Forgive me for not having played those games. And no, Wolfenstein 3D doesn't count as "Wolfenstein" because Wolf3D didn't have grenades and weapons couldn't move the pushwalls.
My, you are young, aren't you? I was referring to the original Castle Wolfenstein, of which Wolf3D was just a poor ripoff.
Besides all that, you don't really think us oldtimers learned to check walls from reading cheats and hints for those games, do you? No, many of us did it the hard way. Sorta like this:
Gamer 1: Well, I've done everything in this room and still haven't gotten anywhere.
Gamer 2: We're in jail! There HAS to be a way out!
Gamer 1: Yeah, why don't we try bumping into the walls and see if that gets us anywhere?
Gamer 2: Nothing to lose...
The problem solves itself to the inquisitive mind.:) Luckily, our minds weren't already numbed by the overdone graphics and crap (not to mention the hours "normal" people spend killing brain cells with the TV). Gameplay IS everything.
How is the player supposed to know that the poster covers a hole? I had to go looking for that information (and in the days before the ubiquity of the WWW, that involved calling a 1-900 number), but then I figured out the pipe bomb myself.
I'd call this blatant stupidity. From as early (possibly earlier) as the Ultima days, true hard-core gamers were trained to bump into walls looking for secret passages. Shoot the walls, etc. From the original Wolfenstein we learned that grenades can tear holes in walls when you might otherwise not be able to pass through. Even moreso, Zork showed us not to ignore the walls either.
More importantly, if you're stuck in a jail cell, how would YOU get out? Wouldn't you check the walls for weaknesses? I would...
True enough, but it does seem to be getting closer... Meantime, Pegasos machines ship with a choice of Linux or MorphOS.
I looked at the Pegasos site, actually. To be honest, I'm interested in PPC when it has more serious competition. There's not much right now. That has a lot of implications besides price, but I'm really too tired to go into it.:)
I'd like to point out though that MorphOS is the OS update that some company (I forgot the name already) made during one of Amiga's down times. They had licensed the hardware from Amiga when it was part of Gateway, iirc, and when Amiga got dumped they had customers that needed to be satisfied, so they just kept going without Amiga. It's questionable whether they're even going to hook back up with Amiga now.
The Pegasos [domicile.fr] is shipping now and the Amiga One [amiga.com] is nearly ready - weeks away from shipping, if Eyetech is to be believed.
Don't know about the Pegasos, but the Amiga One was due out in 2001, after being moved back from 2000. Now it's 2003... I think it's vapor. Not to mention that you have to buy it with the Amiga OS, which (believe it or not, as much as I like amigas of old) I don't want.
Clones will kill that ability. And, make no mistake, it IS that ability that is keeping Apple in business after all these years. Those who don't understand this don't understand Apple's business.
Aha, but clones will also introduce the possibility of some of us running Linux on a PowerPC affordably. I don't want to pay Apple's prices, but I'd like to run a PPC. So, this dude would get my money, and Apple would get their cut, and on top of it all, I wouldn't even be running OS X! Imagine that! Now, as long as Apple doesn't force the vendors of this stuff to sell OS X preinstalled and nothing else, it'll be a great thing. Apple will actually be able to get a foothold in the LInux market without having to actually make Linux themselves.:)
That's exactly the one I was looking for. I thought it should be #1, How could you beat the War of the Worlds?
Dudley, Bob, and Debra on the KLBJ morning show spent like 3 hours one morning talking about how Metallica got struck by lightning and they were all dead. Guys I worked with were calling their girlfriends and crying on the phone at them. It was funnier than shit.:)
I'm not being a spoilsport, but after a few years April Fools Day jokes start to seem a little formulaic and predictable.
Taht's just because nobody around here has any imagination, otherwise April Fools would be a great day. Just think, my wife's going in for her ultrasound today. Do you really think the Doctor's gonna tell her the truth about the baby's sex? I don't.... at least, not if I were the Doctor.
Doc: Looks like you're having a girl.
Wife: But what's that pointy thing?
Doc: It's her, uh, nose.
Wife: That's not what my son's nose looked like...
Doc: This one's Italian.
Wife: Oh.
Doc: Do you have any Italian in you?
Wife: No, I don't.
Doc: Do you want some?
-- Baby's birthday --
Wife: You said I was having a girl! This is a boy.
