Well to be fair, the image of the Police Call box is very English and American audiences can't be expected to recognize anything from a foreign culture. The American TARDIS will probably *start* as a Porta-Potty so as to avoid confusion in the audience's mind, and then the low-brow shit jokes can start right away.
On your other points, I think Angelina Jolie is too old for the part now. Christina Ricci might do as you suggest. Perhaps someone more noted for their acting ability, say Carmen Electra as a barrista girl who gets caught up in the Doctor's world?
Note that any "hacker" has to use a computer that only displays in 72pt fonts on screen, and says "Processing" for a few seconds after anything is required of it.
I think taking a fun and entertaining, creative story such as Doctor Who and letting Hollywood loose with it is a major mistake. There is almost no chance they won't fuck it up, in particular because its British and any translation to Hollywood is likely to require Americanization of the whole thing.
I expect they will just ignore all of the pre-history and make a version where the Doctor IS American and try to kick start the whole thing for US audiences that way.
Except that making any reforms as you suggest will rely on the cooperation of the very parties that are enforcing the current system - because it keeps them in power. Any threat to their grasp on political power is going to fail by default. The rich and powerful who control the politicians are not going to allow the rest of the masses to make changes that lessen their power gracefully.
Well I dunno about down there in the US, but up here in Canada, an employer is required by law to let you go and cast your ballot during working hours if necessary. As well the polls stay open till 7pm to ensure that most people can get off work and go cast their votes. The problem is getting people to the voting booths in the first place, not so much when they do so. Its not good democracy if a huge percentage don't exercise their right to vote at all. Of course the people who tend not to vote the most are the same poor and unemployed people who most right wing/.ers are complaining about here.
I have a cell phone. I leave it turned off unless I need to make a call. I only have it because I need to have it for work, otherwise I would likely not have a cellphone at all. Text messages might reach a lot of the current always-staring-at-their-cellphone generation but by no means is it a better means of advertising a warning. It could be added to the list of ways to reach people I suppose but given the fact that SOMEONE out there would then want to spoof it immediately I am not sure that's a good idea either.
'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'
Ah forgive me, I live up in Canada. Does anyone NOT receive their television from cable these days? Looking online (for what thats worth), it seems 72.7% of Canadians get their TV signal from cable, and 27% get it from Direct to Home (which is presumably referring to satellite TV) with 0.4% getting it from MDS Satellite (whatever that is), all as of 2005.
Is it not the same down there in the US? The fact that this might not pop up "THIS IS A TEST" on the majority of home TV systems would be enough for me to consider the entire system completely broken. There is no point in having a warning system that causes as much panic as a real event its intended to help warn against if you choose to test it.
In any given week it is entirely possible for me to not watch any TV (except perhaps downloaded content), or listen to the radio. I would likely read about it on the web but its quite possible I could miss the warning that a test was coming up. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of other people managed to miss the notification that a test was happening, and then panic when the test happens. It would seem to me to be absolutely crucial that the fact that its just a test would be displayed on any warning sent out. I hope I am wrong of course, but I do hope no one dies from this test...
I have to agree. The only people who benefit from this in any substantial way is Microsoft, and the legion of lawyers their money paid for to run this lawsuit for 10 years. The purpose was to tarnish Linux and Open Source in general. Now someone at MS has ponied up some more cash to run a second scam, ^H^H^H lawsuit and they will likely try to drag it out as long as possible.
I would love to see some company buy up SCO then opensource all their code, and publicly display all their documents, all their bankrecords, employee histories, legal documents, business agreements etc. Then we could see all of the machinations behind the lawsuits, and perhaps follow the money back to Microsoft.
