Heres' the difference: Books were a PITA to copy in the days of the Library of Alexandria, such that often the copy of a book in your hands was the ONLY copy in the world. MP3's take almost zero effort to copy, and thus the loss of the MP3.com archive did not represent millions of hours of lost labor that can never be repeated.
why would they not allow it's distribution on another forum?
The MP3.com archive is VERY DIFFERENT from the typical Intellectual Property model used by publishers of music. Most publishers take ownership of the copyright when they publish, as part of the contract with the artist. MP3.com was unique in that it expressly avoided this. All the artist had to do was agree that it was okay by him for the music to be on MP3.com, and that MP3.com wasn't 'stealing it' from him. The original artists STILL OWNS THE COPYRIGHT on all the songs he put on the MP3.com site.
Thus when Vivendi bought MP3.com, that purchase did not actually include the copyrights to all the songs posted on it, because that's a copyright MP3.com didn't even originally have to sell.
So Vivendi's decision to delete the archive has no impact on an artists decision to repost his songs somewhere else. The original artists still own all the songs they hosted on the site.
The only way it would have ruined an artists ability to go to another distributor would have been in the artist was dumb enough to upload their ONLY COPY of the song to the site and destroy their original copy. And anyone doing that deserves what they get. (Especially since, for your master copy of the song you recorded in a studio, you really should pay the extra hard drive space to put it into a high-resolution lossless format, which would not be an MP3.) So, any artist who lost their music from this is doubly stupid - not only did they keep their only copy of their song in a low-res lossy format, but they entrusted it to live only on the servers of another company.
I see how you could have gotten this wrong, given that every other distributor doesn't do this, but that's what made MP3.com so much better (ethically) than the mainstream industry - they refrained from forcing the artist to give up his ownership.
What about this problem:
1 - You either don't have antivirus software installed, or you do but it's out of date and you need the latest patch to be compliant.
2 - The way to get the patch is via download online.
3 - Since you don't have the patch, the router won't let you get online.
So.... How do you get the patch?
I think the system would have to have an exception in the denial of access to handle this situation. Perhaps it would allow noncompliant machines to only be able to reach one destination - the server where the antivrius software is available. Or, perhaps the router itself could hold a copy of the software that the client computer could be given access to.
My general complaint is that if it claims machines with virus software are more secure than ones without, that leads to the stupid conclusion that machines running OS'es that don't *HAVE* viruses made for them are less secure (and should be denied access) than insecure OS'es that need the band-aid of anti-virus software on them.)
A linux machine without anti-virus software is more resistant to viruses than a windows machine with anti-virus software.
And, leaving the OS argument out, there's the problem that the standard required antivirus software will be a organizational standard, and therefore typically a bit behind the cutting edge. This could lead to the stupid case where you have to DOWNGRADE your antivirus software to an older version in order to be compliant.
In order to use a warrant to search your house, they have to inform you in person that they are doing it. With wiretapping, you are not told that the warrant even exists. This is a problem because it gives you nothing to legally contest - you don't even know there's anything TO contest going on.
... after finding that the spying effectively disables the system's emergency and roadside assistance features.
What irks me is that THAT is the reason for the objection - it interferes with a service a business is trying to provide. Yah, that's a problem, but what about the bigger problem that they aren't supposed to be searching me without a warrant, which is what unannounced wiretapping (and RF evesdropping) essentially amounts to?
The BSD is a free-market radical/libertarian's wet dream, but the GPL and LGPL constitute a steal all you want but give back approach.
Not quite. BSD is "if you improve it, you can keep your changes to yourself", and (L)GPL is "if you improve it, you should submit your changes for the world to see." NEITHER one actually requires you to "give back" if you 'steal' code - The GPL restrictions only activate if you *build* on that code.
The world is loaded with Linux users who haven't contribued a single line of code, despite "stealing" millions of lines of kernel source - and the GPL allows that just fine.
