Well, I can't speak for these ISPs, but I have my mail client automatically redirect all mail whose subject starts with FW: to a different folder. Since usually mails like this are lame joke-of-the-day forwards or other such junk, I can quickly scan over the subject lines in this other folder with my finger hovering over the D key, and then concentrate on my real messages.
Sorry, you're correct: specific heat is energy required to raise a certain amount of a substance a given temperature. Thermal conductivity is the amount of heat that can pass through a substance in a given time. The two are related, but not the same. It's been a long, long time since I've taken chemistry.:)
Standard-issue thermal grease has a higher specific heat than the metals used on the heatspreader and the heatsink, so less heat is transferred between the processor and the heatsink. More/closer metal-to-metal contact is always a benefit.
Has anyone done any checking on this story? The news source on which it was posted, in all honesty, does not look like the most reliable place. Have we any guarantee this isn't a tabloid site à la National Enquirer? A few minutes of searching brought up nothing on the usual, reputable news sites.
Besides, I'm just a bit skeptical that the U.S. government would seriously consider nuking the moon. And none of this "they didn't know the effects" business -- by the fifties, the government knew full and well the short- and long-term effects of nuclear weapons.
Apostrophes certainly exist in the French language. French has contractions the same way English does; for example "je ne ai pas" meaning "I don't have" is contracted to "je n'ai pas" using an apostrophe. As far as odd punctuation goes, the French use commas instead of periods and vice versa with respect to numbers (3.203,1 means three thousand two hundred and three and one tenth), they use double angle brackets like > for quotations instead of "quote marks," and sentences following a sentence that ends in an exclamation point are not capitalized (ie. "Ouch! that hurt" is correct instead of "Ouch! That hurt." I can't think of any other major differences...
More on the French language -- the French government has an entire group delegated for the sole purpose of making standards for the language. The group is called The Immortals, and consists of 80 appointed intellectuals who meet several times a year to discuss new words and changes in the language. They are the ones who decide what is "right" and "wrong" in the language.
France in some respects has stricter language laws than Quebec. To my knowledge Quebec is more interested in keeping its language prevalent and keeping it as a cultural icon than anything else. France, on the other hand, is more concerned with keeping the language itself free from influence and 'pure.'
One sadly amusing story I heard from a Canadian friend is that Quebec has a law stating that any signs written in English must also be written in French, and that the French text must be no less than twice the size of the English text. There is supposedly a 'police force' that actually goes around measuring signs to make sure this law is met, and they issue fines if it's not. How's that for being anal?
Over the last few months I've watched the Napster scandal unfold with mild amusement. I, like most of the/. community, was offended that the government and music industry were trying to link together the free software movement with illegal acts such as music piracy. These free tools are completely legal, after all, and are only illegal when used for illegal purposes.
But lately I've had a change of heart. Having given the subject a lot of thought, I now feel that the Napster scandal is a bit ridiculous and has simply gone too far. While it's true that technically speaking programs like Napster are perfectly legal, the matter isn't black and white. I'm certain that about 99.9% of the activity Napster sees is illegal. Now suppose we were talking about guns. Guns are perfectly legal items unless used for illegal purposes. But if 99.9% of gun use in America was illegal, do you think the government would put up with this for one second? No, and they shouldn't. They should (and would) crack down on gun laws, and protect the interests of the people. Letting millions of people get killed is not something the government should ignore because "guns are legal, it's just murderers that are illegal." The same reasoning applies to Napster. The government is doing its duty by protecting the music industry and artists, and since Napster is a tool used by insane amounts of people to do insane amounts of illegal piracy, costing the industry untold amounts of money, I for one am glad the industry is putting its foot down.
Now I don't, on the other hand, think that this should be tied with the concept of free software. Free software in general is one of the best movements ever seen in the computer industry, and it would be a shame for it to be put at risk by this scandal. But this tie is only caused by our argument that "Napster is legal because it's free software and its code breaks no laws." But I think we should give the industry a bit of credit; for once, it is making a real effort (even if it's being held at gunpoint by the music industry) to protect its rights and the rights of artists, and uphold the law of the United States.
