There is no substantive difference between a graphic novel and a collection of comic books. "We" just started using graphic novel to make ourselves feel more grown up.
Like any 'great work' whether it be art or literature or music, part of its status is the time in which it was release and the cultural impact it had. Before Watchmen, no one took the comic genre seriously. It may not be the greatest piece of literature but it IS literature. And it demonstrated that comics could be used to tell gritty, hard-hitting, deep stories.
Unfortunately, some have confused disturbing with deep in the industry and there are many extremely violent and disturbing books that are sort of the bastard children of Alan Moore's Watchmen. I might say that some of warren ellis' work falls into that genre, although he also writes some brilliant stuff.
All the disturbing scenes were taken directly from the book. (As most of the movie was)
I'm an avid fan. I purchased the original comics. I picked up #1 mostly because of the cover. i had never heard of Alan Moore, but as soon as I flipped through the pages, i knew this was something completely different from the Teen Titans and Justice League books i had been reading. It has been vindicating to see it become one of the most lauded books in comic history.
The problem with the violence, is that comic book violence needs to be brutal and extreme to evoke some emotion in the reader. The director was true to those scenes, but they are MUCH harder to watch when brought to life. And i actually turned away in a few.
If the watchmen is tasteless, it is only because it is a reflection of our world. Rape, murder, abuse are realities. The point of the Watchmen is about the risk of sacrificing our humanity in the service of saving humanity. It really would have been more topical before the election of Obama, because the US response to 9/11 was an example of a country destroying itself to save itself. Now, i think the country has moved back towards a more sane, less destructive path.
In all seriousness, Obama's administration seem much more interested in environment, healthcare and education, which are good for the children, than Rush Limbaugh's Republican party. All they seem to care about are guns and taxes.
For a frightening (and funny) view of the current status of the Republican party check out Jon Stewart's coverage of the CPAC (conservative political action conference) meeting.
Someone needs some bail-out money reaal fast. Too bad the hookers and pimps didn't pay their protection money and now you've got to sue the interwebz for ruining your business.
Since when does he have the right to pick and choose which laws he enforces?
Are you kidding me? He is just following the example set by the rest of the law enforcement agencies in the US.
The US (especially over the last 8 years) loves to make things illegal that a huge % of the population does and then they use selective enforcement to exercise their prejudiced, corrupt agendas.
Over at apple.slashdot.org people are whining about paying a few hundred dollar premium for a mac. To me, avoiding trojans and malware is certainly worth that money.
Ya, i know, i could run linux for a lot cheaper and avoid all the windows virus business also. But for the average user who wants things to *just work* it seems pretty clear that the time saved in not having to deal with crap like this is certainly a good reason to avoid windows.
Or you could just turn on your firewall and keep your machine up to date.
AND you should stay off FaceBook. A rational person who actually read and understood their terms of use would never sign up.
Can you expound on this for me?
If only put information on facebook that I would put on a personal web site that was completely public, what is the difference from the privacy perspective.
(I can understand there are differences from a copyright/owning your info perspective)
The point of iDVD is that it burns DVDs for DVD players. You don't use it for photo/video sharing with another computer. It makes beautiful menus and slideshows and also in conjunction with perian will re-code any kind of video supported by quicktime to play on any standard DVD player (which i believe is mpeg-2).
what's wrong with iDVD? I have made DVDs of slideshows and movies for luddite friends to play on their TVs and the love them.
Years ago i used Roxio and it looked way worse and was more of a pain in the ass to use.
I do agree that iWeb is pretty bad. But I think it is better than nothing if you are a mobileme user that doesn't know any html or css.
It's not an upgrade price, it's full software: you can install it blank without a previous license behind.
I know it isn't an upgrade price, but unless you have previously purchased a mac it isn't much use to you. So it is in a sense an upgrade. From the Apple store page on iLife:
Upgrade to iLife '09 and get the most out of the photos, movies, and music on your Mac with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD.
The complaint was about prices in other markets. The US price ($599) is about 477 Euros, so a list price of 499 Euros would have been reasonable. There's no justification for what they did.
The only justification that i can imagine is that there are import taxes in the EU. Just a guess.
From apple website, you can buy the OS & all you listed for 219$. Build a PC without an OS, add that 219$ and see, you get a much lower price tag.
Fair enough. Ignoring the fact that $219 is really the upgrade price (since you need to have previously purchased a mac to use it) if you take $219 off the mac mini price, i think you are getting into the price range where there is a reasonable ($100-150) premium for the form factor and design.
Mac Mini got its update but the price is absurd as well.
For those whining about the price of macs, go spec a computer that has equivalent hardware and equivalent software.
