Sgt Jenkins: Finally we found Bin Laden. Better call in an airstrike with MS Airstrike TM. Clippy: Hi thank you for using MS Aistrike would you like me to A: Explain countless options you already know or don't care about. B: Ask me a question I won't answer but I will keep offering to answer your question. C: Call airstrike on allied position. Clippy: You just closed me, please remember I will randomly come back to annoy you. Sgt Jenkins: Finally, lets see enter the coordinates, open several dozen tabs and extra control apps hidden all over the place edit the registry. Windows: Do you want to download the latest version of Microsoft Airstrike TM? Sgt Jenkins: Hell no just do it! Windows: Windows Airstrike TM has crashed please submit a bug report. Sgt Jenkins: Oh goddamn upgrade the damn thing. Windows: installing latest updates that where released with MS knowing full well that in their own test 2 out of 5 machines did not survive. Windows: please reboot. Sgt Jenkins: Were screwed. Is there ever going to be an war in wich I will not get the weapons created by the company with the biggest bribes?
The western legal system is supposed to give everyone a chance in court. Even if they cannot make a water thight perfectly presented case immidiatly. Or do you really want a system where only the rich or those rich enough to hire the best lawyers can afford to defend themselves?
So the court system gives you the benefit of the doubt most of the times. A case can only be thrown out in extreme circumstances. If there is even a small possibilty that the case has merit people need to be allowed to present their case.
That is what happened here. Sadly the millions paid so far seem to have not produced anything intresting.
I don't know what is going on but whoever is in charge of the legal team is doing an extremely bad job at it. Well you can already see this because the first thing any good lawyer does is to get his client to shut the fuck up.
But even being fought by McBrides big mouth every step of the way the lawyers have been doing very poor work. Poorly written documents, contradicting statements, incomplete complaints, even plain mis-understanding of the legal system. Biggest beauty was the christmas holiday delay. What the fuck was that about. What kind of experienced lawyer would expect a judge to swallow that? Rookie mistake.
There have been a few articles about boise and his company suggesting that with their extremely fast growth they have been letting standards slip as to who they hire. Poor SCO that they got the bottom of the barrel. I could cry.
Artist impression of what? NASA hasn't detected the planet. It has detected the influence of the planet. Doesn't even have to be a planet. It could be a really heavy asteroid. Or a cloud of them. Or something entirely different. Maybe some stars just like to wobble.
All they detected is that it looks like the suns in question have something spinning around them. When they actually photograph them or detect the planets themselves THEN and only then can we start to speculate what they look like. For now it is pure speculation that they are in fact planets.
Rather TRON is the blueprint/design/guide/specs for an OS. Perhaps it is like the OS Unix. No such thing and if you are intrested in nothing showing Unix as having a huge market share then you split it up.
Tron is probably the "other" and "no formal os".
Of course tron is also mostly used in japan, if they didn't count japan then that would also explain it.
I have seen this prediction time and time again. No more PC, no more PDA, no more walkman, no more HI-FI components. It belongs firmly in the flying cars category.
You got plenty of choice. You can run XP home or profession or media or mobile. What more do you want? Plenty to choose from Microsoft for all your needs.
What you want to choose something else then Microsoft? What are you? A commie?
This is really nothing new. MS has always thought that choice meant choosing MS.
Most companies think this. Just one tiny little problem. No other company has such a world-wide monopoly.
It seems odd that the dutch goverment is actively enforcing laws to stop Shell, a dutch company, from becoming a monopolist regarding fuel stations yet sees no problem with MS having a monopoly. Yet Shell is just another oil company world wide. Totally different from Microsoft that has a world wide monopoly.
Review by a real movie expert of an anime movie. Of course some people will still dismiss it because it is a cartoon. That is like dismissing Shindlers List because it is in Black & White.
If you are going to watch this movie I do recommend that you know this. It is not a feel good movie. The most important mistake you can make is to see it as important wich side the kids are on. It is easy to shrug off their suffering as the result of japans own actions. It is an absolute fact that japan has only the historians to thank for the fact that most of their war crimes are forgotten. They were in no ways less then those commited by the germans/austrians. In my personal opion in fact worse. The germans just gassed childeren. They didn't rape them time and time again in pleasure houses for their soldiers. The germans also have paid billions in damages. The japanese haven't even admitted that raping childeren is bad.
It is al to easy to go into this movie with the feelings that japan deserved to be bombed. It did. But these kids were not part of it. They had no more choice then the kids being raped by japanese soldiers. They are ultimately the victims of things outside their controle.
Just as the movie Tora Tora Tora shows how a series of events leads to the start of the pacific war, a series of events where at any time someone might have stopped it all from happening. Grave of the fireflies shows a series of events where two childeren end up dead. Not because of evil actions but because at several steps no-one took action.
