Re:Can Oscar's be given posthumously?
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Batman Discussion
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Theres a few comics that go into detail about how the joker needs batman and batman needs the joker. How they constantly go after each other but neither wants, or can do what it takes to end the battle.
What impresses me is that most of the time I've seen that sentiment in a comic book, it seemed forced and with unrealistic dialogue. In the movie (and in the killing joke), it worked remarkably well.
This joker was a little more intelligent and all the best comic book portails have him that way.
I commented on that with a few of my friends, it's one of the things I liked the most about the Joker in this movie. For once, the villain wasn't caught because he made a stupid mistake. The Joker's plans were flawless until the very end. Even with Batman taking the fall for what Harvey did, the Joker still wins a lesser victory. The people lose faith in Batman, which is not as bad as losing faith in Dent, but it does hurt morale. It also becomes a lot more difficult for Batman to cooperate with the police in catching the criminals.
Of course, Batman does gain some advantages too. The criminals were beginning to catch on to the fact that he won't kill them, only hurt them. If he has a reputation as a killer, he's able to once again ignite an overwhelming batman fear.
Overall, it was just an excellent movie. I can't imagine a more well thought out Batman story. Which actually makes me afraid of any sequels, because I don't think they can possibly top this one.
Wayne and Gordon believe that Batman has to take responsibility for Dent's actions because they believe that the people of Gotham City cannot handle knowing that their "White Knight" had gone insane.
That was one of the reasons, and perhaps portrayed as being the most important reason, but it was not the only one.
The joker let everyone know that Batman had rules. He never killed people. That led to the criminals no longer being afraid of him. Now he has the reputation of a killer, without actually having to kill.
Re:alfred worked for the burmese government?!!
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Batman Discussion
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· Score: 1
alfred worked for the burmese government?!! seriously wtf.
Probably not directly for the burmese government. The comic books have changed Alfred's story several times, but during the pre-crisis version, he was a spy before he became a butler. The animated series also references this, and I think that scene in the movie was a nod to both of those.
Re:Harvey to Two Face felt forced
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Batman Discussion
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· Score: 2, Interesting
it didn't seem like his personality up to that point was that fragile?
Really? I thought he was on the verge even before anything happened to him. He believed in the rule of law (he thought that as the DA he could make a difference). On the other hand, he also praised the works of a vigilante, believing that if the law isn't working, taking justice into your own hands is your duty.
Before Rachel was kidnapped, when her life was merely threatened he was ready to psychologically torture a guy in order to get information out of him. Sure, he wasn't going to kill him, but he did kidnap him, take him to the middle of nowhere, tie him up, and started to threaten him to get what he wanted.
He wasn't a bad guy, but it was pretty obvious from the beginning that if he was just pushed a bit farther, he would end up exactly where he did end up.
Re:Farewell sweet Karma
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Batman Discussion
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Let me put it this way, there were about 10 seconds of genuine heart in this film. It was the moment Bruce Wayne met Harvey Dent in person, heard his philosophy on confronting crime, and then complimented him on his views...it was one of the very few moments in the film when Bale was allowed to act. His genius saved that scene.
I'm a firm believer that taste for these types of things are not universal, and I completely respect your opinion. I personally feel very much differently though.
First of all, for that one particular scene, I think Eckhart was the better actor. Bale was just sitting there smiling, he barely got a word in. Eckhart on the other hand, expertly conveyed the beginning of his two-face persona. He believes in democracy and he believes in the rule of law (he's the freaking DA because he feels he can make a difference in that position), but at the same time he's not beyond letting a vigilante do the dirty work when everything else fails.
That said, it wasn't anywhere near my favorite scene.
I don't think a single one of the Joker's lines were "tacky" or cliched. Anytime he was on the screen, he seemed to pose a genuinely interesting moral dilemma. He really tested Bruce's conviction. Is it really right to go after criminals as a vigilante? If you're willing to break so many rules to do that, why do you have any left. Is there really a difference between directly killing someone versus being indirectly responsible for somebody's death? It was great stuff.
There was one scene, one single scene that I want to forget from that movie. Batman dives in after Rachel from atop a skyscraper. He catcher her. He doesn't slow down the fall at all. But she falls on top of him. Somehow, he's alright, we're to assume because of his armored suit, I guess. Somehow she's alright because she fell on top of him. Holy shit, I'm willing to overlook some disrespect for physics in superhero movies (there were plenty of others), but when it's that blatant, I really can't suspend my disbelief.
Everything else about the movie was perfect. It's without a doubt on my top 10 list. Surprisingly, another movie up there is Memento, so I guess my taste in movies just align themselves with Nolan's.
Re:Can Oscar's be given posthumously?
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Batman Discussion
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Many state that Ledger's Joker is a world of difference better than Nicholson's. But how does he compare with the comic book's Joker?
As you've stated yourself, there were quite a few different comic book jokers. I think this joker is closest to the one in the killing joke, in that his aim is to force batman to face his own madness.
The Killing Joke portrays the Joker as a normal joe who is trying to get ahead and ends up in a vat of chemicals and becomes the insane criminal everyone knows.
Kind of. The storyline in the killing joke was admittedly, by the Joker himself, not his true origin. He said that he prefers his past to be multiple choice, and that he himself doesn't quite remember exactly what happened to him.
Similarly, we don't witness the origin of the Joker in this movie, and that's a good thing. The Joker also tells two conflicting stories of how he got his scars, which fits with what the joker said in the killing joke.
There are other variations of the Joker, some showing him as completely off his rocker, others showing him as super sane but highly dangerous. Which is the most accurate? And which version does Ledger portray?
Depends on how you choose to define "accurate." I always prefer the interpretation of a villain that is most realistic, so to me, the best interpretation of the joker is one where he is a psychopath, and thus is able to laugh at his very violent antics. Ledger portrays a highly intelligent complete psychopath, and his relationship to Batman is much more interesting than the usual, "I do bad stuff and try to escape the hero who is trying to stop me." He wants Batman to stop him. It's very cool.
Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...
Leasing a robot was sufficiently expensive at the time that it more than covered for the specific repair. They also had the option to cease leasing to a particular client if he turns out to be destroying them on a regular basis.
In addition, a robot placing the orders of a human above its own self-preservation is a nice marketing point if you're trying to overcome the "Frankenstein Complex" that made humans afraid of them.
