How the frig did this get modded 'informative' ???
1. Plato never wrote plays, let alone 'political satire plays'.
2. It was from Platos 'Timaeus and Critias' which is a 'dialogue' written by Plato. Dialogues are used to explore several opposing views in a discussion, a way for the author to show the flaws in others arguments and the virtues in their own beliefs. It is in no way a 'play' of any sort, and was far from being a 'political satire'. It was suggested the point of Atlantis was for Plato to pretend that his 'utopia' as written about in his book 'The Republic' was to invent a history for his ideas. This was because most of 'The Republic' ideas were stolen from the Egyptians and Plato wanted to make his ideas seem to be 'Athenian'.
3. Atlantis never represented Athens in the work, as Athens was actually in the story as fighting against Atlantis. If Atlantis was supposed to represent Athens, then what the frig was Athens doing in the story????
My suggestion to whomever the anonymous coward was who posted this, is GO LEARN WHO PLATO WAS!!!!
You make selling out sound bad! For $1 million I might consider saying MS makes the greatest software in the world. For $10 million I might even keep a straight face when saying it. That's only 'might' though. Lots of people have their price... wonder if I could keep a straight face for $100 million... hmmm...:-D
Hope this explains it. (Any capitalisation used is for emphasis, not yelling.
You're getting your copyright and trademark laws confused, as well as copyright on the character and copyright on cartoons/comics etc. Boop (the character) is not in public domain.
Fliescher sold the copyrights years ago and no longer holds them, that's why they can't sue for copyright violation. AVELA got licensing rights off the current copyright holders to use the images. Fleischers estate then tried to sue AVELA for breach of trademark, (trademarks NEVER expire as long as the users keep using them and enforce them when people violate them). They failed because if the character was trademarked, then it would not enter public domain (it is due to enter public domain in 2042). Also, if it was a trademark, they have failed to enforce it as the copyright holders (plural) have made lots of cartoons/comics etc using the character for years and the Fleischer estate never sued them for trademark infringement. (Plural used as Boop's copyright has changed hands many times). Even if Fleischers estate does have some trademark using Boop, AVELA hasn't claimed that their merchandise is officially Fleischers work (thus not passing themself off as Fleischers images. The images are however 'official' Boop merchandise as it is licensed).
Now, the bit about some of Boop being in public domain is in reference to her early cartoons/comic strips etc, which used to have copyright for 50 years, so in 1980 the first Boop cartoons entered public domain, the 1976 copyright act extended copyright to 75 years for corporate works, but didn't affect works already in creation. The Bono extension of copyright in 1998 stopped a heap of other Boop cartoons from entering public domain because it did affect works already in creation, meaning that it is now 120 years from creation before a Boop cartoon can go into public domain if it isn't already there. (No one can take things out of public domain once they are in public domain).
Hope this explains it for you. This is not copyright law. The title (as per usual on Slashdot) is deceptive (though not entirely incorrect). This is Trade Mark law.
“If we ruled that AVELA’s depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer’s trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain.”'
Bold added for emphasis. Trademarks do go on forever as long as the company using it keep using it and enforce it against infringers. What the Judge has effectively said is, if the character is a trademark (as per the Fleischer argument in court), then the character can never go into public domain. The Fleischer estate can effectively use certain images of Betty Boop as their trademark, but 1. they need to have enforced this, which they obviously haven't with past movies, cartoons by other studios who hold the Boop copyright etc using Boop, and 2. if another person / company (ie AVELA's studio) makes their own images that are not the same as the trade marks, then they have not infringed the trade mark. (Not that we needed to get to point 2 in this case).
If the Fleischer estate had of sued for copyright infringement the still would have lost as they no longer hold the rights. They were sold off. (As mentioned in the article). As Fleischer died in 1972, and because of Sonny Bono (et al) copyright is now 70 years after creators death, so, technically Boop is under copyright until 12th of September, 2042 (seventy years after Fleischer died).
