As a programmer and software publisher, I can add my two cents to this situation, and I think it applies to all types of "software" including music and movies.
I had a successful software company throughout the 80s and the early 90s. We sold over 100k copies of our software (which wasn't bad for our tiny operation), and I estimate that there were at least ten to a hundred times more pirated copies in circulation. Even with the piracy, the market was plenty big to provide for us. Piracy actually helped promote our product, call attention to the company and spawn sales. We weren't happy about the piracy but we also knew that it compensated for a lack of resources to advertise on a large scale.
To increase revenue we continually improved our products and released upgrades. We also provided an ancient concept called "support" that our customers appreciated greatly.
To answer your question specifically, I don't think any "true" programmer would ever be discouraged by piracy. That's like asking a painter if he is bummed out that too many people were appreciating his art but not hanging it on their walls.
Generally speaking, profit margin in software is *enormous*. Any product worth large scale pirating will be a product that also generates substantial legitimate revenue. I suspect one reason why publishers are griping about piracy is that the quality of a lot of software today is such that it's not worth the price they're asking in the first place, and they rely on advertising and insider deals to move product, as opposed to the quality and value of the product itself.
My contention is that these days, piracy is more a form of protest than theft. Publishers are not producing products that have the same value they used to. You have companies like Quicken which shake down their customer base each year for a few hundred bucks to install a stupid tax table that should be free. That's bullshit.
The software business may be dying, but it's not dying because of piracy. It's dying because it has matured like other industries and become controlled by a small number of "mafia" publishers and distributors of inferior products who gain market share via unfair trade practices and massive ad campaigns. Those companies are compelled to fight piracy moreso to protect their dynasty and squelch competition, than they are at risk of suffering any substantive financial losses due to piracy.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer in the music industry told me the other day that Cox is one of the ISPs that coughs up subscriber information without adequate legal due dilligence. I also believe that the RIAA and other organizations are primarily targeting users of specific ISPs that are more cooperative.
If you're doing any P2P activity, you should shop around for a more responsible ISP that fights to protect their customers' privacy. Generally speaking, the cable Internet providers are much less respectful of customer privacy than the telco companies. This is why I will not use Cox or Comcast.
* Symantec has released a study showing 35% of all network traffic are viruses and worms
* RIAA claims 35% of all music people own are downloaded illegally
* SPA announces research showing 35% of all software is pirated
It's just a coincedence that Cachelogic is marketing products to control P2P traffic.
I suspect Cachelogic must also own 35% of the crack in the country because they must be smoking it if they think 35% of all network traffic is bittorrent.
The site goes on to document all sorts of interesting internal correspondence, including dubious intimidation tactics and sleazy fliers the GOP is encouraging religious groups hand out at services. It's very illuminating.
That is entirely bass ackwards. If you don't know how to program properly, you should have register_globals turned off. If you do know how to code properly, then it doesn't matter if register_globals is off or on. Well written code is inherently immune to exploit of register_globals.
There is not a programmer on this planet that consistently writes perfect, secure code.
Your attitude is analagous to saying, "If you are always watching your front door, there's no reason to lock it." Only a fool uses reasoning like that.
But feel free to use register_globals on. I'm in favor of it. It makes it that much easier to tell the crappy developers from the quality developers, who don't take anything for granted and recognize that a web environment is ever-changing and every single point of infiltration needs to be closed wherever possible.
Plat duping, rampant farming for real life cash, accounts being traded left and right (again, for cash), no customer service.
Did I forget to mention the ability to change your name for a small fee so you can buy an account, change the name on it, and then pretend it's one that you leveled up?
Or how about that since they made travel completely free that only the highest ZEM zones get played in? Kinda removed the need to explore from EQ, didn't it? Why go visit Lake Rathe or Crypt of Dalnir?
EQ died 2 years ago when the developers came out with Shadows of Luclin and started catering soley to the power-gamers and e-bayers.
Another whine-fest from a disgruntled gamer. What did you expect? A personal servant to appear when you logged in and hand you phat lewt?
I completely disagree with you on the travel issues. It's still not very easy to get around the world. They've made means to move around more easily but this is due to the necessity of facilitating group game play so that raids don't take an hour to get all the people together. No matter how big the world becomes, you're still going to have people cluster in specific areas. I'm not sure how that could really be dealt with in an ever-expanding world.
