How on earth is your opinion relevant to the topic when you are clearly confident and OK with your decision to buy both DVDs?
It seems obvious to me that my post was more directed towards the set that didn't want to buy it twice, but will anyways.
> And boycott schmoycott.
See? What are you doing replying to my post when I was asking those who are trying to balance the desire to hold boycotts while paying financial penetance to the culture they love.
> Oh, and I'm sure the respect of J. Random Slashdot Nobody means so much to people that they're going to just line up to justify themselves to your flamebaiting ass. But still, here we go.
But this is the best part. God, how I love replies that start "I'm going to give you a reply, but try my hardest not to give you the satisfaction of actually having been replied to." Hehe. I wasn't flamebaiting, and that should have clued you into the fact that I was looking for replies from people actually applicable to the situation I was curious about.
I'll ignore any implication that the screen adaptation of Lord of the Rings is a significant piece of cultural art - the book, no arguments, the movie.. its an adaptation, but I'd have a hard time calling it a movie with depth.
But, thats just my opinion, so I realize its irrelevant.
I'm not talking about paying money to see the movie - I'm talking about buying redundant materials. You're (well, whoever will buy both DVDs) not encouraging them to go out and adapt another classic - you're encouraging them to milk you. Which is fine, they can try - I'm just perplexed by those that ask for it, and then lament their weakness. It's encouraging exploitation of people's cultural needs, not a development or innovation of that culture.
Man, I've spoken to crack fiends who sound more self-empowered with respect to their vices.:)
Personally, I have very little respect for the franchise slut. It's one thing to be a fan, but to flat out say, "I dont want to buy two, but I know I will cave and do it."... I mean, shit, where's the self control?
This isn't flamebait.. I wanna hear how somebody can justify that kind of sentiment. And how does this factor into the power of the boycott when consumers themselves admit being unable to control their spending habits?
No, what somebody has to do is create a scoreboard, where you rate the superperfluousness of the patent, and then try to estimate their success in litigating a profit from it.
Like cybersquatting - which, as far as I know, has been shown to be relatively unprofitable, despite every Tom, Dick and Harry seemingly getting into the act -.. we need to see if this really does work, and then feed that info back to these software companies.. to either encourage it until it flat-out breaks the system, or discourage it because it don't make no money.
Nonexclusive rights to copyright is absolutely REQUIRED if copyright is to serve the interest of the artistic community ever again.
People seem to have forgotten that copyright was written to combat exclusive publishing deals given to the publishers in the 1600s. Now that copyright is again a commodity, and can be licenced exclusively, it is no different than the pre-copyright age which the current copyright proponants are selling as the dystopic vision of a world without _modern_ copyright law.
Language is a powerful tool - its important to work around it and understand the actual workings of a system rather than how stuff supposedly plays out in its formed language and terminology.
And yes, same with patents. They should all be non-discriminatory. Somewhere along the line, it became more profitable to create scarcity rather than to profit off equal-access to ones work.
More importantly, it appears to patent a process rather than an implementation, which is, in the physical world, a no-no.
They can't (or shouldnt be able to) patent "A tool for filtering content based on national laws, etc".. but they can patent new implementations of such a tool. There's only one problem with it - it wouldn't be too tough an implementation, and it would be, algo & data structure wise, nearly identical to thousands of implementations of software that chooses to do one thing based on attributes on the user, and a local cache of 'rules' to govern data delivery and filtering.
The patent appears ultra-superfuous.
It illustrates why the Patent Office is not setup for software - in software, the same invention can be used for millions of uses (just think of the uses of a hashtable, as a technology).. often, software doens't appear to be the same thing, but in terms of implemetnation, dataflow, etc, different software that solve totally different problems might be implemented in nearly the exact same way. And its always been the implementation that you patent, at least in the science world.
I'm trivializing my sexual abuse here. Should have been more clear. _I_ was sexually abused.
I'm only illustrating the dynamics of being a victim of something - your first tendancy is to want to hide it, and that desire is even more deeply embedded the higher the stakes are of disclosing your victimization.
Preachers arnt the only ones that can be caught with their pants down.
Case in point: My mother worked for a university (I'll save them face, because I'm sure it happens at every university) where her co-worker had faked his PHD, and was working on bogus research. All results faked. He didn't have a clue what he was doing.
