Dude, two posts ago you were so wrapped up in rebuttal-mode, you couldn't differentiate between an operating system and a compiler. I'd reserve my condescension if I were you.
Do yourself a favour and don't bother to respond unless you feel like addressing the original point, because unless you do, anything you type at this point'll get ignored.
Someone else has already pointed out that RMS has to share a lot of the credit when it comes to GCC, so I'll keep this simple.
RMS hasn't made an operating system. Linus has. So, Linus is in more of a position to know which tools make sense for him, and for people to question his use of tool on an ideological level might not really understand where he is coming from as a developer/manager of such a massive project. I'm not doubting RMS's coding prowess, but when it comes to Linux and operating systems, RMS is more critic than developer. The Orson Welles comparison doesn't apply until RMS pumps out his own OS.
David Bowie once said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Artists determine culture, not the critics."
The above seems pretty analogous to tech in some ways. It's the programmers who determine software culture, not the critics.
My point is that there's a lot of flaming of Linus and his supposed hypocrisy that I'm a little curious. So his stance on bitkeeper falls short of some people's vision of ideological perfection. So what? Do we flame William Faulkner because we didn't like his choice of typewriter*? Does everybody who's going anti-Linus right now running computer hardware that's totally open-specced? Are the drivers powering their video cards open sourced? How about their bioses? Hey! Maybe they eat meat from time to time. If I'm a vegetarian, can I flame them for that? In the end, it's just as relevent.
* I'm so certain that some people out there read the WF analogy and want to respond saying that it's a flawed analogy because the typewriter is closer to hardware than software. If that's you, well, you're making my point for me. You're so caught up in the analysis of this situation that you're failing to see how the analogy is prefect from the point of view of the software writer. Bitkeeper was a tool. Now the tool has been taken away from him. He's gotten a little pissed about it. Frankly, it interrupted the productivity of one of the greatest computer science products of all time. Let him be about it. Artists get temperamental. Why not OS-writers?
Look, I like Linus and RMS both. But Linus getting lectured by RMS on the proper way to do software development is like Stanley Kubrick getting lectured by Roger Ebert on how to make a movie. In other words, I'll take RMS's word for it when I see him give the world an operating system (emacs jokes aside). His point may have some merit, but it doesn't magically have more merit just because he's RMS.
1. tech-unsavvy bureaucracy. They want quick solutions, and don't want to do research into the best alternative so long as they can get a good-enough alternative.
2. tech-unsavvy employees. I had no database training at the time, so I couldn't recommend it at the time. But I'd done some payroll stuff with spreadsheets before, so when they said they wanted a spreadsheet to do it, I said alright.
Sometimes, a tech-savvy employee can help guide the tech-unsavvy management to the right decision. Unforunately, that's not always the case...
One small problem with spreadsheets is that people sometimes use them instead of databases, I guess because the interface seems simpler than making a properly developed interface to a database from the getgo. Then you get locked into the solution, etc.
This was definitely a problem at my old job. They wanted to create a payroll sheet to keep track of hours, and the easiest way to do it was via a spreadsheet. I was the most programming-savvy person there (heh, you can already smell their doom), at so, not having any database training, I created a really suped-up spreadsheet that handled it for them. It was GREAT, until we had a work situation in which some people worked past 12:00 at night. At that point, people's total shift hours came out negative. We got it fixed eventually, but it involved some really nasty calculation, and it was a problem that could have much more easily fixed if it'd been done by database from the start.
Sorry, but if your hobby can't survive the least criticism, maybe you do seriously need to reevaluate it.
That's an oversimplification, although I was a little hot-headed in my original post so it's understandable.
Here's the thing: if the only major feedback that I'm getting on a project is criticism, whereas my calls for help go mostly unanswered (and I made a few), it makes me wonder what the point is in continuing. Never mind when you actually try to accomodate the critics and add in the features that they want to see, and then don't even hear back about whether or not the changes you've made worked or not. It's motivation-killing, and writer's block isn't limited to writers.