Again, I think the Napster scandal has gone too far. Seriously, people, it's not being used for *anything* legal. The government and the music industry are doing their job, and we should not stand in their way. Let's pick our battles, and let's not act foolishly and give ourselves a bad impression in the eyes of the world. Free software is good, but not when it costs someone billions of dollars each year. Let Napster die, and let's start fighting for free software so that we can defend *our* legal rights with honor.
Why, electrons of course! Over the course of the month during which the unauthorized line was connected, something on the order of 10^10^490 electrons were outright stolen by these students and stored in their computers or elsewhere in their room!
I think a deal could be struck if the students agreed to return the kidnapped electrons in exchange for dropped charges or at least a reduced sentence.
Here is a non-Babelfish translation for those who want a better, understandable version:) Enjoy
The National Assembly passes law requiring Web site authors to identify themselves under penalty of imprisonment.
Summary: Web site authors must identify themselves to their hoster before any public communication can be made, under penalty of imprisonment. In the absence of an identification, the hoster is responsible for the site's contents and is liable for up to six months in prison.
Yesterday, March 22, the national assembly approved an amendment dealing with the responsibilities of Web site hosters.
This law follows from the vote of the Senate on January 19 which required Web hosters to disclose the identity of any author to a third party under penalty of six months in prison.
All Web sites whose authors are unknown are the legal responsibility of the hoster. In order to free myself from this responsibility I would have to obtain the identities of each of altern.org's 48,000 users!
Of course, the e-commerce industry will be happy. What could be better than requiring customers to reveal their identities, leaving you the possibility of commercial exploitation?
The goal of this law seems to be to enact self-censorship on the level of the Web hoster, and on the level of the author who, after giving up his identity under penalty of imprisonment, has no insurance that his personal identity will not be used for unfair profit.
This vote, however, is not definitive. A third and last reading must take place. But it will be a question of reconciling differences in the texts put forth by the assembly and by the Senate, so the law could conceivably get worse.
As far as the future of altern.org is concerned, contrary to what I said yesterday before reading the law's exact text, I can continue to host sites as long as I accept my new role as watchdog.
[Note: I, the translator, take no responsibility for discrepancies between the translation and its original version on altern.org.]
Re:More money = better grade at the end?
on
Laptop Exams?
·
· Score: 2
Someone has to design your TI-89. They can't use a calculator to design itself when it hasn't yet been designed.
Someone has to write your Perl in a Nutshell book, etc. etc. If we start relying on knowledge passed down from those who came before us in the form of machines and textbooks, we'll be screwed if we ever have to come up with something ourselves.
Being a rising political force entails more than having a bunch of votes. You could give a bunch of monkeys the right to vote, but they would accomplish nothing because they don't have the grasp of the political system necessary to actually change things.
I think what was meant is that the geek community is finally getting public recognition. 10 years ago few people knew what a "geek" was or what one was like. We were like obscure, rare animals no one had ever come in contact with. Now we're more populous and more in the public view. People know about geeks. They know whar we're like, and most everyone knows a geek or two. We also are finally becoming organized, with public forums and such for geeks to unify their voices.. We've moved from lone hackers in the dark to a thriving online society.
So like any minority when grouped together into one voice, we now correspondingly have a say in things. Lawmakers will listen to us because they know that there are such things as "geeks" and that we are a viable group of people.
So instead of sitting back and doing nothing, as you seem to propose, we should AT LEAST try to get things moving in our direction. Even if we fail, at least we will have tried. That is one of the defining characteristics of a geek in my mind -- at least try to do it, even if it seems impossible.
Did Martin Luther King sit back and give up when his reforms were shot down time and time again by white opressors? No. He kept trying, and he made an incredible amount of progress in the end. (Note: I'm in no way comparing our plight to that of black opression, merely pointing out an example of how change in government can succeed.)
