The continuity is thin, but it's there, at least with the older movies. Do you remember seeing Yoda instructing all the kids in the classroom, when he says "Obi-wan has lost a planet. How embarrassing."? So, Yoda *did* instruct Obi-Wan. At the same time, we get one of the coolest Jedi ever. In fact, I had high hopes for Windu until he looked Dooku in the eye and all he could say, the fucking dork, was "I don't think so". So Quai-Gon Gin winds up being the coolest Jedi of all time, second only to Darth Vader himself.
As far as continuity with the books, I'm not sure how much Phantom Menace broke it, but the whole Fett thing really irritates me. How can Lucas commission a bunch of books and say "Ok, they're all the real story", wind up with a bunch of authors working their asses off to maintain continuity in the books, and then just turn around and throw it all away?
If Episode 3 doesn't deliver, I say we take the franchise from Lucas, tell him he can't name himself an Artist, that's a title we have to give him, and we're taking that too.
I'm partial to doing it anyway, even if Episode three does deliver.
I have a serious question (or poll really): Who likes Jar Jar? Is there a segment that is drawn in to him? Does this segment also like Ewoks?
I'll say this much about him. I don't dislike him, and I really really really like it when Quai-Gon grabs his tongue and says "Don't". I really wish Sebulba would have just kicked his ass, 'cause he's a mutherfucker who needs a fuckin' stompin' on.
But other than that, I don't dislike him, and I think he adds something to the movie that wouldn't have been there without him, since all the other characters were dry, boring, and very very weak (except Quai-gon and obi-wan in the Phantom Menace, but Obi-Wan has gone straight to hell since then).
And yes, as a matter of fact, I love Ewoks. I like to throw 'em on the smoker, still kicking, and skin 'em when they're still only half-cooked. Then you wrap 'em in foil (they're usually unconscious by now, but if not you can still wrap 'em) and start tanning the skin. You wind up with a helluva meal and a really sweet leather jacket out of it.
Do they have a non-flash version for those of us who don't use broke-ass macromedia plugins? Or better yet, an mpeg or something I can just download straight off?
I'm starting to get disappointed with Star Wars. I know they can do better.
Why? Out of 5 movies so far, they've had one that was mediocre, one that was really good, and three that sucked ass. How could you conclude that they can do better? The track record isn't that good....
hmm, made sense when I was posting it, but now that I re-read it...
I was agreeing with you, even though it doesn't look like it. I still had some angst left over from replying to the idiot that suggesting there should be a law not allowing us to see illegal things on tv and in movies, and that angst bled into my reply to you blurring what I was trying to say.
Sorry about that. I'll be more careful in the future...
Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the desktop GUI world. Chances are really good that DOS-based machines would have simply succumbed to the Mac paradigm, and Amiga might even still be alive today (Amiga zealots: flame off for a moment).
Mmm, go with this. Commodore went under because they were drained from the top, and the embezzlers got away with it. That was completely independent of the market. If Microsoft wasn't there pushing x86, would anybody have been pushing it? If not, what would have happened next?
See, I'm thinking that Apple would have finally taken over the desktop market. They were always fighting Commodore and Atari over it, and then Atari lost first, iirc. Then Commodore got taken down from the inside, and that would've left Apple in the clear to take the desktop market. What actually happened is that that particular fight left a hole in the business sector for Microsoft to pursue, and when Commodore finally went down, Apple was too weak to stop Microsoft from dominating the desktop market.
So we need to back up a little bit first and figure out who would've been in the business market for Apple to face when they were finally the last man standing in the desktop wars, and what would they have done?
Personally, I'm thinking it would have been IBM itself, still a dirty rotten monopolistic company. Sun never had any interest in the desktop, which is a shame because they could've competed there. DEC got taken out on their own by someone, and I don't recall who all else were in the high end market. So I'm thinking IBM would have showed up in the early '90s with most of the business desktops under its belt, looked at Apple and laughed.