I could write a long diatribe about the issues I have with Everquest, unfortunately the points you've brought up would not be in any of such a diatribe.
The difference is that none of the EQ competitors were actually any good. AFAIK Blizzard was the first developer that didn't hide their beta behind NDAs before launch, and the public KNOWS the game is already more polished than EQ ever was.
With all due respect, what a ridiculous assertion. The game isn't even in beta. There's no way to tell how robust the game is, much less how the playable the game will be once it goes public. There's virtually nothing that's been said about WOW that wasn't hyped up to the same degree about flops such as DAOC and AO. In fact, I predict that WOW is going to choke on its own mega-hype and prove to be nothing special.
Look, I have no reason to defend EQ. I think the game does indeed have its problems. I've been designing and playing online RPGs since before there were PCs (pre-internet, on systems such as CDC's PLATO and earlier).
WOW may turn out good, but to date, nobody has been able to do what Verant originally did with EQ. It is light years ahead of all other MMORPGs, to the point where the world of Everquest has inherited a host of real-life-type problems that are more the result of its success than the game design. WOW could only hope to have the problems Everquest has.
That notwithstanding, I do think there are some killer-MMORPGs out there, but WOW is *not it*. SWG's engine shows more long-term potential than WOW. However, I share the tech public's general consensus that big corporations, or George Lucas have any clue and can make the most out of that property, so something else will come along, but it's not going to be WOW IMO. Feel free to save this message and prove me wrong later, but I doubt I'm wrong about this. The next MMORPG will most certainly NOT be based around the same, tired, boring medieval theme.
It seems every few months there's another buzz about the next big MMORPG destroying Everquest. This was said about AO, SWG and DAOC and of course WOW. So far, none of EQ's competitors have lived up to the hype. I don't expect WOW to be any different.
In fact, I don't expect EQ2 to be an Everquest killer either, even though it is supposedly the "next generation."
This reminds me of all the hype about so-called "superior products" that never caught on, from NeXT to the Betamax. It's more than just higher-resolution or more features. If you don't have a robust community that rallies around your new product, it doesn't matter how "superior" it may be.
It's also accepted in this area, that many of those who are hyping up the next EQ-killers are ex-EQ players that quit in frustration because a GM wouldn't spawn a mob for them, or couldn't get into the uber guild, or were banned for doing something dumb. When SWG came out, a lot of EQ'ers jumped over, got bored with the "superior game design" and came back.
As I understand it, SOE isn't letting existing EQ players appropriately migrate to EQ2. As an EQ player since beta, with multiple high-level characters and years of online play invested, there's no way I'm going to EQ2 and have to start over. I don't care of Antonia gives me a free massage with release, I picked my hamster wheel and I'm not getting on another one, and I know many fellow players who have the same opinion.
Ironically, the next generation of MMORPGs may have more realistic graphics, but the high-end players tend to turn many of these features off in favor of better in-game performance.
My prediction is that EQ2 will have the same type of impact as SWG had. People will check it out and then come back. SOE won't be able to parallel EQ's success with EQ2 and will have to either upgrade EQ to EQ2 or create a migration path from EQ to EQ2 where players aren't starting back over from the beginning. This is of course, assuming that Christopher Walken doesn't end up doing the voice of Fippy Darkpaw. That might make me change my mind.
Is it just me, or do the responses from Bush seem to be radically different from his presence on the televised debates? It's obvious Rove or someone else carefully crafted these responses.
I know that most presidents have had speechwriters, but when there's such an obvious disparity between the intellect of the president and his prepared responses, am I the only person who finds this heavily disconcerting?
Yep, if your PHP guy or host tells you that you need to turn register_globals off for security reasons, you know that the twit doesn't know how to code properly. register_globals is only a security problem for badly written code.
Bull. There's no good reason to use register globals unless you don't know how to program secure applications. There's NOTHING that can be done with register_globals on that can't be done with register_globals=off, except expose slacker, lame programmers and lame applications.
I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this I'm sure, but I contend the reality is wireless is a topology that is mostly for convenience and the convenience aspect in many cases is not worth the potential security liabilities.
