every time there's a story like this, someone will come in and say that filesharing has legitimate purposes as well etc etc..
BUT.. fact is.. the vast majority of, and I mean vast, files on p2p are illegal.
Now.. consider this.. say there was this little bar.. where 5% drank beer and were jolly happy.. and the rest, 95%, were trading illegally stolen properties like furniture and microwave ovens and whatever.. and they were doing it casually, and everyone in the entire city knew about it.. it was widely known in every media like internet, tv etc.. so what do you think the police would have done? Exactly.. and it would have hurt those 5% who actually did what you're supposed to do in a bar.
Would this imply that all bars should be shut down because people could do illegal stuff there? Hardly.. BUT.. if there is a place that is known for illegal stuff, even though it also has legal uses, shold it not be shut down?
So basically.. it is easy to observe p2p networks.. those who are legal, should be let alone.. those which are mostly illegal, should be shut down.. it doesn't matter..
and in fact, the vast majority of p2p networks are mostly illegal in their contents. Because let's face it, there is simply NO WAY the majority of files on big p2p networks WON'T be illegal.. you could say it's the right thing to do to give humans the benefit of doubt, but it is a simple facet of human nature that if people can share illegal digital files on p2p networks, they WILL do so.. and it is also so in real life.
If 9 out of 10 people in a place are doing criminal stuff, surely that should be enough to shut down the place, even if it would hurt the rest 10%.. this is how it works elsewhere, why shouldn't it be the same for p2p?
a more mature evangelion
on
Giant Mecha News
·
· Score: 3, Informative
try rahxephon for size.. right from the beginning you will get the EVA-feel, and even though it feels a little too close to being a clone, you will realize after a short while that it is more mature in every way compared to EVA.. both in character, story, ending, and production. Oh yeah, especially the ending is completely brilliant.
Of course, some will never get over how much it resembles EVA in many ways, but.. look past that, and you have a brilliant series that is all what EVA only could have wished to be.(EVA was simply too childish in too many ways to appeal to me)
i don't know what it should have to say in this context, but it is often said acting is 50% voice, and I agree. Being an anime fan, very often I am more emotionally touched by anime characters than I by characters played by 100% by real humans.. I have wondered why this is.. and well, even though animated characters are 50% human, in that voiceacting is 50%, the other 50% is pure character and not 50% acting body language.
Anyway, hollywood and the oscars are very clearly geared heavily towards live action, and perhaps fundamental change there is what's required to give digital and semi-digital characters any real chance to win something. Because as the system is, both such characters and animated features don't get to play.. digital characters don't get to play at all, and animated features are all put up together in a ghetto usually. I as a fan of all sorts of animation find that unfair.. but then again, hollywood is a liveaction industry, and perhaps it is just as unfair to demand of them to treat animation equally to liveaction.. but sometimes, I wish they would just leave out animation as that would be more respectful. And hollywood, the oscars, the hollywood audience.. they love actors and all the glamour that implies.. you don't get as much of that with animated characters.. so.. maybe it is just too much to ask, if it is clearly not what neither the industry nor the general audience wants. yeah sure many digged gollum.. but.. if thete becomes too many of his kind people will just get bored and scream for more real actors.
The last question it asks is "so is it all over?" And the answer it fails to provide is that that's a definitive no, because it doesn't cover the last decade! History has already shown it is far from over.. anime survived the bad bad economy, and is more popular than EVER.
Remember the timeline the article provides is BEFORE the time of cowboy bebop (one of the most popular anime series in the west ever). It's before the time of record-breaking princess mononoke (extreme commercial success).. and it's before the time of spirited away (even more extreme commercial success, and quite possible this year's winner for the best animation oscar, which again would provide the japanese anime industry another boost).
I just noticed all this when I finally read the darn thing =p It mentions the impact of movies such as naushika and akira.. well, it is far from over, as princess mononoke and spirited away have shown (bigger succeses than naushika and akira even!!).
Oh yeah.. one of the last things it mentions is that there is some good stuff on the horizon, like escaflowne.. and indeed, escaflowne turned out to turn out pretty big as well, although cowboy bebop took the throne later on. Both escaflowne and cowboy bebop also produced two good movies.. and there were other good movies as well, including but not limited to jin roh and metropolis.
