This is anime. It would have to follow in the steps of Pokemon, Hikaru no Go, Initial D, Stellvia, Princess Nine, etc. - with a worthless hero.
The young hero is a boy who accidentally steps on his older brother's motocycle after his brother falls and breaks his leg. The boy tries to go over the course himself, but also crashes. But when he crashes without breaking a single bone, or even gaining a single bruise, he finds that he must learn the ways of the Excitebike. He battles every opponent and narrowly wins. His opponents all talk trash when they meet him, but after losing, they admit defeat and suddenly become honorable, and the hero discovers their secret soft side. His spunky younger sister tags along and constantly reminds him of how he's supposed to ride the bike correctly, because he's a master rider but he always forgets the basic stuff. Luckily, she can shout it at him from the stands and he can always hear the advice over the roar of his bike, saying "Oh yeah, I was gonna do that!" And then there's his cousin, who is exactly the same age as him, but is twice as arrogant and already has a corporate sponsorship, and in the final episode of the series, he races his rival cousin for the grand prize as the cousin constantly taunts him and throws dirty tricks.
And then, after the incredible success of the series, they go on without the original writers to make ExciteBike Z, where the hero defeats every biker on the planet and has to go start racing bikers from outer space who all have higher powerlev-- er, faster acceleration than the guy before them. There are many shots of aliens just standing stunned in place going "He accelerates so fast! I can't even sense his motions!" And then the bike suddenly turns glowing yellow in the middle of the match. And just wait for the OAV's!
It would probably have to have some kind of quirky animal companion first. Like, the samds of time would have to become the kangaroo rat of time who sings songs and wisecracks while kicking bad guys in the... toes.
You just watch. They'll get the Pope to sponsor an Enduring Renewal, while secretly funding a Goblin Bombardment in Iraq. And once they have the Fruity Pebbles combo going...
We need to fund U.S. research of a Disenchant before they can acquire a Counterspell!!!
The half-serious version:
Despite having nearly gotten into virtual fisticuffs with Scott Kurtz, amongst other artists, you guys still seem to maintain quite a bit of respect for each other. Do you view the little rivalries as "side quests" for your bigger endeavors, as serious competition, or as just a way to use some of those great insults you've been sitting around thinking about?
The more humorous version:
How many different other webcomics and/or their artists can you insult in a single sentence?
"Again, while I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, I have a sinking fear that Disney is going turn this into another franchise that they will milk for all its worth. Until it has none of the spark which makes this movie so enjoyable."
There are always other themes to explore in the superhero world. Revealing "secret identities" would be a popular one, as would be continuing the internal stress amongst having an entire family working as superheroes. The villain of vaguely evil origins is common, where the super isn't sure if he's really doing the right thing by taking the bad guy down. Considering that the parents are in their middle age, the sequel could deal with continuing to do the right thing into senility and after your prime has ended - dealing with age has been a common theme amongst Pixar's films (Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2).
Don't forget, too, that Pixar was able to turn Toy Story 2 into the rare animated sequel that was just as good, if not better, than the original, and even under the stress of not even wanting to do the sequel in the first place, of being forced to under their contract. In short, I wouldn't discount Pixar's ingenuity just yet.
On a side note, the trailer for Cars doesn't look that interesting, but if Larry the Cable Guy is contributing a voice, I'm more than interested. Hopefully they let the guy do what he's good at. These are the spare tires they ordered for us? What is this, Russia?
It's not so much the look of the thing. I would just have an issue calling it a synthesizer. It's got a CD burner, for crying out loud. It looks more like an all-in-one digital workstation. I would never carry anything that bulky on a gig. And if I'm recording at home, I would rather use a standard computer setup than deal with something like that. I'm not sure what the market for this thing is going to be. It's an interesting bit of tech, but I'm not sure what to do with it.
Other banned ads included Burger King for claiming to have the best tasting fries, Ford for claiming to have the smoothest-running automobile, and Wal-Mart for claiming to have low prices everyday.
Perhaps closer to a car that needs its oil changed every 15 days. Patching Windows does not mean gutting your computer and replacing it. It mostly just means taking the 10 minutes out of your day to hit the "Windows Update" in your Start bar. Indeed, patches come along on a regular basis, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to install them.