So really, the Fleischer estate has no case either for copyright or trademark infringement.
Do you mean more common? I've been using voice recognition software on my laptop for about 6 years and that includes telling it what programs to open as well as programming and writing letters etc. My Mac Desktop can also do it, but I just don't use it for that... not yet anyway. It was publicly available long before I bought the software for my laptop to do it as well.
If there is no damage to Tolkiens reputation then it doesn't matter.
As per my previous comment to another post:
A persons public image isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by Trade Mark (see appropriate section of Trade Mark laws in your country, most likely under 'Misappropriation of Personality Rights').
Tolkiens Estate will need to prove these four things:
1) They have a reputation;
2) There was a misappropriation of the plaintiff’s personality for the defendant’s gain;
3) It caused damage to the plaintiff; and
4) There is no public interest to precluding a finding.
A persons public image isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by Trade Mark (see appropriate section of Trade Mark laws in your country, most likely under 'Misappropriation of Personality Rights').
Tolkiens Estate will need to prove these four things:
1) They have a reputation;
2) There was a misappropriation of the plaintiff’s personality for the defendant’s gain;
3) It caused damage to the plaintiff; and
4) There is no public interest to precluding a finding.
I think they can do 1) (ie Tolkien does have a reputation), and 2) (ie Yes, selling a story with Tolkien as a character means the defendant is making money/gain from the use). 3) might be a little hard to prove, it depends on what was said in the book. If Tolkiens reputation was soiled, then this estate has a case, otherwise, no. 4), have no idea, could be a grey area and might depend on the Judge.
It would not surprise me if part of the push was possibly from a new manager who couldn't use Linux and was unwilling to change. There are probably a lot of workers who are also unwilling to change who spent their time with Linux bagging the system.
The mention of training costs in particular reminds me of people 'unwilling' to change who deliberately do things wrong and blame the system. (We had some guys who recently kept adding information a day late to an excel spreadsheet and kept blaming the system, so we put a trace on when they were adding stuff... and voila, it was them and not the computers!):-)
We've had a weird experience at work with a new manager. He can't understand how we do things (or why we do things certain ways) and has spent the last few months forcing everything to be changed to suit his needs. This included him wanting an entire re-write of a backend for a system so that it works the way he wants. It started with him wanting the reports it spits out coming out in his format, and so we did that for him, but he discovered that there was all this other data that is used that gets 'totalled up' and has 'calculations' done on it to give him his reports. He wants the back end completely rewritten so that that data is not used and just the 'Totals' and other things that he has on his summary page are used in the back end. We've tried explaining that the summary stuff doesn't exist in the back end, but is created using the data... he will sit there nodding his head saying, 'Yes, I understand that.', but then after the meeting still demands we rewrite it to remove the data that's obviously slowing the system down. *sigh* Then, there is the fact that the very system he wants a rewrite on is being integrated into our main database systems and a rewrite is a waste of time because by the time we finish the rewrite the integration will have already occurred.
That's just the one thing I'm involved with, I've heard he is even worse with what he's been doing to other people and systems. But, it did get a lot of people talking today about managers who come into an organisation where things are running smoothly and insist on changing everything to suit how they think they should run and end up ruining the system. Most of those managers are only there for a short period of time and leave disillusioned (or get fired) and when a competent manager does get into a position they have to spend three years fixing things to get them back the way they were... only for them to leave for greener pastures and be replaced by another idiot!!:-)
In five years, maybe we'll see the German Foreign office return to Open Source and claim the migration back to MS was too expensive etc.