Yep, say 15 years for a first offense, double for a second offense etc. Publicize it widely. Oh, maybe make it so the pilot if he lives can sue the manufacturer, the relatives of those killed can sue the manufacturer etc. If its a kid who is too young to know that its wrong to do this, lock up their parents:P
I dunno if thats true, but it sure is clever. Well done sir or madam. I can easily imagine developers giving it the nickname XP as a pun, then the marketers taking over and changing it to be "experience". Marketers are evil:P
We used to have Kings & Queens ruling over nearly all of the wealth until the philosophy of individual rights and property started taking hold. Corporations, as a collection of individuals, seek to create wealth, not destroy it. War is a destructive force on an economy. The real problem is creating governments that have excessive power, because it is those government entities that wage war and rule with force. A corporation has no power to dictate your life unless it coerces a government that is willing to do so. That is why government can never be allowed an excess of power and why government's sole purpose should be defend the rights of individuals. Current political winds are blowing away from a corporate world and back to the realms of Kings & Queens.
As much as I am a sort of romantic monarchist - and I am Canadian so I am hardly alone - I would not want to see the return of the feudal system. I am content with the Queen as a figurehead and I think she accomplishes a lot in that position.
As for corporations avoiding war rather than seeking it because wars destroy wealth and peace creates it, consider a few things: * First off there are enormous amounts of money to be had for the development of new weapons systems. These are then sold to the government to ensure the military is well equipped. A lot of money gets spent, a lot of money is at risk. A nice war, or police action is a great way to ensure that your military has had a chance to test the weaponsystem in the field and to create a cadre of experienced military personnel who can serve to teach others, lead the next generation etc. * Wars are often fought to protect economic interests or to acquire control over resources, or merely to establish a favorable regime in another country that willl facilitate corporate interests and help the economy. See the US Marines in dozens of Central and Southern American countries (Dominican Republic to support US Sugar for instance), or the countless vicious dictators that the US has flung millions of dollars at in the past (The US has supported far more dictators than democractic nations it seems), or the Wars in Iraq, Libya etc. War costs a lot of lives but I am sure it also helps a lot of corporate bottom lines. I doubt Haliburton lost any money on Iraq, nor the various mercenary companies that were established and contracted by the government. Oh sorry, not mercenaries, "Security Consultants":P Government should be there to create and update the laws of the land, ensure they are enforced, provide services for the citizens such as police, fire, ambulances, road crews, etc (sorry I am in Canada where that is the case, perhaps those are all privatized down in the US I am not sure what is government owned there), and perform various other functions that are better given to government control rather than corporate control. I would also include Medical services such as we have up here in Canada, but I know that in the US most medical services are corporate controlled. It should not exist to be the lapdog of whatever corporations contribute the most to political campaigns. I too am surprised that it is as many as 50, but I am sure that it will be whittled down over time. There can be only One! etc. I am not surprised to see that most of the top 50 are banks or financial institutions though - and how many of those received bailouts by the US Government? or European Governments?
A lot of those schools exist to process students and take their money. They are money making institutions that happen to award credits when you pay the exorbitant fees. A lot would shutdown if the loans system was removed.
Another problem is that until the prices lowered, superior education would only be the purview of the rich - RPs kids would do just fine, but the average person's ability to help get their children into a higher level of living would be removed. People say there are far too many university graduates, and far too many positions for which a degree is the expected minimum, and thats definitely true. I have no degree and many many jobs are closed to me, despite the fact that I could easily do many of those jobs. However no one wants to be amongst the first people who no longer get the benefit of a good education, when the other side of the equations (business/Government) is not going to change their standards any time soon. Why should they, they can ask whatever they want, at whatever rate of pay, and someone will come along and take the job, no matter how awful it is.
At my old Alma Mater the pressure seems to be on generating income, so the Engineering Department gets brand new buildings, while the Fine Arts department only got out of its WWII Quonset huts a few years ago - they had been there for 30 years at least. The university education system is focusing on things which can turn quick bucks (business degrees, Engineering degrees and people getting the school patents, new business development), all because the Government has stopped supporting the schools and they are expected to survive on their own. The problem is that the nature of education gets changed in the process.
Unfortunately, the 1% either ARE the politicians, or more likely simply OWN the politicians that would be writing and voting in the legislation - so it will never happen. You don't have democracy in the US, you have a Plutocracy that is wearing Democracy's clothing. I doubt if its any different anywhere else mind you, it certainly doesn't seem to be up here in Canada. The 1% own everything, including the politicians and the courts, even if its via their lobbyists and lawyers rather than by direct physical ownership. Nothing will change that, ever.