So now what happens? Apple is beaten and hurting badly from their fight with Commodore, a fight they won narrowly, and IBM shows up tough and mean, but with a vastly inferior machine + OS combination powered by Intel.
Actually, Commodore failed to market their product, and that was caused by a much larger problem they were having, namely the President and his accounting stooge were embezzling money from the company. Commodore went bankrupt because of this, not because they didn't sell enough stuff. How do you go bankrupt shipping 1 million units a year? Either your prices are too low or somebody's stealing the profit.
Those guys left the country and as far as I know haven't been heard from since.
So if I want to distribute a commerical product using GPL code I must seperate the GPL code from the commerical code? Differentiate then at a function based level? Class Level? File Level? Logical Level? Can I re-write functions internal to the GPL project to get the output I need?
nonononono.
First, decide if you want your product to be GPL. If not, then you can't use any GPL code at all, on the level you're talking. If you want to include GPL software on your CD, but your actual program is separate and independent of the GPL stuff, no problem. You must provide sources for the GPL product, but not yours.
Second, commercial or non-commercial is irrelevant. Forget about it. The only issue is when you charge for the source code, you can't charge more than "reasonable cost of media" or somesuch.
Third, if you don't want your program to be GPL, but you want to use open source code, make sure you link dynamically to libraries that are LGPL, or another open source license that allows dynamic linking in that fashion.
Fourth, you have to deal with license compatibility. I think it's possible to link to a GPL library statically, or to incorporate GPL code into yours without GPLing your own code, but you have to release your code under a GPL-compatible license. That area is complicated and I don't completely understand it myself.
So, in summary, if you want your program to be GPL, you don't have to worry about separating your code from theirs. You only have to make sure you keep all copyright notices intact, and you note what changes you made to the code and place your own copyright notices around your own code. The end result will all be GPL, so you just want to make sure your contributions are noted. This is important in the future because if you don't, and the core developers all agree to change the license, they could change the license on your code without your permission, but they don't know they need your permission because you didn't mark your code properly.
The GPL doesn't deal with commercial vs non-commercial uses of the software, it only deals with distribution--all distribution.
If you dynamically link to LGPL libraries, you must provide the source code upon request to those libraries, but you do not have to provide the source code to your program nor do you have to GPL your program. If a GPL library can reasonably be expected to be installed on someone's machine, you don't have to GPL your code, I think. Because it's a system library. So you don't have to GPL your code that uses the WinAPI and winelib to compile, since you can reasonably expect the end-user to have winelib. I think. I could be wrong.
Remember, I'm not a lawyer, and the answers to all of your questions can be found at the source.
* Multimedia, including sound, video, and graphics editing (yes, I know about The GIMP and use it, but it's still not Photoshop)
Multimedia is in 'ok' status right now, but probably not good enough for the video and graphics editing you're after.
* Gaming
Definitely a shortcoming, if you consider the big, multi-million dollar production games to be the only games worth playing. If you figure "I just want to play a tactical wargame or some roleplaying game", those are there already. It's just a matter of determining what kind of game you want to play. But I'll still give this as a shortcoming, because the sheer volume of games for Win/Mac outweighs Linux the same way my mother-in-law outweighs my baby boy.
* Easy discovery of other resources on the LAN
KDE already took care of this. Mandrake's tools are also open source, so you don't have to use Mandrake to use the tools anyway. Besides that, since Linux is configure once/never break, why do you need easy discovery of other resources? Why can't you just stick the same fstab entries on every machine and they all know where to look? Slightly more configuration overhead for administrators (that doesn't scale well, admittedly), but no maintenance overhead.
* CRM (yes, I know about Compiere, but those who have used it have told me it's not yet as good as what's available on Windows, and there is more choice of software on Windows)
Frustrating as hell. There's plenty of web-based CRM available, of course, but they frequently require IE to run at all. A big shortcoming here, for sure. Plenty of room for improvement.
You were modded funny, but I still haven't figured out if you're joking or not.:( I assume not.:)
Eventually formerly family entertainment media will morph into an intellectual and spiritual wasteland pushing immediate gratification, cheap thrills on an unsuspecting public.