If you build something on top of Linux, you are not required to open your own source just because the kernel is GPL. It's only if you make modifications to the linux kernel itself that you have to release those changes. If all you are doing is making executables on it, or even kernel modules rather than direct kernel edits, you can do that closed-source. That's why Linux is still a usable platform for embedded systems even though it is GPL.
I didn't say that. I said the styles are different, and the humor comes from different parts. One uses the quick tangents as the source of humor, and the other uses the mainline story. I actually slightly prefer the Simpsons' style, and the only reason Family Guy was more interesting was because Simpsons' was on for so long already and starting to run down. Compare second or third season Simpsons to second or third season Family Guy and I would prefer Simpsons (but only slightly. They were both good.)
You talk of wanting a free market without overlording monopolies, but also without having to follow revolutionaries that tear down the free market. Now, leaving aside the problem that this isn't an accurate portrayal of what's going on, I want to address a different problem I have with your point: How do you answer the problem that in some situations, a free market CAUSES a monopoly to emerge? These are what are called "natural monopolies". They occur when there is a very strong 'network effect' in which everyone making the same uniform choice is a feature that has great value. For example, your city's waterworks will be cheaper if only one organization provides all the water supply to the whole city. It isn't practical for there to be three or four competing water suppliers, each with their own pipes under the streets, each with their own road crews to do maintenence of those pipes, just so that you can pick a different water supplier than your neighbor. So even the pure capitalists have to accept that this is a case in which a monopoly is going to occur ANYWAY, like it or not, and therefore it's better to have it be a governmental voting decision rather than let it be up to every person in the city to decide differently. There are numerous things like this - such as electrical companies, cable companies, (land line) phone companies, and so on. Let's look at what split up the Ma Bell monopoly - government intervention. The reason you can pick a different service provider is because government rules FORCE whichever company built the phone cable outside your house to lease the use of that line to competitors at a fixed market rate, like it or not.
Anyway, I submit to you that, although it's to a lesser extent than something physically routed through a city, computer operating systems are also a natural monopoly. It takes special effort to make competing OS'es use compatable data files. That's effort that companies don't want to put forth since it helps their competitors. So you have the situation where if your co-worker used Windows to write a program, you have to use it too to run it. And thus a strong network effect is born, where there is great value in everybody using the same system. Microsoft happened to become the monopoly, but if it wasn't them it would have been someone else. This situation does NOT lead to multiple companies competing on equal footing.
A free market, without government intervention to enforce fair play, doesn't *stay* a free market for long.
Gates altruistically "gave" the world ie to destroy a serious rival Netscape. Altruism in business is generally a sign of ulterior motives.
But that's not a case of altruism having ulterior motives. It's a case of an act being mislabeled (by you) as altruism when it's not. I.E. was not given away for free, any more than COMMAND.EXE was given away for free, or the control panel was given away for free. It's cost was rolled into the blanket cost of buying the OS, just like all the other bits it came with.
So they have similar characters. Big deal. The difference is in the style. Family Guy used the 'flashback' joke a LOT, as in: "Oh, they don't let Peter rent from the video store anymore because he kept recording over the tapes. {cut to scene of opening of 'citizen kane', which goes staticy for a second and then it's Peter on a couch, obviously being filmed with a home video camera, saying "It's a freakin sled, okay! Rosebud is a freakin' sled! There, now I just saved you from wasting two boring pointless hours of your life.", and then the movie continues.}
The Simpsons generally tried to stick to the story, and use the plot for the humor, while Family Guy was usually funny *despite* the plot, because the humor was in fast, small snippets.
I am supprised that you find the council of both Elrond and Galadriel brief exchanges
I'm surprised by that too, since I never said it. I said that the mention of how the elves will have to leave when the ring ends was brief. The long text about the Council covered more than that point (which got very minor billing compared to the strategic discussions of what to do about the ring.) lacked the maturity to grasp the point.
To grasp a point, it must actually be communicated to you.
Repeat after me: This isn't ars. This isn't ars. The facts don't support your claim that Ars and Slashdot are identical communities with identical attitudes and identical maturity levels.
