I was surprised by how quickly the hospital in ER was able to install LCD monitors everyplace, apparently years before they were affordable to the general population.
Does anyone remember the ER episode where the entire staff was playing DOOM? The screen images were very clear, and the actors actually used the names of the weapons in their dialog.
Actually, the government was there first. They set out rules that broadcasters must agree into in exchange for access to a limited resource (the airwaves).
No no no. Read the friendly article! This is a petition to the FTC, not the FCC. The FCC has power over broadcasters because they use radio spectra. The Federal Trade Commision has power because they're engaging in trade, not because a public resource is being used.
The petition makes no distinction between radio-broadcast TV and other forms, like cable (and indeed, some cable stations which don't have explicit advertising are some of the more important users of product placement)
in that the ratio of program time to advertising time is changing in a manner that is evading the rules
There is no mandated ratio of commercial:program time. (Look at how it's no longer possible to show episodes from the first seasons of The Simpsons. That show is so old that time-slots have shrunk underneath it). (Except for children's cartoons, but I don't think that's what's being discussed)
Anyone who watches "drama" TV shows expecting to learn anything resembling the truth has problems so big that all the government oversight in the world can't help him.
Commercials are different from comedy and drama programs that are obviously fictional. A normal viewer doesn't approach them with any expectation of honesty.
I mean, you can't seriously be suggesting that the government regulate the accuracy of product portrayals in television.
"Yes, McGyver could built a flamer-thrower out of his bicycle, but the aluminum tubing would've only lasted 17 seconds against that level of heat, not the 53 seconds depicted in the program."
angry students who were finding that their $150 Accounting 101 book became worthless after the sememster was over.
"Worthless"? Surely you meant "not resalable to next year's students".
A book's worth should be measured by its information content. If the knowledge a class presents is worth your spending $3000 in tuition, surely the keeping the textbook is worth more than the $50 you'd get selling it used.
If not, then I'd question why you bothered taking the course at all.
Personally, I'd like to see someone build a siamese TSTO (two nearly identical stages, mated horizontally, with one of them pumping fuel into the other during liftoff so the "upper stage" still has full fuel tanks when they separate)
Why pump? Moving fuel across a juncture seems like a big risk. 0. Constrains you to a liquid fuel, solid boosters are disallowed. 1. Must add mass in the form of pump equipment. 2. Vehicle's mass over time is more complicated (shift from side to side), trajectory prediction is harder. 3. The join-point where fuel passes from one rocket to another would be a nasty point for failure. (At least it doesn't have to be streamlined. By the time they split, air resistant is not a worry) 4. Burning from the bottom while siphoning from the top? Danger danger!
The siamese idea isn't totally bad, though. It could still work without needing to transfer fuel between the two rockets. If the fuel is liquid (so there can be bends between the engine and main tank), you can have the engines atop each other although the tubes are adjacent. The 1st stage engine centered between both tubes, the 2nd engine offset from it and only under the 2nd rocket. It'd look a little twisted, but that can be attractive.
But then, that idea gets to the question of "Why not just stack the 2nd stage ontop of the 1st? It could still be used by itself for a low-boost mission."
. I predict we'll get better science when/if it's possible for brilliant graduate students to tinker and explore in a microgravity lab, without having to get their ideas cleared by a committee years in advance.
Doubtful. "Tinkering and exploring in labs" is a naive, romanticized view of science. Those few times there's been a hands-on Eureaka moment are memorable and well publicized, but they are non-representative of normal scientific work. That's not a sound basis for allocating research funding. One cannot plan for serendipity.
brilliant graduate students to tinker and explore in a microgravity lab
Add a clause about "via remote control of instruments and manipulators", and it starts to make sense.
What's better, do we think?
Three grad students, filtered out from the rest for superior physical durability and the ability to widestand the rigors and indignities of spaceflight. Sitting in a dank metal can for 8 days with his 50cm^3 lab equipment drifting next to him, unable to even sit and write normally. His attention constantly vaccilating between the extravagant amusement of being free of gravity and the wonderous vistas, or being sickened by trying to eat while watching someone else watching himself defecate at a video-camera? All that for just $400 million. And a 2% chance the researchers will burst into superheated fumes.
Or how about 185 grad students, selected only on the basis of mental prowess and creativity, spread across their well-appointed campus. With computer terminals they monitor and control experiments in a floating lab that occupies a 500cm^3 in a large orbital module that'll stay up for 800 days before splashing down for retrieval. $129 million total.