Oh, purlease. This is like me, a writer, saying "I tell you, my hat is off to those writers who keep going with their attempts to rewrite Moby Dick in l33t-speak." If you think what you are doing is great, at least have the courage of your convictions.
That analogy is pretty far off from this discussion. I'll try to break it down. (A) FS/OSS projects, both creative and derivative, are being made. (B) Derivative project reaches 2.0 status. (C) Career critics show up and criticize the FS/OSS movement as a whole for lack of originality because of longitivity of derivative project, totally ignoring creative projects that are striving to be original, or even the creativity that actually went into the derivative project.
What's more, this is even HARDER than writing a novel, because at least that's an activity solvable with a crew of one. Meanwhile, if the community were a little more supportive as a whole, it could make collaboration a lot easier.
Someone has already what-the-fucked this sentence, but I'll reiterate. What does criticising a clone of a 13-year old game have to do with stifling creativity?
It's not easy trying to make games for a platform that has a reputation for being gamer-unfriendly. You have no idea if your efforts are being noticed or appreciated. I can personally handle not having parades thrown for my project -- that's fine. It certainly wasn't an original idea, and there are better games already made for the genre (just not for Linux). But when I see creative games being made by developers who could probably use a little help, only to have the users that these creators try to please totally ignore their effort and instead complain about the FS/OSS game-development community being unoriginal, well, it gets in my craw. And yeah, I do think it's detrimental, especially when so much credence and attention is given to the perceived shortcomings (and, in this case, falsely perceived shortcomings), and not enough effort is put into helping out those who are trying to be creative. From my point of view, it's counter-productive. Hence, the "stfu" in my original reply.
I'm sure there are neat open-source games out there. But we're talking about Freeciv here I thought.
From the o.p.:
Really, what is it with free softweare developers? Is it really that hard to find someone with an original new idea for a game?
He's tarring the FS/OSS game development community as a whole based on Freeciv.
You tell me what's more helpful: Sitting around bitching about the lack of originality of games in the Free Software world, or actually lending a little expertise to a project that might need it? A creative guy might be an excellent designer with passable coding skills but completely without expertise when it comes to adding a multiplayer component, or maybe needs some help optimizing his graphics routines.
I'd be willing to bet that if the great-grandparent poster took a look at some of the games I mentioned in my previous post, he'd find one that had a need that either he or someone he knew could provide, be it build testing, doc writing, optimization, artwork, writing, multiplayer, polishing a translation into English, helping with autoconf/make and deployment, making rpms or deb packages, etc. Instead, he chooses to ignore the originality out there and instead, do nothing more than bitch. So, instead of helping be part of the solution, he's instead part of the problem, since he sits around adding to the undeserved stigma that the FS/OSS community is unable to produce works of both quality and originality.
Welcome to the reason why I've given up writing free software in my spare time. Too many people like the parent poster, not enough people who are actually willing to help out. I still haven't even updated my sig to reflect the mentioned project's abandoned status -- that's how little I care about some of the free-software USERS these days. If they aren't bitching about one thing, they're bitching about another.
I tell you, my hat's off to those programmers who keep going in the midst of what all-too-often seems like a huge population of spoiled brats.
More and more developers go under, and it gets harder and harder for programmers to get a job doing anything creative, because these idiots are copying other peoples' ideas and giving it away.
And I'll tell you, one of the reasons why you don't see more innovation in the free software world is because of idiots like yourself who would rather bitch about what is out there that they don't like, rather than put a little effort into finding a game they might like and helping them out, even if it's only testing builds. Want original games? Here's a starter's list: Wesnoth, Worldforge, XConq, Holotz's Castle, Glest, S.C.O.U.R.G.E., Cube, Gate 88, Globulation, Adonthell... oh, who am I kidding? If you weren't willing to look before, you're probably not going to now. That's not even including the really neat ones that are in development right now.
By the way, the preceding rant is no indication of my feelings towards simonc4, pronobozo, or lordsatan. Three great guys. Too bad those three great guys who helped out with the project were outnumbered by whiners with complaints or useless suggestions.