It's kind of hard to say any system, even open source, is going to have "perfect code," but the major problem that is pointed out here is that it does no good to patch a system when the customers aren't going to install the patch. With products like 'nix, which are used more by *ahem* "serious" computer users, admins and the ilk, as soon as someone says "There's a bug in the software," word gets out, and people in the know make sure they are protected. The general population doesn't respond that quickly, however. Many Windows owners aren't even going to understand how to update their systems. This is not so much a fault with Windows as a fault with computer users who don't attempt to fully understand the product they are working with. People don't understand firewalls, they don't understand basic security. They know that you double-click on Outlook, and, poof, there's your e-mail.
We're going to see some obvious responses to this post about the faults of closed-system software, but Gates does bring up a good point: It's hard to have a secure system if the end-user doesn't know what he or she is doing. It's like a car that you drive for five years without ever getting the oil changed; there is no patch for ignorance. And what's funny is: whenever a company tries to become more user-friendly, Windows, Macintosh, etc., the hardcore community gets on their case for it. If we could develop an open-source system with enough depth to satisfy the experienced users, but is easy enough to keep in control by the neophytes, then you could have a widespread, secure system.
Sueing a few kids who download? No contest, RIAA wins. Trying to make commercial ISP's, college nets, and anyone else who hosts a connection charge people for each download? Or in the case of "free" connections like the colleges host, force the ISP to pay for each download?
"Hey, Joe, how come there are suddenly so many more lawyers at the defendants' table?"
The thing about Japanese comics is not that they tend to follow a logical story but more that they just don't really fit into one definition of "This is what comic books have to be about." Japanese comic books cover the whole spectrum of genres and storylines, much like comics used to be in America. Japanese comics have short-attention-span theater just like American comics.
If you want more than generalizations, then a used copy of Understanding Comics by McCloud will be much more informative than any Slashdot blurbs.
I knew there would be several of these "this is what is wrong with music today" posts on here. Having worked with pitch correction directly during student projects, everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. Pitch correction does not remove the "soul" from music. Yes, much of the "talent" portion of the music is gone from mainstream music, but that soul has nothing to do with pitch correction.
I used to know a guy from a fairly popular hardcore band in Boston, name removed to protect the innocent. When we laughed about the pitch-correction microphone in front of him, he told us that his lead singer really wanted one. In those small clubs, with little ventilation, in the middle of summer, it gets hot. You sweat. It becomes hard to perform. Especially if you're in a hardcore band fronting a heavy mosh pit. The pitch correction mic helps keep the technical aspect from sounding completely like shit just because the atmosphere is wearing you out.
What's more, a lot of music these days uses synthesizers rather than analog music. Against a completely techno-created production, pitch correction is almost a necessity. "Real" guitars and pianos can't hit perfect pitch right on the dot, no matter how well tuned, but a synthesizer usually has a mathematically-created perfect pitch. If the vocal is the only part of a track that sounds out-of-tune, then it can be hard to make the vocal match the track without a bit of pitch correction. For that matter, many dance tracks abuse and overuse autotune correctly, making a vocalist's voice sound robotic and mechanical to match a similarly electronic and mechanical dance beat. This is not to say that Cher's "Believe" is a great track, but it's not the autotune that keeps it from being interesting. Check out the underground "synthpop" revival, like Freezepop and the like, for other points of note.
And much as the parent poster mentioned, you people do not actually want an album with mistakes on it. How many of you kids would actually enjoy a terribly off-pitch album? If the players are having an off day in the studio, a bit of autotune is cheaper than another day of recording. Besides, most of the "good musicians" you people claim to like will probably be more inspired by the live stage than by the studio anyway.
Much like compression can help make tracks more tangible, but pop producers are abusing it to crush pop tracks with an L1, pitch correction is not destroying music. Pitch correction can bring a bit of technical expertise to a heavy performance, or can be used as a robot-ish effect, popular on pop dance tracks and other brands of synth pop. Shitty production, uninspired lyrics, and repetitive beats are killing music. Wait a minute... who said music was dying? Maybe if you'd all get your ears out of Clear Channel radio and check out local and indie artists, you'd notice that there is a vast area of music that is NOT being ruined by anything.