Because in the US, the politician that sounds like they have strong ideas - no matter how brain shatteringly stupid they may be - is the one that the sheep will elect. Plus he sounds very right wing to me, and the US as a whole is *extremely* right wing (so much so that most of you don't seem to see it). RP obviously believes that Big Business will solve all problems - even the ones that actually cost money without providing some means of making profit - and that government serves no purpose whatsoever.
If a politician pushes ideas that will help big business screw more money out of the common people, then they get the backing of business interests. Remember, the 1% not only control 95% of the money, they also control 95% of the politicians.
Most conversations start about a particular tech topic, then quickly diverge into arguments about Monty Python, Apple, Microsoft, Star Trek, The Force, Imagine a Beowulf of those, All your base belong to us, Good luck with that, It's a Trap, What could possibly go wrong, Move out of your parents basement, Yeah right, you have a girlfriend, Get off my lawn, and Dupe!
You mean all those conversations were extracted from/.?
Because the film will be marketed mostly to the US market, and Americans don't like watching non-Americans doing anything important. Actually they are more likely to rewrite history so that Turing is an American and its all American activity at Bletchley Park that cracks the Enigma. Since the average person on the street has never heard of Turing, or of Enigma it won't make any difference that its all a gross distortion of history.
So Hollywood will look at all those possibilities and determine the following: * They will gloss over his importance to computer science considerably because its hard to explain to their perceived audience. They will likely show something but otherwise ignore it. * They will gloss over his importance to cryptography except to show him personally cracking the enigma machine (ignoring the rest of Bletchley Park most likely) * They will seize on his being homosexual and make most of the film focus on how he was persecuted and denied fame because of it - without showing any overtly homosexual activities (so as not to offend their perceived audience). The focus of the film will be the tragedy of his sexuality in a repressive culture that couldn't accept it, because that's a trendy thing to make a film about and will get good publicity at awards festivals and likely sell more tickets. * Because there is a hint of his having been killed rather than committing suicide they may opt for a wild conspiracy theory where he was killed to keep him quiet about his cryptographic efforts during the war etc. Its difficult of course because he was a very remarkable person, but he is also English and Hollywood would likely prefer it if he was American (easier to sell those tickets). Americans don't really like films that aren't about Americans, but I guess a Brit will do in a pinch. Cynical yeah, you noticed:P
The core of Capitalism is the making of profit above all else. It has no morals, no restraints, and no humanity. The reason companies try to avoid major industrial accidents like Bhopal has nothing to do with not causing harm or death, it has to do with avoiding profit loss. If something improves profits it must be done, to not do it would be to fail those who own the capital. The reason for maximizing profits, is and can only be Greed.
Until a few years ago I would have said we were free from being in this state up here in Canada. But then we have the pepperspraying of peaceful protesters in Vancouver, followed many years later by the treatment of the protesters at the G8 summit - which appears to have been used by the Conservative Harper government as a training exercise in how to run a police state in all regards. They attempted to incite people to break the law using police undercover officers in the midst of the protesters, they kettled people with no reason, they beat up on hundreds of peaceful protesters, they announced they were enforcing a law that they KNEW was not on the books and which had never existed - arresting people under it. They held protesters who had been arrested in overcrowded cages,refusing them food, water, medical attention etc, without charges being layed, then released them 12-24 hrs later without explanation. All this against a backdrop of Conservative misappropriation of the vast funds spent on the event (1 billion total or so I think). I am thoroughly ashamed that my fellow citizens somehow saw fit to elect Stephen Harper to be our Prime Minister, then handed him a majority government in the following election. How enough of them could be so misguided as to vote for him is beyond me. I wouldn't buy a used car from that asshole, and I sure as fuck don't trust him as the PM. The only things Harper believes in as far as I can see, are his own manifest destiny and a strong desire to earn the praise of the US Republican party by doing whatever they want him to do. Mostly Canada is pretty peaceful and calm, but if we dare object to something the Conservatives are doing, we get treated like we are criminals with no rights, and the Canadian constitution which guarantees those rights is trampled by the Police that run to do his bidding. I used to have immense respect for the various police forces in Canada - my father was a cop in Vancouver, and if I hadn't been accepted by the Canadian Military first, I would have been a cop there as well - but no longer after watching their behaviour in Toronto during the G8/G20 summit. Lies, Deceit, Corruption, these are all cards in the hand the Conservatives are playing - and my fellow countrymen/women appear to be too blind or too stupid to see it.