Because of this, and the fact that it will be used to cycle astronauts in the space station, I think a shuttle would be best.
I do not. And numerous prominent ex-NASA rocket scientists agree with me.
The problem stems from the landings. The Shuttle lands horizontally, and for no good reason (except to look like an airplane). To land like that it needs large wings, which are heavy and fragile. They add much weight and bulk to the launch, and constrain how mass can be distributed (effectively adding yet more weight).
A capsule with a disposable heat-deflector on the bottom and 3 parachutes on the top would be be lighter, cheaper, and safer in many ways.
Simply, a bigger version of the Soviet Soyuz would beat the shuttle in every way except good looks.
Since neither Congress nor the scientific community wanted the space station to be built, why was it built in the first place?
Because Nixon wanted it to be built. (Why? IDK, go ask him)
He was looking for something impressive to follow-up the moon landing as a goal for NASA, and decided a Space Station would be good. But he knew that Congress was NOT interested in throwing $billions at the project.
So his space advisors came up with the STS vehicle- a device whose prime function would be moving building materials, supplies, and personnel back and forth to a space station. Assuming that the STS would be a practical way to build stations, it seemed a way to hide the costs. Instead of granting a single $10 bill budget for a station, Congress could approve the shuttle for $4bil and new politicans could pay for the rest a decade later. They'd have to approve building the space station later, or otherwise that expensive shuttle would go to waste.
So Nixon had a plan to force Congress to throw good money after bad. He just needed to get the shuttle funded. So more lies were cooked up- they created the myth that a Shuttle would be useful for handling communication and survelliance satellites. The Pentagon, under orders, proclaimed a desire for all future military launches to be from a Shuttle. And NASA killed the ELV programs that could boost satellites on the nose of a simple rocket, eliminating competition from the shuttle.
With that lie disseminated, and Nixon's NASA holding out the Shuttle as the only thing they could work on next, the only choices Congress could make were to approve STS, or halt spaceflight entirely.
They'd have to be at least marginally throttleable to keep stuff balanced
No, the space shuttle already launches OK with two rockets on either side of it, and it's SRDs are not throttlable. You light it once, and it burns until the fuel is gone. There is no mechanism to stop or slow the flow. The rockets are identical, and they light simulatanously, so it's close enough to balanced.
Although maybe the shuttle's rockets aren't the best kind to use for new vehicles. A safer, more controlled system might just give fractionally less lift-per-weight, and beat it notably on lift-per-dollar.
Summonr Geeks was not amateur, and was not low budget. It was a combination of two separate professionally authored projects: a high-profile cross-platform videogame, and a much older comedy recording.
It's not correct to compare VGA vs LCD cables. There's really no such thing as an "LCD cables".
Computer video cables can be VGA or DVI. Monitors can be CRT or LCD. Since both LCD and DVI are newer, one might tend to lump them together, but this doesn't have to be the case. LCD screens with VGA connectors are common, and CRTs that use DVI do exist.
For at least part of the problem, bluetooth seems to have been designed exactly to meet these needs:
I can't see how Bluetooth (or more specifically any radio-IO mechanism) can be appropriate for heavy workplace use.
The fact is that unless the mouse and keyboard are on at least one cable, they'll need batteries to be replaced.
A radio-station isn't like an office, where deadlines are measured in days. Seconds count, and if batteries go dead at a critical juncture, that's dead air. Sure, you can mostly eliminate that risk by diligent recharging on a set period, but why take that hassle?
And what does Bluetooth buy you? Not range- chained USB hubs go further than BT can. The only feature BT brings to the tables is the inherent "wirelessness"- faster reconnection of moved hardware. But it's not as if the broadcaster's desk will be moving around a lot. A wired solution means you install the mouse+keyboard once, and forget it. Bluetooth gives more convenience when moving devices around- a meaningless benefit when compared to the annoyance and even *risk* of depletable batteries.
I haven't read the original Dragonlance trilogy in years, but doesn't the third book have flying citadels and dragons blacking out the sky?
