like going back to the '80's, when every time you sent an important e-mail you made a phone call to see if got through ok.
You mean like my current PHB does in 2006, and no doubt will continue to do in 2007 and beyond? (She also e-mails me to tell me to check my voicemail when she leaves me voicemail. Sometimes she leaves sticky notes attached to my inbox on my desk to tell me to check my e-mail, too.)
I may be misremembering, but I think the explanation offered in this story was that the sun was much more powerful in ancient Egypt than in modern times, and that the stronger solar radiation somehow countered the effects of the cosmic rays that had created the FF in the first place. (Scientific accuracy was never the forte of the comics, especially in the Silver and Golden Ages. If you disagree, I suggest that you grab a live wire while wearing rubber-soled shoes and see if the current affects you.)
In the early years of the FF, the Thing kept changing randomly back and forth between human and monster. Various explanations were offered, but plot convenience seemed to be the only consistent factor. (I may be misremembering, but John Byrne later explained this by saying that Ben Grimm had originally had the power to change back and forth, but that he subconsciously preferred being the Thing, so he got stuck that way. Or something like that.)
But then why did the Sacagawea dollar coin fail? I really liked those -- different color, significantly thicker feel, smooth edge (unlike the serrated edge of the quarter).
What about granting something like a two-year time window for heirs (named in the will if there is one -- which would cover the trust you suggest, legal family if no will is extant) to extend the copyright one time for, say, a 20-year period beyond the 50-year limit? If they don't apply to extend, then it falls into the public domain. If the 50-year limit ran out during the artist's lifetime, then the option isn't there. If the artist dies more than 70 years after the original copyright, then the option isn't there, either -- though the copyright would still be valid as long as the artist lived, even if the 70 years had passed.
... there are cures for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, etc, but the pharmacies are making too much money on the treatments to release them.
AIDS is a viral disease. So are many cancers -- more and more are being identified as such every year. No one has yet figured out a way to cure any viral disease; partly because of the very nature of the beast, it's a nastily difficult problem to solve. Even if the paranoid theory is correct about other diseases, I can't believe that anyone has solved the viral-disease hurdle for a single disease, nor that they will solve it anytime soon.
if New Line doesn't finish the film by the time Tolkien enterprises gets the license back are they allowed to publish it still or do they lose all rights to it?
Egad, I hope that's not how it works. If they haven't picked a director yet, and they're still going to try to film and release the thing within a year, it's going to be a rush job. Overall, I liked Jackson's take on LOTR, although I have some serious complaints (extraneous additions and tin-eared dialogue that would have made JRRT weep, making Gimli a comic figure instead of a formidable warrior, omitting the Scouring of the Shire, blah blah blah -- you know, the usual). But at least Jackson knew that the material couldn't be rushed into production. No matter who they get instead, if they have to get the whole thing done in under a year, it's going to be bloody awful.
Yes, caffeine unpleasant. I get NASTY migraines if I have so much as a cup of coffee -- not while the caffeine is in my system, but as it begins to wear off. I also get heart palpitations and wild blood-sugar fluctuations while the caffeine is still kicking. Took me years of Pepsi addiction to figure out what the hell was going on. Cut out the caffeine altogether and all those bad things went away. I've managed to figure out over the years since that a single cup of tea is usually okay, if taken with a meal (slowing the caffeine absorption) but anything stronger is pretty much off limits for me. (Oddly, chocolate seems not to have the same effect at all if taken in moderation; though the main stimulant in chocolate is theobromine, not caffeine.)
You know, I've never understood all the Silmarillion-bashing. Call me a drooling fanboy, but I enjoyed the Silmarillion far more than the Hobbit, and about as much as LOTR. Tolkien captured the feel and pace of the medieval literature he studied and loved all his life. If you are at all familiar with the Norse sagas, or with a lot of the original Arthurian literature (as opposed to the pap novels put out in the past 50 years), or with Spenser and Chaucer and Beowulf and Sturluson, The Silmarillion conveys their flavor with remarkable authenticity, and adds some theological, philosophical and moral depth. Reading some of Tolkien's predecessors in fantasy (E. R. Eddison, George Macdonald, William Morris, even H. Rider Haggard to some degree), you can also see where he learned some of his stylistic habits; Morris's style is echoed especially. The style is archaic, certainly, and that could make it difficult for a modern reader, but that is not a flaw per se. It's an aesthetic choice that has its own cadences and beauties.
Attempting to read the work as a modern novel will not serve the reader well. If people go into it expecting a genre fantasy novel, they are bound to be disappointed. But it is a tremendous and unique accomplishment in fantasy. Read it with an eye to its place in the fantastic tradition, and with an understanding that you are not reading a novel, but a chronological and cosmological saga (in the old, strict literary sense, not the back-of-the-paperback-blurb sense), and its power and creativity are breathtaking.