There is no way in hell I'll be able to send of in 10 years and say 'My Matrix DVD is worn out, can you send me a new one'.
Re-read my post. There's an "or" in there. Getting the copy from the stuido's files was just one possibility. The other was making a copy off of the copy. (In which case you only need to get it to read it once out of many tries.)
Anyway, the original point I was trying to make is that it is still a short-coming of DVDs.
And my point is that it ISN'T. That some places are using cheap construction for their DVDs is not the fault of the format, nor is it a shortcoming of DVDs. Calling it a shortcoming of DVDs would mean that it's a feature ALL DVD's share. It's not. It is possible to produce long lasting DVD's for a few dollars more WITHOUT changing anything inherent about the DVD format at all. This is not the case with VHS. No matter how much money you spend on producing a VHS tape, the system still has the flaw that the head has to scrape the ribbon to view the tape, and thus the tape will degrade with each viewing. DVD's CAN be made to last forever, for a few dollars more, unlike VHS tapes. That so many companies choose not to bother is NOT a feature of DVD's.
If you copy your DVD to a new, higher quality disc the day your first get it, you can make it outlive you. No matter what quality of tape you transfer your VHS tape to, it won't last.
So, with VHS, a short lifespan is a misfeature of the format itself. With DVD's a short lifespan has nothing to do with the format at all, and has everything to do with using cheap construction.
When Woo was making Hong Kong flicks, it was as a British colonist, not as a Chinese citizen. Things will be different there now. Don't expect as many good movies.
3. They still degrade. Not in the same way as VHS, but some of these manufacturers are putting out discs so cheap they're not even lasting as long as VHS
But there is a key difference between a format that falls apart because it was made cheaply and a format that falls apart because it receives wear and tear every time you use it. Those DVDs that separate and "go bad" are doing it because of time, not because of repeated playings (like with tapes). Thus it is *possible* to make long lasting DVDs for archival purposes if you want, but it isn't even possible to do that with VHS.
Also, for archival purposes, it's important to note that if a DVD starts to fall apart, you can still get a PERFECT new copy made off of it, or off of the original source files sitting on some studio's file server somewhere. With tape, the degrading format is the ONLY format they are stored in. With DVD's the poor quality DVD that falls apart isn't really the format the original master is stored in.
One more try: Reading a decompiled binary is SLOW work. Reading source (in comparasin) is FAST. So, NO - the existence of decompilers does not help discover copyright violations in closed source works. It only helps verify them if you already suspect them for some other reason.
Are you suggesting this because you think it *might* happen in a very limited number of circumstances, or are you suggesting this because it *does* happen?
It doesn't happen because right now, it can't. People trying to take back what they said happens a lot in debate. Imagine if they actually could alter the record to mask the history that they have done this?
simply avoid dealing with anyone who attempts something like this.
That's not a solution any more than killfiles in usenet are a solution to trolls - they fail to stop the liar from lying - they just let you cover your eyes and pretend they aren't there.
If you want to edit your posts, there's a simple answer. Hit preview - read it over - and don't submit it until you like what you see.
Well I'd agree that Sam is the real hero. I've always thought that. Frodo was always a bit moody, even from the start, and as such was not as well equipped to deal with the burden of the depression the ring gives to it's bearer, I think. I'm hoping that Peter Jackson holds this aspect of the story true to the book in RoTK. If he screws over Sam by reducing his level of heroism, I'll be more pissed than I was over Faramir's reduction in personality.
For me, I can accept all the alterations of the other characters if he keeps the hobbit's personalities properly intact. So far he has held up with that.
In the book, the story of Aragorn is treated in exactly the way a hobbit would treat it - a bunch of Big People doing Big Things that don't concern us.
The fact is that the books are not at all like a movie, pandering to popular sentiment, leaving the viewer with a nice warm fuzzy feeling at the end.