And that's only the subscriptions. Never mind the medium costs. Print costs are really expensive. Maybe some other Slashdotters would have better statistics available at hand, but I remember doing a print run of 1000 copies of a magazine with 32 pages in it for about $1000 (cdn). These days you can get free online webpages that'll handle bandwidth that matches that kind of distribution, whereas paper and ink costs haven't gone down all that much in the past few years.
There once was a man, Michael Weiss, Who helped make Morpheus! Ain't that nice? And to the dismay, of the **AA, He's saying p2p ain't no vice.
Whoops. Maybe I got the rhyme wrong.
There was a man called Michael Weiss, Whose crusade we hope he'll never cease. Forget the industry! All music should be free! And screw you, internet police!
You wouldn't even need to use them as hostages per se. Being underground and cut off from escape routes they're already hostages of a sort. The Daegu Subway disaster showed what happened when a fire goes out of control, and the Tokyo nerve gas attack was nasty as well. The TGV train also had a tunnel fire that was really awful. You don't need to take people hostages in the conventional sense -- you can do plenty from more remote locations.
Not sure how that figures into computer-controlled systems. The majority of the casualties in the Daegu fire were the result of human error, but I still feel more comfortable with the idea of humans at the helm. Dunno.
ANH: George Lucas allowed himself to be influenced by theories that actually had some depth to them -- ie: Joseph Campbell's ideas of the Hero's Journey, which contain motifs common to Hero-based mythology that speak to what we believe to be important developmental processes for people (accepting the journey, baptism and initiation into manhood, accepting responsibility, etc.). Some interesting themes involving the triumph of nature over the powers of technology. Pretty good performances all around. Plus, Han's a badass who shoots first.
ESB: George Lucas allowed himself to be removed from the director's duty, and a dark film evolves that involves betrayal, torture, dismemberment, a capture of one of the main heroes, an unbelievable (familial) link between the evil and good side of the conflict, further Jungian themes expounded upon involving facing our demons and seeing that they are us, and some Freudian ideas involving the idea of the son vs. the father that date back to classical Greek mythology. Plus, Han's damn cool. I mean, come on. "I love you!" "I know." We should all give our left nut to be so suave.
ROTJ: Ok, not so much on the deep literary side, but all-in-all it's good, clean, furry fun. For all the haters, you have to admit that there was a lot of satisfaction watching those walkers on Endor getting trounced by midgets in bear suits, never mind one of the great space battles ever. Plus, Han ends up with the chick who you KNOW is going to pull that gold bikini out in the bedroom from time to time.
TPM: A horrible attempt to combine the Immaculate Conception with ridiculous faux-scientific explanations of the force. No sense of metaphor, horrible dialogue, awful performances by otherwise talented actors. Derivative, not creative, aliens whose characteristics border on racist allusions to our own reality. Plus, no Han Solo. Instead, we get "Meesa show you! Meesa show you!"
Basically, the first three movies appealed on multiple levels, all the way from the intellectuals (creaming their jeans over what is essentially a combination of classical studies with sci-fi) to the kids (lasers and explosions). Episode 1 had only visceral appeal, with the one potentially metaphorical bit handled so blatantly and awkwardly you had to practically dodge in your seat to keep from being hit over the head by it.
Didn't fork over money for Episode 2. Lucas's first strike was destroying the original trilogy in the remakes. Strike 2 was Episode 1. Strike 3 is for baseball and masochists. The Two Towers got my money that summer.
I'm surprised this film's PG-13, Strangest thing I've ever seen, Because other than the toddlers, Or those with Alzheimers, It's junk for everyone else in between.
Personally, whenever I see any product brand, it takes me out of the money, but then again, that has a lot to do with me being a former hyper-analytical creative writing major who took a lot of media studies courses. Unrecognizable brand names and generic (ie: no-name) brands are quite common. When you're creating a work of art, every detail is important, and to use big brands as THE choice of a given product says either that you believe in a world where the average person only buys products from the corporations (read as much or as little sinister intent into it), or you've just flat-out sold the corporation advertising. Or you can take the harmless view, where not everything has a deeper meaning, and we really aren't surrounded by marketing propaganda everywhere we look.