Case in point: a few months ago, a business associate, who manages a lot of sensitive information for clients unpacked a nifty new wireless router and hooked it up into his network. He was a n00b and didn't install any security. He was also a lazy fuck who didn't want to run CAT5 from one room to another in his office. Some script kiddy hooked into his network and browsed all his shares and then notified him he might want to close off his network. Now all this guys' clients personal and private information has been compromised. Even if you enable encryption, do you know if your doctor or dentist or stock broker hasn't? Do you want your medical or financial records being slurped up by a guy in a Toyota Camry in the parking lot?
It's a lot easier to just tell people to not use wireless. It's better to promote the topology as highly insecure and keep the noobs from thinking that they can just unpack a router and plug it in and everything's fine.
It's one thing if the wireless is used in public areas and is open, or for travelling or within businesses for specific applications, but I continue to be against "general purpose" wireless connectivity. It's bad. It's insecure. And we can't expect stupid computer users to not leave themselves vulnerable. And the reality of the situation is we all have stupid friends who probably shouldn't even be connected to the net, that have information on their machines on us, that we don't want flowing through the airwaves.
Criminalizing "wardriving" is yet another sign that people want to pass off responsibility onto others. It's a step in the wrong direction. If a guy in a gated community wants to toss a wardriver in jail, then I want that guy to join him in the cell for being a stupid idiot, compromising himself, and all the data he may have on other people on his computer, which I consider to be a more severe crime.
People who *really* care about security don't let friends and associates use wireless.
Don't use wireless. I don't believe that using wireless in a home is wise. I don't care about protocols and encryption - there's always some vulnerability that eventually pops up in hardware or software. Why take the chance if you don't have to?
This little aspect is one sure way to find out if the guy doing your PHP is competent. There is no reason to use register_globals unless you don't care about security. If you have an application that uses this feature; if you have a subcontractor "needing" this feature, you might want to save yourself some future trouble and dump them.
I agree there can be some improvements to the voting system, but I think these issues are less significant than the more important problems plaguing the structure of power in the United States.
This may not seem obvious until you examine a country like Switzerland and their democratic process and power structure. In the U.S., we vote for a President, who in turn appoints people in charge of key areas of government: defense, transportation, agriculture, education, etc. More often than not, these appointees are not even modestly qualified to hold the positions they're given. The president doles out these assignments as rewards for those who are loyal in their service to his campaign.
In contrast, Switzerland divides the management of the government into a set of distinct areas and there is a vote for the best-qualified person for that particular specialization. This is the Federal Council and it allows the people to select the best-qualified person to manage defence, foreign affairs, communications, etc.
I have been looking at portable players, and it seems the two most popular/feature packed are the iPod and the Creative Labs models - both have 40g+ models. I'm curious if there's DRM built into them so that some mp3s from some sources may not play?
I've heard rumors that with the iPod you can only connect it to one PC. You cannot transfer mp3s using the units between PCs.
Any thoughts on what the best portable mp3 player is right now?
It doesn't bother me they're making a musical. A musical is more a homage to the original film than it is a ripoff or sequel or anything derivative. Unlike Star Wars, which has been driven into the ground and is now a mere shadow of the greatness it once was.
If you think about it, taking a sci-fi movie such as TLS to the stage will probably test the cutting edge in theatrical and lighting effects. This would be very challenging. I would love to see this just to see if they're capable of pulling it off convincingly.
As for TLS being a rip-off of Star Wars, that's BS. Star Wars is as derivative of dozens of other films that came before it. The two movies may have shared some plot similarities, but they both had their cheesy moments.
However, IMO, the cinematography in many scenes in The Last Starfighter is far better than Star Wars. The trailer park scenes were brilliantly shot. The acting and character development was superlative and nowhere near as pressured as Star Wars.
I think the two movies are really dramatically different in their approach. Star Wars whisked you off to a far-away place where you vicariously watched someone else save the world. Whereas The Last Starfighter brought the battle to Earth and make the viewer feel like it could really happen to him - it was much more realistic.
If you haven't seen The Last Starfighter in awhile, rent it and watch it again. It holds up better than the original Star Wars now.
