I wonder if this movement would also spark a movement toward disabling 3rd-party clients. That would NOT be good.
The system that they outline would only be feasible of they did. What could would centralized control be if the employers still allowed third party applications that would get around their gateway?
Sounds like a fancy version of all the open source IM clients out there."
No, it doesn't sound like gaim or any other client. It sounds like a centralized control center for tighter watching over employee's IM conversations. gaim doesn't automatically forward my AIM messages to someone on MSN or Yahoo without me having an account on each. This seems like it would do that. gaim doesn't log all my conversations from all networks and store that information in one spot so that my boss can watch what I am sending across the networks.
Why does MSFT need to be the one doing this? How about an Open initiative that wouldn't require the three IM giants? It would likely be less money, better for the employers, and operate with more features and less bugs.
Too bad the employers only trust those that shouldn't be trusted.
"The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA feel very strongly we should not move forward on any program that in any way infringes on preserving our freedoms," Stone said. "That is first and foremost."
Which really means, "we thought that people would just go along with us because we snuck every other piece of bullshit legislation through without notice but we were wrong."
The system, as originally proposed, would require all passengers to provide extra information when booking a ticket -- information that airlines don't currently ask for, like addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. The system would then check that information against databases of criminals and terrorists and assign each passenger a green, yellow or red score, according to perceived risk. Civil-liberties groups from the left and right have gained powerful allies on Capitol Hill by arguing the system is both too invasive and ineffective.
Damn straight it's ineffective. The 9/11 terrorists were already in the country legally. What the hell good would this do? They were already flying planes. Would knowing their dates of birth and their addresses have helped? Nope.
Privacy firebrand Bill Scannell, whose DontSpyOnUs website has targeted companies such as JetBlue and Delta Airlines for working with the TSA, welcomed news of changes to CAPPS II, but argued the TSA did not go far enough.
"They should shut down this anti-democratic project and put it into a security system that works," Scannell said. "Instead of retooling, they should junk the entire system and improve physical security."
No way! Improve physical security? You mean like stop worrying about having an algorithm figure stuff out and do it manually? That's work, no way! Plus, we wouldn't be able to create a large database of information on airline passengers that could be easily accessed by other agencies in the on-going fight to end freedom, errr I mean terrorism.
If you don't currently own a 451S don't bother with purchasing one. The mad rush that this is going to cause will only raise the cost and the wait time for this specific unit. After a quick search I found the Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW drive that does double layered writing for $89 (see here at newegg - BTW, I just did a quick search for Lite-On, I don't work for newegg or even recommend them).
Seems to me that paying $20 more (without even checking anywhere else) to purchase a drive that is meant to write at 8x (apparently in both + and -) and won't void your warranty is a much better deal.
back to the topic of discussion... This guy with the copycat website is not some kind of vigilante of the internet. His job is not to take the law into his own hands, especially if it involves stepping on some company's rights and some people's rights (the people being those who submit data unknowingly to his site). I bet the guy is very well intentioned, but he needs to get real. If he is worried about this that much, he should find a legitimite solution to the problem.
I think that the "vigilante" got what he was looking for. Recognition that their site was not compliant. Maybe now the UK government will crack down on them instead of ignoring the problem.
They don't have to lull us into anything. What some consumer protection group needs to do is present to Congress what fair-use really is.
It's not what the fucking corporations decide it is. They have to play under the GOVERNMENT's rules not the other way around. You just have to love the brass balls that the MPAA has saying "oh, we are going to allow you to make backups."
Excuse me assholes but we already can make backups due to something called the law. I am fairly certain that the law trumps what controls you believe you have.
Let's stop pussy-footing around with these people and tell them to fuck off.
And how are Bill O'Reilly listeners different from the throngs of anti-Bush fanatics who merely parrot "he's evil--EVIL!" without any foundation in their own head for WHY? Do you enjoy their company merely because you consider them correct, and forgive their empty painted heads?
I wasn't aware that I was parroting that Bush was evil... Maybe you can go back through my Slashdot history and quote me... In fact I believe what I do say is that Bush is too stupid to be of any importance. He's just a puppet figurehead controlled from the evils behind the TV cameras.
I don't enjoy anyone's company but my own. I don't side w/the liberals and I don't side with the conservatives.
Maybe you should learn who you are speaking to before you spout of worthless garbage about who I am. Do some research and then we can talk.