Which reminds me of another story (yes, once at band camp)... we purchased software to run on our Sun boxes ages ago, and one manager had 'friends' at IBM. The IBM salespeople convinced him to buy some servers from them that ran Windows. We tried to explain that the copies of the software we had only ran on Unix, but the manager had purchased the Windows servers because the IBM salespeople had told him that the software would run on windows. The manager would not budge on the fact that he was right about the software... so when the Windows servers arrived the company had to re-purchase the software to run on Windows servers and that manager had left the company to go stuff up some other place! Please note, I don't think the IBM salespeople were nec. to blame. The manager probably only asked them if the software runs on windows and they probably thought he meant it in a general way (ie there is a windows version), so the Manager was to blame. (Though the System Architect at the time said the IBM salespeople knew what they were doing and just wanted the sale). Who knows! But, our data centre went from being Unix only to having about four Windows servers sitting there.
You do realise the flaw in your argument? Both Shakespeare and Mozart lived in a time of copyright. Neither were amateurs, they were both paid to write. Admittedly the copyright was about 7 or 14 years (a lot less than Sonny Bono and Disney would prefer). The problem with todays copyright laws is not that copyright exists, but the length of time (like... forever) before anything falls into public domain. For just over the last 100 years (since about 1868) it was pretty much authors life plus 50 years. There isn't anyone alive today that was born into a time when the copyright laws were less than that.
Shakespeare was paid to write, he was not an amateur. Other than acting, writing plays and the fact he owned half the company he worked for, he also made some money publishing his sonnets etc (which were copyrighted). The works we have are a collection made years later by two of his actors who had to try to remember the plays from decades earlier from their own memories and poor notes etc. In some cases we have no idea if the words are even what Shakespeare wrote himself (some of it differing from one persons notes to another persons notes). The reason they started to collect Shakespeare works was due to a printing company paying them. Otherwise, Shakespeares works would have faded away and we'd never of heard of them. It was only because they were able to make a profit that the works were preserved. (The publishing company then had the copyright for fourteen years, so that no other publishing company could make copies of Shakespeares plays. Shakespeare had been dead for ten years). Copyright was about having a monopoly for a short time on a work so that the author/publishing companies etc could turn a profit for the efforts. It is also notable that he wasn't popular as a playwrite till centuries after his death.
The majority of the books prior to copyright that we do have we are lucky to have, as they were preserved by Clerics collecting and writing them down.
Prior to the printing press copying a book cost money because you had to pay someone who owned a copy of the book to let you make a copy. If the author didn't have a copy of their own works (highly possible as often only one copy was made and it was turned over to those who commission it), then there was no way you could get a copy, even if the author gave you permission, unless the owner of the physical work let you. Usually you'd have to pay for it. Then, there were such things happening as when Ptolemy paid 2 talents (1 talent was more than some kingdoms had at the time) to Athens for a chance to copy the complete works of Aescylus and then nicked the thing. Thus, Ptolemy had the only copy which was kept in Alexandria. It survived until the Muslims invaders of Egypt destroyed them. Aescylus also wasn't an amateur, he was paid as well to write.
Copyright started in Britain in 1518, and by 1566 books published were given a 'printing privilege' and formally protected by the Star Chamber decree. This was two years after Shakespeare was born, many years before he started writing his plays. Copyright in Europe started in 1450, well before Mozart was born or even composing.
Can you select an example of someone who was actually an amateur and published their works in a time outside of copyright who is actually considered a giant of some sorts in their field by the average person on the street today? (It's just a thought exercise, not a challenge. For instance, Chaucer was a giant in his day, and did receive some money for writing, but was hardly professional, but the average person in the street couldn't quote him and may not even have heard of him. Most Greek play writes got paid to write their plays, admittedly some of them were paid in prize money, but hardly amateur. The ones who were not good to win prize money ended up going into other professions and their works no longer exist).
I think it is too easy today to think that because someone like Shakespeare is in the public domain now that they somehow lived in a time outside of copyright.