We upgraded to those centuries ago. What are you using, Duotronic systems?
I tried upgrading to Multitronics, but my computer refused to accept that the games I was playing were just games. It became paranoid and tried to kill my online opponents in real life.
Luckily, I managed to convince it that murder was immortal, and it committed suicide before killing anyone important.
Or the answer could be that each human should have less impact.
Not really. Every human being has a minimum impact on the environment to survive, so at some point we're going to reach an equilibrium. The question is where to place the equilibrium. You might want us all to cut back on energy usage right now, but as population grows further, we'll all have to cut back back on energy usage even more just to maintain the same level.
Personally, I'd rather have 50 people on the entire planet that all live like kings than 50 billion with the standard of living equivalent to what we had in 1500's.
Western nations don't necessarily have the stomach to put an end to them. We have lapsed back into the thirties where people were more concerned with their well being and as long as the rest of the world left them alone they couldn't care what happened to these "other" people.
Dude, that's not lack of courage. That's wisdom. If it doesn't involve you, don't get involved. This doesn't just apply to foreign affairs, it should apply to everything in life. If you're straight, you shouldn't give a damn about what gay people do. If your friend is having a disagreement with her husband, stay the fuck out of it, don't take sides. Unless it's directly affecting you the best thing to do is to mind your own business.
no uprising? Gee, go figure. We can't even get enough people to peacefully kick out the Democrats and Republicans from office here
So what you're saying is that you'd be really happy if some foreign nation "had the stomach" to help out with that little problem, huh? Since we're unwilling to do anything about the problems with our government, people shouldn't just be out there concerned with their well being, they should come here and liberate us!
I'm not saying the US is anywhere near as bad a place to live in. In fact, to the contrary, I'm saying I'm pretty satisfied with our form of government, even with all its failings, and I'm betting you are too. What I am saying is that maybe, if they haven't rebelled, the Iranians are happy with their form of government too. Maybe they think that it is the government's job to enforce what their religion considers proper morality. And who the hell are we to tell them that's not the right way of doing things?
Then again occasionally that pesky world gets enough gumption to do something drastic like flying planes into buildings. It will happen again because while we don't have the stomach for wars these people do.
Yeah! And occasionally they will take cars full of explosives to buildings too! Like in the Oklahoma City bombing. Oh, you mean that Timothy McVeigh an American? Hell, if we were a bit more proactive, and had a police state, we could have stopped that!
9/11 was a horrible terrorist act, but it wasn't an act of war. Like the Oklahoma City bombing, it was the act of some crazy people, and you just can't help the fact that crazy people will try to do crazy things, because of whatevery crazy thing they believe in. It's a law enforcement problem, not a military one.
P2P was not foreseen. Things changed. The contracts will too. You are being willfully ignorant. Put yourself in their shoes for just 2 seconds and ask yourself would you keep yourself as a customer?
First of all, I'm pretty sure that P2P wasn't a surprise to anyone. I don't really feel like doing the research, so I won't argue the point against you this time other than to express some doubt. Second, you're right, things changed. A while ago it was only a select few who used a lot of bandwidth through P2P. Now every single broadcast station offers episodes of their shows on their website, most software checks automatically for updates, operating system updates, game patches, and the such are hundreds of megs a week. Subscription music services, online movie rentals...in another 5 years, every customer will be trying to max their bandwidth 24/7.
As for "some customers are too expensive or troublesome to bother having" perhaps you should read my post again. I'm not against the ISP's doing something about that. They're absolutely free to limit the bandwidth. If they don't have enough to serve everyone, they should limit the bandwidth. They can't discriminate based on what traffic you're using, they can't discriminate based on what sites you're visiting, and they can't advertise unlimited 6Mbps bandwidth if that's not what they're giving you.
This is why buffets ("All you can eat") reserve the right not to serve some jerks who self-righteously claim they have a right to eat $48 bucks worth of food after paying $10.
READ MY POST. Option number two: "they can limit their number of customers." Frankly, I think there are better solutions than saying, "I won't take your money", but I don't have any problem whatsoever with a company saying, "I don't want your money, I don't want to serve you." Hey, look at option #3 though, which isn't as stupid: CHARGE MORE FOR THE BANDWIDTH.
Is it really so difficult for an ISP to have several different plans and not lie about what they consist of? "Here's a 1 Mbps 200 gigs a month plan for $29.99. Here's a 3 Mbps 500 gigs a month plan for $49.99. Here's a 1 Mbps unlimited for $79.99. Here's a 6Mbps unlimited for $199.99." I don't care if they charge more, I don't care if they cap you. I just want to get what I actually paid for.
Put yourself in their shoes for just 2 seconds and ask yourself would you keep yourself as a customer?
Yes. Because if they're smart about it, they can make some serious cash off the heavy users. Just sell them the heavy user plan. If a heavy user buys into a cheaper plan, then they're going to get cut off once they reach the cap. Or they can be in an unlimited plan that is much slower. Whatever.
Suddenly, the 28 fitness machines they expected to service 5,000 people are being used from opening until closing by the same 28 people.
No- the next time your contract came up, it would have a clause that allowed them to force people to share the machines or something to protect them.
You are being unreasonable
Uh...you're the one being unreasonable. The new contract you propose would be completely unacceptable. If they don't have enough fitness machines for all their clients to use, they have only 3 options:
Get more fitness machines. Given limited space that might mean having to:
Getting rid of other machines in favor of buying more of the heavily used ones.
Build new rooms and expand the building if enough land is available at the location.
Move to a new, bigger location
If the first option is out of the question, they can limit their number of members by not accepting as many clients (this would be stupid)
They can increase membership price. This will do two things:
it will limit the number of members by using the wonderful laws of supply and demand. It's not always beneficial to sell more of something. You need to find your price point in the supply and demand curves in order to set your optimum price.
If the price offsets how much money people are making or saving in your weird example, this will cause people to naturally stop hogging the machines for that purpose, because the membership isn't worth it.
Any fitness center that actually attempted what you suggest would go bankrupt because they would have smarter competitors and clients would go elsewhere, where they don't have some asshole telling them to stop using the machines. In fact, the only reason the ISP's don't go bankrupt is because they lack competition and their clients can't switch. Monopolies give unfair advantages to companies and they use it to abuse their customers to increase their profits.