You are misunderstanding the complaint I had had. For one thing, do remember that I stated that it was a complaint I had had BACK WHEN I WAS A KID. Also, it wasn't JUST that it was a depressing end that bothered me, but that it was a depressing end WITHOUT enough context to make it clear WHY. It felt like it was depressing just for the heck of it. In a book of thousands of small-print pages, a brief exchange by some characters one sixth of the way through is not enough to establish a major plot element, or even make it stick in your memory the first time you read the story (which, remember, is what I was talking about - the first time I read it). It's information that is really important to reveal to the reader, and yet it doesn't get enough time spent on it, instead that time is wasted on freakin' song lyrics that are disconnected from anything in the story. (So, NO, Peter Jackson is not doing anything new by wasting time on less important elements of the story. The original did the same thing, but in a different way. That said, it's STILL a great epic story. It's just told in a bad way.)
Bombadil is irrelevant, but the Barrow downs were not. Two important plot-wise things should have happened there: 1 - Hobbits get ancient daggars (that to them are swords) that were made by the men of old who used to be in the northlands. These were explicitly imbued with the ability to use them on wraiths, since thats what the men were up against in the long-gone battle that the downs are graves for - thus Merry's role later on in ROTK is made possible. 2 - Personality-wise, we see that the hobbits aren't total losers unable to cope with challenges. They do manage to get themselves out of the barrow themselves. Take that away and the dominance of the big characters in the fellowship later really makes the hobbits look totally helpless and childish, which was not how they were supposed to be portrayed. They were supposed to be portrayed as just looking a bit inferior IN COMPARASIN to the major uber-heros they are travelling with. They aren't wusses, just normal people standing next to giants of legend and being overshadowed by them. That comes across in the books, and in the *extended* version of the FoTR movie, but not in the theatrical release of it. In the theatrical release, they actually have a different personality because all the scenese where they show they can fight got cut, and you only see the ones where they act like scared helpless children.
Slashdot Mirror
Heres' the difference:
Books were a PITA to copy in the days of the Library of Alexandria, such that often the copy of a book in your hands was the ONLY copy in the world. MP3's take almost zero effort to copy, and thus the loss of the MP3.com archive did not represent millions of hours of lost labor that can never be repeated.
why would they not allow it's distribution on another forum?
The MP3.com archive is VERY DIFFERENT from the typical Intellectual Property model used by publishers of music. Most publishers take ownership of the copyright when they publish, as part of the contract with the artist. MP3.com was unique in that it expressly avoided this. All the artist had to do was agree that it was okay by him for the music to be on MP3.com, and that MP3.com wasn't 'stealing it' from him. The original artists STILL OWNS THE COPYRIGHT on all the songs he put on the MP3.com site.
Thus when Vivendi bought MP3.com, that purchase did not actually include the copyrights to all the songs posted on it, because that's a copyright MP3.com didn't even originally have to sell.
So Vivendi's decision to delete the archive has no impact on an artists decision to repost his songs somewhere else. The original artists still own all the songs they hosted on the site.
The only way it would have ruined an artists ability to go to another distributor would have been in the artist was dumb enough to upload their ONLY COPY of the song to the site and destroy their original copy. And anyone doing that deserves what they get. (Especially since, for your master copy of the song you recorded in a studio, you really should pay the extra hard drive space to put it into a high-resolution lossless format, which would not be an MP3.) So, any artist who lost their music from this is doubly stupid - not only did they keep their only copy of their song in a low-res lossy format, but they entrusted it to live only on the servers of another company.
I see how you could have gotten this wrong, given that every other distributor doesn't do this, but that's what made MP3.com so much better (ethically) than the mainstream industry - they refrained from forcing the artist to give up his ownership.
They did get the required court order for surveillance.
THIS time, yes. But the software is designed to work without that invervention if they feel like it. That option shouldn't even BE there.
You know you have lost when you have to make it personal.
Agreed. You seem to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that YOU made it personal first.
What about this problem:
1 - You either don't have antivirus software installed, or you do but it's out of date and you need the latest patch to be compliant.
2 - The way to get the patch is via download online.
3 - Since you don't have the patch, the router won't let you get online.
So.... How do you get the patch?