Although I'm very liberal, I am far happier to talk about world events to someone who is a fan of Bill O'Reilly's TV show as opposed to someone who gets their news from the radio on the way to work in the morning. Just because I disagree with their opinions doesn't mean those opinions aren't worthwhile. It is the lack of opinions that we need fear most.
My point was that these people that listen to Bill O'Reilly don't generally have opinions. They are just parroting what Mr. O'Reilly tells them.
Sadly for them, they are usually misinformed and parroting spun information that is whining about the spin from other sources.
I'd rather educate someone and attempt to get them to learn from various sources rather than "debate" with someone who is just a parrot from a single source.
You want to try working a 40/50/60 hour week with wife and kids in a hard manual job and then see how much spare time you have to make yourself well informed. Some of us simply don't have time to do this. Somehow the/. mentality seems to be that we should all be experts, all the time on everything that affects us. Unfortunatly, the world doesn't allow that and once we've made time for work, food, sleep, family and friends, there ain't a lot left to determine whose turn it is to tell media porkies. Personally I just don't believe anything of it. I know that's a bad attitude to have, but it's all I have the time or energy to do.
Then be happy when you are forced to welcome the WTO overlords and their "incentives" for lower wages and more corporate control.
This is stuff that effects EVERYONE. You should be interested in setting aside time to learn. If you are really serious and not trolling I hope to god you heed my words.
If you won't do it for yourself then do it for your family. You seem so interested in making sure you work hard for them you should also be interested in making sure that you won't have to work even harder for less.
The worldwide consolidation of media industries has led to a consequent closure of the public airwaves with respect to matters of public interest. As control of this public resource becomes more centralized, the messages transmitted by global media purveyors become progressively less relevant, less diverse, and less reflective of ground truth.
Greg Palast talks a lot about how misinformation (and lack of information in general) comes from media consolidation in his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. While I don't latch on to everything the man says I do believe that we are living in a time of self-censorship. While the media says that they are fair and balanced we have fantastic shows like Bill O'Reilly and Fox News! We have proof coming from Iraq war coverage that mentions that of course they back the war!
Are we all going to back "Open Source" media? No. Slashdot might but the rest of the world could give a shit. We are talking about people that just don't give a fuck about thinking for themselves. They care only what they hear on TV and read in their local paper. Spin doesn't exist for them. To paraphrase from Runaway Jury: people just want to come home and sit in their lounge chair and let the cable TV wash over them... The rest of us are conspiracy freaks! Fox News didn't mention anything about this so it must not be true.
Continue your attempts to educate and change the world but don't be surprised when it doesn't do a fucking thing other than label you as someone on the fringe.
No, no, that's not what the corporations (RIAA/MPAA) want. They want to end fair-use rights and increase the liklihood of damage so that you are left w/o an option to use the media without purchasing a new copy.
The makers of media want to sell what sells well. The corporations that sell content want to make money over and over again by screwing those that they have control over.
From this article: Here the crystal ball clouded over due to a blue screen of death. Bill's predictions and his crystal balls can be a little inaccurate. He once said that there was no future in that little networking novelty called the Internet.
Yeah, and he also said we wouldn't need more than 640k but in this case I believe he is at least partially correct. It may not be in 10 years or less but scratchable media needs to go away. We need something that can handle a large amount of data and remain nearly indestructible.
I have probably screwed up 90% of my CD collection over the years. I now just keep most of the music that I really want to save as SHN's on my computer. At least that way I can recreate the CDs as necessary. While I take very good care of my DVD collection (burned or otherwise) I can still see problems occurring due to drops, accidental scratching, etc. I moved most of my music collection to CD in the late 90s and gave away my tape entire tape collection in 2002. What happens when that media goes south (and we have had how many stories predicting that it won't last forever)? I'm screwed basically.
Gates' idea, while nice for corporations that would control the media, wouldn't be so great for the consumers. The RIAA/MPAA would just LOVE to control and watch how many times you watch/listen to something and charge you accordingly. I don't think that the people would though. While he might be talking about a more local storage location I doubt it. Sad but true...
Let's try and develop nearly indestructible media and keep the storage local and out of corporation control. When he says the "TV" will be able to tell if we can watch the content or not I am fearful that he is less concerned with our children's virgin eyes and more concerned with whether our bank accounts can afford it.
I thought it was funny that they said it was nothing more than a TV and a wooden box...