At least they didn't beat the Last Starfighter into a bloody, over-merchandized pulp with ever-increasingly mediocre sequels. As a result, the Last Starfighter is singularly better than all the Star Wars movies combined.
Almost all spam comes from the states.. originally... they may proxy through foreign systems, but it doesn't take much effort to track down the true source of the spammers. IP spoofing doesn't work in these cases... you can track down the spammers. The problem is law enforcement authorities don't do their jobs. We don't need bounties. We need attorney generals that will enforce the laws.
Which really amazes me. Given that AGs are notorious publicity whores, someone, somewhere will finally get off their ass and put a spammer in jail and they will become a tremendous hero. This shows how un-technically-savvy most AGs are.
the FTC should launch a campaign to have people harass the State and Federal Attorney's offices all around the country to prosecute these spammers.
This is the problem. Spammers are CRIMINALS. But the Federal and State Attorney Generals are not prosecuting the cases. So spammers spit in the face of law enforcement.
It's a sad day when one branch of the government offers a bounty to get another branch of the government off their asses to enforce laws that have been on the books for decades.
Spammers break laws. Felony laws. 95% of all spammers break serious laws that could have them put in prison.
We don't need people to report spammers. All someone has to do is put an unpatched windows pc on the net for a few hours and they'll be a zombie pc and start collecting info and able to identify the spammers. In a day you can have a hundred charges of computer tampering.
Think about this come election time. We have a government that has been neutered by big business that has little concern for anything which doesn't directly affect big, multinational corporations that contribute to their campaign coffers. The apathy of the public is responsible for allowing these losers in office.
US Population 294,000,000 World population 6,000,000,000
The current US administration has alienated the rest of the planet. At current population levels, if you're a US citizen, you need to be capable of immobilizing 21 foreign citizens per person.
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As a programmer and software publisher, I can add my two cents to this situation, and I think it applies to all types of "software" including music and movies.
I had a successful software company throughout the 80s and the early 90s. We sold over 100k copies of our software (which wasn't bad for our tiny operation), and I estimate that there were at least ten to a hundred times more pirated copies in circulation. Even with the piracy, the market was plenty big to provide for us. Piracy actually helped promote our product, call attention to the company and spawn sales. We weren't happy about the piracy but we also knew that it compensated for a lack of resources to advertise on a large scale.
To increase revenue we continually improved our products and released upgrades. We also provided an ancient concept called "support" that our customers appreciated greatly.
To answer your question specifically, I don't think any "true" programmer would ever be discouraged by piracy. That's like asking a painter if he is bummed out that too many people were appreciating his art but not hanging it on their walls.
Generally speaking, profit margin in software is *enormous*. Any product worth large scale pirating will be a product that also generates substantial legitimate revenue. I suspect one reason why publishers are griping about piracy is that the quality of a lot of software today is such that it's not worth the price they're asking in the first place, and they rely on advertising and insider deals to move product, as opposed to the quality and value of the product itself.
My contention is that these days, piracy is more a form of protest than theft. Publishers are not producing products that have the same value they used to. You have companies like Quicken which shake down their customer base each year for a few hundred bucks to install a stupid tax table that should be free. That's bullshit.
The software business may be dying, but it's not dying because of piracy. It's dying because it has matured like other industries and become controlled by a small number of "mafia" publishers and distributors of inferior products who gain market share via unfair trade practices and massive ad campaigns. Those companies are compelled to fight piracy moreso to protect their dynasty and squelch competition, than they are at risk of suffering any substantive financial losses due to piracy.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer in the music industry told me the other day that Cox is one of the ISPs that coughs up subscriber information without adequate legal due dilligence. I also believe that the RIAA and other organizations are primarily targeting users of specific ISPs that are more cooperative.
If you're doing any P2P activity, you should shop around for a more responsible ISP that fights to protect their customers' privacy. Generally speaking, the cable Internet providers are much less respectful of customer privacy than the telco companies. This is why I will not use Cox or Comcast.
* Symantec has released a study showing 35% of all network traffic are viruses and worms
* RIAA claims 35% of all music people own are downloaded illegally
* SPA announces research showing 35% of all software is pirated
It's just a coincedence that Cachelogic is marketing products to control P2P traffic.