Er... no. Quick and dirty lesson in Germanic historical linguistics:
If you read scholarly articles in historical linguistics, you'll see that "Old English" and "Anglo-Saxon" are well established synonyms in linguistics for the language that gave rise to English. It did not, however, directly give rise to any of the other languages you mention. The analogy with Latin and the Romance languages does not hold up.
Frisian is a close relative of English, but descended from a different parent language -- NOT from Anglo-Saxon, but from a sister language, about as closely related to Anglo-Saxon as Portuguese is related to Spanish. Dutch is a slightly more distant relative (and has a daughter language called Afrikaans), and German slightly more distant still, both descended from languages more like cousins than sisters to AS/OE. Another cousin language, Old Norse, gave rise to the Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, & Norwegian) and Icelandic (although Finnish is a separate beast altogether).
Whoops. I should have read more closely. I didn't see that one word ("sense") that makes all the difference in the meaning of your sentence. We are in agreement here, more or less. Sorry about the attempted drubbing... I'll go sit in sackcloth and ashes now.
Christianity also does not have any bit of sacrifice, in the Old Testament sense at any rate.
Have you ever actually read the Old Testament? Strong's Exhaustive Concordance lists four columns' worth of citations for the word "sacrifice" and its variants, and almost all of them are in the Old Testament, often with elaborate instructions on how to perform one. Even in the New Testament, the central story of most varieties of Christianity is that Christ Himself was a sacrifice that made all other ritual sacrifices unnecessary.
Yes, so much worse than lying, thievery, fraud, rape, murder, or genocide. Thank God-- wait, I mean, thank faithlessness that all of those things are perfectly okay.
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like going back to the '80's, when every time you sent an important e-mail you made a phone call to see if got through ok.
You mean like my current PHB does in 2006, and no doubt will continue to do in 2007 and beyond? (She also e-mails me to tell me to check my voicemail when she leaves me voicemail. Sometimes she leaves sticky notes attached to my inbox on my desk to tell me to check my e-mail, too.)
I may be misremembering, but I think the explanation offered in this story was that the sun was much more powerful in ancient Egypt than in modern times, and that the stronger solar radiation somehow countered the effects of the cosmic rays that had created the FF in the first place. (Scientific accuracy was never the forte of the comics, especially in the Silver and Golden Ages. If you disagree, I suggest that you grab a live wire while wearing rubber-soled shoes and see if the current affects you.)
In the early years of the FF, the Thing kept changing randomly back and forth between human and monster. Various explanations were offered, but plot convenience seemed to be the only consistent factor. (I may be misremembering, but John Byrne later explained this by saying that Ben Grimm had originally had the power to change back and forth, but that he subconsciously preferred being the Thing, so he got stuck that way. Or something like that.)
there's a theory that the Sphinx was built about 10,000 years earlier than was previously thought, by an entirely different civilization.
Don't be silly. It was actually built in the future, as a time machine, by Rama Tut (a.k.a. Kang the Conqueror), to prevent the rise of Apocalypse. Everybody knows that.
Is that why it was called the "Cold" War?
But I'm already driving as much as I can!
You could ask them.
But then why did the Sacagawea dollar coin fail? I really liked those -- different color, significantly thicker feel, smooth edge (unlike the serrated edge of the quarter).
So you're saying that all these unique things are the same? ;-)
You mean they'll give us space syphilis?
What about granting something like a two-year time window for heirs (named in the will if there is one -- which would cover the trust you suggest, legal family if no will is extant) to extend the copyright one time for, say, a 20-year period beyond the 50-year limit? If they don't apply to extend, then it falls into the public domain. If the 50-year limit ran out during the artist's lifetime, then the option isn't there. If the artist dies more than 70 years after the original copyright, then the option isn't there, either -- though the copyright would still be valid as long as the artist lived, even if the 70 years had passed.
... there are cures for AIDS, cancer, diabetes, etc, but the pharmacies are making too much money on the treatments to release them.
AIDS is a viral disease. So are many cancers -- more and more are being identified as such every year. No one has yet figured out a way to cure any viral disease; partly because of the very nature of the beast, it's a nastily difficult problem to solve. Even if the paranoid theory is correct about other diseases, I can't believe that anyone has solved the viral-disease hurdle for a single disease, nor that they will solve it anytime soon.
You mean this one?
if New Line doesn't finish the film by the time Tolkien enterprises gets the license back are they allowed to publish it still or do they lose all rights to it?