Consider this. The character is thirsty. Why not just have them drinking from a glass of cola? This way, you know it's cola, but you don't know what company it is. Why has the choice to actually show the CAN been implemented? Answer: marketing. Take it another way. Yes, a character going to fridge and opening a can, in the middle of some conversation, is a perfectly plausible act. So is a character going to the bathroom and taking a leak while maintaining a conversation, and both extraneous actions are equally relevent to the central story line (ie: not very). So, why the need for an action that includes branding? It's gotten that we're so conditioned to it, we pretend it doesn't exist, and the first reaction to having it pointed out to us is that the person doing the pointing is a silly hippy communist, if only because people don't like to learn just how sheeplike their habits are.
Now, that said, in a world of neverending branding, it's still possible to use it in an artistic way.
Right Way: Use of Coke and Pepsi in Election. Reese Witherspoon describes the need for marketing aggressively in her high school campaign, saying that Coke is number one in soft drinks because it spends more money than anybody else in marketing. An annoyed Matthew Broderick, upon drinking a can of Pepsi later on that night, looks at his can, remembers Witherspoon's quote, and decides to get a competitor against Witherspoon.
Wrong Way: Use of Coke in The Thomas Crown Affair. A parched Rene Russo comes into to meet up with the rest of the detective crew. She pauses to pop open a can of Pepsi (not even your average, run of the mill Pepsi, but a Pepsi One), label perfectly held towards the camera, for an extended period. It was just bloody awful.
PS: Gotcha. I don't really believe all that I wrote just now. Personally, I see how branding operates with verisimilitude. That said, sometimes it's worthwhile to have an opposing viewpoint argued out, and something can be both realistic and also a little insidious at the same time.
Sorry about the pun, but it seems like accountability is easily trumped by bank account ability.
I'd give anything to see the EU tell Microsoft to follow all 26 or face a continent-wide ban. Can you imagine any single one of us, after being found guilty of something, picking and choosing our punishments in a court of law?
Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?
Erm... no. The South Korean government is pretty friendly towards the US compared to other countries, both in Asia and internationally. The population gets a little annoyed with the excesses of some of the soldiers here and the United States government's abrasive approach to North Korea, but that in no way is going to translate to the South Korean government, in a country historically devastated by war that's now more than happy to take slow, gradual steps when it comes to international diplomatic situations. As such, suggesting that Korea is dropping Microsoft as some symbolic slap in the face is a really silly way to look at it. Even if the average young- to middle-aged Korean would like to tell the U.S. where to get off, the government isn't going to. Besides, the average Korean also LOVES their Windows-based games. Linux has very little fame over here.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that a long-term relationship with Microsoft involving Windows XP might seem too expensive for the government. Windows 98 is still the popular OS of choice over here, so if they're worried that dropped W98 support means migrating to either an updated Windows or another OS, it might be worth throwing a few million at Linux to see if it can be adopted on a broad scale.
As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?
For one, if you are in a critical crew position, your health problem could endanger the life of others. Secondly, on an orbital mission, your health problem could cause the mission director to have to make a difficult choice, Diamandis said, between your possible death or ending a billion dollar mission early, presuming that returning to Earth could save your life.
Good to know the lawyers are getting a head start writing their closing arguments.
Slashdot Mirror
In post 9-11 soviet russia, only beowulf clusters of welcomed overlords are belong to old grit-eating Koreans!
There! See? Nothing to it.
Uh... oh yeah... and something something bacterial computers something
The plural of virus is viruses.
Writing "virri" doesn't make you look clever, educated people will laugh at you.
Speak for yourself. Not all of us trot out our soapboxen for such little things.
Dude, two posts ago you were so wrapped up in rebuttal-mode, you couldn't differentiate between an operating system and a compiler. I'd reserve my condescension if I were you.