Your new to this internet thing aren't you? Cory Doctorow - a big proponent of Open Source, Creative Commons and one of the founders of the blog Boingboing is the guy who REPORTED the UN Guy's comments, not the guy who made them. I mean I know its common practice on/. not to RTFA, but you got it thoroughly ass backwards here dude.
With regards to the revolution, what exactly has been our source of information on the Arab Spring revolutions? The internet and TV mostly in my case:)
Or when its used to ensure all farmers *near* a field with the genetically modified plants growing in it are required to pay a fee if those plants should happen to cross pollinate with any of their plants (looks at Monsanto). Or when companies claim ownership of a living person's body because it contains a patented gene as a result of therapy (can't find the reference)
I do not believe it should be legal to patent a living organism, or a strand of DNA, or a gene or anything else that might somehow occur naturally given time etc.
There is a balancing point there for pricing. With the price of Netflix at the moment, its an easy decision to pay for the service and watch what I want from whats available. If it rises a bit too much more, then piracy is a preferable option because otherwise getting my entertainment gets prohibitively expensive. I have a subscription to Netflix at the moment. I do still buy DvDs from time to time but it has to be something I know I will rewatch a few times or again, its not worth it.
Now, I have never rented a movie off of any of the overpriced services you can find from your cable subscriber. There is no way I am going to pay $5-$15 to rent a movie (ranges from cheap - to normal - to porn up here in Canada). I don't rent from Blockbuster or other stores either, its simply not worth the cost.
I hope someday Big Entertainment realizes that nobody gives a flying fuck what they *think* something ought to be priced at, it has a value as perceived by the public. If the public can't get it at that value or less, the public will tend to choose other options - including piracy. All they have to do is match Netflix's prices to be in competition with Netflix, the problem is they are too stupid, or too avaricious to realize that most people won't pay, or can't afford to pay, the prices they are setting.
The reason Netflix is so successful is they realized they would make more money by dropping the price and going with a flat monthly fee and thus gaining more subscribers. I subscribe to Shaw cable for my internet/tv/phone here in Canada. I could literally go through the cost of my netflix account for 1 month, watching 1 or 2 films rented from Shaw. That's not even the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.
I know business is all about continuous expansion (like thats possible on a continuous basis, at some point you reach saturation), but at some point companies need to look at reality and realize they can't *all* suck another $20 per month out of my pocket for one more thing. My pockets are anything but deep at the moment.
The biggest obstacle I have seen is that the people employed currently who are using MS products, know those products ONLY. They don't have any interest in learning any new product unless they are forced to. I don't know how many secretaries I have met in the past who thought their "operating system" was either Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office. They were wizzes with Office, but when they started their computer up the only thing they did was start up Word or whatever other Office program they needed. The rest of the computer's capabilities were ignored entirely. To a person like that, changing the color of the interface, let alone changing the name of a command or its location in the menu, is enough to totally confuse them. Magnify that by 50,000 and you can get an idea of how intransigent people might get about any change to the software they use, let alone the OS. Sure, when a new version of Office comes out they will bitch and complain too, but at least they know they are learning the new version of the "good" software they used to use. Its going to take many generations of users to get people who are so comfortable with their computer they can be induced to try something new easily. As long as MS products are good enough they will continue to define the standard. Any open source competitor has to be miles ahead of the MS product to garner support from the hoi poloi.
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Well to be fair, the image of the Police Call box is very English and American audiences can't be expected to recognize anything from a foreign culture. The American TARDIS will probably *start* as a Porta-Potty so as to avoid confusion in the audience's mind, and then the low-brow shit jokes can start right away.