I have an original Ms. Pacman machine. The tubes inside were never meant to make it more than a couple years (according to websites I have read) because they never expected video games to remain popular that long...
So anyway, this Ms. Pacman machine is basically nothing more than an old, stripped down TV tube, in a wooden box... I don't see how that is any different than the Poly Play description.
Speculation that warez'd copies would still be allowed to update via Windows update were at least partly wrong. You may still be able to manually update Windows with an "invalid" product key but you cannot do it via the v5 Windows Update interface.
[Error number: 0x80244028] Cannot validate the product key The product key used to install Microsoft Windows may not be valid. For more information about why you have received this error message, and steps you can take to resolve this issue, please visit How to Tell.
I was watching the video w/o sound and it appeared to be "raising the roof", "doing the worm", "doing the electric slide", and then acting like Jim Carey in his dream scene from Dumb and Dumber.
While I am impressed with the video (that it stood up to the Slasdotters) I have to question whether the actual robots will perform as shown?
Please carry out the following tasks, if it doesn't work then try from a different PC. 1.Click On Internet Explorer 2.Go to The TOOLS MENU 3.Go to Internet Options 4.Go to Advanced 5.Scroll down the list and Click/Tick the check box enabling Java 6. Restart Your Computer 7. Log on to UMCIB and go to e-banking then enter your usernameand password, this will take you to the transfer page.
If this doesnt work, please call me, my direct line is: +44-778 057 2211
The accounts department insist that there is no problem from here and the problem is from your end.
I apologise most sincerely for the delays and your inability to access your account, however it is not a problem from our end as the system shows that everything is working perfectly and you are the only one with this problem, please try again and if the system persists please let me know.
Sounds like a Comcast technician talking to a subscriber about why their billing system charged twice the month's bill every month for six months or why there has been intermittent block sync on the cable modem.
Service Tech: "Oh, if you were to purchase this $50 line filter we could install it for $90/hr and you wouldn't lose block sync anymore!"
The 419 scammers can't get away with it why should Comcast?
Moderators please note: this was an attempt at humor.
Bigelow has put a lot of thought into what space tourists would do while they're up there--everything from laser light shows on the dark side of the moon to phone calls placed to envious friends back home, to short space walks.
Phone call to friend: "Hey man, I am watching a KILLER laser light show at a Pink Floyd concert where they are playing on the dark side of the moon!"
MOONUNIT 555-555-1969
Friend: "The spoofed CallerID from your VoIP Asterik box is getting old and lay off the acid man, you're going to rot your brain. Next you are going to be telling me that you paid $1 million to spend a weekend in an inflatable hotel room in space."
The author HAD a good vision. He's the one that created the Cable modem. He's also the one that started the DOCSIS standard and he's also the president of LANCity cable modems (if they still exist).
There's nothing new to develop with cable modems now. DOCSIS takes care of most everything users could want (upgrades over the wire, bandwith throttling, etc).
...it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
Do you understand what sarcasm is? See, me saying "critically acclaimed", "Gigli", "and other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD" was supposed to clue you in to the HUMOR.
SOMETIMES? You're fucking kidding me right? MONTHS at a time go by that I don't see a single movie that appeals to me. It's obvious that it isn't just me either as we see fantastic movies like The Butterfly Effect and Along Came Polly.
Those are obviously just "mistakes" right? Casts that include Ashton Kutcher as the star? Come on.
The third Harry Potter film topped the North American box office for the month by a wide margin, taking $217.2m (118m).
I have said before that if they stop making movies that suck that people will go and see them. While Harry Potter III didn't exactly make me jump up and down it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
I have recently seen Harry Potter 3, F 9/11, and Dodgeball in the theatres on their release weekend. I have rented over 10 DVDs in the same time period because decent movies have been released that deserved my money.
I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money.
We wonder why they overcharge? It's because they have to make up for all the bullshit movies they show that suck and no one goes to. Perhaps they should try and make blockbuster months EVERY month instead of just June (6/2003 was their previous single month record according to the article). Put two good movies out every month of every year and you'll make a shitload. Put four good movies out every year and you'll suck wind for the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
If you had done some recent reading on the subject you would have seen this.
I wonder if this movement would also spark a movement toward disabling 3rd-party clients. That would NOT be good.
The system that they outline would only be feasible of they did. What could would centralized control be if the employers still allowed third party applications that would get around their gateway?
Sounds like a fancy version of all the open source IM clients out there."