"The 3rd book" is a key part of the sentence. To create a real sense of import, the big shocking effects should be saved up til the end. If they show up in the first episode, viewers will interpret them as the normal situation for Kyrnn, and not share the characters shock at just how dangerous and strange it is. But, TV executives will want to "hook" viewers with a big bang at the start, and will press for something amazing in the opening episode. I just hope they wouldn't go too far. A single dragon or pair of draconians should be incredible enough, if presented right.
(I suppose one valid approach to "open with a bang" would be to imitate the structure of the LOTR movie, and start with a major ancient battle. In the Dragonlance world, the legend of Huma could suffice to introduce both their SFX abilities, and the master villian)
Also, flying-citadels are somewhat of a mild effect. Nothing flashy there, just a big rock in the distance or an ominous shadow. And the evil Kyrnn dragons, though numerous, never formed the hilariously dense flocks seen in the "D&D" movie.
The hard part would be to find exactly the right person to play Raistlin.
Finding appropriate actors for all the roles would be difficult. Raistlin would be a challenge not just because of his phyiscal deformities, but also because he should bear a great resembelance to Caramon. But there's also the whole host of non-human (and even non-mammalian) characters...
The best way to attempt it might be as a fully CG affair, rather like the "Final Fantasy" movie (but with a better storyline!)
Hell, The Rock could play Caramon...
I hope not. Maybe the physique is there, but not the personality. In all his acting (which includes "sports entertainment"), Dwyane Johnson as projected a forceful, aggressive, even mean (if not evil) attitude. Caramon should be gentle, passive, "whipped", fearful of his own power.
Also, an actor might not enjoy playing "strong, but dumb" and easily manipulated. Dwyane hopes to be an action hero, a leading man, and won't willingly take on roles where he displays no initiative.
PS. The game of assigning major stars to Dragonlance roles has a long history on the internet. A web search will find you many old posts with full lists of suggested actors.
That may not always be true. It's possible, especially with the C/C++ language, that a programmer will have inadvertently built in assumptions about data types.
For example, a program my try to read 4 bytes from a disk file into an "int". On a common modern CPU, that works fine. With an Athlon64 it'd leave half of the integer unfilled.
For some reason, Apple insists on using the function keys for things like changing sound volume and turning up and down the screen brightness.
Yes, that's really weird. If Apple wanted a truely consistent user experience, why even label them as function keys at all? Just do like a PC-style "multimedia keyboard" once and for all.
Anyhow, have you tried Doublecommand? You should be able to adjust those kinds of options without rebooting.
The word organic means "composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen". Petroleum & plastic fits that definition.
There may be some confusion with a recently-invented marketing term, "Organic", which applies to agricultural products grown with sophistication below some arbitrarily-defined level.
In reality, any food a human could survive eating is organic, by the scientific definition.
Doesn't selling DVDs and videos contribute to piracy as well?
The important difference is that some screener DVDs are sent out months before public rental starts. Grabbing a screener could give the infringers a 75-day head start.
And, such a head-start is one of the most potentially costly scenarios for the studios. Film profits are somewhat front-loaded. A huge chunk comes in the first weekend in theaters. Another large chunk in the first month of rentals and week of sales.
"Piracy" isn't quite so damaging if it happens after the big selling opportunities of the initial release. But if infringing copies are already widespread on a premiere day (the so-called "zero-day rip"), sales could be noticably slashed.
Or perhaps they could simply start making better movies that rely on story, acting, direction and other such old fashioned notions?
Which reduces the need for elaborate staging and effects. Which reduces the amount of support staff needed for complex shots. Which brings us back to the idea of hurting "camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers".
If the film is less successful, the chances of that producer making another picture goes down. Widespread infringement of motion pictures (which hasn't happened yet, but is on the near horizon) would reduce the total number of Hollywood films.
Fewer sound/video/light crews will be needed. Some of those people will be completely unemployed, the rest will scramble for lower wages than they got before.
So yes, in the short term of a single movie's profitability, the lowly techs get a fixed wage while big names are on percentage points. But after a few years, the salaries of the "little people" will be cut down to match.
Modern fantasy literature defines wizards as those who wield flashy special effects and blow shit up. Not that I mind flashy methods of blowing up stuff.;)
Tolkien's the one who started pop-culture down that path, though, even if he didn't move much in that direction himself.
His whole style was based on taking myth and making it concrete. More direct and immediate. Instead of Shakespere-style fairies that live in vaguely remembered dreams, his dwarves and elves were real people that cursed, sweated, and bled.
