Actually, the movie is going to end at the Grey Havens with Frodo's departure from Middle Earth. This from Phillipa Boyans. Also very strong hints from other sources that Elanor is going to be included.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice troll. Two points for making people think you're serious, and a bonus five points for getting otherwise sane people to agree with you.
So, it's because then we'll all buy the SE DVD, and they'll make more money.
Since the books weren't written with a movie in mind, they don't have cinematic pacing. Originally this scene was supposed to be at the end of TTT (as in the books). But a seven minute anti-climax to Helm's Deep was too much. So it was postponed to ROTK. But it doesn't work at the beginning of ROTK either, according to Jackson, even though they did their best to fit it in. Remember, Jackson is making a movie, not a narrative with a bunch of actors sitting around reading the LOTR verbatum.
They'll still have to put in some way for Merry and Pippin to get together with Gandalf and Theoden. Perhaps a brief bit at Isengard will still be there, just with Treebeard instead of Saruman.
A nation that can make booze and blow jobs illegal can do ANYTHING.
Hmmm, what's holding Canada back, I wonder? After all, it had those same laws in the past, same as the US. Or what about Germany? Surely a nation that can tell people what exact ingredients they must use in beer can do ANYTHING?
'We haven't talked to a single user who has said they're using [open source] because it's better.'
Maybe if they got out of their fishbowl offices, they might actually have an opportunity to talk to people.
I use FreeBSD because it's better than Windows. I use KDE because it's a better desktop than the Windows desktop. I use Konqueror, Opera and Mozilla because they're all better than Internet Explorer. I use OpenOffice and TextMaker because they're better than MSOffice.
I'm not saying that these products are perfect. They're far from perfect. But at least they don't strive for the mediocrity that Microsoft products do.
It had a spring. Wound by motion. And no funny motions either, just the normal swinging of the arm while walking was sufficient. So it was indeed a motion powered watch.
Seiko has a watch that runs based on your arm motions.
Whatever will they think of next? Now excuse me while I put on my grandfather's watch, which is still ticking away after seventy five years, despite the fact that there is no way to wind it.
Sorry, I was trying to be brief. What I meant was that the employees and owners of a corporation have no liability for actions taken by the corporation. The corporation might be fined, the stock prices might plummet, etc., but the owners (stockholders) are never responsible.
Besides being a shield that corporations can hide behind, it's also a huge monkey-wrench in the workings of the marketplace. The owners have become mere investors, throwing all ownership responsibilities into the ether.
Second, individuals depend on their investments in corporations. There is no other dependable investment vehicle with that kind of return.
In my opinion, the price for that convenience is way too high. There are other ways of providing "dependable" investments. I am not arguing for the abolition of corporations, merely for the abolition of the laws that shield them from liability.
First, corporations can protect themselves from liability the exact same way private businesses do: insurance and bonding. They don't need to parcel off their ownership to do it. Yes, this will cost corporations. Frankly, I feel it's time they got back in the marketplace and compete with private businesses on an equal basis.
Second, stocks as investments have numerous disadvantages without an appropriate balance of advantages. Stocks decouple the performance of a company from its price. This leads to people investing in meaningless stock prices, rather than in the actual companies. The recent dot.bomb crash is a good example. A company could be performing extremely poorly, yet still be a good stock investment. No one back then cared if the companies were producing goods, earning profits, or even generating revenue. They were all essentially buying stock *prices*. That's stupid, IMO.
Of course, sensible investors are going to invest based on company performance, and the stock boom of the late 90's was an aberration. But it wasn't an unusual aberration.
Public stocks are convenient for the company and the investor. Too convenient, IMHO. If a company isn't willing to go into debt to raise working capital (bonds), maybe it should consider postponing its expansion rather than selling off its ownership at a discount. If an investor isn't willing to assume responsibility for corporate ownership, then maybe that investor should look at something other than stocks.
No, it won't be convenient. And it won't be nearly as dependable. Big fat hairy deal. There are bigger things at stake then mere convenience. In the meantime though, we don't have much of a choice but to invest in publicly traded stocks, because sensible investments have been driven out of the marketplace by corporatism.
There is one thing that is going to get Linux on the desktop, and one thing only.
Actually, it depends on what you mean by "desktop". Linux is already being used on thousands of desktops, so it's certainly ready. Linux has a long ways to go before it's ready for your Grandma to use, but it's ready right now for lots of people.
It's ready for the corporate desktop. You don't have to worry about installation and configuration when you have an IT department trained to do it. It's ready for the power users and developers desktops. Some distros are ready for the moderately technical users desktop.
Heck, if all your Grandma needs is email and web browsing, a Walmart Lindows system is ready for her, if you first direct her to a cluefull ISP.