You started that sentence with that particular word and kept a straight face?
The film Starship Troopers, on the other hand, rips off some superficial aspects of the novel, ignores Heinlein's honest philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility in a civil society, and recasts the characters and the society depicted -- and by extension, Mr. Heinlein -- as purely Fascistic, warmed-over cardboard-cutout sadistic Nazis.
Eh? How's that? I recall the film being an excellent rendition of Heinlein's society in Starship Troopers. My only real caveat is that they took out the powered suits. That really bit, in a big way.
Heinlein tends to trample on several things in many of his books.
First, he tramples all over controlling governments. That is, governments that try to control their citizens. One way he tends to do it is by presenting governments as always seeking to control citizens and putting his characters at odds with said governments. This is exemplified in the relationship between "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".
Second, he likes to reveal the common man for the idiot he is. 'nuff said, I think.
Third, he likes to stomp on the military, while simultaneously respecting and admiring it. I think he had penis-envy since he became disabled and missed all the really good wars in the last century. So he has a tendency of portraying the military as fascist, and defending it for being so.
In Starship Troopers, both the novel and the movie, we are presented with a society that has been taken over by the war veterans. The only difference here is that in the book we're given a brief history of the fact, which is left out of the movie (probably would have added bloat to the movie). Never in the whole movie is the society given as a big-brother fascist sort of society. Quite the contrary, the kid's fight with his parents was all about freedom of choice, and the society gave the kid the choice.
Please keep in mind, the next time that you want to refer to Paul Verhoeven's bastardized abortion of a film version of Starship Troopers as the real article, that to real fans of Robert Heinlein that is as offensive as would be as would be an "adaptation" of Jesus's life in which Jesus crucifies small animals while shooting heroin and bullying children, or an "adaptation" of The Hobbit in which Gandalf buggers Bilbo and the dwarves join in on it to make it a gang-rape.
Hey dude, if you're scared, stay home. Just why the fuck should we walk on eggshells because you didn't like someone's movie? Quit whining and fuck off.
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
No, but you just proved you're an idiot. You see a banner ad on a webpage, and you know that if you click it you'll read more information about the product, right? That's apparently what this thing is.
Blipverts, in Max Headroom, were taking a commercial that normally lasts 30 seconds and compressing it down to say 1 second or so. Then a person watches it, gets so much mental stimulation that generates electrical pulses in the body and causes them to explode.
Not the same thing at all. So you can take off your computer-simulated tin-foil hat, this time.
On the overall theme, I seriously would prefer to explain violence to a child than overt sexuality.
Why? Got no balls? Seriously, I have to face these issues fairly regularly with my kids. When I went to get my balls chopped, I explained it to my kids and they understood. They see sex (or what passes for it) on some of the movies we've got and ask about it. Then they ask about the violence. I'd rather start explaining it to them now, when they're 0, 3, and 5, and can build a strong understanding of why it's wrong. The violence, anyway.
Sex is easy, though. It's how you have kids, and my kids love babies.:) My little girl already knows that she's going to grow boobs in a few years and that she can't get pregnant before then. Sure, there's a few details still left out, but the only limitation I accept is the level she understands, not any stupid sense of 'decency'. Decency is sending your kids out into the world already knowing all the stupid mistakes you made and endowed with as many of the lessons you've learned. Whether they choose to go learn them firsthand or not is up to them. Indecency is sending your kids out into the world unprepared for what they'll find. Much as I hate to cite these guys, but Dyer's Eve is exactly the fate I don't want my kids to face.
Regulating speech is not only silly, but very dangerous.
You know, I really don't like making 1984 references, but I just did in another post and now I'm going to do it again.
Regulate speech first. Language comes next. Then they can trim out all the subversive words in the language until the only thing a man can think about is his work and his love for the state.
We need to make sure we keep as much in our language as possible, and that we constantly diversify it and spread it around. Removing words from tv or radio is regulating speech. Language is next.