Too, his Gandalf held the seeds of a modern fireball-tossing 'wizard'. Although the reader never watched Gandalf display distructive power, he always knew it was there. This was particularly affirmed in the offscreen Balrog-fight. Knowing that Gandalf had stood toe-to-toe with such a demonic brute implied his own aggressive power were vast, but the details were left to the imaginations of individual readers. The 2nd and 3rd generations of typical "fantasy" authors grew up on that, and wrote down their own interpretations of what a magical battle would entail.
Basically, modern fantasy has done to wizards what Star Wars has done to space movies: more flashiness, less subtlety.
The real change was "more budget, more budget". Have you seen space movies before Star Wars? The direct cultural precedent was Flash Gordon... equally flashy, except it couldn't afford a big display. Few "space movies", before or after, have been intentionally subtle. (Yes, we can point to 2001 and Alien as exceptions)
In certain ways, Star Wars was distinctly more subtle than prior "sci fi" movies: in the presentation of "alien" costumes. Prior movies had every alien as an important threat or mysterious savior- something that draws the camera to center on it whenever it's in frame. Lucas, for the first time, allowed weird-looking aliens as background characters and barkeepers. A distinctly subtle way to emphasize the strangess and variety of the setting.
(Note that he backed away from that restrained style in the 3rd and especially 4th Star Wars films. The 2-headed race-announcer, for example, was purely body-shape as punchline. Ironically, the technical constraint of needed actors inside suits had helped keep the creature design within credible limits)
That said, I'd love to see a well-done film adaptation of the Dragonlance stories as well!
It couldn't possibly be worse than the film called "Dungeons and Dragons", right?
Actually, Dragonlance would work better as a 9 episode miniseries (covering one trilogy), on a cable network like the SciFi channel. The main cast of primary heros is too large to fit in a single film. The lower FX budget would keep them from going overboard on spectacle (you don't want to black out the sky with dragons- that distracts from the sheer power just one of those beasts should represent)
Heinlein suggested that the best way to slow down a constant acceleration craft is to turn it around
Oh please, don't credit him with the "invention". It was an old idea back when he was writing. Rocket scientists have known that since 1913. Isolated theoreticians probably knew it from 1760 onward.
Slashdot Mirror
I was watching ER
I was surprised by how quickly the hospital in ER was able to install LCD monitors everyplace, apparently years before they were affordable to the general population.
Does anyone remember the ER episode where the entire staff was playing DOOM? The screen images were very clear, and the actors actually used the names of the weapons in their dialog.
(I doubt that was paid placement...)
Actually, the government was there first. They set out rules that broadcasters must agree into in exchange for access to a limited resource (the airwaves).
No no no. Read the friendly article! This is a petition to the FTC, not the FCC. The FCC has power over broadcasters because they use radio spectra. The Federal Trade Commision has power because they're engaging in trade, not because a public resource is being used.
The petition makes no distinction between radio-broadcast TV and other forms, like cable (and indeed, some cable stations which don't have explicit advertising are some of the more important users of product placement)
in that the ratio of program time to advertising time is changing in a manner that is evading the rules
There is no mandated ratio of commercial:program time. (Look at how it's no longer possible to show episodes from the first seasons of The Simpsons. That show is so old that time-slots have shrunk underneath it). (Except for children's cartoons, but I don't think that's what's being discussed)
Anyone who watches "drama" TV shows expecting to learn anything resembling the truth has problems so big that all the government oversight in the world can't help him.
Commercials are different from comedy and drama programs that are obviously fictional. A normal viewer doesn't approach them with any expectation of honesty.
I mean, you can't seriously be suggesting that the government regulate the accuracy of product portrayals in television.
"Yes, McGyver could built a flamer-thrower out of his bicycle, but the aluminum tubing would've only lasted 17 seconds against that level of heat, not the 53 seconds depicted in the program."
angry students who were finding that their $150 Accounting 101 book became worthless after the sememster was over.
"Worthless"? Surely you meant "not resalable to next year's students".
A book's worth should be measured by its information content. If the knowledge a class presents is worth your spending $3000 in tuition, surely the keeping the textbook is worth more than the $50 you'd get selling it used.
If not, then I'd question why you bothered taking the course at all.
Personally, I'd like to see someone build a siamese TSTO (two nearly identical stages, mated horizontally, with one of them pumping fuel into the other during liftoff so the "upper stage" still has full fuel tanks when they separate)
Why pump? Moving fuel across a juncture seems like a big risk.