I have the graphic novel and the movie. I think both are excellent. I don't expect movie adaptations to be identical to the novels, but I do expect them to have enough of the feeling and gist of the original work to be considered the same work, just different mediums of delivery. I don't think the movie deviated that much from the graphic novels story line. Rorschach still gets obliterated in the end... which I find upsetting in both mediums, but maybe I'm a bit like him in my expectation of people needing to know the truth.:-)
I also liked the adaptation of 'V' for Vendetta as a work on it's own, but really hate how they changed and rearranged the plot line and changed the Government to be like some sort of 'Big Brother/Nazi regime'. I just find the 'Big Brother/Nazi Regime' type thing a bit 'seen it all already' / 'here we go again' etc. (If you get my drift). Though, the anarchist thing in the graphic novel is a bit naive.
Both adaptations stand well as works of art on their own merits. Alan Moore (writer of the graphic novels) is freaking legend.
I mean, I'm clearly no art critic and claim no deep understanding of art, but what does this bring as "art"? This brings no insights and adds nothing.
You would need to read the extract submitted to get the funding. Art isn't made for the masses, it is made for the people with the big bucks. It always has been. You admit to not being an art critic nor having a deep understanding of art, so by your own definition of yourself you are hardly qualified to make a judgement and lack the credentials. So, your conclusion that "This brings no insight and adds nothing." is already made irrelevant by the fact that you admit to being ignorant of such things.
Your conclusion would be similar to someone unscientific making conclusions of the worth of scientific discoveries. To put this in a bit of perspective, an example is an old flatmate of mine (who was very unscientific) who considered going to the moon to be totally irresponsible as there is nothing there because it is just a rock in space. He couldn't see the point in discovering what was there and how the moon came to be, nor the point of using it as a springboard for getting to other planets. He just saw it as a waste of money that could have been better spent on things like... his wage.
As most slashdotters are in the same boat as yourself, (coming from science/engineering etc backgrounds), it is no wonder that most will not have an understanding of art. Your interests lie elsewhere (and there is nothing wrong with that). The 'Art' side of this story is really irrelevant to slashdot. The only thing of interest (that matters for slashdot) is the science of attaching a camera to the back of his head... and even then I'm not sure if the surgery was somehow ground breaking or anything.
Slashdot Mirror
My suggestion to whomever the anonymous coward was who posted this, is GO LEARN WHO PLATO WAS!!!!
"... and still has trouble with vision, motion, and 'common sense,' ..."
Management material.
When I bought my Mac I bought AV/Firewall software etc. The guy at the store laughed at me and asked why I needed it.
No matter how 'secure' the hype says something is, it never hurts to be careful.
I have that one with the second 4 printed upside down. Worth a fortune! :-)
They said faster than 'a' speeding bullet. They never said which one. :-)
It reminded me immediately of Chobits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chobits where the human looking computers do exactly as the TFS describes.
You make selling out sound bad! For $1 million I might consider saying MS makes the greatest software in the world. For $10 million I might even keep a straight face when saying it. That's only 'might' though. Lots of people have their price ... wonder if I could keep a straight face for $100 million ... hmmm ... :-D
Hope this explains it. (Any capitalisation used is for emphasis, not yelling.
You're getting your copyright and trademark laws confused, as well as copyright on the character and copyright on cartoons/comics etc. Boop (the character) is not in public domain.
Fliescher sold the copyrights years ago and no longer holds them, that's why they can't sue for copyright violation. AVELA got licensing rights off the current copyright holders to use the images. Fleischers estate then tried to sue AVELA for breach of trademark, (trademarks NEVER expire as long as the users keep using them and enforce them when people violate them). They failed because if the character was trademarked, then it would not enter public domain (it is due to enter public domain in 2042). Also, if it was a trademark, they have failed to enforce it as the copyright holders (plural) have made lots of cartoons/comics etc using the character for years and the Fleischer estate never sued them for trademark infringement. (Plural used as Boop's copyright has changed hands many times). Even if Fleischers estate does have some trademark using Boop, AVELA hasn't claimed that their merchandise is officially Fleischers work (thus not passing themself off as Fleischers images. The images are however 'official' Boop merchandise as it is licensed).