I think the system would have to have an exception in the denial of access to handle this situation. Perhaps it would allow noncompliant machines to only be able to reach one destination - the server where the antivrius software is available. Or, perhaps the router itself could hold a copy of the software that the client computer could be given access to.
My general complaint is that if it claims machines with virus software are more secure than ones without, that leads to the stupid conclusion that machines running OS'es that don't *HAVE* viruses made for them are less secure (and should be denied access) than insecure OS'es that need the band-aid of anti-virus software on them.)
A linux machine without anti-virus software is more resistant to viruses than a windows machine with anti-virus software.
And, leaving the OS argument out, there's the problem that the standard required antivirus software will be a organizational standard, and therefore typically a bit behind the cutting edge. This could lead to the stupid case where you have to DOWNGRADE your antivirus software to an older version in order to be compliant.
In order to use a warrant to search your house, they have to inform you in person that they are doing it. With wiretapping, you are not told that the warrant even exists. This is a problem because it gives you nothing to legally contest - you don't even know there's anything TO contest going on.
What irks me is that THAT is the reason for the objection - it interferes with a service a business is trying to provide. Yah, that's a problem, but what about the bigger problem that they aren't supposed to be searching me without a warrant, which is what unannounced wiretapping (and RF evesdropping) essentially amounts to?
1) leave my copyright notice
I thought they'd dropped that part now, too.
The BSD is a free-market radical/libertarian's wet dream, but the GPL and LGPL constitute a steal all you want but give back approach.
Not quite. BSD is "if you improve it, you can keep your changes to yourself", and (L)GPL is "if you improve it, you should submit your changes for the world to see." NEITHER one actually requires you to "give back" if you 'steal' code - The GPL restrictions only activate if you *build* on that code.
The world is loaded with Linux users who haven't contribued a single line of code, despite "stealing" millions of lines of kernel source - and the GPL allows that just fine.
If you build something on top of Linux, you are not required to open your own source just because the kernel is GPL. It's only if you make modifications to the linux kernel itself that you have to release those changes. If all you are doing is making executables on it, or even kernel modules rather than direct kernel edits, you can do that closed-source. That's why Linux is still a usable platform for embedded systems even though it is GPL.
I agree that Family Guy pulls it off better
I didn't say that. I said the styles are different, and the humor comes from different parts. One uses the quick tangents as the source of humor, and the other uses the mainline story. I actually slightly prefer the Simpsons' style, and the only reason Family Guy was more interesting was because Simpsons' was on for so long already and starting to run down. Compare second or third season Simpsons to second or third season Family Guy and I would prefer Simpsons (but only slightly. They were both good.)
I reiterate: These are intelligent books designed for people who are prepared to think about the story, not those who want it all hand feed.
Translation: "I'm exactly the sort of pompous ass that people stereotype all Tolkien fans as being."
You talk of wanting a free market without overlording monopolies, but also without having to follow revolutionaries that tear down the free market. Now, leaving aside the problem that this isn't an accurate portrayal of what's going on, I want to address a different problem I have with your point: How do you answer the problem that in some situations, a free market CAUSES a monopoly to emerge? These are what are called "natural monopolies". They occur when there is a very strong 'network effect' in which everyone making the same uniform choice is a feature that has great value. For example, your city's waterworks will be cheaper if only one organization provides all the water supply to the whole city. It isn't practical for there to be three or four competing water suppliers, each with their own pipes under the streets, each with their own road crews to do maintenence of those pipes, just so that you can pick a different water supplier than your neighbor. So even the pure capitalists have to accept that this is a case in which a monopoly is going to occur ANYWAY, like it or not, and therefore it's better to have it be a governmental voting decision rather than let it be up to every person in the city to decide differently. There are numerous things like this - such as electrical companies, cable companies, (land line) phone companies, and so on. Let's look at what split up the Ma Bell monopoly - government intervention. The reason you can pick a different service provider is because government rules FORCE whichever company built the phone cable outside your house to lease the use of that line to competitors at a fixed market rate, like it or not.