Others are angry that the boy took not better care. This boy is not a movie hero, he is based on the author of the story. His owned sister died of starvation because he would when searching for food would feed himself first. He survived. She died. Just as he might have been able to save his sister in real life if he had been a better human being the movie brother might have made smarter choices. What I do think is missing in the movie is the emphasis that there simply wasn't any food to buy. Rice is not enough.
Ultimatly I think this is a road movie. You know from the beginning how it is going to end. What you watch the movie for is the journey. Do not judge the travellers. If you want to do that you better be 100% sure that you are a better human being then the characters. It is easy to blame someone in this story. That takes the guilt away from us. Because the real guilt is that this story is happening all around us today.
This is not an anti-war movie. That is to simple. It is a "this is what war is really like" movie.
If you have read the reviews and still go "but it is a cartoon" then you are one hell of shallow thing.
Well not really wich is why it is in quotes. Rather it is the fault of the people who watch disney.
For some reason the idea is in the west that only live action is capable of telling "real" stories. These people just like the author of this article always have to point out the turd fighting super giant robot girls. At the same time neatly forgetting that this kinda stuff appears in hollywood movies as well. Or exactly what is "Attack of the 50 foot woman" about again?
There are other reasons to, so here is my bullet lists of reason why anime isn't being seen in the rest of the world.
Cartoons are for kids. Partly the reason but doesn't explain then why not more anime is shown in childerens programs.
Language barrier. Japanese is a very difficult language. Not just to learn but also to translate. Americans ain't good with foreign languages. The german detective series derrick is highly regarded. Do americans know it? Doubt it. So either you dub it, hard to fit english into japenese mouths, sub it, americans can't read, edit it, get pokemon and turn anime into american kid cartoon.
Culture flows naturally from the above. Sex is the simpest. Compare the pokemon manga as released in japan and in the west. In japan the girl got BOOBS. The american release has that edited out so they appear almost flat chested or at least showing a lot less cleavage. More then a few manga/anime I read have underaged drinking. Japan is a nation of boozers and it doesn't seem to considered a problem although it is illegal. That however is a nono in america.
But while nudity and sexyness is more accepted in japanese anime, sex itself is far more restricted. Not at all unusual for at least one of the leads to be a virgin.
Simply put the people in manga/anime can behave to different for western tastes. Or at least that is what tv/movie bosses think.
All this may make it difficult to show most manga/anime in the west. Exactly how do you market an extremely popular series like Ranma? At kids? It got nudity. At adults? The main chars don't even kiss. Do you translate typical japanese things to their western equivalent even if that ruins any chance of the joke coming across? Do you explain the joke? Make up your own?
I already see such things when I watch The Muppets on dutch tv. 2 stories for the price of one. The english audio and the dutch subs.
Disney was a business man and story teller who really studied the art of animation. He certainly has tried to create animation that was not just for kids but sadly most people think disney == kids. There fore cartoon == kids.
To bad those people will miss out but it is there loss not mine. Disney isn't to blame. People that dismiss intresting forms of story telling because it takes a certain form are. It is like saying casablance is slapstick because laurel & hardy is black & white.
If you are going to blame anyone blaim the catogorirs. Who on earth would put Shindlers List in a category with Police Academy? Then why is Grave of the fireflies listed in the same category as Pokemon?
Granted I only know japan and from people who visited, lived there for a while or japanese I have met but I do get the feeling that being an manga/anime fan is not so unnerdy as you think. Being called an otaku is considered an insult in japan. Not really all that different from the comic book guy is in the simpsons.
If anything manga/anime is just another form of entertainment. If you look at a very popular manga like Maison Ikkoku you can easily see that is what just a coin flip wether they would have done a live action or a anime for the tv version. No real reason to go anime as it does not have any special effects or difficult to film bits (kids, animals, locations). In fact in many ways it is a pure sitcom. Most action taking place in a few rooms with a steady cast. Only advantage that anime gives is that a live action would have a missing wall (where the camera is in sitcoms).
Also I do not agree with your view of geeks being against popular things. We just don't like things just because they are popular or limit ourselves just because it is unpopular.
A true geek does not really care what others think. This should work both ways. Not care that others disapprove or approve. That is a geek. Someone who only cares about others disapproving is called an angsty teenager. Most geeks don't have the social skills to be angsty. Or the time.
You have not been reading /. recently have you?
on
The Technology Hype Cycle
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Longhorn has been stripped. So MS is not taking the time. It has hyped technology promised it will be in the next version and then broken its promise. Just like it did every single time before.
But hey it works. Companies delayed adopting OS/2 because MS promised that 95 was going to be so much better. People are delaying switching to Linux/BSD/OSX because MS promises longhorn will be so much better.
