I think that darker == better in the Star Wars universe because of how well-regarded Empire is. If the most depressing movie in the series is the first or second most popular out of six, they're going to do all they can to repeat that.
Similarly, while the penguins are my favorite characters in the Madagascar movies, they work because they are not the plot. They are interjections of humor and they are a critical plot device to allow the stories to move forward and to be resolved, but the plot is not penguin-centric. The penguins get maybe ten minutes of screen time in a ninety-minute film. So, because millions of people agree with me that the penguins are frickin' awesome, what do they do? They make a horribly shitty TV series based on the penguins.
The movie (and broader entertainment) industry is ridiculously myopic. That's all there is to it.
The 70-minute Youtube critique of The Phantom Menace, posted to Slashdot recently I believe, made a lot of points indicating why the movie sucked. Interestingly, it spent 70 minutes coherently bashing the film without once saying that Jar Jar Binks was a problem. Anyhow, its first major criticism is also the most poignant: Who is the main character? Who is the person whose story we are supposed to care about? If you compare A New Hope with The Phantom Menace, rationally and without reference to nostalgia, the former is a much better piece of literature and a much better movie. It has a coherent plot that people can identify with and care about, a main character that people can cheer for from start to finish, and very few plot elements that don't relate to the plot.
Was it the best science fiction movie of all time? Frankly, it might have been, and you will find plenty of people who can make a rational argument for why it was. By contrast, nobody thinks that about Episode I.
You are correct, as far as the federal government goes. The state governments were not similarly limited except where the Constitution says they were to be. That has always been open to interpretation by the courts, with bizarre results such as the things that explicitly refer to Congress being imputed to the states long before the things that are worded in outright "nobody can do this" terms were. Classic example: First Amendment says 'Congress' but has long been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Second Amendment says 'shall not be infringed' by anyone, but is still up in the air.
The problem as far as the federal government goes is the commerce clause taken together with rational basis review. If Congress passes a law that says 'Whereas interstate commerce is affected by the lederhosen industry, all citizens are required to wear lederhosen on Tuesdays. Violation is a felony punishable by five years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.', that's enough to say that they were exercising their power under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Rational basis review means that a court won't overturn a commerce clause-based law if there is any rational way that the law relates to interstate commerce. And that includes enforcement when the actual act had nothing to do with interstate commerce.
For instance, a federal law that fixes grain prices will result in subsistence farmers being punished for violating it. (True story.) A federal law that says machine guns affect interstate commerce can be used to punish you for building a machine gun out of scrap metal even if none of it ever crossed state lines. (True story.) There are very few exceptions where the Supreme Court (after FDR and the New Deal) has thrown out a law for overstepping the authority of Congress under the commerce clause.
Long story short: Congress is allowed to do anything it wants, because everything has some effect on interstate commerce.
I removed the Buzz 'folder' from my Gmail view and went to "turn off buzz" at the bottom, down with the "turn off chat" command. However, I am concerned about the automatic friending thing. I signed into Gmail this morning and clicked on the Buzz folder and it had automatically had me following a couple dozen people, most of which were people I had one or two conversations with and some of whom were one-time Craigslist contacts. Just what I need - a social networking site that keeps me connected to all the people I don't want to talk to again.
So...did she like it? I could do the same thing with Dancer in the Dark - a woman who can sit through it without vomiting, breaking up with me, or swearing loudly is unqualified.
My definition of loving a woman has nothing to do with randomly getting her flowers (or chocolates, bubble bath, a card, foul-smelling candles, etc.) for no reason. It has a lot more to do with being an effective companion on both physical and emotional levels. In reality, I think that women want this crap on Valentine's Day specifically because they would otherwise feel left out and jealous of their friends who received it then. It doesn't matter how much you love a woman or how effectively you show it, if her emotional reality is that you don't love her as much as her friends' significant others love them, you're not going to have much to celebrate on March 14. You shouldn't have to buy frivolous garbage for her to show that you love her on any day of the year, but it turns out that you probably will have to from time to time. You may as well maximize the benefit by doing it on the day her friends get showered in the stuff. Otherwise, she might not remember how you spent the 364 prior days actually loving her.
