Times have indeed changed. Kids are exposed to so much more than I was at their age.
It's not that times are changing as much as it is your better perception at your now older age. My parents took me to see the first Alien movie when I was very young. In fact it's one of my earliest memories. I also know I'm not alone in this; I've talked to many people in my life who echo this. What's more is that, barring a few indiscretions in college, I grew up to be a well adjusted adult. I may be a bit desensitized, but in modern society that's actually a benefit. The first person you want to see in an emergency is someone who can keep their head.
All in all, I'm not sure that I believe the philosophy that kids are empty containers waiting to be filled by whatever they come in contact with. Sure, what they see can affect them, but a reasonable person can also compare two things and decide which is best. One thing kids are never given credit for is how rapidly they mature compared to decades ago. Compare a 17 year old from the 50's and one from today. Not counting social graces, the modern teen will probably be more aware of the world around them.
No, it's about supporting someone or something that deserves it. Beides, everyone is just as guilty as me when it comes to blowing $5 sometime in your life.
Then again, $5 might be high-ballin for you, in which case I apologize for making light of your econimic status.
You should read the comment on the IMDB site. He sums it up very well. It's not as much the quality, as it is the complete campiness and cult following it's gained because of the directors methods. Please keep in mind the original rating was R, but was re-rated NC-17 in the early 90s.
I agree completely. What's happening with modern films is the studios' response to the enforcement of the R rating.
On a side note, Rules of Attraction is the only decent drama I've seen on this side of the century. If anyone knows of any other recent thought provoking films, please post them.
Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls
Showgirls is not a decent movie. The only real question is whether it's just horrible or whether it's so bad that it's passable as camp. I don't think any of the principals associated with it really want to be associated with it anymore.
It's definately camp. Some blame it for destroying Elizabeth Berkley's career, but I blame Saved by the Bell for that. It did wonders for Gina Gershon's though. Oddly enough, she gained a large homosexual following from it. Don't ask me why.
I realize the importance of having a rating that differentiates between a kid's movie and one for young adults, but as a non-parent I look on it with contempt. Ever since the R rating begun to be widely enforced, studios have toned down violent films so they can still have a chance at making money from the younger market. For example: I might actually have gone to see the recent Alien vs. Predator film had it been rated R, but since it was PG-13, I decided to wait until I can rent it. Enforcement of the ratings system, and the studios' response to it, has dealt the death blow for true horror/action films, because studios must now focus on making higher quality products for a more discerning audience if they want to make profit and carry the R rating. Instead they choose to neuter their movies and add some more special effects and popular cliché to entice the kids.
I'm not suggesting that just because a movie is rated PG-13 that it is, by default, a bad movie. What I am suggesting is that continuations of previously successful films, and modern horror/action flicks will never be what we all remember them to be. We will never see truly cheesy and senselessly bloody movies like Evil Dead ever again.
Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls, this one looks promising. I saw the trailer for it the other day.
When I said trivial, I was referring to your post of civil vs. criminal violations. If you read any of my previous posts you would see that I am generally anti-corporate. This story is just like the hundreds of others on Slashdot that have come up since the DMCA first showed its' ugly head. These are the type of stories where I make more comments than any other genre. Modern copyright law is a perversion of media conglomerates throwing their weight around Washington. As a result, politicians decide that campaign funds and lobbyists mean more to them than their undereducated constituents. This case is no exception.
I would not be so upset if the title read Ashcroft busted bootlegging ring with 1000 CD/DVD duplicators. That would be pirates copying things for profit. That would also be a perfect example of a criminal matter. This case is purely a civil matter because there was no profit to be had by these people. Once again, it's RIAA/MPAA guerillas using the federal government as their pawn to execute matters they are too lazy to deal with themselves. They obviously have the ability to force ISP's to hand over the contact info of suspected copyright violators.
Why didn't they do what they've done over 1000 times before and file lawsuits? Answer: Because nothing makes front page news like calling up your buddy, the attorney general, and having his troopers bust down some doors.