This is hardly unknown in business. Harly davidson made bikes so bad they didn't even work out of the factory. Car companies have for years created models that killed people and they are still around. Air travel is the most dangerous form of transport around (the claim that it is the safest is based on distance travelled, bit mean when you can spend an hour in a car and still be in the heart of amsterdam but an airbus will be two countries away) based on trips and yet most people think it is safe.
Surviving hype depends on how much we want the hype to be real. We want airtravel to be safe or else we wouldn't do it. It also depends on how we experience the disappointment. iPod buyers only experience it when they are in the shop and see products at half the price. Not often enough to force them to consider that the iPod is not worth the hype.
Lol, you are joking or an idiot or never seen either of the two techs you descibe.
The iPod got about 40gb of music and about half an hour playtime. The phones got 32mb and about 2-3 hours playtime.
iPod market will never be replaced by the phone market. Same reason the real hifi component market is not replaced by the boom-box market. iPod buyers will always want the extra quality that a dedicated product can give them. A gadget that tries to do everything will always end up doing all of them less.
100% I can do with them what I want including letting a million people drink out of them if I wanted to. I can break it and rearrgange it. Break it and sell the shards or give them away.
What exactly is different. Is the missing bit part of x-chat or part of the compiler.
This has been a problem before. If I make modifications to GPL code to get it to compile on my hardware AND then distribute the compiled binary I need to also release the code I added. However if all I did was alter some script or add script that helps with the compile then this is not needed.
It is a very unclear area as what happens when to compile GPL code on platform X I write a script that converst all variables from long to short? Is that a modification to the code or just a setting I used when compiling? Code modifications I need to give back, compiler settings I do not.
So does the bit that is different fall under the GPL? As I pointed out, unclearly, this does not have to be the case.
But if it is then he is in the wrong. Simplest solution. Stop doing windows. It is not like he is some evil outsider who is making hard money with others work. He is just an opensouce author of a nice piece of software who got tired of windows. Doesn't excuse him from breaking the GPL but no need to lynch him either on/.
Hopefully the situation will be sorted out and we will have come one step closer to making the GPL a clearly understood license.
Most of the movies listed have had their western DVD release so you can probably rent them at the better rental store. Akira and Ghost in the shell almost certainly.
The rarer stuff does not have a western release and force you to either learn japanese or get the "illegal" version from the net. There are plenty of fan subbed versions of anime series and movies out there. Often with better translations then the official releases. Fansubs ain't afraid to use explanations at the top of the screen when something said is to japanese to be translated.
So for the movies in the article search google for the official sites. Fansubs are techinaclly illegal but as long as no western company has licensed it it seems to be tolerated. At least the japanese don't seem to take action against fansubs. Fansubs do help to establish a market in the west I guess.
With animation you can do things that can't be done in real life.
I am not talking giant robots here. I am talking far simpler things. Scene at an airport. Scene at the busiest crossing in tokyo. Scene with a kid.
Ever notice how many of the live action series take place INSIDE? Because it is cheaper to film in a studio then on location. Canadian cities are very popular to shoot series that pretend to be in american cities because it is cheaper to close down a street for a shoot.
You might also notice that many anime involve childeren as the leads. This is a huge problem in live action as there are very strict laws about what you can and cannot make a child do. You might have noticed that series in the west about high school students have actors in their 30's.
Ultimately anime is just another media through wich a story teller can tell their story. There are a lot. Just like you can be told the story of "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" through a radio-play, a series of books, a series of comics, a tv series, an upcoming movie and even a computer game. All have their own charms and give their own capabilities to the story teller.
I get the idea that you can't imagine those capabilites as you seem to think that only "real" movies are worth it.
A radioplay is very cheap to setup. You simply "tell" the audience you are on a different planet, make some noises and that creates a different planet. A budget of a pound will do it. You only need actors who sound like their part. The ugliest actor can play the most beautifull character. Disadvantage. You need a listener with imagination. A radioplay can also break the 4th wall (I think it is called) and talk to the audience.
Books are even cheaper as you don't even need actors or sound effects. What you write is the world, if the reader has the imagination and you are skilled enough the entire set is created in the mind. People can imagine far more then even the fanciest CG can generate. Even better. A beautifull girl can be the beauty of the reader not the writer. Books don't have a fourth wall. Yo u can talk the reader all you want. Thought by a character is very very easy to express.
Comics/manga take away some of the freedom to imagine but gather the power of "a picture is worth a thousand words". But this comes at the expense of extra effort. You know need two skill sets, telling a story and drawing, wich you didn't need with a plain text book. The 4th wall is starting to close in but thought by a character can still be easily expressed.
TV and movie live action give you to power to create a world and have the viewer experience your vision. You loose some of the imagination, good horror movies don't show horror they make you imagine it, but gain the power of a moving picture speaks a million words. Disadvantage is that you are going to be restricted to the real world. There are only so many things you are allowed to do with actors. You now also need an actor who sounds the part, can act the part and looks like the part.