Does anyone else miss adcritic.com, the video site from the late 90's? They were ahead of their time, and had a collection legitimately hilarious ads, like the one for Slapshots.com that featured a guy insisting he could golf through the trees and ended up nailing his skeptical friend in the crotch with a ricochet off a tree.
Married men understand the principal better. They are constantly saving money, thanks to their wives buying things they don't need and won't wear at 20% off.
The main thing with the Obama peace prize is that it was all based on his first 12 days in office. Fox News (yeah, not fair and balanced, but this one is purely factual and based on the President's public schedule, and good for a laugh) did a rundown of what all Obama did in those 12 days.
The dumbest thing the man ever did was accept the prize. He would have won a lot more support and respect from both his constituency and the world at large if he had politely declined it for being too soon. I am more than a little disappointed at the growing list of faux pas that he's headed up in just a year, and I'm far from alone.
I have always had a 100% response rate to my resume. And 100% of the potential employers respond that I am supremely qualified, and that they are regretful nearly to the point of suicide over not being able to hire me.
Dude. You spelled HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL wrong.
Ode to the lameness filter:
I know, dear Filter, that using so many caps is like yelling
When quoting Metallica, though, yelling is okay
My mother taught me never to yell at people
But she also said that it's okay if you have a loud guitar
Incidentally, she didn't teach me how
To write an ode.
In other news, apparently there are enough people inventing things and filing for patents but still incapable of operating a fax machine. I think that this is a perfectly reasonable, preliminary test for patentability. If you can't fax your application in right-side-up and with the printed side of the page transmitted instead of the blank side, then you are too dumb to have invented anything novel. (And remember Edison and the light bulb: If you aren't willing to try faxing your application four times to be sure that it arrives in the correct orientation, you probably don't know how to fail at your invention enough times to get it right, either.)
I'm trying to talk to eBay to resolve it still. In the meantime, I am not giving them a dime, even though there are items that I want and cannot find for sale anywhere else.:)
In a related issue, I recently had an eBay listing pulled, stating that a copyright holder had ordered it to be taken down for violating their copyright. It was in fact an original, unopened DVD package (not salable through Half.com). Not an unlawful copy, and explicitly allowed by the first-sale doctrine, which is part of US copyright law. I contacted eBay and they gave me an e-mail address to contact the "Verified Rights Owner (VeRO)", who has an agreement with eBay that requires them not to abuse their power to take down listings.
In this case, the VeRO is well-known for taking down legitimate listings in order to ensure that nobody buys their product second-hand. The VeRO, of course, has zero incentive to do any investigation into whether they were incorrect, since (a) they already got their cookies by eliminating a market competitor and (b) eBay will not do anything about it if they were wrong. In my case, the VeRO contact person actually bragged to me about taking down "hundreds of listings every day."
I've heard of similar stories involving other VeROs. The best part is that you can't relist the item safely, since it'll get taken down again and eBay will be happy to revoke your account if you have a couple of strikes for "copyright violation." It's a really crummy deal, but it's part of the copyright idiocy that we live with today. If you run a used bookstore or music store, I hope you have a good insurance policy and a lawyer on retainer. Someone is going to come in with the torches any day to make sure that people only buy new copies of their content. If we could do this to make other consumer goods more rapidly consumed, we'd be a step closer to a Brave New World.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that darker == better in the Star Wars universe because of how well-regarded Empire is. If the most depressing movie in the series is the first or second most popular out of six, they're going to do all they can to repeat that.
Similarly, while the penguins are my favorite characters in the Madagascar movies, they work because they are not the plot. They are interjections of humor and they are a critical plot device to allow the stories to move forward and to be resolved, but the plot is not penguin-centric. The penguins get maybe ten minutes of screen time in a ninety-minute film. So, because millions of people agree with me that the penguins are frickin' awesome, what do they do? They make a horribly shitty TV series based on the penguins.