That's why Americans are generally apathetic or have one sided opinions about modern copyright law and its' enforcement. The only news they see comes from one of these media sources who have a financial stake in voting citizens sharing their view on the topic. Do you know how many people don't believe me when I tell them Disney paid politicians for the latest copyright extension so they didn't lose control of Steamboat Willie? They look at me like I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist. Others, usually older people, say the law is the law and we have to obey it. Too bad they fail to see the point about why it's the law and continue to live like this trend of corporations using the government as to tool to flex their muscle over otherwise law abiding citizens doesn't affect them. I think this is just a sample of things to come. Twenty years from now I won't be teaching my children to be looking over their shoulders for minorities, the homeless, or crazy liberals. They should be looking out for Disney, WalMart, Sony, and Starbucks.
An analogy between the DoJ and medicine isn't exactly valid either. Medical research is conducted in tens of thousands of labs throughout the world with sources of funding even more diverse than the labs themselves. The DoJ works on a budget and has a fixed number of employees. For every person, for every dollar, they spent on this bust is a man-hour and a dollar that can't be spent elsewhere. All of this was done over a civil matter so the government can provide evidence for the media giants in a civil suit.
And before I forget: Schools sucked when Clinton was in office, but they are horrible now. My cousin is in Junior Achievement and DECA just like I was. I volunteer my time to help her and her peers, just like my uncle helped me when I was in school. Do you have any idea how much it upset me when I saw some of the one sided corporate spin that they try to pass off as educational? I helped her write a twenty-two page report on copyright in the information age. Almost one hundred legitimate sources cited, personal interviews with 3 copyright lawyers, I even got a representative of the RIAA and FSF to chat in an online interview. It was fair, truthful, proposed compromises that would work in everyone's favor, and sided with no one. I could have turned this in when I was in college and gotten an A on it. She presented it in front of 200 people at a DECA conference, many of whom were key players in regional and national business. She was asked to step down before she finished the third page. What's that say to a 17 year old kid when she pours 3 months of hard work into someth
Did you pay attention in history class? Or are our high schools failing us...? Of course our schools are failing us.... Bush is in office after all. Why do people insist on arguing trivial things like this instead of more important topics? The DoJ is just as guilty. By doing this, they are saying that there was noting more worthwhile to spend resources on.
Sure they did. I can't find it, but in the mid 90s the feds stormed a home in Colorado very early in the morning. The alarmed owner thought his house was being broken into, grabbed his gun, and ran downstairs where a half dozen SWAT team members put over 35 bullets into his chest. His wife and children were hoarded out past his body and held for 24 hours while they searched the house and its several acres of land. The reason the feds were out there was because an anonymous informant said they were growing a couple acres of pot. Not one illegal thing was found, yet the house and all of their properties were seized and auctioned off. No charges were ever filed.
I'm so relieved that even though I live in an era with constant threats such as domestic terrorism, senatorial flight risks, the patriot act, the induce act, and non-Christian "citizens" running amok, that Pope Ashcroft can see through the unholy mess and guide our nation in the direction it needs. "Need not you worry", he said to his congregation of corporate leaders and wealthy elite, "For I, a federal chair, shall perform all of your duties in this civil matter." Praise Jesus that in these treacherous times a man of a singular holy vision shall unite American corporations with its 228 year old government to make the most self-righteous, most capitalistic, most federally pervasive and invasive political embodiment in all of recorded human history.
Damn you for making me defend MS. I can make an OSX box just as insecure as an XP box. It's all about ignorant users and default settings. That's why the market share argument works here. MS's setting, by default, are very weak, at best. If I replace my grandparents Dell with an iMac and security setting equivalent to XP's defaults, they still would break it.
Yes, because security through obscurity works so well for Apple. Now, as soon as you see Apple with the market share of the Windows desktop you are going to see a boom in spyware, popups, viruses, and worms for the Mac. Say what you want about it being based on BSD, the only secure box is one that's unplugged.
Novice users will stop using P2P cause they don't understand why it isn't working.
Many of the problems of p2p stem from novice users. I really don't care if there are a few thousand less people spreading the latest teeny-bop tracks or infected files.