This story was printed recently as the cover for a weekly indie paper in Boston. The story reads more as a cover sheet for neophytes rather than for the hardcore Slashdot crowd, so you've probably heard most of it already, but there are a few points of interest:
-- Some legislators have built up backing for a "do not email" list, similar to the "do not call" list that can get telemarketers in trouble. However, there's little hope it will pass. Not only would most offshore spammers ignore the list, but a list full of working emails would be gold to most spammers.
-- The article briefly restates the idea that putting a price tag on emails could help the problem. The idea is that spammers make profits only because they can spam freely in such large quantities. If there were a 10 cent bill attached to emails sent, spammers would see greatly diminished returns. Small price to pay?
-- The article also gives this interesting thought in a "do's and don't's" sidebar: Use "plus addressing" (offered at EFN) if you care about who's giving out your e-mail address. Here's how it works: Get an e-mail account. For example, nospam@efn.org. What's different with plus addressing is that nospam1, nospam2, nospam3 and so on will also be sent to you, only they'll each come into individually labeled folders. Next, when you sign up for a Victoria's Secret card and they ask for your e-mail, you give them one of those plus addresses, such as nospam14. If you ever get a spam e-mail sent to the nospam14 folder, you know which organization sold or shared your e-mail, and therefore where not to buy your panties.
...I'm still kind of confused on what your issue is. The Grossman case you mention definetly sounds more like an issue of public domain rather than copyright, and that's a completely different can of worms.
The label owns the copyright to the recording of the song. Meaning... say I record a track with Colombia Records. The label drops me, so I go record with another label, and I record a remix of the same song on their label. I can do this because I (actually, my producer) owns the copyright on the song. The label, however, still owns the copyright on the original recording of that song. I could not just take the recording of the track I did with Colombia and put it on my next record. I would have to re-record the track. The label has control over whether or not the song makes it into commercials, soundtracks, etc. because they own that recording of the song, not the song itself.
I find it hard to believe they aren't allowed to perform their own songs. -- Owning the performance rights doesn't necessarily mean no one else can play the song. Otherwise, no one would be able to play cover songs. After a little Google searching, I find that Jackson owns the publishing rights. That link explains it better than I could. Note that the income is usually split 50/50 between the songwriter and the producer (a.k.a. whoever holds the copyright).
Why does the entertainment industry seemingly ignore large scale pirates who are making money off of selling copies and obviously detracting from sales...
Part of the problem is that many of the figures quoted as that piracy is from international piracy. It's a far different cry for the RIAA to go stomping about in different countries that they have little control over, nor would it be extensively cost effective for them to send out an international expedition, much like many anime companies can't go bitching out all the DVD pirates in Hong Kong.
In case you haven't noticed, there aren't many American-born pirates. There aren't a great deal of people standing on a corner in Brooklyn selling $3 CD-Rs. But filesharing is a mostly American phenomenom. It's more economically feasible to scare people straight by prosecuting a few than to go after everyone, obviously. Ever seen a policeman chase down EVERY car going over the speed limit on a stretch of highway?
The bottom line is: it's their product, they're allowed to protect it and otherwise do with it as they please.
I have not purchased one single CD in over two years.
That's too bad. I usually purchase non-mainstream artists' CDs at about $14 at non-national record stores. Boycott the RIAA's music, boycott expensive chain stores like Tower and Sam Goody. Don't boycott music itself.
Someone was paid a pretty large penny in order for Micheal Jackson to get a hold of the Beatles songs. Don't delude yourself into thinking the original owners got nothing.
As for "100% of the song rights," do you mean the copyright? The performance rights? The recording rights? I don't think you're quite aware of what you're talking about here. While I don't know off the top of my head, I'm guessing Micheal Jackson owns the performance rights to the Beatles songs. What "rights" are you talking about?
Slashdot Mirror
This is anime. It would have to follow in the steps of Pokemon, Hikaru no Go, Initial D, Stellvia, Princess Nine, etc. - with a worthless hero.