So you're saying if Cerious Software went out of business and you lost your Thumbs Plus CD, you would stop using computers all together? That sounds a little extreme to me.
But maybe not all that unusual. I know one company that still using Windows 3.1 because of some "must have" software. They have no idea what they will do when their aging systems finally die. Sounds like a good warning to never let yourself be tied down by any one piece of software, no matter how useful.
Just put kicker up on the top of the screen, like where GNOME has its panel, and it will be "different enough" that the problem is solved.
Heck, if it's really a valid concern, then don't use Ximian either, use Windowmaker. Let's make it look so unlike Windows that no one can possible confuse a "K" for the start button. Let's take all the icons off the desktop while we're at it, and ban menu and tool bars.
No gcc, no including twelve different versions of AWK
Why not? Linux is still a unix (small 'u') underneath. Certain things are expected. Among these are a C compiler, grep, sed, and awk. Although you certainly don't need twelve versions of awk, you still need one, because there will be some scripts that use it. Ditto for the newbie-hostile sed. And you need gcc (and Perl, Python and Ruby), because some of those AOL-ish CDs are going to be hitting the mailboxes of Windows developers.
The first desktops where Linux will make a beachhead will be the corporate desktop. That's where you will have IT personnel with half a clue. They just might want to see the presence of gcc and awk. You're grandma won't care, but you grandma is probably not be the typical user.
An knoppix-like CD would lose much of its utility if it couldn't be used as a rescue CD.
If there's not enough room on the CD then you can start leaving out the development tools. But don't leave them out just because you don't like them.
Liability and Accountability are good places to start:
You know, you could shorten your list considerably by focusing on the problem rather than the symptoms.
Corporations have no liability or accountability because governments have absolved them of it. Corporations are artificial entities created by government. The owners (stockholders) are not liable for what the corporation does, and have been demoted to mere investors.
You mean the internet isn't faster with an Intel CPU?
A friend of mine using a CheapAss(tm) cable ISP saw me downloading an ISO image over my mom-n-pop DSL ISP, and I was getting twice the speeds he was. This was totally against the hype/FUD/marketing he had been fed regarding DSL vs cable. So I told him it was because I was using Intel while he was using AMD. He bought it!
I didn't mention "free" markets in my post, though I am 100% in favor of them. Market forces still continue to work despite government efforts to gum up the works. You artifically cap a price and you get shortages. On the other side, you put an artificial floor on prices, and the customers won't be buying despite the huge supply.
Ultimately, the customer/consumer/client is totally in charge. If union labor is overpriced due to government interference, you'll find that fewer and fewer people will use union labor, to the point that a "black market" in labor may arise. I used to participate in this black market, so I know it exists.
But most of the "overpaid" jobs listed in the article was stuff without artificial government pricing, like professional athletes and wedding photographers.
Is someone being overpaid? If you're the one paying them (customer, client), then stop. It just makes you look like a hypocrite when you whine. And if you're not the one paying them (directly, indirectly, through taxes), it's none of your business.
Wages are prices, and despite the pseudo-economics the media dumps at you on a continual basis, prices are based solely on what the buyer and seller can agree on. While the prices for wedding photographers may seem rather steep to you (and me), the fact that they're charging so much means that the average couple is willing to pay those prices. Supply and demand doesn't determine prices. Labor doesn't determine prices. The only things that sets prices are what the seller is willing to take and what the buyer is willing to give.
Let's take a look at professional athletes. They charge a lot for their "services" because the teams are willing to pay for them. If the teams weren't willing to pay, the stars would either have to lower their prices, or not get signed on. If the prices were too high, they would stop signing on stars. Second, advertisers and fans are willing to help pick up the tab by advertising the games or attending the events.
The "justice" of the pricing has nothing to do with it. Is it fair that quarterbacks get paid more than teachers? Apparently, the population in aggregate seems to think so, because it's the population in aggregate that's paying those skewed wages. And you're part of that aggregate. When's the last time you sent your kids off to school with tip money for the teacher?
That's not history! Not only is in grossly incomplete for the period of time it covers, it only encompasses about a third of the timeline. What about CGA, EGA and the original VGA? What about the Hercules? What gave rise to the incompatible SVGA specs? What was the first accelerated 2D card? And don't forget the Mac and Amiga!
By some strange quirk of fate, most felons are black and male. I'm not being racist, that's just the way it is. There are many reasons for this, but not among them is a conspiracy to manipulate elections.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the movie is going to end at the Grey Havens with Frodo's departure from Middle Earth. This from Phillipa Boyans. Also very strong hints from other sources that Elanor is going to be included.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice troll. Two points for making people think you're serious, and a bonus five points for getting otherwise sane people to agree with you.
So, it's because then we'll all buy the SE DVD, and they'll make more money.