Yes, they wrote it to run on HP-UX and Linux. They had problems porting it to Windows. As we all know, the virus/worm situation is primarily a Windows problem and how proliferate it is.
It's not compatible with windows, so let's not even try getting MS to make newer versions compatible, or spend resources writing a virtual device driver. They argue that defense is better than treatment, but forget that a 2 pronged attack is better than pure defense. Even the best firewall and antivirus programs can be worked around. What happens when the next virus or worm comes out and antivirus and firewall manufacturers are caught with their pants down again? Do they plan on letting it spread freely until someone makes a removal tool?
Here's an interesting fact: There is a radioactive isotope known as strontium-75. Before 1942 the quantity on Earth was so low that only trace amounts were ever detected and had to be searched hard for. Since then, after all the atmospheric testing, every human born has had a comparatively large quantity in their bones. That's not counting all the other isotopes that found its way into our food chain, such as some of the iodine used in table salt. Technically, everywhere a human stands, is affected with radiation.
Despite this, evidence shows that organisms can develop tolerance to certain types of radiation given constant exposure to less than lethal doses. Many plants and lower level animals in the Chernobyl area have modified DNA sequences that have an extra molecule to reinforce the base pairs because normally they are relatively weak to allow for easy "unzipping" for replication during cellular mitosis.
I fail to see how blocking the sale of a wristwatch with a swastika is covering up history. In Europe you can turn on any TV or pick up any book and learn about the historical record. The point is that objects with legitimate, historical and educational value are coveted by these countries, their museuames, and their educational systems; novelty collectable items are not.
Historical memorabilia is different than a recreation. The materials in quistion here were actual goods made and used by the Nazi regieme. By French law, a canister of Zyklon B that was used at a cap is illegal, but a reproduction is legal.
Slashdot Mirror
Times have indeed changed. Kids are exposed to so much more than I was at their age.
It's not that times are changing as much as it is your better perception at your now older age. My parents took me to see the first Alien movie when I was very young. In fact it's one of my earliest memories. I also know I'm not alone in this; I've talked to many people in my life who echo this. What's more is that, barring a few indiscretions in college, I grew up to be a well adjusted adult. I may be a bit desensitized, but in modern society that's actually a benefit. The first person you want to see in an emergency is someone who can keep their head.
All in all, I'm not sure that I believe the philosophy that kids are empty containers waiting to be filled by whatever they come in contact with. Sure, what they see can affect them, but a reasonable person can also compare two things and decide which is best. One thing kids are never given credit for is how rapidly they mature compared to decades ago. Compare a 17 year old from the 50's and one from today. Not counting social graces, the modern teen will probably be more aware of the world around them.
No, it's about supporting someone or something that deserves it. Beides, everyone is just as guilty as me when it comes to blowing $5 sometime in your life.
Then again, $5 might be high-ballin for you, in which case I apologize for making light of your econimic status.
You should read the comment on the IMDB site. He sums it up very well. It's not as much the quality, as it is the complete campiness and cult following it's gained because of the directors methods. Please keep in mind the original rating was R, but was re-rated NC-17 in the early 90s.
I agree completely. What's happening with modern films is the studios' response to the enforcement of the R rating.
On a side note, Rules of Attraction is the only decent drama I've seen on this side of the century. If anyone knows of any other recent thought provoking films, please post them.
God I need a life.
I realize the importance of having a rating that differentiates between a kid's movie and one for young adults, but as a non-parent I look on it with contempt. Ever since the R rating begun to be widely enforced, studios have toned down violent films so they can still have a chance at making money from the younger market. For example: I might actually have gone to see the recent Alien vs. Predator film had it been rated R, but since it was PG-13, I decided to wait until I can rent it. Enforcement of the ratings system, and the studios' response to it, has dealt the death blow for true horror/action films, because studios must now focus on making higher quality products for a more discerning audience if they want to make profit and carry the R rating. Instead they choose to neuter their movies and add some more special effects and popular cliché to entice the kids.