I suspect Cachelogic must also own 35% of the crack in the country because they must be smoking it if they think 35% of all network traffic is bittorrent.
What's interesting is that the non-Republican site georgewbush.org is the one that provided the documentation to the BBC on this story. They apparently had a catch-all mailbox that they discovered accumulating a ton of GOP-internal mails that were misdirected to the wrong domain!
The site goes on to document all sorts of interesting internal correspondence, including dubious intimidation tactics and sleazy fliers the GOP is encouraging religious groups hand out at services. It's very illuminating.
Let's also not forget CDC PLATO's multi-user dungeons, which pre-date BBSes.
That is entirely bass ackwards. If you don't know how to program properly, you should have register_globals turned off. If you do know how to code properly, then it doesn't matter if register_globals is off or on. Well written code is inherently immune to exploit of register_globals.
There is not a programmer on this planet that consistently writes perfect, secure code.
Your attitude is analagous to saying, "If you are always watching your front door, there's no reason to lock it." Only a fool uses reasoning like that.
But feel free to use register_globals on. I'm in favor of it. It makes it that much easier to tell the crappy developers from the quality developers, who don't take anything for granted and recognize that a web environment is ever-changing and every single point of infiltration needs to be closed wherever possible.
SOE is doing quite alright at that already.
Plat duping, rampant farming for real life cash, accounts being traded left and right (again, for cash), no customer service.
Did I forget to mention the ability to change your name for a small fee so you can buy an account, change the name on it, and then pretend it's one that you leveled up?
Or how about that since they made travel completely free that only the highest ZEM zones get played in? Kinda removed the need to explore from EQ, didn't it? Why go visit Lake Rathe or Crypt of Dalnir?
EQ died 2 years ago when the developers came out with Shadows of Luclin and started catering soley to the power-gamers and e-bayers.
Another whine-fest from a disgruntled gamer. What did you expect? A personal servant to appear when you logged in and hand you phat lewt?
I completely disagree with you on the travel issues. It's still not very easy to get around the world. They've made means to move around more easily but this is due to the necessity of facilitating group game play so that raids don't take an hour to get all the people together. No matter how big the world becomes, you're still going to have people cluster in specific areas. I'm not sure how that could really be dealt with in an ever-expanding world.
I could write a long diatribe about the issues I have with Everquest, unfortunately the points you've brought up would not be in any of such a diatribe.
The difference is that none of the EQ competitors were actually any good. AFAIK Blizzard was the first developer that didn't hide their beta behind NDAs before launch, and the public KNOWS the game is already more polished than EQ ever was.
With all due respect, what a ridiculous assertion. The game isn't even in beta. There's no way to tell how robust the game is, much less how the playable the game will be once it goes public. There's virtually nothing that's been said about WOW that wasn't hyped up to the same degree about flops such as DAOC and AO. In fact, I predict that WOW is going to choke on its own mega-hype and prove to be nothing special.
Look, I have no reason to defend EQ. I think the game does indeed have its problems. I've been designing and playing online RPGs since before there were PCs (pre-internet, on systems such as CDC's PLATO and earlier).
WOW may turn out good, but to date, nobody has been able to do what Verant originally did with EQ. It is light years ahead of all other MMORPGs, to the point where the world of Everquest has inherited a host of real-life-type problems that are more the result of its success than the game design. WOW could only hope to have the problems Everquest has.
That notwithstanding, I do think there are some killer-MMORPGs out there, but WOW is *not it*. SWG's engine shows more long-term potential than WOW. However, I share the tech public's general consensus that big corporations, or George Lucas have any clue and can make the most out of that property, so something else will come along, but it's not going to be WOW IMO. Feel free to save this message and prove me wrong later, but I doubt I'm wrong about this. The next MMORPG will most certainly NOT be based around the same, tired, boring medieval theme.
It seems every few months there's another buzz about the next big MMORPG destroying Everquest. This was said about AO, SWG and DAOC and of course WOW. So far, none of EQ's competitors have lived up to the hype. I don't expect WOW to be any different.
In fact, I don't expect EQ2 to be an Everquest killer either, even though it is supposedly the "next generation."
