"As studies show, and many women will attest, men tend to misinterpret innocent friendliness as a sign that women are sexually interested in them. Dr Haselton and Dr Buss reasoned that men who are trying to decide if a woman is interested sexually can err in one of two ways. They can mistakenly believe that she is not interested, in which case they will not bother trying to have sex with her; or they can mistakenly believe she is interested, try, and be rejected. From an evolutionary standpoint, trying and being rejected comes at little cost, except for hurt feelings. Not trying at all, by contrast, may mean the loss of an opportunity to, among other things, spread one's DNA."
Supposedly the slashsdot effect is to blame:
"Nothing bad happened really until after midnight on Saturday," said Michael Newman, deputy editorial page editor. At 8:32 p.m. Saturday, a posting on www.Slashdot.org, which bills itself as "news for nerds," directed readers to the Times wikitorial.
"Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious," Mr. Newman said. "We were taking stuff down as soon as it went up and staving them off. Finally we had to go to bed. Someone called the newsroom a little bit before 4 a.m. and said there's something bad on your Web site, and so we just took the whole site down."
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times ran the numbers and wrote an article suggesting that figure was a fantasy that has been repeated for years without any fact-checking.
Doesn't work for possible 51st states such as Canada, Puerto Rico, England or the UK. And not all "real" states it seems: New York instead gives "local results".
(If you just search for the state name you get "news briefs" for the state.)
I just noticed this today, don't know how long this has been.
What makes you say that no Hollywood film makes a profit?
Besides the the sarcasm he probably intended?
Here are some various and recent articles on (not) making money in Hollywood.
They're not all related to (lack) of profit, but all at mention in different
ways where all the money comes from and where it goes.
First three by Leonard Klady, who writes for moviecitynews.com:
"In 1984, when Eisner took command, the
"Mouse House" produced only one animated picture every three to five years.
Its entire film library had only 158 features, and its single cable channel,
the Disney Channel, lost money. In addition, Disney had virtually no income
from sales of videos. To keep afloat, the company depended on its amusement
parks and its Mickey Mouse licensing. Yet even with these assets Disney had a
tax-free cash flow of just $100 million. Its share price, reflecting this
precarious financial position, was $1.33 (adjusted for splits).
In 2005, Disney was one of the richest companies in America. Its enterprise
value--Wall street's favored measure of an entertainment company--had
increased 32-fold since 1984 and stood at $69 billion."
And can a slashdot posting be complete without porn?
How much money did perhaps the most famous porn movie of all time, Deep Throat (1972),
gross? The documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005)
claims that it that it is the most profitable picture ever made, and that it has grossed $600 million.
Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times disputes this, using the technical term
"baloney". This set off a number of responses back and forth between Hiltzik
and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who wrote, co-produced and directed the
documentary.
As quoted in this Salon.com article
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refers to himself as a lawyer:
In a speech last month in New Orleans, Scalia contrasted his easy ride to confirmation with the tough sledding some of Bush's nominees have faced. "Eighteen years ago, I was confirmed 98-0," Scalia said. "I was considered a good lawyer and an honest man. Those qualities carried the day."
18 years ago
Scalia was a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (since 1982), becoming a Supreme Court Justice in September 1986.
What will be the next great improvement in search technology?
Uhm, uhm... I want to improve Google by adding
whois
currency conversion (the default should be to convert into US dollars, or perhaps the currency of the country of your own domain)
grouping of site results (i.e. if you use site:foo.com) by sub-domains (site:google.com gives you a hodge-podge of answers.google.com, directory.google.com, www.google.com and so on) and usenet searches (groups.google.com) by groups. (Please, please, please don't let the next generation of Google Groups end up looking anything like groups-beta.google.com)
the option of never, ever displaying any page available in Froogle in normal searches.
Also, I want to find that darn geek porn site again. (As in nekkid girls, not hardware.)
When I go to amazon.com, there's an image at the top I havn't seen before, when I click it, I'm told that
since you've been using A9.com recently, virtually everything at Amazon.com is automatically an additional n/2% (1.57%) off for you. (...)