So call your friend at University student government. Tell them about software law. Write to your state and federal lawmakers. Let them know you care. Pass around petitions. Help get our rights back!
I read the series (I should say, I *first* read the series) beginning at age 8. The humor in the book is nicely tiered, so that youngsters will, as I did, get plenty a laugh out of it. There is of course more intellectual humor that I didn't get until subsequent readings when I was older, but it was well worth the time I put into it while young. I highly recommend Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'll be the first to agree that Microsoft often does not keep its word. My point is really that by emphasizing every mistake Microsoft ever makes, we serve only to perpetuate everyone's hatred / distrust / dislike / whatever of them. If we are going to point out their flaws, we should point out the flaws of Linux as well -- not to give it a bad reputation, but on the contrary, to make its problems known so that they can be improved so that progress is made. That is, after all, one of the things I like to think Slashdot stands for. By placing Microsoft under a magnifying glass while Linux's and its software's faults go unreported is unproductive.
I suppose the bottom line is that we should concentrate on making "our" OS better instead of continuing to point out the weaknesses of others.
My feelings exactly. I am a bit disappointed in Slashdot here. What we are dealing with here is a dual standard. Subscribe to the Bugtraq mailing list and I guarantee you will see many bugs of this caliber in UNIX software. Do all of these deserve a mention on Slashdot? Certainly not.
Why should Microsoft be held to a higher standard than UNIX software developers? The answer: they shouldn't. While it is sad that Microsoft has such a poor security track record, I believe Slashdot should learn from this and at least try to apply the same standards to all.
Adding to what you're saying, the brain does certainly have an amazing ability to adapt itself to new situations. It has been shown by experiment that the brain is not strictly "programmed" to carry out a predescribed set of steps. The ability to invert images so they are oriented properly in the "mind's eye", for example, is something the brain adapts to.
In one very interesting visual experiment, several volunteers were fitted with goggles which inverted the images they saw (ie. they saw everything upside down.) They were placed in an enclosed, protected environment where they wore these goggles 24 hours a day. After a while the volunteers became used to performing simple tasks with an upside down image; it was awkward, but possible.
However, after about a week, almost all the subjects reported that they were now seeing things properly oriented! Their brain actually realized it was generating an upside-down image, and inverted it. When the goggles were removed, they saw things upside down! It took another week or so without goggles for the brain to re-adapt to normal images.
This just goes to show that the brain is capable of amazing things, especially when it comes to sensory input.
Off topic, but this reminded me of a discussion that was had with a few friends yesterday, on the well-known prisoner's paradox:
Consider a prisoner who has been sentenced to execution. The executioners want to execute him on one day during the week (monday thru friday) but do not want him to know in advance when he is being executed.
Now, consider the date chosen is Friday. The instant Friday begins, the prisoner will know he must be executed that day since there are no more days left. But the executioner's wishes prohibit this. He can't know. Therefore the execution cannot be on Friday.
Now the prisoner knows he cannot be executed on Friday. In turn, then, the moment Thursday begins he will know he must be executed Thursday. But this can't be! So the execution can't be Thursday.
You can work this logic all the way to Monday, and by that argument, the prisoner can never be executed! How can this be?
Now, this paradox has to have a logical fault, as it's obviously able to carry out this execution without the prisoner knowing the exact time in advance. But neither me nor those I discussed it with could find it. Any ideas from the collective brains of the/. community?
Maybe these hackers in China could exploit the laws of logic via this paradox and `hack' their way out of execution... hmm...:)
Sure! No need even for custom scripting. Just use TeX/LaTeX (as your \ commands resemble) with tex2html or one of the other open source TeX to HTML converters.
You're right, but there are a few differences in this case which could be enough to make a sizeable difference. First, neither this guy or Purdue is a corporation. They don't go by the capitalist ideas of `marketing channels' and such. Secondly, this site is not something like `PurdueSux.' It's providing a service -- a legitimate and useful one at that. A site like CompaqSux would fall under attack because it fired pot shots at them. No company wants sites around saying they suck.