Furthermore, there are still lots of good series coming out. Studio bones is worth a mentioning.. both witch hunter robin and wolfs rain might turn out to be big hits (and rahxephon is doing well). There's a really good new ghost in the shell series running, done by IG. And a year ago we had the brilliantly funny azumanga daioh, also sure to be a huge hit. Actually, there seems to be at least a dozen great new series each year, and that trend is not failing any time soon I reckon.. (no I'm not going to bother to mention all of them.. I'm looking at lists of what has been out each of the previous years, and there are LOTS of goodies to pick out).
so for anyone seriously thinking anime is dead.. far from it =) It's bigger than in a long time, and even my sister and my neighbour has seen an anime now!!!! (that warrants many exclamation marks=D)
of course, there are problems on the horizon as well.. like people downloading way too much licensed anime from the net.
Movies: - jin roh (2000/2001-something) For anyone looking for something dark and moody. The drawing style is realistic (no oversized eyes/breasts here), and the animation quality is really brilliant (studio IG know their stuff). The storyline is a little hard to follow sometimes because of the many different factions involved each with their own motives, but in the end, it's all very poetic and well executed. Also watch out for the soundtrack, by Mizoguchi Hajime; especially the theme melody is one of the best I've ever heard in any movie.
- sen to chihiro no kamikakushi / spirited away (2002/2003) watching this at a cinema is truly a fabulous experience as it's like being swept away by thousands and thousands of brilliantly drawn paintings.. the visual qualities, at a cinema, are extraordinarily beautiful. Hisaishi Jo provides a great score, as usual, and all in all this is another masterpiece from the legendary writer-director-drawer Miyazaki Hayao. Probably gonna win oscar, too.
with anime is there's too much of it =) I mean, with 50++ NEW anime series a year, and a dozen new movies and OVAs, who can either afford the time or money to watch it all. Too bad, cause half of it is usually better than most stuff on (american) cable tv and hollywood.
why anime is so good? Well, for me, half the fun is to admire the animation. Granted, anime is often choppy and no that full of motion, but even simple drawings can amaze me, in that I think it is fantastic that we humans can draw that well. Other thing is that if you watch something barely decent over a period of 8-9 hours, you'll end up loving it whether it's mediocre or not, as it really grows on you in the end (also because in anime, there's usually a storyline). Actually, anime are often remarkable for their storyline, IMO, and that only seems logical. Let's face it, there's often very little ot none motion in a typical tv anime, so the only thing that's left is a good story and good characters. So I always like to say anime is a storytelling medium.
Other aspects of anime I like is the cultural difference. Japan is far less americanized than most modern countries I know of, and has an unique mixture of old and new that makes it all that more interesting. I also like the language.. don't understand much =D, but the language often sounds sort of poetic to me. And that's not only something I'm imagining I think, as I already speak 3 different languages fluently (although they're all indo-european languages, so what would I know =D).
And I tell you from MY experience that yes, I've tried pheonix, yes, it works well enough, but no, it cannot hold its own against opera.. The main fault of pheonix compared to opera is that opera just FEELS a lot quicker, and also has some functionality that I cannot personalliy do without that pheonix/moz cannot yet offer. In other words, for me, pheonix feels just like mozilla.. a little unpolished around the edges, and with this "bloaty" feel that makes it seem A LOT slower than it actually is (because the rendering is actually quite good.. but the "feel" of the speed is just completely wrong).
"Can somebody answer me why someone would buy a web bowser these days?"
You tell me something sport.. if I've thoroughly checked out the competition, mainly IE and mozilla/pheonix, why would I want to purchase something like opera.. ? Clearly there must be something in it that makes me do it, eh.. There are many things that can make a browser good or bad for someone. Beside some functionality that the other browsers cannot provide me, and the speed and customizability, it just works^TM for me, while the other browsers feel suboptimal in comparison.
ps: even speed alone would be major selling point of opera, as it zips past both mozilla/pheonix and IE.
Come on, spatial navigation is heaven for any keyboarder who wants to save even some MORE time!!