I'm not suggesting that just because a movie is rated PG-13 that it is, by default, a bad movie. What I am suggesting is that continuations of previously successful films, and modern horror/action flicks will never be what we all remember them to be. We will never see truly cheesy and senselessly bloody movies like Evil Dead ever again.
Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls, this one looks promising. I saw the trailer for it the other day.
With that logic, you'll always be holding off for some new development.
When I said trivial, I was referring to your post of civil vs. criminal violations. If you read any of my previous posts you would see that I am generally anti-corporate. This story is just like the hundreds of others on Slashdot that have come up since the DMCA first showed its' ugly head. These are the type of stories where I make more comments than any other genre. Modern copyright law is a perversion of media conglomerates throwing their weight around Washington. As a result, politicians decide that campaign funds and lobbyists mean more to them than their undereducated constituents. This case is no exception.
I would not be so upset if the title read Ashcroft busted bootlegging ring with 1000 CD/DVD duplicators. That would be pirates copying things for profit. That would also be a perfect example of a criminal matter. This case is purely a civil matter because there was no profit to be had by these people. Once again, it's RIAA/MPAA guerillas using the federal government as their pawn to execute matters they are too lazy to deal with themselves. They obviously have the ability to force ISP's to hand over the contact info of suspected copyright violators. Why didn't they do what they've done over 1000 times before and file lawsuits? Answer: Because nothing makes front page news like calling up your buddy, the attorney general, and having his troopers bust down some doors.
That's why Americans are generally apathetic or have one sided opinions about modern copyright law and its' enforcement. The only news they see comes from one of these media sources who have a financial stake in voting citizens sharing their view on the topic. Do you know how many people don't believe me when I tell them Disney paid politicians for the latest copyright extension so they didn't lose control of Steamboat Willie? They look at me like I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist. Others, usually older people, say the law is the law and we have to obey it. Too bad they fail to see the point about why it's the law and continue to live like this trend of corporations using the government as to tool to flex their muscle over otherwise law abiding citizens doesn't affect them. I think this is just a sample of things to come. Twenty years from now I won't be teaching my children to be looking over their shoulders for minorities, the homeless, or crazy liberals. They should be looking out for Disney, WalMart, Sony, and Starbucks.
An analogy between the DoJ and medicine isn't exactly valid either. Medical research is conducted in tens of thousands of labs throughout the world with sources of funding even more diverse than the labs themselves. The DoJ works on a budget and has a fixed number of employees. For every person, for every dollar, they spent on this bust is a man-hour and a dollar that can't be spent elsewhere. All of this was done over a civil matter so the government can provide evidence for the media giants in a civil suit.
And before I forget: Schools sucked when Clinton was in office, but they are horrible now. My cousin is in Junior Achievement and DECA just like I was. I volunteer my time to help her and her peers, just like my uncle helped me when I was in school. Do you have any idea how much it upset me when I saw some of the one sided corporate spin that they try to pass off as educational? I helped her write a twenty-two page report on copyright in the information age. Almost one hundred legitimate sources cited, personal interviews with 3 copyright lawyers, I even got a representative of the RIAA and FSF to chat in an online interview. It was fair, truthful, proposed compromises that would work in everyone's favor, and sided with no one. I could have turned this in when I was in college and gotten an A on it. She presented it in front of 200 people at a DECA conference, many of whom were key players in regional and national business. She was asked to step down before she finished the third page. What's that say to a 17 year old kid when she pours 3 months of hard work into someth
So your solution to "The media giants have too much political sway and have perverted copyright law" would be...?
Did you pay attention in history class? Or are our high schools failing us...?
Of course our schools are failing us.... Bush is in office after all. Why do people insist on arguing trivial things like this instead of more important topics? The DoJ is just as guilty. By doing this, they are saying that there was noting more worthwhile to spend resources on.
To clarify, I used "Pope Ashcroft" to relate his self-appointed position as America's holier-than-thou religious leader.
I bet you would LOVE this shirt.