Now, the bit about some of Boop being in public domain is in reference to her early cartoons/comic strips etc, which used to have copyright for 50 years, so in 1980 the first Boop cartoons entered public domain, the 1976 copyright act extended copyright to 75 years for corporate works, but didn't affect works already in creation. The Bono extension of copyright in 1998 stopped a heap of other Boop cartoons from entering public domain because it did affect works already in creation, meaning that it is now 120 years from creation before a Boop cartoon can go into public domain if it isn't already there. (No one can take things out of public domain once they are in public domain).
Hope this explains it for you. This is not copyright law. The title (as per usual on Slashdot) is deceptive (though not entirely incorrect). This is Trade Mark law.
“If we ruled that AVELA’s depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer’s trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain.”'
Bold added for emphasis. Trademarks do go on forever as long as the company using it keep using it and enforce it against infringers. What the Judge has effectively said is, if the character is a trademark (as per the Fleischer argument in court), then the character can never go into public domain. The Fleischer estate can effectively use certain images of Betty Boop as their trademark, but 1. they need to have enforced this, which they obviously haven't with past movies, cartoons by other studios who hold the Boop copyright etc using Boop, and 2. if another person / company (ie AVELA's studio) makes their own images that are not the same as the trade marks, then they have not infringed the trade mark. (Not that we needed to get to point 2 in this case).
If the Fleischer estate had of sued for copyright infringement the still would have lost as they no longer hold the rights. They were sold off. (As mentioned in the article). As Fleischer died in 1972, and because of Sonny Bono (et al) copyright is now 70 years after creators death, so, technically Boop is under copyright until 12th of September, 2042 (seventy years after Fleischer died).
So really, the Fleischer estate has no case either for copyright or trademark infringement.
Oh, he got a blow alright. Right in da NUTS!
And don't even mention the words "Windows", "Mobile" and "Security" in the same sentence, please.
Hypocrite. :-)
Once it becomes publicly available ...
Do you mean more common? I've been using voice recognition software on my laptop for about 6 years and that includes telling it what programs to open as well as programming and writing letters etc. My Mac Desktop can also do it, but I just don't use it for that ... not yet anyway. It was publicly available long before I bought the software for my laptop to do it as well.
If there is no damage to Tolkiens reputation then it doesn't matter.
As per my previous comment to another post:
A persons public image isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by Trade Mark (see appropriate section of Trade Mark laws in your country, most likely under 'Misappropriation of Personality Rights').
Tolkiens Estate will need to prove these four things:
A persons public image isn't covered by copyright, it's covered by Trade Mark (see appropriate section of Trade Mark laws in your country, most likely under 'Misappropriation of Personality Rights').
Tolkiens Estate will need to prove these four things:
I think they can do 1) (ie Tolkien does have a reputation), and 2) (ie Yes, selling a story with Tolkien as a character means the defendant is making money/gain from the use). 3) might be a little hard to prove, it depends on what was said in the book. If Tolkiens reputation was soiled, then this estate has a case, otherwise, no. 4), have no idea, could be a grey area and might depend on the Judge.
It would not surprise me if part of the push was possibly from a new manager who couldn't use Linux and was unwilling to change. There are probably a lot of workers who are also unwilling to change who spent their time with Linux bagging the system.
The mention of training costs in particular reminds me of people 'unwilling' to change who deliberately do things wrong and blame the system. (We had some guys who recently kept adding information a day late to an excel spreadsheet and kept blaming the system, so we put a trace on when they were adding stuff ... and voila, it was them and not the computers!) :-)
We've had a weird experience at work with a new manager. He can't understand how we do things (or why we do things certain ways) and has spent the last few months forcing everything to be changed to suit his needs. This included him wanting an entire re-write of a backend for a system so that it works the way he wants. It started with him wanting the reports it spits out coming out in his format, and so we did that for him, but he discovered that there was all this other data that is used that gets 'totalled up' and has 'calculations' done on it to give him his reports. He wants the back end completely rewritten so that that data is not used and just the 'Totals' and other things that he has on his summary page are used in the back end. We've tried explaining that the summary stuff doesn't exist in the back end, but is created using the data ... he will sit there nodding his head saying, 'Yes, I understand that.', but then after the meeting still demands we rewrite it to remove the data that's obviously slowing the system down. *sigh* Then, there is the fact that the very system he wants a rewrite on is being integrated into our main database systems and a rewrite is a waste of time because by the time we finish the rewrite the integration will have already occurred.