Do yourself a favour and don't bother to respond unless you feel like addressing the original point, because unless you do, anything you type at this point'll get ignored.
Someone else has already pointed out that RMS has to share a lot of the credit when it comes to GCC, so I'll keep this simple.
RMS hasn't made an operating system. Linus has. So, Linus is in more of a position to know which tools make sense for him, and for people to question his use of tool on an ideological level might not really understand where he is coming from as a developer/manager of such a massive project. I'm not doubting RMS's coding prowess, but when it comes to Linux and operating systems, RMS is more critic than developer. The Orson Welles comparison doesn't apply until RMS pumps out his own OS.
David Bowie once said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Artists determine culture, not the critics."
The above seems pretty analogous to tech in some ways. It's the programmers who determine software culture, not the critics.
My point is that there's a lot of flaming of Linus and his supposed hypocrisy that I'm a little curious. So his stance on bitkeeper falls short of some people's vision of ideological perfection. So what? Do we flame William Faulkner because we didn't like his choice of typewriter*? Does everybody who's going anti-Linus right now running computer hardware that's totally open-specced? Are the drivers powering their video cards open sourced? How about their bioses? Hey! Maybe they eat meat from time to time. If I'm a vegetarian, can I flame them for that? In the end, it's just as relevent.
* I'm so certain that some people out there read the WF analogy and want to respond saying that it's a flawed analogy because the typewriter is closer to hardware than software. If that's you, well, you're making my point for me. You're so caught up in the analysis of this situation that you're failing to see how the analogy is prefect from the point of view of the software writer. Bitkeeper was a tool. Now the tool has been taken away from him. He's gotten a little pissed about it. Frankly, it interrupted the productivity of one of the greatest computer science products of all time. Let him be about it. Artists get temperamental. Why not OS-writers?
Look, I like Linus and RMS both. But Linus getting lectured by RMS on the proper way to do software development is like Stanley Kubrick getting lectured by Roger Ebert on how to make a movie. In other words, I'll take RMS's word for it when I see him give the world an operating system (emacs jokes aside). His point may have some merit, but it doesn't magically have more merit just because he's RMS.
Two problems:
1. tech-unsavvy bureaucracy. They want quick solutions, and don't want to do research into the best alternative so long as they can get a good-enough alternative.
2. tech-unsavvy employees. I had no database training at the time, so I couldn't recommend it at the time. But I'd done some payroll stuff with spreadsheets before, so when they said they wanted a spreadsheet to do it, I said alright.
Sometimes, a tech-savvy employee can help guide the tech-unsavvy management to the right decision. Unforunately, that's not always the case...
One small problem with spreadsheets is that people sometimes use them instead of databases, I guess because the interface seems simpler than making a properly developed interface to a database from the getgo. Then you get locked into the solution, etc.
This was definitely a problem at my old job. They wanted to create a payroll sheet to keep track of hours, and the easiest way to do it was via a spreadsheet. I was the most programming-savvy person there (heh, you can already smell their doom), at so, not having any database training, I created a really suped-up spreadsheet that handled it for them. It was GREAT, until we had a work situation in which some people worked past 12:00 at night. At that point, people's total shift hours came out negative. We got it fixed eventually, but it involved some really nasty calculation, and it was a problem that could have much more easily fixed if it'd been done by database from the start.
Sorry, but if your hobby can't survive the least criticism, maybe you do seriously need to reevaluate it.
That's an oversimplification, although I was a little hot-headed in my original post so it's understandable.
Here's the thing: if the only major feedback that I'm getting on a project is criticism, whereas my calls for help go mostly unanswered (and I made a few), it makes me wonder what the point is in continuing. Never mind when you actually try to accomodate the critics and add in the features that they want to see, and then don't even hear back about whether or not the changes you've made worked or not. It's motivation-killing, and writer's block isn't limited to writers.
Oh, purlease. This is like me, a writer, saying "I tell you, my hat is off to those writers who keep going with their attempts to rewrite Moby Dick in l33t-speak." If you think what you are doing is great, at least have the courage of your convictions.
