i'm sorry, but the stunts are just outrageous!!! flying? jumping 20 feet in the air? Now the cool thing about films from Jet Li, Jackie Chan & Bruce Lee, is that the kung fu was _REAL_. Not this people being towed up on a rope bullshit.
i'm sorry, but the stunts in superman and spiderman are just outrageous!!! flying? shooting spider webs out of his palm? Now the cool thing about films from Stallone & Schwarzennegger is that the shooting was _REAL_. Not this comic book rubbish.
I'm always on the lookout for martial-arts
films that don't insult my intelligence.
you probably already have but if not, check out any of bruce lee's movies. you can see the evolution and development of his own personal philosophy and style through his movies. he has an intensity and passion and fury in his fighting that i haven't seen in anything since. it'll also help you to understand jackie chan's style more too which is in part a reaction to do the opposite of what lee did, which is why there is always a strong comedic element in chan's movies.
hmm. i wonder how many kung fu movies mr. katz has seen. CTHD is definitely a great movie. however, i would hesitate to call it the best ever. however, it is probably the first movie that most americans not previously into HK movies will see of this type of martial arts drama.
But no one has yet portrayed it in this way. "Crouching Tiger" is gravity-defying: the fighters soar over rooftops, somersault around rooms, sail through trees and walls, in and out of rivers and lakes.
this "wire-fu" is the exact way that many martial arts movies from as far back as the 60s have portrayed the characters. in fact, the genre of "wuxia" novels from which CTHD comes is very old. again, it would be new to people who've only seen "Walker Texas Ranger" but it's certainly not the first movie in this style. however, yuen wo-ping is a certifiable genius. this guy has a unique style and takes the genre and the fights to a whole new level. you'd think the fight scenes would get boring but he keeps on improving and creating jaw dropping sequences.
It's unusual to see a movie like this featuring women in such strong and distinctly different roles
see michelle yeoh in some of her previous costume drama kung fu movies
Cellis (sic) Yo-Yo Ma's haunting score gives "Crouching Tiger" an even more brooding and enchanting quality.
the score is indeed excellent. one of the best i've heard in a while and yo yo ma is on it but it was composed by tan dun. i think the score won an LA film critics award (one of those award giving groups anyway).
This is exactly right. We all just whine and complain about how unfair icann is and we SHOULD do this and that but how many of us have reconfigured our own computers (let alone ISPs) to support the alternate root servers?
That is why ICANN knows it can act with impunity and dictate its terms to people.
Buchanan himself says that the disputed votes are Gore's! Check out this reuters article on yahoo.
buchanan quote:
``I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake,'' Buchanan told NBC's ``Today'' show. ``It seems to me that these 3,000 votes people are talking about -- most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore,'' he said.
I've read a bunch of newspaper reports about the palm beach county ballot and there definitely appears to be a case for a revote in the county:
1. disproportionately high number of buchanan votes from a heavily democratic area. much higher numerically and percentage wise than other comparable counties. 3500 compared to less than 900 in other democratic counties. Even in a heavily republican county, buchanan only got around 500 votes. So, possibly 3000 mispunched votes. Those votes would decisively swing the florida contest to gore. of course, there's no way of knowing if they intended to vote for buchanan but they can compare it with the rest of each voter's choices. it would be unlikely if the person chose democratic candidates for the house, senate, etc but selected buchanan for president.
2. unusually large number of disqualified ballots. over 19000 ballots had 2 holes punched for the presidential candidate. compare to only ~3500 double punched senate votes. This would go along with the theory that people were confused, made a mistake, voted for buchanan, realized they made a mistake and punched a second hole for gore. of course, we will need more details to see whether or not this is the case, that 2 holes were punched for gore and buchanan and not other combinations. these 19000 ballots would clearly put gore over the top.
3. the problem was noticed on election day, by as early as 11 am by some accounts. people were confused, complained to the election organizers and the democrats printed up fliers informing people to be careful. so, this isn't some excuse being manufactured after the fact. they had informed the people in charge about the problem while the election was still in progress and there were many reports of people being confused early on.
4. a legal technicality. apparently, the rules say the holes shall be on the right of the names. on the ballot in question, half the names are on other side, so the holes are on the left, in violation of what the law mandates. therefore, the ballots could be illegal.
