The opening club sequence from the first movie was far more artistic and gory than the safe house club sequence. In the first movie you don't know what's going on and all of a sudden blood start spraying from the sprinklers, the vampire start going nuts, and then Blade shows up. In that opening sequence alone he killed more people than in all of Blade II. That scene rocked, and will always rock. The safe house was a good plot development, but it didn't rock.
The thing I liked about Die Hard was how Bruce Willis's character took damage. Of course, it was kind of important to the plot so that he could appear at the end all bloody and swollen and limping with nothing to lose. But it worked so well.
Unlike other superhero films that rely on "stopping points" to explain plot, "Blade 2" just throws it all at you and expects you to keep up.
I don't get this, Blade II had the classic "I'm the arch-villian and here is my plan" scene at the end. At least in the first one the plan was tortured out of Pearl and recovered from the files. The plot of Blade II was not a smooth as the first one, even though the first one was Blade vs. a petty thug whereas this was Blade against the mafia.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the action, I'm glad I saw it, and I'm planning on seeing Blade III if-and-when it's produced (supposedly the vampires have taken over). But this plot was not flawless. Queen was a better vampire movie.
I did state that they get together electronically, but it's rare that they hang out physically with each other in large groups, knowing and living large parts of each other's lives, as opposed to thieves in "gangs" (in quote to try to take off some of the meaning loaded into that word).
If this device has a complex enough system (like, by cutting it with bold cutters, it goes into scream mode, etc) that requires high tech to get around, then it would be improbable (not impossible) that it would be developed en masse for paedophiles by paedophiles.
Really, I was just pointing out the large differences between thieves as a group and paedophiles as a group that lead to the 1 week work arounds described 3 posts up.
Thieving is more organized, fraternal, and has a technology culture supporting the industry, which is for-profit. The reason technology comes out quickly for it is because there is genuine profit involved and in most cases it's guilt free.
Because of the societal feelings on paedophilia, where paedophiles will be harrassed and even killed by other prisoner, the people involved are more loaners that may get together electronically, but not a lot in person. Paedophiles can use technology created for a common purpose, but it's improbably that someone would create something for the purpose of advancing that crime.
And often it'll cast more to fix things than change them, so people will have to pay later.
And I realized that the malicious intent would invalidate the claim. That's why it was all anonymous. Sure, I could lose my patent, but you have to first concieve of what I may have done, and then actually prove it. Not easy.
Maybe I'm the exception tha tproves the rule but I do regularily read every page of such documents, highlighting as I go to make sure I'm paying attention.
While the news is great, this article is a pretty crappy linux showcase. It has all the FUD packed in. "Rick Carey has staked his reputation and his job on a project that he concedes is risky"
If there's anything that would get a manager to not suggest linux, it's that line.
Patent infringment is an issue. I could patent a process, then anonymously write some GPLed code that implements it and get it integrated into the linux kernel, etc and once it's been in there for 15 years, say "ok, everyone pay up".
Even something less malicious, I could own the patent to something, and it coincidentally gets put into the kernel. I could even know its in there and dit on it so as to collect more, or just demand all of a sudden. I can even target people I don't like just to punish them.
That's how patents work. I'd have to show my "losses" but there are ways to trump that up. Copyright is not the end all be all of IP, and the GPL really only protects copyright.
What made you think Merril Lynch has Microsoft systems in place now? I'm not being facecious, the article never even hinted at any other systems, and stated this was a top-down conversion to linux. That implied to me it was all Unix right now.
So you're saying the $400,000 zSeries computer from IBM is crap? The article talked about unifiying their operating system so that they had more crossplatformability between mainframes to handhelds. The mission critical stuff is not on intel.
And even if it was, you can still achieve reliability through clustering.
And by majority, I really mean majority, don't get confused and put yourself in that category, before remembering which side of the 95% barrier you are on.
I don't get it? Which version of Windows has 95% majority? I'm on Win2K, so I'm guessing I'm on the other side.
I agree with AC, and I'll up it even more. You have to reconsider all crippling, even printing and large documents. WinZip does everything the real version does. This has helped it keep market dominance. Anyone who wants it can get it and use it. The ones who want to pay do. By giving people an incentive to use a competitors product, you are going to lose them to a competitor.
I'm solidly antitrust, but I've never heard that before. Deliberate attempts to aquire 100% of a market is certainly legal. If you do it by making a better product or being the first in a nascent market, there is no problem. It's not just intent, it intent and what you intended to do.
And I largely feel that a widget manufacturer that thinks of it's IT as an elephant in the corner is giving themselves a disadvantage. Widget manufacturing is more than just making x widgets in y time with z quality. You have to take a holistic approach to your business. IT effects marketing and production. You may not want to think about it, but to compete we have to do things we don't want to do.
A behemoth can lumber along and it's inefficiecies in one area are made up with the efficiencies from scale. It can outlast many little business because large companies just inherently have staying power and most time its (to use an analogy I hate) a marathon and not a sprint. But eventually someone will catch up.