Chances are the university just wants that domain name for their own use. But instead of going through the proper channels and asking you to sell it, they're beeing greedy and trying to scare you into handing it over, costing them nothing but some fancy looking legal paper, an envelope and a stamp.
My advice is to wait it out; if they come at you with big guns, then call a lawyer or plan your next step. I think there's a good chance they'll realize their attempt at scaring you has failed, and either drop the issue or offer a monetary `settlement.' But don't respond with drastic measures until you're hit with drastic actions. And good luck!
The music from the Morpheus-Neo fight scene (the first segment anyway) most certainly was on the soundtrack. It's Lunatic Calm - Leave You Far Behind (track 6). The second segment of the fight scene was orchestral and I believe (but I'm not sure) it was on the score.
Interestingly enough a different remix of this song was heard in the movie "The Jackal" (and it's on the soundtrack there, too). The parody also mentioned the song playing in Neo's headphones -- this isn't (unfortunately) on the soundtrack, but the song (Dissolved Girl by Massive Attack) was also heard in, guess what movie? The Jackal.
I disagree. You're right on a few points; the Matrix did not have the strongest plot ever invented. What makes the movie is the character of the plot. In modern films, we have gotten stuck in a rut as far as plots go. When we see futuristic plots we see futures based on present reality. We see flying cars or cities with thousand-story buildings or spaceships or high tech computers or genetic engineering. What we don't stop to think about is the fact that the future could be radically different, and there could be things going on in our world that we have no concept of whatsoever. This is where the Matrix to me made one of its strongest points.
Sure, the movie could've had a stronger plot and stronger characters. But you've got to give credit where credit's due; the Matrix was a revolutionary movie. Personally I can't wait for the sequels and hope they live up to the reputation of the first.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I can't speak for these ISPs, but I have my mail client automatically redirect all mail whose subject starts with FW: to a different folder. Since usually mails like this are lame joke-of-the-day forwards or other such junk, I can quickly scan over the subject lines in this other folder with my finger hovering over the D key, and then concentrate on my real messages.
Sorry, you're correct: specific heat is energy required to raise a certain amount of a substance a given temperature. Thermal conductivity is the amount of heat that can pass through a substance in a given time. The two are related, but not the same. It's been a long, long time since I've taken chemistry. :)
Standard-issue thermal grease has a higher specific heat than the metals used on the heatspreader and the heatsink, so less heat is transferred between the processor and the heatsink. More/closer metal-to-metal contact is always a benefit.
Has anyone done any checking on this story? The news source on which it was posted, in all honesty, does not look like the most reliable place. Have we any guarantee this isn't a tabloid site à la National Enquirer? A few minutes of searching brought up nothing on the usual, reputable news sites.
Besides, I'm just a bit skeptical that the U.S. government would seriously consider nuking the moon. And none of this "they didn't know the effects" business -- by the fifties, the government knew full and well the short- and long-term effects of nuclear weapons.
Any thoughts?
Yeah! Hollywood is going to have to top those cheezy asteroid special effects (think Armageddon) somehow...
Apostrophes certainly exist in the French language. French has contractions the same way English does; for example "je ne ai pas" meaning "I don't have" is contracted to "je n'ai pas" using an apostrophe. As far as odd punctuation goes, the French use commas instead of periods and vice versa with respect to numbers (3.203,1 means three thousand two hundred and three and one tenth), they use double angle brackets like > for quotations instead of "quote marks," and sentences following a sentence that ends in an exclamation point are not capitalized (ie. "Ouch! that hurt" is correct instead of "Ouch! That hurt." I can't think of any other major differences...
More on the French language -- the French government has an entire group delegated for the sole purpose of making standards for the language. The group is called The Immortals, and consists of 80 appointed intellectuals who meet several times a year to discuss new words and changes in the language. They are the ones who decide what is "right" and "wrong" in the language.