Similarly to the fitness center solutions above, the ISP's have 3 options:
They can build new infrastructure.
If it's not profitable to do so, they can limit their number of customers (this would be stupid)
They can charge more for the bandwidth, thus naturally decreasing their number of customers AND getting capital to accomplish #1, which they will have to at some point. They can also stop advertising 6Mbps connections and lower everyone to 1Mbps at the same price point (which is equivalent to charging more for the bandwidth)
What they CAN'T do is advertise up to 6Mbps and throttle their customers because they might want to use it.
That's a reasonable goal, but unfortunately it's impossible to achieve. Here's the problem: censors can't be accountable to the public, because by definition the details of exactly what was censored must be kept secret.
Realistically, you are correct (although I still object to your terminology. They're not "censors," they're people sworn to secrecy. They only become censors when they attempt to stop the free speech of those who were not sworn to keep the secrets but found out anyway). What I described was an ideal situation. Even if the goal is unreachable, if we all strive to achieve it, we can keep ourselves from straying too far from it.
What we have to our advantage is that there are a lot of people involved in all levels of government in order to make it work. Somebody who believes in a responsible government is bound to be included in every secret project, and when they do, they will be morally obliged to become whistle-blowers and leak the information.
The problem isn't that the "trusted committee" isn't accountable to the public, it's that these days the public just doesn't care. The secrets that threaten public control of the government do invariably get leaked. We know about the wiretaps. We know about the secret prisons. We know about the torture. The problem is that a lot of the public believes this behavior is acceptable. Instead of thanking the whistle-blowers who brought this to our attention, some people go as far as calling them traitors.
The bottom line, unfortunately, is that censorship, including the suppression of information for national security purposes, is incompatible with public control of the government.
You're right. Complete transparency of the government is incompatible with the ability to keep secrets. The alternative of keeping no secrets at all is to live with a foreign threat to our public control of the government. The fact that we're straying so far from what you called my "reasonable goal" is an inherent deficiency of a government under public control. When the public doesn't care, they fail to hold their government accountable, even when they do know about the secrets. However, the alternative to public control of the government is even worse. In the end, I prefer to strive to keep the balance. I accept that the government has to keep secrets even knowing that this interferes with the transparency I want from my government, and I accept to live in a democracy even knowing idiots get to vote.
I believe it was tagged "censorship", not because this exhibit is being censored, but because the existence of the satellites themselves is denied. He is lifting the 'veil of censorship' to show that, yes they do.
No, he is lifting the veil of secrecy. There's a big difference between secrecy and censorship.
Secrecy is a very important aspect of national security, and I wouldn't want to see it go away. That said, I want checks and balances to ensure that only things pertaining to national security are kept secret, and every other aspect of the government is kept transparent. I also want to make sure there are checks and balances to prevent a violation of citizens rights lumped in under national security secrets (like wiretaps of american citizens), and I want checks and balances to prevent a violation in inalienable human rights (like secret prisons) with the same premise as an excuse, but I sure have no problem with secret spy satellites. In fact, if I were an amateur astronomer who discovered said satellites, I would be morally against publicizing that information. I know other countries can look at the sky just as easily as I can, but I don't want to do their legwork for them. That said, if the astronomer in question doesn't have a problem with publicizing the information, I would have a problem with the government trying to shut him up. That would be censorship, not just secrecy. It's one of those "I disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend your right to say it" things.
In the case of Trevor Paglin, the article indicates that he knew where and when to find the satellites by looking at a database compiled by amateur astronomers. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't classify as a "secret" anymore, other than the actual capabilities of the satellites. Therefore, I don't have a moral objection to it. In fact, I applaud all of his other work, which brings attention to those secret prisons I so despise.
My even better question is: why is "bah, it requires physical access" seen as an automatic "don't worry about it" around these parts?...Workstations at work have lots of people who can log into them...Plus there are a lot of people who can physically get near any computer, up to CEO level. Like, say, the janitors.
The reason that requiring physical access is seen as no big deal is because all that stuff you're worried about is something I can do without the need of any exploits.
Got a machine with literally any operating system? All I need is to reboot the computer with a linux live cd (or usb thumb drive) and I get read / write access to everywhere. From there I can plant trojans, read your files, do whatever.
Got a Linux machine? I can reboot and use grub to boot into single-user mode. There you go, I'm root. I can do all the of the above again.
The only way to have any security at the physical level is with encryption. And when we see encryption exploits, we do get hyped up about it. Even with encryption, more security measures still need to be taken at the physical level. A physical keylogger between the keyboard and computer could be installed to discover typed passwords, etc.
That said, an exploit is an exploit, and it should be treated as such. Physical-access only just means there's less to worry about.
Oh yeah -- in addition, please don't trot out that tired old "We make jokes to deal with the pain of loss" garbage...Most people here didn't know this guy. Your jokes aren't a coping mechanism, they're just the symptom of being an ass.
Knowing the man is irrelevant. It's not a competition to find out just who is the saddest about the loss and has therefore earned the right to make jokes. If you don't know him, you're going to have only one of three reactions:
You're not going to give a shit one way or another. There are quite a few people dying every moment and there's nothing special about that.
You're going to "know" him by his works. At which point, the most you might feel is disappointment that you're not going to see anything new by the guy.
You're going to "know" him by his works and you're going to relate to everybody else who has seen his work by making jokes that relate to (surprise) the stuff he has done. Which is what most people have in common.
It's not about being disrespectful, it's about being human. Being disrespectful would be to say things like, "I'm glad he's dead, he sucked anyway." Black humor is rarely disrespectful, and it's almost always better than hundreds of repetitive and insincere posts from people who never met the guy, his family, nor had any experience with someone who fought a "killer" disease for 7 years (I'm not implying you or the parent are insincere, but if I were to post something like that I most certainly would be. I have been lucky enough to have no idea what the man went through and I shall not pretend to know otherwise). People really need to stop being offended so easily. Furthermore, the more non-religious of us are unable say things like "Stan, you will be missed" because we don't think he can actually get the message.
As far what I have to say about the subject, I never knew Stan Winston, but I have always stated how impressed I was with special effects in his movies. Recent overuse of CGI has made it so that effects in Terminator 2 looked much more "real" than effects in contemporary movies, it was truly ahead of its time. He seemed to have a very good grasp of when to use CGI and when to actually build something physical, and how to blend the two effects well. Therefore, I'm in the category of people who will certainly miss his work. I can only hope others have indeed been inspired by the quality of his work and will carry on.