As a matter of fact, I'm more than a tad irked that the parent made a joke about your sig. I read your sig and thought "I'm gonna slam his sig!", then I read the post that did it already.:(
He did do a good job, though. Not once did he really reply to anything in your post, but he sure talked a lot about gentoo.
I don't use an RPM-based distro, but don't up2date, apt4rpm, and urpmi handle just that for you? The dependency handling issue has long since been solved, and Gentoo is not the only solution. Thankfully, the whole distro landscape has been moving on to new problems as of late.
The dependency problem is only solved so long as you *never ever* use packages not created by the distributor. That means that rpms for your system must be made by RedHat if you're using RedHat (although a number of people are getting good at it besides RedHat), made by mandrake if you're using Mandrake, etc. If you use the GNU build tools in Gentoo without using emerge, do you break something the way it does in rpm-based distros? For example, if you use./configure et al on Mandrake, nothing is technically broken, however urpmi won't acknowledge any library you installed that way. You *must* install libraries from a RPM if you want it to be recognized when another rpm depends on it.
GNU has solved the problem, but the distributions don't use it. Package-config solves the problem, I believe. I could be wrong, but it should. The only thing we need now is a GUI front-end to./configure && make && make install.
The other option I was looking into was running it remotely on a seperate Linux box using cygwin's xserver, but I need to set it up, and I'm not sure it's worth the electricity for one application.
Heh, I'm doing this already for Quicken, but I'm reading through GNUCash documentation right now. It really does look like it'll do what I want, and I'm willing to sacrifice online banking if necessary fianlly. I don't think my wife will object, since it's costing $6/month, and she's wanted to eliminate that ever since it started (while enjoying the convenience of having online banking: women don't make sense).
But I would *really* like to eliminate the windows computer running in the back completely, and I'm close to doing so. Replacing Quicken is the first step. Getting xmms-alarm to handle mulitple alarms is the second step, and then I should be done.:) (And the computer will still run, it'll just run linux instead)
If it's improved in the last few weeks, I might give it another shot, but only because GNUCash doesn't run on Windows.
Has anybody tried compiling GNUCash under cygwin? I know there are some GTK programs that have been compiled under cygwin (rather than using the GTK port to windows). I don't recall what dependencies GNUCash has, I just remember there's a LOT (I failed to build 1.6, but luckily Mandrake is including 1.6+ versions now).
Also, does anybody know about decent documentation for GNUCash? My main requirement for financial app is that it use a database server like Postgres, rather than it's own stupid file format. That way I can write custom reports with the report writer of my choice. I hear GNUCash does this, but haven't seen it. What about Moneydance? Will it let me use a real database or its cheesy implementation of one?
Once again I have to ask why we need a law to have OSS considered. Is there something in the law saying only closed source software can be considered?
Before OSS became a serious thing (or rather, before it was mature enough to become a worthy alternative), people only used closed source software because that's all there was. However, even in those days, many people wouldn't consider all of the options when making a purchase. Realistically, many people still don't, on anything. However, there are laws in place in many state governments (although I don't know about Oregon specifically) that require them to do things like put the purchase up to a bid and let contractors and suppliers and so forth bid, and then they pick the lowest price. I don't know if it's the function or specific package that goes up for bid or not. Anyway, the assumption in a bidding system is that the suppliers will be commercial entities. Many good OS solutions are NOT commercial entities, but provide commercial level support and stuff (not services, though). For the states money and need, it is a good thing to consider OSS in the purchasing process.
That said, it is also quite normal for a PHB to hear someone say "We need software to do this" and then call up Microsoft to start the bidding process. This sort of thing happens frequently because the PHB isn't even aware that there's alternatives to Microsoft. He may likely wind up calling his guy back and saying "It's too much money."
Now, a bill that requires them to consider OSS solutions would change that. Now the PHB can't call Microsoft and decide it's too much money. Now he needs to find a company (say, uh, RedHat?) who provides competitive services/software that's also OSS and SHOP AROUND.
The reason there's no law mandating that closed source software be considered is because it's never been needed to ensure that all of the options are considered. It was previously the *only* option. Now there are alternatives. Making this law requires people to look at the alternatives. That's all. And it is a Good Thing.