Sure they did. I can't find it, but in the mid 90s the feds stormed a home in Colorado very early in the morning. The alarmed owner thought his house was being broken into, grabbed his gun, and ran downstairs where a half dozen SWAT team members put over 35 bullets into his chest. His wife and children were hoarded out past his body and held for 24 hours while they searched the house and its several acres of land. The reason the feds were out there was because an anonymous informant said they were growing a couple acres of pot. Not one illegal thing was found, yet the house and all of their properties were seized and auctioned off. No charges were ever filed.
Check again. The reason no charges were pressed was because they can't. It's a civil matter, despite what the media conglomerats want you to believe.
I'm so relieved that even though I live in an era with constant threats such as domestic terrorism, senatorial flight risks, the patriot act, the induce act, and non-Christian "citizens" running amok, that Pope Ashcroft can see through the unholy mess and guide our nation in the direction it needs. "Need not you worry", he said to his congregation of corporate leaders and wealthy elite, "For I, a federal chair, shall perform all of your duties in this civil matter." Praise Jesus that in these treacherous times a man of a singular holy vision shall unite American corporations with its 228 year old government to make the most self-righteous, most capitalistic, most federally pervasive and invasive political embodiment in all of recorded human history.
For more interesting reading on Ashcroft and his fight for the status-quo and his battles against individuality, please visit the following links:
BBC Profile
Rotten.com
Eldred v. Ashcroft
Extreme Ashcroft
Ashcroft's Detention Camps
Some guys blog
Damn you for making me defend MS. I can make an OSX box just as insecure as an XP box. It's all about ignorant users and default settings. That's why the market share argument works here. MS's setting, by default, are very weak, at best. If I replace my grandparents Dell with an iMac and security setting equivalent to XP's defaults, they still would break it.
Yes, because security through obscurity works so well for Apple. Now, as soon as you see Apple with the market share of the Windows desktop you are going to see a boom in spyware, popups, viruses, and worms for the Mac. Say what you want about it being based on BSD, the only secure box is one that's unplugged.
Novice users will stop using P2P cause they don't understand why it isn't working.
Many of the problems of p2p stem from novice users. I really don't care if there are a few thousand less people spreading the latest teeny-bop tracks or infected files.
Yes, they wrote it to run on HP-UX and Linux. They had problems porting it to Windows. As we all know, the virus/worm situation is primarily a Windows problem and how proliferate it is.
It's not compatible with windows, so let's not even try getting MS to make newer versions compatible, or spend resources writing a virtual device driver. They argue that defense is better than treatment, but forget that a 2 pronged attack is better than pure defense. Even the best firewall and antivirus programs can be worked around. What happens when the next virus or worm comes out and antivirus and firewall manufacturers are caught with their pants down again? Do they plan on letting it spread freely until someone makes a removal tool?
Seriously, you lost. YOu didn't get the first post AND you forgot to to post AC. You, my friend, are a 2 time loser.
Here's an interesting fact: There is a radioactive isotope known as strontium-75. Before 1942 the quantity on Earth was so low that only trace amounts were ever detected and had to be searched hard for. Since then, after all the atmospheric testing, every human born has had a comparatively large quantity in their bones. That's not counting all the other isotopes that found its way into our food chain, such as some of the iodine used in table salt. Technically, everywhere a human stands, is affected with radiation.
Despite this, evidence shows that organisms can develop tolerance to certain types of radiation given constant exposure to less than lethal doses. Many plants and lower level animals in the Chernobyl area have modified DNA sequences that have an extra molecule to reinforce the base pairs because normally they are relatively weak to allow for easy "unzipping" for replication during cellular mitosis.
I fail to see how blocking the sale of a wristwatch with a swastika is covering up history. In Europe you can turn on any TV or pick up any book and learn about the historical record. The point is that objects with legitimate, historical and educational value are coveted by these countries, their museuames, and their educational systems; novelty collectable items are not.
Historical memorabilia is different than a recreation. The materials in quistion here were actual goods made and used by the Nazi regieme. By French law, a canister of Zyklon B that was used at a cap is illegal, but a reproduction is legal.