Not that I'm trying to predict 1984 in 2084 or anything like that. But the possibility of a state like 1984 ever happening is real, no matter how slight, and it's a fate worse than death for humanity. So whenever someone takes a serious step in that direction, we need to take it seriously.
Swearing, arguably, doesn't. "Oh, shit." Who is that harming?
Me, you fuckin' asshole.
Hey, you know if we legislated against showing illegal stuff on tv, then the news wouldn't have been able to show us the play-by-play of the events on September 11th. They wouldn't have been able to tell us, even. They would have just said something like "Terrorists, well, we can't talk about them on tv anymore because they only do illegal things, and they've done something illegal, but we can't talk about it."
Hmmmm, and showing murder doesn't hurt anyone. Let's not institutionalize thoughtcrime, now. Next thing you know the FCC will issue us a dictionary with only 5000 words in it, effectively removing concepts from the language which might require any sort of independent thought.
Great, so the law is always right, and our kids never need to learn about the consequences of their actions. See, the bad guys always get caught, or the ratings get fucked up. To please their audience and their advertisers, the bad guys always lose. So they do all these illegal things, and then get in trouble. Many of the bad guys don't do anything illegal. So much for trying to make 'good kids' by not showing 'illegal stuff'.
Hell, how many shows do you see where they show some idiot with a drug habit screw over his life, quit the drugs, and then straighten himself out to live happily ever after? Can't tell that story anymore without somehow depicting an illegal act.
Fact is, you can't teach your kids about a lot of unpleasant things without talking about it, and if you don't teach your kids about all these unpleasant things, they'll go out and learn all about it themselves. Is that the future you want for your kids? That they go out and learn all about prostitution, murder, drugs, bank robberies, rape, and so forth on their own? Send your kids out into the world ignorant. Go ahead. But don't ever tell them you love them, 'cause you'll be lying. The only way to protect your kids is to arm them with knowledge so that they can protect themselves. Once they leave your house, their lives aren't in your hands anymore. Think about that, seriously.
When law is perfect, then you might have a case. When psychologists have learned all the secrets of the human mind, then you might be able to prove your point.
In the meantime, if you don't like all the crap they show on tv, throw your fucking tv away. That's what I did. I don't mind all the murder-death-kills on tv. I mind all the stupid conditioning and the guilt-laden advertising.
Just a reminder, the word 'profane' originally referred to speech that was anti-God or pro-anything-but-god. For example, "Jesus Christ is a fucking moron" would be profane. However, "I like to fuck my wife up the ass" would not, since there is no religion involved, let alone Jesus fucking Christ.
Consider these so-called swear words like the dynamic markings on a musical score. They provide punctuation and express emotion in an efficient, in-yer-fuckin'-face manner. They have a place in conversation. Not necessarily polite conversation, but I have a hard time believing that anybody could listen to more than five minutes of Howard Stern and still try to class him as 'polite'. He is, after all, just another fucking yankee.
And regardless of what your dial says, there are plenty of other radio stations available. I'm not Howard Stern's biggest fan. Hell, I'm not even a fan. He is, unfortunately, the best thing on in the morning.
Grow up? Would that include maturing enough to realize that it doesn't take a four letter word to make a point? Yelling or profanity are no substitutes for eloquence.
Eloquence is no substitute for efficiency. Given the choice between "Go away, I don't like you, and I don't really care what you have to say" and just plain "Fuck off, asshole", which is more efficient?
Nononono, you need to get rid of the chick that doesn't like Star Trek. My wife's hot and she likes star trek, so there's no need for you to sell your soul. There are plenty of other women you could have.
Slashdot Mirror
The continuity is thin, but it's there, at least with the older movies. Do you remember seeing Yoda instructing all the kids in the classroom, when he says "Obi-wan has lost a planet. How embarrassing."? So, Yoda *did* instruct Obi-Wan. At the same time, we get one of the coolest Jedi ever. In fact, I had high hopes for Windu until he looked Dooku in the eye and all he could say, the fucking dork, was "I don't think so". So Quai-Gon Gin winds up being the coolest Jedi of all time, second only to Darth Vader himself.