However, the GUI installation tool only allows for installation by default into/Library. It is possible to override this at the command line, but it's not possible to create an installer that gives the user the option of installing into ~/Library, or does so by default.
I think there are a whole lot of things that Apple does wrong, but in this case, if you're trying to use the installer for something that doesn't need to write system-wide stuff, you're the one doing it wrong. The vast majority of applications don't use installers. You drag the thing to the applications folder, which doesn't ask you for your password (and the 'application' that "looks" like a single file is actually comprised of all the libraries it needs to run). Upon running the application, the application will then write stuff to your ~/Library folder.
Now, my beef with Apple's installer is that there's no easy way to uninstall anything that was installed with an installer. With the other stuff, I can just drag the application from the Applications folder into the trash, but if it requires an installer, you're essentially left to track down all the files and deleting them manually.
I thought your review was pretty interesting. It does highlight that the game attracted gamers of really different tastes. As a result, everyone liked some aspects of it, and were displeased by others.
Personally, I loved the story and the writing. I see you had issues with a lot of the humor, ("shit...as in poop?"), but that's pretty classic Penny-Arcade style humor. Especially for Gabe dialog. So, at least, it was expected. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just a matter of taste and it's perfectly fine that you're not into it, but PA fans should like it.
I do agree with you that I enjoyed the fact that the fights were easy. A lot of other people got annoyed by this (like the reviewer of the article). Personally, I disliked the fact that there were any fights at all. I was expecting something more adventure game oriented. You know, find items, figure out where to use the items, solve puzzles, enjoy the story. And that's where I was disappointed.
The game has just enough of an adventure feel to make those of us who enjoy the genre to judge it as such. You walk around an environment, collect items, the emphasis isn't in the action. However, it's also too darn linear. There are no puzzles. There's no thought involved. You're told where you should go at every point. if you walk everywhere in the environment, kill everything, and talk to everyone, you've finished the game. I would have loved the game if it had bigger environments, more puzzles, less fights and mini-games. It would have been perfect.
Confusing the idiot who comes to install your Cable Modem.
My best experience of that involved the idiot insisting that he had to install the road runner software from his cd, or he would not complete the installation (or hand over my modem)
Me: "You can't. Not only do I not want you to install it, but it's actually impossible for you to do so. I'm not running windows."
Techie: "Is this a mac?"
Me: "No, it's Linux."
Techie: "If it's not a mac, it will work."
Me (actually amused at this point): "Be my guest and try it out."
I figured he would at least double-click his way into finding the setup.exe file on the cd, but he got stumped when the disc didn't autorun. So he called up time warner on his phone, they told him to click some stuff he couldn't find, but I got to talk to them, at which point they just activated the modem and told him it was alright to leave without installing the software.
It would mean you shoot people for listening to you because they 'stole' your ideas and your just trying to defend them. This reads to me like an excellent defence of patents. The whole concept of patents is that the ideas are out in the open, and the inventor can talk freely about their idea without worrying that they will have their idea pulled from under them by a larger competitor with more resources.
Whether or not they are allowed to do anything with the idea, the moment they hear it, it's in their brain. That's what the parent meant when he said that now you'd have to kill him in order to protect your property. It was just a more dramatic way of saying it's not tangible nor transferable (nobody can make you forget an idea)
The alternative would be much as you describe, with inventors fearing to talk about their ideas lest they become public knowledge, and the inventor sees no return. It's a nasty world where NDAs roam free and lips are tight.
No, the alternative is for inventors to have short-term protections for actual products. At one point, copyright terms in the US were only valid for 14 years (at a time when, as the poster before you noted, the business world was considerably slower. Therefore there's a good argument for shorter periods). At one point inventors were required to submit a working, tangible prototype of whatever they were trying to patent.
There's also the case of value. An idea might be intangible, but it obviously has value if it can generate a profit.
At this point I should point out that not even the incredibly Pro-IP government we have these days shares your extreme view. Ideas are not patentable.
The idea that only tangible things can have value is absurd. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that your house would still be worth the same amount after it had been knocked down - after all, all the material is still there. In reality, it is the architectural design of the house (an idea), and the man-hours involved in building it (time and salaries), that make up the bulk of its value.
A house isn't the same as the materials that build it. A house is also most definitely not intangible. The value of a house is most definitely not in its architectural design idea, or in the man-hours it took to build the house. The value of the house is in the product that idea and labor created. If you have a design idea, but never build, you should get nothing for it. If you hire a company to build you the house you design, they work hard for a year, but in the end don't deliver you a house, you're not going to pay them.
The idea has no value. What you do with that idea does.
Say you kill a landowner for his land. Now the land is yours. The next generation has no land. Who do you think they will want to kill?
I don't really agree with his views, but since he claims to be an "anarcho-communist, I assume that he's not going to assume the land is "his" after he kills the landowner. In fact, he says he's against all property rights, so he wants the land to have no owner at all. If anyone wants to use it, they should go for it.
I still haven't decided if he's serious or if he's parodying the anarcho-capitalists by taking the exact opposite ridiculous extreme.
Nah, God kills kittens when I do that. The kittens are the ones who are punished, not me.
no seriously, you do bad things all the time, you get angry, you feel lust, you eat too much...
Not a single thing in your list is a "bad" thing by itself. They can lead to bad things (although they can also lead to good things). What action do I take when I'm angry, or when I feel lust? Why is doing something I enjoy, but that doesn't hurt anyone else (like eating too much or even "touching myself") a bad thing? I can be held responsible for my actions, not for my feelings.
those sinful things that make us human are what you should be punished for
Why would anyone consider a god who thinks we should be punished for just being who we are "just"? How could he love us if he hates the very things that, in your own words, make us who we are?
The entire concept of "good" and "bad" is one that needs justification. Assuming that God has is giving us the good and bad guidelines because he wants to help us, that is. If he just wants us to coerce us into doing what he wants, then might is right, and we can't do jack shit about it. Assuming he doesn't just want to coerce us into doing something, there's only one logical method for putting things in one category or the other. First, we assume all humans are created equal. Then you should refrain from doing anything to anybody else that you would object to if you were in their shoes. If it's not in that category, it's not bad. I can't kill someone because I'd object to somebody killing me. I can't steal because I would object to somebody stealing my property. I can't commit adultery because I would object to my wife sleeping with another man. I can't declare other people's sexual habits evil because I'd object to them declaring my sexual habits evil.