No, it doesn't sound like gaim or any other client. It sounds like a centralized control center for tighter watching over employee's IM conversations. gaim doesn't automatically forward my AIM messages to someone on MSN or Yahoo without me having an account on each. This seems like it would do that. gaim doesn't log all my conversations from all networks and store that information in one spot so that my boss can watch what I am sending across the networks.
Why does MSFT need to be the one doing this? How about an Open initiative that wouldn't require the three IM giants? It would likely be less money, better for the employers, and operate with more features and less bugs.
Too bad the employers only trust those that shouldn't be trusted.
This was a bench warrant. This wasn't a listing on the FBI's most wanted list. Give me a break.
From this article at Wired:
"The Department of Homeland Security and the TSA feel very strongly we should not move forward on any program that in any way infringes on preserving our freedoms," Stone said. "That is first and foremost."
Which really means, "we thought that people would just go along with us because we snuck every other piece of bullshit legislation through without notice but we were wrong."
The system, as originally proposed, would require all passengers to provide extra information when booking a ticket -- information that airlines don't currently ask for, like addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. The system would then check that information against databases of criminals and terrorists and assign each passenger a green, yellow or red score, according to perceived risk.
Civil-liberties groups from the left and right have gained powerful allies on Capitol Hill by arguing the system is both too invasive and ineffective.
Damn straight it's ineffective. The 9/11 terrorists were already in the country legally. What the hell good would this do? They were already flying planes. Would knowing their dates of birth and their addresses have helped? Nope.
Privacy firebrand Bill Scannell, whose DontSpyOnUs website has targeted companies such as JetBlue and Delta Airlines for working with the TSA, welcomed news of changes to CAPPS II, but argued the TSA did not go far enough.
"They should shut down this anti-democratic project and put it into a security system that works," Scannell said. "Instead of retooling, they should junk the entire system and improve physical security."
No way! Improve physical security? You mean like stop worrying about having an algorithm figure stuff out and do it manually? That's work, no way! Plus, we wouldn't be able to create a large database of information on airline passengers that could be easily accessed by other agencies in the on-going fight to end freedom, errr I mean terrorism.
If you don't currently own a 451S don't bother with purchasing one. The mad rush that this is going to cause will only raise the cost and the wait time for this specific unit. After a quick search I found the Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW drive that does double layered writing for $89 (see here at newegg - BTW, I just did a quick search for Lite-On, I don't work for newegg or even recommend them).
Seems to me that paying $20 more (without even checking anywhere else) to purchase a drive that is meant to write at 8x (apparently in both + and -) and won't void your warranty is a much better deal.
back to the topic of discussion... This guy with the copycat website is not some kind of vigilante of the internet. His job is not to take the law into his own hands, especially if it involves stepping on some company's rights and some people's rights (the people being those who submit data unknowingly to his site). I bet the guy is very well intentioned, but he needs to get real. If he is worried about this that much, he should find a legitimite solution to the problem.
I think that the "vigilante" got what he was looking for. Recognition that their site was not compliant. Maybe now the UK government will crack down on them instead of ignoring the problem.
They don't have to lull us into anything. What some consumer protection group needs to do is present to Congress what fair-use really is.
It's not what the fucking corporations decide it is. They have to play under the GOVERNMENT's rules not the other way around. You just have to love the brass balls that the MPAA has saying "oh, we are going to allow you to make backups."
Excuse me assholes but we already can make backups due to something called the law. I am fairly certain that the law trumps what controls you believe you have.
Let's stop pussy-footing around with these people and tell them to fuck off.
And how are Bill O'Reilly listeners different from the throngs of anti-Bush fanatics who merely parrot "he's evil--EVIL!" without any foundation in their own head for WHY? Do you enjoy their company merely because you consider them correct, and forgive their empty painted heads?
I wasn't aware that I was parroting that Bush was evil... Maybe you can go back through my Slashdot history and quote me... In fact I believe what I do say is that Bush is too stupid to be of any importance. He's just a puppet figurehead controlled from the evils behind the TV cameras.
I don't enjoy anyone's company but my own. I don't side w/the liberals and I don't side with the conservatives.
Maybe you should learn who you are speaking to before you spout of worthless garbage about who I am. Do some research and then we can talk.
They make such bad code knowing that it won't be looked at and hope that the hackers won't be able to find the holes?