We don't advertise this additional discount that we give in exchange for using A9.com, so if you want your friends to know about it, please tell them. It is probably the only way they'll find out. All they have to do is use A9.com as their regular search engine.
In this case "we" have the Microsoft source. If someone says that code was lifted,
"we" can point to the two code sets (one leaked, one free) and show that it's completely different.
SCO is more like "You took something that belongs to us"
What?
"We're not telling, but you better give us loads of moolah."
One problem would possibly be un- or sub-conscious copying (not sure what
the difference is, not sure which is the correct term).
Under a list of protected pages, the Lunokhod program
page is listed because page was listed on a/. story 26 minutes ago, has already been vandalized half a dozen times including insertion of goatsex links. Pakaran. 23:06, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
English-language translation of the judgement
on
DVD-Jon Completely Clear
·
· Score: 2, Informative
An English-language translation of the judgement is now available. Here is direct link to the MS Word file.
The translation is by Jon Bing, who also translated the judgement of the first instance court.
Note that footnote 9 is somewhat wrong. He seems to be confusing civil cases with criminal cases; in civil cases the parties may in some instances choose whether or not lay judges are to hear the case. (In civil cases the default is only professional judges.)
I don't understand the purpose of footnote 11, but it should probably read "That is 88,000,000".
The most Talking Heads-like pop single of this past year was a Justin Timberlake song
Which song is that? I really like the Talking Heads. I didn't really like
N'Sync. I like some of Justin's singles. I really like "Rock Your Body", i like "Like I Love You" and
"Senorita". "Cry Me a River" is awful. "I'm Loving It" is almost awful or might not be; but I
really like the McDonald's song of the same name (and some of the girls in the
commercials). (I haven't heard enough of the Justin song to know if the McDonald's is a cover of some sorts).
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
Would this be a good gift for a math geek? Is there a lot of interesting math in it, or is math just a minor character?
According to Amazon, the book description claims that the book deals with an exclusive group of audacious MIT math geniuses who legally took the casinos for over three million dollars.
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
Would this be a good gift for a math geek? Is there a lot of interesting math in it, or is math just a minor character?
According to Amazon, the book description claims that the book deals with an exclusive group of audacious MIT math geniuses who legally took the casinos for over three million dollars.
The verdict was expected in January, but was announced today in the papers.
No, the verdict was expected TODAY at 1 p.m. This was stated by chief judge Wenche Skjaeggestad (for some reason Slashdot seems to insist on replacing the correct letter with "ae") on the very last day of the trial. She also stated that she was somewhat surprised to have read in the papers that the verdict was expected in mid-January. Why the Norwegian press has stuck to this erroneous report I have no idea.
Why does the press always uncritically report that DeCSS "cracks DVD copy
protection codes"? It is clear that CSS is about preventing changes to
region coding and the extraction of media. It doesn't prevent copying of
the original DVD in any way, shape or form.
From what I understand if you try to copy a CSS-encoded DVD with a regular
burner and regular file copy command, you will NOT gain access to the CSS
keys, so you will NOT end up with a playable copy of the film. So while
you may have a copy, there is not much to do with it.
Producers of programs that get around this seem to get
sued.
The prosecution demonstrated this during the appeals trial. First they showed a
short clip of The Matrix played through a licensed DVD software program on
a portable computer. Then they attempted show the movie files copied from
the Matrix disk, with some other player. The result was mostly a black
screen.
The prosecution DID NOT demonstrate how DeCSS works...
Slashdot Mirror
Don't misunderestimate yourself: Why people think that rivals are better looking than they really are http://nomadlife.org/2006/11/dont-misunderestimate-yourself.aspx
(pirated from The Economist, November 2006)
Conclusion: In order to avoid hurt feelings, cute girls should never smile.
What?! You don't follow the Gospel of Andy?
(From The Economist print edition August 18th 2005)
Click me!