Anyway, I submit to you that, although it's to a lesser extent than something physically routed through a city, computer operating systems are also a natural monopoly. It takes special effort to make competing OS'es use compatable data files. That's effort that companies don't want to put forth since it helps their competitors. So you have the situation where if your co-worker used Windows to write a program, you have to use it too to run it. And thus a strong network effect is born, where there is great value in everybody using the same system. Microsoft happened to become the monopoly, but if it wasn't them it would have been someone else. This situation does NOT lead to multiple companies competing on equal footing.
A free market, without government intervention to enforce fair play, doesn't *stay* a free market for long.
Gates altruistically "gave" the world ie to destroy a serious rival Netscape. Altruism in business is generally a sign of ulterior motives.
But that's not a case of altruism having ulterior motives. It's a case of an act being mislabeled (by you) as altruism when it's not. I.E. was not given away for free, any more than COMMAND.EXE was given away for free, or the control panel was given away for free. It's cost was rolled into the blanket cost of buying the OS, just like all the other bits it came with.
So they have similar characters. Big deal. The difference is in the style. Family Guy used the 'flashback' joke a LOT, as in: "Oh, they don't let Peter rent from the video store anymore because he kept recording over the tapes. {cut to scene of opening of 'citizen kane', which goes staticy for a second and then it's Peter on a couch, obviously being filmed with a home video camera, saying "It's a freakin sled, okay! Rosebud is a freakin' sled! There, now I just saved you from wasting two boring pointless hours of your life.", and then the movie continues.}
The Simpsons generally tried to stick to the story, and use the plot for the humor, while Family Guy was usually funny *despite* the plot, because the humor was in fast, small snippets.
I am supprised that you find the council of both Elrond and Galadriel brief exchanges
I'm surprised by that too, since I never said it. I said that the mention of how the elves will have to leave when the ring ends was brief. The long text about the Council covered more than that point (which got very minor billing compared to the strategic discussions of what to do about the ring.)
lacked the maturity to grasp the point.
To grasp a point, it must actually be communicated to you.
Repeat after me:
This isn't ars.
This isn't ars.
The facts don't support your claim that Ars and Slashdot are identical communities with identical attitudes and identical maturity levels.
There is no way in hell I'll be able to send of in 10 years and say 'My Matrix DVD is worn out, can you send me a new one'.
Re-read my post. There's an "or" in there. Getting the copy from the stuido's files was just one possibility. The other was making a copy off of the copy. (In which case you only need to get it to read it once out of many tries.)
Anyway, the original point I was trying to make is that it is still a short-coming of DVDs.
And my point is that it ISN'T. That some places are using cheap construction for their DVDs is not the fault of the format, nor is it a shortcoming of DVDs. Calling it a shortcoming of DVDs would mean that it's a feature ALL DVD's share. It's not. It is possible to produce long lasting DVD's for a few dollars more WITHOUT changing anything inherent about the DVD format at all. This is not the case with VHS. No matter how much money you spend on producing a VHS tape, the system still has the flaw that the head has to scrape the ribbon to view the tape, and thus the tape will degrade with each viewing. DVD's CAN be made to last forever, for a few dollars more, unlike VHS tapes. That so many companies choose not to bother is NOT a feature of DVD's.
If you copy your DVD to a new, higher quality disc the day your first get it, you can make it outlive you. No matter what quality of tape you transfer your VHS tape to, it won't last.
So, with VHS, a short lifespan is a misfeature of the format itself. With DVD's a short lifespan has nothing to do with the format at all, and has everything to do with using cheap construction.
Two words:
John Woo.
Two words:
Hong Kong.
When Woo was making Hong Kong flicks, it was as a British colonist, not as a Chinese citizen. Things will be different there now. Don't expect as many good movies.
3. They still degrade. Not in the same way as VHS, but some of these manufacturers are putting out discs so cheap they're not even lasting as long as VHS
But there is a key difference between a format that falls apart because it was made cheaply and a format that falls apart because it receives wear and tear every time you use it. Those DVDs that separate and "go bad" are doing it because of time, not because of repeated playings (like with tapes). Thus it is *possible* to make long lasting DVDs for archival purposes if you want, but it isn't even possible to do that with VHS.