That analogy is pretty far off from this discussion. I'll try to break it down. (A) FS/OSS projects, both creative and derivative, are being made. (B) Derivative project reaches 2.0 status. (C) Career critics show up and criticize the FS/OSS movement as a whole for lack of originality because of longitivity of derivative project, totally ignoring creative projects that are striving to be original, or even the creativity that actually went into the derivative project.
What's more, this is even HARDER than writing a novel, because at least that's an activity solvable with a crew of one. Meanwhile, if the community were a little more supportive as a whole, it could make collaboration a lot easier.
Someone has already what-the-fucked this sentence, but I'll reiterate. What does criticising a clone of a 13-year old game have to do with stifling creativity?
It's not easy trying to make games for a platform that has a reputation for being gamer-unfriendly. You have no idea if your efforts are being noticed or appreciated. I can personally handle not having parades thrown for my project -- that's fine. It certainly wasn't an original idea, and there are better games already made for the genre (just not for Linux). But when I see creative games being made by developers who could probably use a little help, only to have the users that these creators try to please totally ignore their effort and instead complain about the FS/OSS game-development community being unoriginal, well, it gets in my craw. And yeah, I do think it's detrimental, especially when so much credence and attention is given to the perceived shortcomings (and, in this case, falsely perceived shortcomings), and not enough effort is put into helping out those who are trying to be creative. From my point of view, it's counter-productive. Hence, the "stfu" in my original reply.
I'm sure there are neat open-source games out there. But we're talking about Freeciv here I thought.
From the o.p.:
Really, what is it with free softweare developers? Is it really that hard to find someone with an original new idea for a game?
He's tarring the FS/OSS game development community as a whole based on Freeciv.
You tell me what's more helpful: Sitting around bitching about the lack of originality of games in the Free Software world, or actually lending a little expertise to a project that might need it? A creative guy might be an excellent designer with passable coding skills but completely without expertise when it comes to adding a multiplayer component, or maybe needs some help optimizing his graphics routines.
I'd be willing to bet that if the great-grandparent poster took a look at some of the games I mentioned in my previous post, he'd find one that had a need that either he or someone he knew could provide, be it build testing, doc writing, optimization, artwork, writing, multiplayer, polishing a translation into English, helping with autoconf/make and deployment, making rpms or deb packages, etc. Instead, he chooses to ignore the originality out there and instead, do nothing more than bitch. So, instead of helping be part of the solution, he's instead part of the problem, since he sits around adding to the undeserved stigma that the FS/OSS community is unable to produce works of both quality and originality.
Welcome to the reason why I've given up writing free software in my spare time. Too many people like the parent poster, not enough people who are actually willing to help out. I still haven't even updated my sig to reflect the mentioned project's abandoned status -- that's how little I care about some of the free-software USERS these days. If they aren't bitching about one thing, they're bitching about another.
I tell you, my hat's off to those programmers who keep going in the midst of what all-too-often seems like a huge population of spoiled brats.
More and more developers go under, and it gets harder and harder for programmers to get a job doing anything creative, because these idiots are copying other peoples' ideas and giving it away.
And I'll tell you, one of the reasons why you don't see more innovation in the free software world is because of idiots like yourself who would rather bitch about what is out there that they don't like, rather than put a little effort into finding a game they might like and helping them out, even if it's only testing builds. Want original games? Here's a starter's list: Wesnoth, Worldforge, XConq, Holotz's Castle, Glest, S.C.O.U.R.G.E., Cube, Gate 88, Globulation, Adonthell... oh, who am I kidding? If you weren't willing to look before, you're probably not going to now. That's not even including the really neat ones that are in development right now.