This reminds me of all the hype about so-called "superior products" that never caught on, from NeXT to the Betamax. It's more than just higher-resolution or more features. If you don't have a robust community that rallies around your new product, it doesn't matter how "superior" it may be.
It's also accepted in this area, that many of those who are hyping up the next EQ-killers are ex-EQ players that quit in frustration because a GM wouldn't spawn a mob for them, or couldn't get into the uber guild, or were banned for doing something dumb. When SWG came out, a lot of EQ'ers jumped over, got bored with the "superior game design" and came back.
As I understand it, SOE isn't letting existing EQ players appropriately migrate to EQ2. As an EQ player since beta, with multiple high-level characters and years of online play invested, there's no way I'm going to EQ2 and have to start over. I don't care of Antonia gives me a free massage with release, I picked my hamster wheel and I'm not getting on another one, and I know many fellow players who have the same opinion.
Ironically, the next generation of MMORPGs may have more realistic graphics, but the high-end players tend to turn many of these features off in favor of better in-game performance.
My prediction is that EQ2 will have the same type of impact as SWG had. People will check it out and then come back. SOE won't be able to parallel EQ's success with EQ2 and will have to either upgrade EQ to EQ2 or create a migration path from EQ to EQ2 where players aren't starting back over from the beginning. This is of course, assuming that Christopher Walken doesn't end up doing the voice of Fippy Darkpaw. That might make me change my mind.
Is it just me, or do the responses from Bush seem to be radically different from his presence on the televised debates? It's obvious Rove or someone else carefully crafted these responses.
I know that most presidents have had speechwriters, but when there's such an obvious disparity between the intellect of the president and his prepared responses, am I the only person who finds this heavily disconcerting?
Yep, if your PHP guy or host tells you that you need to turn register_globals off for security reasons, you know that the twit doesn't know how to code properly. register_globals is only a security problem for badly written code.
Bull. There's no good reason to use register globals unless you don't know how to program secure applications. There's NOTHING that can be done with register_globals on that can't be done with register_globals=off, except expose slacker, lame programmers and lame applications.
I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this I'm sure, but I contend the reality is wireless is a topology that is mostly for convenience and the convenience aspect in many cases is not worth the potential security liabilities.
Case in point: a few months ago, a business associate, who manages a lot of sensitive information for clients unpacked a nifty new wireless router and hooked it up into his network. He was a n00b and didn't install any security. He was also a lazy fuck who didn't want to run CAT5 from one room to another in his office. Some script kiddy hooked into his network and browsed all his shares and then notified him he might want to close off his network. Now all this guys' clients personal and private information has been compromised. Even if you enable encryption, do you know if your doctor or dentist or stock broker hasn't? Do you want your medical or financial records being slurped up by a guy in a Toyota Camry in the parking lot?
It's a lot easier to just tell people to not use wireless. It's better to promote the topology as highly insecure and keep the noobs from thinking that they can just unpack a router and plug it in and everything's fine.
It's one thing if the wireless is used in public areas and is open, or for travelling or within businesses for specific applications, but I continue to be against "general purpose" wireless connectivity. It's bad. It's insecure. And we can't expect stupid computer users to not leave themselves vulnerable. And the reality of the situation is we all have stupid friends who probably shouldn't even be connected to the net, that have information on their machines on us, that we don't want flowing through the airwaves.
Criminalizing "wardriving" is yet another sign that people want to pass off responsibility onto others. It's a step in the wrong direction. If a guy in a gated community wants to toss a wardriver in jail, then I want that guy to join him in the cell for being a stupid idiot, compromising himself, and all the data he may have on other people on his computer, which I consider to be a more severe crime.
People who *really* care about security don't let friends and associates use wireless.
Don't use wireless. I don't believe that using wireless in a home is wise. I don't care about protocols and encryption - there's always some vulnerability that eventually pops up in hardware or software. Why take the chance if you don't have to?
This little aspect is one sure way to find out if the guy doing your PHP is competent. There is no reason to use register_globals unless you don't care about security. If you have an application that uses this feature; if you have a subcontractor "needing" this feature, you might want to save yourself some future trouble and dump them.
I agree there can be some improvements to the voting system, but I think these issues are less significant than the more important problems plaguing the structure of power in the United States.
