I know a guy who sold a script to a studio. Basically they took a clean script and in a series of six rewrites jammed in everything a movie "needs" to make money. Certain types of characters, a certain type of pacing, and merchandising. They stripped out any cultural references non-American moviegoers might not understand. In the end if it were soup it would be lukewarm and tasteless. He didn't care because he knows the business and he new better than to get attached (and they pay well), but they might have made a good movie out of the original. Nobody would bother with the rewrite (not that they actually made the movie).
So falling domestic numbers really aren't much of a surprise. The studios have a formula for making money on a world audience, so it's no surprise so many movies come out to be mostly the same.
I don't know if it's still true, but years ago when a friend of mine ran a theater he said the ticket basically pays the cost of the movie itself. All the overhead and profit came from concessions.
I don't know why, but women never seem to get charged for this kind of stuff. Remember Crystal Mangam, who made up a gang rape by Duke Lacrosse players out of whole cloth? Never charged. Well, until she started knifing her boyfriends. They charged her for that.
Someday the legal system will treat women as harshly as men, but that ain't today.
Bullshit. I wish people would stop trying to sell that nonsense. Gamergate is about 1) corruption in the gaming media, where a chick can sleep her way into good reviews for a horrid game and 2) a gaming press that insults the people who pay the bills and then pretends it's all about sexism when they get called on it (you fell for that part. What a sap.) and 3) journolist-style story coordination by people who are supposed to be independent.
Attention whores like Sarkeesian only showed up later when there were enough people interested they could provoke a response on 4chan.
I really wish these people would be punished somehow. The FBI doesn't have unlimited resources, and chasing around fake death threats isn't something the agency needs to be doing.
Though, really, rules concerning the appropriate way to make war are just another example of a cartel colluding to protect their monopoly on the use of deadly force by raising the bar of entry.
Eh... no. The rules are there to ban the use of weapons which are low on utility but high on pain and suffering. Gas, mostly. The poor man's deadly force is still RDX and its children.
Because there wasn't then, and still isn't, any reason to send men to the moon. There are today about a dozen countries that could do it if sufficiently motivated. The problem (if you want to see it that way) is finding a reason to go.
A government MP offers the scant assurance that this legislation is not "trauma tainted," as it was drafted well prior to this week's instigating incidents.
No doubt. Legislation is written all the time and filed away until the public is sufficiently swept away by momentary passion. In the US gun control proponents have cabinets full of bills they pull out, like ghouls, every time there's a school shooting, just as the government has legislation that trims away privacy rights ready to go the next time the head-loppers hit the news.
Ebola is impossible to catch unless you are directly exposed to someone who is symptomatic.
Technically, yes. As doctors define direct exposure that's true. However, doctors and normal people don't define it the same way. If I have Ebola and get bodily fluids on a doorknob, then you come along an hour later, touch the doorknob and then rub your eyes... you can become infected. That fits the CDC's definition of "direct exposure", because you've been directly exposed to my bodily fluids.
So don't get complacent thinking as long as you don't actually touch an infected person you can't become infected.
First of all, we already have a "Czar" for this sort of thing. Her name is Dr. Nicole Lurie. That's the real reason we don't need a "Czar" - we already have one.
Secondly, the president can't give the CDC more funding. That's Congress's job.
Thirdly, in the last fifteen years the CDC budget has doubled, so they already have plenty of money. In fact, they have too much money, which has allowed them to ignore their primary mission and go off and do things like stump for gun control, study why lesbians get fat and gay men don't, and determine most monkeys are right handed.
It wasn't even that. It was illegal to create new embrionic cell lines using federal money. In other words, if you wanted to do stem cell research you could use one of the existing lines, or you could use private money.
The whole controversy was just red meat for abortion supporters. Didn't have anything to do with science.
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You realize to half the country "swiftboating" means "pointing out facts you'd rather nobody knew"?
And yeah, Mann is worried about having his papers under subpoena. Why is that, do you think?
This is very unlikely. The idea you could reduce poker to a look-up table regardless of your opponent is laugable.
