is all.
Ah, where in my post did I say the world was flat?!
I just said "edge of the world". I guess that was unclear. I should have said "edge of the big continent surrounded by water" -- but since the Romans believed that was the "world" that's what I said.
So, nice attack on the straw man over there, but sorry, not much to do with what I actually posted.
It seems unclear only because you're not thinking with a 50BC brain -- you're thinking with a 2007AD brain.
Your brain sees -- clearly -- a picture map of the world from space.
A 50BC brain sees no such thing.
To the well-educated 50BC brain, it would be self-evident that continuing to travel East will bring you to the edge of the world. Perhaps they planned to then circle around the "edge" and come back "up" the Nile -- something that's hinted at in the "Alexander" film that came out a couple of years back.
Or perhaps they figured they'd circle "around" to the North, and come down "through" Gaul to get home.
This is all assuming that such a "lost legion" did, in fact, exist -- something I personally feel is unlikely.
Seriously, it's basic style-guide for pretty much all journalism everywhere to DAFU (define at first use). After you've gone to the trouble to DAFU, you can go ahead and use those acronyms all you like. C'mon, it's an acronym-heavy industry, and it ain't that hard to DAFU.
In the case of slashdot, if the article you're linking to is a heavy user, then you could DAFU for the people who will (presumably!) click through and read the article.
Even if they don't RTFA (read the funky article) then the DAFU will help them pretend they did RTFA.
In either case, everyone wins.
Sunglasses as in "darkened glass" were certainly in use. But actually useful sunglasses that cut out the correct parts of the spectrum while leaving you able to see in dim light were, actually, developed on the space program dime.
m l
Smoke detectors -- as in the useful radioactive ones that work -- were developed on the space program dime.
Cordless drills were spinoffs from the "reactionless" drills used by astronauts. Your point about batteries "being invented in Mesopotamia" is just silly curmudgeonly-ness and you know it.
But why should I have to do your Googleing for you? Here's a recent list (that doesn't include the three above which you can look up yourself).
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff1997/spin97.ht
>>The space program did not develop Tang. NASA bought it at the grocery store just like anyone else who wanted it could and did.
Absolutely correct. Tang is just powdered sugar, and has been available in supermarkets since 1959.
Sunglasses, smoke detectors, and cordless drills, however, ARE three spinoffs from the space program.
In fact, just about the only thing in our modern lives that doesn't trace back to either the space program or "big public science" (like the web coming from CERN) is Tang!
What is it with the Tang meme?! Was there an ad campaign featuring astronauts, or something? Is it one of those "false memory" things like the meme that links "fake moon landings" to the movie "Capricorn One"?
From TFA: "A failure of such magnitude could have been caused by a major electrical or computer fault, or even a collision of the booster nose faring with the satellite during launch on its Long March 3B booster. Command errors have also been the cause of major U.S. European satcom losses in the past." (Emphasis mine)
Upshot? Lots of people have lost lots of sats. This ain't the first, won't be the last. So let's quit with the "made in China" fnarr fnarrs before they begin, eh?
From TFA: "...the worst spacecraft failure in the history of the Chinese space program"
Upshot? Yeah, but you can say that about every new launch which incorporates tech that's never been flown before. And you can say that about every failure in every "all-up" development program. Cheaper, faster --- gotta be a problem here somewhere...
From TFA: "Although it is a painful way to initiate reform, such a major loss has prompted Chinese aerospace to rise to higher standards in the past. Chinese quality control measures were tightened across the Long March booster program after fatal launch accidents at Xichang in the early 1990s. [...] The loss of such a critical spacecraft could spark similar reforms in the satellite industry"
Upshot? A big loss, but probably a bigger opportunity.
And that's about all you need to know.
Quoting you: "I have more people agreeing with me on these points than you."
ROFLOL!
What you're saying there, sonny, is the intellectual equivalent of "My dad could beat your dad up!"
I wait in breathless anticipation for your next installment of wit and wisdom...
Quoting you: "The main complaints I find about ROTK is not that people wanted more added, they wanted something either taken out or revised."
This is idiotic. "People" complaining that "they" want something "taken out" or "revised" is the very definition of fanboi lunacy. If you want something "taken out" then, oh, I don't know, rip the movie to your computer and edit away. You are, of course, free to say you didn't find the acting convincing. Or thought the script was poorly written. Or thought the movie poorly shot. But saying "It wasn't the movie that _I_ would have made" as an excuse for criticism is just, well, sad. Sad and pathetically obvious. Of _course_ it's not the film you would have made -- you didn't make it!
Quoting you: "IMHO, PJ went out of his way when he did stuff like...[stuff you didn't like]"
"Went out of his way"? What's that mean? You're picturing, I take it, PJ in a room somewhere laughing crazily, saying "Suck it up JRR!" as he rewrites LoTR as a detective novel set in 1670s Moscow? Joking aside, it's funny you should pick the Ents, because they were pretty much exactly as I had pictured them from the novel. Remember, Tolkien didn't write the novel that's in either of our heads. How many of the things you would "revise" if it were up to you are actually just your personal interaction with the novel?
