I can do a pretty boring summary of the premise of about any movie. It's all in where it goes from there, and how it's executed, that counts.
Luke, a farmboy on a desert planet, is at odds with his adopted uncle--who doesn't want him to go off to college. Will he stay behind on the farm, or join the mysterious hermit Ben on an important mission, and discover the truth about his dead father along the way?
Well, that one sounds like a fucking snoozefest. And I liked it a lot better back in 1958 when it was called "The Hidden Fortress."
You know, I was watching one of the behind-the-scenes extras on the "Get Low" DVD the other day. For those who haven't seen it, "Get Low" is a quiet little movie--low-budget, not a lot of hoopla. But it has a suprisingly powerful screenplay and great performances from Robert Duvall and Bill Murray. Anyway, the producer points out that, even with a very powerful script and great leads attached, it still took over 8 years to get the movie made. He explained that Hollywood has become so fixated on sequels, prequels, franchises, remakes, and comic-book/TV adaptations that getting funding even for a small-budget *original* film, with no potential for a sequel or merchandising, has become a nightmare. Hollywood may celebrate these kinds of movies at Oscar time, but getting a studio to put up even a relatively trivial amount of money for them is almost impossible unless you can attach some hot A-list leads.
And that is why we're treated to a stream of endless rapes of once-great franchises/TV shows/comic books. It's why a 60-year-old Harrison Ford is running around fighting fucking aliens with a bullwhip looking for a goddamn crystal skull, while Steven Spielberg is off-camera bathing in a pile of cash. It's why we get sequels to 25-year-old R-rated franchises with PG-13 ratings and once-great stars just there to collect a paycheck (yep, I'm looking at you Bruce Willis). It's why everyone who has produced even a mediocre comic book superhero has Hollywood fawning over them, while great original scripts go right into the trash bin.
And now it's why we're going to get a shitty PG-13 action-oriented prequel/sequel to one of the great adult science fiction films of all time. It's something no one asked for. It will tarnish the original. And it will suck. But all Hollywood hears is "sequel" and so it's getting the green light.
Not looking to make a movie, I'm looking for a consumer quality camera I can hold steady without a tripod. You used to be able to buy those in the $500 range. Now everything in the consumer range is "Hey, look at how small this is now! Isn't that great?!?!"
It's sort of like the videocamera trend of making them smaller and smaller, instead of making them with better picture quality. All you get is a camera with the same mediocre video quality as the last model, but that's even harder to hold steady. I already have a videocamera I can fit in my pocket, after all. It's called a smartphone. So how about making a dedicated videocamera that I can shoot with without all my videos looking like outtakes from Cloverfield?
An ironic argument from Apple, a company that vigorously fought lawsuits for years over the Beatles' trademark of the "Apple." Guess your argument always applies to the *other guys*, but never yourself.
a democratic push for a congressional investigation of HBGary Federal
You're going to dig for info on their union-busting, but you're going to be very embarrassed if you find out that the Obama administration was in bed with these scumbags on some other sleazy project(s) that come up too. They were working for the banks, but some of these firms were (or at least had been) working for the government too. Might want to check with the White House before you start digging too deep.
n germany on windy / clear sky summer day, far over 60% of the energy production comes from sun and wind.
According to wikipedia, only about 16% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources, and less than half of that comes from wind and solar. And even that cost them billions of Euros to construct. And even if it is 60% on a windy day, I bet it's closer to 0% on a calm day (one of the big drawbacks of wind power, aside from the incredible startup and maintenance costs).
No, oil is not sustainable forever. But replacing one unsustainable system with another unrealistic one is not the answer.
But if they don't aren't they opening themselves up to a web of charges of prior art and other problems in a subsequent court case? If Party A violates my patent and I don't sue them, and Party B later comes along and violates it and I sue them, what's to stop Party B from saying "Well you obviously didn't think Party A was infringing way back when, and we're doing the same thing as them, so obviously this has no merit."
attempts to throw patent roadblocks in front of everything
I have to defend them on that one. As crazy as the patent system has gotten, if they don't defend their patents, they are essentially putting up a big sign for Apple, Sony et. al. saying "Come rape us!" In this crazy environment, if someone comes suing you over patents, you have to have some patents of your own to hit them back with. It's sad but true that the only way for a company like MS to stand is to have its own cache of patents to ward off other companies. Just ask Sony and LG.
I would say 25% is significant, but wind and solar will never be able to achieve even that. And nuclear power is most definitely NOT a joke (it could easily replace a huge portion of our electricity generation needs, as it already does in many countries). But environmentalists hate nuclear (just as they hate anything that isn't wind and solar).