Supposedly the slashsdot effect is to blame: "Nothing bad happened really until after midnight on Saturday," said Michael Newman, deputy editorial page editor. At 8:32 p.m. Saturday, a posting on www.Slashdot.org, which bills itself as "news for nerds," directed readers to the Times wikitorial.
"Slashdot has a tech-savvy audience that, to be kind, is mischievous and to be not so kind, is malicious," Mr. Newman said. "We were taking stuff down as soon as it went up and staving them off. Finally we had to go to bed. Someone called the newsroom a little bit before 4 a.m. and said there's something bad on your Web site, and so we just took the whole site down."
Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la- wiki-splash,0,1349109.story
See:
Initial Hiltzik column: 'Deep Throat' Numbers Just Don't Add Up
Bailey and Barbato (directors, writers, producers of Inside Deep Throat): More Numbers for 'Deep Throat'
a somewhat longer version of their response: 'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery
Hiltzik then asked them to answer twelve questions which resulted in this column:
Hiltzik: Bad 'Deep Throat' Revenue Numbers Are Multiplying
Ebert also covered Inside Deep Throat in an earlier Movie Answer Man column:
February 20, 2005
"Handbag Studio". Bevery Hills.
Thomas Keneally tells how he stumbled on the story that became Schindler's List
What the... "To confirm you're not a script, please type the text shown in this image"
haven't seen that before
If you Google for state name + constitution, you'll get a result like this:
California
Constitution: 31st State
According to http://www.50states.com/californ.htm
Doesn't work for possible 51st states such as Canada, Puerto Rico, England or the UK. And not all "real" states it seems: New York instead gives "local results". (If you just search for the state name you get "news briefs" for the state.) I just noticed this today, don't know how long this has been.
Besides the the sarcasm he probably intended?
Here are some various and recent articles on (not) making money in Hollywood. They're not all related to (lack) of profit, but all at mention in different ways where all the money comes from and where it goes.
First three by Leonard Klady, who writes for moviecitynews.com:
Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics... (the average cost to produce and market a major Hollywood studio picture is $98 million) ...
(this one goes gets around to showing how a blockbuster movie might never break even)
Profits of Doom
In Praise of Popcorn...
Then three from Slate, all written by Edward Jay Epstein:
Concessions Are for Girlie Men: Arnold Schwarzenegger's absurdly advantageous contract for Terminator 3 (a brand new article on a movie released in 2003)
How Did Michael Eisner Make Disney Profitable? Not with cartoons. (
)
How To Finance a Hollywood Blockbuster. Start with a German tax shelter; How NOT To Make Any Money On A Hollywood Blockbuster, a comment on the article written by David Poland, editor of moviecitynews.com, who finds it interesting but is not impressed by its accuracy.
And can a slashdot posting be complete without porn?
How much money did perhaps the most famous porn movie of all time, Deep Throat (1972), gross? The documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005) claims that it that it is the most profitable picture ever made, and that it has grossed $600 million.
Michael Hiltzik of The Los Angeles Times disputes this, using the technical term "baloney". This set off a number of responses back and forth between Hiltzik and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who wrote, co-produced and directed the documentary.
Initial Hiltzik column: 'Deep Throat' Numbers Just Don't Add Up
Bailey and Barbato: More Numbers for 'Deep Throat', a somewhat longer version of their response: 'Throat' Gets Cut, Directors Perform Surgery
Hiltzik then asked them to answer twelve questions, which resulted in this column:
Hiltzik: Bad 'Deep Throat' Revenue Number
They should have the option of not displaying anything found in Froogle when displaying regular Google results.
As quoted in this Salon.com article Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refers to himself as a lawyer:
18 years ago Scalia was a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (since 1982), becoming a Supreme Court Justice in September 1986.Uhm, uhm... I want to improve Google by adding
whois
currency conversion (the default should be to convert into US dollars, or perhaps the currency of the country of your own domain)
grouping of site results (i.e. if you use site:foo.com) by sub-domains (site:google.com gives you a hodge-podge of answers.google.com, directory.google.com, www.google.com and so on) and usenet searches (groups.google.com) by groups. (Please, please, please don't let the next generation of Google Groups end up looking anything like groups-beta.google.com)
the option of never, ever displaying any page available in Froogle in normal searches.