A computer game gives you that rarest of capabilties. To give the reader, a tiny amount, of control on the story. The text only hitchhiker adventure was much like a book but with the idea of control. A style of storytelling that is not yet fully explored.
Animation comes in with the live action but removes the need to find suitable looking actors and the need to build complex sets or get permission to film in real world location.
Animation gains the power of movie images without the restraint on the imagination of the author. If the author can imagine it then it can be done in animation.
As I said before this isn't just about special effects but about simple things like a war movie involving childeren. Filming in real life locations.
Ultimatly only a snob would dismiss a story telling media. It is the story that matters and how well it is told. If war and peace had been done in a comic would you not have read it? Read Lone wolf and cub sometime
Should it be purely entertaining? Tell a involving story? Make you think? Is the animation important?
Even then you aren't finished. Exactly what do you find entertaining. What does make a story involving. What stuff have you already thought about and don't need to be reminded by a movie?
The one that made me think was "Grave of the fireflies" a movie you could compare with the western "Empire of the sun". Both tell the what happens to kids in times of war. I liked one review that claimed fireflies was the best movie he ever watched and never wanted to watch again.
Of course if you like Akira and Ghost in the shell you might find fireflies very slow moving even boring. Perhaps. Depends for what reason you like the first two.
Another highly regarded movie you don't list is "Angels egg". One of the few movies you could watch without knowing any japanese and still be able to "understand" what is going on.
This will probabaly get me modded down but the movies you list are the typical "hollywood approved" anime movies people in the west have heard about. Doesn't mean the movies are bad or any less then their more unknown, in the west, siblings but if you really want to find the greatest anime movie ever you need to do a little bit more watching. Akira may then still be the greatest to you but at least you will have a longer list to show you watched anime other then the ones with a western approved release.
Oh and my favorite movie? I don't really have such a thing. There are far to many great movies I have seen that I like for different reasons. I am afraid that if I pick a single movie that "scores" best in all my catogories that I am falling into the hollywood trap of creating movies to appeal to everyone that end up appealing to no-one. Just saw a docu on Red Dwarf. American movie studie wants to cast Hugh Grant as Lister.
Compile your own damn code you lazy son of a bitch. Do you seriously think anyone cares if you use mirc?
Zed got tired of spending time and money on providing windows binaries. So he deciced to ask that in exchange for the binaries he be compensated. The code for xchat is there. Nobody is being stopped from doing their own compiling.
GPL is free as in freedom not free as in a free lunch. Zed is perfectly in his right to charge for his time. Just as long as he doesn't restrict access to the source he can demand your soul for the binaries if he wants too.
The intresting bit is wether he has restrictd access to the windows code. Providing only paid for windows binaries would be a violation of the GPL. If however the windows source code can be downloaded without restriction there is no problem. Anymore then Suse or Redhat charging you for their binaries x-chat (wich they do through their distro sales).
Anyway smartest thing for zed to do is simply to stop doing windows. Let a windows user worry about it.
There is nothing wrong with selling GPL software. I can take the linux kernel, compile it and sell it for as much as I want. I just got to make the source available as well and you in turn have the right to distribute the code.
So Zed selling binaries of x-chat is no problem. Just as long as he is also providing the source to it.
The examples of this are very easy to find. Every single distro of linux that sells binarie installations.
So zed has two options. Keep doing the windows binaries and charge for the fact that he is doing the compiling, exactly like suse and redhat do, but also make sure the code is available, excactly like suse and redhat do.
His other option is to just stop doing the windows crap. I can understand that he doesn't want to do it. If others want to do it for free then let them do it.
But him charging for x-chat binaries is no problem. Just as long as he doesn't restrict access to the source.
All this is based on what I understand of the GPL. I am not a lawyer but this discussion is nothing new. Just because most windows users are to braindead to do their own compiles doesn't mean they have the right to expect someone else to do it for free for them.
Not the best OS ever. The best OS MS has ever shipped. Since they are not adding anything new it shouldn't be possible for them to make it worse. Oh okay so ME was worse then what came before but surely MS can not screw up twice eh.
Depending how independent MSNBC really is (lets not forget they did do an almost completly positive review of a linux laptop) they got a nice story. Peacefull protestor arrested without being told the reason. Any reporter worth his salt should be able to spin a nice story from this.
Bush is already in hot water for putting foreigners in prison with being charged. Putting americans in prison without being charged should surely even get republicans worried.
He is using applescript and perl. So almost 100% sure he is using a mac.
As for it being vandalism you could call almost anything that has to do with protesting a criminal act. Carry a banner? Unlicensed advertising. Hold a sit in? Traffic disruption maybe even holding the people you are stopping against their will.