Personally I'm not that much of a keyboarder.. but.. just a while ago, I had food in both my hands, and wanted to continue browsing the web.. you know what I did? I actually managed to navigate links with the spatial navigation system by using my feet!! seriously!! for anyone wondering, i sit on the floor. Oh yeah.. I know that's not what the system's designed for, but.. if you can use it with your feet, surely it must be good!!
but opera surely does rock!! I have tried Mozilla,
Pheonix, and IE, and also Konqueror and some other
browser on linux which I tested a while ago, and
well.. sorry, but opera is by far the best browser
I've ever used.. I would mourn if it suddenly went
bankrupt or whatever, as non of the other browsers
are good enough for me after having used opera. Of
course, things are looking fairly good for opera
and their future, even though they're competing in
the deadliest of markets - this hold true especially
for the portable market.
When discussing opera and browsers, someone always
comes on and says why not use pheonix instead?? I
will tell you something.. to me, pheonix feels almost
as bloated as mozilla.. it's just something with the..
interface.. difficult to describe.. even the renderer
feels slower, or in some other way inferior to the
one of opera, but.. the show stops already
with the user interface.. there's just something
not completely right about it.. opera has nothing
too fancy in the way of interface design, but it just
works and feels very good.
So some seem to think us opera users just make stupid
claims.. tell me this.. why the hell would i bother
to pay for opera if pheonix is just as good or even
better as many claim? For me, it simply isn't.. besides,
opera has some functionality moz/pheonix cannot offer
me yet.
Yes, copying music is sweet because it is free..
but what's even better than it being free is the
convenience.. that you can have everything at one
place instantly accecible.. now, limit me to an
hours' worth of music from one artist per one shiny
silver disc, and that becomes a showstopper. I want
big playlists of thousands of songs at my convenience
instantly playable, nothing else is good enough.
That's where they should start.. I still buy CDs,
but that is simply because I like to encode my songs
myself, as I please. Now, take away my ability to rip
these CDs, and what am I left with? That I can play them
whenever I want to on my stereo, or even PC?? What good
does that do me when I haven't actually played a cd off
a cd player in years. It's a BIG HASSLE.
Slashdot Mirror
every time there's a story like this, someone will
come in and say that filesharing has legitimate
purposes as well etc etc..
BUT.. fact is.. the vast majority of, and I mean vast, files
on p2p are illegal.
Now.. consider this.. say there was this little bar.. where 5% drank beer and were jolly happy.. and the rest, 95%, were trading illegally stolen properties like furniture and microwave ovens and whatever.. and they were doing it casually, and everyone in the entire city knew about it.. it was widely known in every media like internet, tv etc.. so what do you think the police would have done? Exactly.. and it would have hurt those 5% who actually did what you're supposed to do in a bar.
Would this imply that all bars should be shut down because people could do illegal stuff there? Hardly.. BUT.. if there is a place that is known for illegal stuff, even though it also has legal uses, shold it not be shut down?
So basically.. it is easy to observe p2p networks.. those who are legal, should be let alone.. those which are mostly illegal, should be shut down.. it doesn't matter..
and in fact, the vast majority of p2p networks are mostly illegal in their contents. Because let's face it, there is simply NO WAY the majority of files on big p2p networks WON'T be illegal.. you could say it's the right thing to do to give humans the benefit of doubt, but it is a simple facet of human nature that if people can share illegal digital files on p2p networks, they WILL do so.. and it is also so in real life.
If 9 out of 10 people in a place are doing criminal stuff, surely that should be enough to shut down the place, even if it would hurt the rest 10%.. this is how it works elsewhere, why shouldn't it be the same for p2p?
try rahxephon for size.. right from the beginning you will
get the EVA-feel, and even though it feels a little too
close to being a clone, you will realize after a short while
that it is more mature in every way compared to EVA.. both
in character, story, ending, and production. Oh yeah, especially the ending is completely brilliant.
Of course, some will never get over how much it resembles EVA in many ways, but.. look past that, and you have a brilliant series that is all what EVA only could have wished to be.(EVA was simply too childish in too many ways to appeal to me)
link at animefu
link at animenfo
It's just starting to come out on DVD. I expect it to become a hit.
i don't know what it should have to say in this
context, but it is often said acting is 50% voice,
and I agree. Being an anime fan, very often I am
more emotionally touched by anime characters than
I by characters played by 100% by real humans.. I
have wondered why this is.. and well, even though
animated characters are 50% human, in that voiceacting
is 50%, the other 50% is pure character and not 50%
acting body language.