Do you have a winmx username?;) I'd like to have a 5 gig ogg collection. I've only got a 5 gig mp3 collection, and that's less than 200 CDs worth of music, that's for sure...
No, what you actually mean to say is that no-one will make an Open Source Uma Thurman simulation.
I'm sure you'll want to fix the behavioral bugs... like not wanting to hang out with a Slashdot geek.
You realize, don't you, by actually saying that something will never happen, you have practically assured that it will happen at some point. Just like when people said man would not fly.
I hear this crap a lot, and I really hate this argument. There are several major fallicies in it. First, that when you vote, you MUST vote on every office. If you don't like either presidential candidate, leave them blank. There are still senators, representatives, governors (on off years), state representatives, judges, sherrifs, coroners, mayors, and city council members to vote on. Many, if not most of the most moronic 'solutions' come from the STATES, not the federal government. Are you saying that NO ONE has EVER run for ANY office that you feel would be good enough to do the job?
At this point you reach the point of diminishing returns. The lower down the chain you get, the less I actually know about the guy. I'm not hiring a complete stranger! Let someone who knows who these people are make the decision, I'm not anywhere close to qualified. I can't say that nobody has ever run for office that I wanted, because I don't know who runs for which offices or even who the fuck they are! I consider it very irresponsible to vote for someone just because of their party affiliation (yeah, voting a straight ticket is irresponsible), and I also consider it irresponsible to chose someone for a job when you've got no idea who they are or why they should/shouldn't be doing that job! It'd be like rolling dice to hire an employee. I wouldn't do that either.
Don't vote for one of the major parties, vote for someone down on the list, vote for yourself, vote for someone you think would be good, even if they aren't running. This country gives you the right to vote for anyone you want to.
The country gives me the right, but makes it a useless right by delivering a method of electing officials that makes it damn near impossible for a clear choice to be made. Know why all the presidential races are getting so close now? There's too many people voting. A statistical equilibrium has been found, and it will always be close. Consider other election issues. Given a choice, I would have preferred Al Gore to George W. Bush. But I would never vote for either of them. So who do I vote for? Is it even possible that if I voted, somehow my vote would help to strip Al Gore of enough electoral votes that Bush gets in? I don't want that! Neither do I want to cast my sole vote for Al Gore. The voting system needs work, and I would probably vote for someone who agreed and promised to work on it.:)
People who don't vote because they don't like the candidates are indistinguishable from those who don't vote because they are apithetic, or just plain too lazy. If you want to truly show that you feel that none of the candidates are qualified, mark the write in and leave it blank, something, if enough people do it, it will eventually get noticed. If you just don't vote, they assume that whatever they do must be ok with you since you didn't object by casting your vote, as that's what counts.
It is true that people like me are politically indistinguishable from those other lazy folk.:) This is a good argument to favor going down and turning in an empty ballot. My basic paranoid nature would require that I do something to the ballot to prevent it from being filled in after the fact, thus casting my vote for someone else.
No matter what, the only voice that will be heard by the politicians is the vote. If enough consitutients write in to them, they might worry about how that vote will go, but as long as they aren't worried, they will do what gets them money. That's why they ran, that's why they're there, and if something doesn't change with voting behaivor, politicans will NEVER change.
With this I must disagree. I don't think the politicians even pay attention to the vote. They work it as a strategy, much the way you'd play Chess, or Axis and Allies, or whatever. If they really *really* cared about voters, they wouldn't be one-track focussed on California, New York, Texas, Florida, and couple of other states (you k
While this is definitely applicable this time, the reason I jump in every now and then and say *** sucks is because I'm sick of the idea that everybody is entitled to their own opinion. If there's one statement that gets overabused, it's that. Would you believe that I gave my wife specific instructions on how to hold chopsticks (the way I learnt it, the way every Chinese person I've seen eating holds them, etc.) and she said "you're entitled to your opinion". Then she proceeded to complain about how she wasn't picking up any food. If it works, it fucking works! There's a time and place for opinions, and it's not when I'm expressing my opinions!:)
However, to pick up the discussion (not like I started one), I noticed down farther in this thread that people are complaining that people these days don't appreciate art anymore. I wonder if they realize yet that art has been redefined, and the "traditional" arts are no longer interesting to the average american. I'm getting generally sick of the idea that to be "art" it must be poetry, literature, painting, symphonic music, or sculpture, and it gets worse after that! Now your literature isn't art if it's romantic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, etc.