I think it is intresting that he is hardly the first to use grafitti. Microsoft advertised with it in the same city. Was Bill Gates arrested? No? Says it all doesn't it.
4 totally different machines
on
Handtop Roundup
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Just by looking at the interface you can tell that all four are taking a totally different approach to the market.
The flipstart is very close to a traditional laptop. I may be wrong but its use seems most natural when you put it down on a surface and start typing away. Just like a laptop but a lot smaller. With the advantage that in public transport laptops often don't fit.
The OQO is the only other one with a keyboard but it would seem uncomfortable to use for a lot of typing. If you lay it flat down for easy keyboard access the screen will be at an odd angle. Hold it in your hand and you will have to use the old hunt and peck approach to typing. Although it may be small enough to hold in both hands and type with the thumbs I think it will not equal the Flipstart in typing speeds.
The sony has a lot of controls but no keyboard. Clearly aimed at GUI apps therefore. Touchscreen are not a typist dream. It does however have plenty of controls so controlling media or a game or browsing shouldn't be a problem.
The last one is clearly aimed at special markets likely to run their own software. Not really well suited to a desktop enviroment.
The OQO beats the others on size. Important but the flipstart is very close and has the protected screen and is closest to a laptop. The LID thing seems nice as well.
I think it all depends on how much typing you want to do on the move. Lots then it is the flipstart. None then you can go for the sony. OQO sits neatly in the middle and the antelope is just to big.
The flipstart wins again on screensize compared with total size.
What I find odd is that battery life isn't previewed at all. Traditional laptop life times are very very bad. Especially since these devices seem such natural mobile media players.
Oh well, nice toys but we are soon going to see more and more cheap media players. It will be intrestting if they are going to add "extras" just like the iPod has an adress book. iRiver seems to planning some game support for its upcoming media players.
OQO coming out. Half-life 2 gone gold. The Sims finally getting a new engine. Doom 3 out. Longhorn stripped down and getting a closer release date.
Soon we will have only DNF left over as vaporware.
I like my linux desktop for work. Sadly I don't always got the choice to install it on work machines. With this I can turn any windows machine into my desktop. Exactly as I got it at home including all those usefull utilities.
Pretty smart. I could of course lug my own laptop around but that is a lot more expensive and you will be working on a laptop. Not a high end pc.
This is more like knoppix but with its own HD for easy storage of preferences and adding new applications.
Slashdot Mirror
Sgt Jenkins: Finally we found Bin Laden. Better call in an airstrike with MS Airstrike TM.
Clippy: Hi thank you for using MS Aistrike would you like me to A: Explain countless options you already know or don't care about. B: Ask me a question I won't answer but I will keep offering to answer your question. C: Call airstrike on allied position.
Clippy: You just closed me, please remember I will randomly come back to annoy you.
Sgt Jenkins: Finally, lets see enter the coordinates, open several dozen tabs and extra control apps hidden all over the place edit the registry.
Windows: Do you want to download the latest version of Microsoft Airstrike TM?
Sgt Jenkins: Hell no just do it!
Windows: Windows Airstrike TM has crashed please submit a bug report.
Sgt Jenkins: Oh goddamn upgrade the damn thing.
Windows: installing latest updates that where released with MS knowing full well that in their own test 2 out of 5 machines did not survive.
Windows: please reboot.
Sgt Jenkins: Were screwed. Is there ever going to be an war in wich I will not get the weapons created by the company with the biggest bribes?
So the court system gives you the benefit of the doubt most of the times. A case can only be thrown out in extreme circumstances. If there is even a small possibilty that the case has merit people need to be allowed to present their case.
That is what happened here. Sadly the millions paid so far seem to have not produced anything intresting.
I don't know what is going on but whoever is in charge of the legal team is doing an extremely bad job at it. Well you can already see this because the first thing any good lawyer does is to get his client to shut the fuck up.
But even being fought by McBrides big mouth every step of the way the lawyers have been doing very poor work. Poorly written documents, contradicting statements, incomplete complaints, even plain mis-understanding of the legal system. Biggest beauty was the christmas holiday delay. What the fuck was that about. What kind of experienced lawyer would expect a judge to swallow that? Rookie mistake.
There have been a few articles about boise and his company suggesting that with their extremely fast growth they have been letting standards slip as to who they hire. Poor SCO that they got the bottom of the barrel. I could cry.
All they detected is that it looks like the suns in question have something spinning around them. When they actually photograph them or detect the planets themselves THEN and only then can we start to speculate what they look like. For now it is pure speculation that they are in fact planets.
Tron is probably the "other" and "no formal os".
Of course tron is also mostly used in japan, if they didn't count japan then that would also explain it.
I have seen this prediction time and time again. No more PC, no more PDA, no more walkman, no more HI-FI components. It belongs firmly in the flying cars category.