Havign been a serior IT guy at a mid sized corp (and present geek), I must mubly point out a few errors in your logic:
Many open source projects have support structures that have and know the source well and you can pay to apply bug fixes and enhancements.
You can pay lots of money now or you can pay lots of money later. Either through licensing it then forcing the vendor into making changes, or deploying it for free and purchasing changes. There no clear win either way. Sometimes one way works out better, sometimes the other way does.
closed source or open source - it does matter. Patches on open source come from all over (this is not an open source myth, it really does happen IME). Closed sources comes only from the vendor.
Maybe it's because I was in a only a mid sized corp and am now in a small one (I prefer smaller companies. Just a preference), but when you are that small, the vendors don't care about you. The business of business is business, but if you can't get the changes you need for your infrastructure, then you aren't able to run your business in the ways you need to.
I will certainly say that using open source is more of an advantage the smaller you are. You can get changes you need easier, and the amount spent is O(1) so it scales well as you grow. It also has advantages when you are a behemoth, as you can afford large projects to taylor everything just right, and you don't even have to share those changes with competitors (remember, GPL just means you share the source with who you distribute the code to). If a vendor puts in an enhancement for you, it's typically enhancement for everyone, unless its custom work.
Yeah, this reminds of of my office. We were using CVS as a repository and WinCVS as a client and it was working great. We the repository had no problems, it was fast, it was easy to use, it was easy to automate builds on multiple platforms, easy to backup, and generally just great. The only problem managment had with it was that you had to do something explicit to lock files (I hate file locking anyways. It is the pain of all projects that use it). So I coded up some tcl scripts to replace the functions in WinCVS so that no matter what, if the file was modifiable, it was locked (this part has less to do with open source as it does with having a scriptable UI). They were wishy washy for some reason. Instead, they bought a bunch of SourceSafe licenses. With the 8 thousand they spent on that, they could have hired someone, possibly even someone on the project, to put in a change to WinCVS to require locking. Instead, now we have 10 lincenses, and when we grow, we'll have to pay more and more. Why? It makes no sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite an execellent and accurate review.
The opening club sequence from the first movie was far more artistic and gory than the safe house club sequence. In the first movie you don't know what's going on and all of a sudden blood start spraying from the sprinklers, the vampire start going nuts, and then Blade shows up. In that opening sequence alone he killed more people than in all of Blade II. That scene rocked, and will always rock. The safe house was a good plot development, but it didn't rock.
The thing I liked about Die Hard was how Bruce Willis's character took damage. Of course, it was kind of important to the plot so that he could appear at the end all bloody and swollen and limping with nothing to lose. But it worked so well.
Unlike other superhero films that rely on "stopping points" to explain plot, "Blade 2" just throws it all at you and expects you to keep up.
I don't get this, Blade II had the classic "I'm the arch-villian and here is my plan" scene at the end. At least in the first one the plan was tortured out of Pearl and recovered from the files. The plot of Blade II was not a smooth as the first one, even though the first one was Blade vs. a petty thug whereas this was Blade against the mafia.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the action, I'm glad I saw it, and I'm planning on seeing Blade III if-and-when it's produced (supposedly the vampires have taken over). But this plot was not flawless. Queen was a better vampire movie.
I did state that they get together electronically, but it's rare that they hang out physically with each other in large groups, knowing and living large parts of each other's lives, as opposed to thieves in "gangs" (in quote to try to take off some of the meaning loaded into that word).
If this device has a complex enough system (like, by cutting it with bold cutters, it goes into scream mode, etc) that requires high tech to get around, then it would be improbable (not impossible) that it would be developed en masse for paedophiles by paedophiles.
Really, I was just pointing out the large differences between thieves as a group and paedophiles as a group that lead to the 1 week work arounds described 3 posts up.
Thieving is more organized, fraternal, and has a technology culture supporting the industry, which is for-profit. The reason technology comes out quickly for it is because there is genuine profit involved and in most cases it's guilt free.
Because of the societal feelings on paedophilia, where paedophiles will be harrassed and even killed by other prisoner, the people involved are more loaners that may get together electronically, but not a lot in person. Paedophiles can use technology created for a common purpose, but it's improbably that someone would create something for the purpose of advancing that crime.
Just how I feel.
And often it'll cast more to fix things than change them, so people will have to pay later.
And I realized that the malicious intent would invalidate the claim. That's why it was all anonymous. Sure, I could lose my patent, but you have to first concieve of what I may have done, and then actually prove it. Not easy.
This Fear. Mostly unjustified, but still valid.
Actually, a lot of these tree farms are built where forests, including rain forests in places like Washington state (I lived there for 4 years) have been cut down.
Maybe I'm the exception tha tproves the rule but I do regularily read every page of such documents, highlighting as I go to make sure I'm paying attention.