On your other points, I think Angelina Jolie is too old for the part now. Christina Ricci might do as you suggest. Perhaps someone more noted for their acting ability, say Carmen Electra as a barrista girl who gets caught up in the Doctor's world?
Note that any "hacker" has to use a computer that only displays in 72pt fonts on screen, and says "Processing" for a few seconds after anything is required of it.
I think taking a fun and entertaining, creative story such as Doctor Who and letting Hollywood loose with it is a major mistake. There is almost no chance they won't fuck it up, in particular because its British and any translation to Hollywood is likely to require Americanization of the whole thing.
I expect they will just ignore all of the pre-history and make a version where the Doctor IS American and try to kick start the whole thing for US audiences that way.
Except that making any reforms as you suggest will rely on the cooperation of the very parties that are enforcing the current system - because it keeps them in power. Any threat to their grasp on political power is going to fail by default. The rich and powerful who control the politicians are not going to allow the rest of the masses to make changes that lessen their power gracefully.
Well I dunno about down there in the US, but up here in Canada, an employer is required by law to let you go and cast your ballot during working hours if necessary. As well the polls stay open till 7pm to ensure that most people can get off work and go cast their votes. The problem is getting people to the voting booths in the first place, not so much when they do so. Its not good democracy if a huge percentage don't exercise their right to vote at all. Of course the people who tend not to vote the most are the same poor and unemployed people who most right wing /.ers are complaining about here.
I have a cell phone. I leave it turned off unless I need to make a call. I only have it because I need to have it for work, otherwise I would likely not have a cellphone at all. Text messages might reach a lot of the current always-staring-at-their-cellphone generation but by no means is it a better means of advertising a warning. It could be added to the list of ways to reach people I suppose but given the fact that SOMEONE out there would then want to spoof it immediately I am not sure that's a good idea either.
'Due to some technical limitations, a visual message indicating that "this is a test" may not pop up on every TV channel, especially where people use cable to receive their television stations.'
Ah forgive me, I live up in Canada. Does anyone NOT receive their television from cable these days? Looking online (for what thats worth), it seems 72.7% of Canadians get their TV signal from cable, and 27% get it from Direct to Home (which is presumably referring to satellite TV) with 0.4% getting it from MDS Satellite (whatever that is), all as of 2005.
Is it not the same down there in the US? The fact that this might not pop up "THIS IS A TEST" on the majority of home TV systems would be enough for me to consider the entire system completely broken. There is no point in having a warning system that causes as much panic as a real event its intended to help warn against if you choose to test it.
In any given week it is entirely possible for me to not watch any TV (except perhaps downloaded content), or listen to the radio. I would likely read about it on the web but its quite possible I could miss the warning that a test was coming up. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of other people managed to miss the notification that a test was happening, and then panic when the test happens. It would seem to me to be absolutely crucial that the fact that its just a test would be displayed on any warning sent out. I hope I am wrong of course, but I do hope no one dies from this test...
I have to agree. The only people who benefit from this in any substantial way is Microsoft, and the legion of lawyers their money paid for to run this lawsuit for 10 years. The purpose was to tarnish Linux and Open Source in general. Now someone at MS has ponied up some more cash to run a second scam, ^H^H^H lawsuit and they will likely try to drag it out as long as possible.
I would love to see some company buy up SCO then opensource all their code, and publicly display all their documents, all their bankrecords, employee histories, legal documents, business agreements etc. Then we could see all of the machinations behind the lawsuits, and perhaps follow the money back to Microsoft.
http://spotibot.com/track/3Be6KHyD9kmAaLVoW3itWV
After your comment, its kinda obligatory. Couldn't find it on Youtube, what is the world coming to?
Yep, say 15 years for a first offense, double for a second offense etc. Publicize it widely. Oh, maybe make it so the pilot if he lives can sue the manufacturer, the relatives of those killed can sue the manufacturer etc. If its a kid who is too young to know that its wrong to do this, lock up their parents :P
I dunno if thats true, but it sure is clever. Well done sir or madam. I can easily imagine developers giving it the nickname XP as a pun, then the marketers taking over and changing it to be "experience". Marketers are evil :P
9mm? Come on, at least a .45! If its worth doing, its worth doing well...