Okay, no problem, you say.. somebody finds out, and he's gone, right? Nope. How do you think a university feels about having to answer to the fact that nobody actually _checked_ his PHD with the university he got it from? Pretty badly. So when my mother reported him, the university told her to shut up or find another job.
A few years later, they found a way of quietly dismissing him on legit grounds. Its all about vested interest - it makes these schools look stupid to admit that they dont have the time/money (nevermind that trust is still important, IMHO) to cross-check every single research project and prof they hire.
It's an unfortunate consequence of life - some people scam, and sometimes the scammed party wants to keep the details silent (having been sexually abused, its the same deal - you feel (wrongly) stupid for being the victim, although with the university, alot more than my pride is involved.. ie, lots of money and reputations).
Anyhow, dont think this is an isolated case. Take everything with a grain of salt, considering the money and prestige involved in the stakes of science, until its powering your coffee-maker.
> What Science needs most of all right now is credibility.
How on EARTH does science need credibility? Shit, even the missionaries wouldn't have been able to cross the water and do their (stupid/arrogant) thing without science. Anyone even reading this story is using something that relies on more than 1000 years of disiplined, reproducable science in order to function.
People can be irrational. End of story. It's not about building a stronger case for any particular ideology, its about dispelling and eradicating irrationality, IMHO.
MS's marketing dept. is a living walking proof that the best way to get shot is to carry a gun.
Like Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice, once a sufficient number of people notice which way the tide is going, its gunna be one HELL of a backlash, make no mistake.
I'm curious who will rise from the ashes... I'm really hoping somebody is going to build something marvelous inspired-by/born-from beOS. Course, I still think it will take 5 years for any of this to happen with any significance.
Okay, lets see. They realized they wernt getting the cost-savings they could have in a truely robust, competative market. So they are biting the hand of their drug dealer.
And then everybody complains - hey, they're the only ones that sell suitable drugs! Well, DUH - because nobody's bothered asserting their desire to purchase drugs from another dealer.
Has the concept of 'investing in your future' totally gone out the window? Short term pain, long term gain? Hello, is anybody listening to how stupid people sound when they're saying that MS is the only suitable thing? Isn't it self-evident that the kind of attitude like, "Well, what else is there," is *why* there isn't much else in terms of choice?
On what planet do people live when they think, for some reason, MS is the only company *capable* of producing an OS with the 'ease of use' Windows has?
(As an aside, but related to the 'Well, what else can they use' quotes, does ANYONE realize how much sweeter life would be had MS not been able to squeeze beOS out of existence?)
> "What does $150 million buy you? It doesn't buy you eternal gratitude."
Shit, thats a great quote. Especially considering MS poured the money in for purely (mostly, whatever) selfish reasons - we can assume the DOJ trial would look much different today had MS not participated in the 'wonton act of goodwill for which Apple should have eternal gratitude'.;)
Re:Why Did He Dodge the Sexuality Questions
on
Piers Anthony Unbound
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Personally, the questions were beyond loaded - any pretense of dealing with the subjects using moral objectivity were dismissed outright in the way the questsions were formed, IMHO.
Sometimes artists (or content creators, for all those wearing suits) like to do shit just cause it makes people feel awkward. That is, in part, their job. Artists dont always have to be able to outright objectively justify their work - pointing out that something objectionable is fairly natural and then turning the loaded question back on the questioner (ie, 'why do you want to discuss this and not the savage violence in my books') is probably more poingant a response than any attempt at justification could be.
I will never_ever_ever_ever understand why so many 12 yr olds will be allowed to watch The Matrix by their parents, but Stanley Kubricks 'Eyes Wide Shut' (which should put any 12 yr old to sleep in the first 5 minutes, *anyway*) had to delete two frontal nutity scenes. Thats way more interesting than trying to justify a natural desire to the maturing female form to somebody who's obviously already made up their mind about whats Right and Wrong.
Yeah, I have to agree. Oni was an amazing game - to bad the timing didn't seem right for it. It's been a long time since a decent 3rd person figher (remember Final Fight?) hit the market, and Oni got my hopes up for a little revival.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. As the gaming industry gets larger, expect the number of top-tier games that challenge the status quo to go down, a la music biz.
> Few would argue that Western civilization has triumphed due largely to the ongoing improvement of technology.