I suspect this is a PR stunt more than anything. Even if MS were serious about it, it wouldn't work. Combining a for-profit company and the OSS philosophy of selfless idealism (which the OSS community often embraces in its most extreme and uncompromising form, no less) almost always results in failure. Just look at Canonical. They tried to do it, only to end up under fire for even the mildest moves towards making money. Combining "I want to give everything away for free, including all our IP" with "I want to make money" is just a very tough proposition.
Not tinfoil-hatters, it will be the radical environmentalists--the guys who are convinced that every form of energy except solar and wind are going to cause the end of the world (and who are oblivious to the fact that solar and wind power are a fucking joke and a pipe-dream that will never replace even a significant fraction of our energy needs).
The prize now has become so political that it's hard to take it seriously anymore. There is no way Wikileaks stands a chance because of the way the committee is beholden to Western governments. Only pro-Western dissidents ever win, NEVER anti-Western dissidents or even those who might be construed as opposed to Western governments (ala Wikileaks). Obama's prize was the height of this political hypocrisy--giving him the award before he even had the chance to do anything, just on his word that he was going to do peaceful stuff (which he hasn't, if anything he's expanded Bush's heavy-handed war policies even more).
No worries. The Empire announced just before the attack that an intelligence source had told them that Alderaan had weapons of mass destruction, so that made it okay.
I used to teach a class that dealt, in part, with U.S. copyright issues. Before 1998, I gave them the standard "life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years if it's owned by a business." But after Sonny Bono's Copyright Extension Act in 1998, I just told them "If it's not in the public domain already, it probably never will be." It's a sad statement on what copyright has become (and how corporate interests thoroughly own our legislatures). I fully expect that a similar extension will pass long before 2019, extending copyright once again (forever to remain stuck in 1923, to the delight of the Disney Corporation).
Slashdot Mirror
I can do a pretty boring summary of the premise of about any movie. It's all in where it goes from there, and how it's executed, that counts.
Luke, a farmboy on a desert planet, is at odds with his adopted uncle--who doesn't want him to go off to college. Will he stay behind on the farm, or join the mysterious hermit Ben on an important mission, and discover the truth about his dead father along the way?
Well, that one sounds like a fucking snoozefest. And I liked it a lot better back in 1958 when it was called "The Hidden Fortress."
A Slashdot poster criticizing other Slashdot posters for criticizing Slashdot posters is...oh, fuck it, nevermind.
Best subject line ever.
You know, I was watching one of the behind-the-scenes extras on the "Get Low" DVD the other day. For those who haven't seen it, "Get Low" is a quiet little movie--low-budget, not a lot of hoopla. But it has a suprisingly powerful screenplay and great performances from Robert Duvall and Bill Murray. Anyway, the producer points out that, even with a very powerful script and great leads attached, it still took over 8 years to get the movie made. He explained that Hollywood has become so fixated on sequels, prequels, franchises, remakes, and comic-book/TV adaptations that getting funding even for a small-budget *original* film, with no potential for a sequel or merchandising, has become a nightmare. Hollywood may celebrate these kinds of movies at Oscar time, but getting a studio to put up even a relatively trivial amount of money for them is almost impossible unless you can attach some hot A-list leads.
And that is why we're treated to a stream of endless rapes of once-great franchises/TV shows/comic books. It's why a 60-year-old Harrison Ford is running around fighting fucking aliens with a bullwhip looking for a goddamn crystal skull, while Steven Spielberg is off-camera bathing in a pile of cash. It's why we get sequels to 25-year-old R-rated franchises with PG-13 ratings and once-great stars just there to collect a paycheck (yep, I'm looking at you Bruce Willis). It's why everyone who has produced even a mediocre comic book superhero has Hollywood fawning over them, while great original scripts go right into the trash bin.
And now it's why we're going to get a shitty PG-13 action-oriented prequel/sequel to one of the great adult science fiction films of all time. It's something no one asked for. It will tarnish the original. And it will suck. But all Hollywood hears is "sequel" and so it's getting the green light.
I'm going to light that carboard box up faster than Charlie Sheen on a triple-barreled crack pipe.
Not looking to make a movie, I'm looking for a consumer quality camera I can hold steady without a tripod. You used to be able to buy those in the $500 range. Now everything in the consumer range is "Hey, look at how small this is now! Isn't that great?!?!"
Yeah, I'm probably all like...a greedy capitalist type too...unlike Steve Jobs.