The movie (and broader entertainment) industry is ridiculously myopic. That's all there is to it.
Fuckin' A, Cotton.
The 70-minute Youtube critique of The Phantom Menace, posted to Slashdot recently I believe, made a lot of points indicating why the movie sucked. Interestingly, it spent 70 minutes coherently bashing the film without once saying that Jar Jar Binks was a problem. Anyhow, its first major criticism is also the most poignant: Who is the main character? Who is the person whose story we are supposed to care about? If you compare A New Hope with The Phantom Menace, rationally and without reference to nostalgia, the former is a much better piece of literature and a much better movie. It has a coherent plot that people can identify with and care about, a main character that people can cheer for from start to finish, and very few plot elements that don't relate to the plot.
Was it the best science fiction movie of all time? Frankly, it might have been, and you will find plenty of people who can make a rational argument for why it was. By contrast, nobody thinks that about Episode I.
You are correct, as far as the federal government goes. The state governments were not similarly limited except where the Constitution says they were to be. That has always been open to interpretation by the courts, with bizarre results such as the things that explicitly refer to Congress being imputed to the states long before the things that are worded in outright "nobody can do this" terms were. Classic example: First Amendment says 'Congress' but has long been applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Second Amendment says 'shall not be infringed' by anyone, but is still up in the air.
The problem as far as the federal government goes is the commerce clause taken together with rational basis review. If Congress passes a law that says 'Whereas interstate commerce is affected by the lederhosen industry, all citizens are required to wear lederhosen on Tuesdays. Violation is a felony punishable by five years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.', that's enough to say that they were exercising their power under the Interstate Commerce Clause. Rational basis review means that a court won't overturn a commerce clause-based law if there is any rational way that the law relates to interstate commerce. And that includes enforcement when the actual act had nothing to do with interstate commerce.
For instance, a federal law that fixes grain prices will result in subsistence farmers being punished for violating it. (True story.) A federal law that says machine guns affect interstate commerce can be used to punish you for building a machine gun out of scrap metal even if none of it ever crossed state lines. (True story.) There are very few exceptions where the Supreme Court (after FDR and the New Deal) has thrown out a law for overstepping the authority of Congress under the commerce clause.
Long story short: Congress is allowed to do anything it wants, because everything has some effect on interstate commerce.
I removed the Buzz 'folder' from my Gmail view and went to "turn off buzz" at the bottom, down with the "turn off chat" command. However, I am concerned about the automatic friending thing. I signed into Gmail this morning and clicked on the Buzz folder and it had automatically had me following a couple dozen people, most of which were people I had one or two conversations with and some of whom were one-time Craigslist contacts. Just what I need - a social networking site that keeps me connected to all the people I don't want to talk to again.
So...did she like it? I could do the same thing with Dancer in the Dark - a woman who can sit through it without vomiting, breaking up with me, or swearing loudly is unqualified.
My definition of loving a woman has nothing to do with randomly getting her flowers (or chocolates, bubble bath, a card, foul-smelling candles, etc.) for no reason. It has a lot more to do with being an effective companion on both physical and emotional levels. In reality, I think that women want this crap on Valentine's Day specifically because they would otherwise feel left out and jealous of their friends who received it then. It doesn't matter how much you love a woman or how effectively you show it, if her emotional reality is that you don't love her as much as her friends' significant others love them, you're not going to have much to celebrate on March 14. You shouldn't have to buy frivolous garbage for her to show that you love her on any day of the year, but it turns out that you probably will have to from time to time. You may as well maximize the benefit by doing it on the day her friends get showered in the stuff. Otherwise, she might not remember how you spent the 364 prior days actually loving her.