As far as continuity with the books, I'm not sure how much Phantom Menace broke it, but the whole Fett thing really irritates me. How can Lucas commission a bunch of books and say "Ok, they're all the real story", wind up with a bunch of authors working their asses off to maintain continuity in the books, and then just turn around and throw it all away?
If Episode 3 doesn't deliver, I say we take the franchise from Lucas, tell him he can't name himself an Artist, that's a title we have to give him, and we're taking that too.
I'm partial to doing it anyway, even if Episode three does deliver.
Big Dork.
I have a serious question (or poll really): Who likes Jar Jar? Is there a segment that is drawn in to him? Does this segment also like Ewoks?
I'll say this much about him. I don't dislike him, and I really really really like it when Quai-Gon grabs his tongue and says "Don't". I really wish Sebulba would have just kicked his ass, 'cause he's a mutherfucker who needs a fuckin' stompin' on.
But other than that, I don't dislike him, and I think he adds something to the movie that wouldn't have been there without him, since all the other characters were dry, boring, and very very weak (except Quai-gon and obi-wan in the Phantom Menace, but Obi-Wan has gone straight to hell since then).
And yes, as a matter of fact, I love Ewoks. I like to throw 'em on the smoker, still kicking, and skin 'em when they're still only half-cooked. Then you wrap 'em in foil (they're usually unconscious by now, but if not you can still wrap 'em) and start tanning the skin. You wind up with a helluva meal and a really sweet leather jacket out of it.
Do they have a non-flash version for those of us who don't use broke-ass macromedia plugins? Or better yet, an mpeg or something I can just download straight off?
I'm starting to get disappointed with Star Wars. I know they can do better.
Why? Out of 5 movies so far, they've had one that was mediocre, one that was really good, and three that sucked ass. How could you conclude that they can do better? The track record isn't that good....
You apparently haven't read all the AC troll posts. :)
hmm, made sense when I was posting it, but now that I re-read it...
I was agreeing with you, even though it doesn't look like it. I still had some angst left over from replying to the idiot that suggesting there should be a law not allowing us to see illegal things on tv and in movies, and that angst bled into my reply to you blurring what I was trying to say.
Sorry about that. I'll be more careful in the future...
Let's not forget that when Windows came out, the Mac and the Amiga absolutely ruled the desktop GUI world. Chances are really good that DOS-based machines would have simply succumbed to the Mac paradigm, and Amiga might even still be alive today (Amiga zealots: flame off for a moment).
Mmm, go with this. Commodore went under because they were drained from the top, and the embezzlers got away with it. That was completely independent of the market. If Microsoft wasn't there pushing x86, would anybody have been pushing it? If not, what would have happened next?
See, I'm thinking that Apple would have finally taken over the desktop market. They were always fighting Commodore and Atari over it, and then Atari lost first, iirc. Then Commodore got taken down from the inside, and that would've left Apple in the clear to take the desktop market. What actually happened is that that particular fight left a hole in the business sector for Microsoft to pursue, and when Commodore finally went down, Apple was too weak to stop Microsoft from dominating the desktop market.
So we need to back up a little bit first and figure out who would've been in the business market for Apple to face when they were finally the last man standing in the desktop wars, and what would they have done?
Personally, I'm thinking it would have been IBM itself, still a dirty rotten monopolistic company. Sun never had any interest in the desktop, which is a shame because they could've competed there. DEC got taken out on their own by someone, and I don't recall who all else were in the high end market. So I'm thinking IBM would have showed up in the early '90s with most of the business desktops under its belt, looked at Apple and laughed.
So now what happens? Apple is beaten and hurting badly from their fight with Commodore, a fight they won narrowly, and IBM shows up tough and mean, but with a vastly inferior machine + OS combination powered by Intel.