That's just the one thing I'm involved with, I've heard he is even worse with what he's been doing to other people and systems. But, it did get a lot of people talking today about managers who come into an organisation where things are running smoothly and insist on changing everything to suit how they think they should run and end up ruining the system. Most of those managers are only there for a short period of time and leave disillusioned (or get fired) and when a competent manager does get into a position they have to spend three years fixing things to get them back the way they were ... only for them to leave for greener pastures and be replaced by another idiot!! :-)
In five years, maybe we'll see the German Foreign office return to Open Source and claim the migration back to MS was too expensive etc.
Which reminds me of another story (yes, once at band camp) ... we purchased software to run on our Sun boxes ages ago, and one manager had 'friends' at IBM. The IBM salespeople convinced him to buy some servers from them that ran Windows. We tried to explain that the copies of the software we had only ran on Unix, but the manager had purchased the Windows servers because the IBM salespeople had told him that the software would run on windows. The manager would not budge on the fact that he was right about the software ... so when the Windows servers arrived the company had to re-purchase the software to run on Windows servers and that manager had left the company to go stuff up some other place! Please note, I don't think the IBM salespeople were nec. to blame. The manager probably only asked them if the software runs on windows and they probably thought he meant it in a general way (ie there is a windows version), so the Manager was to blame. (Though the System Architect at the time said the IBM salespeople knew what they were doing and just wanted the sale). Who knows! But, our data centre went from being Unix only to having about four Windows servers sitting there.
You do realise the flaw in your argument? Both Shakespeare and Mozart lived in a time of copyright. Neither were amateurs, they were both paid to write. Admittedly the copyright was about 7 or 14 years (a lot less than Sonny Bono and Disney would prefer). The problem with todays copyright laws is not that copyright exists, but the length of time (like ... forever) before anything falls into public domain. For just over the last 100 years (since about 1868) it was pretty much authors life plus 50 years. There isn't anyone alive today that was born into a time when the copyright laws were less than that.
Shakespeare was paid to write, he was not an amateur. Other than acting, writing plays and the fact he owned half the company he worked for, he also made some money publishing his sonnets etc (which were copyrighted). The works we have are a collection made years later by two of his actors who had to try to remember the plays from decades earlier from their own memories and poor notes etc. In some cases we have no idea if the words are even what Shakespeare wrote himself (some of it differing from one persons notes to another persons notes). The reason they started to collect Shakespeare works was due to a printing company paying them. Otherwise, Shakespeares works would have faded away and we'd never of heard of them. It was only because they were able to make a profit that the works were preserved. (The publishing company then had the copyright for fourteen years, so that no other publishing company could make copies of Shakespeares plays. Shakespeare had been dead for ten years). Copyright was about having a monopoly for a short time on a work so that the author/publishing companies etc could turn a profit for the efforts. It is also notable that he wasn't popular as a playwrite till centuries after his death.
The majority of the books prior to copyright that we do have we are lucky to have, as they were preserved by Clerics collecting and writing them down.
Prior to the printing press copying a book cost money because you had to pay someone who owned a copy of the book to let you make a copy. If the author didn't have a copy of their own works (highly possible as often only one copy was made and it was turned over to those who commission it), then there was no way you could get a copy, even if the author gave you permission, unless the owner of the physical work let you. Usually you'd have to pay for it. Then, there were such things happening as when Ptolemy paid 2 talents (1 talent was more than some kingdoms had at the time) to Athens for a chance to copy the complete works of Aescylus and then nicked the thing. Thus, Ptolemy had the only copy which was kept in Alexandria. It survived until the Muslims invaders of Egypt destroyed them. Aescylus also wasn't an amateur, he was paid as well to write.