Its just the name has been changed and the system is much more complex.
We used to have Kings & Queens ruling over nearly all of the wealth until the philosophy of individual rights and property started taking hold. Corporations, as a collection of individuals, seek to create wealth, not destroy it. War is a destructive force on an economy.
The real problem is creating governments that have excessive power, because it is those government entities that wage war and rule with force. A corporation has no power to dictate your life unless it coerces a government that is willing to do so. That is why government can never be allowed an excess of power and why government's sole purpose should be defend the rights of individuals. Current political winds are blowing away from a corporate world and back to the realms of Kings & Queens.
As much as I am a sort of romantic monarchist - and I am Canadian so I am hardly alone - I would not want to see the return of the feudal system. I am content with the Queen as a figurehead and I think she accomplishes a lot in that position.
As for corporations avoiding war rather than seeking it because wars destroy wealth and peace creates it, consider a few things: :P
* First off there are enormous amounts of money to be had for the development of new weapons systems. These are then sold to the government to ensure the military is well equipped. A lot of money gets spent, a lot of money is at risk. A nice war, or police action is a great way to ensure that your military has had a chance to test the weaponsystem in the field and to create a cadre of experienced military personnel who can serve to teach others, lead the next generation etc.
* Wars are often fought to protect economic interests or to acquire control over resources, or merely to establish a favorable regime in another country that willl facilitate corporate interests and help the economy. See the US Marines in dozens of Central and Southern American countries (Dominican Republic to support US Sugar for instance), or the countless vicious dictators that the US has flung millions of dollars at in the past (The US has supported far more dictators than democractic nations it seems), or the Wars in Iraq, Libya etc. War costs a lot of lives but I am sure it also helps a lot of corporate bottom lines. I doubt Haliburton lost any money on Iraq, nor the various mercenary companies that were established and contracted by the government. Oh sorry, not mercenaries, "Security Consultants"
Government should be there to create and update the laws of the land, ensure they are enforced, provide services for the citizens such as police, fire, ambulances, road crews, etc (sorry I am in Canada where that is the case, perhaps those are all privatized down in the US I am not sure what is government owned there), and perform various other functions that are better given to government control rather than corporate control. I would also include Medical services such as we have up here in Canada, but I know that in the US most medical services are corporate controlled. It should not exist to be the lapdog of whatever corporations contribute the most to political campaigns.
I too am surprised that it is as many as 50, but I am sure that it will be whittled down over time. There can be only One! etc. I am not surprised to see that most of the top 50 are banks or financial institutions though - and how many of those received bailouts by the US Government? or European Governments?
A lot of those schools exist to process students and take their money. They are money making institutions that happen to award credits when you pay the exorbitant fees. A lot would shutdown if the loans system was removed.
Another problem is that until the prices lowered, superior education would only be the purview of the rich - RPs kids would do just fine, but the average person's ability to help get their children into a higher level of living would be removed. People say there are far too many university graduates, and far too many positions for which a degree is the expected minimum, and thats definitely true. I have no degree and many many jobs are closed to me, despite the fact that I could easily do many of those jobs. However no one wants to be amongst the first people who no longer get the benefit of a good education, when the other side of the equations (business/Government) is not going to change their standards any time soon. Why should they, they can ask whatever they want, at whatever rate of pay, and someone will come along and take the job, no matter how awful it is.
At my old Alma Mater the pressure seems to be on generating income, so the Engineering Department gets brand new buildings, while the Fine Arts department only got out of its WWII Quonset huts a few years ago - they had been there for 30 years at least. The university education system is focusing on things which can turn quick bucks (business degrees, Engineering degrees and people getting the school patents, new business development), all because the Government has stopped supporting the schools and they are expected to survive on their own. The problem is that the nature of education gets changed in the process.
Unfortunately, the 1% either ARE the politicians, or more likely simply OWN the politicians that would be writing and voting in the legislation - so it will never happen.