By the way, the preceding rant is no indication of my feelings towards simonc4, pronobozo, or lordsatan. Three great guys. Too bad those three great guys who helped out with the project were outnumbered by whiners with complaints or useless suggestions.
the community bonded more tightly than ever
*cough cough BITKEEPER cough*
And that's only the subscriptions. Never mind the medium costs. Print costs are really expensive. Maybe some other Slashdotters would have better statistics available at hand, but I remember doing a print run of 1000 copies of a magazine with 32 pages in it for about $1000 (cdn). These days you can get free online webpages that'll handle bandwidth that matches that kind of distribution, whereas paper and ink costs haven't gone down all that much in the past few years.
Hi there. How's it going? ...
What? Did you think I was going to say something else?
Can this possibly be used as an argument for evolution?
This should probably be phrased as: "Can this possibly be used to show that evolution is more than just a theory?"
Can this possibly be used as an argument for evolution?
There once was a man, Michael Weiss,
Who helped make Morpheus! Ain't that nice?
And to the dismay,
of the **AA,
He's saying p2p ain't no vice.
Whoops. Maybe I got the rhyme wrong.
There was a man called Michael Weiss,
Whose crusade we hope he'll never cease.
Forget the industry!
All music should be free!
And screw you, internet police!
You wouldn't even need to use them as hostages per se. Being underground and cut off from escape routes they're already hostages of a sort. The Daegu Subway disaster showed what happened when a fire goes out of control, and the Tokyo nerve gas attack was nasty as well. The TGV train also had a tunnel fire that was really awful. You don't need to take people hostages in the conventional sense -- you can do plenty from more remote locations.
Not sure how that figures into computer-controlled systems. The majority of the casualties in the Daegu fire were the result of human error, but I still feel more comfortable with the idea of humans at the helm. Dunno.
ANH: George Lucas allowed himself to be influenced by theories that actually had some depth to them -- ie: Joseph Campbell's ideas of the Hero's Journey, which contain motifs common to Hero-based mythology that speak to what we believe to be important developmental processes for people (accepting the journey, baptism and initiation into manhood, accepting responsibility, etc.). Some interesting themes involving the triumph of nature over the powers of technology. Pretty good performances all around. Plus, Han's a badass who shoots first.
ESB: George Lucas allowed himself to be removed from the director's duty, and a dark film evolves that involves betrayal, torture, dismemberment, a capture of one of the main heroes, an unbelievable (familial) link between the evil and good side of the conflict, further Jungian themes expounded upon involving facing our demons and seeing that they are us, and some Freudian ideas involving the idea of the son vs. the father that date back to classical Greek mythology. Plus, Han's damn cool. I mean, come on. "I love you!" "I know." We should all give our left nut to be so suave.
ROTJ: Ok, not so much on the deep literary side, but all-in-all it's good, clean, furry fun. For all the haters, you have to admit that there was a lot of satisfaction watching those walkers on Endor getting trounced by midgets in bear suits, never mind one of the great space battles ever. Plus, Han ends up with the chick who you KNOW is going to pull that gold bikini out in the bedroom from time to time.
TPM: A horrible attempt to combine the Immaculate Conception with ridiculous faux-scientific explanations of the force. No sense of metaphor, horrible dialogue, awful performances by otherwise talented actors. Derivative, not creative, aliens whose characteristics border on racist allusions to our own reality. Plus, no Han Solo. Instead, we get "Meesa show you! Meesa show you!"
Basically, the first three movies appealed on multiple levels, all the way from the intellectuals (creaming their jeans over what is essentially a combination of classical studies with sci-fi) to the kids (lasers and explosions). Episode 1 had only visceral appeal, with the one potentially metaphorical bit handled so blatantly and awkwardly you had to practically dodge in your seat to keep from being hit over the head by it.
Didn't fork over money for Episode 2. Lucas's first strike was destroying the original trilogy in the remakes. Strike 2 was Episode 1. Strike 3 is for baseball and masochists. The Two Towers got my money that summer.
I'm surprised this film's PG-13,
Strangest thing I've ever seen,
Because other than the toddlers,
Or those with Alzheimers,
It's junk for everyone else in between.