5. the problem with the ballots is a usability problem. it's not some sort of conspiracy to defraud the democrats, just an honest mistake in design. i can easily see why it might be confusing, especially if the holes don't line up precisely, the person hasn't seen it before and there's a time pressure to vote quickly.
all in all, very interesting stuff. if they do a revote, it should only be people who actually voted the first time.
The electoral college should be abolished and true one person-one vote direct election should be adopted instead. See this great op-ed article in the New York Times written by a Yale law school professor explaining just why it should be replaced.
Basically, the main arguments are:
1. The EC was designed to help one group- white southern males.
2. Southern states gained disproportionately more power than northern states. Slaves in the south were allowed to be counted as three fifths of a man in order to award Southern states more electoral college votes.
3. Direct elections make states encourage its more of its citizens to vote because the more who vote in that state, the bigger voice that state has whereas in the EC system, no matter how many people vote, there are the same number of EC votes awarded for that state.
4. There is a fallacy that the EC system encourage candidates to care more about local state issues than in a direct system but candidates would still have concern for regional issues of the northwest, south, midwest, etc. to get their votes.
Read it and decide for yourself. It's an interesting piece.
Whatever happened to being presumed innocent until proven guilty? Why should the companies have to prove that their software is legal? BSA should have to provide concrete evidence that the software is pirated, not just raid someone based on a "hot tip".
In lieu of a gift to you this Christmas, I have made a donation in your name to the Human Fund.
note: to those of you humor impaired, this is a joke from Seinfeld in which George gets sick of people making these charitable donations instead of giving him something and sets up his own "fund".
HK has definitely transformed China, particularly Southern China (Guangzhou). It's no coincidence that one of the first parts of China to develop economically was the border town (Shenzhen) located right next to HK. There are also cultural influences that flow from HK to mainland China and less the other way round.
Still, it's hard to speak of economic and technological development apart from the worldwide trend towards globalization and the advent of the Internet. Basically, China has jumped dramatically as it began economic liberalization and the areas most changed are the coastal areas, esp. those near HK and Taiwan.
we need to be ready for these times of crisis. i suggest that we start to looking NOW for a crew of aging oil tanker workers with no space experience that will be able to fly up and land on the asteroid and blow it up. we can't wait until the last minute!
the cell phone is a commodity, like shoes. You can only use one phone at a time and only wear one pair of shoes at a time but you buy more than one pair of shoes because it goes with different clothes or it serves a different function (running, basketball, business). same with your cell phone. different colors to go with your mood or clothing. new styles with new fashion and design trends. different phones for different functions. a bigger wap phone to surf the web and e-mail, a tiny phone for voice only.
the next step will be that we will all need to purchase a license to think about the ideas contained in the book, to listen to the song in our heads and to visualize in our mind the scenes from a movie.
It might not sound like much of a saving, but some mp3s are quite big and once the 56kbps napster kidz realise they can save money on their phone bills you have crossed the first hurdle.
Excellent point. I hope the developers focus on reducing file size and increasing compression. Since mp3 and this new alternative are both lossy compression methods, people are willing to accept that and won't care too much about quality better than current mp3 quality. what they will care about is the file size, especially when talking about transferring stuff over the internet. knowing that i can get a similar (not necessarily better) quality in a smaller file size would make me more willing to adopt this new format.
also, make sure that incomplete files remain playable like mp3. it sucks to download 95% of something and have it cut off and not be able to listen to any of it. also good in terms of previewing what you're downloading.
I think the interviewee has a very good point. This is what we do know:
1. We know the RIAA wants people to move from MP3 to SDMI.
2. People won't do it voluntarily.
3. Fraunhofer wants to retain control of their patents and wants to make money on their MP3 patents.
Here's a worst-case scenario:
1. RIAA acquires Fraunhofer's MP3 patents.
2. RIAA enforces said patents, either revoking licenses or raising the price to an extreme level, thus stopping further support for MP3 in terms of players and rippers.
3. Software dries up. People are forced to migrate to new SDMI standard.
Thanks guys for putting in the effort to make this Free alternative.
Please! Stop publicizing the non-reg links. Every time there's a NYtimes article, someone has to put in the obligatory karma hungry post of "here's the non-reg link". Inevitably, the non-reg hosts that are published get closed down.
If people have a philosophical problem with NYtimes requiring registration, DON'T READ THE ARTICLE. It's not your God-given right to be able to access their site.