You don't have democracy in the US, you have a Plutocracy that is wearing Democracy's clothing. I doubt if its any different anywhere else mind you, it certainly doesn't seem to be up here in Canada. The 1% own everything, including the politicians and the courts, even if its via their lobbyists and lawyers rather than by direct physical ownership. Nothing will change that, ever.
Because in the US, the politician that sounds like they have strong ideas - no matter how brain shatteringly stupid they may be - is the one that the sheep will elect. Plus he sounds very right wing to me, and the US as a whole is *extremely* right wing (so much so that most of you don't seem to see it). RP obviously believes that Big Business will solve all problems - even the ones that actually cost money without providing some means of making profit - and that government serves no purpose whatsoever.
If a politician pushes ideas that will help big business screw more money out of the common people, then they get the backing of business interests. Remember, the 1% not only control 95% of the money, they also control 95% of the politicians.
Most conversations start about a particular tech topic, then quickly diverge into arguments about Monty Python, Apple, Microsoft, Star Trek, The Force, Imagine a Beowulf of those, All your base belong to us, Good luck with that, It's a Trap, What could possibly go wrong, Move out of your parents basement, Yeah right, you have a girlfriend, Get off my lawn, and Dupe!
You mean all those conversations were extracted from /.?
Because the film will be marketed mostly to the US market, and Americans don't like watching non-Americans doing anything important. Actually they are more likely to rewrite history so that Turing is an American and its all American activity at Bletchley Park that cracks the Enigma. Since the average person on the street has never heard of Turing, or of Enigma it won't make any difference that its all a gross distortion of history.
So Hollywood will look at all those possibilities and determine the following: :P
* They will gloss over his importance to computer science considerably because its hard to explain to their perceived audience. They will likely show something but otherwise ignore it.
* They will gloss over his importance to cryptography except to show him personally cracking the enigma machine (ignoring the rest of Bletchley Park most likely)
* They will seize on his being homosexual and make most of the film focus on how he was persecuted and denied fame because of it - without showing any overtly homosexual activities (so as not to offend their perceived audience). The focus of the film will be the tragedy of his sexuality in a repressive culture that couldn't accept it, because that's a trendy thing to make a film about and will get good publicity at awards festivals and likely sell more tickets.
* Because there is a hint of his having been killed rather than committing suicide they may opt for a wild conspiracy theory where he was killed to keep him quiet about his cryptographic efforts during the war etc.
Its difficult of course because he was a very remarkable person, but he is also English and Hollywood would likely prefer it if he was American (easier to sell those tickets). Americans don't really like films that aren't about Americans, but I guess a Brit will do in a pinch.
Cynical yeah, you noticed
The core of Capitalism is the making of profit above all else. It has no morals, no restraints, and no humanity. The reason companies try to avoid major industrial accidents like Bhopal has nothing to do with not causing harm or death, it has to do with avoiding profit loss. If something improves profits it must be done, to not do it would be to fail those who own the capital. The reason for maximizing profits, is and can only be Greed.
Until a few years ago I would have said we were free from being in this state up here in Canada. But then we have the pepperspraying of peaceful protesters in Vancouver, followed many years later by the treatment of the protesters at the G8 summit - which appears to have been used by the Conservative Harper government as a training exercise in how to run a police state in all regards. They attempted to incite people to break the law using police undercover officers in the midst of the protesters, they kettled people with no reason, they beat up on hundreds of peaceful protesters, they announced they were enforcing a law that they KNEW was not on the books and which had never existed - arresting people under it. They held protesters who had been arrested in overcrowded cages,refusing them food, water, medical attention etc, without charges being layed, then released them 12-24 hrs later without explanation. All this against a backdrop of Conservative misappropriation of the vast funds spent on the event (1 billion total or so I think). I am thoroughly ashamed that my fellow citizens somehow saw fit to elect Stephen Harper to be our Prime Minister, then handed him a majority government in the following election. How enough of them could be so misguided as to vote for him is beyond me. I wouldn't buy a used car from that asshole, and I sure as fuck don't trust him as the PM. The only things Harper believes in as far as I can see, are his own manifest destiny and a strong desire to earn the praise of the US Republican party by doing whatever they want him to do.