To make things even worse, there are people like me (although not me, I refuse to acknowledge "art" in any way) who want to make soft defintions of "art" so that art is anything that somebody declares is art, in their opinion. Then there's people who want hard definitions of "art" (you outta hear my Dad trying to explain why heavy metal music is neither art nor music, but he's out of clues when you ask him about the modal influence in metal guitarists), where something is definitely art or it is definitely not art. (Great fighting, though, when people from each side come together and try to express their opinions, although it almost always ends after a bunch of red-faced yelling with the guy from the first group saying "Well, I'm entitled to my opinion!")
I'll tell you what, though. I haven't seen a lot of anime, but I did see the Vampire Hunter D, or whatever it's called. I found it boring as hell. I loved Voltron as a kid (although popularized anime built for consumption probably isn't a good comparison), and I really really loved the old computer game Thexder. But the more serious stuff isn't made for my consumption.:)
But the sad truth is that animes remain an underappreciated art form and never have the chance to make it to American theators.
Don't forget about The Lonely Guy! A guy goes to the top of the roof to yell out this chick's name, and there's a bunch of other guys yelling out theres so they have to take turns....:)
Don't forget about the 12 Monkeys, directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Bruce Willis. Another underappreciated film directed by Terry Gilliam is Time Bandits. That flick still rocks! Had to go to P2P to get it, though, but I think it's back in print. I don't know about DVD though...
Slashdot Mirror
Forgive me for not having played those games. And no, Wolfenstein 3D doesn't count as "Wolfenstein" because Wolf3D didn't have grenades and weapons couldn't move the pushwalls.
My, you are young, aren't you? I was referring to the original Castle Wolfenstein, of which Wolf3D was just a poor ripoff.
Besides all that, you don't really think us oldtimers learned to check walls from reading cheats and hints for those games, do you? No, many of us did it the hard way. Sorta like this:
Gamer 1: Well, I've done everything in this room and still haven't gotten anywhere.
Gamer 2: We're in jail! There HAS to be a way out!
Gamer 1: Yeah, why don't we try bumping into the walls and see if that gets us anywhere?
Gamer 2: Nothing to lose...
The problem solves itself to the inquisitive mind. :) Luckily, our minds weren't already numbed by the overdone graphics and crap (not to mention the hours "normal" people spend killing brain cells with the TV). Gameplay IS everything.
How is the player supposed to know that the poster covers a hole? I had to go looking for that information (and in the days before the ubiquity of the WWW, that involved calling a 1-900 number), but then I figured out the pipe bomb myself.
I'd call this blatant stupidity. From as early (possibly earlier) as the Ultima days, true hard-core gamers were trained to bump into walls looking for secret passages. Shoot the walls, etc. From the original Wolfenstein we learned that grenades can tear holes in walls when you might otherwise not be able to pass through. Even moreso, Zork showed us not to ignore the walls either.
More importantly, if you're stuck in a jail cell, how would YOU get out? Wouldn't you check the walls for weaknesses? I would...
Remember: it's not illegal to get an Apple hardware and sell with non-Apple OSes, but getting a non-Apple hardware and sell with an Apple OS is.
I'm reminded of the song that goes "You say illegal, I say legal never ain't my thing! Oh yeah!". :)
True enough, but it does seem to be getting closer... Meantime, Pegasos machines ship with a choice of Linux or MorphOS.
I looked at the Pegasos site, actually. To be honest, I'm interested in PPC when it has more serious competition. There's not much right now. That has a lot of implications besides price, but I'm really too tired to go into it. :)
I'd like to point out though that MorphOS is the OS update that some company (I forgot the name already) made during one of Amiga's down times. They had licensed the hardware from Amiga when it was part of Gateway, iirc, and when Amiga got dumped they had customers that needed to be satisfied, so they just kept going without Amiga. It's questionable whether they're even going to hook back up with Amiga now.
The Pegasos [domicile.fr] is shipping now and the Amiga One [amiga.com] is nearly ready - weeks away from shipping, if Eyetech is to be believed.
Don't know about the Pegasos, but the Amiga One was due out in 2001, after being moved back from 2000. Now it's 2003... I think it's vapor. Not to mention that you have to buy it with the Amiga OS, which (believe it or not, as much as I like amigas of old) I don't want.
