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Comment Re:Bay needs to... (Score 5, Insightful) 481

Maybe years ago, but now Megan Fox's ass has probably had 15 surgeries and looks like it's made of plastic, much like the rest of her. I'll pass. Why the hell do naturally beautiful women feel the urge to completely destroy that??

I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure it's because deep down most people have self-esteem issues and when they were in high school the only boys who approached them were the confident ones who 'negged' them and provided a level of mental abuse that they tolerated and even found attractive. And they never recovered from it.

Add the regular rejection of Hollywood and it just gets even worse.

Comment Re:No, there is due process. (Score 4, Insightful) 252

Of course you're welcome to defend yourself in court, against lots of lawyers and monetary interests (because court victories are mostly bought nowadays) and leave yourself at the hands of a 50-yr old jurist who probably can't figure out how to plug in his friggin toaster.

Power is always misused, but in terms of law, well let's just say that the US government is way behind on real justice anymore. The law is written to protect the corporate interests.

Copyright and patent law is broken. It's totally broken. And corporate lobbyists with money and very specific interests want to make sure no politicians challenge their little cabal of self-preservation. And politicians happily accept this money and there's very little you can do about it.

I'm increasingly despondent at the state of our country right now, when stuff like this is actively happening, when our own government wants a kill switch on the Internet. It saddens me that we even need 1st amendment rights, but Jefferson's insistence of their inclusion was apparently the right choice. I know we're talking about specific sites here, but now we're getting into some serious territory here, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, CENSORSHIP. When the government is seizing sites like this, you know some businesses are just going to move offshore to avoid exactly the same problem. It'll happen quicker than you think.

Comment Re:At least this will prove zombies don't exist (Score 3, Insightful) 296

By better track record, you mean that he died before he could ruin his own films?

I don't think George is trying to resurrect dead movie stars here. I think he just needs to own their rights so he can remove them from their films and insert Hayden Christiansen in their place.

In the end it's really just about owning IP, and George Lucas is the master of owning IP. He just also happens to be the master of destroying IP too. In fact let's just call it P, because there's really no I in his biggest franchise anymore.

Comment Re:wikileaks (Score 4, Interesting) 614

Needs to be revealed? Totally, where it exists. Deterrent? Hardly.

You seem to forget the invisible line of power and privilege that protects the elite from being sent to prison. GWB committed known felonies during his presidency. The CEO of Massey Energy negligently murdered a number of his employees. Madoff might have gotten caught, but neither his wife nor sons were convicted, and meanwhile Goldman Sachs is doing some incredibly unethical stuff that may or may not have helped to wreck our economy, and that whole institution gets off scott free for the price of some kabuki theatre in DC. Oh, but hey censure Charlie Rangel if it makes you feel better.

We have a good deal of press freedom here in the States, but unfortunately the mainstream media reports on the wrong news, everything now has to be yellow journalism (the wars of left vs. right, Fox vs. MSNBC, etc.) and people in our society are way too uneducated to be mad at the real injustices in the world, like the power our plutocratic overlords now wield. I doubt 10% of our nation knows what the Citizens United verdict was, but you know they're damn mad at the world about the fact that they have to pay taxes for art, because let's rag on a few billion and completely sidestep the trillions that is going to pay for blowing up brown people in the middle east.

Besides, IANAL, but some Internet-distributed leaked classified document probably doesn't hold up in any legal courtroom, so how is anyone going to be punished, exactly? No.

Deterrents don't exist in this country, because in order to deter someone from doing something illegal, you have to actually convict them. And you can't do that in our society anymore.

Wine

Wine 1.2 Released 427

David Gerard writes "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text, and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."
Games

Copyright and the Games Industry 94

A recent post at the Press Start To Drink blog examined the relationship the games industry has with copyright laws. More so than in some other creative industries, the reactions of game companies to derivative works are widely varied and often unpredictable, ranging anywhere from active support to situations like the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes debacle. Quoting: "... even within the gaming industry, there is a tension between IP holders and fan producers/poachers. Some companies, such as Epic and Square Enix, remain incredibly protective of their Intellectual Property, threatening those that use their creations, even for non-profit, cultural reasons, with legal suits. Other companies, like Valve, seem to, if not embrace, at least tolerate, and perhaps even tacitly encourage this kind of fan engagement with their work. Lessig suggests, 'The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.' Indeed, the more developers and publishers that take up Valve's position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and re-imagine their favorite gaming universes."

Comment Re:And why should they care? (Score 4, Insightful) 441

It's not like you're going for a liberal arts degree there - grades and standardized testing scores are what matter at MIT. What you wrote in an essay's hardly going to influence what you do in a technical environment like that.

Which is incredibly short-sighted. The world needs more diverse, creative types who can communicate with everyone else - people who can write. They serve as a bridge between the fierce logicians of the world to whom everything is a computation.

I work in software, I am a tech writer. I find myself working with incredibly smart, talented people who often work next to each other and yet never talk to each other. So I end up acting as the catalyst in order to get anything accomplished. But it works.

I like to think good writers work as a creative lubricant between the anti-social and brilliant. Maybe MIT could use a few more of those types. Of course since I applied to MIT years back and wasn't accepted, maybe this is just the rejected ego talking.

Also, considering that more than 60% of the population are probably foreign, it might help to have a couple native English speakers there. Just my jingoistic opinion.

Also, 500 words is not a long essay. And standardized tests and grades are a poor judge of talent.

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