Anyway, hollywood and the oscars are very clearly
geared heavily towards live action, and perhaps
fundamental change there is what's required to
give digital and semi-digital characters any
real chance to win something. Because as the
system is, both such characters and animated
features don't get to play.. digital characters
don't get to play at all, and animated features
are all put up together in a ghetto usually.
I as a fan of all sorts of animation find that
unfair.. but then again, hollywood is a liveaction
industry, and perhaps it is just as unfair to demand
of them to treat animation equally to liveaction.. but
sometimes, I wish they would just leave out
animation as that would be more respectful. And
hollywood, the oscars, the hollywood audience.. they
love actors and all the glamour that implies.. you
don't get as much of that with animated characters..
so.. maybe it is just too much to ask, if it is
clearly not what neither the industry nor the general
audience wants. yeah sure many digged gollum.. but..
if thete becomes too many of his kind people will
just get bored and scream for more real actors.
The last question it asks is "so is it all over?"
And the answer it fails to provide is that that's
a definitive no, because it doesn't cover the last
decade! History has already shown it is far from
over.. anime survived the bad bad economy, and
is more popular than EVER.
Remember the timeline the article provides is
BEFORE the time of cowboy bebop (one of the
most popular anime series in the west ever). It's
before the time of record-breaking princess mononoke
(extreme commercial success).. and it's before the
time of spirited away (even more extreme commercial
success, and quite possible this year's winner for
the best animation oscar, which again would provide
the japanese anime industry another boost).
I just noticed all this when I finally read the
darn thing =p It mentions the impact of movies
such as naushika and akira.. well, it is far from
over, as princess mononoke and spirited away have
shown (bigger succeses than naushika and akira
even!!).
Oh yeah.. one of the last things it mentions is
that there is some good stuff on the horizon,
like escaflowne.. and indeed, escaflowne turned
out to turn out pretty big as well, although
cowboy bebop took the throne later on. Both
escaflowne and cowboy bebop also produced two
good movies.. and there were other good movies
as well, including but not limited to jin roh
and metropolis.
Furthermore, there are still lots of good series
coming out. Studio bones is worth a mentioning..
both witch hunter robin and wolfs rain might
turn out to be big hits (and rahxephon is doing
well). There's a really good new ghost in the shell
series running, done by IG. And a year ago we had
the brilliantly funny azumanga daioh, also sure to
be a huge hit. Actually, there seems to be at least
a dozen great new series each year, and that trend
is not failing any time soon I reckon.. (no I'm not
going to bother to mention all of them.. I'm looking
at lists of what has been out each of the previous
years, and there are LOTS of goodies to pick out).
so for anyone seriously thinking anime is dead..
far from it =) It's bigger than in a long time,
and even my sister and my neighbour has seen an anime
now!!!! (that warrants many exclamation marks=D)
of course, there are problems on the horizon as well..
like people downloading way too much licensed anime
from the net.
for people wanting to check out anime:
Movies:
- jin roh (2000/2001-something)
For anyone looking for something dark and moody. The drawing
style is realistic (no oversized eyes/breasts here), and the animation quality is really brilliant (studio IG know their stuff). The storyline is a little hard to follow sometimes because of the many different factions involved each with their own motives, but in the end, it's all very poetic and well executed. Also watch out for the soundtrack, by Mizoguchi Hajime; especially the theme melody is one of the best I've ever heard in any movie.
- sen to chihiro no kamikakushi / spirited away (2002/2003)
watching this at a cinema is truly a fabulous experience as it's like being swept away by thousands and thousands of brilliantly drawn paintings.. the visual qualities, at a cinema, are extraordinarily beautiful. Hisaishi Jo provides a great score, as usual, and all in all this is another masterpiece from the legendary writer-director-drawer Miyazaki Hayao. Probably gonna win oscar, too.
with anime is there's too much of it =) I mean,
with 50++ NEW anime series a year, and a dozen new
movies and OVAs, who can either afford the time or
money to watch it all. Too bad, cause half of it is
usually better than most stuff on (american) cable
tv and hollywood.
why anime is so good? Well, for me, half the fun is
to admire the animation. Granted, anime is often
choppy and no that full of motion, but even simple
drawings can amaze me, in that I think it is fantastic
that we humans can draw that well. Other thing is that
if you watch something barely decent over a period of
8-9 hours, you'll end up loving it whether it's mediocre
or not, as it really grows on you in the end (also because
in anime, there's usually a storyline). Actually, anime
are often remarkable for their storyline, IMO, and that
only seems logical. Let's face it, there's often very little
ot none motion in a typical tv anime, so the only thing that's left is a good story and good characters. So I always like to say anime is a storytelling medium.