Clones will kill that ability. And, make no mistake, it IS that ability that is keeping Apple in business after all these years. Those who don't understand this don't understand Apple's business.
Aha, but clones will also introduce the possibility of some of us running Linux on a PowerPC affordably. I don't want to pay Apple's prices, but I'd like to run a PPC. So, this dude would get my money, and Apple would get their cut, and on top of it all, I wouldn't even be running OS X! Imagine that! Now, as long as Apple doesn't force the vendors of this stuff to sell OS X preinstalled and nothing else, it'll be a great thing. Apple will actually be able to get a foothold in the LInux market without having to actually make Linux themselves. :)
That's exactly the one I was looking for. I thought it should be #1, How could you beat the War of the Worlds?
Dudley, Bob, and Debra on the KLBJ morning show spent like 3 hours one morning talking about how Metallica got struck by lightning and they were all dead. Guys I worked with were calling their girlfriends and crying on the phone at them. It was funnier than shit. :)
The sticking point was France's demand that the merged OS be called FrenchBSD.
Further disagreements came when Germany suggested the FrenchBSD daemon carry a white flag.
Ahh...spelling corrections..the last refuge of the damned.
Only inferior people criticize others' criticisms. That's what gives them the sense of superiority.
I'm not being a spoilsport, but after a few years April Fools Day jokes start to seem a little formulaic and predictable.
Taht's just because nobody around here has any imagination, otherwise April Fools would be a great day. Just think, my wife's going in for her ultrasound today. Do you really think the Doctor's gonna tell her the truth about the baby's sex? I don't.... at least, not if I were the Doctor.
Doc: Looks like you're having a girl.
Wife: But what's that pointy thing?
Doc: It's her, uh, nose.
Wife: That's not what my son's nose looked like...
Doc: This one's Italian.
Wife: Oh.
Doc: Do you have any Italian in you?
Wife: No, I don't.
Doc: Do you want some?
-- Baby's birthday --
Wife: You said I was having a girl! This is a boy.
Doc: April Fool's!
As a matter of fact, I'm more than a tad irked that the parent made a joke about your sig. I read your sig and thought "I'm gonna slam his sig!", then I read the post that did it already. :(
He did do a good job, though. Not once did he really reply to anything in your post, but he sure talked a lot about gentoo.
I don't use an RPM-based distro, but don't up2date, apt4rpm, and urpmi handle just that for you? The dependency handling issue has long since been solved, and Gentoo is not the only solution. Thankfully, the whole distro landscape has been moving on to new problems as of late.
The dependency problem is only solved so long as you *never ever* use packages not created by the distributor. That means that rpms for your system must be made by RedHat if you're using RedHat (although a number of people are getting good at it besides RedHat), made by mandrake if you're using Mandrake, etc. If you use the GNU build tools in Gentoo without using emerge, do you break something the way it does in rpm-based distros? For example, if you use ./configure et al on Mandrake, nothing is technically broken, however urpmi won't acknowledge any library you installed that way. You *must* install libraries from a RPM if you want it to be recognized when another rpm depends on it.
GNU has solved the problem, but the distributions don't use it. Package-config solves the problem, I believe. I could be wrong, but it should. The only thing we need now is a GUI front-end to ./configure && make && make install.
The other option I was looking into was running it remotely on a seperate Linux box using cygwin's xserver, but I need to set it up, and I'm not sure it's worth the electricity for one application.
Heh, I'm doing this already for Quicken, but I'm reading through GNUCash documentation right now. It really does look like it'll do what I want, and I'm willing to sacrifice online banking if necessary fianlly. I don't think my wife will object, since it's costing $6/month, and she's wanted to eliminate that ever since it started (while enjoying the convenience of having online banking: women don't make sense).
But I would *really* like to eliminate the windows computer running in the back completely, and I'm close to doing so. Replacing Quicken is the first step. Getting xmms-alarm to handle mulitple alarms is the second step, and then I should be done. :) (And the computer will still run, it'll just run linux instead)
If it's improved in the last few weeks, I might give it another shot, but only because GNUCash doesn't run on Windows.
Has anybody tried compiling GNUCash under cygwin? I know there are some GTK programs that have been compiled under cygwin (rather than using the GTK port to windows). I don't recall what dependencies GNUCash has, I just remember there's a LOT (I failed to build 1.6, but luckily Mandrake is including 1.6+ versions now).