Personally, whenever I see any product brand, it takes me out of the money, but then again, that has a lot to do with me being a former hyper-analytical creative writing major who took a lot of media studies courses. Unrecognizable brand names and generic (ie: no-name) brands are quite common. When you're creating a work of art, every detail is important, and to use big brands as THE choice of a given product says either that you believe in a world where the average person only buys products from the corporations (read as much or as little sinister intent into it), or you've just flat-out sold the corporation advertising. Or you can take the harmless view, where not everything has a deeper meaning, and we really aren't surrounded by marketing propaganda everywhere we look.
Consider this. The character is thirsty. Why not just have them drinking from a glass of cola? This way, you know it's cola, but you don't know what company it is. Why has the choice to actually show the CAN been implemented? Answer: marketing. Take it another way. Yes, a character going to fridge and opening a can, in the middle of some conversation, is a perfectly plausible act. So is a character going to the bathroom and taking a leak while maintaining a conversation, and both extraneous actions are equally relevent to the central story line (ie: not very). So, why the need for an action that includes branding? It's gotten that we're so conditioned to it, we pretend it doesn't exist, and the first reaction to having it pointed out to us is that the person doing the pointing is a silly hippy communist, if only because people don't like to learn just how sheeplike their habits are.
Now, that said, in a world of neverending branding, it's still possible to use it in an artistic way.
Right Way: Use of Coke and Pepsi in Election. Reese Witherspoon describes the need for marketing aggressively in her high school campaign, saying that Coke is number one in soft drinks because it spends more money than anybody else in marketing. An annoyed Matthew Broderick, upon drinking a can of Pepsi later on that night, looks at his can, remembers Witherspoon's quote, and decides to get a competitor against Witherspoon.
Wrong Way: Use of Coke in The Thomas Crown Affair. A parched Rene Russo comes into to meet up with the rest of the detective crew. She pauses to pop open a can of Pepsi (not even your average, run of the mill Pepsi, but a Pepsi One), label perfectly held towards the camera, for an extended period. It was just bloody awful.
PS: Gotcha. I don't really believe all that I wrote just now. Personally, I see how branding operates with verisimilitude. That said, sometimes it's worthwhile to have an opposing viewpoint argued out, and something can be both realistic and also a little insidious at the same time.
Do you have them AFTER sentencing?
Sorry about the pun, but it seems like accountability is easily trumped by bank account ability.
I'd give anything to see the EU tell Microsoft to follow all 26 or face a continent-wide ban. Can you imagine any single one of us, after being found guilty of something, picking and choosing our punishments in a court of law?
Hey, you can't blame MIT for getting intimidated. These kids sound rough. Cape Fear Community College came in third.
Is this because Asia wants to try Linux and thinks it's the best, or is it because of the anti American (And Microsoft is very American) feelings?
Erm... no. The South Korean government is pretty friendly towards the US compared to other countries, both in Asia and internationally. The population gets a little annoyed with the excesses of some of the soldiers here and the United States government's abrasive approach to North Korea, but that in no way is going to translate to the South Korean government, in a country historically devastated by war that's now more than happy to take slow, gradual steps when it comes to international diplomatic situations. As such, suggesting that Korea is dropping Microsoft as some symbolic slap in the face is a really silly way to look at it. Even if the average young- to middle-aged Korean would like to tell the U.S. where to get off, the government isn't going to. Besides, the average Korean also LOVES their Windows-based games. Linux has very little fame over here.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it has more to do with the fact that a long-term relationship with Microsoft involving Windows XP might seem too expensive for the government. Windows 98 is still the popular OS of choice over here, so if they're worried that dropped W98 support means migrating to either an updated Windows or another OS, it might be worth throwing a few million at Linux to see if it can be adopted on a broad scale.
As an aside, related to the parent's false dichotomy, why do so many Americans see anti-Americanism everywhere?
For one, if you are in a critical crew position, your health problem could endanger the life of others. Secondly, on an orbital mission, your health problem could cause the mission director to have to make a difficult choice, Diamandis said, between your possible death or ending a billion dollar mission early, presuming that returning to Earth could save your life.
Good to know the lawyers are getting a head start writing their closing arguments.