Without the recent access to the source for IE we would never have found out about BMP overflows, etc. Which was just poor and lazy coding.
Although I'm very liberal, I am far happier to talk about world events to someone who is a fan of Bill O'Reilly's TV show as opposed to someone who gets their news from the radio on the way to work in the morning. Just because I disagree with their opinions doesn't mean those opinions aren't worthwhile. It is the lack of opinions that we need fear most.
My point was that these people that listen to Bill O'Reilly don't generally have opinions. They are just parroting what Mr. O'Reilly tells them.
Sadly for them, they are usually misinformed and parroting spun information that is whining about the spin from other sources.
I'd rather educate someone and attempt to get them to learn from various sources rather than "debate" with someone who is just a parrot from a single source.
You want to try working a 40/50/60 hour week with wife and kids in a hard manual job and then see how much spare time you have to make yourself well informed. Some of us simply don't have time to do this. Somehow the /. mentality seems to be that we should all be experts, all the time on everything that affects us. Unfortunatly, the world doesn't allow that and once we've made time for work, food, sleep, family and friends, there ain't a lot left to determine whose turn it is to tell media porkies. Personally I just don't believe anything of it. I know that's a bad attitude to have, but it's all I have the time or energy to do.
Then be happy when you are forced to welcome the WTO overlords and their "incentives" for lower wages and more corporate control.
This is stuff that effects EVERYONE. You should be interested in setting aside time to learn. If you are really serious and not trolling I hope to god you heed my words.
If you won't do it for yourself then do it for your family. You seem so interested in making sure you work hard for them you should also be interested in making sure that you won't have to work even harder for less.
The worldwide consolidation of media industries has led to a consequent closure of the public airwaves with respect to matters of public interest. As control of this public resource becomes more centralized, the messages transmitted by global media purveyors become progressively less relevant, less diverse, and less reflective of ground truth.
Greg Palast talks a lot about how misinformation (and lack of information in general) comes from media consolidation in his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. While I don't latch on to everything the man says I do believe that we are living in a time of self-censorship. While the media says that they are fair and balanced we have fantastic shows like Bill O'Reilly and Fox News! We have proof coming from Iraq war coverage that mentions that of course they back the war!
Are we all going to back "Open Source" media? No. Slashdot might but the rest of the world could give a shit. We are talking about people that just don't give a fuck about thinking for themselves. They care only what they hear on TV and read in their local paper. Spin doesn't exist for them. To paraphrase from Runaway Jury: people just want to come home and sit in their lounge chair and let the cable TV wash over them... The rest of us are conspiracy freaks! Fox News didn't mention anything about this so it must not be true.
Continue your attempts to educate and change the world but don't be surprised when it doesn't do a fucking thing other than label you as someone on the fringe.
That's not what the media industry wants.
No, no, that's not what the corporations (RIAA/MPAA) want. They want to end fair-use rights and increase the liklihood of damage so that you are left w/o an option to use the media without purchasing a new copy.
The makers of media want to sell what sells well. The corporations that sell content want to make money over and over again by screwing those that they have control over.
From this article:
Here the crystal ball clouded over due to a blue screen of death. Bill's predictions and his crystal balls can be a little inaccurate. He once said that there was no future in that little networking novelty called the Internet.
Yeah, and he also said we wouldn't need more than 640k but in this case I believe he is at least partially correct. It may not be in 10 years or less but scratchable media needs to go away. We need something that can handle a large amount of data and remain nearly indestructible.
I have probably screwed up 90% of my CD collection over the years. I now just keep most of the music that I really want to save as SHN's on my computer. At least that way I can recreate the CDs as necessary. While I take very good care of my DVD collection (burned or otherwise) I can still see problems occurring due to drops, accidental scratching, etc. I moved most of my music collection to CD in the late 90s and gave away my tape entire tape collection in 2002. What happens when that media goes south (and we have had how many stories predicting that it won't last forever)? I'm screwed basically.
Gates' idea, while nice for corporations that would control the media, wouldn't be so great for the consumers. The RIAA/MPAA would just LOVE to control and watch how many times you watch/listen to something and charge you accordingly. I don't think that the people would though. While he might be talking about a more local storage location I doubt it. Sad but true...
Let's try and develop nearly indestructible media and keep the storage local and out of corporation control. When he says the "TV" will be able to tell if we can watch the content or not I am fearful that he is less concerned with our children's virgin eyes and more concerned with whether our bank accounts can afford it.