I disagree. Oterhwise the Japanese would own the world. Its not technology. Pure and simple, its colonialism backed up by lots of steel, and a period free of plagues and other epidemics on western soil. Oh, and lots and lots of borrowed capital (6 trillion at this point.)
well, clearly if you think this way, you'll volounteer your family to be the first? they probably weigh alot more heavily on your tax dollar than the 'foreign aid' US spends.
I think you made his point. The movie will be very black and white; these blockbusters dont really actually have much to say in terms of a serious political discourse.
You've just basically gone ahead and pointed out that the hollywood blockbusters never really ponders an idea; they go ahead and tell you whats right, whats wrong, and its fairly evident to see how they like to criticise the right. (Although, why shouldn't they, they are artists (even if really really commercial ones))
Thats not really criticism, as other movies fill the role of being unjudgemental about their subjects.. its just harder to find 'em.:P
Oh, I've already decided that Hollywood will destory every childhood institution I love, and this will be no exception.
They always need to dumb down the story to appeal to a wider audience, and this will always burn the purists like me. (Well, okay, not _always always_, but a good 95% of the time.) When they do maintain the integrity of the comic (like Ghost World), they're too scared of mass marketing it, and nobody sees it.
Check out "The Dark Knight Returns", where Batman defeats Superman (using some Kryptonite, btw.)
Miller (the author) got it right; Batman is the world's greatest detective mind (nevermind one of the top martial artists in the world), and basically an all around genius.
Might might be right, but only when the dude holding the might doesn't get outsmarted, as Superman did in "The Dark Knight Returns"
Batman is the coolest superhero ever. Why? No superpowers. Brains, altheticism, and a raging case of vengance. What can be more powerful than that?
Slashdot Mirror
How on earth is your opinion relevant to the topic when you are clearly confident and OK with your decision to buy both DVDs?
It seems obvious to me that my post was more directed towards the set that didn't want to buy it twice, but will anyways.
> And boycott schmoycott.
See? What are you doing replying to my post when I was asking those who are trying to balance the desire to hold boycotts while paying financial penetance to the culture they love.
> Oh, and I'm sure the respect of J. Random Slashdot Nobody means so much to people that they're going to just line up to justify themselves to your flamebaiting ass. But still, here we go.
But this is the best part. God, how I love replies that start "I'm going to give you a reply, but try my hardest not to give you the satisfaction of actually having been replied to." Hehe. I wasn't flamebaiting, and that should have clued you into the fact that I was looking for replies from people actually applicable to the situation I was curious about.
I'll ignore any implication that the screen adaptation of Lord of the Rings is a significant piece of cultural art - the book, no arguments, the movie .. its an adaptation, but I'd have a hard time calling it a movie with depth.
But, thats just my opinion, so I realize its irrelevant.
I'm not talking about paying money to see the movie - I'm talking about buying redundant materials. You're (well, whoever will buy both DVDs) not encouraging them to go out and adapt another classic - you're encouraging them to milk you. Which is fine, they can try - I'm just perplexed by those that ask for it, and then lament their weakness. It's encouraging exploitation of people's cultural needs, not a development or innovation of that culture.
Man, I've spoken to crack fiends who sound more self-empowered with respect to their vices. :)
... I mean, shit, where's the self control?
.. I wanna hear how somebody can justify that kind of sentiment. And how does this factor into the power of the boycott when consumers themselves admit being unable to control their spending habits?
Personally, I have very little respect for the franchise slut. It's one thing to be a fan, but to flat out say, "I dont want to buy two, but I know I will cave and do it."
This isn't flamebait
Be a man, not a franchise slut.
No, what somebody has to do is create a scoreboard, where you rate the superperfluousness of the patent, and then try to estimate their success in litigating a profit from it.
.. we need to see if this really does work, and then feed that info back to these software companies .. to either encourage it until it flat-out breaks the system, or discourage it because it don't make no money.
Like cybersquatting - which, as far as I know, has been shown to be relatively unprofitable, despite every Tom, Dick and Harry seemingly getting into the act -
A-FUCKING MEN.
Nonexclusive rights to copyright is absolutely REQUIRED if copyright is to serve the interest of the artistic community ever again.