200+ though, forget it.
While the news is great, this article is a pretty crappy linux showcase. It has all the FUD packed in. "Rick Carey has staked his reputation and his job on a project that he concedes is risky"
If there's anything that would get a manager to not suggest linux, it's that line.
Patent infringment is an issue. I could patent a process, then anonymously write some GPLed code that implements it and get it integrated into the linux kernel, etc and once it's been in there for 15 years, say "ok, everyone pay up".
Even something less malicious, I could own the patent to something, and it coincidentally gets put into the kernel. I could even know its in there and dit on it so as to collect more, or just demand all of a sudden. I can even target people I don't like just to punish them.
That's how patents work. I'd have to show my "losses" but there are ways to trump that up. Copyright is not the end all be all of IP, and the GPL really only protects copyright.
What made you think Merril Lynch has Microsoft systems in place now? I'm not being facecious, the article never even hinted at any other systems, and stated this was a top-down conversion to linux. That implied to me it was all Unix right now.
They'll go after the developers with no money first. That way they'll set a precedent and be able to knock down the big guys easier.
So you're saying the $400,000 zSeries computer from IBM is crap? The article talked about unifiying their operating system so that they had more crossplatformability between mainframes to handhelds. The mission critical stuff is not on intel.
And even if it was, you can still achieve reliability through clustering.
And by majority, I really mean majority, don't get confused and put yourself in that category, before remembering which side of the 95% barrier you are on.
I don't get it? Which version of Windows has 95% majority? I'm on Win2K, so I'm guessing I'm on the other side.
Don't be dissing Blackbird. Mark my words: it's the Java killer!
I agree with AC, and I'll up it even more. You have to reconsider all crippling, even printing and large documents. WinZip does everything the real version does. This has helped it keep market dominance. Anyone who wants it can get it and use it. The ones who want to pay do. By giving people an incentive to use a competitors product, you are going to lose them to a competitor.
Have you ever sent them an email back saying "can you save that as RTF and resend it"? Or have them make a PDF?
I'm solidly antitrust, but I've never heard that before. Deliberate attempts to aquire 100% of a market is certainly legal. If you do it by making a better product or being the first in a nascent market, there is no problem. It's not just intent, it intent and what you intended to do.
I must be a moron. I can't see the fourth.
And I largely feel that a widget manufacturer that thinks of it's IT as an elephant in the corner is giving themselves a disadvantage. Widget manufacturing is more than just making x widgets in y time with z quality. You have to take a holistic approach to your business. IT effects marketing and production. You may not want to think about it, but to compete we have to do things we don't want to do.
A behemoth can lumber along and it's inefficiecies in one area are made up with the efficiencies from scale. It can outlast many little business because large companies just inherently have staying power and most time its (to use an analogy I hate) a marathon and not a sprint. But eventually someone will catch up.
Many open source projects have support structures that have and know the source well and you can pay to apply bug fixes and enhancements.
You can pay lots of money now or you can pay lots of money later. Either through licensing it then forcing the vendor into making changes, or deploying it for free and purchasing changes. There no clear win either way. Sometimes one way works out better, sometimes the other way does.
closed source or open source - it does matter. Patches on open source come from all over (this is not an open source myth, it really does happen IME). Closed sources comes only from the vendor.
Maybe it's because I was in a only a mid sized corp and am now in a small one (I prefer smaller companies. Just a preference), but when you are that small, the vendors don't care about you. The business of business is business, but if you can't get the changes you need for your infrastructure, then you aren't able to run your business in the ways you need to.
I will certainly say that using open source is more of an advantage the smaller you are. You can get changes you need easier, and the amount spent is O(1) so it scales well as you grow. It also has advantages when you are a behemoth, as you can afford large projects to taylor everything just right, and you don't even have to share those changes with competitors (remember, GPL just means you share the source with who you distribute the code to). If a vendor puts in an enhancement for you, it's typically enhancement for everyone, unless its custom work.
Which is really just how open source works.
Yeah, this reminds of of my office. We were using CVS as a repository and WinCVS as a client and it was working great. We the repository had no problems, it was fast, it was easy to use, it was easy to automate builds on multiple platforms, easy to backup, and generally just great. The only problem managment had with it was that you had to do something explicit to lock files (I hate file locking anyways. It is the pain of all projects that use it). So I coded up some tcl scripts to replace the functions in WinCVS so that no matter what, if the file was modifiable, it was locked (this part has less to do with open source as it does with having a scriptable UI). They were wishy washy for some reason. Instead, they bought a bunch of SourceSafe licenses. With the 8 thousand they spent on that, they could have hired someone, possibly even someone on the project, to put in a change to WinCVS to require locking. Instead, now we have 10 lincenses, and when we grow, we'll have to pay more and more. Why? It makes no sense.
Because of this
Not to mention is only comes up as the 4th item, rather than the 1st, which is where it was last Tuesday.