Included in the price-tag of the mini (and the other over-priced macs) is OSX, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, garageband, and iWeb. Things may have improved in the last few years, but last i check there was no software on windows or linux that was as easy and fun to use as iMovie, iDVD, and garageband. To get that functionality in windows you would have to pay hundreds of dollars (or steal the software).
Can someone tell me (honestly, i would like to know) the current free options for making movies/music/dvds on windows and linux?
Sage is not a research project, it will not conduct trials. it is a data-mining project. They idea is simply to create a standard API so that all the current research will be more effective. The $5M is just to get the thing off the ground. As soon as it has a single success, the funding will flow like water.
Until the medical malpractice system is fixed "comparative-effectiveness research" has no place in medicine.
A test doesn't cost the doctor anything but if he doesn't give the test then gets sued he will experience great personal suffering, even if in the end his insurance pays the claim.
Over treating and over testing is certainly rational behavior from the perspective of a doctor who suffers personally from crazy patients and greedy lawyers.
I'm not saying it is icing from netflix's perspective. I think without moving to a streaming model they would have gone out of business.
They are talking about creating streaming only subscriptions. But until the streaming movies are DVD quality and 5.1 surround sound, i'll use streaming for TV shows and wait for my movies to come in the mail.
My Core Duo mac mini could not play full screen. But it was the CPU choking not netflix. I concede that silverlight might be a bigger CPU hog than flash (i really don't know). Anyway, i upgraded my mini to a T7200 (c2d 2GHz) and now it can play full screen.
I just checked out youtube HD, and it seems about the same.
The netflix looked better to me... but i couldn't do an apples to apples comparison (ie. find the exact same video).
but speaking of youtube, i find that many many videos are "no longer available". It's become way way less useful. Also, if the videos are no longer available, why don't they remove the links so you don't try to watch the video?!? epic fail.
Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product....Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with
respect by people they give money to.
Note, in my OP i specified existing customers. If i recently became a subscriber because of watch instantly, i would be annoyed if the service declined (which i have not seen any evidence of personally - although i have had A/V sync issue specifically with animated content which i contacted netflix about with no reply).
As for respect? I have had pretty good experiences with netflix in the past. It does seem totally ridiculous that people can't 'back out' of the silverlight upgrade. I think perhaps netflix underestimated how quickly watch instantly would be adopted.
Let me just add, 95% of the shit we all bitch about (myself included) on slashdot is evidence of entitlement. We aren't complaining about not having food, or being jailed or executed for voicing our opinions online. We are bitching about not being able to play our movies or music everywhere we want or crappy software. Sure, if you pay for a product, you should get what you pay for. But remember that we are lucky to have access to the technologies that we have.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no substantive difference between a graphic novel and a collection of comic books. "We" just started using graphic novel to make ourselves feel more grown up.
Unfortunately, some have confused disturbing with deep in the industry and there are many extremely violent and disturbing books that are sort of the bastard children of Alan Moore's Watchmen. I might say that some of warren ellis' work falls into that genre, although he also writes some brilliant stuff.
I'm an avid fan. I purchased the original comics. I picked up #1 mostly because of the cover. i had never heard of Alan Moore, but as soon as I flipped through the pages, i knew this was something completely different from the Teen Titans and Justice League books i had been reading. It has been vindicating to see it become one of the most lauded books in comic history.
The problem with the violence, is that comic book violence needs to be brutal and extreme to evoke some emotion in the reader. The director was true to those scenes, but they are MUCH harder to watch when brought to life. And i actually turned away in a few.
If the watchmen is tasteless, it is only because it is a reflection of our world. Rape, murder, abuse are realities. The point of the Watchmen is about the risk of sacrificing our humanity in the service of saving humanity. It really would have been more topical before the election of Obama, because the US response to 9/11 was an example of a country destroying itself to save itself. Now, i think the country has moved back towards a more sane, less destructive path.
For a frightening (and funny) view of the current status of the Republican party check out Jon Stewart's coverage of the CPAC (conservative political action conference) meeting.
There are ads for drugs on craigslist.
skiing = cocaine
420 = weed
i don't know the codes for heroin or meth.
There are many far safer places on the web to find prostitutes if that's what you are looking for. And, no, I'm not going to name them.
you are a fucking AC, why won't you name them?
actually, a lot of local rags are filled with phone sex and escort services.
mod parent up : insightful AND funny
Someone needs some bail-out money reaal fast. Too bad the hookers and pimps didn't pay their protection money and now you've got to sue the interwebz for ruining your business.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
Since when does he have the right to pick and choose which laws he enforces?
Are you kidding me? He is just following the example set by the rest of the law enforcement agencies in the US.