And if we're not all created equal, and some people are allowed to have rights that others can't have, then we're back to the unjust god thing again.
The premise of Jesus' comments is that God--the creator, redeemer, etc.--should be more important to you than anything else.
Well, I missed the part where it was explained why God should be more important. That was the point of my comment. God hasn't directly communicated with me to earn that kind of loyalty and love.
"You already deserve punishment; where do we go from here?"
For doing what? For not being willing to give up his possessions for a being he he has never met? Like I said, you'll have to explain to me why that's deserving of punishment.
God showing up, healing, and getting ready to suffer death for the sake of people who don't deserve it, in an act of supreme humility and love.
I do understand that. And if I witnessed God personally healing and helping people, I would certainly agree that he's good. If some guy tells you that he's met somebody who claimed to be the son of God and he performed some miracles, you're not likely to believe it, though. But we're expected to believe what's written in the bible. I haven't personally witnessed God, He hasn't personally talked to me.
Once you personally experience that love and protection, they you would find God more important than your own life. I would give my life to protect my parents, most parents would do the same to their children. This type of love naturally grows in humans when they're in a loving relationship, it's not something that's given to you as a command, "you should love me more than your own life!"
it's about "I already deserve punishment; what happens now?"
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Theres a few comics that go into detail about how the joker needs batman and batman needs the joker. How they constantly go after each other but neither wants, or can do what it takes to end the battle.
What impresses me is that most of the time I've seen that sentiment in a comic book, it seemed forced and with unrealistic dialogue. In the movie (and in the killing joke), it worked remarkably well.
This joker was a little more intelligent and all the best comic book portails have him that way.
I commented on that with a few of my friends, it's one of the things I liked the most about the Joker in this movie. For once, the villain wasn't caught because he made a stupid mistake. The Joker's plans were flawless until the very end. Even with Batman taking the fall for what Harvey did, the Joker still wins a lesser victory. The people lose faith in Batman, which is not as bad as losing faith in Dent, but it does hurt morale. It also becomes a lot more difficult for Batman to cooperate with the police in catching the criminals.
Of course, Batman does gain some advantages too. The criminals were beginning to catch on to the fact that he won't kill them, only hurt them. If he has a reputation as a killer, he's able to once again ignite an overwhelming batman fear.
Overall, it was just an excellent movie. I can't imagine a more well thought out Batman story. Which actually makes me afraid of any sequels, because I don't think they can possibly top this one.
Wayne and Gordon believe that Batman has to take responsibility for Dent's actions because they believe that the people of Gotham City cannot handle knowing that their "White Knight" had gone insane.
That was one of the reasons, and perhaps portrayed as being the most important reason, but it was not the only one.
The joker let everyone know that Batman had rules. He never killed people. That led to the criminals no longer being afraid of him. Now he has the reputation of a killer, without actually having to kill.
alfred worked for the burmese government?!! seriously wtf.
Probably not directly for the burmese government. The comic books have changed Alfred's story several times, but during the pre-crisis version, he was a spy before he became a butler. The animated series also references this, and I think that scene in the movie was a nod to both of those.
it didn't seem like his personality up to that point was that fragile?
Really? I thought he was on the verge even before anything happened to him. He believed in the rule of law (he thought that as the DA he could make a difference). On the other hand, he also praised the works of a vigilante, believing that if the law isn't working, taking justice into your own hands is your duty.
Before Rachel was kidnapped, when her life was merely threatened he was ready to psychologically torture a guy in order to get information out of him. Sure, he wasn't going to kill him, but he did kidnap him, take him to the middle of nowhere, tie him up, and started to threaten him to get what he wanted.
He wasn't a bad guy, but it was pretty obvious from the beginning that if he was just pushed a bit farther, he would end up exactly where he did end up.
Let me put it this way, there were about 10 seconds of genuine heart in this film. It was the moment Bruce Wayne met Harvey Dent in person, heard his philosophy on confronting crime, and then complimented him on his views...it was one of the very few moments in the film when Bale was allowed to act. His genius saved that scene.
I'm a firm believer that taste for these types of things are not universal, and I completely respect your opinion. I personally feel very much differently though.
First of all, for that one particular scene, I think Eckhart was the better actor. Bale was just sitting there smiling, he barely got a word in. Eckhart on the other hand, expertly conveyed the beginning of his two-face persona. He believes in democracy and he believes in the rule of law (he's the freaking DA because he feels he can make a difference in that position), but at the same time he's not beyond letting a vigilante do the dirty work when everything else fails.
That said, it wasn't anywhere near my favorite scene.
I don't think a single one of the Joker's lines were "tacky" or cliched. Anytime he was on the screen, he seemed to pose a genuinely interesting moral dilemma. He really tested Bruce's conviction. Is it really right to go after criminals as a vigilante? If you're willing to break so many rules to do that, why do you have any left. Is there really a difference between directly killing someone versus being indirectly responsible for somebody's death? It was great stuff.
There was one scene, one single scene that I want to forget from that movie. Batman dives in after Rachel from atop a skyscraper. He catcher her. He doesn't slow down the fall at all. But she falls on top of him. Somehow, he's alright, we're to assume because of his armored suit, I guess. Somehow she's alright because she fell on top of him. Holy shit, I'm willing to overlook some disrespect for physics in superhero movies (there were plenty of others), but when it's that blatant, I really can't suspend my disbelief.
Everything else about the movie was perfect. It's without a doubt on my top 10 list. Surprisingly, another movie up there is Memento, so I guess my taste in movies just align themselves with Nolan's.
Many state that Ledger's Joker is a world of difference better than Nicholson's. But how does he compare with the comic book's Joker?
As you've stated yourself, there were quite a few different comic book jokers. I think this joker is closest to the one in the killing joke, in that his aim is to force batman to face his own madness.
The Killing Joke portrays the Joker as a normal joe who is trying to get ahead and ends up in a vat of chemicals and becomes the insane criminal everyone knows.
Kind of. The storyline in the killing joke was admittedly, by the Joker himself, not his true origin. He said that he prefers his past to be multiple choice, and that he himself doesn't quite remember exactly what happened to him.