0. Constrains you to a liquid fuel, solid boosters are disallowed.
1. Must add mass in the form of pump equipment.
2. Vehicle's mass over time is more complicated (shift from side to side), trajectory prediction is harder.
3. The join-point where fuel passes from one rocket to another would be a nasty point for failure. (At least it doesn't have to be streamlined. By the time they split, air resistant is not a worry)
4. Burning from the bottom while siphoning from the top? Danger danger!
The siamese idea isn't totally bad, though. It could still work without needing to transfer fuel between the two rockets. If the fuel is liquid (so there can be bends between the engine and main tank), you can have the engines atop each other although the tubes are adjacent. The 1st stage engine centered between both tubes, the 2nd engine offset from it and only under the 2nd rocket. It'd look a little twisted, but that can be attractive.
But then, that idea gets to the question of "Why not just stack the 2nd stage ontop of the 1st? It could still be used by itself for a low-boost mission."
Doubtful. "Tinkering and exploring in labs" is a naive, romanticized view of science. Those few times there's been a hands-on Eureaka moment are memorable and well publicized, but they are non-representative of normal scientific work. That's not a sound basis for allocating research funding. One cannot plan for serendipity.
brilliant graduate students to tinker and explore in a microgravity lab
Add a clause about "via remote control of instruments and manipulators", and it starts to make sense.
What's better, do we think?
Hmm?
It went where the designers never intended it to go: International Relation Builder.
If that wasn't intended, why name it "Community"?
Because of this, and the fact that it will be used to cycle astronauts in the space station, I think a shuttle would be best.
I do not. And numerous prominent ex-NASA rocket scientists agree with me.
The problem stems from the landings. The Shuttle lands horizontally, and for no good reason (except to look like an airplane). To land like that it needs large wings, which are heavy and fragile. They add much weight and bulk to the launch, and constrain how mass can be distributed (effectively adding yet more weight).
A capsule with a disposable heat-deflector on the bottom and 3 parachutes on the top would be be lighter, cheaper, and safer in many ways.
Simply, a bigger version of the Soviet Soyuz would beat the shuttle in every way except good looks.
Since neither Congress nor the scientific community wanted the space station to be built, why was it built in the first place?
Because Nixon wanted it to be built. (Why? IDK, go ask him)
He was looking for something impressive to follow-up the moon landing as a goal for NASA, and decided a Space Station would be good. But he knew that Congress was NOT interested in throwing $billions at the project.
So his space advisors came up with the STS vehicle- a device whose prime function would be moving building materials, supplies, and personnel back and forth to a space station. Assuming that the STS would be a practical way to build stations, it seemed a way to hide the costs. Instead of granting a single $10 bill budget for a station, Congress could approve the shuttle for $4bil and new politicans could pay for the rest a decade later. They'd have to approve building the space station later, or otherwise that expensive shuttle would go to waste.
So Nixon had a plan to force Congress to throw good money after bad. He just needed to get the shuttle funded. So more lies were cooked up- they created the myth that a Shuttle would be useful for handling communication and survelliance satellites. The Pentagon, under orders, proclaimed a desire for all future military launches to be from a Shuttle. And NASA killed the ELV programs that could boost satellites on the nose of a simple rocket, eliminating competition from the shuttle.
With that lie disseminated, and Nixon's NASA holding out the Shuttle as the only thing they could work on next, the only choices Congress could make were to approve STS, or halt spaceflight entirely.
They'd have to be at least marginally throttleable to keep stuff balanced
No, the space shuttle already launches OK with two rockets on either side of it, and it's SRDs are not throttlable. You light it once, and it burns until the fuel is gone. There is no mechanism to stop or slow the flow. The rockets are identical, and they light simulatanously, so it's close enough to balanced.
Although maybe the shuttle's rockets aren't the best kind to use for new vehicles. A safer, more controlled system might just give fractionally less lift-per-weight, and beat it notably on lift-per-dollar.
They get paid regardless.
Where do you get that idea? The lawyers SCO has attacking IBM are on contingency. That means no payday unless they win.
(Now that SCO has multiple lawsuits going, prehaps some of their addition lawyers will be on a more fixed payplan)
Summonr Geeks was not amateur, and was not low budget. It was a combination of two separate professionally authored projects: a high-profile cross-platform videogame, and a much older comedy recording.