I know a guy who sold a script to a studio. Basically they took a clean script and in a series of six rewrites jammed in everything a movie "needs" to make money. Certain types of characters, a certain type of pacing, and merchandising. They stripped out any cultural references non-American moviegoers might not understand. In the end if it were soup it would be lukewarm and tasteless. He didn't care because he knows the business and he new better than to get attached (and they pay well), but they might have made a good movie out of the original. Nobody would bother with the rewrite (not that they actually made the movie).
So falling domestic numbers really aren't much of a surprise. The studios have a formula for making money on a world audience, so it's no surprise so many movies come out to be mostly the same.
I don't know if it's still true, but years ago when a friend of mine ran a theater he said the ticket basically pays the cost of the movie itself. All the overhead and profit came from concessions.
It's not like he made a ton of money, either.
I don't know why, but women never seem to get charged for this kind of stuff. Remember Crystal Mangam, who made up a gang rape by Duke Lacrosse players out of whole cloth? Never charged. Well, until she started knifing her boyfriends. They charged her for that.
Someday the legal system will treat women as harshly as men, but that ain't today.
Bullshit. I wish people would stop trying to sell that nonsense. Gamergate is about 1) corruption in the gaming media, where a chick can sleep her way into good reviews for a horrid game and 2) a gaming press that insults the people who pay the bills and then pretends it's all about sexism when they get called on it (you fell for that part. What a sap.) and 3) journolist-style story coordination by people who are supposed to be independent.
Attention whores like Sarkeesian only showed up later when there were enough people interested they could provoke a response on 4chan.
I really wish these people would be punished somehow. The FBI doesn't have unlimited resources, and chasing around fake death threats isn't something the agency needs to be doing.
We already know several of the serious ones were false flag fakes.
Eh... no. The rules are there to ban the use of weapons which are low on utility but high on pain and suffering. Gas, mostly. The poor man's deadly force is still RDX and its children.
As a Republican in California, I'm all too familiar with the effects of gerrymandering.
The KKK? Seriously? The organization that's down to 2000 members total, 10% of which are FBI agents? Did you just wake up from a sixty year nap?
Nope. When a black guy gets shot the state gets a second bite at the apple in the form of a civil rights prosecution.
Because there wasn't then, and still isn't, any reason to send men to the moon. There are today about a dozen countries that could do it if sufficiently motivated. The problem (if you want to see it that way) is finding a reason to go.
And for the military it was a ridiculously good value, because NASA paid $109 million of the initial development before it lost interest.
The pilots knew the score. If the risk was worth it to the people who were actually taking it, then I don't see how it's anybody else's business.
Only for-profits, huh? So this is really more about politics than education.
Wow. Just wow. I can't tell if... oh wait, no, it's actually pretty obvious you're just an idiot.
No doubt. Legislation is written all the time and filed away until the public is sufficiently swept away by momentary passion. In the US gun control proponents have cabinets full of bills they pull out, like ghouls, every time there's a school shooting, just as the government has legislation that trims away privacy rights ready to go the next time the head-loppers hit the news.
Technically, yes. As doctors define direct exposure that's true. However, doctors and normal people don't define it the same way. If I have Ebola and get bodily fluids on a doorknob, then you come along an hour later, touch the doorknob and then rub your eyes... you can become infected. That fits the CDC's definition of "direct exposure", because you've been directly exposed to my bodily fluids.
So don't get complacent thinking as long as you don't actually touch an infected person you can't become infected.
First of all, we already have a "Czar" for this sort of thing. Her name is Dr. Nicole Lurie. That's the real reason we don't need a "Czar" - we already have one.
Secondly, the president can't give the CDC more funding. That's Congress's job.
Thirdly, in the last fifteen years the CDC budget has doubled, so they already have plenty of money. In fact, they have too much money, which has allowed them to ignore their primary mission and go off and do things like stump for gun control, study why lesbians get fat and gay men don't, and determine most monkeys are right handed.
It wasn't even that. It was illegal to create new embrionic cell lines using federal money. In other words, if you wanted to do stem cell research you could use one of the existing lines, or you could use private money.
The whole controversy was just red meat for abortion supporters. Didn't have anything to do with science.
It's difficult to imagine you couldn't get backing from Putin, or the Iranians, or the Saudis. And if you have money the French will sell to anyone.
This is just nonsense.
Just give 'em a coke.
Hrm. And what would they be expected to do if there actually were a war?