Similarly, we don't witness the origin of the Joker in this movie, and that's a good thing. The Joker also tells two conflicting stories of how he got his scars, which fits with what the joker said in the killing joke.
There are other variations of the Joker, some showing him as completely off his rocker, others showing him as super sane but highly dangerous. Which is the most accurate? And which version does Ledger portray?
Depends on how you choose to define "accurate." I always prefer the interpretation of a villain that is most realistic, so to me, the best interpretation of the joker is one where he is a psychopath, and thus is able to laugh at his very violent antics. Ledger portrays a highly intelligent complete psychopath, and his relationship to Batman is much more interesting than the usual, "I do bad stuff and try to escape the hero who is trying to stop me." He wants Batman to stop him. It's very cool.
Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...
Leasing a robot was sufficiently expensive at the time that it more than covered for the specific repair. They also had the option to cease leasing to a particular client if he turns out to be destroying them on a regular basis.
In addition, a robot placing the orders of a human above its own self-preservation is a nice marketing point if you're trying to overcome the "Frankenstein Complex" that made humans afraid of them.
I don' theen that word means what you theen it means.
Hah...I hadn't even noticed it in preview. Meant to say immoral. A common typo, the keys are right next to each other.
We upgraded to those centuries ago. What are you using, Duotronic systems?
I tried upgrading to Multitronics, but my computer refused to accept that the games I was playing were just games. It became paranoid and tried to kill my online opponents in real life.
Luckily, I managed to convince it that murder was immortal, and it committed suicide before killing anyone important.
Or the answer could be that each human should have less impact.
Not really. Every human being has a minimum impact on the environment to survive, so at some point we're going to reach an equilibrium. The question is where to place the equilibrium. You might want us all to cut back on energy usage right now, but as population grows further, we'll all have to cut back back on energy usage even more just to maintain the same level.
Personally, I'd rather have 50 people on the entire planet that all live like kings than 50 billion with the standard of living equivalent to what we had in 1500's.
Western nations don't necessarily have the stomach to put an end to them. We have lapsed back into the thirties where people were more concerned with their well being and as long as the rest of the world left them alone they couldn't care what happened to these "other" people.
Dude, that's not lack of courage. That's wisdom. If it doesn't involve you, don't get involved. This doesn't just apply to foreign affairs, it should apply to everything in life. If you're straight, you shouldn't give a damn about what gay people do. If your friend is having a disagreement with her husband, stay the fuck out of it, don't take sides. Unless it's directly affecting you the best thing to do is to mind your own business.
no uprising? Gee, go figure. We can't even get enough people to peacefully kick out the Democrats and Republicans from office here
So what you're saying is that you'd be really happy if some foreign nation "had the stomach" to help out with that little problem, huh? Since we're unwilling to do anything about the problems with our government, people shouldn't just be out there concerned with their well being, they should come here and liberate us!
I'm not saying the US is anywhere near as bad a place to live in. In fact, to the contrary, I'm saying I'm pretty satisfied with our form of government, even with all its failings, and I'm betting you are too. What I am saying is that maybe, if they haven't rebelled, the Iranians are happy with their form of government too. Maybe they think that it is the government's job to enforce what their religion considers proper morality. And who the hell are we to tell them that's not the right way of doing things?
Then again occasionally that pesky world gets enough gumption to do something drastic like flying planes into buildings. It will happen again because while we don't have the stomach for wars these people do.
Yeah! And occasionally they will take cars full of explosives to buildings too! Like in the Oklahoma City bombing. Oh, you mean that Timothy McVeigh an American? Hell, if we were a bit more proactive, and had a police state, we could have stopped that!
9/11 was a horrible terrorist act, but it wasn't an act of war. Like the Oklahoma City bombing, it was the act of some crazy people, and you just can't help the fact that crazy people will try to do crazy things, because of whatevery crazy thing they believe in. It's a law enforcement problem, not a military one.
P2P was not foreseen. Things changed. The contracts will too. You are being willfully ignorant. Put yourself in their shoes for just 2 seconds and ask yourself would you keep yourself as a customer?
First of all, I'm pretty sure that P2P wasn't a surprise to anyone. I don't really feel like doing the research, so I won't argue the point against you this time other than to express some doubt. Second, you're right, things changed. A while ago it was only a select few who used a lot of bandwidth through P2P. Now every single broadcast station offers episodes of their shows on their website, most software checks automatically for updates, operating system updates, game patches, and the such are hundreds of megs a week. Subscription music services, online movie rentals...in another 5 years, every customer will be trying to max their bandwidth 24/7.
As for "some customers are too expensive or troublesome to bother having" perhaps you should read my post again. I'm not against the ISP's doing something about that. They're absolutely free to limit the bandwidth. If they don't have enough to serve everyone, they should limit the bandwidth. They can't discriminate based on what traffic you're using, they can't discriminate based on what sites you're visiting, and they can't advertise unlimited 6Mbps bandwidth if that's not what they're giving you.
This is why buffets ("All you can eat") reserve the right not to serve some jerks who self-righteously claim they have a right to eat $48 bucks worth of food after paying $10.
READ MY POST. Option number two: "they can limit their number of customers." Frankly, I think there are better solutions than saying, "I won't take your money", but I don't have any problem whatsoever with a company saying, "I don't want your money, I don't want to serve you." Hey, look at option #3 though, which isn't as stupid: CHARGE MORE FOR THE BANDWIDTH.
Is it really so difficult for an ISP to have several different plans and not lie about what they consist of? "Here's a 1 Mbps 200 gigs a month plan for $29.99. Here's a 3 Mbps 500 gigs a month plan for $49.99. Here's a 1 Mbps unlimited for $79.99. Here's a 6Mbps unlimited for $199.99." I don't care if they charge more, I don't care if they cap you. I just want to get what I actually paid for.
Put yourself in their shoes for just 2 seconds and ask yourself would you keep yourself as a customer?
Yes. Because if they're smart about it, they can make some serious cash off the heavy users. Just sell them the heavy user plan. If a heavy user buys into a cheaper plan, then they're going to get cut off once they reach the cap. Or they can be in an unlimited plan that is much slower. Whatever.
Suddenly, the 28 fitness machines they expected to service 5,000 people are being used from opening until closing by the same 28 people.