The young hero is a boy who accidentally steps on his older brother's motocycle after his brother falls and breaks his leg. The boy tries to go over the course himself, but also crashes. But when he crashes without breaking a single bone, or even gaining a single bruise, he finds that he must learn the ways of the Excitebike. He battles every opponent and narrowly wins. His opponents all talk trash when they meet him, but after losing, they admit defeat and suddenly become honorable, and the hero discovers their secret soft side. His spunky younger sister tags along and constantly reminds him of how he's supposed to ride the bike correctly, because he's a master rider but he always forgets the basic stuff. Luckily, she can shout it at him from the stands and he can always hear the advice over the roar of his bike, saying "Oh yeah, I was gonna do that!" And then there's his cousin, who is exactly the same age as him, but is twice as arrogant and already has a corporate sponsorship, and in the final episode of the series, he races his rival cousin for the grand prize as the cousin constantly taunts him and throws dirty tricks.
And then, after the incredible success of the series, they go on without the original writers to make ExciteBike Z, where the hero defeats every biker on the planet and has to go start racing bikers from outer space who all have higher powerlev-- er, faster acceleration than the guy before them. There are many shots of aliens just standing stunned in place going "He accelerates so fast! I can't even sense his motions!" And then the bike suddenly turns glowing yellow in the middle of the match. And just wait for the OAV's!
It would probably have to have some kind of quirky animal companion first. Like, the samds of time would have to become the kangaroo rat of time who sings songs and wisecracks while kicking bad guys in the... toes.
You just watch. They'll get the Pope to sponsor an Enduring Renewal, while secretly funding a Goblin Bombardment in Iraq. And once they have the Fruity Pebbles combo going...
We need to fund U.S. research of a Disenchant before they can acquire a Counterspell!!!
The half-serious version:
Despite having nearly gotten into virtual fisticuffs with Scott Kurtz, amongst other artists, you guys still seem to maintain quite a bit of respect for each other. Do you view the little rivalries as "side quests" for your bigger endeavors, as serious competition, or as just a way to use some of those great insults you've been sitting around thinking about?
The more humorous version:
How many different other webcomics and/or their artists can you insult in a single sentence?
Well, on the one hand, the jokes are funny, the graphics are gorgeous, and the message is deep.
...
...Sorry, that's all I got.
On the other hand...
Your mom.
"Again, while I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, I have a sinking fear that Disney is going turn this into another franchise that they will milk for all its worth. Until it has none of the spark which makes this movie so enjoyable."
There are always other themes to explore in the superhero world. Revealing "secret identities" would be a popular one, as would be continuing the internal stress amongst having an entire family working as superheroes. The villain of vaguely evil origins is common, where the super isn't sure if he's really doing the right thing by taking the bad guy down. Considering that the parents are in their middle age, the sequel could deal with continuing to do the right thing into senility and after your prime has ended - dealing with age has been a common theme amongst Pixar's films (Finding Nemo, Toy Story 2).
Don't forget, too, that Pixar was able to turn Toy Story 2 into the rare animated sequel that was just as good, if not better, than the original, and even under the stress of not even wanting to do the sequel in the first place, of being forced to under their contract. In short, I wouldn't discount Pixar's ingenuity just yet.
On a side note, the trailer for Cars doesn't look that interesting, but if Larry the Cable Guy is contributing a voice, I'm more than interested. Hopefully they let the guy do what he's good at. These are the spare tires they ordered for us? What is this, Russia?
In Soviet Russia, the ID carries you?
It's not so much the look of the thing. I would just have an issue calling it a synthesizer. It's got a CD burner, for crying out loud. It looks more like an all-in-one digital workstation. I would never carry anything that bulky on a gig. And if I'm recording at home, I would rather use a standard computer setup than deal with something like that. I'm not sure what the market for this thing is going to be. It's an interesting bit of tech, but I'm not sure what to do with it.
I'm thinking more that they were the target of a Shadowrun. Frag the mage first!
Other banned ads included Burger King for claiming to have the best tasting fries, Ford for claiming to have the smoothest-running automobile, and Wal-Mart for claiming to have low prices everyday.
Perhaps closer to a car that needs its oil changed every 15 days. Patching Windows does not mean gutting your computer and replacing it. It mostly just means taking the 10 minutes out of your day to hit the "Windows Update" in your Start bar. Indeed, patches come along on a regular basis, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to install them.