This may not seem obvious until you examine a country like Switzerland and their democratic process and power structure. In the U.S., we vote for a President, who in turn appoints people in charge of key areas of government: defense, transportation, agriculture, education, etc. More often than not, these appointees are not even modestly qualified to hold the positions they're given. The president doles out these assignments as rewards for those who are loyal in their service to his campaign.
In contrast, Switzerland divides the management of the government into a set of distinct areas and there is a vote for the best-qualified person for that particular specialization. This is the Federal Council and it allows the people to select the best-qualified person to manage defence, foreign affairs, communications, etc.
This isn't a troll. Bunch of SW sycophants here. Have an open mind and don't impulsively moderate please.
I'd rather see more of these things applied to infants.
I vote for dogs.
I have been looking at portable players, and it seems the two most popular/feature packed are the iPod and the Creative Labs models - both have 40g+ models. I'm curious if there's DRM built into them so that some mp3s from some sources may not play?
I've heard rumors that with the iPod you can only connect it to one PC. You cannot transfer mp3s using the units between PCs.
Any thoughts on what the best portable mp3 player is right now?
It doesn't bother me they're making a musical. A musical is more a homage to the original film than it is a ripoff or sequel or anything derivative. Unlike Star Wars, which has been driven into the ground and is now a mere shadow of the greatness it once was.
If you think about it, taking a sci-fi movie such as TLS to the stage will probably test the cutting edge in theatrical and lighting effects. This would be very challenging. I would love to see this just to see if they're capable of pulling it off convincingly.
As for TLS being a rip-off of Star Wars, that's BS. Star Wars is as derivative of dozens of other films that came before it. The two movies may have shared some plot similarities, but they both had their cheesy moments.
However, IMO, the cinematography in many scenes in The Last Starfighter is far better than Star Wars. The trailer park scenes were brilliantly shot. The acting and character development was superlative and nowhere near as pressured as Star Wars.
I think the two movies are really dramatically different in their approach. Star Wars whisked you off to a far-away place where you vicariously watched someone else save the world. Whereas The Last Starfighter brought the battle to Earth and make the viewer feel like it could really happen to him - it was much more realistic.
If you haven't seen The Last Starfighter in awhile, rent it and watch it again. It holds up better than the original Star Wars now.
At least they didn't beat the Last Starfighter into a bloody, over-merchandized pulp with ever-increasingly mediocre sequels. As a result, the Last Starfighter is singularly better than all the Star Wars movies combined.
I recommend BSAlert.com - it covers politics and a lot of corporate society issues that seem to have gone horribly wrong.
Almost all spam comes from the states.. originally... they may proxy through foreign systems, but it doesn't take much effort to track down the true source of the spammers. IP spoofing doesn't work in these cases... you can track down the spammers. The problem is law enforcement authorities don't do their jobs. We don't need bounties. We need attorney generals that will enforce the laws.
Which really amazes me. Given that AGs are notorious publicity whores, someone, somewhere will finally get off their ass and put a spammer in jail and they will become a tremendous hero. This shows how un-technically-savvy most AGs are.
mod this up
the FTC should launch a campaign to have people harass the State and Federal Attorney's offices all around the country to prosecute these spammers.
This is the problem. Spammers are CRIMINALS. But the Federal and State Attorney Generals are not prosecuting the cases. So spammers spit in the face of law enforcement.
It's all about enforcement.
It's a sad day when one branch of the government offers a bounty to get another branch of the government off their asses to enforce laws that have been on the books for decades.
Spammers break laws. Felony laws. 95% of all spammers break serious laws that could have them put in prison.
We don't need people to report spammers. All someone has to do is put an unpatched windows pc on the net for a few hours and they'll be a zombie pc and start collecting info and able to identify the spammers. In a day you can have a hundred charges of computer tampering.
Think about this come election time. We have a government that has been neutered by big business that has little concern for anything which doesn't directly affect big, multinational corporations that contribute to their campaign coffers. The apathy of the public is responsible for allowing these losers in office.
US Population 294,000,000
World population 6,000,000,000
The current US administration has alienated the rest of the planet. At current population levels, if you're a US citizen, you need to be capable of immobilizing 21 foreign citizens per person.
Good luck.