What you want to choose something else then Microsoft? What are you? A commie?
This is really nothing new. MS has always thought that choice meant choosing MS.
Most companies think this. Just one tiny little problem. No other company has such a world-wide monopoly.
It seems odd that the dutch goverment is actively enforcing laws to stop Shell, a dutch company, from becoming a monopolist regarding fuel stations yet sees no problem with MS having a monopoly. Yet Shell is just another oil company world wide. Totally different from Microsoft that has a world wide monopoly.
If you are going to watch this movie I do recommend that you know this. It is not a feel good movie. The most important mistake you can make is to see it as important wich side the kids are on. It is easy to shrug off their suffering as the result of japans own actions. It is an absolute fact that japan has only the historians to thank for the fact that most of their war crimes are forgotten. They were in no ways less then those commited by the germans/austrians. In my personal opion in fact worse. The germans just gassed childeren. They didn't rape them time and time again in pleasure houses for their soldiers. The germans also have paid billions in damages. The japanese haven't even admitted that raping childeren is bad.
It is al to easy to go into this movie with the feelings that japan deserved to be bombed. It did. But these kids were not part of it. They had no more choice then the kids being raped by japanese soldiers. They are ultimately the victims of things outside their controle.
Just as the movie Tora Tora Tora shows how a series of events leads to the start of the pacific war, a series of events where at any time someone might have stopped it all from happening. Grave of the fireflies shows a series of events where two childeren end up dead. Not because of evil actions but because at several steps no-one took action.
Others are angry that the boy took not better care. This boy is not a movie hero, he is based on the author of the story. His owned sister died of starvation because he would when searching for food would feed himself first. He survived. She died. Just as he might have been able to save his sister in real life if he had been a better human being the movie brother might have made smarter choices. What I do think is missing in the movie is the emphasis that there simply wasn't any food to buy. Rice is not enough.
Ultimatly I think this is a road movie. You know from the beginning how it is going to end. What you watch the movie for is the journey. Do not judge the travellers. If you want to do that you better be 100% sure that you are a better human being then the characters. It is easy to blame someone in this story. That takes the guilt away from us. Because the real guilt is that this story is happening all around us today.
This is not an anti-war movie. That is to simple. It is a "this is what war is really like" movie.
If you have read the reviews and still go "but it is a cartoon" then you are one hell of shallow thing.
For some reason the idea is in the west that only live action is capable of telling "real" stories. These people just like the author of this article always have to point out the turd fighting super giant robot girls. At the same time neatly forgetting that this kinda stuff appears in hollywood movies as well. Or exactly what is "Attack of the 50 foot woman" about again?
There are other reasons to, so here is my bullet lists of reason why anime isn't being seen in the rest of the world.
But while nudity and sexyness is more accepted in japanese anime, sex itself is far more restricted. Not at all unusual for at least one of the leads to be a virgin.
Simply put the people in manga/anime can behave to different for western tastes. Or at least that is what tv/movie bosses think.
All this may make it difficult to show most manga/anime in the west. Exactly how do you market an extremely popular series like Ranma? At kids? It got nudity. At adults? The main chars don't even kiss. Do you translate typical japanese things to their western equivalent even if that ruins any chance of the joke coming across? Do you explain the joke? Make up your own?
I already see such things when I watch The Muppets on dutch tv. 2 stories for the price of one. The english audio and the dutch subs.
Disney was a business man and story teller who really studied the art of animation. He certainly has tried to create animation that was not just for kids but sadly most people think disney == kids. There fore cartoon == kids.
To bad those people will miss out but it is there loss not mine. Disney isn't to blame. People that dismiss intresting forms of story telling because it takes a certain form are. It is like saying casablance is slapstick because laurel & hardy is black & white.
If you are going to blame anyone blaim the catogorirs. Who on earth would put Shindlers List in a category with Police Academy? Then why is Grave of the fireflies listed in the same category as Pokemon?
If anything manga/anime is just another form of entertainment. If you look at a very popular manga like Maison Ikkoku you can easily see that is what just a coin flip wether they would have done a live action or a anime for the tv version. No real reason to go anime as it does not have any special effects or difficult to film bits (kids, animals, locations). In fact in many ways it is a pure sitcom. Most action taking place in a few rooms with a steady cast. Only advantage that anime gives is that a live action would have a missing wall (where the camera is in sitcoms).
Also I do not agree with your view of geeks being against popular things. We just don't like things just because they are popular or limit ourselves just because it is unpopular.
A true geek does not really care what others think. This should work both ways. Not care that others disapprove or approve. That is a geek. Someone who only cares about others disapproving is called an angsty teenager. Most geeks don't have the social skills to be angsty. Or the time.