No- the next time your contract came up, it would have a clause that allowed them to force people to share the machines or something to protect them.
You are being unreasonable
Uh...you're the one being unreasonable. The new contract you propose would be completely unacceptable. If they don't have enough fitness machines for all their clients to use, they have only 3 options:
Any fitness center that actually attempted what you suggest would go bankrupt because they would have smarter competitors and clients would go elsewhere, where they don't have some asshole telling them to stop using the machines. In fact, the only reason the ISP's don't go bankrupt is because they lack competition and their clients can't switch. Monopolies give unfair advantages to companies and they use it to abuse their customers to increase their profits.
Similarly to the fitness center solutions above, the ISP's have 3 options:
What they CAN'T do is advertise up to 6Mbps and throttle their customers because they might want to use it.
Realistically, you are correct (although I still object to your terminology. They're not "censors," they're people sworn to secrecy. They only become censors when they attempt to stop the free speech of those who were not sworn to keep the secrets but found out anyway). What I described was an ideal situation. Even if the goal is unreachable, if we all strive to achieve it, we can keep ourselves from straying too far from it.
What we have to our advantage is that there are a lot of people involved in all levels of government in order to make it work. Somebody who believes in a responsible government is bound to be included in every secret project, and when they do, they will be morally obliged to become whistle-blowers and leak the information.
The problem isn't that the "trusted committee" isn't accountable to the public, it's that these days the public just doesn't care. The secrets that threaten public control of the government do invariably get leaked. We know about the wiretaps. We know about the secret prisons. We know about the torture. The problem is that a lot of the public believes this behavior is acceptable. Instead of thanking the whistle-blowers who brought this to our attention, some people go as far as calling them traitors.
The bottom line, unfortunately, is that censorship, including the suppression of information for national security purposes, is incompatible with public control of the government.You're right. Complete transparency of the government is incompatible with the ability to keep secrets. The alternative of keeping no secrets at all is to live with a foreign threat to our public control of the government. The fact that we're straying so far from what you called my "reasonable goal" is an inherent deficiency of a government under public control. When the public doesn't care, they fail to hold their government accountable, even when they do know about the secrets. However, the alternative to public control of the government is even worse. In the end, I prefer to strive to keep the balance. I accept that the government has to keep secrets even knowing that this interferes with the transparency I want from my government, and I accept to live in a democracy even knowing idiots get to vote.
No, he is lifting the veil of secrecy. There's a big difference between secrecy and censorship.
Secrecy is a very important aspect of national security, and I wouldn't want to see it go away. That said, I want checks and balances to ensure that only things pertaining to national security are kept secret, and every other aspect of the government is kept transparent. I also want to make sure there are checks and balances to prevent a violation of citizens rights lumped in under national security secrets (like wiretaps of american citizens), and I want checks and balances to prevent a violation in inalienable human rights (like secret prisons) with the same premise as an excuse, but I sure have no problem with secret spy satellites. In fact, if I were an amateur astronomer who discovered said satellites, I would be morally against publicizing that information. I know other countries can look at the sky just as easily as I can, but I don't want to do their legwork for them. That said, if the astronomer in question doesn't have a problem with publicizing the information, I would have a problem with the government trying to shut him up. That would be censorship, not just secrecy. It's one of those "I disagree with what you're saying, but I will defend your right to say it" things.
In the case of Trevor Paglin, the article indicates that he knew where and when to find the satellites by looking at a database compiled by amateur astronomers. As far as I'm concerned, that doesn't classify as a "secret" anymore, other than the actual capabilities of the satellites. Therefore, I don't have a moral objection to it. In fact, I applaud all of his other work, which brings attention to those secret prisons I so despise.
The reason that requiring physical access is seen as no big deal is because all that stuff you're worried about is something I can do without the need of any exploits.
Got a machine with literally any operating system? All I need is to reboot the computer with a linux live cd (or usb thumb drive) and I get read / write access to everywhere. From there I can plant trojans, read your files, do whatever.
Got a Linux machine? I can reboot and use grub to boot into single-user mode. There you go, I'm root. I can do all the of the above again.
The only way to have any security at the physical level is with encryption. And when we see encryption exploits, we do get hyped up about it. Even with encryption, more security measures still need to be taken at the physical level. A physical keylogger between the keyboard and computer could be installed to discover typed passwords, etc.
That said, an exploit is an exploit, and it should be treated as such. Physical-access only just means there's less to worry about.
Knowing the man is irrelevant. It's not a competition to find out just who is the saddest about the loss and has therefore earned the right to make jokes. If you don't know him, you're going to have only one of three reactions:
It's not about being disrespectful, it's about being human. Being disrespectful would be to say things like, "I'm glad he's dead, he sucked anyway." Black humor is rarely disrespectful, and it's almost always better than hundreds of repetitive and insincere posts from people who never met the guy, his family, nor had any experience with someone who fought a "killer" disease for 7 years (I'm not implying you or the parent are insincere, but if I were to post something like that I most certainly would be. I have been lucky enough to have no idea what the man went through and I shall not pretend to know otherwise). People really need to stop being offended so easily. Furthermore, the more non-religious of us are unable say things like "Stan, you will be missed" because we don't think he can actually get the message.
As far what I have to say about the subject, I never knew Stan Winston, but I have always stated how impressed I was with special effects in his movies. Recent overuse of CGI has made it so that effects in Terminator 2 looked much more "real" than effects in contemporary movies, it was truly ahead of its time. He seemed to have a very good grasp of when to use CGI and when to actually build something physical, and how to blend the two effects well. Therefore, I'm in the category of people who will certainly miss his work. I can only hope others have indeed been inspired by the quality of his work and will carry on.
Are you seriously making the argument that "800Mbps should be enough for anybody"?
I think there are a whole lot of things that Apple does wrong, but in this case, if you're trying to use the installer for something that doesn't need to write system-wide stuff, you're the one doing it wrong. The vast majority of applications don't use installers. You drag the thing to the applications folder, which doesn't ask you for your password (and the 'application' that "looks" like a single file is actually comprised of all the libraries it needs to run). Upon running the application, the application will then write stuff to your ~/Library folder.
Now, my beef with Apple's installer is that there's no easy way to uninstall anything that was installed with an installer. With the other stuff, I can just drag the application from the Applications folder into the trash, but if it requires an installer, you're essentially left to track down all the files and deleting them manually.