It's not correct to compare VGA vs LCD cables. There's really no such thing as an "LCD cables".
Computer video cables can be VGA or DVI. Monitors can be CRT or LCD. Since both LCD and DVI are newer, one might tend to lump them together, but this doesn't have to be the case. LCD screens with VGA connectors are common, and CRTs that use DVI do exist.
For at least part of the problem, bluetooth seems to have been designed exactly to meet these needs:
I can't see how Bluetooth (or more specifically any radio-IO mechanism) can be appropriate for heavy workplace use.
The fact is that unless the mouse and keyboard are on at least one cable, they'll need batteries to be replaced.
A radio-station isn't like an office, where deadlines are measured in days. Seconds count, and if batteries go dead at a critical juncture, that's dead air. Sure, you can mostly eliminate that risk by diligent recharging on a set period, but why take that hassle?
And what does Bluetooth buy you? Not range- chained USB hubs go further than BT can. The only feature BT brings to the tables is the inherent "wirelessness"- faster reconnection of moved hardware. But it's not as if the broadcaster's desk will be moving around a lot. A wired solution means you install the mouse+keyboard once, and forget it. Bluetooth gives more convenience when moving devices around- a meaningless benefit when compared to the annoyance and even *risk* of depletable batteries.
I haven't read the original Dragonlance trilogy in years, but doesn't the third book have flying citadels and dragons blacking out the sky?
"The 3rd book" is a key part of the sentence. To create a real sense of import, the big shocking effects should be saved up til the end. If they show up in the first episode, viewers will interpret them as the normal situation for Kyrnn, and not share the characters shock at just how dangerous and strange it is. But, TV executives will want to "hook" viewers with a big bang at the start, and will press for something amazing in the opening episode. I just hope they wouldn't go too far. A single dragon or pair of draconians should be incredible enough, if presented right.
(I suppose one valid approach to "open with a bang" would be to imitate the structure of the LOTR movie, and start with a major ancient battle. In the Dragonlance world, the legend of Huma could suffice to introduce both their SFX abilities, and the master villian)
Also, flying-citadels are somewhat of a mild effect. Nothing flashy there, just a big rock in the distance or an ominous shadow. And the evil Kyrnn dragons, though numerous, never formed the hilariously dense flocks seen in the "D&D" movie.
The hard part would be to find exactly the right person to play Raistlin.
Finding appropriate actors for all the roles would be difficult. Raistlin would be a challenge not just because of his phyiscal deformities, but also because he should bear a great resembelance to Caramon. But there's also the whole host of non-human (and even non-mammalian) characters...
The best way to attempt it might be as a fully CG affair, rather like the "Final Fantasy" movie (but with a better storyline!)
Hell, The Rock could play Caramon...
I hope not. Maybe the physique is there, but not the personality. In all his acting (which includes "sports entertainment"), Dwyane Johnson as projected a forceful, aggressive, even mean (if not evil) attitude. Caramon should be gentle, passive, "whipped", fearful of his own power.
Also, an actor might not enjoy playing "strong, but dumb" and easily manipulated. Dwyane hopes to be an action hero, a leading man, and won't willingly take on roles where he displays no initiative.
PS. The game of assigning major stars to Dragonlance roles has a long history on the internet. A web search will find you many old posts with full lists of suggested actors.
You just recompile any app to "be 64-bit".
That may not always be true. It's possible, especially with the C/C++ language, that a programmer will have inadvertently built in assumptions about data types.
For example, a program my try to read 4 bytes from a disk file into an "int". On a common modern CPU, that works fine. With an Athlon64 it'd leave half of the integer unfilled.
For some reason, Apple insists on using the function keys for things like changing sound volume and turning up and down the screen brightness.
Yes, that's really weird. If Apple wanted a truely consistent user experience, why even label them as function keys at all? Just do like a PC-style "multimedia keyboard" once and for all.
Anyhow, have you tried Doublecommand? You should be able to adjust those kinds of options without rebooting.
The word organic means "composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen". Petroleum & plastic fits that definition.
There may be some confusion with a recently-invented marketing term, "Organic", which applies to agricultural products grown with sophistication below some arbitrarily-defined level.
In reality, any food a human could survive eating is organic, by the scientific definition.