But hey it works. Companies delayed adopting OS/2 because MS promised that 95 was going to be so much better. People are delaying switching to Linux/BSD/OSX because MS promises longhorn will be so much better.
This is hardly unknown in business. Harly davidson made bikes so bad they didn't even work out of the factory. Car companies have for years created models that killed people and they are still around. Air travel is the most dangerous form of transport around (the claim that it is the safest is based on distance travelled, bit mean when you can spend an hour in a car and still be in the heart of amsterdam but an airbus will be two countries away) based on trips and yet most people think it is safe.
Surviving hype depends on how much we want the hype to be real. We want airtravel to be safe or else we wouldn't do it. It also depends on how we experience the disappointment. iPod buyers only experience it when they are in the shop and see products at half the price. Not often enough to force them to consider that the iPod is not worth the hype.
The iPod got about 40gb of music and about half an hour playtime. The phones got 32mb and about 2-3 hours playtime.
iPod market will never be replaced by the phone market. Same reason the real hifi component market is not replaced by the boom-box market. iPod buyers will always want the extra quality that a dedicated product can give them. A gadget that tries to do everything will always end up doing all of them less.
Two different markets.
and LCD is out. It should be oled. Also forgot the camera and game capability.
100% my possesion to do with as I please.
Exactly how does this compare to DVD eh?
Of course another neat little swiss trick is that they ain't got anything anyone else wants and what little there is is on top of mountains.
So nothing worthwhile and to hard to get at. Perfect defence.
This has been a problem before. If I make modifications to GPL code to get it to compile on my hardware AND then distribute the compiled binary I need to also release the code I added. However if all I did was alter some script or add script that helps with the compile then this is not needed.
It is a very unclear area as what happens when to compile GPL code on platform X I write a script that converst all variables from long to short? Is that a modification to the code or just a setting I used when compiling? Code modifications I need to give back, compiler settings I do not.
So does the bit that is different fall under the GPL? As I pointed out, unclearly, this does not have to be the case.
But if it is then he is in the wrong. Simplest solution. Stop doing windows. It is not like he is some evil outsider who is making hard money with others work. He is just an opensouce author of a nice piece of software who got tired of windows. Doesn't excuse him from breaking the GPL but no need to lynch him either on /.
Hopefully the situation will be sorted out and we will have come one step closer to making the GPL a clearly understood license.
The rarer stuff does not have a western release and force you to either learn japanese or get the "illegal" version from the net. There are plenty of fan subbed versions of anime series and movies out there. Often with better translations then the official releases. Fansubs ain't afraid to use explanations at the top of the screen when something said is to japanese to be translated.
So for the movies in the article search google for the official sites. Fansubs are techinaclly illegal but as long as no western company has licensed it it seems to be tolerated. At least the japanese don't seem to take action against fansubs. Fansubs do help to establish a market in the west I guess.
I am not talking giant robots here. I am talking far simpler things. Scene at an airport. Scene at the busiest crossing in tokyo. Scene with a kid.
Ever notice how many of the live action series take place INSIDE? Because it is cheaper to film in a studio then on location. Canadian cities are very popular to shoot series that pretend to be in american cities because it is cheaper to close down a street for a shoot.
You might also notice that many anime involve childeren as the leads. This is a huge problem in live action as there are very strict laws about what you can and cannot make a child do. You might have noticed that series in the west about high school students have actors in their 30's.
Ultimately anime is just another media through wich a story teller can tell their story. There are a lot. Just like you can be told the story of "The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" through a radio-play, a series of books, a series of comics, a tv series, an upcoming movie and even a computer game. All have their own charms and give their own capabilities to the story teller.
I get the idea that you can't imagine those capabilites as you seem to think that only "real" movies are worth it.
Animation comes in with the live action but removes the need to find suitable looking actors and the need to build complex sets or get permission to film in real world location.
Animation gains the power of movie images without the restraint on the imagination of the author. If the author can imagine it then it can be done in animation.
As I said before this isn't just about special effects but about simple things like a war movie involving childeren. Filming in real life locations.
Ultimatly only a snob would dismiss a story telling media. It is the story that matters and how well it is told. If war and peace had been done in a comic would you not have read it? Read Lone wolf and cub sometime
Even then you aren't finished. Exactly what do you find entertaining. What does make a story involving. What stuff have you already thought about and don't need to be reminded by a movie?
The one that made me think was "Grave of the fireflies" a movie you could compare with the western "Empire of the sun". Both tell the what happens to kids in times of war. I liked one review that claimed fireflies was the best movie he ever watched and never wanted to watch again.
Of course if you like Akira and Ghost in the shell you might find fireflies very slow moving even boring. Perhaps. Depends for what reason you like the first two.
Another highly regarded movie you don't list is "Angels egg". One of the few movies you could watch without knowing any japanese and still be able to "understand" what is going on.