It has other meanings and I wanted to make the pun obvious since hiding it in the spelling principle might lose some of the moderators. ;)
Does anyone else miss adcritic.com, the video site from the late 90's? They were ahead of their time, and had a collection legitimately hilarious ads, like the one for Slapshots.com that featured a guy insisting he could golf through the trees and ended up nailing his skeptical friend in the crotch with a ricochet off a tree.
Speculation is usually more humorous than reality. But ... no, you're right. I didn't think that one through. :P
I bet her separate account had 2 signatures on file. ;)
Where's the +1 Bad Pun mod when you need it?
I started this, and I'm actually not married ... guess why! :-P
Married men understand the principal better. They are constantly saving money, thanks to their wives buying things they don't need and won't wear at 20% off.
The main thing with the Obama peace prize is that it was all based on his first 12 days in office. Fox News (yeah, not fair and balanced, but this one is purely factual and based on the President's public schedule, and good for a laugh) did a rundown of what all Obama did in those 12 days.
The dumbest thing the man ever did was accept the prize. He would have won a lot more support and respect from both his constituency and the world at large if he had politely declined it for being too soon. I am more than a little disappointed at the growing list of faux pas that he's headed up in just a year, and I'm far from alone.
You were pretty close. But for not being exactly correct, Leela asked me to tell you to "Go BEEP yourself."
I have always had a 100% response rate to my resume. And 100% of the potential employers respond that I am supremely qualified, and that they are regretful nearly to the point of suicide over not being able to hire me.
Dude. You spelled HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL wrong.
Ode to the lameness filter:
I know, dear Filter, that using so many caps is like yelling
When quoting Metallica, though, yelling is okay
My mother taught me never to yell at people
But she also said that it's okay if you have a loud guitar
Incidentally, she didn't teach me how
To write an ode.
In other news, apparently there are enough people inventing things and filing for patents but still incapable of operating a fax machine. I think that this is a perfectly reasonable, preliminary test for patentability. If you can't fax your application in right-side-up and with the printed side of the page transmitted instead of the blank side, then you are too dumb to have invented anything novel. (And remember Edison and the light bulb: If you aren't willing to try faxing your application four times to be sure that it arrives in the correct orientation, you probably don't know how to fail at your invention enough times to get it right, either.)
I was hoping it would get blown out of proportion by a class-action attorney. ;)
I'm trying to talk to eBay to resolve it still. In the meantime, I am not giving them a dime, even though there are items that I want and cannot find for sale anywhere else. :)
In a related issue, I recently had an eBay listing pulled, stating that a copyright holder had ordered it to be taken down for violating their copyright. It was in fact an original, unopened DVD package (not salable through Half.com). Not an unlawful copy, and explicitly allowed by the first-sale doctrine, which is part of US copyright law. I contacted eBay and they gave me an e-mail address to contact the "Verified Rights Owner (VeRO)", who has an agreement with eBay that requires them not to abuse their power to take down listings.
In this case, the VeRO is well-known for taking down legitimate listings in order to ensure that nobody buys their product second-hand. The VeRO, of course, has zero incentive to do any investigation into whether they were incorrect, since (a) they already got their cookies by eliminating a market competitor and (b) eBay will not do anything about it if they were wrong. In my case, the VeRO contact person actually bragged to me about taking down "hundreds of listings every day."
I've heard of similar stories involving other VeROs. The best part is that you can't relist the item safely, since it'll get taken down again and eBay will be happy to revoke your account if you have a couple of strikes for "copyright violation." It's a really crummy deal, but it's part of the copyright idiocy that we live with today. If you run a used bookstore or music store, I hope you have a good insurance policy and a lawyer on retainer. Someone is going to come in with the torches any day to make sure that people only buy new copies of their content. If we could do this to make other consumer goods more rapidly consumed, we'd be a step closer to a Brave New World.
Another word: racket
Everyone goes to MIT to socialize. It's nothing but a party school!
Interesting tidbit. Something tells me that SCOTUS doesn't certify a whole lot of questions to anyone, ever.