France in some respects has stricter language laws than Quebec. To my knowledge Quebec is more interested in keeping its language prevalent and keeping it as a cultural icon than anything else. France, on the other hand, is more concerned with keeping the language itself free from influence and 'pure.'
One sadly amusing story I heard from a Canadian friend is that Quebec has a law stating that any signs written in English must also be written in French, and that the French text must be no less than twice the size of the English text. There is supposedly a 'police force' that actually goes around measuring signs to make sure this law is met, and they issue fines if it's not. How's that for being anal?
On Law, Napster, and Free Software
/. community, was offended that the government and music industry were trying to link together the free software movement with illegal acts such as music piracy. These free tools are completely legal, after all, and are only illegal when used for illegal purposes.
Over the last few months I've watched the Napster scandal unfold with mild amusement. I, like most of the
But lately I've had a change of heart. Having given the subject a lot of thought, I now feel that the Napster scandal is a bit ridiculous and has simply gone too far. While it's true that technically speaking programs like Napster are perfectly legal, the matter isn't black and white. I'm certain that about 99.9% of the activity Napster sees is illegal. Now suppose we were talking about guns. Guns are perfectly legal items unless used for illegal purposes. But if 99.9% of gun use in America was illegal, do you think the government would put up with this for one second? No, and they shouldn't. They should (and would) crack down on gun laws, and protect the interests of the people. Letting millions of people get killed is not something the government should ignore because "guns are legal, it's just murderers that are illegal." The same reasoning applies to Napster. The government is doing its duty by protecting the music industry and artists, and since Napster is a tool used by insane amounts of people to do insane amounts of illegal piracy, costing the industry untold amounts of money, I for one am glad the industry is putting its foot down.
Now I don't, on the other hand, think that this should be tied with the concept of free software. Free software in general is one of the best movements ever seen in the computer industry, and it would be a shame for it to be put at risk by this scandal. But this tie is only caused by our argument that "Napster is legal because it's free software and its code breaks no laws." But I think we should give the industry a bit of credit; for once, it is making a real effort (even if it's being held at gunpoint by the music industry) to protect its rights and the rights of artists, and uphold the law of the United States.
Again, I think the Napster scandal has gone too far. Seriously, people, it's not being used for *anything* legal. The government and the music industry are doing their job, and we should not stand in their way. Let's pick our battles, and let's not act foolishly and give ourselves a bad impression in the eyes of the world. Free software is good, but not when it costs someone billions of dollars each year. Let Napster die, and let's start fighting for free software so that we can defend *our* legal rights with honor.
Why, electrons of course! Over the course of the month during which the unauthorized line was connected, something on the order of 10^10^490 electrons were outright stolen by these students and stored in their computers or elsewhere in their room!
I think a deal could be struck if the students agreed to return the kidnapped electrons in exchange for dropped charges or at least a reduced sentence.
The National Assembly passes law requiring Web site authors to identify themselves
under penalty of imprisonment.
Summary:
Web site authors must identify themselves to their hoster before any public
communication can be made, under penalty of imprisonment.
In the absence of an identification, the hoster is responsible for the site's
contents and is liable for up to six months in prison.
Yesterday, March 22, the national assembly approved an amendment dealing with
the responsibilities of Web site hosters.
This law follows from the vote of
the Senate on January 19 which required Web hosters to disclose the
identity of any author to a third party under penalty of six months in prison.
All Web sites whose authors are unknown are the legal responsibility
of the hoster. In order to free myself from this responsibility I would
have to obtain the identities of each of altern.org's 48,000 users!
Of course, the e-commerce industry will be happy. What could be better than
requiring customers to reveal their identities, leaving you the possibility
of commercial exploitation?
The goal of this law seems to be to enact self-censorship on the level of the
Web hoster, and on the level of the author who, after giving up his identity
under penalty of imprisonment, has no insurance that his personal identity will
not be used for unfair profit.
This vote, however, is not definitive. A third and last reading must take
place. But it will be a question of reconciling differences in the texts
put forth by the assembly and by the Senate, so the law could conceivably
get worse.