Actually, Commodore failed to market their product, and that was caused by a much larger problem they were having, namely the President and his accounting stooge were embezzling money from the company. Commodore went bankrupt because of this, not because they didn't sell enough stuff. How do you go bankrupt shipping 1 million units a year? Either your prices are too low or somebody's stealing the profit.
Those guys left the country and as far as I know haven't been heard from since.
The fact that there isn't a 'C Nazi Squadron' who bust down your door at 3AM because you omitted a semicolon debunks your assertion.
Um, yes there is.
So if I want to distribute a commerical product using GPL code I must seperate the GPL code from the commerical code? Differentiate then at a function based level? Class Level? File Level? Logical Level? Can I re-write functions internal to the GPL project to get the output I need?
nonononono.
First, decide if you want your product to be GPL. If not, then you can't use any GPL code at all, on the level you're talking. If you want to include GPL software on your CD, but your actual program is separate and independent of the GPL stuff, no problem. You must provide sources for the GPL product, but not yours.
Second, commercial or non-commercial is irrelevant. Forget about it. The only issue is when you charge for the source code, you can't charge more than "reasonable cost of media" or somesuch.
Third, if you don't want your program to be GPL, but you want to use open source code, make sure you link dynamically to libraries that are LGPL, or another open source license that allows dynamic linking in that fashion.
Fourth, you have to deal with license compatibility. I think it's possible to link to a GPL library statically, or to incorporate GPL code into yours without GPLing your own code, but you have to release your code under a GPL-compatible license. That area is complicated and I don't completely understand it myself.
So, in summary, if you want your program to be GPL, you don't have to worry about separating your code from theirs. You only have to make sure you keep all copyright notices intact, and you note what changes you made to the code and place your own copyright notices around your own code. The end result will all be GPL, so you just want to make sure your contributions are noted. This is important in the future because if you don't, and the core developers all agree to change the license, they could change the license on your code without your permission, but they don't know they need your permission because you didn't mark your code properly.
The GPL doesn't deal with commercial vs non-commercial uses of the software, it only deals with distribution--all distribution.
If you dynamically link to LGPL libraries, you must provide the source code upon request to those libraries, but you do not have to provide the source code to your program nor do you have to GPL your program. If a GPL library can reasonably be expected to be installed on someone's machine, you don't have to GPL your code, I think. Because it's a system library. So you don't have to GPL your code that uses the WinAPI and winelib to compile, since you can reasonably expect the end-user to have winelib. I think. I could be wrong.
Remember, I'm not a lawyer, and the answers to all of your questions can be found at the source.
* Multimedia, including sound, video, and graphics editing (yes, I know about The GIMP and use it, but it's still not Photoshop)
Multimedia is in 'ok' status right now, but probably not good enough for the video and graphics editing you're after.
* Gaming
Definitely a shortcoming, if you consider the big, multi-million dollar production games to be the only games worth playing. If you figure "I just want to play a tactical wargame or some roleplaying game", those are there already. It's just a matter of determining what kind of game you want to play. But I'll still give this as a shortcoming, because the sheer volume of games for Win/Mac outweighs Linux the same way my mother-in-law outweighs my baby boy.
* Easy discovery of other resources on the LAN
KDE already took care of this. Mandrake's tools are also open source, so you don't have to use Mandrake to use the tools anyway. Besides that, since Linux is configure once/never break, why do you need easy discovery of other resources? Why can't you just stick the same fstab entries on every machine and they all know where to look? Slightly more configuration overhead for administrators (that doesn't scale well, admittedly), but no maintenance overhead.
* CRM (yes, I know about Compiere, but those who have used it have told me it's not yet as good as what's available on Windows, and there is more choice of software on Windows)
Frustrating as hell. There's plenty of web-based CRM available, of course, but they frequently require IE to run at all. A big shortcoming here, for sure. Plenty of room for improvement.
You were modded funny, but I still haven't figured out if you're joking or not. :( I assume not. :)
Eventually formerly family entertainment media will morph into an intellectual and spiritual wasteland pushing immediate gratification, cheap thrills on an unsuspecting public.