It's kind of hard to say any system, even open source, is going to have "perfect code," but the major problem that is pointed out here is that it does no good to patch a system when the customers aren't going to install the patch. With products like 'nix, which are used more by *ahem* "serious" computer users, admins and the ilk, as soon as someone says "There's a bug in the software," word gets out, and people in the know make sure they are protected. The general population doesn't respond that quickly, however. Many Windows owners aren't even going to understand how to update their systems. This is not so much a fault with Windows as a fault with computer users who don't attempt to fully understand the product they are working with. People don't understand firewalls, they don't understand basic security. They know that you double-click on Outlook, and, poof, there's your e-mail.
We're going to see some obvious responses to this post about the faults of closed-system software, but Gates does bring up a good point: It's hard to have a secure system if the end-user doesn't know what he or she is doing. It's like a car that you drive for five years without ever getting the oil changed; there is no patch for ignorance. And what's funny is: whenever a company tries to become more user-friendly, Windows, Macintosh, etc., the hardcore community gets on their case for it. If we could develop an open-source system with enough depth to satisfy the experienced users, but is easy enough to keep in control by the neophytes, then you could have a widespread, secure system.
That's odd. What with all the extensions on copyright expirations, I didn't realize that the Bible was in the public domain.
Just what we needed, lots of new material for the Something Awful goons.
Sueing a few kids who download? No contest, RIAA wins. Trying to make commercial ISP's, college nets, and anyone else who hosts a connection charge people for each download? Or in the case of "free" connections like the colleges host, force the ISP to pay for each download?
"Hey, Joe, how come there are suddenly so many more lawyers at the defendants' table?"
Watch for this one to go down in flames.
And anyone who debates whether or not we can read words with blatant misspellings and poor grammar has obviously never downloaded AIM.
The thing about Japanese comics is not that they tend to follow a logical story but more that they just don't really fit into one definition of "This is what comic books have to be about." Japanese comic books cover the whole spectrum of genres and storylines, much like comics used to be in America. Japanese comics have short-attention-span theater just like American comics.
If you want more than generalizations, then a used copy of Understanding Comics by McCloud will be much more informative than any Slashdot blurbs.
I knew there would be several of these "this is what is wrong with music today" posts on here. Having worked with pitch correction directly during student projects, everyone is blowing this way out of proportion. Pitch correction does not remove the "soul" from music. Yes, much of the "talent" portion of the music is gone from mainstream music, but that soul has nothing to do with pitch correction.
I used to know a guy from a fairly popular hardcore band in Boston, name removed to protect the innocent. When we laughed about the pitch-correction microphone in front of him, he told us that his lead singer really wanted one. In those small clubs, with little ventilation, in the middle of summer, it gets hot. You sweat. It becomes hard to perform. Especially if you're in a hardcore band fronting a heavy mosh pit. The pitch correction mic helps keep the technical aspect from sounding completely like shit just because the atmosphere is wearing you out.
What's more, a lot of music these days uses synthesizers rather than analog music. Against a completely techno-created production, pitch correction is almost a necessity. "Real" guitars and pianos can't hit perfect pitch right on the dot, no matter how well tuned, but a synthesizer usually has a mathematically-created perfect pitch. If the vocal is the only part of a track that sounds out-of-tune, then it can be hard to make the vocal match the track without a bit of pitch correction. For that matter, many dance tracks abuse and overuse autotune correctly, making a vocalist's voice sound robotic and mechanical to match a similarly electronic and mechanical dance beat. This is not to say that Cher's "Believe" is a great track, but it's not the autotune that keeps it from being interesting. Check out the underground "synthpop" revival, like Freezepop and the like, for other points of note.
And much as the parent poster mentioned, you people do not actually want an album with mistakes on it. How many of you kids would actually enjoy a terribly off-pitch album? If the players are having an off day in the studio, a bit of autotune is cheaper than another day of recording. Besides, most of the "good musicians" you people claim to like will probably be more inspired by the live stage than by the studio anyway.
Much like compression can help make tracks more tangible, but pop producers are abusing it to crush pop tracks with an L1, pitch correction is not destroying music. Pitch correction can bring a bit of technical expertise to a heavy performance, or can be used as a robot-ish effect, popular on pop dance tracks and other brands of synth pop. Shitty production, uninspired lyrics, and repetitive beats are killing music. Wait a minute... who said music was dying? Maybe if you'd all get your ears out of Clear Channel radio and check out local and indie artists, you'd notice that there is a vast area of music that is NOT being ruined by anything.