This will probabaly get me modded down but the movies you list are the typical "hollywood approved" anime movies people in the west have heard about. Doesn't mean the movies are bad or any less then their more unknown, in the west, siblings but if you really want to find the greatest anime movie ever you need to do a little bit more watching. Akira may then still be the greatest to you but at least you will have a longer list to show you watched anime other then the ones with a western approved release.
Oh and my favorite movie? I don't really have such a thing. There are far to many great movies I have seen that I like for different reasons. I am afraid that if I pick a single movie that "scores" best in all my catogories that I am falling into the hollywood trap of creating movies to appeal to everyone that end up appealing to no-one. Just saw a docu on Red Dwarf. American movie studie wants to cast Hugh Grant as Lister.
Zed got tired of spending time and money on providing windows binaries. So he deciced to ask that in exchange for the binaries he be compensated. The code for xchat is there. Nobody is being stopped from doing their own compiling.
GPL is free as in freedom not free as in a free lunch. Zed is perfectly in his right to charge for his time. Just as long as he doesn't restrict access to the source he can demand your soul for the binaries if he wants too.
The intresting bit is wether he has restrictd access to the windows code. Providing only paid for windows binaries would be a violation of the GPL. If however the windows source code can be downloaded without restriction there is no problem. Anymore then Suse or Redhat charging you for their binaries x-chat (wich they do through their distro sales).
Anyway smartest thing for zed to do is simply to stop doing windows. Let a windows user worry about it.
So Zed selling binaries of x-chat is no problem. Just as long as he is also providing the source to it.
The examples of this are very easy to find. Every single distro of linux that sells binarie installations.
So zed has two options. Keep doing the windows binaries and charge for the fact that he is doing the compiling, exactly like suse and redhat do, but also make sure the code is available, excactly like suse and redhat do.
His other option is to just stop doing the windows crap. I can understand that he doesn't want to do it. If others want to do it for free then let them do it.
But him charging for x-chat binaries is no problem. Just as long as he doesn't restrict access to the source.
All this is based on what I understand of the GPL. I am not a lawyer but this discussion is nothing new. Just because most windows users are to braindead to do their own compiles doesn't mean they have the right to expect someone else to do it for free for them.
Not the best OS ever. The best OS MS has ever shipped. Since they are not adding anything new it shouldn't be possible for them to make it worse. Oh okay so ME was worse then what came before but surely MS can not screw up twice eh.
Bush is already in hot water for putting foreigners in prison with being charged. Putting americans in prison without being charged should surely even get republicans worried.
As for it being vandalism you could call almost anything that has to do with protesting a criminal act. Carry a banner? Unlicensed advertising. Hold a sit in? Traffic disruption maybe even holding the people you are stopping against their will.
I think it is intresting that he is hardly the first to use grafitti. Microsoft advertised with it in the same city. Was Bill Gates arrested? No? Says it all doesn't it.
The flipstart is very close to a traditional laptop. I may be wrong but its use seems most natural when you put it down on a surface and start typing away. Just like a laptop but a lot smaller. With the advantage that in public transport laptops often don't fit.
The OQO is the only other one with a keyboard but it would seem uncomfortable to use for a lot of typing. If you lay it flat down for easy keyboard access the screen will be at an odd angle. Hold it in your hand and you will have to use the old hunt and peck approach to typing. Although it may be small enough to hold in both hands and type with the thumbs I think it will not equal the Flipstart in typing speeds.
The sony has a lot of controls but no keyboard. Clearly aimed at GUI apps therefore. Touchscreen are not a typist dream. It does however have plenty of controls so controlling media or a game or browsing shouldn't be a problem.
The last one is clearly aimed at special markets likely to run their own software. Not really well suited to a desktop enviroment.
The OQO beats the others on size. Important but the flipstart is very close and has the protected screen and is closest to a laptop. The LID thing seems nice as well.
I think it all depends on how much typing you want to do on the move. Lots then it is the flipstart. None then you can go for the sony. OQO sits neatly in the middle and the antelope is just to big.
The flipstart wins again on screensize compared with total size.
What I find odd is that battery life isn't previewed at all. Traditional laptop life times are very very bad. Especially since these devices seem such natural mobile media players.
Oh well, nice toys but we are soon going to see more and more cheap media players. It will be intrestting if they are going to add "extras" just like the iPod has an adress book. iRiver seems to planning some game support for its upcoming media players.
OQO coming out. Half-life 2 gone gold. The Sims finally getting a new engine. Doom 3 out. Longhorn stripped down and getting a closer release date.
Soon we will have only DNF left over as vaporware.
Pretty smart. I could of course lug my own laptop around but that is a lot more expensive and you will be working on a laptop. Not a high end pc.
This is more like knoppix but with its own HD for easy storage of preferences and adding new applications.