Since the books weren't written with a movie in mind, they don't have cinematic pacing. Originally this scene was supposed to be at the end of TTT (as in the books). But a seven minute anti-climax to Helm's Deep was too much. So it was postponed to ROTK. But it doesn't work at the beginning of ROTK either, according to Jackson, even though they did their best to fit it in. Remember, Jackson is making a movie, not a narrative with a bunch of actors sitting around reading the LOTR verbatum.
They'll still have to put in some way for Merry and Pippin to get together with Gandalf and Theoden. Perhaps a brief bit at Isengard will still be there, just with Treebeard instead of Saruman.
Stayed away from the 2nd SE
That's not too difficult to do, since it's not even out yet!
but it won't be libre (i.e. Free Speech) until they let users modify and share the source.
They don't let people distribute it either, but it happens anyway...
A nation that can make booze and blow jobs illegal can do ANYTHING.
Hmmm, what's holding Canada back, I wonder? After all, it had those same laws in the past, same as the US. Or what about Germany? Surely a nation that can tell people what exact ingredients they must use in beer can do ANYTHING?
'We haven't talked to a single user who has said they're using [open source] because it's better.'
Maybe if they got out of their fishbowl offices, they might actually have an opportunity to talk to people.
I use FreeBSD because it's better than Windows. I use KDE because it's a better desktop than the Windows desktop. I use Konqueror, Opera and Mozilla because they're all better than Internet Explorer. I use OpenOffice and TextMaker because they're better than MSOffice.
I'm not saying that these products are perfect. They're far from perfect. But at least they don't strive for the mediocrity that Microsoft products do.
It had a spring. Wound by motion. And no funny motions either, just the normal swinging of the arm while walking was sufficient. So it was indeed a motion powered watch.
I think you've just proven the point. Now go away all smuggly, while the rest of us laugh behind your back.
they dont even use Gnomecompliant Software
Who gives a rat's ass? I mean seriously. Get a life!
When the roads are too wet they can fail though, due to reduced friction.
They also fail when you're stopped at a signal...
Seiko has a watch that runs based on your arm motions.
Whatever will they think of next? Now excuse me while I put on my grandfather's watch, which is still ticking away after seventy five years, despite the fact that there is no way to wind it.
Sorry, I was trying to be brief. What I meant was that the employees and owners of a corporation have no liability for actions taken by the corporation. The corporation might be fined, the stock prices might plummet, etc., but the owners (stockholders) are never responsible.
Besides being a shield that corporations can hide behind, it's also a huge monkey-wrench in the workings of the marketplace. The owners have become mere investors, throwing all ownership responsibilities into the ether.
Second, individuals depend on their investments in corporations. There is no other dependable investment vehicle with that kind of return.
In my opinion, the price for that convenience is way too high. There are other ways of providing
"dependable" investments. I am not arguing for the abolition of corporations, merely for the abolition of the laws that shield them from liability.
First, corporations can protect themselves from liability the exact same way private businesses do: insurance and bonding. They don't need to parcel off their ownership to do it. Yes, this will cost corporations. Frankly, I feel it's time they got back in the marketplace and compete with private businesses on an equal basis.
Second, stocks as investments have numerous disadvantages without an appropriate balance of advantages. Stocks decouple the performance of a company from its price. This leads to people investing in meaningless stock prices, rather than in the actual companies. The recent dot.bomb crash is a good example. A company could be performing extremely poorly, yet still be a good stock investment. No one back then cared if the companies were producing goods, earning profits, or even generating revenue. They were all essentially buying stock *prices*. That's stupid, IMO.
Of course, sensible investors are going to invest based on company performance, and the stock boom of the late 90's was an aberration. But it wasn't an unusual aberration.
Public stocks are convenient for the company and the investor. Too convenient, IMHO. If a company isn't willing to go into debt to raise working capital (bonds), maybe it should consider postponing its expansion rather than selling off its ownership at a discount. If an investor isn't willing to assume responsibility for corporate ownership, then maybe that investor should look at something other than stocks.
No, it won't be convenient. And it won't be nearly as dependable. Big fat hairy deal. There are bigger things at stake then mere convenience. In the meantime though, we don't have much of a choice but to invest in publicly traded stocks, because sensible investments have been driven out of the marketplace by corporatism.
There is one thing that is going to get Linux on the desktop, and one thing only.
Actually, it depends on what you mean by "desktop". Linux is already being used on thousands of desktops, so it's certainly ready. Linux has a long ways to go before it's ready for your Grandma to use, but it's ready right now for lots of people.
It's ready for the corporate desktop. You don't have to worry about installation and configuration when you have an IT department trained to do it. It's ready for the power users and developers desktops. Some distros are ready for the moderately technical users desktop.