Quoting you: "I agree with you on good old Tom...."
And so does everyone else. Hardly, quoting you about your own writing, "insightful" stuff there.
Quoting you: "I do know where you're coming from in part with your argument but I think you think that the Tolkien fans who are complaining about the films wanted an exact copy of the book. We're not that stupid."
Really? When the points you use to illustrate are, in fact, you wanting the films to be closer to the book in your head? Hence my original post about the irony of your comments when taken IN CONTEXT. Taken out of context and there is no irony about what you originally said, it's just uninspired pseudo-criticism. Your bleating about being misconstrued is just illogical. Only in context are your comments worthy of comment. "Saying "make your own" is silly -- we're not saying it should have been changed -- but anyway here's how I would have changed it" is _exactly_ your thread of reasoning.
Quoting you: "...for my part I just wish Jackson had not gone out of the way to take Tolkiens work and rework it for no obvious reason."
But he didn't. This is the central failing of every point you make. Every single change he made had very good reasons. He's talked, in fact, in some detail about all of the "changes". That people who had never read the book were able to enjoy the film is a testament to the extremely obvious overarching "super reason" behind it all.
Quoting you: "You had to take a single sentence out of context to make you feel good about yourself?"
Ah, no. But watching you try and wriggle out from under your own badly made argument has been pretty fun, I must admit.
Quoting you: "Do you realize how much of an ass you have made of yourself?"
Hehehe! Nice one! Play the man! Right back atcha, big guy! Do you _seriously_ believe that anyone but us is reading this?! Issues, dude, issues.
Quoting you: "Thanks for all the laughs."
No, thank _you_.
Thought so.
Your "original point", by the way, although I'm sure you've forgotten it, was "I have yet to find a single Tolkien fan who said he did an excellent job at capturing Tolkien's over all vision."
That's as "insightful" as you got. Read your own parent posts. Like my g/p title says, "Do you listen to yourself?"
And to your "insightful" point one can only respond "you should get out more". I personally know dozens of Tolkien fans who think exactly that. I am a Tolkien fan. I think PJ did as good a job as it is possible to do with that material.
Then, when your insightfulness was called for the nonsense it was, you qualified with "what I'm saying is that no-one wanted him to be religious".
Then, when that was called, by me and others, you qualified again, not with a new point, but with "I've been misrepresented!" ROFLOL!
You're right, too. I misrepresented you to the world as someone who was actually saying something, and worthy of response.
Mea culpa.
If I'm misrepresenting you, then _say clearly what you mean_.
Frankly, I don't think you can, as you've already had three shots at it, and your "points" are the same tired arguing-the-general-from-the-specific that fanbois everywhere delight in, and that we've all seen replicated everywhere on the Intarweb.
But please, I beg you, have another shot. I could be wrong. However unlikely, your radical ideas may not have already occurred to someone else. You may actually have something original to say.
And, god bless me, I am actually interested to know if there's anything at all behind your startling originality besides "I didn't like it".
Again, you're saying exactly what you say you're not saying.
I quote your "clarification": He could have used the same time and resources and made the Ents come out just as Tolkien had written them.
And who are you to say what, exactly, is represented by "just as Tolkien had written them"? What other long-dead authors do you channel? I'm a little intrugued, and if you do Kipling I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
To use the example that you picked yourself we can briefly discuss the Ents. Wise, you say? They ignored the evil plans being made in their midst that would lead to their destruction for how long, and were alerted to it by who again? Otherworldy I would have bought. But wise?
So, again, what your point boils down to is exactly the sort of whine that characterises people with your obsession: Peter Jackson didn't make THE MOVIE THAT WAS IN MY HEAD!
And you're right, you're right, you're right. He didn't. Thank god. Because that would have been a terribly confused mess that made exactly $20 at the cinema when you went to see it twice, shaking your head at the millions of people missing out on all the fun. Yep, everyone's crazy except me and you, and I have my doubts about you.
Here's a scarier take-home truth for you, my friend: Tolkien didn't write the book that's in your head, either.
Henry Ford said:
We've completely forgotten that last bit over the last 50 years.
If you want to take these "radical" ideas of ultra-capitalists further, and get even wilder with a true "Free Market" -- compared to the joke we have today -- you also might like to note that shareholders are entitled to exactly one thing: a share of the residual profits. They are NOT entitled to tell buinesses how to run, nor to demand that residual profits be maximized. This whole idea of "shareholder value" is completely broken, and is anti-competitive and anti-innovation (and I mean real innovation, not the Microsoft kind). Look it up.
.Hopelessly misleading blurb. Here's the edited-for-truth version. The italics indicate the original text:
An anonymous reader A NeoSmart staffer writes:
"NeoSmart Technologies has a recap an attack article on Firefox 2.0 and it's shortcomings we say some things that we thought would get some traffic.