I'll remember him for playing Fagin in "Oliver Twist", an old black and white movie. I don't know what it was but it just remember him as having given a great performance. It was years later that I saw him again in "Star Wars".
in the article, according to the original owner of corinthians.com, corinthians the football team doesn't even own the trademark to corithians, not even in brazil.
ridiculous.
replace the cineplex? no way.
on
Movies Online?
·
· Score: 2
Do you all think that digital movies may eventually bypass the traditional cineplex and be delivered straight to your home?
We've been through this once already. When VCRs first became popular, people thought that it would be so convenient to watch movies at home that noone would go to the movie theatres anymore.
Of course, the opposite has occurred. The film industry has boomed rather than declined. There are now 30 screen multiplexes! People go to movie theatres for the experience of watching it in a large room with lots of other people in a dark room, on a 50 foot screen and awesome sound.
TV, VCRs and DVDs haven't replaced movie theatres and net delivered movies won't either. net movies haven't even reached even one hundredth the video and sound quality of a dvd or even a broadcast tv version of the same movie. They will supplement the whole experience though. DVDs allow people to explore a movie deeper with different languages, cut scenes, background info, commentary tracks. the net will do other things to supplement the experience as well such as letting film buffs get together from all over the world to discuss the latest john woo flick.
now, a more appropriate and interesting question is, will digital movies delivered over the internet eventually replace cable tv, pay per view and blockbuster as channels of delivery into the home? i think this will definitely happen. pretty soon, there will be no more need for the video store. i've read that pay per views are a large portion of the income of cable companies. how will they respond when they are completely bypassed?
you can set junkbuster to reject cookies from the doubleclick domain while allowing others. i used to use this method
otherwise, you can either set your cookie file to read-only so no changes are saved between sessions or write a batch file to delete or copy a default cookie file each time you start the browser.
you can also go to the doubleclick site and opt out of their system. they'll set a cookie that lets them know not to track you anymore. ironic isn't it?
other forms of disruption would be sharing your doubleclick cookie with hundreds of other people, rendering their data useless.
This article by Joseph Carter entitled "Why Debian doesn't include KDE" is what Trolltech is responding to.
Among other things, Carter wrote:
The draft license seen by me last before release of the final QPL was GPL compatible. I was proud of it. So, it seemed, was Troll Tech. And then the final license was released, undoing the parts of my work which made the license GPL compatible, but retaining enough to satisfy the definitions of "Free" many distributions (including Debian) use.
But the license issue remains. Qt is not non-free software. But it's not GPL compatible either. Some KDE core developers admit this privately, but won't do so in public because of the implications: that much of KDE is not legally distributable until they contact some people that are damned scarce these days and make the necessary arrangements.
why not use already GPLed alternatives? these are completely free and GPLed:
FcheckFCheck is an open source PERL script providing intrusion detection and policy enforcement of Windows 95/98/NT/3.x and Unix server administration through the use of comparative system snapshots. AideAIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) is a free replacement for Tripwire. It does the same things as the semi-free Tripwire and more.
Slashdot Mirror
i'm sorry, but the stunts in superman and spiderman are just outrageous!!! flying? shooting spider webs out of his palm? Now the cool thing about films from Stallone & Schwarzennegger is that the shooting was _REAL_. Not this comic book rubbish.
you probably already have but if not, check out any of bruce lee's movies. you can see the evolution and development of his own personal philosophy and style through his movies. he has an intensity and passion and fury in his fighting that i haven't seen in anything since. it'll also help you to understand jackie chan's style more too which is in part a reaction to do the opposite of what lee did, which is why there is always a strong comedic element in chan's movies.
But no one has yet portrayed it in this way. "Crouching Tiger" is gravity-defying: the fighters soar over rooftops, somersault around rooms, sail through trees and walls, in and out of rivers and lakes.
this "wire-fu" is the exact way that many martial arts movies from as far back as the 60s have portrayed the characters. in fact, the genre of "wuxia" novels from which CTHD comes is very old. again, it would be new to people who've only seen "Walker Texas Ranger" but it's certainly not the first movie in this style. however, yuen wo-ping is a certifiable genius. this guy has a unique style and takes the genre and the fights to a whole new level. you'd think the fight scenes would get boring but he keeps on improving and creating jaw dropping sequences.
It's unusual to see a movie like this featuring women in such strong and distinctly different roles
see michelle yeoh in some of her previous costume drama kung fu movies
Cellis (sic) Yo-Yo Ma's haunting score gives "Crouching Tiger" an even more brooding and enchanting quality.
the score is indeed excellent. one of the best i've heard in a while and yo yo ma is on it but it was composed by tan dun. i think the score won an LA film critics award (one of those award giving groups anyway).