Heck, if all your Grandma needs is email and web browsing, a Walmart Lindows system is ready for her, if you first direct her to a cluefull ISP.
So you're saying if Cerious Software went out of business and you lost your Thumbs Plus CD, you would stop using computers all together? That sounds a little extreme to me.
But maybe not all that unusual. I know one company that still using Windows 3.1 because of some "must have" software. They have no idea what they will do when their aging systems finally die. Sounds like a good warning to never let yourself be tied down by any one piece of software, no matter how useful.
Just put kicker up on the top of the screen, like where GNOME has its panel, and it will be "different enough" that the problem is solved.
Heck, if it's really a valid concern, then don't use Ximian either, use Windowmaker. Let's make it look so unlike Windows that no one can possible confuse a "K" for the start button. Let's take all the icons off the desktop while we're at it, and ban menu and tool bars.
No gcc, no including twelve different versions of AWK
Why not? Linux is still a unix (small 'u') underneath. Certain things are expected. Among these are a C compiler, grep, sed, and awk. Although you certainly don't need twelve versions of awk, you still need one, because there will be some scripts that use it. Ditto for the newbie-hostile sed. And you need gcc (and Perl, Python and Ruby), because some of those AOL-ish CDs are going to be hitting the mailboxes of Windows developers.
The first desktops where Linux will make a beachhead will be the corporate desktop. That's where you will have IT personnel with half a clue. They just might want to see the presence of gcc and awk. You're grandma won't care, but you grandma is probably not be the typical user.
An knoppix-like CD would lose much of its utility if it couldn't be used as a rescue CD.
If there's not enough room on the CD then you can start leaving out the development tools. But don't leave them out just because you don't like them.
Liability and Accountability are good places to start:
You know, you could shorten your list considerably by focusing on the problem rather than the symptoms.
Corporations have no liability or accountability because governments have absolved them of it. Corporations are artificial entities created by government. The owners (stockholders) are not liable for what the corporation does, and have been demoted to mere investors.
Well, government workers are all overpaid anyway. I thought that was a given.
You mean the internet isn't faster with an Intel CPU?
A friend of mine using a CheapAss(tm) cable ISP saw me downloading an ISO image over my mom-n-pop DSL ISP, and I was getting twice the speeds he was. This was totally against the hype/FUD/marketing he had been fed regarding DSL vs cable. So I told him it was because I was using Intel while he was using AMD. He bought it!
I didn't mention "free" markets in my post, though I am 100% in favor of them. Market forces still continue to work despite government efforts to gum up the works. You artifically cap a price and you get shortages. On the other side, you put an artificial floor on prices, and the customers won't be buying despite the huge supply.
Ultimately, the customer/consumer/client is totally in charge. If union labor is overpriced due to government interference, you'll find that fewer and fewer people will use union labor, to the point that a "black market" in labor may arise. I used to participate in this black market, so I know it exists.
But most of the "overpaid" jobs listed in the article was stuff without artificial government pricing, like professional athletes and wedding photographers.
Is someone being overpaid? If you're the one paying them (customer, client), then stop. It just makes you look like a hypocrite when you whine. And if you're not the one paying them (directly, indirectly, through taxes), it's none of your business.
Wages are prices, and despite the pseudo-economics the media dumps at you on a continual basis, prices are based solely on what the buyer and seller can agree on. While the prices for wedding photographers may seem rather steep to you (and me), the fact that they're charging so much means that the average couple is willing to pay those prices. Supply and demand doesn't determine prices. Labor doesn't determine prices. The only things that sets prices are what the seller is willing to take and what the buyer is willing to give.
Let's take a look at professional athletes. They charge a lot for their "services" because the teams are willing to pay for them. If the teams weren't willing to pay, the stars would either have to lower their prices, or not get signed on. If the prices were too high, they would stop signing on stars. Second, advertisers and fans are willing to help pick up the tab by advertising the games or attending the events.
The "justice" of the pricing has nothing to do with it. Is it fair that quarterbacks get paid more than teachers? Apparently, the population in aggregate seems to think so, because it's the population in aggregate that's paying those skewed wages. And you're part of that aggregate. When's the last time you sent your kids off to school with tip money for the teacher?
I note that this history starts in 1996 ... almost fifteen years after the first video card for the PC.
That's not history! Not only is in grossly incomplete for the period of time it covers, it only encompasses about a third of the timeline. What about CGA, EGA and the original VGA? What about the Hercules? What gave rise to the incompatible SVGA specs? What was the first accelerated 2D card? And don't forget the Mac and Amiga!
These people where overwhelmingly black and male.
By some strange quirk of fate, most felons are black and male. I'm not being racist, that's just the way it is. There are many reasons for this, but not among them is a conspiracy to manipulate elections.