Doesn't selling DVDs and videos contribute to piracy as well?
The important difference is that some screener DVDs are sent out months before public rental starts. Grabbing a screener could give the infringers a 75-day head start.
And, such a head-start is one of the most potentially costly scenarios for the studios. Film profits are somewhat front-loaded. A huge chunk comes in the first weekend in theaters. Another large chunk in the first month of rentals and week of sales.
"Piracy" isn't quite so damaging if it happens after the big selling opportunities of the initial release. But if infringing copies are already widespread on a premiere day (the so-called "zero-day rip"), sales could be noticably slashed.
Or perhaps they could simply start making better movies that rely on story, acting, direction and other such old fashioned notions?
Which reduces the need for elaborate staging and effects.
Which reduces the amount of support staff needed for complex shots. Which brings us back to the idea of hurting "camera operators, key grips, makeup artists, and costumers".
they get paid regardless
If the film is less successful, the chances of that producer making another picture goes down. Widespread infringement of motion pictures (which hasn't happened yet, but is on the near horizon) would reduce the total number of Hollywood films.
Fewer sound/video/light crews will be needed. Some of those people will be completely unemployed, the rest will scramble for lower wages than they got before.
So yes, in the short term of a single movie's profitability, the lowly techs get a fixed wage while big names are on percentage points. But after a few years, the salaries of the "little people" will be cut down to match.
Does anyone in Hollywood qualify as a genius?
The technical definition of "genius" is actually a rather low bar. Fully 2% of humans qualify for it.
Modern fantasy literature defines wizards as those who wield flashy special effects and blow shit up. Not that I mind flashy methods of blowing up stuff. ;)
Tolkien's the one who started pop-culture down that path, though, even if he didn't move much in that direction himself.
His whole style was based on taking myth and making it concrete. More direct and immediate. Instead of Shakespere-style fairies that live in vaguely remembered dreams, his dwarves and elves were real people that cursed, sweated, and bled.
Too, his Gandalf held the seeds of a modern fireball-tossing 'wizard'. Although the reader never watched Gandalf display distructive power, he always knew it was there. This was particularly affirmed in the offscreen Balrog-fight. Knowing that Gandalf had stood toe-to-toe with such a demonic brute implied his own aggressive power were vast, but the details were left to the imaginations of individual readers. The 2nd and 3rd generations of typical "fantasy" authors grew up on that, and wrote down their own interpretations of what a magical battle would entail.
Basically, modern fantasy has done to wizards what Star Wars has done to space movies: more flashiness, less subtlety.
The real change was "more budget, more budget". Have you seen space movies before Star Wars? The direct cultural precedent was Flash Gordon... equally flashy, except it couldn't afford a big display. Few "space movies", before or after, have been intentionally subtle. (Yes, we can point to 2001 and Alien as exceptions)
In certain ways, Star Wars was distinctly more subtle than prior "sci fi" movies: in the presentation of "alien" costumes. Prior movies had every alien as an important threat or mysterious savior- something that draws the camera to center on it whenever it's in frame. Lucas, for the first time, allowed weird-looking aliens as background characters and barkeepers. A distinctly subtle way to emphasize the strangess and variety of the setting.
(Note that he backed away from that restrained style in the 3rd and especially 4th Star Wars films. The 2-headed race-announcer, for example, was purely body-shape as punchline. Ironically, the technical constraint of needed actors inside suits had helped keep the creature design within credible limits)
That said, I'd love to see a well-done film adaptation of the Dragonlance stories as well!
It couldn't possibly be worse than the film called "Dungeons and Dragons", right?
Actually, Dragonlance would work better as a 9 episode miniseries (covering one trilogy), on a cable network like the SciFi channel. The main cast of primary heros is too large to fit in a single film. The lower FX budget would keep them from going overboard on spectacle (you don't want to black out the sky with dragons- that distracts from the sheer power just one of those beasts should represent)
He's a lawyer -- he's simply a paid advocate.
"Paid"? He's not on retainer. Boies is working on contingency. His only payday will be a percentage of the award, IF they win.
And as you've seen from his record, he doesn't win the big cases.
Heinlein suggested that the best way to slow down a constant acceleration craft is to turn it around
Oh please, don't credit him with the "invention". It was an old idea back when he was writing. Rocket scientists have known that since 1913. Isolated theoreticians probably knew it from 1760 onward.