This is exactly right. We all just whine and complain about how unfair icann is and we SHOULD do this and that but how many of us have reconfigured our own computers (let alone ISPs) to support the alternate root servers?
That is why ICANN knows it can act with impunity and dictate its terms to people.
in the last election, buchanan wasn't running.
buchanan quote:
``I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake,'' Buchanan told NBC's ``Today'' show. ``It seems to me that these 3,000 votes people are talking about -- most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore,'' he said.
1. disproportionately high number of buchanan votes from a heavily democratic area. much higher numerically and percentage wise than other comparable counties. 3500 compared to less than 900 in other democratic counties. Even in a heavily republican county, buchanan only got around 500 votes. So, possibly 3000 mispunched votes. Those votes would decisively swing the florida contest to gore. of course, there's no way of knowing if they intended to vote for buchanan but they can compare it with the rest of each voter's choices. it would be unlikely if the person chose democratic candidates for the house, senate, etc but selected buchanan for president.
2. unusually large number of disqualified ballots. over 19000 ballots had 2 holes punched for the presidential candidate. compare to only ~3500 double punched senate votes. This would go along with the theory that people were confused, made a mistake, voted for buchanan, realized they made a mistake and punched a second hole for gore. of course, we will need more details to see whether or not this is the case, that 2 holes were punched for gore and buchanan and not other combinations. these 19000 ballots would clearly put gore over the top.
3. the problem was noticed on election day, by as early as 11 am by some accounts. people were confused, complained to the election organizers and the democrats printed up fliers informing people to be careful. so, this isn't some excuse being manufactured after the fact. they had informed the people in charge about the problem while the election was still in progress and there were many reports of people being confused early on.
4. a legal technicality. apparently, the rules say the holes shall be on the right of the names. on the ballot in question, half the names are on other side, so the holes are on the left, in violation of what the law mandates. therefore, the ballots could be illegal.
5. the problem with the ballots is a usability problem. it's not some sort of conspiracy to defraud the democrats, just an honest mistake in design. i can easily see why it might be confusing, especially if the holes don't line up precisely, the person hasn't seen it before and there's a time pressure to vote quickly.
all in all, very interesting stuff. if they do a revote, it should only be people who actually voted the first time.
Basically, the main arguments are:
1. The EC was designed to help one group- white southern males.
2. Southern states gained disproportionately more power than northern states. Slaves in the south were allowed to be counted as three fifths of a man in order to award Southern states more electoral college votes.
3. Direct elections make states encourage its more of its citizens to vote because the more who vote in that state, the bigger voice that state has whereas in the EC system, no matter how many people vote, there are the same number of EC votes awarded for that state.
4. There is a fallacy that the EC system encourage candidates to care more about local state issues than in a direct system but candidates would still have concern for regional issues of the northwest, south, midwest, etc. to get their votes.
Read it and decide for yourself. It's an interesting piece.
Whatever happened to being presumed innocent until proven guilty? Why should the companies have to prove that their software is legal? BSA should have to provide concrete evidence that the software is pirated, not just raid someone based on a "hot tip".
note: to those of you humor impaired, this is a joke from Seinfeld in which George gets sick of people making these charitable donations instead of giving him something and sets up his own "fund".
HK has definitely transformed China, particularly Southern China (Guangzhou). It's no coincidence that one of the first parts of China to develop economically was the border town (Shenzhen) located right next to HK. There are also cultural influences that flow from HK to mainland China and less the other way round.
Still, it's hard to speak of economic and technological development apart from the worldwide trend towards globalization and the advent of the Internet. Basically, China has jumped dramatically as it began economic liberalization and the areas most changed are the coastal areas, esp. those near HK and Taiwan.
we need to be ready for these times of crisis. i suggest that we start to looking NOW for a crew of aging oil tanker workers with no space experience that will be able to fly up and land on the asteroid and blow it up. we can't wait until the last minute!
the cell phone is a commodity, like shoes. You can only use one phone at a time and only wear one pair of shoes at a time but you buy more than one pair of shoes because it goes with different clothes or it serves a different function (running, basketball, business). same with your cell phone. different colors to go with your mood or clothing. new styles with new fashion and design trends. different phones for different functions. a bigger wap phone to surf the web and e-mail, a tiny phone for voice only.
after all, it's their "property"
Excellent point. I hope the developers focus on reducing file size and increasing compression. Since mp3 and this new alternative are both lossy compression methods, people are willing to accept that and won't care too much about quality better than current mp3 quality. what they will care about is the file size, especially when talking about transferring stuff over the internet. knowing that i can get a similar (not necessarily better) quality in a smaller file size would make me more willing to adopt this new format.
also, make sure that incomplete files remain playable like mp3. it sucks to download 95% of something and have it cut off and not be able to listen to any of it. also good in terms of previewing what you're downloading.