Also, does anybody know about decent documentation for GNUCash? My main requirement for financial app is that it use a database server like Postgres, rather than it's own stupid file format. That way I can write custom reports with the report writer of my choice. I hear GNUCash does this, but haven't seen it. What about Moneydance? Will it let me use a real database or its cheesy implementation of one?
Once again I have to ask why we need a law to have OSS considered. Is there something in the law saying only closed source software can be considered?
Before OSS became a serious thing (or rather, before it was mature enough to become a worthy alternative), people only used closed source software because that's all there was. However, even in those days, many people wouldn't consider all of the options when making a purchase. Realistically, many people still don't, on anything. However, there are laws in place in many state governments (although I don't know about Oregon specifically) that require them to do things like put the purchase up to a bid and let contractors and suppliers and so forth bid, and then they pick the lowest price. I don't know if it's the function or specific package that goes up for bid or not. Anyway, the assumption in a bidding system is that the suppliers will be commercial entities. Many good OS solutions are NOT commercial entities, but provide commercial level support and stuff (not services, though). For the states money and need, it is a good thing to consider OSS in the purchasing process.
That said, it is also quite normal for a PHB to hear someone say "We need software to do this" and then call up Microsoft to start the bidding process. This sort of thing happens frequently because the PHB isn't even aware that there's alternatives to Microsoft. He may likely wind up calling his guy back and saying "It's too much money."
Now, a bill that requires them to consider OSS solutions would change that. Now the PHB can't call Microsoft and decide it's too much money. Now he needs to find a company (say, uh, RedHat?) who provides competitive services/software that's also OSS and SHOP AROUND.
The reason there's no law mandating that closed source software be considered is because it's never been needed to ensure that all of the options are considered. It was previously the *only* option. Now there are alternatives. Making this law requires people to look at the alternatives. That's all. And it is a Good Thing.
How the heck do you effectively control windows/linux with a remote
You whip out your dick and point it at the computer. Bill and Linus both will do anything for you at that point.
Yeah, I'm going to Troll of the Year Award, posting with a karma bonus. ;)
I have a 5 Gig Ogg collection.
Do you have a winmx username? ;) I'd like to have a 5 gig ogg collection. I've only got a 5 gig mp3 collection, and that's less than 200 CDs worth of music, that's for sure...
If you want the DVD, just buy it. Show some support for one of the few people who did exactly what we're always asking for.
Bullshit! If he really did what we're always asking for, he'd have an Xvid encoded version all over the p2p networks already. Pay attention! ;)
No, what you actually mean to say is that no-one will make an Open Source Uma Thurman simulation. I'm sure you'll want to fix the behavioral bugs... like not wanting to hang out with a Slashdot geek.
Or trying to sleep with all his friends...
You realize, don't you, by actually saying that something will never happen, you have practically assured that it will happen at some point. Just like when people said man would not fly.
You're never gonna get laid with that attitude...
I hear this crap a lot, and I really hate this argument. There are several major fallicies in it. First, that when you vote, you MUST vote on every office. If you don't like either presidential candidate, leave them blank. There are still senators, representatives, governors (on off years), state representatives, judges, sherrifs, coroners, mayors, and city council members to vote on. Many, if not most of the most moronic 'solutions' come from the STATES, not the federal government. Are you saying that NO ONE has EVER run for ANY office that you feel would be good enough to do the job?
At this point you reach the point of diminishing returns. The lower down the chain you get, the less I actually know about the guy. I'm not hiring a complete stranger! Let someone who knows who these people are make the decision, I'm not anywhere close to qualified. I can't say that nobody has ever run for office that I wanted, because I don't know who runs for which offices or even who the fuck they are! I consider it very irresponsible to vote for someone just because of their party affiliation (yeah, voting a straight ticket is irresponsible), and I also consider it irresponsible to chose someone for a job when you've got no idea who they are or why they should/shouldn't be doing that job! It'd be like rolling dice to hire an employee. I wouldn't do that either.
Don't vote for one of the major parties, vote for someone down on the list, vote for yourself, vote for someone you think would be good, even if they aren't running. This country gives you the right to vote for anyone you want to.