This story was printed recently as the cover for a weekly indie paper in Boston. The story reads more as a cover sheet for neophytes rather than for the hardcore Slashdot crowd, so you've probably heard most of it already, but there are a few points of interest:
-- Some legislators have built up backing for a "do not email" list, similar to the "do not call" list that can get telemarketers in trouble. However, there's little hope it will pass. Not only would most offshore spammers ignore the list, but a list full of working emails would be gold to most spammers.
-- The article briefly restates the idea that putting a price tag on emails could help the problem. The idea is that spammers make profits only because they can spam freely in such large quantities. If there were a 10 cent bill attached to emails sent, spammers would see greatly diminished returns. Small price to pay?
-- The article also gives this interesting thought in a "do's and don't's" sidebar: Use "plus addressing" (offered at EFN) if you care about who's giving out your e-mail address. Here's how it works: Get an e-mail account. For example, nospam@efn.org. What's different with plus addressing is that nospam1, nospam2, nospam3 and so on will also be sent to you, only they'll each come into individually labeled folders. Next, when you sign up for a Victoria's Secret card and they ask for your e-mail, you give them one of those plus addresses, such as nospam14. If you ever get a spam e-mail sent to the nospam14 folder, you know which organization sold or shared your e-mail, and therefore where not to buy your panties.
...now Verizon customer service is gonna be all, "Sorry, sir, it will take a week for us to replace the sponge."
...I'm still kind of confused on what your issue is. The Grossman case you mention definetly sounds more like an issue of public domain rather than copyright, and that's a completely different can of worms.
The label owns the copyright to the recording of the song. Meaning... say I record a track with Colombia Records. The label drops me, so I go record with another label, and I record a remix of the same song on their label. I can do this because I (actually, my producer) owns the copyright on the song. The label, however, still owns the copyright on the original recording of that song. I could not just take the recording of the track I did with Colombia and put it on my next record. I would have to re-record the track. The label has control over whether or not the song makes it into commercials, soundtracks, etc. because they own that recording of the song, not the song itself.
I find it hard to believe they aren't allowed to perform their own songs. -- Owning the performance rights doesn't necessarily mean no one else can play the song. Otherwise, no one would be able to play cover songs. After a little Google searching, I find that Jackson owns the publishing rights. That link explains it better than I could. Note that the income is usually split 50/50 between the songwriter and the producer (a.k.a. whoever holds the copyright).
Why does the entertainment industry seemingly ignore large scale pirates who are making money off of selling copies and obviously detracting from sales...
Part of the problem is that many of the figures quoted as that piracy is from international piracy. It's a far different cry for the RIAA to go stomping about in different countries that they have little control over, nor would it be extensively cost effective for them to send out an international expedition, much like many anime companies can't go bitching out all the DVD pirates in Hong Kong.
In case you haven't noticed, there aren't many American-born pirates. There aren't a great deal of people standing on a corner in Brooklyn selling $3 CD-Rs. But filesharing is a mostly American phenomenom. It's more economically feasible to scare people straight by prosecuting a few than to go after everyone, obviously. Ever seen a policeman chase down EVERY car going over the speed limit on a stretch of highway?
The bottom line is: it's their product, they're allowed to protect it and otherwise do with it as they please.
I'd mod your post up if I hadn't already contributed 5 posts to this discussion.
I have not purchased one single CD in over two years.
That's too bad. I usually purchase non-mainstream artists' CDs at about $14 at non-national record stores. Boycott the RIAA's music, boycott expensive chain stores like Tower and Sam Goody. Don't boycott music itself.
Someone was paid a pretty large penny in order for Micheal Jackson to get a hold of the Beatles songs. Don't delude yourself into thinking the original owners got nothing.
As for "100% of the song rights," do you mean the copyright? The performance rights? The recording rights? I don't think you're quite aware of what you're talking about here. While I don't know off the top of my head, I'm guessing Micheal Jackson owns the performance rights to the Beatles songs. What "rights" are you talking about?