I think the interviewee has a very good point. This is what we do know:
1. We know the RIAA wants people to move from MP3 to SDMI.
2. People won't do it voluntarily.
3. Fraunhofer wants to retain control of their patents and wants to make money on their MP3 patents.
Here's a worst-case scenario:
1. RIAA acquires Fraunhofer's MP3 patents.
2. RIAA enforces said patents, either revoking licenses or raising the price to an extreme level, thus stopping further support for MP3 in terms of players and rippers.
3. Software dries up. People are forced to migrate to new SDMI standard.
Thanks guys for putting in the effort to make this Free alternative.
Please! Stop publicizing the non-reg links. Every time there's a NYtimes article, someone has to put in the obligatory karma hungry post of "here's the non-reg link". Inevitably, the non-reg hosts that are published get closed down.
If people have a philosophical problem with NYtimes requiring registration, DON'T READ THE ARTICLE. It's not your God-given right to be able to access their site.
I'll remember him for playing Fagin in "Oliver Twist", an old black and white movie. I don't know what it was but it just remember him as having given a great performance. It was years later that I saw him again in "Star Wars".
Thanks for putting your all into entertaining us.
in the article, according to the original owner of corinthians.com, corinthians the football team doesn't even own the trademark to corithians, not even in brazil.
ridiculous.
We've been through this once already. When VCRs first became popular, people thought that it would be so convenient to watch movies at home that noone would go to the movie theatres anymore.
Of course, the opposite has occurred. The film industry has boomed rather than declined. There are now 30 screen multiplexes! People go to movie theatres for the experience of watching it in a large room with lots of other people in a dark room, on a 50 foot screen and awesome sound.
TV, VCRs and DVDs haven't replaced movie theatres and net delivered movies won't either. net movies haven't even reached even one hundredth the video and sound quality of a dvd or even a broadcast tv version of the same movie. They will supplement the whole experience though. DVDs allow people to explore a movie deeper with different languages, cut scenes, background info, commentary tracks. the net will do other things to supplement the experience as well such as letting film buffs get together from all over the world to discuss the latest john woo flick.
now, a more appropriate and interesting question is, will digital movies delivered over the internet eventually replace cable tv, pay per view and blockbuster as channels of delivery into the home? i think this will definitely happen. pretty soon, there will be no more need for the video store. i've read that pay per views are a large portion of the income of cable companies. how will they respond when they are completely bypassed?
otherwise, you can either set your cookie file to read-only so no changes are saved between sessions or write a batch file to delete or copy a default cookie file each time you start the browser.
you can also go to the doubleclick site and opt out of their system. they'll set a cookie that lets them know not to track you anymore. ironic isn't it?
other forms of disruption would be sharing your doubleclick cookie with hundreds of other people, rendering their data useless.
"errr... yes, i was doing research and stumbled across the site and noticed a web bug in the code."
wired mag predicted this 2 years ago in an article entitled "Tomorrow Today". Not bad. they predicted solar cell artificial retinas in y2k.
Among other things, Carter wrote:
The draft license seen by me last before release of the final QPL was GPL compatible. I was proud of it. So, it seemed, was Troll Tech. And then the final license was released, undoing the parts of my work which made the license GPL compatible, but retaining enough to satisfy the definitions of "Free" many distributions (including Debian) use.
But the license issue remains. Qt is not non-free software. But it's not GPL compatible either. Some KDE core developers admit this privately, but won't do so in public because of the implications: that much of KDE is not legally distributable until they contact some people that are damned scarce these days and make the necessary arrangements.
There's a lively debate on that page already.
these are completely free and GPLed:
Fcheck FCheck is an open source PERL script providing intrusion detection and policy enforcement of Windows 95/98/NT/3.x and Unix server administration through the use of comparative system snapshots.
Aide AIDE (Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment) is a free replacement for Tripwire. It does the same things as the semi-free Tripwire and more.