Copyright started in Britain in 1518, and by 1566 books published were given a 'printing privilege' and formally protected by the Star Chamber decree. This was two years after Shakespeare was born, many years before he started writing his plays. Copyright in Europe started in 1450, well before Mozart was born or even composing.
Can you select an example of someone who was actually an amateur and published their works in a time outside of copyright who is actually considered a giant of some sorts in their field by the average person on the street today? (It's just a thought exercise, not a challenge. For instance, Chaucer was a giant in his day, and did receive some money for writing, but was hardly professional, but the average person in the street couldn't quote him and may not even have heard of him. Most Greek play writes got paid to write their plays, admittedly some of them were paid in prize money, but hardly amateur. The ones who were not good to win prize money ended up going into other professions and their works no longer exist).
I think it is too easy today to think that because someone like Shakespeare is in the public domain now that they somehow lived in a time outside of copyright.
I have the graphic novel and the movie. I think both are excellent. I don't expect movie adaptations to be identical to the novels, but I do expect them to have enough of the feeling and gist of the original work to be considered the same work, just different mediums of delivery. I don't think the movie deviated that much from the graphic novels story line. Rorschach still gets obliterated in the end ... which I find upsetting in both mediums, but maybe I'm a bit like him in my expectation of people needing to know the truth. :-)
I also liked the adaptation of 'V' for Vendetta as a work on it's own, but really hate how they changed and rearranged the plot line and changed the Government to be like some sort of 'Big Brother/Nazi regime'. I just find the 'Big Brother/Nazi Regime' type thing a bit 'seen it all already' / 'here we go again' etc. (If you get my drift). Though, the anarchist thing in the graphic novel is a bit naive.
Both adaptations stand well as works of art on their own merits. Alan Moore (writer of the graphic novels) is freaking legend.
You mean the OJ concentrate + gasoline formula...
I thought that was the secret recipe for coca-cola!!!
You didn't mind the three missing leading zeros? (Or you didn't mind less than a byte of B'day cake) :-)
There was already proof of it being used for legit purposes with many Linux distros being available via Bit Torrent.
I mean, I'm clearly no art critic and claim no deep understanding of art, but what does this bring as "art"? This brings no insights and adds nothing.
You would need to read the extract submitted to get the funding. Art isn't made for the masses, it is made for the people with the big bucks. It always has been. You admit to not being an art critic nor having a deep understanding of art, so by your own definition of yourself you are hardly qualified to make a judgement and lack the credentials. So, your conclusion that "This brings no insight and adds nothing." is already made irrelevant by the fact that you admit to being ignorant of such things.
Your conclusion would be similar to someone unscientific making conclusions of the worth of scientific discoveries. To put this in a bit of perspective, an example is an old flatmate of mine (who was very unscientific) who considered going to the moon to be totally irresponsible as there is nothing there because it is just a rock in space. He couldn't see the point in discovering what was there and how the moon came to be, nor the point of using it as a springboard for getting to other planets. He just saw it as a waste of money that could have been better spent on things like ... his wage.
As most slashdotters are in the same boat as yourself, (coming from science/engineering etc backgrounds), it is no wonder that most will not have an understanding of art. Your interests lie elsewhere (and there is nothing wrong with that). The 'Art' side of this story is really irrelevant to slashdot. The only thing of interest (that matters for slashdot) is the science of attaching a camera to the back of his head ... and even then I'm not sure if the surgery was somehow ground breaking or anything.
(where the 61.9% figure comes from).
The got the 61.9% off another study they found online.
Hmmm, wonder if we can get to the stars with steam engine power?
Darn it! I knew I should have ditched Unix for Multix years ago so I can talk to my other selves in other Universes!!!!!
pr0n. End of confusion.