The US (especially over the last 8 years) loves to make things illegal that a huge % of the population does and then they use selective enforcement to exercise their prejudiced, corrupt agendas.
Need some examples:
Picking on LGBTs
Selective enforcement of marijuana laws (over other drugs)
Selective enforcement of drug laws in black/latino communities
The DMCA
and the right was "he who has the biggest gun makes the rules" party.
Ya, i know, i could run linux for a lot cheaper and avoid all the windows virus business also. But for the average user who wants things to *just work* it seems pretty clear that the time saved in not having to deal with crap like this is certainly a good reason to avoid windows.
Or you could just turn on your firewall and keep your machine up to date.
AND you should stay off FaceBook. A rational person who actually read and understood their terms of use would never sign up.
Can you expound on this for me?
If only put information on facebook that I would put on a personal web site that was completely public, what is the difference from the privacy perspective.
(I can understand there are differences from a copyright/owning your info perspective)
The point of iDVD is that it burns DVDs for DVD players. You don't use it for photo/video sharing with another computer. It makes beautiful menus and slideshows and also in conjunction with perian will re-code any kind of video supported by quicktime to play on any standard DVD player (which i believe is mpeg-2).
I do agree that iWeb is pretty bad. But I think it is better than nothing if you are a mobileme user that doesn't know any html or css.
It's not an upgrade price, it's full software: you can install it blank without a previous license behind.
I know it isn't an upgrade price, but unless you have previously purchased a mac it isn't much use to you. So it is in a sense an upgrade. From the Apple store page on iLife:
Upgrade to iLife '09 and get the most out of the photos, movies, and music on your Mac with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD.
The complaint was about prices in other markets. The US price ($599) is about 477 Euros, so a list price of 499 Euros would have been reasonable. There's no justification for what they did.
The only justification that i can imagine is that there are import taxes in the EU. Just a guess.
From apple website, you can buy the OS & all you listed for 219$. Build a PC without an OS, add that 219$ and see, you get a much lower price tag.
Fair enough. Ignoring the fact that $219 is really the upgrade price (since you need to have previously purchased a mac to use it) if you take $219 off the mac mini price, i think you are getting into the price range where there is a reasonable ($100-150) premium for the form factor and design.
Mac Mini got its update but the price is absurd as well.
For those whining about the price of macs, go spec a computer that has equivalent hardware and equivalent software.
Included in the price-tag of the mini (and the other over-priced macs) is OSX, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, garageband, and iWeb. Things may have improved in the last few years, but last i check there was no software on windows or linux that was as easy and fun to use as iMovie, iDVD, and garageband. To get that functionality in windows you would have to pay hundreds of dollars (or steal the software).
Can someone tell me (honestly, i would like to know) the current free options for making movies/music/dvds on windows and linux?
Sage is not a research project, it will not conduct trials. it is a data-mining project. They idea is simply to create a standard API so that all the current research will be more effective. The $5M is just to get the thing off the ground. As soon as it has a single success, the funding will flow like water.
A test doesn't cost the doctor anything but if he doesn't give the test then gets sued he will experience great personal suffering, even if in the end his insurance pays the claim.
Over treating and over testing is certainly rational behavior from the perspective of a doctor who suffers personally from crazy patients and greedy lawyers.
They are talking about creating streaming only subscriptions. But until the streaming movies are DVD quality and 5.1 surround sound, i'll use streaming for TV shows and wait for my movies to come in the mail.
My Core Duo mac mini could not play full screen. But it was the CPU choking not netflix. I concede that silverlight might be a bigger CPU hog than flash (i really don't know). Anyway, i upgraded my mini to a T7200 (c2d 2GHz) and now it can play full screen.
but speaking of youtube, i find that many many videos are "no longer available". It's become way way less useful. Also, if the videos are no longer available, why don't they remove the links so you don't try to watch the video?!? epic fail.
Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product....Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with respect by people they give money to.
Note, in my OP i specified existing customers. If i recently became a subscriber because of watch instantly, i would be annoyed if the service declined (which i have not seen any evidence of personally - although i have had A/V sync issue specifically with animated content which i contacted netflix about with no reply).
As for respect? I have had pretty good experiences with netflix in the past. It does seem totally ridiculous that people can't 'back out' of the silverlight upgrade. I think perhaps netflix underestimated how quickly watch instantly would be adopted.
Let me just add, 95% of the shit we all bitch about (myself included) on slashdot is evidence of entitlement. We aren't complaining about not having food, or being jailed or executed for voicing our opinions online. We are bitching about not being able to play our movies or music everywhere we want or crappy software. Sure, if you pay for a product, you should get what you pay for. But remember that we are lucky to have access to the technologies that we have.