Also, for archival purposes, it's important to note that if a DVD starts to fall apart, you can still get a PERFECT new copy made off of it, or off of the original source files sitting on some studio's file server somewhere. With tape, the degrading format is the ONLY format they are stored in. With DVD's the poor quality DVD that falls apart isn't really the format the original master is stored in.
One more try: Reading a decompiled binary is SLOW work. Reading source (in comparasin) is FAST.
So, NO - the existence of decompilers does not help discover copyright violations in closed source works. It only helps verify them if you already suspect them for some other reason.
Was that still to complex for you?
Are you suggesting this because you think it *might* happen in a very limited number of circumstances, or are you suggesting this because it *does* happen?
It doesn't happen because right now, it can't. People trying to take back what they said happens a lot in debate. Imagine if they actually could alter the record to mask the history that they have done this?
simply avoid dealing with anyone who attempts something like this.
That's not a solution any more than killfiles in usenet are a solution to trolls - they fail to stop the liar from lying - they just let you cover your eyes and pretend they aren't there.
If you want to edit your posts, there's a simple answer. Hit preview - read it over - and don't submit it until you like what you see.
Well I'd agree that Sam is the real hero. I've always thought that. Frodo was always a bit moody,
even from the start, and as such was not as well
equipped to deal with the burden of the depression the ring gives to it's bearer, I think. I'm hoping that Peter Jackson holds this aspect of the story true to the book in RoTK. If he screws over Sam by reducing his level of heroism, I'll be more pissed than I was over Faramir's reduction in personality.
For me, I can accept all the alterations of the other characters if he keeps the hobbit's personalities properly intact. So far he has held up with that.
In the book, the story of Aragorn is treated in exactly the way a hobbit would treat it - a bunch of Big People doing Big Things that don't concern us.
The fact is that the books are not at all like a movie, pandering to popular sentiment, leaving the viewer with a nice warm fuzzy feeling at the end.
You are misunderstanding the complaint I had had. For one thing, do remember that I stated that it was a complaint I had had BACK WHEN I WAS A KID. Also, it wasn't JUST that it was a depressing end that bothered me, but that it was a depressing end WITHOUT enough context to make it clear WHY. It felt like it was depressing just for the heck of it. In a book of thousands of small-print pages, a brief exchange by some characters one sixth of the way through is not enough to establish a major plot element, or even make it stick in your memory the first time you read the story (which, remember, is what I was talking about - the first time I read it). It's information that is really important to reveal to the reader, and yet it doesn't get enough time spent on it, instead that time is wasted on freakin' song lyrics that are disconnected from anything in the story. (So, NO, Peter Jackson is not doing anything new by wasting time on less important elements of the story. The original did the same thing, but in a different way. That said, it's STILL a great epic story. It's just told in a bad way.)
Bombadil is irrelevant, but the Barrow downs were not. Two important plot-wise things should have happened there: 1 - Hobbits get ancient daggars (that to them are swords) that were made by the men of old who used to be in the northlands. These were explicitly imbued with the ability to use them on wraiths, since thats what the men were up against in the long-gone battle that the downs are graves for - thus Merry's role later on in ROTK is made possible. 2 - Personality-wise, we see that the hobbits aren't total losers unable to cope with challenges. They do manage to get themselves out of the barrow themselves. Take that away and the dominance of the big characters in the fellowship later really makes the hobbits look totally helpless and childish, which was not how they were supposed to be portrayed. They were supposed to be portrayed as just looking a bit inferior IN COMPARASIN to the major uber-heros they are travelling with. They aren't wusses, just normal people standing next to giants of legend and being overshadowed by them. That comes across in the books, and in the *extended* version of the FoTR movie, but not in the theatrical release of it. In the theatrical release, they actually have a different personality because all the scenese where they show they can fight got cut, and you only see the ones where they act like scared helpless children.