As far as the future of altern.org is concerned, contrary to what I said
yesterday before reading the law's exact text, I can continue to host
sites as long as I accept my new role as watchdog.
[Note: I, the translator, take no responsibility for discrepancies
between the translation and its original version on altern.org.]
Someone has to design your TI-89. They can't use a calculator to design itself when it hasn't yet been designed.
Someone has to write your Perl in a Nutshell book, etc. etc. If we start relying on knowledge passed down from those who came before us in the form of machines and textbooks, we'll be screwed if we ever have to come up with something ourselves.
Just another way of looking at this..
Being a rising political force entails more than having a bunch of votes. You could give a bunch of monkeys the right to vote, but they would accomplish nothing because they don't have the grasp of the political system necessary to actually change things.
I think what was meant is that the geek community is finally getting public recognition. 10 years ago few people knew what a "geek" was or what one was like. We were like obscure, rare animals no one had ever come in contact with. Now we're more populous and more in the public view. People know about geeks. They know whar we're like, and most everyone knows a geek or two. We also are finally becoming organized, with public forums and such for geeks to unify their voices.. We've moved from lone hackers in the dark to a thriving online society.
So like any minority when grouped together into one voice, we now correspondingly have a say in things. Lawmakers will listen to us because they know that there are such things as "geeks" and that we are a viable group of people.
So instead of sitting back and doing nothing, as you seem to propose, we should AT LEAST try to get things moving in our direction. Even if we fail, at least we will have tried. That is one of the defining characteristics of a geek in my mind -- at least try to do it, even if it seems impossible.
Did Martin Luther King sit back and give up when his reforms were shot down time and time again by white opressors? No. He kept trying, and he made an incredible amount of progress in the end. (Note: I'm in no way comparing our plight to that of black opression, merely pointing out an example of how change in government can succeed.)
So call your friend at University student government. Tell them about software law. Write to your state and federal lawmakers. Let them know you care. Pass around petitions. Help get our rights back!
I read the series (I should say, I *first* read the series) beginning at age 8. The humor in the book is nicely tiered, so that youngsters will, as I did, get plenty a laugh out of it. There is of course more intellectual humor that I didn't get until subsequent readings when I was older, but it was well worth the time I put into it while young. I highly recommend Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'll be the first to agree that Microsoft often does not keep its word. My point is really that by emphasizing every mistake Microsoft ever makes, we serve only to perpetuate everyone's hatred / distrust / dislike / whatever of them. If we are going to point out their flaws, we should point out the flaws of Linux as well -- not to give it a bad reputation, but on the contrary, to make its problems known so that they can be improved so that progress is made. That is, after all, one of the things I like to think Slashdot stands for. By placing Microsoft under a magnifying glass while Linux's and its software's faults go unreported is unproductive.
I suppose the bottom line is that we should concentrate on making "our" OS better instead of continuing to point out the weaknesses of others.
My feelings exactly. I am a bit disappointed in Slashdot here. What we are dealing with here is a dual standard. Subscribe to the Bugtraq mailing list and I guarantee you will see many bugs of this caliber in UNIX software. Do all of these deserve a mention on Slashdot? Certainly not.
Why should Microsoft be held to a higher standard than UNIX software developers? The answer: they shouldn't. While it is sad that Microsoft has such a poor security track record, I believe Slashdot should learn from this and at least try to apply the same standards to all.
Adding to what you're saying, the brain does certainly have an amazing ability to adapt itself to new situations. It has been shown by experiment that the brain is not strictly "programmed" to carry out a predescribed set of steps. The ability to invert images so they are oriented properly in the "mind's eye", for example, is something the brain adapts to.
In one very interesting visual experiment, several volunteers were fitted with goggles which inverted the images they saw (ie. they saw everything upside down.) They were placed in an enclosed, protected environment where they wore these goggles 24 hours a day. After a while the volunteers became used to performing simple tasks with an upside down image; it was awkward, but possible.