You started that sentence with that particular word and kept a straight face?
The film Starship Troopers, on the other hand, rips off some superficial aspects of the novel, ignores Heinlein's honest philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility in a civil society, and recasts the characters and the society depicted -- and by extension, Mr. Heinlein -- as purely Fascistic, warmed-over cardboard-cutout sadistic Nazis.
Eh? How's that? I recall the film being an excellent rendition of Heinlein's society in Starship Troopers. My only real caveat is that they took out the powered suits. That really bit, in a big way.
Heinlein tends to trample on several things in many of his books.
First, he tramples all over controlling governments. That is, governments that try to control their citizens. One way he tends to do it is by presenting governments as always seeking to control citizens and putting his characters at odds with said governments. This is exemplified in the relationship between "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".
Second, he likes to reveal the common man for the idiot he is. 'nuff said, I think.
Third, he likes to stomp on the military, while simultaneously respecting and admiring it. I think he had penis-envy since he became disabled and missed all the really good wars in the last century. So he has a tendency of portraying the military as fascist, and defending it for being so.
In Starship Troopers, both the novel and the movie, we are presented with a society that has been taken over by the war veterans. The only difference here is that in the book we're given a brief history of the fact, which is left out of the movie (probably would have added bloat to the movie). Never in the whole movie is the society given as a big-brother fascist sort of society. Quite the contrary, the kid's fight with his parents was all about freedom of choice, and the society gave the kid the choice.
Please keep in mind, the next time that you want to refer to Paul Verhoeven's bastardized abortion of a film version of Starship Troopers as the real article, that to real fans of Robert Heinlein that is as offensive as would be as would be an "adaptation" of Jesus's life in which Jesus crucifies small animals while shooting heroin and bullying children, or an "adaptation" of The Hobbit in which Gandalf buggers Bilbo and the dwarves join in on it to make it a gang-rape.
Hey dude, if you're scared, stay home. Just why the fuck should we walk on eggshells because you didn't like someone's movie? Quit whining and fuck off.
From the article summary:
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
No, but you just proved you're an idiot. You see a banner ad on a webpage, and you know that if you click it you'll read more information about the product, right? That's apparently what this thing is.
Blipverts, in Max Headroom, were taking a commercial that normally lasts 30 seconds and compressing it down to say 1 second or so. Then a person watches it, gets so much mental stimulation that generates electrical pulses in the body and causes them to explode.
Not the same thing at all. So you can take off your computer-simulated tin-foil hat, this time.
Alzheimers?
Has anyone pointed out to Darl that these people are trying to help him?
Yeah, he's reminded daily. He just forgets is all.
On the overall theme, I seriously would prefer to explain violence to a child than overt sexuality.
Why? Got no balls? Seriously, I have to face these issues fairly regularly with my kids. When I went to get my balls chopped, I explained it to my kids and they understood. They see sex (or what passes for it) on some of the movies we've got and ask about it. Then they ask about the violence. I'd rather start explaining it to them now, when they're 0, 3, and 5, and can build a strong understanding of why it's wrong. The violence, anyway.
Sex is easy, though. It's how you have kids, and my kids love babies. :) My little girl already knows that she's going to grow boobs in a few years and that she can't get pregnant before then. Sure, there's a few details still left out, but the only limitation I accept is the level she understands, not any stupid sense of 'decency'. Decency is sending your kids out into the world already knowing all the stupid mistakes you made and endowed with as many of the lessons you've learned. Whether they choose to go learn them firsthand or not is up to them. Indecency is sending your kids out into the world unprepared for what they'll find. Much as I hate to cite these guys, but Dyer's Eve is exactly the fate I don't want my kids to face.
Regulating speech is not only silly, but very dangerous.
You know, I really don't like making 1984 references, but I just did in another post and now I'm going to do it again.
Regulate speech first. Language comes next. Then they can trim out all the subversive words in the language until the only thing a man can think about is his work and his love for the state.