I thought it was funny that they said it was nothing more than a TV and a wooden box...
I have an original Ms. Pacman machine. The tubes inside were never meant to make it more than a couple years (according to websites I have read) because they never expected video games to remain popular that long...
So anyway, this Ms. Pacman machine is basically nothing more than an old, stripped down TV tube, in a wooden box... I don't see how that is any different than the Poly Play description.
Speculation that warez'd copies would still be allowed to update via Windows update were at least partly wrong. You may still be able to manually update Windows with an "invalid" product key but you cannot do it via the v5 Windows Update interface.
[Error number: 0x80244028]
Cannot validate the product key
The product key used to install Microsoft Windows may not be valid. For more information about why you have received this error message, and steps you can take to resolve this issue, please visit How to Tell.
I was watching the video w/o sound and it appeared to be "raising the roof", "doing the worm", "doing the electric slide", and then acting like Jim Carey in his dream scene from Dumb and Dumber.
While I am impressed with the video (that it stood up to the Slasdotters) I have to question whether the actual robots will perform as shown?
Please carry out the following tasks, if it doesn't work then try from a different PC.
1.Click On Internet Explorer
2.Go to The TOOLS MENU
3.Go to Internet Options
4.Go to Advanced
5.Scroll down the list and Click/Tick the check box enabling Java
6. Restart Your Computer
7. Log on to UMCIB and go to e-banking then enter your usernameand password, this will take you to the transfer page.
If this doesnt work, please call me, my direct line is: +44-778 057 2211
The accounts department insist that there is no problem from here and the problem is from your end.
I apologise most sincerely for the delays and your inability to access your account, however it is not a problem from our end as the system shows that everything is working perfectly and you are the only one with this problem, please try again and if the system persists please let me know.
Sounds like a Comcast technician talking to a subscriber about why their billing system charged twice the month's bill every month for six months or why there has been intermittent block sync on the cable modem.
Service Tech: "Oh, if you were to purchase this $50 line filter we could install it for $90/hr and you wouldn't lose block sync anymore!"
The 419 scammers can't get away with it why should Comcast?
Moderators please note: this was an attempt at humor.
Bigelow has put a lot of thought into what space tourists would do while they're up there--everything from laser light shows on the dark side of the moon to phone calls placed to envious friends back home, to short space walks.
Phone call to friend: "Hey man, I am watching a KILLER laser light show at a Pink Floyd concert where they are playing on the dark side of the moon!"
MOONUNIT 555-555-1969
Friend: "The spoofed CallerID from your VoIP Asterik box is getting old and lay off the acid man, you're going to rot your brain. Next you are going to be telling me that you paid $1 million to spend a weekend in an inflatable hotel room in space."
The author has a good vision.
The author HAD a good vision. He's the one that created the Cable modem. He's also the one that started the DOCSIS standard and he's also the president of LANCity cable modems (if they still exist).
There's nothing new to develop with cable modems now. DOCSIS takes care of most everything users could want (upgrades over the wire, bandwith throttling, etc).
Looks like the hair of the guy who runs this site just had their hair turn grey as they were supporting 500,000 Slashdot users.
...it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
Do you understand what sarcasm is? See, me saying "critically acclaimed", "Gigli", "and other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD" was supposed to clue you in to the HUMOR.
Sometimes they swing and miss.
SOMETIMES? You're fucking kidding me right? MONTHS at a time go by that I don't see a single movie that appeals to me. It's obvious that it isn't just me either as we see fantastic movies like The Butterfly Effect and Along Came Polly.
Those are obviously just "mistakes" right? Casts that include Ashton Kutcher as the star? Come on.
The third Harry Potter film topped the North American box office for the month by a wide margin, taking $217.2m (118m).
I have said before that if they stop making movies that suck that people will go and see them. While Harry Potter III didn't exactly make me jump up and down it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
I have recently seen Harry Potter 3, F 9/11, and Dodgeball in the theatres on their release weekend. I have rented over 10 DVDs in the same time period because decent movies have been released that deserved my money.
I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money.
We wonder why they overcharge? It's because they have to make up for all the bullshit movies they show that suck and no one goes to. Perhaps they should try and make blockbuster months EVERY month instead of just June (6/2003 was their previous single month record according to the article). Put two good movies out every month of every year and you'll make a shitload. Put four good movies out every year and you'll suck wind for the rest.