People seem to have forgotten that copyright was written to combat exclusive publishing deals given to the publishers in the 1600s. Now that copyright is again a commodity, and can be licenced exclusively, it is no different than the pre-copyright age which the current copyright proponants are selling as the dystopic vision of a world without _modern_ copyright law.
Language is a powerful tool - its important to work around it and understand the actual workings of a system rather than how stuff supposedly plays out in its formed language and terminology.
And yes, same with patents. They should all be non-discriminatory. Somewhere along the line, it became more profitable to create scarcity rather than to profit off equal-access to ones work.
More importantly, it appears to patent a process rather than an implementation, which is, in the physical world, a no-no.
.. but they can patent new implementations of such a tool. There's only one problem with it - it wouldn't be too tough an implementation, and it would be, algo & data structure wise, nearly identical to thousands of implementations of software that chooses to do one thing based on attributes on the user, and a local cache of 'rules' to govern data delivery and filtering.
.. often, software doens't appear to be the same thing, but in terms of implemetnation, dataflow, etc, different software that solve totally different problems might be implemented in nearly the exact same way. And its always been the implementation that you patent, at least in the science world.
They can't (or shouldnt be able to) patent "A tool for filtering content based on national laws, etc"
The patent appears ultra-superfuous.
It illustrates why the Patent Office is not setup for software - in software, the same invention can be used for millions of uses (just think of the uses of a hashtable, as a technology)
Also, IANAL, so correct me at will.
Holy shit.
Yet another patent invented by millions of programmers around the world at various times with nary a second thought.
I'm trivializing my sexual abuse here. Should have been more clear. _I_ was sexually abused.
I'm only illustrating the dynamics of being a victim of something - your first tendancy is to want to hide it, and that desire is even more deeply embedded the higher the stakes are of disclosing your victimization.
Preachers arnt the only ones that can be caught with their pants down.
.. somebody finds out, and he's gone, right? Nope. How do you think a university feels about having to answer to the fact that nobody actually _checked_ his PHD with the university he got it from? Pretty badly. So when my mother reported him, the university told her to shut up or find another job.
.. ie, lots of money and reputations).
Case in point: My mother worked for a university (I'll save them face, because I'm sure it happens at every university) where her co-worker had faked his PHD, and was working on bogus research. All results faked. He didn't have a clue what he was doing.
Okay, no problem, you say
A few years later, they found a way of quietly dismissing him on legit grounds. Its all about vested interest - it makes these schools look stupid to admit that they dont have the time/money (nevermind that trust is still important, IMHO) to cross-check every single research project and prof they hire.
It's an unfortunate consequence of life - some people scam, and sometimes the scammed party wants to keep the details silent (having been sexually abused, its the same deal - you feel (wrongly) stupid for being the victim, although with the university, alot more than my pride is involved
Anyhow, dont think this is an isolated case. Take everything with a grain of salt, considering the money and prestige involved in the stakes of science, until its powering your coffee-maker.
> What Science needs most of all right now is credibility.
How on EARTH does science need credibility? Shit, even the missionaries wouldn't have been able to cross the water and do their (stupid/arrogant) thing without science. Anyone even reading this story is using something that relies on more than 1000 years of disiplined, reproducable science in order to function.
People can be irrational. End of story. It's not about building a stronger case for any particular ideology, its about dispelling and eradicating irrationality, IMHO.
>I can't read Norwegian
/. acronym: ICRN (I Cant Read Norwegian!)
Hehe, I like that. Time for a new
True. I know they were moving tons of copies of Microsoft Office for Mac .... likely a fairly easy source of revenue well worth the 150 mill bailout.
MS's marketing dept. is a living walking proof that the best way to get shot is to carry a gun.
... I'm really hoping somebody is going to build something marvelous inspired-by/born-from beOS. Course, I still think it will take 5 years for any of this to happen with any significance.
Like Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice, once a sufficient number of people notice which way the tide is going, its gunna be one HELL of a backlash, make no mistake.
I'm curious who will rise from the ashes
Okay, lets see. They realized they wernt getting the cost-savings they could have in a truely robust, competative market. So they are biting the hand of their drug dealer.
And then everybody complains - hey, they're the only ones that sell suitable drugs! Well, DUH - because nobody's bothered asserting their desire to purchase drugs from another dealer.