It's sort of like the videocamera trend of making them smaller and smaller, instead of making them with better picture quality. All you get is a camera with the same mediocre video quality as the last model, but that's even harder to hold steady. I already have a videocamera I can fit in my pocket, after all. It's called a smartphone. So how about making a dedicated videocamera that I can shoot with without all my videos looking like outtakes from Cloverfield?
Will the $829 model be 65% hipper than the $499 model? I *really* want to impress the other guys in the drum circle.
Hush you fool! You know they're listening. Do you *want* to be sent back to the camp?
Yes, those are strange planets. And so are the planets.
An ironic argument from Apple, a company that vigorously fought lawsuits for years over the Beatles' trademark of the "Apple." Guess your argument always applies to the *other guys*, but never yourself.
a democratic push for a congressional investigation of HBGary Federal
You're going to dig for info on their union-busting, but you're going to be very embarrassed if you find out that the Obama administration was in bed with these scumbags on some other sleazy project(s) that come up too. They were working for the banks, but some of these firms were (or at least had been) working for the government too. Might want to check with the White House before you start digging too deep.
n germany on windy / clear sky summer day, far over 60% of the energy production comes from sun and wind.
According to wikipedia, only about 16% of Germany's electricity comes from renewable sources, and less than half of that comes from wind and solar. And even that cost them billions of Euros to construct. And even if it is 60% on a windy day, I bet it's closer to 0% on a calm day (one of the big drawbacks of wind power, aside from the incredible startup and maintenance costs).
No, oil is not sustainable forever. But replacing one unsustainable system with another unrealistic one is not the answer.
But if they don't aren't they opening themselves up to a web of charges of prior art and other problems in a subsequent court case? If Party A violates my patent and I don't sue them, and Party B later comes along and violates it and I sue them, what's to stop Party B from saying "Well you obviously didn't think Party A was infringing way back when, and we're doing the same thing as them, so obviously this has no merit."
attempts to throw patent roadblocks in front of everything
I have to defend them on that one. As crazy as the patent system has gotten, if they don't defend their patents, they are essentially putting up a big sign for Apple, Sony et. al. saying "Come rape us!" In this crazy environment, if someone comes suing you over patents, you have to have some patents of your own to hit them back with. It's sad but true that the only way for a company like MS to stand is to have its own cache of patents to ward off other companies. Just ask Sony and LG.
I would say 25% is significant, but wind and solar will never be able to achieve even that. And nuclear power is most definitely NOT a joke (it could easily replace a huge portion of our electricity generation needs, as it already does in many countries). But environmentalists hate nuclear (just as they hate anything that isn't wind and solar).
I suspect this is a PR stunt more than anything. Even if MS were serious about it, it wouldn't work. Combining a for-profit company and the OSS philosophy of selfless idealism (which the OSS community often embraces in its most extreme and uncompromising form, no less) almost always results in failure. Just look at Canonical. They tried to do it, only to end up under fire for even the mildest moves towards making money. Combining "I want to give everything away for free, including all our IP" with "I want to make money" is just a very tough proposition.
Not tinfoil-hatters, it will be the radical environmentalists--the guys who are convinced that every form of energy except solar and wind are going to cause the end of the world (and who are oblivious to the fact that solar and wind power are a fucking joke and a pipe-dream that will never replace even a significant fraction of our energy needs).
The prize now has become so political that it's hard to take it seriously anymore. There is no way Wikileaks stands a chance because of the way the committee is beholden to Western governments. Only pro-Western dissidents ever win, NEVER anti-Western dissidents or even those who might be construed as opposed to Western governments (ala Wikileaks). Obama's prize was the height of this political hypocrisy--giving him the award before he even had the chance to do anything, just on his word that he was going to do peaceful stuff (which he hasn't, if anything he's expanded Bush's heavy-handed war policies even more).
No, Apple targets suckers and hipsters who just THINK they're paying for quality.
No worries. The Empire announced just before the attack that an intelligence source had told them that Alderaan had weapons of mass destruction, so that made it okay.
I used to teach a class that dealt, in part, with U.S. copyright issues. Before 1998, I gave them the standard "life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years if it's owned by a business." But after Sonny Bono's Copyright Extension Act in 1998, I just told them "If it's not in the public domain already, it probably never will be." It's a sad statement on what copyright has become (and how corporate interests thoroughly own our legislatures). I fully expect that a similar extension will pass long before 2019, extending copyright once again (forever to remain stuck in 1923, to the delight of the Disney Corporation).
I just hope they don't make me eat none of them damn fish eggs.
Don't make such assumptions about crackheads. Charlie Sheen gave us "Young Guns" *and* "Major League. And that was in ONE YEAR.