We need to make sure we keep as much in our language as possible, and that we constantly diversify it and spread it around. Removing words from tv or radio is regulating speech. Language is next.
Not that I'm trying to predict 1984 in 2084 or anything like that. But the possibility of a state like 1984 ever happening is real, no matter how slight, and it's a fate worse than death for humanity. So whenever someone takes a serious step in that direction, we need to take it seriously.
Swearing, arguably, doesn't. "Oh, shit." Who is that harming?
Me, you fuckin' asshole.
Hey, you know if we legislated against showing illegal stuff on tv, then the news wouldn't have been able to show us the play-by-play of the events on September 11th. They wouldn't have been able to tell us, even. They would have just said something like "Terrorists, well, we can't talk about them on tv anymore because they only do illegal things, and they've done something illegal, but we can't talk about it."
Hmmmm, and showing murder doesn't hurt anyone. Let's not institutionalize thoughtcrime, now. Next thing you know the FCC will issue us a dictionary with only 5000 words in it, effectively removing concepts from the language which might require any sort of independent thought.
Great, so the law is always right, and our kids never need to learn about the consequences of their actions. See, the bad guys always get caught, or the ratings get fucked up. To please their audience and their advertisers, the bad guys always lose. So they do all these illegal things, and then get in trouble. Many of the bad guys don't do anything illegal. So much for trying to make 'good kids' by not showing 'illegal stuff'.
Hell, how many shows do you see where they show some idiot with a drug habit screw over his life, quit the drugs, and then straighten himself out to live happily ever after? Can't tell that story anymore without somehow depicting an illegal act.
Fact is, you can't teach your kids about a lot of unpleasant things without talking about it, and if you don't teach your kids about all these unpleasant things, they'll go out and learn all about it themselves. Is that the future you want for your kids? That they go out and learn all about prostitution, murder, drugs, bank robberies, rape, and so forth on their own? Send your kids out into the world ignorant. Go ahead. But don't ever tell them you love them, 'cause you'll be lying. The only way to protect your kids is to arm them with knowledge so that they can protect themselves. Once they leave your house, their lives aren't in your hands anymore. Think about that, seriously.
When law is perfect, then you might have a case. When psychologists have learned all the secrets of the human mind, then you might be able to prove your point.
In the meantime, if you don't like all the crap they show on tv, throw your fucking tv away. That's what I did. I don't mind all the murder-death-kills on tv. I mind all the stupid conditioning and the guilt-laden advertising.
Here's my moment to be pedantic. :)
'fucking' has seven letters in it.
Just a reminder, the word 'profane' originally referred to speech that was anti-God or pro-anything-but-god. For example, "Jesus Christ is a fucking moron" would be profane. However, "I like to fuck my wife up the ass" would not, since there is no religion involved, let alone Jesus fucking Christ.
Consider these so-called swear words like the dynamic markings on a musical score. They provide punctuation and express emotion in an efficient, in-yer-fuckin'-face manner. They have a place in conversation. Not necessarily polite conversation, but I have a hard time believing that anybody could listen to more than five minutes of Howard Stern and still try to class him as 'polite'. He is, after all, just another fucking yankee.
And regardless of what your dial says, there are plenty of other radio stations available. I'm not Howard Stern's biggest fan. Hell, I'm not even a fan. He is, unfortunately, the best thing on in the morning.
Grow up? Would that include maturing enough to realize that it doesn't take a four letter word to make a point? Yelling or profanity are no substitutes for eloquence.
Eloquence is no substitute for efficiency. Given the choice between "Go away, I don't like you, and I don't really care what you have to say" and just plain "Fuck off, asshole", which is more efficient?
And in the rest of the English Speaking world
Dude, a little diversity is good. The rest of the world does *not* speak English. ANd that's good....
Nononono, you need to get rid of the chick that doesn't like Star Trek. My wife's hot and she likes star trek, so there's no need for you to sell your soul. There are plenty of other women you could have.