Has the concept of 'investing in your future' totally gone out the window? Short term pain, long term gain? Hello, is anybody listening to how stupid people sound when they're saying that MS is the only suitable thing? Isn't it self-evident that the kind of attitude like, "Well, what else is there," is *why* there isn't much else in terms of choice?
On what planet do people live when they think, for some reason, MS is the only company *capable* of producing an OS with the 'ease of use' Windows has?
(As an aside, but related to the 'Well, what else can they use' quotes, does ANYONE realize how much sweeter life would be had MS not been able to squeeze beOS out of existence?)
> "What does $150 million buy you? It doesn't buy you eternal gratitude."
;)
Shit, thats a great quote. Especially considering MS poured the money in for purely (mostly, whatever) selfish reasons - we can assume the DOJ trial would look much different today had MS not participated in the 'wonton act of goodwill for which Apple should have eternal gratitude'.
Personally, the questions were beyond loaded - any pretense of dealing with the subjects using moral objectivity were dismissed outright in the way the questsions were formed, IMHO.
Sometimes artists (or content creators, for all those wearing suits) like to do shit just cause it makes people feel awkward. That is, in part, their job. Artists dont always have to be able to outright objectively justify their work - pointing out that something objectionable is fairly natural and then turning the loaded question back on the questioner (ie, 'why do you want to discuss this and not the savage violence in my books') is probably more poingant a response than any attempt at justification could be.
I will never_ever_ever_ever understand why so many 12 yr olds will be allowed to watch The Matrix by their parents, but Stanley Kubricks 'Eyes Wide Shut' (which should put any 12 yr old to sleep in the first 5 minutes, *anyway*) had to delete two frontal nutity scenes. Thats way more interesting than trying to justify a natural desire to the maturing female form to somebody who's obviously already made up their mind about whats Right and Wrong.
Yeah, I have to agree. Oni was an amazing game - to bad the timing didn't seem right for it. It's been a long time since a decent 3rd person figher (remember Final Fight?) hit the market, and Oni got my hopes up for a little revival.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. As the gaming industry gets larger, expect the number of top-tier games that challenge the status quo to go down, a la music biz.
This guy breaks up beats, and adds really really lougy jazzy fusiony hooks to them.
.. for the cut'n'paste to drill'n'bass sounds.
Awesome stuff. Also, Aphex Twin, Ninja Tunes stuff, Squarepusher, Plastik Man, etc
> Few would argue that Western civilization has triumphed due largely to the ongoing improvement of technology.
I disagree. Oterhwise the Japanese would own the world. Its not technology. Pure and simple, its colonialism backed up by lots of steel, and a period free of plagues and other epidemics on western soil. Oh, and lots and lots of borrowed capital (6 trillion at this point.)
well, clearly if you think this way, you'll volounteer your family to be the first? they probably weigh alot more heavily on your tax dollar than the 'foreign aid' US spends.
I think you made his point. The movie will be very black and white; these blockbusters dont really actually have much to say in terms of a serious political discourse.
.. its just harder to find 'em. :P
You've just basically gone ahead and pointed out that the hollywood blockbusters never really ponders an idea; they go ahead and tell you whats right, whats wrong, and its fairly evident to see how they like to criticise the right. (Although, why shouldn't they, they are artists (even if really really commercial ones))
Thats not really criticism, as other movies fill the role of being unjudgemental about their subjects
Oh, I've already decided that Hollywood will destory every childhood institution I love, and this will be no exception.
They always need to dumb down the story to appeal to a wider audience, and this will always burn the purists like me. (Well, okay, not _always always_, but a good 95% of the time.) When they do maintain the integrity of the comic (like Ghost World), they're too scared of mass marketing it, and nobody sees it.
Guns are for wussies.
:)
Batman is vengeful but ethical. Much more interesting than some trigger happy vigilante.
Too late.
Check out "The Dark Knight Returns", where Batman defeats Superman (using some Kryptonite, btw.)
Miller (the author) got it right; Batman is the world's greatest detective mind (nevermind one of the top martial artists in the world), and basically an all around genius.
Might might be right, but only when the dude holding the might doesn't get outsmarted, as Superman did in "The Dark Knight Returns"
Batman is the coolest superhero ever. Why? No superpowers. Brains, altheticism, and a raging case of vengance. What can be more powerful than that?