Mostly Canada is pretty peaceful and calm, but if we dare object to something the Conservatives are doing, we get treated like we are criminals with no rights, and the Canadian constitution which guarantees those rights is trampled by the Police that run to do his bidding. I used to have immense respect for the various police forces in Canada - my father was a cop in Vancouver, and if I hadn't been accepted by the Canadian Military first, I would have been a cop there as well - but no longer after watching their behaviour in Toronto during the G8/G20 summit. Lies, Deceit, Corruption, these are all cards in the hand the Conservatives are playing - and my fellow countrymen/women appear to be too blind or too stupid to see it.
Well there was J Edgar Hoover, wasn't he into cross dressing? And he was definitely very right wing...
Your new to this internet thing aren't you? Cory Doctorow - a big proponent of Open Source, Creative Commons and one of the founders of the blog Boingboing is the guy who REPORTED the UN Guy's comments, not the guy who made them. I mean I know its common practice on /. not to RTFA, but you got it thoroughly ass backwards here dude.
With regards to the revolution, what exactly has been our source of information on the Arab Spring revolutions? The internet and TV mostly in my case :)
Or when its used to ensure all farmers *near* a field with the genetically modified plants growing in it are required to pay a fee if those plants should happen to cross pollinate with any of their plants (looks at Monsanto). Or when companies claim ownership of a living person's body because it contains a patented gene as a result of therapy (can't find the reference)
I do not believe it should be legal to patent a living organism, or a strand of DNA, or a gene or anything else that might somehow occur naturally given time etc.
There is a balancing point there for pricing. With the price of Netflix at the moment, its an easy decision to pay for the service and watch what I want from whats available. If it rises a bit too much more, then piracy is a preferable option because otherwise getting my entertainment gets prohibitively expensive. I have a subscription to Netflix at the moment. I do still buy DvDs from time to time but it has to be something I know I will rewatch a few times or again, its not worth it.
Now, I have never rented a movie off of any of the overpriced services you can find from your cable subscriber. There is no way I am going to pay $5-$15 to rent a movie (ranges from cheap - to normal - to porn up here in Canada). I don't rent from Blockbuster or other stores either, its simply not worth the cost.
I hope someday Big Entertainment realizes that nobody gives a flying fuck what they *think* something ought to be priced at, it has a value as perceived by the public. If the public can't get it at that value or less, the public will tend to choose other options - including piracy. All they have to do is match Netflix's prices to be in competition with Netflix, the problem is they are too stupid, or too avaricious to realize that most people won't pay, or can't afford to pay, the prices they are setting.
The reason Netflix is so successful is they realized they would make more money by dropping the price and going with a flat monthly fee and thus gaining more subscribers. I subscribe to Shaw cable for my internet/tv/phone here in Canada. I could literally go through the cost of my netflix account for 1 month, watching 1 or 2 films rented from Shaw. That's not even the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark.
I know business is all about continuous expansion (like thats possible on a continuous basis, at some point you reach saturation), but at some point companies need to look at reality and realize they can't *all* suck another $20 per month out of my pocket for one more thing. My pockets are anything but deep at the moment.
The biggest obstacle I have seen is that the people employed currently who are using MS products, know those products ONLY. They don't have any interest in learning any new product unless they are forced to. I don't know how many secretaries I have met in the past who thought their "operating system" was either Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office. They were wizzes with Office, but when they started their computer up the only thing they did was start up Word or whatever other Office program they needed. The rest of the computer's capabilities were ignored entirely. To a person like that, changing the color of the interface, let alone changing the name of a command or its location in the menu, is enough to totally confuse them.
Magnify that by 50,000 and you can get an idea of how intransigent people might get about any change to the software they use, let alone the OS. Sure, when a new version of Office comes out they will bitch and complain too, but at least they know they are learning the new version of the "good" software they used to use.
Its going to take many generations of users to get people who are so comfortable with their computer they can be induced to try something new easily. As long as MS products are good enough they will continue to define the standard. Any open source competitor has to be miles ahead of the MS product to garner support from the hoi poloi.