Also, I want to find that darn geek porn site again. (As in nekkid girls, not hardware.)
Huh? Section 102: "Infringement by importation for sale or hire"
Is this the wrong law?
Disclaimer: Have never been down under.
since you've been using A9.com recently, virtually everything at Amazon.com is automatically an additional n/2% (1.57%) off for you. (...)
We don't advertise this additional discount that we give in exchange for using A9.com, so if you want your friends to know about it, please tell them. It is probably the only way they'll find out. All they have to do is use A9.com as their regular search engine.
In this case "we" have the Microsoft source. If someone says that code was lifted, "we" can point to the two code sets (one leaked, one free) and show that it's completely different.
SCO is more like "You took something that belongs to us"
What?
"We're not telling, but you better give us loads of moolah."
One problem would possibly be un- or sub-conscious copying (not sure what the difference is, not sure which is the correct term).
The Wikipedia page has been slashdotted.
Under a list of protected pages, the Lunokhod program page is listed because page was listed on a /. story 26 minutes ago, has already been vandalized half a dozen times including insertion of goatsex links. Pakaran. 23:06, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The translation is by Jon Bing, who also translated the judgement of the first instance court.
Note that footnote 9 is somewhat wrong. He seems to be confusing civil cases with criminal cases; in civil cases the parties may in some instances choose whether or not lay judges are to hear the case. (In civil cases the default is only professional judges.)
I don't understand the purpose of footnote 11, but it should probably read "That is 88,000,000".
Does he mean I can break into any Windows machine I want? I'm not a hacker, so... What's the account and password?
The most Talking Heads-like pop single of this past year was a Justin Timberlake song
Which song is that? I really like the Talking Heads. I didn't really like N'Sync. I like some of Justin's singles. I really like "Rock Your Body", i like "Like I Love You" and "Senorita". "Cry Me a River" is awful. "I'm Loving It" is almost awful or might not be; but I really like the McDonald's song of the same name (and some of the girls in the commercials). (I haven't heard enough of the Justin song to know if the McDonald's is a cover of some sorts).
Would this be a good gift for a math geek? Is there a lot of interesting math in it, or is math just a minor character?
According to Amazon, the book description claims that the book deals with an exclusive group of audacious MIT math geniuses who legally took the casinos for over three million dollars.
Would this be a good gift for a math geek? Is there a lot of interesting math in it, or is math just a minor character?
According to Amazon, the book description claims that the book deals with an exclusive group of audacious MIT math geniuses who legally took the casinos for over three million dollars.
No, the verdict was expected TODAY at 1 p.m. This was stated by chief judge Wenche Skjaeggestad (for some reason Slashdot seems to insist on replacing the correct letter with "ae") on the very last day of the trial. She also stated that she was somewhat surprised to have read in the papers that the verdict was expected in mid-January. Why the Norwegian press has stuck to this erroneous report I have no idea.
Foreign press seems to have gotten it right.
Some examples:
DVD Jon appeal ends: verdict before Xmas [11 Dec 2003]
Verdict in 'DVD Jon' appeal expected Dec. 22 [12 Dec 2003]
From what I understand if you try to copy a CSS-encoded DVD with a regular burner and regular file copy command, you will NOT gain access to the CSS keys, so you will NOT end up with a playable copy of the film. So while you may have a copy, there is not much to do with it.
Producers of programs that get around this seem to get sued.
The prosecution demonstrated this during the appeals trial. First they showed a short clip of The Matrix played through a licensed DVD software program on a portable computer. Then they attempted show the movie files copied from the Matrix disk, with some other player. The result was mostly a black screen.
The prosecution DID NOT demonstrate how DeCSS works...
30,200 kroner is per month. While Bush's salary of $400,000 is probably his annual salary.