I thought your review was pretty interesting. It does highlight that the game attracted gamers of really different tastes. As a result, everyone liked some aspects of it, and were displeased by others.
Personally, I loved the story and the writing. I see you had issues with a lot of the humor, ("shit...as in poop?"), but that's pretty classic Penny-Arcade style humor. Especially for Gabe dialog. So, at least, it was expected. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just a matter of taste and it's perfectly fine that you're not into it, but PA fans should like it.
I do agree with you that I enjoyed the fact that the fights were easy. A lot of other people got annoyed by this (like the reviewer of the article). Personally, I disliked the fact that there were any fights at all. I was expecting something more adventure game oriented. You know, find items, figure out where to use the items, solve puzzles, enjoy the story. And that's where I was disappointed.
The game has just enough of an adventure feel to make those of us who enjoy the genre to judge it as such. You walk around an environment, collect items, the emphasis isn't in the action. However, it's also too darn linear. There are no puzzles. There's no thought involved. You're told where you should go at every point. if you walk everywhere in the environment, kill everything, and talk to everyone, you've finished the game. I would have loved the game if it had bigger environments, more puzzles, less fights and mini-games. It would have been perfect.
My best experience of that involved the idiot insisting that he had to install the road runner software from his cd, or he would not complete the installation (or hand over my modem)
Me: "You can't. Not only do I not want you to install it, but it's actually impossible for you to do so. I'm not running windows."
Techie: "Is this a mac?"
Me: "No, it's Linux."
Techie: "If it's not a mac, it will work."
Me (actually amused at this point): "Be my guest and try it out."
I figured he would at least double-click his way into finding the setup.exe file on the cd, but he got stumped when the disc didn't autorun. So he called up time warner on his phone, they told him to click some stuff he couldn't find, but I got to talk to them, at which point they just activated the modem and told him it was alright to leave without installing the software.
Whether or not they are allowed to do anything with the idea, the moment they hear it, it's in their brain. That's what the parent meant when he said that now you'd have to kill him in order to protect your property. It was just a more dramatic way of saying it's not tangible nor transferable (nobody can make you forget an idea)
The alternative would be much as you describe, with inventors fearing to talk about their ideas lest they become public knowledge, and the inventor sees no return. It's a nasty world where NDAs roam free and lips are tight.No, the alternative is for inventors to have short-term protections for actual products. At one point, copyright terms in the US were only valid for 14 years (at a time when, as the poster before you noted, the business world was considerably slower. Therefore there's a good argument for shorter periods). At one point inventors were required to submit a working, tangible prototype of whatever they were trying to patent.
There's also the case of value. An idea might be intangible, but it obviously has value if it can generate a profit.At this point I should point out that not even the incredibly Pro-IP government we have these days shares your extreme view. Ideas are not patentable.
The idea that only tangible things can have value is absurd. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that your house would still be worth the same amount after it had been knocked down - after all, all the material is still there. In reality, it is the architectural design of the house (an idea), and the man-hours involved in building it (time and salaries), that make up the bulk of its value.A house isn't the same as the materials that build it. A house is also most definitely not intangible. The value of a house is most definitely not in its architectural design idea, or in the man-hours it took to build the house. The value of the house is in the product that idea and labor created. If you have a design idea, but never build, you should get nothing for it. If you hire a company to build you the house you design, they work hard for a year, but in the end don't deliver you a house, you're not going to pay them.
The idea has no value. What you do with that idea does.
I don't really agree with his views, but since he claims to be an "anarcho-communist, I assume that he's not going to assume the land is "his" after he kills the landowner. In fact, he says he's against all property rights, so he wants the land to have no owner at all. If anyone wants to use it, they should go for it.
I still haven't decided if he's serious or if he's parodying the anarcho-capitalists by taking the exact opposite ridiculous extreme.
Nah, God kills kittens when I do that. The kittens are the ones who are punished, not me.
no seriously, you do bad things all the time, you get angry, you feel lust, you eat too much...Not a single thing in your list is a "bad" thing by itself. They can lead to bad things (although they can also lead to good things). What action do I take when I'm angry, or when I feel lust? Why is doing something I enjoy, but that doesn't hurt anyone else (like eating too much or even "touching myself") a bad thing? I can be held responsible for my actions, not for my feelings.
those sinful things that make us human are what you should be punished forWhy would anyone consider a god who thinks we should be punished for just being who we are "just"? How could he love us if he hates the very things that, in your own words, make us who we are?
The entire concept of "good" and "bad" is one that needs justification. Assuming that God has is giving us the good and bad guidelines because he wants to help us, that is. If he just wants us to coerce us into doing what he wants, then might is right, and we can't do jack shit about it. Assuming he doesn't just want to coerce us into doing something, there's only one logical method for putting things in one category or the other. First, we assume all humans are created equal. Then you should refrain from doing anything to anybody else that you would object to if you were in their shoes. If it's not in that category, it's not bad. I can't kill someone because I'd object to somebody killing me. I can't steal because I would object to somebody stealing my property. I can't commit adultery because I would object to my wife sleeping with another man. I can't declare other people's sexual habits evil because I'd object to them declaring my sexual habits evil.
And if we're not all created equal, and some people are allowed to have rights that others can't have, then we're back to the unjust god thing again.
Well, I missed the part where it was explained why God should be more important. That was the point of my comment. God hasn't directly communicated with me to earn that kind of loyalty and love.
"You already deserve punishment; where do we go from here?"For doing what? For not being willing to give up his possessions for a being he he has never met? Like I said, you'll have to explain to me why that's deserving of punishment.
God showing up, healing, and getting ready to suffer death for the sake of people who don't deserve it, in an act of supreme humility and love.I do understand that. And if I witnessed God personally healing and helping people, I would certainly agree that he's good. If some guy tells you that he's met somebody who claimed to be the son of God and he performed some miracles, you're not likely to believe it, though. But we're expected to believe what's written in the bible. I haven't personally witnessed God, He hasn't personally talked to me.
Once you personally experience that love and protection, they you would find God more important than your own life. I would give my life to protect my parents, most parents would do the same to their children. This type of love naturally grows in humans when they're in a loving relationship, it's not something that's given to you as a command, "you should love me more than your own life!"
it's about "I already deserve punishment; what happens now?"Again, what has he done to deserve punishment?