Other aspects of anime I like is the cultural difference. Japan is far less americanized than most modern countries I know of, and has an unique mixture of old and new that makes it all that more interesting. I also like the language.. don't understand much =D, but the language often sounds sort of poetic to me. And that's not only something I'm imagining I think, as I already speak 3 different languages fluently (although they're all indo-european languages, so what would I know =D).
And I tell you from MY experience that yes, I've tried
pheonix, yes, it works well enough, but no, it cannot
hold its own against opera.. The main fault of pheonix
compared to opera is that opera just FEELS a lot quicker,
and also has some functionality that I cannot personalliy
do without that pheonix/moz cannot yet offer. In other
words, for me, pheonix feels just like mozilla.. a little
unpolished around the edges, and with this "bloaty" feel
that makes it seem A LOT slower than it actually is (because the rendering is actually quite good.. but the "feel" of the speed is just completely wrong).
"Can somebody answer me why someone would buy a web bowser these days?"
You tell me something sport.. if I've thoroughly checked out the competition, mainly IE and mozilla/pheonix, why would I want to purchase something like opera.. ? Clearly there must be something in it that makes me do it, eh.. There are many
things that can make a browser good or bad for someone. Beside some functionality that the other browsers cannot provide me, and the speed and customizability, it just works^TM for me, while the other browsers feel suboptimal in comparison.
ps: even speed alone would be major selling point of opera, as it zips past both mozilla/pheonix and IE.
Come on, spatial navigation is heaven for any keyboarder who wants to save even some MORE time!!
Personally I'm not that much of a keyboarder.. but.. just a while ago, I had food in both my hands, and wanted to continue browsing the web.. you know what I did? I actually managed to navigate links with the spatial navigation system by using my feet!! seriously!! for anyone wondering, i sit on the floor.
Oh yeah.. I know that's not what the system's designed for, but.. if you can use it with your feet, surely it must be good!!
but opera surely does rock!! I have tried Mozilla, Pheonix, and IE, and also Konqueror and some other browser on linux which I tested a while ago, and well.. sorry, but opera is by far the best browser I've ever used.. I would mourn if it suddenly went bankrupt or whatever, as non of the other browsers are good enough for me after having used opera. Of course, things are looking fairly good for opera and their future, even though they're competing in the deadliest of markets - this hold true especially for the portable market. When discussing opera and browsers, someone always comes on and says why not use pheonix instead?? I will tell you something.. to me, pheonix feels almost as bloated as mozilla.. it's just something with the.. interface.. difficult to describe.. even the renderer feels slower, or in some other way inferior to the one of opera, but.. the show stops already with the user interface.. there's just something not completely right about it.. opera has nothing too fancy in the way of interface design, but it just works and feels very good. So some seem to think us opera users just make stupid claims.. tell me this.. why the hell would i bother to pay for opera if pheonix is just as good or even better as many claim? For me, it simply isn't.. besides, opera has some functionality moz/pheonix cannot offer me yet.
Does the average Slashdot reader think they will retire (with a pension, benefits, etc) after a long and successful career in IT?
"FP!"
"Woooooot! FP! Lemchatters envy me!"
"asereje ja deje dejebe tu dejebe"
Yes, copying music is sweet because it is free.. but what's even better than it being free is the convenience.. that you can have everything at one place instantly accecible.. now, limit me to an hours' worth of music from one artist per one shiny silver disc, and that becomes a showstopper. I want big playlists of thousands of songs at my convenience instantly playable, nothing else is good enough. That's where they should start.. I still buy CDs, but that is simply because I like to encode my songs myself, as I please. Now, take away my ability to rip these CDs, and what am I left with? That I can play them whenever I want to on my stereo, or even PC?? What good does that do me when I haven't actually played a cd off a cd player in years. It's a BIG HASSLE.