The country gives me the right, but makes it a useless right by delivering a method of electing officials that makes it damn near impossible for a clear choice to be made. Know why all the presidential races are getting so close now? There's too many people voting. A statistical equilibrium has been found, and it will always be close. Consider other election issues. Given a choice, I would have preferred Al Gore to George W. Bush. But I would never vote for either of them. So who do I vote for? Is it even possible that if I voted, somehow my vote would help to strip Al Gore of enough electoral votes that Bush gets in? I don't want that! Neither do I want to cast my sole vote for Al Gore. The voting system needs work, and I would probably vote for someone who agreed and promised to work on it. :)
People who don't vote because they don't like the candidates are indistinguishable from those who don't vote because they are apithetic, or just plain too lazy. If you want to truly show that you feel that none of the candidates are qualified, mark the write in and leave it blank, something, if enough people do it, it will eventually get noticed. If you just don't vote, they assume that whatever they do must be ok with you since you didn't object by casting your vote, as that's what counts.
It is true that people like me are politically indistinguishable from those other lazy folk. :) This is a good argument to favor going down and turning in an empty ballot. My basic paranoid nature would require that I do something to the ballot to prevent it from being filled in after the fact, thus casting my vote for someone else.
No matter what, the only voice that will be heard by the politicians is the vote. If enough consitutients write in to them, they might worry about how that vote will go, but as long as they aren't worried, they will do what gets them money. That's why they ran, that's why they're there, and if something doesn't change with voting behaivor, politicans will NEVER change.
With this I must disagree. I don't think the politicians even pay attention to the vote. They work it as a strategy, much the way you'd play Chess, or Axis and Allies, or whatever. If they really *really* cared about voters, they wouldn't be one-track focussed on California, New York, Texas, Florida, and couple of other states (you k
everyone's entiled to their own opinion.
While this is definitely applicable this time, the reason I jump in every now and then and say *** sucks is because I'm sick of the idea that everybody is entitled to their own opinion. If there's one statement that gets overabused, it's that. Would you believe that I gave my wife specific instructions on how to hold chopsticks (the way I learnt it, the way every Chinese person I've seen eating holds them, etc.) and she said "you're entitled to your opinion". Then she proceeded to complain about how she wasn't picking up any food. If it works, it fucking works! There's a time and place for opinions, and it's not when I'm expressing my opinions! :)
However, to pick up the discussion (not like I started one), I noticed down farther in this thread that people are complaining that people these days don't appreciate art anymore. I wonder if they realize yet that art has been redefined, and the "traditional" arts are no longer interesting to the average american. I'm getting generally sick of the idea that to be "art" it must be poetry, literature, painting, symphonic music, or sculpture, and it gets worse after that! Now your literature isn't art if it's romantic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, etc.
To make things even worse, there are people like me (although not me, I refuse to acknowledge "art" in any way) who want to make soft defintions of "art" so that art is anything that somebody declares is art, in their opinion. Then there's people who want hard definitions of "art" (you outta hear my Dad trying to explain why heavy metal music is neither art nor music, but he's out of clues when you ask him about the modal influence in metal guitarists), where something is definitely art or it is definitely not art. (Great fighting, though, when people from each side come together and try to express their opinions, although it almost always ends after a bunch of red-faced yelling with the guy from the first group saying "Well, I'm entitled to my opinion!")
I'll tell you what, though. I haven't seen a lot of anime, but I did see the Vampire Hunter D, or whatever it's called. I found it boring as hell. I loved Voltron as a kid (although popularized anime built for consumption probably isn't a good comparison), and I really really loved the old computer game Thexder. But the more serious stuff isn't made for my consumption. :)
But the sad truth is that animes remain an underappreciated art form and never have the chance to make it to American theators.
Don't forget about The Lonely Guy! A guy goes to the top of the roof to yell out this chick's name, and there's a bunch of other guys yelling out theres so they have to take turns.... :)
Don't forget about the 12 Monkeys, directed by Terry Gilliam, starring Bruce Willis. Another underappreciated film directed by Terry Gilliam is Time Bandits. That flick still rocks! Had to go to P2P to get it, though, but I think it's back in print. I don't know about DVD though...
But the sad truth is that animes remain an underappreciated art form and never have the chance to make it to American theators.
Anime isn't underappreciated, it just plain sucks.