Aside from the technical aspects the things we don't understand but will criticize anyway, the article raises some good questions ridiculous mischaracterizations about the Firefox "community," [Editor's Note: Why the "sarcasm quotes"? Are you saying it isn't a community?] it's future, and what it's goals are at the end of the day we inserted a meaningless sports metaphor here.
Their conclusion sophomoric trolling you can safely ignore? Who cares!
There. Now what was so hard about that, Slashdot eds? Oh, and while you're at it, "its" was incorrectly spelled three times out of three.
You said: "I have yet to see anyone say that they wanted or expected a film religious to the original writings."
When one paragraph earlier, you had said: "He could have used the same time and resources and made the Ents come out just as Tolkien had written them."
What you're saying, is that you wanted and/or expected a film religious to the original writings.
I know that not many people listen to you. You're a Tolkien bore, and you have to expect that. But I'm a little amazed that not even YOU listen to you... poor you.
Breaking news: Fourteen people were killed today by a rogue Britannica article. When asked what they were going to do about the fatally incorrect information in their popular dead-tree product, Britannica managers stated "Well, we just hope that no-one else finds that article! I mean, we haven't got a new edition out until the year after next."
Independant investigators have looked at other Britannica articles edited by the same "expert" -- a task that was complicated by Britannica's non-transparent editorial schema -- and say there may be a systematic problem. There may be other fatal articles in the 28-volume set.
No-one seems to be willing to put a figure on how many more people might be killed before these rogue articles are changed "year after next."
Hello, Brandt. If you're going to post Anonymous Coward at least _make sense_.
Is release the script or code that he used to generate his 142 plagiarised articles out of 12,000.
Such a script, if tuned and more widely applied, could be extraordinarily useful in weeding out future instances of plagiarism.
142 articles flagged, 142 articles fixed within hours. That's Wikipedia working as no dead-tree encyclopedia can.
Of course, Brandt would never do anything as useful as that, but will probably content himself with continuing to "shoot from the hip" and claim this as a blow against the Wikipedia community, rather than a bravura demonstration of exactly how well it works.
And so perhaps someone will explain to me how this has anything at all to do with "online"?
It's a _great_ excuse for spurious Orwell quotes and some slashdot-quality Brit-bashing, though!
I say, nothing like a cliche in chase of a slur, what!
Interviewer: "So really, Candidate 3, the budget of the largest actual project you've managed was $1 million?"
Candidate 3: "Yes, but..."
Interviewer: "No, no, thanks, that's quite sufficient." *makes mark on clipboard* "Thanks for coming in. We'll call you."
Again, refusal to see the point I'm making doesn't change the point I'm making!
Of _course_ in an ideal environment all aspects of a person's experience would be taken into account. However, we're dealing with the real world, and the very real "pissing contest" that goes on in these kinds of environments, where people are measured by the _size_ of their last project.
You're saying, I presume, that this doesn't happen, or that this isn't a factor in low OSS takeup? Fair enough. I don't agree, clearly, but you're entitled to that view.
The current defamation and libel laws in China are regularly used by companies to stifle criticism.
ANY Google News search with terms like, say, "china company defamation" will turn up dozens of stories with this subtext.
China is writing its legal system even as we speak, and making great strides towards the rule of law, but the results so far have been patchy. From 6,000 years of imperial rule to rule of law in under a decade? Unprecedented, but China's trying it.
This story is another example of this particular area of law being misused, and the person pointing it out gets "Troll" slapped on their post?
Shame, slashdot, shame.
You're right. And companies generally do try, albeit internally, although their methods differ, which is half the point. When a person leaves a company, though, the measure of projects used in interviews (which is what I was talking about) is generally just cost. Candidate 1 Interview Excerpt: "I put in a new X system that cost $20 million." "How successful was it?" "Oh, extremely." Candidate 2 Interview Excerpt: "I put in a new X system that cost $5 million." "How successful was it?" "Oh, extremely." Who do you hire? It doesn't really matter that this is really a criticism of HR -- it's still a significant driver in the slow uptake of OSS, IMO.
But it's not the compliance budget, as you say.
It's the fact that the license cost is zero that works against open source.
Huh?! Yeah, I know, that's hard to understand, but stay with me.
Think about it from the POV of whatever the "head of IT" is called in your company.
What's going to work for him come new job time? What will most qualify him for a "step up" in his career?
In one sentence: the size of the projects he's run. How is that size measured? Budget.
So there is zero incentive for "heads of IT" to go open source. That just reduces the overall size of project budgets, and reduces their standing in the pecking order the next time a sweet job comes up.
"I managed the implementation of a $20million project to replace the finance system." The interviewer will probably be further impressed if that sentence is followed up by "I decided on Big Brand Name X" especially if the interviewer has seen expensive ads for that brand name on billboards in airports.
Be nice to think that people were making technical decisions on the grounds of techincal excellence, or suitability for purpose, but that's an idealistic dream. People make decisions based on "what's best for me", and your head of IT is no different.