Egad, I hope that's not how it works. If they haven't picked a director yet, and they're still going to try to film and release the thing within a year, it's going to be a rush job. Overall, I liked Jackson's take on LOTR, although I have some serious complaints (extraneous additions and tin-eared dialogue that would have made JRRT weep, making Gimli a comic figure instead of a formidable warrior, omitting the Scouring of the Shire, blah blah blah -- you know, the usual). But at least Jackson knew that the material couldn't be rushed into production. No matter who they get instead, if they have to get the whole thing done in under a year, it's going to be bloody awful.
Yes, caffeine unpleasant. I get NASTY migraines if I have so much as a cup of coffee -- not while the caffeine is in my system, but as it begins to wear off. I also get heart palpitations and wild blood-sugar fluctuations while the caffeine is still kicking. Took me years of Pepsi addiction to figure out what the hell was going on. Cut out the caffeine altogether and all those bad things went away. I've managed to figure out over the years since that a single cup of tea is usually okay, if taken with a meal (slowing the caffeine absorption) but anything stronger is pretty much off limits for me. (Oddly, chocolate seems not to have the same effect at all if taken in moderation; though the main stimulant in chocolate is theobromine, not caffeine.)
Jar-Jar slash? Man, people will write the weirdest fanfic ...
So instead of basing your morality on a fear of divine retribution, you base yours on a fear of societal retribution?
You know, I've never understood all the Silmarillion-bashing. Call me a drooling fanboy, but I enjoyed the Silmarillion far more than the Hobbit, and about as much as LOTR. Tolkien captured the feel and pace of the medieval literature he studied and loved all his life. If you are at all familiar with the Norse sagas, or with a lot of the original Arthurian literature (as opposed to the pap novels put out in the past 50 years), or with Spenser and Chaucer and Beowulf and Sturluson, The Silmarillion conveys their flavor with remarkable authenticity, and adds some theological, philosophical and moral depth. Reading some of Tolkien's predecessors in fantasy (E. R. Eddison, George Macdonald, William Morris, even H. Rider Haggard to some degree), you can also see where he learned some of his stylistic habits; Morris's style is echoed especially. The style is archaic, certainly, and that could make it difficult for a modern reader, but that is not a flaw per se. It's an aesthetic choice that has its own cadences and beauties.
Attempting to read the work as a modern novel will not serve the reader well. If people go into it expecting a genre fantasy novel, they are bound to be disappointed. But it is a tremendous and unique accomplishment in fantasy. Read it with an eye to its place in the fantastic tradition, and with an understanding that you are not reading a novel, but a chronological and cosmological saga (in the old, strict literary sense, not the back-of-the-paperback-blurb sense), and its power and creativity are breathtaking.
Er ... no. Quick and dirty lesson in Germanic historical linguistics:
If you read scholarly articles in historical linguistics, you'll see that "Old English" and "Anglo-Saxon" are well established synonyms in linguistics for the language that gave rise to English. It did not, however, directly give rise to any of the other languages you mention. The analogy with Latin and the Romance languages does not hold up.
Frisian is a close relative of English, but descended from a different parent language -- NOT from Anglo-Saxon, but from a sister language, about as closely related to Anglo-Saxon as Portuguese is related to Spanish. Dutch is a slightly more distant relative (and has a daughter language called Afrikaans), and German slightly more distant still, both descended from languages more like cousins than sisters to AS/OE. Another cousin language, Old Norse, gave rise to the Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, & Norwegian) and Icelandic (although Finnish is a separate beast altogether).
Whoops. I should have read more closely. I didn't see that one word ("sense") that makes all the difference in the meaning of your sentence. We are in agreement here, more or less. Sorry about the attempted drubbing... I'll go sit in sackcloth and ashes now.
Christianity also does not have any bit of sacrifice, in the Old Testament sense at any rate.
Have you ever actually read the Old Testament? Strong's Exhaustive Concordance lists four columns' worth of citations for the word "sacrifice" and its variants, and almost all of them are in the Old Testament, often with elaborate instructions on how to perform one. Even in the New Testament, the central story of most varieties of Christianity is that Christ Himself was a sacrifice that made all other ritual sacrifices unnecessary.
Whoever modded parent "Offtopic" missed the analogy bus.
* Libraries (the Internet killed them)
... and the list goes on and on and on and on...
* Books (ebooks)
* Brick-and-mortar stores (e-commerce)
* Cars (Segway)
* Bicycles (cars)
* Voice phones (picture phones)
* Open windows (air conditioning)
Or take the example of the Theban Band, who made love with each other and war on their neighbors.
The majority has always been right, hasn't it? Am I right or am I right?
Let's take a vote and find out!
Faith is the only real sin.
Yes, so much worse than lying, thievery, fraud, rape, murder, or genocide. Thank God-- wait, I mean, thank faithlessness that all of those things are perfectly okay.