However, after about a week, almost all the subjects reported that they were now seeing things properly oriented! Their brain actually realized it was generating an upside-down image, and inverted it. When the goggles were removed, they saw things upside down! It took another week or so without goggles for the brain to re-adapt to normal images.
This just goes to show that the brain is capable of amazing things, especially when it comes to sensory input.
Not true. The image is superimposed on the windshield at normal viewing level. Read the article.
Who, exactly, said anything about brute forcing? Come on. It's the NSA.
Off topic, but this reminded me of a discussion that was had with a few friends yesterday, on the well-known prisoner's paradox:
/. community?
:)
Consider a prisoner who has been sentenced to execution. The executioners want to execute him on one day during the week (monday thru friday) but do not want him to know in advance when he is being executed.
Now, consider the date chosen is Friday. The instant Friday begins, the prisoner will know he must be executed that day since there are no more days left. But the executioner's wishes prohibit this. He can't know. Therefore the execution cannot be on Friday.
Now the prisoner knows he cannot be executed on Friday. In turn, then, the moment Thursday begins he will know he must be executed Thursday. But this can't be! So the execution can't be Thursday.
You can work this logic all the way to Monday, and by that argument, the prisoner can never be executed! How can this be?
Now, this paradox has to have a logical fault, as it's obviously able to carry out this execution without the prisoner knowing the exact time in advance. But neither me nor those I discussed it with could find it. Any ideas from the collective brains of the
Maybe these hackers in China could exploit the laws of logic via this paradox and `hack' their way out of execution... hmm...
Sure! No need even for custom scripting. Just use TeX/LaTeX (as your \ commands resemble) with tex2html or one of the other open source TeX to HTML converters.
-kugano
`perdue' also means `lost' in French. Hopefully we can take this as an omen that Purdue will lose, not that purdueonline will lose. :)
-kugano
You're right, but there are a few differences in this case which could be enough to make a sizeable difference. First, neither this guy or Purdue is a corporation. They don't go by the capitalist ideas of `marketing channels' and such. Secondly, this site is not something like `PurdueSux.' It's providing a service -- a legitimate and useful one at that. A site like CompaqSux would fall under attack because it fired pot shots at them. No company wants sites around saying they suck.
Chances are the university just wants that domain name for their own use. But instead of going through the proper channels and asking you to sell it, they're beeing greedy and trying to scare you into handing it over, costing them nothing but some fancy looking legal paper, an envelope and a stamp.
My advice is to wait it out; if they come at you with big guns, then call a lawyer or plan your next step. I think there's a good chance they'll realize their attempt at scaring you has failed, and either drop the issue or offer a monetary `settlement.' But don't respond with drastic measures until you're hit with drastic actions. And good luck!
-kugano
The music from the Morpheus-Neo fight scene (the first segment anyway) most certainly was on the soundtrack. It's Lunatic Calm - Leave You Far Behind (track 6). The second segment of the fight scene was orchestral and I believe (but I'm not sure) it was on the score.
:)
Interestingly enough a different remix of this song was heard in the movie "The Jackal" (and it's on the soundtrack there, too). The parody also mentioned the song playing in Neo's headphones -- this isn't (unfortunately) on the soundtrack, but the song (Dissolved Girl by Massive Attack) was also heard in, guess what movie? The Jackal.
Coincidence?
I think not.
You decide.
kugano
I disagree. You're right on a few points; the Matrix did not have the strongest plot ever invented. What makes the movie is the character of the plot. In modern films, we have gotten stuck in a rut as far as plots go. When we see futuristic plots we see futures based on present reality. We see flying cars or cities with thousand-story buildings or spaceships or high tech computers or genetic engineering. What we don't stop to think about is the fact that the future could be radically different, and there could be things going on in our world that we have no concept of whatsoever. This is where the Matrix to me made one of its strongest points.
Sure, the movie could've had a stronger plot and stronger characters. But you've got to give credit where credit's due; the Matrix was a revolutionary movie. Personally I can't wait for the sequels and hope they live up to the reputation of the first.
Cheers,
kugano